Chapter 6

"Ella," she said, and her words, too, came rapidly, "you know that you're not being fair--you know it! I've never held apart from you in any way. Oh, I realize that we've been brought up in different--surroundings. And it's made us different from each other in the unimportant things. But we're both girls, Ella--we're both young and we've both got all of life before us. And so, perhaps, we can understand each other"--she was fumbling mentally for words, in an effort to make clear her meaning--"more than either of us realize. I wasn't, for one moment, trying to patronize you when I said what I did. I was only wondering how you happened to say something that I wouldn't ever dream of saying--that no nice girl, who had a real understanding of life"--she wondered, even as she spoke the words, what the Young Doctor would think if he could hear them issuing from her lips--"would dream of saying. You're a nice girl, Ella--or you wouldn't be in the same family with Bennie and Lily. And you're a sensible girl, so you must realize how important and sacred marriage is. Who told you that it was a mistake, Ella? Who," her childish face was very grave, indeed, "who told you such a terrible thing?"

Ella's eyes were blazing--Rose-Marie almost thought that the girl was going to strike her! But the blazing eyes wavered, after a moment, and fell.

"My gentleman fren' says marriage is wrong," said Ella. "He knows a lot. And he has _so_ much money"--she made a wide gesture with her hands--"I can have a nice place ter live, Miss Rose-Marie, an' pretty clothes. Lookit Ma; she's married an' she ain't got nothin'! I can have coats an' hats an'--"

Rose-Marie touched Ella's hand, timidly, with her cool fingers.

"But you'll have to pay for them, Ella," she said. "Think, dear; will the coats and hats be worth the price that you'll have to pay? Will they be worth the price of self-respect--will they be worth the price of honourable wifehood and--motherhood? Will the pretty clothes, Ella, make it easier for you to look into the face of some other woman--who has kept straight? Will they?"

Ella raised her eyes and, in their suddenly vague expression, Rose-Marie saw a glimmering of the faded, crushed mother. She hurried on.

"What kind of a chap is this gentleman friend," she raged, "to ask so much of you, dear? Is there--is there any reason why he can't marry you? Is he tied to some one else?"

All at once Ella was sobbing, with gusty, defiant sobs.

"Not as far as I've heard of, there ain't nobody else," she sobbed. "I don't know much about him, Miss Rose-Marie. Jim gimme a knockdown ter him, one night, in a dance-hall. I thought he was all right--Jim said he was ... An' he said he loved me, an'"--wildly--"I love him, too! An' I hate it all, here, except Lily--"

Rose-Marie, thinking rapidly, seized her advantage.

"Will going away with him," she asked steadily, "be worth never seeing Lily again? For you wouldn't be able to see her again--you wouldn't feel able to touch her, you know, if your hands weren't--clean. You bought her a religious picture, Ella, and a flower. Why? Because you know, in your heart, that she's aware of religion and beauty and sweetness! Going away with this man, Ella, will separate you from Lily, just as completely as an ocean--flowing between the two of you--would make a separation! And all of your life you'll have to know that she's suffering somewhere, perhaps; that maybe somebody's hurting her--that her dresses are dirty and her hair isn't combed! Every time you hear a little child crying you'll think of Lily--who can't cry aloud. Every time a pair of blue eyes look into your face you'll think of her eyes--that can't see. Will going away with him be worth never knowing, Ella, whether she's alive or dead--"

Ella had stopped sobbing, but the acute misery of her face was somehow more pitiful than tears. Rose-Marie waited, for a moment, and then--as Ella did not speak--she got up from her place beside the suit-case, and going to the dividing door, opened it softly.

The room was as she had left it. Mrs. Volsky was still bending above the tubs, Lily was standing in almost the same place in which she had been left. With hurried steps Rose-Marie crossed the room, and took the child's slim, little hand in her own.

"Come with me, honey," she said, almost forgetting that Lily could not hear her voice. "Come with me," and she led her gently back to the inner room.

Ella was sitting on the floor, her face still wan, her attitude unconsciously tragic. But as the child, clinging to Rose-Marie's hand, came over to her side, she was suddenly galvanized into action.

