Tales From Bohemia by Robert Neilson Stephens

R >> Robert Neilson Stephens >> Tales From Bohemia

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13

There are details and details. The importance of any one of them depends on
circumstances.

Craddock had all the qualities and attributes requisite to make him a
son-in-law to the liking of his mother-in-law--lack of money.

So she went to live in Boston, maintained a chilly correspondence with her
daughter, and bided her time.

Craddock had had his old loves, a fact that he did not attempt to conceal
from his wife. She insisted upon his telling her about them, although the
narration put her into manifest vexation of mind. Such is the way of young
wives.

There was one love about which Craddock said less than about any of the
others, because it had encroached more upon his life than any of them. It
had nearly approached being a serious affair. He had a delicacy concerning
the mention of it, too, for he flattered himself that the flame, although
entirely extinguished upon his own side, yet smouldered deep in the heart
of the woman. Therefore, he spoke of that episode in vague and general
terms.

Strange as it seemed to Craddock, clear as it is to any student of men and
women, it was this amour that excited the most curiosity in the mind of his
wife.

"What was her name?" asked the latter.

"Agnes Darrell."

"I don't think she has a pretty name, at all events."

"Oh, that was only her stage name. I really don't remember what her real
name was."

This was a judicious falsehood.

"Well, I'm sorry that you ever made love to actresses. I'm afraid I can't
think as much of you after knowing--"

"After knowing that the first sight of you drove the memory of all
actresses and other women in the world out of my head," cried Craddock,
with a merry fervour that made his speech irresistible.

So they persisted in being extremely happy together for three years, to the
grinding chagrin of Craddock's mother-in-law in Boston.

One July Friday, Craddock's wife was at the seashore, while Craddock, who
ran down each Saturday to remain with her until Monday, was battling with
his work and the heat and the summer insects, in his office in the city.
Mrs. Craddock received her mail, two letters addressed to her at the
seaside, two forwarded from the city whither they had first come.

Of the latter one was a milliner's announcement of removal. The other was
in a large envelope, and the address was in a chirography unknown to her.
The large envelope contained a smaller one.

This second envelope was addressed to Miss Agnes Darrell, ---- Hotel,
Chicago, in the handwriting of Craddock.

The feelings of Craddock's wife are imaginable. She took from this already
opened second envelope the letter that it contained. It also was in
Craddock's penmanship. She succeeded in a semistupefied condition in
reading it to the end.

"May 13.

"My Dearest Agnes:--I have just a moment in which to tell you the old story
that one heart, thousands of miles east of you, beats for you alone. With
what joy do I anticipate the early ending of the season, when, like young
Lochinvar, you will come out of the West. I shall contrive to be with you
as often as possible this summer. With renewed vows of my unalterable
devotion, I must hastily say good night.

"Yours always,

"Jack."

Any who seek a new emotion would ask for nothing more than Craddock's wife
then experienced. It was not until the first shock had given away to a
calm, stupendous indignation that she began to comment upon the epistle in
detail.

"May 13th--at that very time Jack was sighing at the thought of my being
away from him during the hot weather and telling me how he would miss me.
All deception! His heart at that very time was beating for her alone. And
he would contrive to see her as often as possible this summer--during my
absence!"

It was then that Craddock's wife learned the great value of pride and anger
as a compound antidote to overwhelming grief in certain circumstances.

When Craddock, quite unarmed, rushed to meet her at the seashore upon the
next evening, she was en route for Boston.

In several ensuing years, Craddock's wife's mother took care that every
communication from him, every demand for an explanation, every piteous plea
for enlightenment, for one interview, should be ignored. The mother sent
the girl to relatives in Europe; and after Craddock had spent three years
and all the money that he had saved toward the buying of a house for his
wife and himself, in trying to cross her path that he might have a moment's
hearing, he came back home and went to the dogs.

He would have killed himself had not hope remained--the hope that some
chance turn of events would bring him face to face with her, that he might
know wherefore his punishment. He would have proudly resolved to forget
her, and he would have striven day and night to make a name that some day
would reach her ears whereever she might go, had he not felt that some
terrible mistake had taken her from him; time would eventually rectify
matters. As hope bade him live and as his inability to forget her made it
impossible for him to put his thoughts upon work, he became a drunkard.

