Read Ebook: Mr. Claghorn's Daughter by Trent Hilary

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Ebook has 478 lines and 27672 words, and 10 pages

One of the two, half dressed, with a good deal of tarnished lace decorating such clothing as she had on, sat on the bed in an easy attitude, careless as to the display of a handsome person. Dark, heavy-browed, her first youth past, her haggard face was redeemed by deep, soft eyes, that now, however, from beneath their long lashes, looked out upon the face of the other woman with suspicious wariness.

This one, overfed, coarse, vile to look upon, with the face of a painted gargoyle, red and mottled, garishly dressed in a loose gown, stood with arms akimbo, her little eyes bent wickedly upon the woman on the bed.

"Ten days' board," croaked the fat one. "Ten days."

"Ten weeks, for all I care," was the reply.

The fat creature wheezed and snorted; she half lifted her great red hand as if to administer a blow.

"Try it," said the other, "and I'll stick this into you," holding threateningly the blade of a pair of scissors.

The fat one recoiled; there was enough recklessness in the eyes of the woman with the scissors to justify the movement. "Now, now, Frenchy," she remonstrated, "you won't be a fool. Possy bate, eh?"

"You know," said the rubicund one, "this ain't white, Berthe. Whose fault is it if you've no money?"

"Ah!" exclaimed Berthe. "You think me of your kind. I'm a lady; I was a fool to come here."

"Sure, you're a lady; and for that very reason ought to make a mint of money. I'll tell you what's the matter with you, Berthe--you're a mule. I swear," she exclaimed, suddenly conscious of wrong, "my boarders is the bane of my life. Mules--but there, nobody'd believe what I've borne."

"I tell you, missy, girls don't talk that way to me!" exclaimed the red-gowned dame, perhaps suspecting unseemly profanity veiled in a foreign tongue.

"I don't want to talk any way to you. Get out," replied Berthe.

"And the board bill?"

"I've had nothing to eat for two days."

"And won't have as long as you're a mule. If you have no money by this time to-morrow, out you go, and without your trunk; so Frenchy," concluded the woman, changing her tone to persuasion, "be reasonable. You shall have dinner if you'll promise to go out afterward. Think it over," and she waddled off.

Berthe lay back upon the pillow, her long arms stretched above her head, and thought it over.

She had left Mrs. Leon long ago, and since then her steps had been downward. For awhile a nursery governess, which, being amply capable, she might have long remained had it not been for her eyes. She was not altogether conscious of the capacity of her eyes, and was long innocent of the knowledge of the strife and hatred they had wrought in the family in which she served. Maltreated by an infuriated mistress, she had avenged herself amply, living for months in luxury, and on the money and caresses legally belonging to the other. But she had never cared for her sinner, and he had been glad to creep back to that which he had dishonored, not forgiven, but accepted as a hard necessity. Her luxuries and her money were soon spent--as for the rest, it is a dark tale that she recalls, lying there majestic, with her long arms above her black head and her dark eyes brooding.

The present was a problem. The move to this house was toward a deeper degradation than any she had known, and she recoiled from its demands. She knew its probable end, too. She was shrewd, dominant if she chose to be; in short, no fool. She could rise to prosperity and become like the gargoyle, but the prospect sickened her. All the inmates of the house were to her abhorrent, but the gargoyle was a loathsome, soulless, pitiless beast, only not a fool. The others were fools, and she knew, feeling the sparks of humanity within her, that she must even be a fool rather than a beast. And the end of the fool was misery, from which there was but one escape.

She was hungry. It was true that, except as to some slices of bread, smuggled to her by soft-hearted ones, she had eaten nothing for two days. She had long ago pawned her articles of jewelry. Her clothes were in the clutch of the beast. She would have to apply to her for garments for the street. She must surrender.

So she asked for her clothes and her dinner. The beast was gracious, but chary as to giving too many garments. The truth was, the beast hoped her boarder would not return. She had the trunk--she was sick of the mule.

Berthe wandered toward the lower part of the city. Plainly dressed, her carriage dignified, she was not molested, nor did she cast her eyes upon any passer-by. She walked straight on, yet not rapidly, for there was no purpose in her walk. Useless to seek that man upon whose wife she had avenged herself; he had been hurried off to do penance in the country; even if he had returned, she knew nothing of his present abode.

