His Own People

B >> Booth Tarkington >> His Own People


"Well," chuckled Cornish, "that's the way they make their living, you
know."

"Go on and tell him the rest of it," urged Cooley.

"About Lady Mount-Rhyswicke," said Cornish, "it seems strange enough,
but she has a perfect right to her name. She is a good deal older than
she looks, and I've heard she used to be remarkably beautiful. Her third
husband was Lord George Mount-Rhyswicke, a man who'd been dropped from
his clubs, and he deserted her in 1903, but she has not divorced him. It
is said that he is somewhere in South America; however, as to that I do
not know."

Mr. Cornish put the very slightest possible emphasis on the word "know,"
and proceeded:

"I've heard that she is sincerely attached to him and sends him money
from time to time, when she has it--though that, too, is third-hand
information. She has been _declasse_ ever since her first divorce. That
was a 'celebrated case,' and she's dropped down pretty far in the world,
though I judge she's a good deal the best of this crowd. Exactly what
her relations to the others are I don't know, but I imagine that she's
pretty thick with 'em."

"Just a little!" exclaimed Cooley. "She sits behind one of the lambkins
and Helene behind the other while they get their woolly wool clipped. I
suppose the two of 'em signaled what was in every hand we held, though
I'm sure they needn't have gone to the trouble! Fact is, I don't see why
they bothered about goin' through the form of playin' cards with us
at all. They could have taken it away without that! Whee!" Mr. Cooley
whistled loud and long. "And there's loads of wise young men on the
ocean now, hurryin' over to take our places in the pens. Well, they can
have _mine_! Funny, Mellin: nobody would come up to you or me in the
Grand Central in New York and try to sell us greenbacks just as good
as real. But we come over to Europe with our pockets full o' money and
start in to see the Big City with Jesse James in a false mustache on one
arm, and Lucresha Borgy, under an assumed name, on the other!"

"I am afraid I agree with you," said Cornish; "though I must say that,
from all I hear, Madame de Vaurigard might put an atmosphere about a
thing which would deceive almost any one who wasn't on his guard. When a
Parisienne of her sort is clever at all she's irresistible."

"I believe you," Cooley sighed deeply.

"Yesterday evening, Mr. Mellin," continued the journalist, "when I saw
the son of my old friend in company with Welch and Sneyd, of course I
tried to warn him. I've often seen them in Paris, though I believe they
have no knowledge of me. As I've said, they are notorious, especially
Welch, yet they have managed, so far, to avoid any difficulty with the
Paris police, and, I'm sorry to say, it might be hard to actually prove
anything against them. You couldn't _prove_ that anything was crooked
last night, for instance. For that matter, I don't suppose you want to.
Mr. Cooley wishes to accept his loss and bear it, and I take it that
that will be your attitude, too. In regard to the note you gave Sneyd,
I hope you will refuse to pay; I don't think that they would dare press
the matter."

"Neither do I," Mr. Cooley agreed. "I left a silver cigarette-case at
the apartment last night, and after talkin' to Cornish a while ago, I
sent my man for it with a note to her that'll make 'em all sit up and
take some notice. The gang's all there together, you can be sure. I
asked for Sneyd and Pedlow in the office and found they'd gone out early
this morning leavin' word they wouldn't be back till midnight. And, see
here; I know I'm easy, but somehow I believe you're even a softer piece
o' meat than I am. I want you to promise me that whatever happens you
won't pay that I O U."

Mellin moistened his lips in vain. He could not answer.

"I want you to promise me not to pay it," repeated Cooley earnestly.

"I promise," gasped Mellin.

"You won't pay it no matter what they do?"

"No."

This seemed to reassure Mr. Cooley.

"Well," he said, "I've got to hustle to get my car shipped and make the
train. Cornish has finished his job down here and he's goin' with me. I
want to get out. The whole thing's left a mighty bad taste in my mouth,
and I'd go crazy if I didn't get away from it. Why don't you jump into
your clothes and come along, too?"

"I can't."