"Oh, darlin', darlin'," she sobbed wildly, "Ella was a-goin' ter leave you! Ella was a-goin' away. But she isn't now--not now! Darlin'," her arms were flung wildly about the little figure, "show, some way, that you forgive Ella--who loves you!"

Rose-Marie was crying, quite frankly. All at once she dropped down on the floor and put her arms about the two sisters--the big one and the little one--and her sobs mingled with Ella's. But, curiously enough, as she stood like a little statue between them, a sudden smile swept across the face of Lily. She might, almost, have understood.

XIV

PA STEPS ASIDE

They wept together for a long time, Ella and Rose-Marie. And as they cried something grew out of their common emotion. It was a something that they both felt subconsciously--a something warm and friendly. It might have been a new bond of affection, a new chain of love. Rose-Marie, as she felt it, was able to say to herself--with more of tolerance than she had ever known--

"If I had been as tempted and as unhappy as she--well, I might, perhaps, have reacted in the same way!"

And Ella, sobbing in the arms of the girl that she had never quite understood, was able to tell herself: "She's right--dead right! The straight road's the only road...."

It was little Lily who created a diversion. She had been standing, very quietly, in the shelter of their arms for some time--she had a way of standing with an infinite patience, for hours, in one place. But suddenly, as if drawn by some instinct, she dropped down on the floor, beside the cheap suit-case, and her small hands, shaking with eagerness, started to take out the clothes that had been flung into it.

It was uncanny, almost, to see the child so happily beginning to unpack the suit-case. The sight dried Rose-Marie's tears in an almost miraculous way.

"Let's put away the things," she suggested shakily, to Ella. "For you won't be going now, will you?"

The face that Ella Volsky lifted was a changed face. Her expression was a shade more wistful, perhaps, but the somber glow had gone out of her eyes, leaving them softer than Rose-Marie had supposed possible.

"No, Miss," she said quietly, "I won't be going--away. You're right, it ain't worth the price!" And the incident, from that moment, was closed.

They unpacked the garments--there weren't many of them--quietly. But Rose-Marie was very glad, deep in her soul, and she somehow felt that Ella's mind was relieved of a tremendous strain. They didn't speak again, but there was something in the way Ella's hand touched her little sister's sunny hair that was more revealing than words. And there was something in the way Rose-Marie's mouth curved blithely up that told a whole story of satisfaction and content. It seemed as if peace, with her white wings folded and at rest, was hovering, at last, above the Volsky flat.

And then, all at once, the momentary lull was over. All at once the calm was shattered as a china cup, falling from a careless hand, is broken. There was a sudden burst of noise in the front room; of rough words; of a woman sobbing. There was the sound of Mrs. Volsky's voice, raised in an unwonted cry of anguish, there was a trickle of water slithering down upon an uncarpeted floor--as if the wash-tub had been overturned.

It was the final event of an unsettling day--the last straw. Forgetting Lily, forgetting the unpacking, Rose-Marie jumped to her feet, ran to the door. Ella followed. They stood together on the threshold of the outer room, and stared.

The room seemed full of people--shouting, gesticulating people. And in the foreground was Jim--as sleek and well groomed as ever. Of all the crowd he seemed the only one who was composed. In front of him stood Mrs. Volsky--her face drawn and white, her hands clasped in a way that was singularly and primitively appealing.

At first Rose-Marie thought that the commotion had to do with Jim. She was always half expecting to hear that he had been apprehended in some sort of mischief, that he had been accused of some crime. But she dismissed the idea quickly--his composure was too real to be born of bravado. It was while her brain groped for some new solution that she became conscious of Mrs. Volsky's voice.

"Oh, he ain't," the woman was moaning, "say he ain't! My man--he could not be so! There ain't no truth in it--there can't be no truth.... Say as he ain't been done to so bad! Say it!"

Ella, with a movement that was all at once love-filled, stepped quickly to her mother's side. As she faced the crowd--and Jim--her face was also drawn; drawn and apprehensive.

"What's up?" she queried tersely of her brother. "What's up?"

The face of Jim was calm and almost smiling as he answered. Behind him the shrill voices of the crowd sounded, like a background, to the blunt words that he spoke.