He might not have done so had he been you or I; but he was only Craddock,
and whether or not you find his offence beyond the extent of palliation,
the fact is that he drank himself penniless and entirely beyond the power
of his own will to resume respectability.

Naturally his friends abandoned him.

"Craddock is making a beast of himself," said one who had formerly sat at
his table. "To give him money merely accelerates the process."

"When a man loses all self-respect, how can he expect to retain the
sympathy of other people?" queried a second.

"I never thought much of a man who would go to the gutter on account of a
woman. It shows a lack of stamina," observed a third.

All of which was true. But particular cases have exceptionally aggravating
circumstances. Special combinations may produce results which, although
seemingly under human control, are almost, if not quite, inevitable.

One day Craddock's wife came back to him. In Paris she had made a
discovery. She had kept the letter from Jack to the actress in a box that
always accompanied her. Opening this box suddenly, her eye fell upon the
postmark, stamped upon the envelope. She had never noticed this before. She
knew that the date written above the letter itself was incomplete, the year
not being indicated. According to the postmark, the year was 1875.

That was four years before Jack married her; two years before he first saw
her.

She had always supposed the sending of the letter to her to be the act of
some jealous rival of Jack's for the actress's affection. Now she knew not
to what it might have been attributable.

When she arrived at the hospital where Craddock was recovering from the
effects of an unconscious attempt at suicide, she was ten years older, in
fact, than when she had left him; twenty years older in appearance. She
took him home and has been trying to make a man of him. She manifests
toward him limitless patience and tenderness, and she tolerates
uncomplainingly his bi-weekly carousals. But she can afford to, having come
into possession of a small fortune at her mother's recent death.

Craddock is amiably content with her. He cannot bring himself to regard her
as the beautiful young bride of his youth. So little remains of her former
charm, her former vivacity and girlishness, that it seems as if Craddock's
wife of other times had died.

A few days ago, I met at the Sheepshead Races a _passée_ actress who was
telling about the conquests of her early career.

"There was one young fellow awfully infatuated with me," she said, "who
used to write me the sweetest letters. I kept them long after he stopped
caring for me, until he was married; then I destroyed them. I found one
short one, though, in an old handbag some years after, and, just for a joke
I mailed it to his wife at his old address. I don't suppose it ever reached
her, though, or he would have acknowledged it, for the sake of old times. I
wonder whatever became of Jack Craddock. People used to say he had a bright
future--I say, tell that messenger-boy to come here! I'm going to put five
on Tenny for this next race. And you'll lend me the five, won't you?"

VI

THE NEW SIDE PARTNER

A chance in life is like worldly greatness--to which, indeed, it is
commonly a requisite preliminary. Some are born with it, some achieve it,
and some have it thrust upon them.

There is a youth who has had it thrust upon him. What he will do with it
remains to be seen. Know the story, which is true in every detail save in
two proper names:

The midnight train from New York, which crawls out of the Jersey City ferry
station at 12:25, is usually doleful, especially in the ordinary cars. One
who cannot sleep easily therein has a weary two or three hours' time to
Philadelphia. Almost any equally wakeful companion is then a source of joy.

A girl of medium size, wearing a veil, and being rather carelessly attired
in dark clothes which fitted a charming figure, walked jauntily up the
aisle, saw that no seat was entirely vacant, and therefore, after a hasty
glance at me, sat down beside me.

Had not the two very young men in the seat behind us drunk too much wine
that night in New York, the girl and I might never have exchanged a word.
But the conversation of the youths was such as to cause between us the
intercommunication of smiles, and eventually of speeches.

Then casual observations about the fulness of the car, the time of the
train, and our respective destinations,--mine being Philadelphia, hers
being Baltimore, led to the revelation that she was a constant traveller,
because she was an actress. She had been a soubrette in musical farce, but
lately she had belonged to a variety and burlesque company. She had gone
upon the stage when she was thirteen, and she was now twenty.

"What kind of an act do you do?" I asked, in the language of the variety
"profession."

