Romance Island, Page 2

  CHAPTER II

  A SCRAP OF PAPER

  To be awakened by Rollo, to be served in bed with an appetizingbreakfast and to catch a hansom to the nearest elevated station werenovel preparations for work in the _Sentinel_ office. Theimpossibility of it all delighted St. George rather more than thereality, for there is no pastime, as all the world knows, quite likethat of practising the impossible. The days when, "like a manunfree," he had fared forth from his unlovely lodgings clandestinelyto partake of an evil omelette, seemed enchantingly far away. Itwas, St. George reflected, the experience of having been releasedfrom prison, minus the disgrace.

  Yet when he opened the door of the city room the odour of theprinters' ink somehow fused his elation in his liberty with theelation of the return. This was like wearing fetters for bracelets.When he had been obliged to breathe this air he had scoffed at itsfascination, but now he understood. "A newspaper office," so arevered American of letters who had begun his life there had onceimparted to St. George, "is a place where a man with thetemperament of a savant and a recluse may bring his American vice ofcommercialism and worship of the uncommon, and let them have it out.Newspapers have no other use--except the one I began on." When St.George entered the city room, Crass, of the goblin's blood cravats,had vacated his old place, and Provin was just uncovering histypewriter and banging the tin cover upon everything within reach,and Bennietod was writhing over a rewrite, and Chillingworth wasdischarging an office boy in a fashion that warmed St. George'sheart.

  But Chillingworth, the city editor, was an italicized form ofChillingworth, the guest. He waved both arms at the foreman whoventured to tell him of a head that had one letter too many, and hefrowned a greeting at St. George.

  "Get right out on the Boris story," he said. "I depend on you. Thechief is interested in this too--telephoned to know whom I had onit."

  St. George knew perfectly that "the chief" was playing golf at Lenoxand no doubt had read no more than the head-lines of the Hollandstory, for he was a close friend of the bishop's, and St. Georgeknew his ways; but Chillingworth's methods always told, and St.George turned away with all the old glow of his first assignment.

  St. George, calling up the Bitley Reformatory, knew that the Chancesand the Fates were all allied against his seeing the mulatto woman;but he had learned that it is the one unexpected Fate and the oneapostate Chance who open great good luck of any sort. So, though thejourney to Westchester County was almost certain to result inrefusal, he meant to be confronted by that certainty before heassumed it. To the warden on the wire St. George put his inquiry.

  "What are your visitors' days up there, Mr. Jeffrey?"

  "Thursdays," came the reply, and the warden's voice suggestedhandcuffs by way of hospitality.

  "This is St. George of the _Sentinel_. I want very much to see oneof your people--a mulatto woman. Can you fix it for me?"

  "Certainly not," returned the warden promptly. "The _Sentinel_ knowsperfectly that newspaper men can not be admitted here."

  "Ah, well now, of course," St. George conceded, "but if you have amysterious boarder who talks Patagonian or something, and we thinkthat perhaps we can talk with her, why then--"

  "It doesn't matter whether you can talk every language in SouthAmerica," said the warden bruskly. "I'm very busy now, and--"

  "See here, Mr. Jeffrey," said St. George, "is no one allowed therebut relatives of the guests?"

  "Nobody,"--crisply.

  "I beg your pardon, that is literal?"

  "Relatives, with a permit," divulged the warden, who, if he had hada sceptre would have used it at table, he was so fond of his littlepower, "and the Readers' Guild."

  "Ah--the Readers' Guild," said St. George. "What days, Mr. Jeffrey?"

  "To-day and Saturdays, ten o'clock. I'm sorry, Mr. St. George, butI'm a very busy man and now--"

  "Good-by," St. George cried triumphantly.

  In half an hour he was at the Grand Central station, boarding atrain for the Reformatory town. It was a little after ten o'clockwhen he rang the bell at the house presided over by Chillingworth's"rabble of wild eagles."

