Читать книгу The Luck of the Irish - Harold MacGrath - Страница 9

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WILLIAM was never able to explain with any lucidity why he leaped so abruptly to such a conclusion. He just knew, that was all. He had seen those feet go past his cellar window too many times to have the slightest doubt of their identity.

He had not seen her face, the railing having cut across that and obscured it. But there was no reason on earth why he shouldn't see the face now, after waiting for three years. So he sprang up the ladder, thrilling in every pulse. There she was, leaning against the port rail, staring westward at the pearly smudge hanging over the receding city. William had never heard of Medusa, nor the shield of Perseus. He was, nevertheless, turned into stone for two consecutive minutes. There is nothing gentle or gradual about disillusion; it is a blow, swift and hurtful. William stood up under it passably well, however.

Yonder was his school-teacher, without doubt; but she was also the young woman he had sat beside at the movie and whom he had mentally tangled up with runaway wives and all that. Finding his dream slipping from him, he made frantic efforts to catch hold and retain some of it. He simply could not let it go all at once. For ​three years he had endued yonder girl with the attributes which would belong, did such beings exist, to a demi-angel; and thus it was not humanly possible to let so fine a thing go to smash without making a fight for it.

So he began to mobilize excuses. If she was a runaway wife, then the husband was a brute; if there was a Handsome-Is in the woodpile, then he had been too clever for her; and so on and so forth. He reached around blindly for other straws. She might be the daughter of a rich man, running away to avoid marrying the father's favored suitor. This idea pleased him mightily; it restored his belief in his ability to judge humans, gave him a foothold on earth again.

Without his appreciating the fact, William had fallen in love with a shadow; and the unexpected appearance of the substance had thrown him off his balance.

He was perhaps more than normally romantic; probably by this time you have guessed it. Yet, on the other side of the scales, there was good ballast in every-day common sense. But there was in him a something latent, stronger by far than romance or common sense; we call it superstition. Trust the Irishman to have this kink in his cosmos. In William it had been a negligible quantity for a long time, but it cracked its shell at this moment and fluttered forth. This wasn't any ordinary accident, he reasoned; something was meant by it. For three long years he had dreamed about this girl, and there she was, half a ​dozen strides away. So William's superstition cried out that the Lord had put her there not without some definite purpose concerning one William Grogan. How the Lord intended him to act he could not surmise, but he was determined to hang around on the job until the call came.

For the first time in his life he recognized a real barrier. Here was a mixed-up family, bound together by a curious set of ties for six months. In a week or so, he cynically argued, everybody would know everybody else, family histories and so forth. And yet he hadn't the nerve to go over and speak to the girl. Why? Was it something in the fine profile, something in its expression that spoke of secret sorrow? He could not analyze what it was, but he knew, then and there, that he would never be able to speak to her with the free-dom he had previously used toward typewriter-girls, shop-girls, girls in the lunch-rooms, and the girl in the manicure-shop.

He turned on his heels, fuming at both his lack of courage and this invisible barrier. He hated red hair and freckles. He looked at his hands. Well, they weren't so bad, even if they were as large as hams. The size of his feet had always troubled him; but the Lord knew they had to be big to carry around his weight. The inventory was highly unsatisfactory.

For more than an hour he wandered about the decks. He was like a friendly outcast dog, striving to catch some one's eye and invariably failing. He was all alone. Most of the tourists ​were gathered in groups, chattering and gabbling over red-covered volumes which later he found to be the works of an eminent author by the name of Baedeker. Once upon a time, urged by Mrs. Burns, wife of his partner, William had been inveigled into a revival meeting. These tourists looked like a revival meeting turned loose.

He sat down in a steamer chair, and he had no more than stretched out his legs comfortably when he was politely requested to vacate.

"My chair, if you please."

"Oh!" William got up and tried another, with the same result. "Say, where do you get these bedsteads?" he asked, with strained affability.

"The deck steward will rent you one, sir," he was crisply informed.

Once more William began his wanderings. He was little brother to Ishmael. Suddenly he laughed. They were all trying to bluff one another that they were old travelers or the most important people from their home towns. All pure bunk. Wait until the old blue lady began to heave; a lot of home-made halos would go back into the steamer trunks.

