Читать книгу Shot With Crimson - George Barr McCutcheon - Страница 4

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HOARSE, raucous-voiced newsboys were crying the “extras” soon after midnight. They were doing a thriving business. The destruction of the great Reynolds plant, more spectacular and more appalling than any previous deed perpetrated by the secret enemies of the American people, was to drive even the most sanguine and indifferent citizen to a full realizaton of the peril that stalked him and his fellow-man throughout the land. Complacent security was at last to sustain a shock it could not afford to scorn. Up there in the hills of Jersey a bombardment had taken place that rivalled in violence, if not in human toll, the most vivid descriptions of shell-carnage on the dripping fronts of France.

Huge but vague headlines screamed into the faces of quick-breathing men and wide-eyed women the first details of the great disaster across the River.

Night-farers, threading the streets, paused in their round of pleasure to gulp down the bitter thing that came up into their throats—a sick thing called Fear. From nearly every doorway in the city, some one issued forth, bleak-eyed and anxious, to hail the scurrying newsboys. The distant roar of the shells had roused the millions in Manhattan; windows rattled, the frailer dwellings rocked on thin foundations. It was not until the clash of heavy artillery swept up to the city on the wind from the west that the serene, contemptuous denizens of the greatest city in the world cast off their mask of indifference and rose as one person to ask the vital question: Are the U-Boats in the Harbour at last?

An elderly man, two women, and a sallow-faced man of thirty sat by the windows at the top of a lofty apartment building on the Upper West Side. For an hour they had been sitting there, listening, and looking always to the west, out over the dark and sombre Hudson. Father, mother, daughter and son. The first explosion jarred the great building in which they were securely housed.

“Ah!” sighed the old man, and it was a sigh of relief, of satisfaction. The others turned to him and smiled for the first time in hours. The tension was over.

Farther down-town two men in one of the big hotels silently shook hands, bade each other a friendly good-night for the benefit of chance observers, and went off to bed. The waiting was over.

Two night watchmen met in front of one of the biggest office buildings in New York, within hearing of the bells of Trinity and almost within sound of the sobbing waters of the Bay. Their faces, rendered almost invisible behind the great collars that protected them from the shrill winds coming up the canyons from the sea, were tense and drawn and white, but their eyes glittered brightly, fiercely, in the darkness. They too had been waiting.

In a dingy apartment in Harlem, three shifty-eyed, nervous men, and a pallid, tired, frightened woman rose suddenly from the lethargy of suspense and grinned evilly, not at each other but at the rattling, dilapidated window looking westward across the sagging roofs of the squalid district. One of the men stretched forth a quivering hand and, with a hoarse laugh of exultation, seized in his fingers a strange, crudely shaped metallic object that stood on the table nearby. He lifted it to his lips and kissed it! Then he put it down, carefully, gingerly,—with something like fear in his eyes. Scraps of tin, pieces of iron and steel, strands of wire, wads of cotton and waste, and an odd assortment of tools littered the table. Harmless appearing cans, and bottles, and dirty packages, with a mortar and pestle, a small chemist's scales, funnels and graduates stood in innocent array along a shelf attached to the wall, guarded,—so it seemed,—by sinister looking tubes and retorts.

The woman, her eyes gleaming with a malevolent joy that contrasted strangely with the dread that had been in them a moment before, lifted her clenched hands and hissed out a single word:

“Christ!”

They, too, had been waiting.

Thousands there were in the great city whose eyes glistened that night,—thousands who had not been waiting, for they knew nothing of the secret that lay secure and safe in the breasts of the few who were allowed to strike. Thousands who rejoiced, for they knew that a great and glorious deed had been done! They only knew that devastation had fallen somewhere with appalling force,—it mattered not to them where, so long as it had fallen in its appointed place!

Many a glass, many a stein, was raised in stealthy tribute to the hand that had rocked the city of New York! And in the darkness of the night they hid their gloating faces, and whispered a song without melody.

Rich man, poor man, beggar-man, thief! In spirit, at least, they touched hands and thrilled with a common exaltation!

It was after one o'clock when the Carstairs' motor crept out of the ferry-house at 130th Street, and whirled up the hill toward the Drive. A rough-looking individual who loitered unmolested in the lee of the ferry-house, peered intently at the number of the car as it passed, and jotted it down in a little book. He noted in the same way the license numbers of other automobiles. When he was relieved hours afterward, he had in his little book the number of every car that came in from Jersey between half past eleven at night and seven o'clock in the morning. It was not his duty to stop or question the occupants of these cars. He was merely exercising the function of the mysterious Secret Eyes of the United States Government.