  The Reformatory, a boastful, brick building set in grounds thatseemed freshly starched and ironed, had a discoloured door thatwould have frowned and threatened of its own accord, even withoutthe printed warnings pasted to its panels stating that noapplication for admission, with or without permits, would behonoured upon any day save Thursday. This was Tuesday.

  Presently, the chains having fallen within after a feudal rattling,an old man who looked born to the business of snapping up adrawbridge in lieu of a taste for any other exclusiveness peered atSt. George through absurd smoked glasses, cracked quite across sothat his eyes resembled buckles.

  "Good morning," said St. George; "has the Readers' Guild arrivedyet?"

  The old man grated out an assent and swung open the door, whichcreaked in the pitch of his voice. The bare hall was cut by a wallof steel bars whose gate was padlocked, and outside this wall thedoor to the warden's office stood open. St. George saw that ameeting was in progress there, and the sight disturbed him. Then theclick of a key caught his attention, and he turned to find the oldman quietly and surprisingly swinging open the door of steel bars.

  "This way, sir," he said hoarsely, fixing St. George with his buckleeyes, and shambled through the door after him locking it behindthem.

  If St. George had found awaiting him a gold throne encircled bykneeling elephants he could have been no more amazed. Not a word hadbeen said about the purpose of his visit, and not a word to thewarden; there was simply this miraculous opening of the barred door.St. George breathlessly footed across the rotunda and down the dimopposite hall. There was a mistake, that was evident; but for themoment St. George was going to propose no reform. Their steps echoedin the empty corridor that extended the entire length of the greatbuilding in an odour of unspeakable soap and superior disinfectants;and it was not until they reached a stair at the far end that theold man halted.

  "Top o' the steps," he hoarsely volunteered, blinking his littlebuckle eyes, "first door to the left. My back's bad. I won't go up."

  St. George, inhumanely blessing the circumstance, slipped somethingin the old man's hand and sprang up the stairs.

  The first door at the left stood ajar. St. George looked in and sawa circle of bonnets and white curls clouded around the edge of theroom, like witnesses. The Readers' Guild was about leaving; almostin the same instant, with that soft lift and touch which makes awoman's gown seem sewed with vowels and sibilants, they all aroseand came tapping across the bare floor. At their head marched awoman with such a bright bonnet, and such a tinkle of ornaments onher gown that at first sight she quite looked like a lamp. It wasshe whom St. George approached.

  "I beg your pardon, madame," he said, "is this the Readers' Guild?"

  There was nothing in St. George's grave face and deferentialstooping of shoulders to betray how his heart was beating or what abound it gave at her amazing reply.

  "Ah," she said, "how do you do?"--and her manner had that violentabsent-mindedness which almost always proves that its possessor hastrained a large family of children--"I am so glad that you can bewith us to-day. I am Mrs. Manners--forgive me," she besought withperfectly self-possessed distractedness, "I'm afraid that I'veforgotten your name."

  "My name is St. George," he answered as well as he could for virtualspeechlessness.

  The other members of the Guild were issuing from the room, and Mrs.Manners turned. She had a fashion of smiling enchantingly, as if tocompensate her total lack of attention.

  "Ladies," she said, "this is Mr. St. George, at last."

  Then she went through their names to him, and St. George bowed andcaught at the flying end of the name of the woman nearest him, andmuttered to them all. The one nearest was a Miss Bella Bliss Utter,a little brown nut of a woman with bead eyes.

  "Ah, Mr. St. George," said Miss Utter rapidly, "it has been awonderful meeting. I wish you might have been with us. Fortunately
for us you are just in time for our third floor council."

  It had been said of St. George that when he was writing on space andwas in need, buildings fell down before him to give him two columnson the first page; but any architectural manoeuvre could not haveamazed him as did this. And too, though there had been occasionswhen silence or an evasion would have meant bread to him, thetemptation to both was never so strong as at that moment. It costSt. George an effort, which he was afterward glad to remember havingmade, to turn to Mrs. Manners, who had that air of appointingcommittees and announcing the programme by which we always recognizea leader, and try to explain.