After innocently insulting the first and second officers, the chief steward, and the purser, William finally located the deck steward and demanded a chair. It was given to him abaft the deck-houses amid a forest of ventilators and at the side of a huge coil of tarry-smelling rope.

"Say, haven't you got anything down nearer ​the orchestra? I might as well be in the middle of Iowa."

"Sorry, sir; but all the other places were spoken for weeks ago."

William sat down and counted the ventilators, booms, guy-ropes, and ladders. He was learning. He had until this black hour believed that the chairs went along with the ticket. All right; if the cinders didn't bury him before they reached Naples, he'd find another spot. Beyond the coil of rope was another chair upon which lay a rug, a pillow, and some novels. Some one was going to share the desert with him. He stretched out his legs, assured that this time he would not be molested. Well, here he was, William Grogan, sailing toward his great dream—elephants and camels and cocoanuts by hand. Would there be any great adventures, the kind he had read about? Would they be shipwrecked and cast upon a desert island, with a tool-chest, a box of cigars, and a compass? Not in a million years. He would see the sights, spend a little money, and go home. There wouldn't be any boob to rescue from cruel gamblers; not on a trip like this. Besides, that was one of his rules, never to interfere with a guy who wanted to part with his money. And there wouldn't be any rescuing his school-teacher, either; no such luck.

For a while he watched the stern—what he could see of it—go up suddenly, hang for a space in midair, then drop like a plummet. By and by he dozed. He had gone blue-fishing several times ​during rough weather, and his diaphragm had suffered no undue activities therefrom. In fact, he was one of those fortunate individuals who are born good sailors.

He was awakened by the westering sun getting between some of the ventilators and striking full into his eyes. He sat up and blinked, looked at his watch—it was five—and glanced at the other chair. It was occupied. Moreover, it was occupied by no less a person than his school-teacher. He was now doubly sure that the mysterious hand of fate was in all this. What more convincing sign did he need?

A moment later the sun awoke her also.

"Pretty rocky seats," ventured William. "Wouldn't you like me to hunt up a better place?"

"No, thanks; this was my choice." She picked up a book and began to turn the pages suggestively.

But he was altogether too lonely to accept the subtle snub. "This is all new stuff to me. Never was a hundred miles out of New York before. But I'm a regular simp; no blankets, no books, no nothing. I wasn't hep to the fact that you had to have these things. I thought all you had to do was to turn the crank and start her. I don't even know how to get into the dining-room. One thing, though: they've bunked me with a couple of ancient mariners, and some morning I'll be accused of hiding the cork leg."

She smiled absently, and riffled the pages of the book. She could not very well tell him outright that she did not care to talk.

​"Say, I'm not bothering you, am I?" he asked, with genuine apprehension.

"Indeed, no."

She closed the book resignedly and looked straight into William's face. Naturally the point of focus was his eye. And she liked the pair of them instantly. The whites were as blue-white as skimmed milk; and she could not recollect seeing anything bluer than the iris. There was something at once rugged and comical in his features—the pug-nose, the freckles, the shock of red hair, and the outstanding ears. Immediately after this inventory she realized that the ensemble was vaguely familiar.

"Have I ever met you before?"

"Not in the hand-shaking sense. But I spoke to you one night at the movie just out of Washington Square. They were running an Egyptian play; camels coming down the desert, and all that Los Angeles stuff."

"Oh yes; I remember." And she truly did. This was the young man who wanted to see the Orient. And here he was, on the way. She was now genuinely interested. This ship was truly a barge of dreams.

"And, say," went on William, now that the ice was broken, "you're a school-teacher around the corner from—"

"School-teacher?" she interrupted. She sat up, her eyes wide; and there was a vague terror in them. William saw it, and a bit of the disillusion returned to sting him. "How did you know ​that?" She had phrased and spoken the question before she realized that it was a tacit admission.

"Oh, I guessed it," he acknowledged. "You see, it's like this. Every morning and afternoon you go by Burns, Dolan & Co.'s plumbing-shop, where I work. I'm in the cellar, mostly."

"In the cellar?" she repeated, dazedly.

"Ye-ah. And as you never came by Saturdays I took it that you were a teacher around the corner. I never saw anything but your feet—"

"My feet?" She was growing more and more bewildered. Was the man insane?