Mrs. Leon was a dweller in hotels, and at this season, not in town. Besides, Mrs. Leon could not be ignorant of what had been accomplished by the nursery governess she had herself recommended.

She wished now, for in truth, as she walked on, terror of possible starvation began to haunt her, that she had carried out an often neglected impulse to write to a man she knew, and who she believed could help her. She would have done so before this, but the man's wife was a friend of Mrs. Leon. This recollection had prevented her addressing him. Yet she knew he would have helped her. He was young, he was kind. Ah! he was adorable.

So she walked on, thinking of that adorable man, forgetting her fear of starvation. He had kissed her, or rather, and she smiled as she corrected herself, she had kissed him. He had been helpless. The innocent!

Suddenly the woman stopped, as if struck. Then she started, walking quickly, and entered a brilliantly lighted resort.

Leonard had passed a sleepless night in the train. In New York he went to a hotel which he had never before frequented. He desired to be alone. He had left home to think, not to seek acquaintance or distraction.

And he thought, walking the streets of the great city until he was footsore, and the more he thought, the less capable was he of reasoning, the more weary he grew of thought; finally, striding onward in a dream of incoherent fancies, that were not thoughts, but impotent efforts of a tired brain. All day long there swayed before his eyes visions inspired by objects seen but not noted and most incongruous. The passing glance upon a billboard, gay with motley figures, gave birth to a picture of living damsels, languishing in postures of inviting loveliness. He saw no stony streets, no squalid scenes, but wandered in a Moslem heaven in whose crystal streams Naiads bathed fair round limbs or sported in wanton frolic in silvery cascades, anon decking with lilies the roseate beauties of their queen. He took no heed of time or place, pacing street after street, along the wharves, seeing neither ship nor dray; in the Hebrew crowd of the East Side, noting nothing of the soft-eyed men with dirty beards, nor the women wearing wigs of jute, nor the children dancing in the streets to hand-organs, nor any of the sights of that crowded foreign city, full of strange interest. Of the things before his eyes he saw nothing; nor could he, being entranced by raptures which had tried the souls of saints a thousand years ago!

At ten o'clock at night, having eaten nothing since an early and neglected breakfast, he stood in the street, conscious that he must eat or faint. He entered a brilliantly lighted room where there were tables, but which was nearly empty.

Back of the room he saw another filled with people, decked with palms and artificial grottoes. He entered and sat down at the first unoccupied table.

"Bring me a sandwich," he said to the waiter, "and a drink."

The sandwich was brought and the drink. The latter Leonard supposed was wine. He remembered that he had scruples against wine-drinking; had, in fact, never tasted wine. He was too tired to care much for scruples, and besides, he was faint, and even his scruples permitted wine in case of illness. He swallowed the liquor, which was whiskey, at one gulp, and commenced to eat ravenously.

He ordered another sandwich and another drink, which was brought, this time with a carafe of water in addition. He drank greedily of the water, reserving his liquor, and, as ravenously as before, consumed his second sandwich.

Then he looked about him with more interest in his surroundings than he had known during all that day. He felt comfortable, happy in fact. He stretched out his legs and sipped his liquor, this time noting the strength of the beverage, which made him cough and brought the tears to his eyes, causing a woman to smile slyly. He smiled in return, then looked quickly away, abashed at his own temerity in thus answering the involuntary expression of a strange lady. This, as he looked about him, he thought must be one of those German beer-gardens he had heard about, but in this country had never seen. Evidently the people did not bring their children. That was well. Beer-drinking was a bad example for children. The women looked tired, he thought, though some were very rosy, remarkably so, and all were tawdry. The men were not a nice-looking set, though there were exceptions. Many were not much more than boys, and these affected brilliant, if somewhat dirty, neckwear. There were things about this place that offended him; principally, the tone of the men. They lolled a good deal and smoked in the women's faces; that was German, he supposed. The women, of whom a number were alone, were better behaved. He noticed a waiter order one to leave the place; that was singular, especially as she had slunk in very quietly and had seemed very humble. Suddenly the great orchestrion commenced to squeal and bang and clash, and soon the heads of the people were strangely bobbing, keeping time; now the strains grew soft and plaintive; a profound sadness crept over him as he listened to what seemed the requiem of a dying soul. He felt the tears rising in his eyes.

