Читать книгу Colorado Jim - George Goodchild - Страница 8

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Jim’s first impression of London was an ocean of flying mud, through which myriads of phantasmagorial creatures and things moved in sullen, unceasing procession; an all-enveloping wall of brown fog; and a roar like unto some monster in pain. When he stood on the Embankment and strove to get a glimpse of the river, he came to the conclusion that “the hub of the Universe” was not up to specification. The famous Strand amazed him by its narrowness and its shortness. The buildings were dirtier than any buildings he had ever seen before, and the people cold, self-contained, units who seemed visibly to shrink back into their shells at his every attempt to hold conversation.

For a whole week the fog and the drizzle continued as though no sun existed, or ever could 29 exist. He wandered aimlessly, like a lost sheep, wondering how long a man could swallow quarts of dirt with his oxygen without getting permanently transformed into a human sewer.

But he was getting a grip on things. His brain was gradually adapting itself to changed conditions. No longer did he gasp when a child in Stepney picked up orange-peel from the gutter and ate it. Here was the unending manifestation of Nature’s inexorable law, the survival of the fittest, more clearly and cruelly displayed than in New York. Wealth and Poverty were more definitely marked. If they merged at all, it was away in the suburbs, or in the Jewish quarter, whence issued, on Saturdays, thousands of dark-skinned lads and girls, westward bound, to spend one hectic evening in the pleasure-ground west of St. Paul’s.

The East End, strangely enough, appealed to him more than the West. He took expeditions down among the docks, and sat in squalid public-houses listening to the coarse conversation of their habitués. There was always something new to shock, or interest, the eyes. It was no strange thing to find a woman performing certain domestic 30 avocations before a pot of beer. Some of them brought potatoes and peas, peeling and shelling these in the bar in preference to the hovels which they inhabited. The “pub” was their club and general meeting-house.

Once he managed to get into conversation with one of these products of “the hub of the Universe.” Her point of view staggered him. Her meek acceptance of her lot sickened him. Why didn’t she fly—she and her man—away to green fields and fresh air, away from this plague-ridden, dismal city? The suggestion brought from her a peal of mirthless laughter. Later he arrived at the truth. These people suffered from the greatest disease of all—The Fear of Living. Their hearts were rotten. They lived and died, rooted to some few acres of mud and muck because they feared what lay beyond. Like children they feared the unknown. Daylight lay beyond the jungle, but they believed it to be the pit of doom—of empty stomachs and endless tribulation.

Nothing could be done for them until the system was smashed. Unsophisticated, uncultured as he was, he succeeded in grasping the 31 root of the problem—Education. They were living a lie. The very environment conspired to perpetuate that lie. When one among them stood up and averred that Life meant something more than this, that Man was not made to eke out his life in bitter misery, that the result of the toil of the worker was filched by some inexplicable process, he was immediately voted “balmy.” They were not ripe for fighting. There was as yet no clearly seen Cause that would rouse them from their torpor. But one day the flood would burst the dam of besotted ignorance, and the human cataract would descend with appalling force.

Colorado Jim, born out of Nature, succored by the sweet winds of heaven, was learning things. When at nights he stood at his window, at the top of the hotel, and gazed over the vastness of this squat monster, London, Colorado seemed very far away.

Hitherto he had been a poor reader; he had had no time for books. Now a book came into his hands. Feeling lonely, he dipped into it. It was Reade’s “Martyrdom of Man.” All night long he sat and read. All the civilizations of earth 32 passed before him in perspective. It gave him a new interest in life. He wanted to go out and take this London by the throat. It was a mockery of what civilization should be. It was an insult to dead generations of men. Man had fought and suffered and died for—this! Humanity had labored for tens of centuries to give birth to—this!

But his healthy mind recoiled from morbid speculation. He took a trip into Devonshire, and found there a recrudescence of the old calm joyousness that he believed had somehow left him. He roved the Devon hills in wind and rain, drew into his lungs the fragrant breath of the moorland, and felt a better man. He sang as he walked—a great deep song that went echoing along the valleys. Space—space! There was the magic potion. What were Money, Success, Power, compared to the free delights of Nature?