"Maybe I'm bulling the story. Anyhow, it was like this." He gained confidence as he went along. The terror in her eyes died away and vanished completely as he described his impersonal observations from the cellar window; and when he reached the climax—her passing from starboard to port while he stood in the waist—she lay back and laughed, first softly, then with full rollick. William laughed, too. "Funny kind of a game for a gink like me to play—huh?"

"I never heard anything like it! You are a real Sherlock Holmes!" Her attitude was no longer aloof. She was ready to hear anything this unusual young man had to say.

"Say, that guy Doyle can put 'em across the plate, can't he? I read him twice a year, along with Kipling."

"You enjoy reading?"

"Sure. Maybe I read too much. I don't know how to sift 'em. I read Dumas a good deal, ​Jules Verne, Dickens, Hugo, James Whitcomb Riley, Mark Twain, and Nick Carter." There was a sly twinkle in his eye.

"I don't quite recollect Mr. Carter."

"Aw, you haven't been a school-teacher without running up against good old Nick in between geographies."

"But I haven't admitted that I'm a school-teacher."

"Well, aren't you?"

He was a direct young man. "I see that there is no escape. Yes, I've met Mr. Carter, but I've never gone further than to stuff him into the paper-chutes."

"Poor old Nick! There's another guy I like—O. Henry."

"And why do you like him?" she asked, curious to learn why O. Henry interested this young man who worked in the cellar of a plumber's shop. The whole affair was so rich in novelty—to have watched her feet flit past his window for three years!

"Well," said the happy William, "he never tells me anything I don't already know. You see, I know his people—friends of mine, next-door neighbors, and all that."

She nodded. "Did you ever read a book called The Life of Benvenuto Cellini?"

"Nope."

"It is an autobiography."

"Nothing doing. When I read I want action."

"But this is like The Three Musketeers, only it's real. It's the most exciting book you ever read."

​"Me for the wop."

"The what?"

"The dago."

"Oh. Where in the world do you men pick up such wonderful English?"

"Now you're guying me. Well, maybe I am a rough-neck," said William, dolefully. "But I've taught myself what I know, mostly. I went to school until I was nine, and then I had to hump myself. Went to night-school for a term; but that's the finish. And here I am, taking the grand hike around this little old walnut." There wasn't any barrier here that he could see; she was just what he always imagined she would be.

Her interest in this odd specimen of humanity grew. All goes well with a young man who aims to better himself, to improve his mind and condition. She could see in fancy the scrimping and hoarding to make this trip possible. Had not she herself fought for her pennies? Her ticket and express-checks represented the savings of years. In one mad moment she had taken the plunge, closing her eyes to the inevitable rainy days of the future. When she returned she would have to begin life all over again. Well, so be it. At least one dream should come true.

"If you like, I'll get the Cellini book for you," she said, impulsively. She did not know his name, but that did not matter. She knew that his eyes were of the right sort.

She swung off the chair, a lithe, graceful young woman, something more than pretty, something ​indescribably different from any woman William had met before; and yet he knew that she was a school-teacher, that she worked for her bread and butter the same as he did. This fact leveled the barriers, effaced any social dead-lines so far as he was concerned.

The mills of the romantic gods began to grind again. There was no doubt in his mind that she had come from a fine race of people, and they had willed the "come-down" to her. He didn't mean the Sunday-newspaper kind, money and all that. It was what these writers of books called breeding, something which did not arrive in one generation, but which had to go through the refining process of many generations. He was quite certain that he did not possess it, nor had his father, nor his father's father. Honest, hard-working, self-respecting people; they hadn't been any more than that.

He ran his newly manicured ringers through his fiery, wiry hair. He was determined to watch her closely. If breeding could be acquired, well, he was going to acquire it. None of your toplofty stuff, but as near the real article as he could reasonably expect to approach. He knew most of the rules, to be sure; but he lacked manner when it came to interpreting them. That's what he wanted—manner. It wasn't just guiding old ladies over muddy crossings; it was the way you accomplished it. The point in William's favor was that he knew what he lacked.

His school-teacher here on board! He had actually talked to her, and she had smiled and ​laughed and gone to get him a book; all in half an hour. Nothing had ever happened in books quite like this. The shipwreck and desert island weren't so far away as might be.

"And a homely mug like me!"