"Oh, I can do almost anything," she said, in a tone of a self-possessed,
careless, and vivacious woman. "I sing well enough, and I can dance
anything, a skirt dance, a clog, a Mexican fandango, a Carmencita kind of
step, anything at all. I don't know when I ever learned to dance. I didn't
learn, it just came to me; but the best thing I do is whistling. I'm not
afraid of any man in the business when it's a case of whistling. There's no
fake about my whistle; it's the real thing. I can whistle any sort of music
that goes."

"Your company appears in Baltimore this week?"

"Oh, no! I've left the company. You see, I've been off for six weeks on
account of illness, and now I'm going over to Baltimore to my father's
funeral. He is to be buried to-morrow. See, here's the telegram. I've been
having hard lines lately. I've not had any sleep for three days, and I
won't get to Baltimore till daylight. I want to start back to New York
to-morrow night, if I can raise the stuff. I had just enough money to get a
ticket to Baltimore, and now I'm dead broke."

Then she laughed and got me to untie her veil. When it was removed, I saw a
frank young face with an abundance of soft brown hair. About the light
blue eyes were the marks of fatigue, and the colour of the cheeks further
confirmed her account of loss of sleep.

Her feet pattered softly upon the floor of the car.

"I'm doing a single shuffle," she said, in explanation of the movement of
her feet. "If you could do one too, we might do a double."

"Do you do your act alone on the stage?" I asked, "or are you one of a
team?"

"We're a team. My side partner's a man. It pays better that way. We get
$40 a week and transportation. I used to get only $12 except when I stood
around and posed, then I got $35 and had to pay my own railroad fare. You
can bet I have a good figure, when I get $35 for that alone! I handle the
money of the team and I divide it even between us. I don't believe in the
man getting nine-tenths of the stuff, do you? Besides, I'm older than my
partner is. I put him in the business."

"How was that?"

"Oh, I picked him up on the street in New York. I saw that he had a good
voice and was a bright kid, so I took him for my partner."

"But tell me how it came about."

She was quite willing to do so. And the rumbling of the wheels, the rush
of the train over the night-swathed plains of New Jersey, accompanied her
voice. All the other passengers were sleeping. To the following effect was
her narrative:

At evening a crowd of boys had gathered at the corner of Broadway and a
down-town street. One of them--ragged, unkempt, but handsome--was singing
and dancing for the diversion of the others. That way came the variety
actress, then out of an engagement. She stopped, heard the boy sing, and
saw him dance. She pushed through the crowd to him.

"How did you learn to dance?" she asked.

"Didn't ever learn," he said, with impudent sullenness.

"Who taught you to sing?"

"None o' yer business."

"But who did teach you?"

"Nobody."

"What's your name?"

"None of your business."

"Will you come along with me into the restaurant over there?"

"No."

But presently he was induced to go, although he continued to answer her
questions in the savage, distrustful manner of his class. They went into a
cheap eating-house and saloon, through the "Ladies' Entrance," and while
they sat at a table there, she learned by means of resolute and patient
questions that the boy earned his living by blacking shoes now and then,
and that he did not know who his parents were, as he had been "put" with a
family whose ill-usage he had fled from to live in the street. He began
to melt under her manifestations of interest in him, and with pretended
reluctance he gave his promise to wash his face and hands and to call upon
her that evening at the theatrical boarding-house on Twenty-seventh Street
where she was living. Then she left him.

When he called, she took him to her room and induced him to allow her to
comb his hair. A deal of persuasion was necessary to this. Then she took
him out and bought him a cheap suit of clothes on the Bowery. A half-hour
later he was standing with her in the wings at Miner's Variety Theatre. A
man and woman were doing a song and dance upon the stage.

"Watch that man," the actress said to the boy of the streets. "I want you
to do that sort of an act with me one of these days."

When he had thus received his first lesson, she led him back to the
theatrical boarding-house, and in her room he showed her what ability he
had picked up as a singer and dancer. She secured a room for him in the
house, and she had the precaution to lock him in lest he should take
fright at his novel change of surroundings and flee in the night. When she
released him on the next morning she found him docile and cheerful.

She escorted him into the big dining-room to breakfast.

"Who's your friend, Lil?" asked a certain actor whose name is known from
Portland to Portland.

"He's my new side partner," she said, looking at the boy, who was not in
the least abashed at the bold gaze of the negligently dressed soubrettes
and the chaffing comedians who sat at the tables.