On his return to London he seriously reflected upon the advisability of going back to Medicine Bow. Man is a gregarious animal, and Jim was feeling the need of friends. What envy was his when he perceived little groups of friends, gathered together around some table, laughing 33 and making merry! He had found the big London clubs astonishingly exclusive. A man had to be proposed and seconded, and what not, by existing members, who had to vouch for his moral or social standing. Jim felt an outsider; an alien among strange people, whose ways were not his ways. It might have been Colorado for him but for a totally unexpected occurrence.

He was returning from a trip to the Crystal Palace, and was waiting on the railway platform for his train, when a drunken man started a commotion a few paces from him. Exhibiting signs of violence, two porters came forward to remove him. That was, apparently, exactly what he wanted. He slipped off his coat and danced round in ungainly fashion. The porters advanced. He lunged out and caught the foremost man a heavy blow under the chin. The man reeled back and collided violently with an immaculately dressed man who was standing on the edge of the platform. The latter staggered, lost his balance, and fell on to the line. A frenzied voice screamed:

“Oh, my God, the train!”

The locomotive arrived with a roar. The man 34 on the line tried to rise, but the sight of the approaching doom paralyzed him. Women shrieked and men stood rooted to the spot. No one saw the big form of Jim descend like a thunderbolt on the back of the terrified man. An instant later the engine passed over them. …

Underneath the moving mass Jim’s fourteen stone of human tissue was pressed close to the form beneath him. He was scarcely conscious of taking the leap. His brain had yelled one distinct order to his active limbs: “Keep him down flat!” He had obeyed that subconsciously. For a second or so it was pure oblivion, and then he realized what had happened. If there should not be enough clearance? … Any considerable projection would mean. …

But something happened which drove the specter of fear away. There came a sharp pain in his back. It grew to intense torture. A small, red-hot cinder from the engine was eating into his flesh. He wanted to raise his head, to put out his arm and remove this merciless thing. But Will prevailed. The pain grew less. The roar ceased. He realized that the train had stopped. 35 He could hear the excited murmur of voices. Everyone seemed to be talking at once.

“There’s another there—that big man. I tell you. …”

“Mary, come away. …”

“It went right over him. Oh, poor fellow! …”

“The big man was holding him down. They’re safe, I tell you.”

A quavering male voice—that of the guard—came down through the space between the platform and the footboard of the train.

“Hel-lo, down there!”

“Yank your darned train out. There’s a cinder half-way through my back,” growled Jim.

Shouts were heard and the train began to move. It seemed an eternity before the last coach passed over them. By that time the cinder had grown cold. Jim kneeled up and gasped. He caught the other man in his arms and climbed on to the platform. The crowd rushed forward to shake him by the hand. He could have kissed any woman there without asking, but it never occurred to him. His one idea was to get away 36 from this hand-shaking crowd. He made for the waiting-room, still carrying his man.

“For Gawd’s sake keep that crush out,” he begged of the station-master. The latter carried out this difficult task with ultimate success. When he came back the immaculate one had recovered his senses. He was still suffering from shock, but he found enough strength to wedge a monocle into his eye and to survey Jim, wonderingly.

“Great Scott—what a feat!” he exclaimed.

Jim was rubbing his injured back.

“My deah fellah, it was positively superhuman! You saved my life—what!”

“Oh, that’s all right.”

“Bai Jove, I should think so! It was positively and indubitably the most courageous thing I have ever seen or read of.”

His cultured lisping speech and his well-bred air interested Jim. Here was one of the upper ten thousand, the real flower of British aristocracy. Jim’s eyes traveled over him, noting the cut of his clothes and his general air of careless lassitude. It had taken ten generations to produce that finished article, and the man from 37 the “Wilds” wondered what was the real nature of the animal. Physically he was a degenerate. His hands were long and tapered, and his limbs were exceeding small. But he possessed grace of movement. Jim felt a sneaking admiration for the hundred-and-one little tricks of movement that characterized the Immaculate One. But was it only veneer? Were these polished externals without inward counterpart? In the meantime the Immaculate One had taken stock of his saviour. He found much to admire in this amazing giant, with swells of muscle outlined behind the cloth that covered it. No man of his set could have done what this man had done. Sensitiveness, Culture, seemed to negate spontaneity of action. Reason had usurped the throne of Will. Colorado Jim only reasoned in his immature fashion. He acted without reason, on the impulse of the moment. Impulse had its advantages. Had he stopped to reason, the Immaculate One would have soon been the object of a Coroner’s jury. Jim found the slim white hand extended towards him. He shook it.

