Читать книгу Val Sinestra - Martha Morton - Страница 8

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Mr. Garrison was working at his clay figures, thinking how much Floyd was growing like his mother; he had her sensitive, ideal nature. The boy’s love for Julie might be a great blessing; it might be the contrary.... He would like to live long enough to see that beautiful little girl a woman.

Floyd broke into the room, sobbing out what he had seen. Mr. Garrison quieted him, and told him the story of the Steele family, as he had it from his friend, Colonel Garland.

The old man in the garret was Martin’s grandfather, a Swiss peasant, who had come to America in the steerage, with his boy, a child of four. He obtained a position as waiter in a downtown cafe, and the boy grew up in the streets. In ten years the father was head waiter in a Fifth Avenue hotel, frequented by Wall Street men. He never spoke more than a waiter’s English. His boy came out of school with a correct knowledge of grammar, but was silent, uncouth, unfriendly. Waiting for his father one night, in the kitchen of the hotel, he noticed one of the dishwashers, a very young blonde girl, crying bitterly. He questioned her; she told him she was Swiss, like himself, that she had been in America a short time, and was very unhappy. He comforted her. When it became no longer possible to conceal her condition, he married her; this was a bitter blow to the old waiter, who had, in those twenty years of deprivation, saved one hundred thousand dollars, and wanted to make a gentleman out of his son. Fate favored him. The girl died giving birth to a boy. The doctors could not understand the case; she was a very strong, healthy peasant; but Martin in a burst of anguish insisted she had died of homesickness.

Mr. Garrison explained to Floyd the word “nostalgia,” originating with the Swiss, which meant their longing for their native soil when absent; the pain is intolerable, ending often in death. Floyd was very sorry for the poor peasant mother.

“Then what happened?”

“The old man started in the hotel supply business; he rented one of my shanties on the river front. The firm is still there. I used to see old Steele walking up and down before that sign on the door. ‘Martin Steele and Son.’ I could never make friends with young Steele; he was sullen, wordless, and seemed to be out of his element. Then they bought the house next door and lived there a solitary life. Your mother was sorry for lonely little Martin, and had him often in here to play with you. When Dolly Winthrop came from Boston to visit us, we saw she had her eye on the rich widower.”

“And she got him,” said Floyd.

“Yes, unfortunately for him.”

“And what happened then, father?”

“She dominated those poor men with her culture, shamed them with her pedigree, crushed them with her contempt. The old man fell into bad habits, drank to excess. His mind failed; people spoke of an illiterate grandfather in the house, but visitors never saw him.”...

After that episode in the garret, Mrs. Steele’s patience with the boy gave out. She insisted on sending him to a strict military school. He’d come home in the summertime when she was in Nantucket, and prowl about the city during the long evenings. In Twelfth Street, seemingly deserted, he’d run up and down stoops, pulling bells; then the “spring rollers” would fly up, and he’d count the genteel poor who were sweltering in New York; when he grew too old for such pranks, he would spend his evenings in the garret watching his father and grandfather playing a strange game of cards called “Tarac” and listening to their jargon. He learnt the game and the jargon, with great rapidity.

His father, who was always afraid of troubling his wife, died suddenly at his desk; then the old man’s mind bolted.

Mrs. Steele in a burst of confidence said one day to Mr. Garrison:

“It may be very wicked of me, but I pray to God not to let him live long.” Her prayer was answered; unrighteous prayers usually are. After that, Mrs. Steele closed the house and went to live in Boston; later she sent Martin to Harvard. Floyd wrote him several times, but his letters were not answered; it was many years before the two boys met again.