"Well," said the young man with a sympathetic shake of the head, "you
certainly look sick. It may be better if you stay in bed till evening:
a train's a mighty mean place for the day after. But I wouldn't hang
around here too long. If you want money, all you have to do is to ask
the hotel to cash a check on your home bank; they're always glad to
do that for Americans." He turned to the door. "Mr. Cornish, if you're
goin' to help me about shipping the car, I'm ready."

"So am I. Good-by, Mr. Mellin."

"Good-by," Mellin said feebly--"and thank you."

Young Cooley came back to the bedside and shook the other's feverish
hand. "Good-by, ole man. I'm awful sorry it's all happened, but I'm glad
it didn't cost you quite as much money as it did me. Otherwise I expect
it's hit us about equally hard. I wish--I wish I could find a _nice
one_"--the youth gulped over something not unlike a sob--"as fascinatin'
as her!"

Most people have had dreams of approaching dangers in the path of which
their bodies remained inert; when, in spite of the frantic wish to fly,
it was impossible to move, while all the time the horror crept closer
and closer. This was Mellin's state as he saw the young man going. It
was absolutely necessary to ask Cooley for help, to beg him for a loan.
But he could not.

He saw Cooley's hand on the doorknob; saw the door swing open.

"Good-by, again," Cooley said; "and good luck to you!"

Mellin's will strove desperately with the shame that held him silent.

The door was closing.

"Oh, Cooley," called Mellin hoarsely.

"Yes. What?"

"J-j-just good-by," said Mellin.

And with that young Cooley was gone.





IX. Expiation

A multitudinous clangor of bells and a dozen neighboring chimes rang
noon; then the rectangular oblongs of hot sunlight that fell from the
windows upon the carpet of Mellin's room began imperceptibly to shift
their angles and move eastward. From the stone pavement of the street
below came the sound of horses pawing and the voices of waiting cabmen;
then bells again, and more bells; clamoring the slow and cruel afternoon
into the past. But all was silent in Mellin's room, save when, from time
to time, a long, shuddering sigh came from the bed.

The unhappy young man had again drawn the coverlet over his head, but
not to sleep: it was more like a forlorn and desperate effort to hide,
as if he crept into a hole, seeking darkness to cover the shame and fear
that racked his soul. For though his shame had been too great to let him
confess to young Cooley and ask for help, his fear was as great as
his shame; and it increased as the hours passed. In truth his case was
desperate. Except the people who had stripped him, Cooley was the
only person in all of Europe with whom he had more than a very casual
acquaintance. At home, in Cranston, he had no friends susceptible
to such an appeal as it was vitally necessary for him to make. His
relatives were not numerous: there were two aunts, the widows of his
father's brothers, and a number of old-maid cousins; and he had an uncle
in Iowa, a country minister whom he had not seen for years. But he could
not cable to any of these for money; nor could he quite conjure his
imagination into picturing any of them sending it if he did. And even to
cable he would have to pawn his watch, which was an old-fashioned one of
silver and might not bring enough to pay the charges.

He began to be haunted by fragmentary, prophetic visions--confused but
realistic in detail, and horridly probable--of his ejectment from the
hotel, perhaps arrest and trial. He wondered what they did in Italy to
people who "beat" hotels; and, remembering what some one had told him
of the dreadfulness of Italian jails, convulsive shudderings seized upon
him.

The ruddy oblongs of sunlight crawled nearer to the east wall of the
room, stretching themselves thinner and thinner, until finally they
were not there at all, and the room was left in deepening grayness.
Carriages, one after the other, in unintermittent succession, rumbled
up to the hotel-entrance beneath the window, bringing goldfish for
the Pincio and the fountains of Villa Borghese. Wild strains from the
Hungarian orchestra, rhapsodical twankings of violins, and the runaway
arpeggios of a zither crazed with speed-mania, skipped along the
corridors and lightly through Mellin's door. In his mind's eye he saw
the gay crowd in the watery light, the little tables where only
five days ago he had sat with the loveliest of all the anemone-like
ladies....