Romance and magic carpets! William was now absolutely certain that she was the rich man's daughter flying the mesh of the unfavored suitor. She was no runaway wife; that idea was totally wrong. He mapped it all out. She had run away and gone bravely to work rather than marry the man who was not her choice. No doubt there was a Handsome-Is somewhere in the background, but she had evidently slipped through his fingers. She couldn't laugh like that if she hadn't. Oh, he knew all about it. Good-looking young women, fighting their own way, seldom escaped that sordid adventure. Somewhere along the route they poked their pretty fingers into the web of the spider just to see him wriggle, and some of them got caught.

A rich man's daughter, running away because she loved her independence; a very agreeable fabric as William wove it on the loom of his fancy. Glory to the day he had stepped into Cook's!

A shadow fell athwart the deck, causing him to turn. The shadow belonged to the deck steward. The dapper little man in uniform scribbled on a card, which he slipped into the metal slide at the top of William's chair. On that card was written, "Mr. Grogan." William handed a silver dollar to the steward.

​"Say, how do you get into the diner?"

"The chief steward will take care of you, sir. If you want any special place, you'd better apply at once, sir. Thank you." The steward nodded briefly as he turned away.

William had an idea. He rose and went over to the school-teacher's chair. "Miss Jones"; it wasn't at all romantic. But it might be assumed. Anyhow, it did not matter. He turned to his chair.

She came back.

"Say, I forgot to tell you that my name is Grogan."

"And mine is Jones." There was not the slightest hesitance in her reply.

"William Grogan, generally Bill."

"I certainly am not going to call you that." She laughed. This was nothing but a big, lonesome boy. So she accepted his advances for exactly what they were. "Here's the book. I know you'll enjoy it. It will make Florence and Rome doubly interesting to you."

"If it's got action, that's all I want. It's mighty kind of you. I'd probably jump overboard if I didn't have something to read."

"There is plenty to read in the ship's library."

"A library on board? Well, that's luck. Say, have you seen the steward about your seat in the dining-room?"

"I don't care where I sit."

"Would you mind if I saw to it?"

"Indeed no." She might better sit next to him ​than next to some one who might be wholly prosaic and uninteresting. He would at least afford her a little amusement.

He gave a quick nod of his head—well shaped under its thatch—and strode away to interview the chief steward. He looked like a very strong young man, good-humored until aroused, and then she imagined rather a difficult customer. She had handled his prototype in boyhood; wild little animals, always ready to play or fight, impervious to anything but kindness. The Irish—how well she knew them, hot-headed, passionate in their hates and loves, with an exaggerated sense of loyalty, sensitive in the extreme, generous to a fault, and always blue-eyed. Perhaps she should have snubbed him for a day or so; but she, too, had been lonely. Had she not begun this long voyage for the very dread of loneliness? Had she not suddenly and desperately craved for strange scenes, multitudes?

At dinner that night he was at her right, at one of the beam tables on the port side. She noticed that he made no mistakes, that his table manners were good. On the other side of her was another young man, somewhere in the thirties. He was as far removed from the Grogan type as the moon is from Mars. Immaculately dressed, suave, polished, good-looking, he managed to divert her attention frequently.

William was dressed in his every-day clothes, and he scowled as his roving eye caught the flash of white shirt-bosoms here and there among the ​male passengers. Fully half the men were wearing evening dress. William was thoroughly fortified in this particular, but he hadn't expected to be called upon to wear this new regalia except upon state occasions, such as at balls, the meeting of dukes and rajahs. Well, to-morrow night he would not be caught napping. Besides, what did he care? His school-teacher was wearing the same clothes she had come aboard with, and she "laid 'em all cold on looks."

He recognized the man on the other side of her. It was the "fresh guy" who had bumped into him so rudely coming up the gang-plank.

"I'll get his number to-morrow," he thought; "and I'll eat my hat if it isn't 'shine'! I wonder how he got that seat?"

After dinner the school-teacher disappeared. So William, very well satisfied with himself and the world at large, strolled into the smoke-room with the copy of Cellini. He lighted a brier pipe and soon became absorbed in the adventures of the amazing Florentine.

At half after ten a man entered the wireless-room and despatched a Marconigram to New York. This message, all very innocent on the face of it, started the whirligig upon which a certain Irishman was to spin out various lengths of his mortal thread. Fate is a cynical gamester; for the man who sent that message and the man who received it didn't know William Grogan from Adam!