Mr. and Mrs. Carstairs were admitted to their Park Avenue apartment by a tall, beautiful girl, who threw open the door the instant the elevator stopped at the floor.

“Thank goodness!” she cried, a vibrant note of relief in her voice “We were so dreadfully—”

“What are you doing up, Louise?” cried Mrs. Carstairs quickly. Her husband frowned, as with annoyance.

“Where is Hodges?” he demanded. He stood stock-still for a moment before following his wife into the foyer.

“He went out some time ago to get an 'extra.' The boys were in the street calling new ones. He asked if he might go out. How—how terrible it is, Uncle Dawy. And it was so near the Club, I—I—oh, I was dreadfully worried. The papers say the shells fell miles away—Why, I couldn't go to bed, Aunt Frieda. We have been trying for hours to get the Club on the telephone.” She was assisting Mrs. Carstairs in removing her rich chinchilla coat. Carstairs studied the girl's white face with considerable anxiety as he threw off his own fur coat. The worried frown deepened.

“Could you hear the explosions over here, Louise?” he asked.

“Hear them? Why, Uncle dear, we all thought the city was being bombarded by warships in the river, it sounded so near and so terrible. Alfie and I ran to the windows. It was just after eleven, I think. He called up Central at once, but the girl was so frightened she could hardly speak. She didn't know what had happened, but she was sure the Germans were destroying the city. She said another girl had seen the Zeppelins. Alfie went out at once. Oh, dear, I am so glad you are home. I was so anxious—”

“My dear child, you should be in bed,” began her uncle, taking her hand in his. He laid his other hand against her cheek, and was relieved to find it cool. “You say Alfred went out—at eleven?”

“A few minutes after eleven. He waited until all the noise had ceased. I assured him I was not the least bit nervous. He had been working so hard all evening in your study over those stupid physics.”

“And he hasn't returned? Confound him, he shouldn't have gone off and left you all alone here for two solid hours—”

“Don't be angry with him, Uncle Dawy,” pleaded the girl. “He was so excited, poor boy, he simply couldn't sit here without knowing what had happened. Besides, Hodges and two of the maids were up,—so I wasn't all alone.” She followed them into the brilliantly lighted drawing-room. “Here are the first extras. The doorman sent them up to me.”

Mrs. Carstairs dropped heavily into a chair. Her face was very white.

“How terrible,” she murmured, glancing at the huge headlines.

“I say, Frieda,” exclaimed her husband; “it's been too much for you. A drop of brandy, my dear,—”

“Nothing, thank you, Davenport. I am quite all right. The shock, you know. We were so near the place, Louise,—don't you see? Really, it was appalling.”

“What beasts! What inhuman beasts they are!” cried the girl, in a sort of frenzy. “They ought to be burned alive,—burned and tortured for hours. The last extra says that the number of dead and mutilated is beyond—”

“Now, now!” said Carstairs, gently. “Don't excite yourself, child. It isn't good for you. You've been too ill, my dear. Run along to bed, there's a sensible girl. We'll have all the details by tomorrow,—and, believe me, things won't be as bad as they seem tonight. It's always the case, you know. And you, too, Frieda,—get to bed. Your nerves are all shot to pieces,—and I'm not surprised. I will wait for—”

A key grated in the door.

“Here he is now. Hello, Alfred,—what's the latest?”

His son came into the room without removing his overcoat or hat. His dark eyes, wet from the sharp wind without, sought his mother's face.

“Are you all right, Mother? I've been horribly worried—thank the Lord! It's a relief to see that smile! You're all right? Sure?”

He kissed his mother quickly, feverishly. She put her arm around his neck and murmured in his ear.

“I am frightfully upset, of course, dear. Who wouldn't be?”

He stood off and looked long and intently into her eyes. Then he straightened up and spoke to his father.

“I might have known you wouldn't let anything happen to her, sir. But I was horribly worried, just the same. Those beastly shells went everywhere, they say. The Club must have been—”

“Nowhere near the Club, so far as I know,” said his father cheerfully. “We were all perfectly safe. Have they made any arrests? Of course, it wasn't accidental.”