Everybody laughed. "What can he do?" was the general question.

"Get out there and show them, young one," she said, pointing to the centre
of the dining-room.

The boy obeyed without timidity. When he had sung and danced, there was
hilarious applause.

"Good for the kid," said the well-known actor. "What are you going to do
with him, Lil?"

"I'm going to try to get an engagement for us together in Rose St. Clair's
Burlesque Company."

"I'll help you," said the actor. "I know Rose. I'll go and see her right
away, and you come there with the kid about 11 o'clock."

When the girl and her protégé arrived at the boarding-house of the fat
manageress they found that the actor had so far kept his promise as to have
inveigled her into a condition of alcoholic amiability. She asked them what
they could do. Each one sang and danced, and the girl, who also whistled,
outlined to the manageress her idea of an "act" in which the two should
appear. There was a hitch when the question of salary arose. The girl fixed
upon $40. Rose thought that amount was too large. Lil adhered to her
terms, and was about to leave without having made an agreement, when the
manageress called her back, and a contract for a three weeks' engagement
was signed at once.

The period between that day and the beginning of the engagement, which
subsequently opened at Miner's Theatre, was spent by the girl in coaching
her protégé. He was a year younger than she, a fact which tended to
increase the influence that she promptly obtained over him. His sullenness
having been overcome, he became a devoted and apt pupil. Having beheld
himself in neat clothes and acquired habits of cleanliness, he speedily
developed into a handsome youth of soft disposition and good behaviour.

The new song and dance "team" was successful. The boy quickly gained
applause, and especially did he easily win the liking of such women as he
met or appeared before. A new world was open to him. Naturally he enjoyed
the easy conquests that he made in the curious, careless circle into which
he had been brought.

He is still having his "fling." But he has been from the first most
obedient and unquestioning to his benefactress. He goes nowhere, does
nothing, without previously obtaining permission from her.

She is proud of the advancement that he has accomplished already, and she
is determined to make him a conspicuous figure upon the stage.

What is it that actuates this girl in her endeavour to elevate this boy in
the world? What the mystery that brought to the gamin this guardian angel
in the form of a variety actress who mingles bright sayings with lack of
grammar, who tells Rabelaisian anecdotes in one minute and philosophizes in
slang about the issues of life the next?

"You're in love with him, aren't you?" I said, as the train plunged on
through the darkness.

"I don't know whether I am or not. He's just a kid, you know. I suppose the
proper end of such a romance is that we should marry. But then I wouldn't
be married to a man that I couldn't look up to."

"But women don't invariably love that way. I'm sure you're in love with the
boy. Have you never thought as to whether you were or not?"

"Have I? I should smile! I thought of it even on the first night, after I
picked him up, when I locked him in his room. But I have always regarded
him in a sort of motherly way, although only a year older. It seems kind of
unnatural for me to love him as a woman loves a man. If he was only older!"

"Ah, that wish is sure evidence that you love him!"

"One thing I do know is that, though he always obeys me, he doesn't care as
much for me as I do for him."

"How do you know that?"

"He wouldn't think so much of other girls if he did. He doesn't look upon
me as a woman for him to fall in love with. He regards me as an older
sister. Why, he never even takes a girl to supper after the performance
without asking my permission."

"And you give it?"

"Yes; but he never knows how I feel when I do."

"And how do you feel then?"

"The first time he asked me, it was like a knife going through me. I
haven't got used to it yet."

She paused for a time before adding:

"But, anyhow, he's going to make a name for himself some day. He has it in
him. I'm not the only one that thinks so. I'm trying now to get him to go
to a school of acting, but he thinks variety is good enough for him. He'll
get over that, though."

She spoke so tenderly and yet so proudly of him, that I could not without a
pang of pity meditate upon the probable outcome of this attachment, which,
according to the logic of realists, will be the boy's eventual success in
life, long after he will have forgotten the hand that lifted him out of the
depth in which he first opened his eyes.

He knows nothing of his parentage. His benefactress once sought, by means
of Inspector Byrnes's penetrating eye, to pierce the clouds surrounding his
origin, but the inspector smiled at the hopelessness of the attempt.

"Where is he now?" I asked.

"I left him in New York," she said. "I suppose he'll blow in all his money
as soon as he can possibly manage to do so."

