Carmen Ariza Part 103

"Sure thing!" replied Jude, brightening under the stimulus of her wine. "He owns every house in this block, they say. Got long leases for 'em all. And the rents--suffering Moses! The Madam rolls on the floor and cusses for a week straight every time she pays hers. But just the same, if you've ever noticed, the houses that Ames owns are never raided by the coppers. Ames whacks up with the mayor and the city hall gang and the chief of police. That means protection, and we pay for it in high rents. But it's a lot better'n being swooped down on by the cops every few weeks, ain't it? We know what we're expected to pay, that way. And we never do when we keep handin' it out to the cops."

"That's right," approved some one.

"It sure is. That's what the collector says. And he's got a new collector, fellow from the Ketchim Realty Company. They're the old man's agents now for his dive-houses. He can't get anybody else to handle 'em, so the collector tells me."

"Belle Carey's place was pulled last night, I hear," said one of the women, pushing back her plate and lighting a cigarette.

"Yes," returned Jude, "and why? Cause the house is owned by Gannette--swell guy livin' up on Riverside Drive--and he don't divvy with the city hall. Belle don't pay no such rent as the Madam does--at least so old Lucy tells me."

The half-intoxicated woman down the table, who had stirred their laughter a few minutes before, now roused up heavily. "Ol' Lucy--huh!

Used to work for her m'self. Caught a pippin for her once--right off the train--jus' like this li'l hussy. Went to th' depot in a hack. Saw th' li'l kid comin' an' pretended to faint. Li'l kid run to me an'

asked could she help. Got her to see me safe home--tee! hee! She's workin' f'r ol' Lucy yet, sound's a dollar."

She fixed her bleared eyes upon Carmen and lapsed back into her former state of sodden stupidity.

The girl rose hastily from her chair. The policeman's words at the pier were floating confusedly through her thought. The strange talk of these women increased the confusion. Perhaps a mistake had been made.

She turned beseechingly to Jude. "Isn't this--Mr. Reed's house?" she asked.

Another of the women got up hurriedly and left the table. "I haven't the nerve for another sob-scene," she commented as she went out.

"Where am I? Where am I?" pleaded Carmen, turning from one to another.

Jude reached out and seized her hand tightly. "Pleasant job for me!"

she commented ironically, looking at the others. Then, to Carmen:

"You are in a--a hotel," she said abruptly.

"Oh--then--then it was a mistake?" The girl turned her great, yearning eyes upon the woman. Jude shrank under them. "Sit down, and finish your supper," she said harshly, pulling the girl toward the chair.

"No!" replied Carmen loudly. "You must take me to Mr. Reed!"

The maudlin woman down the table chuckled thickly. The negro waitress went quickly out and closed the door. Jude rose, still holding the girl's hand. "Come up stairs with me," she said, leading her away.

"Poor old Jude!" commented one of the women, when the two had left the room. "She's about all in. This sort of business is getting her nerve.

But she's housekeeper, and that's part of her job. And--the poor little kid! But ain't she a beauty!"

Jude took the girl into her own room and locked the door. Then she sank wearily into a chair. "G.o.d!" she cried, "I'm sick of this--sick of the whole thing!"

Carmen went quickly to her. "Don't!" she said. "Don't! It was all a mistake, and we can go."

"Go!" echoed the woman bitterly. "Where--and how?"

"Why, you said this was a hotel--"

"Hotel! G.o.d, it's h.e.l.l! And you are in forever!"

Carmen gazed at the excited woman with a puzzled expression on her face.

"Now listen," said Jude, bracing herself, "I've got something to tell you. You have been--good G.o.d! I can't--I can't! For G.o.d's sake, child, don't look at me that way! Who are you? Where do you come from?"

"I told you," replied Carmen quietly.

"Your face looks as if you had come down from the sky. But if you did, and if you believe in a G.o.d, you had better pray to Him now!"

"Why--I am not afraid. G.o.d is everywhere--right here. I was afraid--a little--at first. But not now. When we stop and just know that we love everybody, and that everybody really loves us, why, we can't be afraid any more, can we?"

The woman looked up at the child in blank amazement. Love! That warped, twisted word conveyed no meaning to her. And G.o.d--it was only a convenient execrative. But--what was it that looked out from that strange girl's eyes? What was it that held her fascinated there? What was emerging from those unfathomable depths, twining itself about her withered heart and expanding her black, shrunken soul? Whence came that beautiful, white life that she was going to blast? And could she, after all? Then what stayed her now?