“I should—ah—like to know to whom I am indebted?” 38

“Jim Conlan, but it don’t matter a cuss.”

“It matters a great deal—to me. I should like to give you my card.”

He produced a gold card-case and extracted a thin piece of paste-board. Jim scanned it: Alfred Cholmondeley, Huntingdon Club.

“I gather you are not the sort of fellah who loves a torrent of oral thanks,” drawled Cholmondeley; “but if at any time I can be of the slightest service to you, you have only to command me.”

It was then that an inspiration came to Jim. He scanned the card again.

“Say, you mean that?”

“Try me.”

“Wal, if you’d like to balance the account good and proper, git me into this yere club.”

Cholmondeley stared, and coughed.

“It’s—ah—it’s a deuced expensive club.”

Jim’s face relaxed.

“I guess I can stand the pace.”

Cholmondeley was at his wits’ end. Of all the impossible things on earth Jim had asked the most impossible. The Huntingdon was the doyen of London clubs; its titled members could 39 have filled a very large volume. And here was this primal man of the wilderness seeking admission!

“It don’t matter,” said Jim, with a curl of his lip.

Cholmondeley set his teeth.

“I’ll do it,” he said. “It’s going to be demned difficult, but it shall be done. What’s your address?”

“Hotel Cecil.”

“Count it as done.”

The great feat was ultimately achieved. Jim received notification to the effect that he was now a member on probation. By pre-arrangement with the Immaculate One he turned up one morning at the big building in Pall Mall. Cholmondeley, who met him in the vestibule, nearly had a fit when he saw him. He had tacitly thrown out a hint that the Huntingdon was correct in the matter of dress—and Jim turned up in his usual garb.

The wind was knocked clean out of Jim’s sails by the commissionaire’s greeting to Cholmondeley, “Morning, your Lordship.”

“What did that guy say?” he exclaimed. 40

“I forgot to tell you I’m a Viscount,” replied Cholmondeley.

“Gee, what’s that?”

“It’s a title conferred on one of my ancestors for something he did for his king. But it’s not of the least importance.”

Jim felt nervous. He wished he might have fallen through the earth before suggesting that he should become a member of a club of this sort. Cholmondeley was mildly amused. He had fought tooth and nail against the prejudices of some of the blue bloods, who had never heard of James Conlan in their lives and had looked him up in Burke in vain. Cholmondeley, half-way through his adventure, was beginning to enjoy it. He had come to like Jim immensely, though the latter’s speech at times wounded his tender susceptibilities.

“My deah fellah, we have a stormy—ah—passage to weather. If I may be allowed to tender a little advice, don’t talk too much—yet.”

Jim’s brows clouded.

“I get you. They won’t like my kind of chin-music?” 41

“They certainly will not. Let us now have a drink to celebrate this extraordinary occasion.”

They were sitting in the lounge when a boy came in with a telegram.

“Lord ‘Chum-ley’!” he yelled.

He eventually spotted Cholmondeley and gave him the telegram. Jim’s eyes opened wide.

“Say, that ain’t your name, is it?”

Cholmondeley nodded.

“Wal, if that don’t beat the band!”

A man that could make “Chumley” out of Cholmondeley was certainly a juggler with letters.

“Why in hell do you spell it that way?”

“Euphony, my deah chap—euphony!”

Who “Euphony” might have been Jim hadn’t the foggiest notion. He relapsed into a moody silence, wishing the club at the bottom of the sea and himself back at Medicine Bow, where men pronounced words in the way they were spelt—more or less.

Jim’s career in that club was anything but smooth. Under the wing of Cholmondeley he was saved from absolute ostracism. Two weeks of utter purgatory were lived through, but Cholmondeley 42 was staunch. Every day he turned up at the club and bade Jim, on peril of his life, do likewise.

“Stick it out, Conlan,” he argued. “They’re expecting you to run away and die with humiliation. When they discover you are not a—what was the word you used?—ah—quitter—they’ll begin to appreciate you.”

Jim hung on. Even when Cholmondeley was not present he used the club. His personality began to have effect, and he soon made two or three firm friends. One of these was the Honorable Claude Featherstone, a healthy, good-looking youth, without a trace of snobbishness or social pride in his composition. He had been the first to come to Jim with extended hand.

“You’re American, aren’t you?”

“Nope, I’m English all right, but America’s my country.”

Claude’s eyes traveled over Jim’s muscular figure.