  "I am afraid," St. George said as they reached the stairs, "that youhave mistaken me, Mrs. Manners. I am not--"

  "Pray, pray do not mention it," cried Mrs. Manners, shaking herlittle lamp-shade of a hat at him, "we make every allowance, and Iam sure that none will be necessary."

  "But I am with the _Evening Sentinel_," St. George persisted, "I amafraid that--"

  "As if one's profession made any difference!" cried Mrs. Mannerswarmly. "No, indeed, I perfectly understand. We all understand," sheassured him, going over some papers in one hand and preparing tomount the stairs. "Indeed, we appreciate it," she murmured, "do wenot, Miss Utter?"

  The little brown nut seemed to crack in a capacious smile.

  "Indeed, indeed!" she said fervently, accenting her emphasis bybriefly-closed eyes.

  "Hymn books. Now, have we hymn books enough?" plaintively broke inMrs. Manners. "I declare, those new hymn books don't seem to havethe spirit of the old ones, no matter what _any one_ says," sheinformed St. George earnestly as they reached an open door. In thenext moment he stood aside and the Readers' Guild filed past him. Hefollowed them. This was pleasantly like magic.

  They entered a large chamber carpeted and walled in the garishflowers which many boards of directors suppose will joy thecheerless breast. There were present a dozen women inmates,--sullen,weary-looking beings who seemed to have made abject resignationtheir latest vice. They turned their lustreless eyes upon thevisitors, and a portly woman in a red waist with a little Americanflag in a buttonhole issued to them a nasal command to rise. Theygot to their feet with a starched noise, like dead leaves blowing,and St. George eagerly scanned their faces. There were women ofseveral nationalities, though they all looked raceless in the uglyuniforms which those same boards of directors consider _de rigueur_for the soul that is to be won back to the normal. A little negress,with a spirit that soared free of boards of directors, had tried totie her closely-clipped wool with bits of coloured string; anItalian woman had a geranium over her ear; and at the end of thelast row of chairs, towering above the others, was a creature of akind of challenging, unforgetable beauty whom, with a thrill ofcertainty, St. George realized to be her whom he had come to see.So strong was his conviction that, as he afterward recalled, he evenasked no question concerning her. She looked as manifestly not oneof the canaille of incorrigibles as, in her place, Lucrezia Borgiawould have looked.

  The woman was powerfully built with astonishing breadth of shoulderand length of limb, but perfectly proportioned. She was young,hardly more than twenty, St. George fancied, and of the peculiarlitheness which needs no motion to be manifest. Her clear skin wasof wonderful brown; and her eyes, large and dark, with something ofthe oriental watchfulness, were like opaque gems and not morepenetrable. Her look was immovably fixed upon St. George as if shedivined that in some way his coming affected her.

  "We will have our hymn first." Mrs. Manners' words were buzzing andpecking in the air. "What can I have done with that list of numbers?We have to select our pieces most carefully," she confided to St.George, "so to be sure that _Soul's Prison_ or _Hands Red asCrimson_, or, _Do You See the Hebrew Captive Kneeling?_ or anythingpersonal like that doesn't occur. Now what can I have done with thatlist?"

  Her words reached St. George but vaguely. He was in a fever ofanticipation and enthusiasm. He turned quickly to Mrs. Manners.

  "During the hymn," he said simply, "I would like to speak with oneof the women. Have I your permission?"

  Mrs. Manners looked momentarily perplexed; but her eyes at thatinstant chancing upon her lost list of hymns, she let fall anabstracted assent and hurried to the waiting organist. ImmediatelySt. George stepped quietly down among the women already flutteringthe leaves of their hymn books, and sat beside the mulatto woman.