And she laughed and did another "shuffle" with her feet upon the floor of
the car.

VII

THE NEEDY OUTSIDER

There was animation at the Nocturnal Club at three o'clock in the morning.
The city reporters who had been dropping in since midnight were now
reinforced by telegraph editors, for the country editions of the big
dailies were already being rushed in light wagons over the sounding stones
to the railroad stations.

The cheery and urbane African--naturally called Delmonico by the habitués
of the Nocturnal Club--found his time crowded in serving bottled beer,
sandwiches, or boiled eggs to the groups around the tables.

To a large group in the back room Fetterson related how he had once missed
the last car at the distant extremity of West Philadelphia, and, failing to
find a cab west of Broad Street, had walked fifty blocks after midnight and
had still succeeded in getting his report in the second edition and thus
making a "beat on the town."

Then spoke up a needy outsider whom Fetterson had brought in at one
o'clock.

I neglected to mention Fetterson's penchant for queer company. It is quite
right that reporters know policemen, are on chaffing terms with night
cabmen, and have large acquaintance with pugilists and even with "crooks."
But Fetterson picks up the most remarkable and out-of-the-way--not to speak
of out-at-elbows--specimens of mankind, craft in distress on the sea of
humanity. The needy outsider was his latest acquisition.

It is enough to say of this destitute acquaintance of Fetterson's that he
was a ragged man needing a shave. In daylight, in the country, you would
have termed him a tramp. Hitherto he had sat in our group in silence. When
he opened his mouth to discourse, it was natural that he should have a
prompt and somewhat curious hearing.

"Speaking of walking," he said, "I have walked a bit in my time. Mostly,
though, I've rode--on freight-cars. The longest straight tramp I ever made
was from Harrisburg to Philadelphia once when the trains weren't running.
The cold weather made walking unpleasant. But what do you think of
a woman--no tramp woman, either--starting from Pittsburg to walk to
Philadelphia?"

"Oh, there is a so-called actress who recently walked from San Francisco to
New York," put in some one.

"Yes, but she took her time, and had all the necessaries of life on the
way. She walked for an advertisement. The woman I speak of walked in order
to get there. She walked because she hadn't the money to pay her fare. Her
husband was with her, to be sure. He was a pal o' mine. You see, it was
a hard winter, years ago, and work was so scarce in Pittsburg that the
husband had to remain idle until the two had begun to starve. He had some
education, and had been an office clerk. At that time of his life he
couldn't have stood manual labour. Still he tried to get it, for he was
willing to do anything to keep a lining to his skin. If you've never been
in his predicament, you can't realize how it is and you won't believe it
possible. But I've known more than one man to starve because he couldn't
get work and wouldn't take public charity. Starvation was the prospect of
this young fellow and his wife. So they decided to leave Pittsburg and come
to Philadelphia, where they thought it would be easier for the husband to
get work.

"'But how can we get there?' the husband asked.

"She was a plucky girl and had known hardship, although she was frail to
look at.

"'Walk,' she replied.

"And two days later they started."

The outsider paused and lighted a forbidding-looking pipe.

When he resumed his narrative he spoke in a lower tone. The recollections
that he called up seemed to stir him within, although he was calm enough of
exterior.

"I won't describe the experience of my pal on that trip. It was his first
tramp. He knew nothing of the art of vagabondage. Of course they had to
beg. That was tough, although he got used to it and to many tricks in the
trade. They slept in barns and they ate when and where they could. It
cut him to the heart to see his wife in such hunger and fatigue. But her
spirits kept up better than his--or at least they seemed to. Often he
repented of having started upon such a trip. But he kept that to himself.

"When the wife did at last give in to the cold, the hunger, and the
weariness, it was to collapse all at once. It happened in the mountain
country. In the evening of a cold, dull day they were trudging along on
the railroad ties, keeping on the west-bound track so they could face
approaching trains and get off the track in time to avoid being run down.

"'We'll stop in the town ahead,' the husband said. 'We can get warm in the
station, and you shall have supper if we have to knock at every door in the
town.'

"And the wife said:

"'Yes, we'll stop, for I feel, Harry, as if--as if I couldn't--go any
fur--Harry, where are you?'

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13