The beautifully-dressed tea-drinkers were there now, under the green
glass dome, prattling and smiling, those people he had called his own.
And as the music sounded louder, faster, wilder and wilder with the
gipsy madness--then in that darkening bedchamber his soul became
articulate in a cry of humiliation--

"God in His mercy forgive me, how raw I was!"


A vision came before his closed eyes; the maple-bordered street in
Cranston, the long, straight, wide street where Mary Kramer lived; a
summer twilight; Mary in her white muslin dress on the veranda steps,
and a wistaria vine climbing the post beside her, half-embowering her.
How cool and sweet and good she looked! How dear--and how _kind_!--she
had always been to him.


Dusk stole through the windows: the music ceased and the tea-hour was
over. The carriages were departing, bearing the gay people who went
away laughing, calling last words to one another, and, naturally, quite
unaware that a young man, who, five days before, had adopted them and
called them "his own," was lying in a darkened room above them, and
crying like a child upon his pillow.





X. The Cab at the Corner

A ten o'clock, a page bearing a card upon a silver tray knocked upon the
door, and stared with wide-eyed astonishment at the disordered gentleman
who opened it.

The card was Lady Mount-Rhyswicke's. Underneath the name was written:

If you are there will you give me a few minutes? I am waiting in a cab
at the next corner by the fountain.

Mellin's hand shook as he read. He did not doubt that she came as an
emissary; probably they meant to hound him for payment of the note
he had given Sneyd, and at that thought he could have shrieked with
hysterical laughter.

"Do you speak English?" he asked.

"Spik little. Yes."

"Who gave you this card?"

"Coachman," said the boy. "He wait risposta."

"Tell him to say that I shall be there in five minutes."

"Fi' minute. Yes. Good-by."

Mellin was partly dressed--he had risen half an hour earlier and
had been distractedly pacing the floor when the page knocked--and he
completed his toilet quickly. He passed down the corridors, descended by
the stairway (feeling that to use the elevator would be another abuse of
the confidence of the hotel company) and slunk across the lobby with the
look and the sensations of a tramp who knows that he will be kicked into
the street if anybody catches sight of him.

A closed cab stood near the fountain at the next corner. There was a
trunk on the box by the driver, and the roof was piled with bags and
rugs. He approached uncertainly.

"Is--is this--is it Lady Mount-Rhyswicke?" he stammered pitifully.

She opened the door.

"Yes. Will you get in? We'll just drive round the block if you don't
mind. I'll bring you back here in ten minutes." And when he had
tremulously complied, "_Avanti, cocchiere_," she called to the driver,
and the tired little cab-horse began to draw them slowly along the
deserted street.

Lady Mount-Rhyswicke maintained silence for a time, while her companion
waited, his heart pounding with dreadful apprehensions. Finally she gave
a short, hard laugh and said:

"I saw your face by the corner light. Been havin' a hard day of it?"

The fear of breaking down kept him from answering. He gulped painfully
once or twice, and turned his face away from her. Light enough from a
streetlamp shone in for her to see.

"I was rather afraid you'd refuse," she said seriously. "Really, I
wonder you were willin' to come!"

"I was--I was afraid not to." He choked out the confession with the
recklessness of final despair.

"So?" she said, with another short laugh. Then she resumed her even,
tired monotone: "Your little friend Cooley's note this morning gave us
all a rather fair notion as to what you must be thinkin' of us. He seems
to have found a sort of walkin' 'Who's-Who-on-the-Continent' since last
night. Pity for some people he didn't find it before! I don't think I'm
sympathetic with your little Cooley. I 'guess,' as you Yankees say, 'he
can stand it.' But"--her voice suddenly became louder--"I'm not in the
business of robbin' babies and orphans, no, my dear friends, nor of
helpin' anybody else to rob them either!--Here you are!"

She thrust into his hand a small packet, securely wrapped in paper and
fastened with rubber bands. "There's your block of express checks for
six hundred dollars and your I O U to Sneyd with it. Take better care of
it next time."