"Pa was comin' home drunk," he told Ella, "an' he was ran inter by a truck. He was smashed up pretty bad; dead right away, th' cop said. But they took him ter a hospital jus' th' same. Wonder why they'd take a stiff ter a hospital?"

Mrs. Volsky's usually colourless voice was breaking into loud, almost weird lamentation. Ella stood speechless. But Rose-Marie, the horror of it all striking to her very soul, spoke.

"It can't be true," she cried, starting forward and--in the excitement of the moment--laying her hand upon Jim's perfectly tailored coat sleeve. "It can't be true.... It's too terrible!"

Jim's laugh rang out heartlessly, eerily, upon the air.

"It ain't so terrible!" he told Rose-Marie. "Pa--he wasn't no good! He wasn't a reg'lar feller--like me." All at once his well-manicured white hand crept down over her hand. "_He wasn't a reg'lar feller_," he repeated, "_like me_!"

XV

A SOLUTION

As Rose-Marie left the Volsky flat--Ella had begged her to go; had assured her that it would be better to leave Mrs. Volsky to her inarticulate grief--her brain was in a whirl. Things had happened, in the last few hours, with a kaleidoscopic rapidity--the whirl of events had left her mind in a dazed condition. She told herself, over and over, that Ella was saved. But she found it hard to believe that Ella would ever find happiness, despite her salvation, in the grim tenement that was her home. She told herself that Bennie was learning to travel the right road--that the Scout Club would be the means of leading him to other clubs and that the other clubs would, in time, introduce him to Sunday-school and to the church. She told herself that Mrs. Volsky was willing to try; very willing to try! But of what avail would be Bennie's growing faith and idealism if he had to come, night after night, to the home that was responsible for men like Jim--and like Pa?

Pa! Rose-Marie realized with a new sense of shock that Pa was no longer a force to reckon with. Pa was dead--had been crushed by a truck. Never again would he slouch drunkenly into the flat, never again would he throw soiled clothing and broken bottles and heavy shoes into newly tidied corners. He was dead and he had--after all--been the one link that tied the Volskys to their dingy quarters! With Pa gone the family could seek cleaner, sweeter rooms--rooms that would have been barred to the family of a drunkard! With Pa gone the air would clear, magically, of some of its heaviness.

Rose-Marie, telling herself how much the death of Pa was going to benefit the Volsky family, felt all at once heartless. She had been brought up in an atmosphere where death carries sorrow with it--deep sorrow and sanctity. She remembered the dim parlours of the little town when there was a funeral--she remembered the singing of the village choir and the voice of the pastor, slightly unsteady, perhaps, but very confident of the life hereafter. She remembered the flowers, and the mourners in their black gowns, and the pure tears of grief. She had always seen folk meet death so--meet it rather beautifully.

But the passing of Pa! She shuddered to think of its cold cruelty--it was rather like his life. He had been snuffed out--that was all--snuffed out! There would be for him no dim parlour, no singing choir, no pastor with an unsteady voice. The black-robed mourners would be absent, and so would the flowers. His going would cause not a ripple in the life of the community--it would bring with it better opportunities for his family, rather than a burden of sorrow!

"I can't grieve for him!" Rose-Marie told herself desperately. "I can't grieve for him! It's the only chance he ever gave to his children--_dying_! Perhaps, without him, they'll be able to make good...."

She was crossing the park--splashed with sunshine, it was. And suddenly she remembered the first time that she had met Bennie in the park. It seemed centuries away, that first meeting! She remembered how she had been afraid, then, of the crowds. Now she walked through them with a certain assurance--_she belonged_. She had come a long distance since that first meeting with Bennie--a very long distance! She told herself that she had proved her ability to cope with circumstance--had proved her worth, almost. Why, now, should the Superintendent keep her always in the shadow of the Settlement House--why should the Young Doctor laugh at her desire to help people? She had something to show them--she could flaunt Bennie before their eyes, she could quote the case of Ella; she could produce Mrs. Volsky, broken of spirit but ready to do anything that she could. And--last but not least--she would show Lily to them, Lily who had been hidden away from the eyes of the ones who could help her--Lily who so desperately needed help!