“Ye gods! they breed ’em big where you come from. I don’t think I’ll try catch-as-catch-can with you. What do you think of this menagerie of ours? That fat man over there is the Duke of 43 Aberdale. If he comes and tells you a tale about having left his purse at home—beware!”

Claude’s acquaintanceship ripened into intimate friendship. It may have been pure hero-worship, but the fact remained that he thought Jim the finest specimen of manhood he had ever known. Jim, on the other hand, began to drop a few of his early prejudices. He came to realize that all men have something in common, and that accident of birth placed no insuperable bar between one and another. Once penetrate that icy reserve, and more often than not there was a stout heart behind it.

Jim began to get popular. It was rumored he was fabulously wealthy—a slight exaggeration—and this helped him through, for the money-worship fetish prevailed even among “noble lords.” Cholmondeley, who knew all the ropes in this intricate mesh of British social life, intimated that a peerage might be bought for £50,000. But Jim wasn’t “taking any of that dope.”

“It won’t make my blood any bluer, I guess,” he said.

In two months he had thoroughly established 44 himself—a plebeian had taken root in a forest of belted earls and lisping aristocrats. But it stopped at that. A retired “cowboy” was all very well in a club. If he chose to take up “gun-throwing” or garrotting, there was always a score or two of hefty servants to deal with him; but in a man’s home, with wives and daughters present, well——! So Jim’s meteoric social ascent went no farther than that. Even Cholmondeley, who was his eternal debtor, never took him to house parties. Jim had introspection enough to see the barrier.

It was towards the end of winter that Jim created a commotion which was nearly the cause of his being “blackballed.” But for the intervention of his considerable circle of admirers, who believed his action to be justified, and threatened to resign en bloc if the matter were not quashed, Jim would have shaken the dust of the Huntingdon from his feet.

It was in the afternoon, and a trio of men were seeking for a fourth to make up a card party. Seeing Jim lounging on a settee they invited him to join in. He rather reluctantly assented, for one of the players was Meredith, a man he disliked 45 intensely, which dislike was thoroughly reciprocated.

They played all the afternoon, and Meredith won steadily. He talked a lot about his abnormal luck, but one man present seemed to be constantly on the fidget. Jim had been weaned on cards in a place where gambling was the salt of life, and “tinhorns” were as plentiful as mosquitoes in summer. He kept his eyes on the slim, nimble hands of Meredith, and what he saw did not please him.

Meredith was in the middle of a deal when Jim suddenly flung his cards across the table and stood up.

“I’m through with this,” he growled.

The other players gasped, and Meredith’s brow contracted. By this time the room was full of members lounging and talking before dinner. The tone of Jim’s voice suggested that something was wrong.

“What’s the matter?” asked one of the players.

“I don’t like the deal.”

Meredith leaped from his chair.

“Do you dare insinuate. …” 46

“I don’t insinuate nothin’. I jest ain’t playin’ this hand.”

Claude came behind him.

“Careful, Jim,” he whispered. “You are making a very serious accusation.”

Meredith came across and stood within a foot of Jim’s taut face.

“Mr. Conlan,” he said, “I am waiting for an explanation.”

“Where I come from,” said Jim grimly, “men who slip cards that way are lynched on the nearest tree.”

A gasp came from the company. Never in the history of the club had anything like that happened.

“You liar!” snapped Meredith.

Jim’s hand came out. His fingers buried themselves in Meredith’s shoulder, till the pale face winced with pain. His great body tightened up and his eyes were like cold steel. No one had ever called him “liar” before. It aroused all the innate fury within him. The other hand was drawn back to strike—and then he remembered. He gave an almost pitiful 47 grunt and released his grip. Cholmondeley and a few others dragged him away.

“Conlan,” said Claude, “you oughtn’t to have said that. It isn’t done.”

“There’s no way out,” whispered Cholmondeley. “You’ll have to apologize.”

A dapper little man, a bosom friend of Meredith’s, hurried forward, bristling with indignation.

“You have grossly insulted a member of this club, sir. We demand an apology,” he said.

“Better apologize,” whispered Claude.

Jim was trying to be a “gentleman,” but the word “liar” from the lips of a card-sharp had pierced the thin veneer that a few months of sophisticated environment had brought about, and scratched into the coarser material beneath. Restraint went to the winds.

“Apologize!” he roared. “Apologize to a swindling tinhorn? I should smile!”