  Her eyes met his in eager questioning, but she had that temper ofunsurprise of many of the eastern peoples and of some animals. Yetshe was under some strong excitement, for her hands, large butfaultlessly modeled, were pressed tensely together. And St. Georgesaw that she was by no means a mulatto, or of any race that he wasable to name. Her features were classic and of exceeding fineness,and her face was sensitive and highly-bred and filled with repose,like the surprising repose of breathing arrested in marble. Therewas that about her, however, which would have made one, constitutedto perceive only the arbitrary balance of things, feel almostafraid; while one of high organization would inevitably have beensmitten by some sense of the incalculably higher organization of hernature, a nature which breathed forth an influence, laid aspell--did something indefinable. Sometimes one stands too closelyto a statue and is frightened by the nearness, as by the nearnessof one of an alien region. St. George felt this directly he spoke toher. He shook off the impression and set himself practically to thematter in hand. He had never had greater need of his faculty fordirectness. His low tone was quite matter-of-fact, his mannerdeferentially reassuring.

  "I think," he said softly and without preface, "that I can help you.Will you let me help you? Will you tell me quickly your name?"

  The woman's beautiful eyes were filled with distress, but she shookher head.

  "Your name--name--name?" St. George repeated earnestly, but she hadonly the same answer. "Can you not tell me where you live?" St.George persisted, and she made no other sign.

  "New York?" went on St. George patiently. "New York? Do you live inNew York?"

  There was a sudden gleam in the woman's eyes. She extended her handsquickly in unmistakable appeal. Then swiftly she caught up a hymnbook, tore at its fly-leaf, and made the movement of writing. In aninstant St. George had thrust a pencil in her hand and she wastracing something.

  He waited feverishly. The organ had droned through the hymn and thewomen broke into song, with loose lips and without restraint, asstreet boys sing. He saw them casting curious, sullen glances, andthe Readers' Guild whispering among themselves. Miss Bella BlissUtter, looking as distressed as a nut can look, nodded, and Mrs.Manners shook her head and they meant the same thing. Then St.George saw the attendant in the red waist descend from the platformand make her way toward him, the little American flag rising andfalling on her breast. He unhesitatingly stepped in the aisle tomeet her, determined to prevent, if possible, her suspicion of themessage. "Is it the barbarism of a gentleman," Amory had oncepropounded, "or is it the gentleman-like manners of a barbarianwhich makes both enjoy over-stepping a prohibition?"

  "I compliment you," St. George said gravely, with his deferentialstooping of the shoulders. "The women are perfectly trained. This,of course, is due to you."

  The hard face of the woman softened, but St. George thought that onemight call her very facial expression nasal; she smiled with evidentpleasure, though her purpose remained unshaken.

  "They do pretty good," she admitted, "but visitors ain't best for'em. I'll have to request you"--St. George vaguely wished that shewould say "ask"--"not to talk to any of 'em."

  St. George bowed.

  "It is a great privilege," he said warmly if a bit incoherently,and held her in talk about an institution of the sort in Canadawhere the women inmates wore white, the managers claiming that theeffect upon their conduct was perceptible, that they were far moreself-respecting, and so on in a labyrinth of defensive detail. "Whatdo you think of the idea?" he concluded anxiously, manfully holdinghis ground in the aisle.

  "I think it's mostly nonsense," re
turned the woman tartly, "a bigexpense and a sight of work for nothing. And now permit me to say--"

  St. George vaguely wished that she would say "let."

  "I agree with you," he said earnestly, "nothing could be simpler andneater than these calico gowns."

  The attendant looked curiously at him.

  "They are gingham," she rejoined, "and you'll excuse me, I hope, butvisitors ain't supposed to converse with the inmates."

  St. George was vanquished by "converse."

  "I beg your pardon," he said, "pray forgive me. I will say good-byto my friend."

  He turned swiftly and extended his hand to the strange woman behindhim. With the cunning upon which he had counted she gave her ownhand, slipping in his the folded paper. Her eyes, with theirhaunting watchfulness, held his for a moment as she mutely bentforward when he left her.