All at once Rose-Marie was weary of deceit. She would be glad--ever so glad--to tell her story to the Superintendent! She was tired of going out furtively of an afternoon to help these folk that she had come to help. She wanted to go in an open way--with the stamp of approval upon her. The Superintendent had said, once, that she would hardly be convincing to the people of the slums. With the Volsky family to show, she could prove that she had been convincing, very convincing!

With a singing heart she approached the Settlement House. With a smile on her lips she went up the brownstone steps, pushed wide the door--which was never locked. And then she hurried, as fast as her feet could hurry, to the Superintendent's tiny office.

The Superintendent was in. She answered Rose-Marie's knock with a cheery word, but, when the girl entered the room, she saw that the Superintendent's kind eyes were troubled.

"What's the matter?" she questioned, forgetting, for a moment, the business of which she had been so full. "What's the matter? You look ever so worried!"

The Superintendent's tired face broke into a smile.

"Was I looking as woe-begone as that?" she queried. "I didn't realize that I was. Nothing serious is the matter, dear--nothing very serious! Only Katie's sister in the old country is ill--and Katie is going home to stay with her. And it's just about impossible to get a good maid, nowadays--it seems as if Katie has been with me for a lifetime. I expect that we'll manage, somehow, but I don't just fancy cooking and sweeping, and running the Settlement House, too!"

All at once an idea leaped, full-blown, into the brain of Rose-Marie. She leaned forward and laid her hand upon the Superintendent's arm.

"I wonder," she asked excitedly, "if you'd consider a woman with a family to take Katie's place? The family isn't large--just a small boy who goes to school, and a small girl, and an older girl who is working. There's a grown son, but he can take care of himself..." the last she said almost under her breath. "He can take care of himself. It would be better, for them--"

The Superintendent was eyeing Rose-Marie curiously.

"We have plenty of sleeping-rooms on the top floor," she said slowly, "and I suppose that the older girl could help a bit, evenings. Why, yes, perhaps a family might solve the problem--it's easier to keep a woman with children than one who is," she laughed, "heart-whole and fancy free! Who are they, dear, and how do you happen to know of them?"

Rose-Marie sat down, suddenly, in a chair beside the Superintendent's desk. All at once her knees were shaky--all at once she felt strangely apprehensive.

"Once," she began, and her voice quivered slightly, "I met a little boy, in the park. He was hurting a kitten. I started to scold him and then something made me question him, instead. And I found out that he was hurting the kitten because he didn't know any better--think of it, _because he didn't know any better_! And so I was interested, ever so interested. And I decided it was my duty to know something of him--to find out what sort of an environment was responsible for him."

The Superintendent's tired face was alight She leaned forward to ask a question.

"How long ago," she questioned, "did you meet this child, in the park?"

Rose-Marie flushed. The time, suddenly, seemed very long to her.

"It was the day that I came home bringing a little gray cat with me," she said. "It was the day that I quarreled with Dr. Blanchard at the luncheon table. Do you remember?"

The Superintendent smiled reminiscently. "Ah, yes, I remember!" she said. And then--"Go on with the story, dear."

Rose-Marie went on.

"I found the place where he lived," she said hurriedly. "Yes--I know that you wouldn't have let me go if you'd known about it! That's why I didn't tell you. I found the place where he lived; an unspeakable tenement on an unspeakable street. And I met, there, his family--a most remarkable family! There was a mother, and an older sister, and an older brother, and a drunken father, and a little crippled girl...."

And then, shaking inwardly, Rose-Marie told the story of the Volskys. She told it well; better than she realized. For the Superintendent's eyes never left her face and--at certain parts of the story--the Superintendent's cheeks grew girlishly pink. She told of the saving of Ella--she told of Bennie, explaining that he was the same child whom the Young Doctor had met in the hall. She told of Mrs. Volsky's effort to better herself, and of Jim's snake-like smoothness. And then she told of Lily--Lily with her almost unearthly beauty and her piteous physical condition. As she told of Lily the Superintendent's kind eyes filled with tears, and her lips quivered.