For a long time he had been eagerly watched by a woman. Berthe could not be sure if this were indeed the man she knew. What could he be doing here? Half hidden behind a curtain which draped a huge column, she watched the heaving breast of the man. Suddenly, she saw his head fall forward, smashing a tumbler, and a cry of agony broke from him. "Natalie, Natalie!"

It might have been the last despairing wail of the soul doomed thenceforward to darkness, whose requiem he had heard. To the obscene observers and the superintendent of the place it was the cry of a drunken man, who had no business there.

There was no hubbub. The habitu?s of the place comprehended that nothing of that sort was allowed. The man was quickly hustled into the front room by the manager.

"Get his hat," said this personage to a waiter. "Has he paid his bill?" he questioned as the man brought the hat.

"Yes, except the broken glass."

"Damn the glass!" replied the manager, who desired to get rid of the drunkard. "Come, young fellow, steady on your pins now and be off."

A woman slipped her arm under Leonard's. "I will take care of him," she said.

The manager looked at the pair as they made their way toward the street. "Do you know her?" he asked of an employee who had witnessed the departure.

"She's not a regular, sure."

"Nor he. Well, it's not our affair," and the manager returned to his duties.

The two wandered off, the man's unsteady steps supported tenderly by the woman. When the sun rose, his head rested on her bosom and her lips hovered lovingly above his own, and the hum of the waking city, borne to his ears, may, to him, have been the distant harmony of a paean of victory hymned in hell.

A DELECTABLE DISCUSSION, IN WHICH A SHAKSPERIAN MATRON IS ROUTED.

Natalie Claghorn had always nourished a sentiment, which with many is a conviction, with most a hope, that man is something more than the futile hero of a sorry comedy--not made to live merely that he may die. Hence, religion had been a need of her being, and, though unconsciously, she had developed a creed of her own, vague, no doubt, from the positive standpoint, but one which excluded those essential elements of the faith of her husband, Hell and the Devil; grim inventions these which, while imbibing wisdom at the paternal knee, she had learned were mere memories of ancient Oriental mythologies. This view, in so far as she had given the matter any thought, she had supposed the view commonly held, and universally held among the cultured. Recently, indeed, there had been a moment in which even with her bodily eyes she had, as she had then believed, beheld the terrors and the torments of the damned; but as many men and women, who believe not in ghosts, have nevertheless seen these dwellers of the shades, and yet in less receptive phases of the mind have been able to dismiss their visitants to the shadows from which they were evoked, so Natalie had been able to discard belief in the reality of her vision. Nevertheless, though incredulous, he who has seen a ghost remains impressed, and the memory of her experience naturally recurred with her theological studies, serving to emphasize the horrible, rather than the absurd, aspect of her acquirements.

Her desire to know had been honest, and she imputed honesty to others; hence, when Leonard, with pen and voice, asseverated his belief in a creed which must render paternity impossible to any being with a conscience, she had been confounded by the attitude he presented. She was not aware that between her husband and herself the sources of sympathy had always been shallow, and she was quite as ignorant of theological frenzy as she was of the knowledge of masculine passion. She had loved him; and she had loved Mrs. Joe, Paula, the Marquise, her maid Berthe; in fact, she had loved, and still loved, humanity, as far as she knew it, and it was thus that she had loved her husband, though, doubtless, in his case, this gentle flame had burned with more intensity than in others.

Though grieved that Leonard had left her without saying good-bye, yet she felt that he had acted wisely, in that he had given her time to think without the disturbing sense of his presence in his repellant mood. And during this period an incident occurred which aided her in finding the only solution of the problems which vexed her.

It was not to be expected of the Hampton matrons that they continue their tolerant attitude, with regard to Mrs. Leonard Claghorn. Her continued languid health after the birth of her child, the subsequent bereavement and absence, these had afforded an excuse for neglect; but now there was solicitude, and in a certain circle of dames, which met every fortnight to discuss Shakspere, but whereat other subjects, as possessing more of novelty, were occasionally considered, some rather severe strictures were made, in reference to Professor Claghorn's apparent inability to convert his wife--he who had so audaciously, if not successfully, coped with Brigston.

"Brilliancy is less effective than earnestness," opined Mrs. Waring, wife of Professor Waring, whose forte was Hebrew, and who was noted for great erudition, a large family and a feeble intellect.

"In the long run, no doubt," assented Mrs. Professor Flint. "But surely, she is not really unconverted!"

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