"Look here," she cried sharply, "tell me again all about yourself, and about your friends and family down south, and what it was that the Madam said to you! And be quick!"

Carmen sat down at her feet, and taking her hand, went again over the story. As the child talked, the woman's hard eyes widened, and now and then a big tear rolled down the painted cheek. Her thought began to stray back, far back, along the wreck-strewn path over which she herself had come. At last in the dim haze she saw again the little New England farm, and her father, stern, but honest and respected, trudging behind the plow. In the cottage she saw her white-haired mother, every lineament bespeaking her Puritan origin, hovering over her little household like a benediction. Then night fell, swiftly as the eagle swoops down upon its prey, and she awoke from a terrible dream, stained, abandoned, lost--and seared with a foul oath to drag down to her own level every innocent girl upon whom her hands might thereafter fall!

"And I have just had to know," Carmen concluded, "every minute since I left Simiti, that G.o.d was everywhere, and that He would not let any harm come to me. But when we really know that, why, the way _always_ opens. For that's prayer, right prayer; the kind that Jesus taught."

The woman sat staring at the girl, an expression of utter blankness upon her pallid face. Prayer! Oh, yes, she had been taught to pray.

Well she remembered, though the memory now cut like a knife, how she knelt at her beautiful mother's knee and asked the good Father to bless and protect them all, even to the beloved doll that she hugged to her little bosom. But G.o.d had never heard her pet.i.tions, innocent though she was. And He had let her fall, even with a prayer on her lips, into the black pit!

A loud sound of male voices and a stamping of feet rose from below.

The woman sprang to the door and stood listening. "It's the boys from the college!" she cried in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

She turned and stood hesitant for a moment, as if striving to formulate a plan. A look of fierce determination came into her face.

She went to the bureau and took from the drawers several articles, which she hastily thrust into the pocket of her dress.

"Now," she said, turning to Carmen and speaking in a low, strained voice, "you do just as I say. Bring your bundle. And for G.o.d's sake don't speak!"

Leaving the light burning, she stepped quickly out with Carmen and locked the door after her. Then, bidding the girl wait, she slipped softly down the hall and locked the door of the room to which the girl had first been taken. Both keys she dropped into her pocket. "Now follow me," she said.

Laughter and music floated up from below, mingled with the clink of gla.s.ses. The air was heavy with perfume and tobacco smoke. A door near them opened, and a sound of voices issued. The woman pulled Carmen into a closet until the hall was again quiet. Then she hurried on to another door which she entered, dragging the girl with her. Again she locked the door after her. Groping through the darkness, she reached a window, across which stood a hinged iron grating, secured with a padlock. The woman fumbled among her keys and unfastened this.

Swinging it wide, and opening the window beyond, she bade the girl precede her cautiously.

"It's a fire-escape," she explained briefly. She reached through the window grating and fastened the padlock; then closed the window; and quickly descended with the girl to the ground below.

Pausing a moment to get her breath, she seized Carmen's hand and crept swiftly around the big house and into a dark alley. There she stopped to throw over her shoulders a light shawl which she had taken from the bureau. Then she hurried on.

Their course lay through the muddy alley for several blocks. When they emerged they were in a dimly lighted cross street. The air was chill, and the thinly clad woman shivered. Carmen, fresh from the tropics, felt the contrast keenly. A few moments' rapid walking down the street brought them to a large building of yellow brick, surrounded by a high board fence. The woman unfastened the gate and hurried up to the door, over which, by the feeble light of the street lamp, Carmen read, "The Little Sisters of the Poor."

A black-robed woman admitted them and went to summon the Sister Superior. Carmen marveled at her strange attire. A moment later they were silently ushered into an adjoining room, where a tall woman, similarly dressed, awaited them.

"Sister," said Jude excitedly, "here's a little kid--you got to care for her until she finds her friends!"

The Sister Superior instantly divined the status of the woman. "Let the child wait here a moment," she said, "and you come with me and tell your story. It would be better that she should not hear."

In a little while they appeared again. Carmen was drowsing in her chair.

"She's chock full of religion," the woman was saying.

"But you," the Sister replied, "what will you do? Go back?"