“I've been downtown, around the newspaper offices,” said the young man, throwing his coat and hat on a chair. “There are all sorts of wild stories. People are talking about lynchings, and all that sort of rot. Nothing like that ever happens, though. We do a lot of talking, and that's all. It all blows over as soon as the excitement dies down. That's the trouble with us Americans.”

“America will wake up one of these days, Alfred,” said his father slowly, “and when she does, there will be worse things than lynchings to talk about.”

“Are your feet cold, Alfred dear?” inquired his mother, a note of anxiety in her voice. “You've been tramping about the streets, and—— You must have a hot water bottle when you go to bed. There is so much pneumonia—”

“Always mothering me, aren't you, good Frieda?” he said, lovingly. He pronounced it as if it were Friday. It was his pet name for her in the bosom of the family. “Warm as toast,” he added. He turned to Louise. “You didn't mind my running away and leaving you, did you, Louise?”

“Not a bit, Alfie. I tried to get Derrol on the long distance, but they said at the Camp it was impossible to call him unless the message was very important. I—I—so I asked the man if there had been any kind of an accident out there and he said no, there hadn't. I—asked him if Captain Steele was in bed, and he said he should hope so. Don't laugh, Alfie! I know it was silly, but—but it might have been an ammunition depot or something at the Camp. We didn't know—”

“Ammunition, your granny! They haven't sufficient ammunition in that Camp,—or in any of 'em, for that matter,—to make a noise loud enough to be heard across the street. How can you expect me to keep a straight face when you suggest an explosion in an Army Camp?”

“It's high time we stopped talking about explosions and went to bed,” said Carstairs, arising. He put his arm across his wife's shoulders. “We've had all the explosions we can stand for one night, haven't we, dear? Come along, everybody. Off with you!”

“Hodges should be back any moment with the latest 'extra,'” said Louise. “Can't we wait just a few minutes, Uncle Dawy? He has been gone over an hour.”

The telephone bell in Mr. Carstairs' study rang. So taut were the nerves of the four persons in the adjoining room that they started violently. They looked at each other in some perplexity.

“Probably Hodges,” said Alfred, after a moment. “Shall I go, dad?”

“See who it is,” said Carstairs.

“Wrong number, more than likely,” said his wife, wearily. “Central has been unusually annoying of late. It happens several times every day. The service is atrocious.”

Young Carstairs went into the study and snatched up the receiver. Moved by a common impulse, the others followed him into the room, the face of each expressing not only curiosity hut a certain alarm.

“Yes, this is Mr. Carstairs' residence.... What?... All right.” He sat down on the edge of the library table and turned to the others. “Must be long distance. They're getting somebody.”

Alfred Carstairs was a tall, well-built young fellow of twenty. He bore a most remarkable, though perhaps not singular, resemblance to his mother. His eyes were dark, his thick hair a dead black, growing low on his forehead. The lips were full and red, with a whimsical curve at the corners denoting not merely good humour but a certain contempt for seriousness in others. He was handsome in a strong, hold way despite a strangely colourless complexion,—a complexion that may be described as pasty, for want of a nobler word. His voice was deep, with the guttural harshness of youth; loud, unmusical, not yet fixed by the processes of maturity. A big, dominant, vital boy making the last turn before stepping into full manhood. He was his mother's son,—his mother's boy.

His father, a Harvard man, had been thwarted in his desire to have his son follow him through the historic halls at Cambridge,—as he had followed his own father and his grandfather.

Sentiment was not a part of Alfred's makeup. He supported his mother when it came to the college selection. Together they agreed upon Columbia. She frankly admitted her selfishness in wanting to keep her boy at home, but found other and less sincere arguments in the protracted discussions that took place with her husband. She fought Harvard because it was not democratic, because it bred snobbishness and contempt, because it deprived the youth of this practical age of the breadth of vision necessary to success among men who put ability before sentiment and a superficial distinction. She urged Columbia because it was democratic, pulsating, practical.

In the end, Carstairs gave in. He wanted to be fair to both of them. But he was not deceived. He knew that her chief reason, though spoken softly and with almost pathetic simpleness, was that she could not bear the separation from the boy she loved so fiercely, so devotedly. He was not so sure that filial love entered into Alfred's calculations. If the situation had been reversed, he was confident,—or reasonably so,—that Alfred would have chosen Harvard.