  The hymn was done and the women were seating themselves, as St.George with beating heart took his way up the aisle. What the papercontained he could not even conjecture; but there _was_ a paper andit _did_ contain something which he had a pleasant premonition wouldbe invaluable to him. Yet he was still utterly at loss to accountfor his own presence there, and this he coolly meant to do.

  He was spared the necessity. On the platform Mrs. Manners had risento make an announcement; and St. George fancied that she mustpreside at her tea-urn and try on her bonnets with just that sameformal little "announcement" air.

  "My friends," she said, "I have now an unexpected pleasure for youand for us all. We have with us to-day Mr. St. George, of New York.Mr. St. George is going to sing for us."

  St. George stood still for a moment, looking into the expectantfaces of Mrs. Manners and the other women of the Readers' Guild, aspark of understanding kindling the mirth in his eyes. This thenaccounted both for his admittance to the home and for his welcome bythe women upon their errand of mercy. He had simply been verynaturally mistaken for a stranger from New York who had not arrived.But since he had accomplished something, though he did not knowwhat, inasmuch as the slip of paper lay crushed in his hand unread,he must, he decided, pay for it. Without ado he stepped to theplatform.

  "I have explained to Mrs. Manners and to these ladies," he saidgravely, "that I am not the gentleman who was to sing for you.However, since he is detained, I will do what I can."

  This, mistaken for a merely perfunctory speech of self-depreciation,was received in polite, contradicting silence by the Guild. St.George, who had a rich, true barytone, quickly ran over his littlelist of possible songs, none of which he had ever sung to anaudience that a canoe would not hold, or to other accompaniment thanthat of a mandolin. Partly in memory of those old canoe-evenings St.George broke into a low, crooning plantation melody. The song, likemuch of the Southern music, had in it a semi-barbaric chord that thecollege men had loved, something--or so one might have said who tookthe canoe-music seriously--of the wildness and fierceness of oldtribal loves and plaints and unremembered wooings with a desertbackground: a gallop of hoof-beats, a quiver of noon light abovesaffron sand--these had been, more or less, in the music when St.George had been wont to lie in a boat and pick at the strings whileAmory paddled; and these he must have reechoed before the crowd ofcurious and sullen and commonplace, lighted by that one wild,strange face. When he had finished the dark woman sat with bowedhead, and St. George himself was more moved by his own effort thanwas strictly professional.

  "Dear Mr. St. George," said Mrs. Manners, going distractedly throughher hand-bag for something unknown, "our secretary will thank youformally. It was she who sent you our request, was it not? She_will_ so regret being absent to-day."

  "She did not send me a request, Mrs. Manners," persisted St. Georgepleasantly, "but I've been uncommonly glad to do what I could. I amhere simply on a mission for the _Evening Sentinel_."

  Mrs. Manners drew something indefinite from her bag and put it backagain, and looked vaguely at St. George.

  "Your voice reminds me so much of my brother, younger," sheobserved, her eyes already straying to the literature fordistribution.

  With soft exclamatory twitters the Readers' Guild thanked St.George, and Miss Bella Bliss Utter, who was of womankind who clasptheir hands when they praise, stood thus beside him until he tookhis leave. The woman in the red waist summoned an attendant to showhim back down the long corridor.

  At the grated door within the entrance St. George found the wardenin stormy conference with a pale blond youth in spectacles.

  "Impossible," the warden was saying bluntly, "I know you. I knowyour voice. You called me up this morning from the _New YorkSentinel_ office, and I told you then--"

  "But, my dear sir," expostulated the pale blond youth, waving amusic roll, "I do assure you--"

  "What he says is quite true, Warden," St. George interposedcourteously, "I will vouch for him. I have just been singing for theReaders' Guild myself."

  The warden dropped back with a grudging apology and brows of tardysuspicion, and the old man blinked his buckle eyes.

  "Gentlemen," said St. George, "good morning."

  Outside the door, with its panels decorated in positiveprohibitions, he eagerly unfolded the precious paper. It bore asingle name and address: Tabnit, 19 McDougle Street, New York.