He had been tremulous enough, but at that his whole body began to shake
violently.

"_What_!" he quavered.

"I say, take better care of it next time," she said, dropping again into
her monotone. "I didn't have such an easy time gettin' it back from them
as you might think. I've got rather a sore wrist, in fact."

She paused at an inarticulate sound from him.

"Oh, that's soon mended," she laughed drearily. "The truth is, it's been
a good thing for me--your turning up. They're gettin' in too deep water
for me, Helene and her friends, and I've broken with the lot, or they've
broken with me, whichever it is. We couldn't hang together after the
fightin' we've done to-day. I had to do a lot of threatenin' and things.
Welch was ugly, so I had to be ugly too. Never mind"--she checked an
uncertain effort of his to speak--"I saw what you were like, soon as
we sat down at the table last night--how new you were and all that. It
needed only a glance to see that Helene had made a mistake about you.
She'd got a notion you were a millionaire like the little Cooley, but
I knew better from your talk. She's clever, but she's French, and she
can't get it out of her head that you could be an American and not a
millionaire. Of course, they _all_ knew better when you brought out
your express checks and talked like somebody in one of the old-time
story-books about 'debts of honor.' Even Helene understood then that
the express checks were all you had." She laughed. "I didn't have any
trouble gettin' the _note_ back!"

She paused again for a moment, then resumed: "There isn't much use our
goin' over it all, but I want you to know one thing. Your little friend
Cooley made it rather clear that he accused Helene and me of signalin'.
Well, I didn't. Perhaps that's the reason you didn't lose as much as he
did; I can't say. And one thing more: all this isn't goin' to do you any
harm. I'm not very keen about philosophy and religion and that, but I
believe if you're let in for a lot of trouble, and it only _half_ kills
you, you can get some good of it."

"Do you think," he stammered--"do you think I'm worth saving?"

She smiled faintly and said:

"You've probably got a sweetheart in the States somewhere--a nice girl,
a pretty young thing who goes to church and thinks you're a great man,
perhaps? Is it so?"

"I am not worthy," he began, choked suddenly, then finished--"to breathe
the same air!"

"That's quite right," Lady Mount-Rhyswicke assured him. "Think what
you'd think of her if she'd got herself into the same sort of scrape by
doin' the things you've been doin'! And remember _that_ if you ever feel
impatient with her, or have any temptations to superiority in times to
come. And yet"--for the moment she spoke earnestly--"you go back to your
little girl, but don't you tell her a word of this. You couldn't
even tell her that meetin' you has helped me, because she wouldn't
understand."

"Nor do I. I can't."

"Oh, it's simple. I saw that if I was gettin' down to where I was
robbin' babies and orphans...." The cab halted. "Here's your corner. I
told him only to go round the block and come back. Good-by. I'm off for
Amalfi. It's a good place to rest."

He got out dazedly, and the driver cracked his whip over the little
horse; but Mellin lifted a detaining hand.

"_A spet_," called Lady Mount-Rhyswicke to the driver. "What is it, Mr.
Mellin?"

"I can't--I can't look you in the face," he stammered, his attitude
perfectly corroborative of his words. "I would--oh, I would kneel in the
dust here before you--"

"Some of the poetry you told me you write?"

"I've never written any poetry," he said, not looking up. "Perhaps I
can--now. What I want to say is--I'm so ashamed of it--I don't know how
to get the words out, but I must. I may never see you again, and I must.
I 'm sorry--please try to forgive me--I wasn't myself when I did it--"

"Blurt it out; that's the best way."

"I'm sorry," he floundered--"I'm sorry I kissed you."

She laughed her tired laugh and said in her tired voice the last words
he was ever destined to hear from her:

"Oh, I don't mind, if you don't. It was so innocent, it was what decided
me."

One of the hundreds of good saints that belong to Rome must have
overheard her and pitied the young man, for it is ascribable only to
some such special act of mercy that Mellin understood (and he did)
exactly what she meant.