"Oh," she breathed, "if only something could be done for her--if only something could be done! Billy Blanchard must see her at once--he's done marvellous things with the crippled children of the neighbourhood!"

With a feeling of sudden confidence Rose-Marie smiled. She realized that she had caught the Superintendent's interest--and her sympathy. It would be easier, now, to give the family their chance! Her voice was more calm as she went on with the narrative. It was only when she told of the death of Pa that her lips trembled.

"You'll think that I'm hard and callous," she said, "taking his death so easily. But I can't help feeling that it's for the best. They could never have broken away--not with him alive. _You_ would never have taken them in--if he had had to be included! You couldn't have done it.... But now," her voice was aquiver with eagerness, "now, say that they may come! Say that Mrs. Volsky may take Katie's place. Oh, I know that she isn't very neat; that she doesn't cook as we would want her to. But she can learn and, free from the influence of her husband and son, I'm sure she'll change amazingly. Say that you'll give the family a chance!"

The Superintendent was wavering. "I'm not so sure," she began, and hesitated. "I'm not so sure--"

Rose-Marie interrupted. Her voice was very soft.

"It will mean," she said, "that Lily will be here, under the doctor's care. It will mean that she will get well--perhaps! For her sake give them a chance...."

The Superintendent's eyes were fixed upon space. When she spoke, she spoke irrelevantly.

"Then," she said, "that was where you went every afternoon--to the tenement. You weren't out with some man, after all?"

Rose-Marie hung her head. "I went to the tenement every afternoon," she admitted, "to the _tenement_. Oh, I know that you're angry with me--I know it. And I don't in the least blame you. I've been deceitful, I've _sneaked_ away when your back was turned, I've practically told lies to you! Don't think," her voice was all a-tremble, "don't think that I haven't been sorry. I've been tremendously sorry ever so many times. I've tried to tell you, too--often. And I've tried to make you think my way. Do you remember the talk we had, that night when we were both so tired, in your sitting-room--before Dr. Blanchard came? I was trying to scrape up the courage to tell you, then, but you so disagreed with me that I didn't dare!"

The Superintendent seemed scarcely to be listening. There seemed to be something upon her mind.

"Rose-Marie," she said with a mock sternness, "you're evading my questions. Answer me, child! Isn't there any one that you--care for? Weren't you out with some man?"

Rose-Marie was blushing furiously.

"No," she admitted, "I wasn't out with a man. I never had any sort of a sweetheart, not ever! I just let you all think that I was with some one because--if I hadn't let you think that way--you might have made me stay in. I wouldn't have made a point of deliberately telling you a falsehood--but Dr. Blanchard gave me the idea and "--defiantly--"I just let him think what he wanted to think!"

The Superintendent was laughing.

"What he _wanted_ to think!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Rose-Marie--you've a lot to answer for! What he wanted to think...." Suddenly the laugh died out of her voice, all at once she was very serious. "Perhaps," she said slowly, "your idea about the Volsky family is a good one. We'll try it out, dear! There was a MAN, once, Who said: 'Suffer the little children to come--'Why, Rose-Marie, what's the matter?" For Rose-Marie, her face hidden in the crook of her elbow, was crying like a very tired child.

XVI

ENTER--JIM

It was with a light heart that Rose-Marie started back to the tenement. The tears had cleared her soul of the months of evasion that had so worried her--she felt suddenly free and young and happy. It was as if a rainbow had come up, tenderly, out of a storm-tossed sky; it was as if a star was shining, all at once, through the blackness of midnight. She felt a glad assurance of the future--a faith in the Hand of God, stretched out to His children. "Everything," she sing-songed, joyously, to herself, "will come right, now. Everything will come right!"

It was strange how she suddenly loved all of the people, the almost mongrel races of people, who thronged the streets! She smiled brightly at a mother, pushing a baby-buggy--she thrust a coin into the withered hand of an old beggar. On a crowded corner she paused to listen to the vague carollings of a barrel organ, to pat the head of a frayed looking little monkey that hopped about in time to the music. All at once she wanted to know a dozen foreign languages so that she could tell those who passed her by that she was their friend--_their friend!_