He had the strange, unhappy conviction that his son opposed him in this, as in countless other instances, through sheer perversity. His mother's authority always had been supreme. She had exercised it with an iron-handed firmness that not only surprised but gratified the father, who knew so well the tender affection she had for her child. Her word was law. Alfred seldom if ever questioned it, even as a small and decidedly self-willed lad. Paradoxically, she both indulged and disciplined him by means of the same consuming force: her mother-love.

On the other hand, Carstairs,—a firm and positive character,—received the scantiest consideration from the boy on the rare occasions when he felt it necessary to employ paternal measures. Alfred either sulked or openly defied him. Always the mother stepped into the breach. She never temporized. She either promptly supported the father's demand or opposed it. No matter which point of view she took, the youngster invariably succumbed. In plain words, it was her command that he obeyed and not his father's.

As time went on, Carstairs came to recognize the resistless combination that opposed him, and, while the realization was far from comforting, his common-sense ordered him to accept the situation, especially as nothing could be clearer than the fact that she was bringing her son up with the most rigid regard for his future. She had her eyes set far ahead; she was seeing him always as a man and not as a boy. That much, at least, Carstairs conceded, and was more proud of her than he cared to admit, even to himself. He watched the sturdy, splendid, earnest development of his boy under the influence of a force stronger than any he could have exercised.

Sometimes he wondered if it was the German in her that made for the rather unusual strength which so rarely rises above the weakness of a mother's pity. Once he laughingly had inquired what she would have done had their child been born a girl.

“I should have been content to let you bring her up,” said she, with a twinkle in her eye.

While she was resolute, almost unyielding in regard to her growing son, her attitude toward her husband was in all other respects amazingly free from assertiveness or arrogance. On the contrary, she was submissive almost to the point of humility. He was her man. He was her law. A simple, unwavering respect for his strength, his position, his authority in the home of which he was the head, rendered her incapable of opposing his slightest wish. An odd timidity, singularly out of keeping with her physical as well as her mental endowments, surrounded her with that pleasing and,—to all men,—gratifying atmosphere of femininity so dear to the heart of every lord and master. She made him comfortable.

And she was, despite her social activities, a good and capable house-wife,—one of the old-fashioned kind who thinks first of her man's comfort and, although in this instance it was not demanded, of his purse. He was her man; it was her duty to serve him.

As her boy merged swiftly,—almost abruptly into manhood,—her long-maintained grip of iron relaxed. Carstairs, noting the change, was puzzled. He was a long time in arriving at the solution. It was very simple after all: she merely had admitted another man into her calculations. Her boy had become a man,—a strong, dominant man,—and she was ready, even willing, to relinquish the temporary power she had exerted over him.

She was no longer free to command. Alfred had come into his own. He was a man. She was proud of him. The time had come for her to be humble in the light of his glory, and she was content to lay aside the authority with which she had cloaked her love and ambition for so long. His word had become her law. She had two men in her family now. Slowly but surely she was giving them to understand that she was their woman, and that she knew her place. She had been for twenty-two years the wife of one of them, and for twenty years the mother of the other.

Carstairs was rich. He was a man of affairs, a man of power and distinction in the councils of that exalted class known as the leaders of finance. He represented one of the soundest vertebrae in the back-bone of the nation in these times of war. With a loyalty that incurred a tremendous amount of self-sacrifice, he had offered all of his vital energy, all of his heart, to the cause of the people. He was on many boards, he was in touch with all the great enterprises that worked for the comfort, the support and the encouragement of those who went forth to give their lives if need be in the turmoil' of war. Davenport Carstairs stood for all that was fine and strong in practical idealism, which, after all, is the basis of all things truly American.

As he stood inside the study door, watching with some intensity the face of his son, he was suddenly conscious of a feeling of dread, not associated with the recent grave event, but something new that was creeping, as it were, along the wire that reached its end in the receiver glued to Alfred's ear. He glanced at his wife. She suddenly exhaled the breath she was holding and smiled faintly into his concerned eyes.

“Yes,—” said Alfred, impatiently, after a long pause,—“Yes, this is Mr. Carstairs' home.... I am his son.... What?... Yes, he's here, but can't you give me the message?... Who are you?... What?... Certainly I'll call him, but... Here, father; it's some one who insists on speaking to you personally.”

He set the receiver down on the table with a sharp bang, and straightened up to his full height as if resenting an indignity.