Felix O'Day Part 10

A full-chested man of forty, in a long black ca.s.sock, standing six feet in his stockings, his face alight with the glow of a freshly kindled pleasure, rose from his chair and held out his hand. "The introduction should be quite unnecessary, Mr. O'Day," he exclaimed in the full, sonorous voice of a man accustomed to public speaking. "You seem to have greatly attached these dear people to you, which in itself is enough, for there are none better in my parish."

Felix, who had been looking the speaker over, taking in his thoughtful face, deep black eyes, and more especially the heavy black eyebrows that lay straight above them, felt himself warmed by the hearty greeting and touched by its sincerity. "I agree with you, Father, in your praise of them," he said as he grasped the priest's hand. "They have been everything to me since my sojourn among them. And, if I am not mistaken, you and I have something else in common. My people are from Limerick."

"And mine from Cork," laughed the priest as he waved his hand toward his empty chair, adding: "Let me move it nearer the table."

"No, I will take my old seat, if you do not mind. Please do not move, Mr. Cleary; I am near enough."

"And are you an importation, Father, like myself?" continued Felix, shifting the rocker for a better view of the priest.

"No. I am only an Irishman by inheritance. I was brought up on the soil, born down in Greenwich village--and a very queer old part of the town it is. Strange to say, there are very few changes along its streets since my boyhood. I found the other day the very slanting cellar door I used to slide on when I was so high! Do you know Greenwich?"

He was sitting upright as he spoke, his hands hidden in the folds of his black ca.s.sock, wondering meanwhile what was causing the deep lines on the brow of this high-bred, courteous man, and the anxious look in the deep-set eyes. As priest he had looked into many others, framed in the side window of the confessional--the most wonderful of all schools for studying human nature--but few like those of the man before him; eyes so clear and sincere, yet shadowed by what the priest vaguely felt was some overwhelming sorrow.

"Oh, yes, I know it as I know most of New York," Felix was saying; "it is close to Jefferson Market and full of small houses, where I should think people could live very cheaply"; adding, with a sigh, "I have walked a great deal about your city," and as suddenly checked himself, as if the mere statement might lead to discussion.

Kitty, who had been darning one of John's gray yarn stockings--the needle was still between her thumb and forefinger--leaned forward.

"That's the matter with him, Father, and he'll never be happy until he stops it," she cried. "He don't do nothin' but tramp the streets until I think he'd get that tired he'd go to sleep standin' up."

Felix turned toward her. "And why not, Mrs. Cleary?" he asked with a smile. "How can I learn anything about this great metropolis unless I see it for myself?"

"But it's all Sunday and every night! I get that worried about ye sometimes, I'm ready to cry. And ye won't listen to a thing I say! I been waitin' for Father Cruse to get hold of ye, and I'm goin' to say what's in my mind." Here she looked appealingly to the priest. "Now, ye just talk to him, Father, won't ye, please?"

The priest, laughing heartily, raised his protesting hands toward her.

"If he fails to heed you, Mrs. Cleary, he certainly won't listen to me.

What do you say for yourself, Mr. O'Day?"

Felix twisted his head until he could address his words more directly to his hostess. "Please keep on scolding me, my dear Mrs. Cleary. I love to hear you. But there is Father Cruse, why not sympathize with him?

He tramps to some purpose. I am only the Wandering Jew, who does it for exercise."

Kitty held the point of the darning-needle straight out toward Felix.

"But why must you do it Sundays, Mr. O'Day? That's what I want to know."

"But Sunday is my holiday."

"Yes, and there's early ma.s.s. Ye'd think he'd come, wouldn't ye, Father?"

One of O'Day's low, murmuring laughs, that always sounded as if he had grown unaccustomed to letting the whole of it pa.s.s his lips, filtered through the room.

"You see what a heathen I am, Father," he exclaimed. "But I am going to turn over a new leaf. I shall honor myself by visiting St. Barnabas's some day very soon, and shall sit in the front pew--or, perhaps, in yours, Mrs. Cleary, if you will let me--now that I know who officiates,"

and he inclined his head graciously toward the priest. "I hope the service is not always in the morning!"

"Oh, no, we have a service very often at night, sometimes at eight o'clock."

"And how long does that last?"

"Perhaps an hour."

"And so if I should come at eight and wait until you are free, you could give me, perhaps, another hour of yourself?"

"Yes, and with the greatest pleasure. But why at those hours?" asked the priest with some curiosity.

"Because I am very busy at other times. But I want to be quite frank. If I come, it will not be because I need your service, but because I shall want to see YOU. Your church is not my church, and never has been, but your people--especially your priests--have always had my admiration and respect. I have known many of your brethren in my time. One in particular, who is now very old--a dear abbe, living in Paris. Heaven is made up of just such saints."

The priest clasped his hands together. "We have many such, sir," he replied solemnly. The acknowledgment came reverently, with a gleam that shone from under the heavy brows.

Felix caught its brilliance, and the sense of a certain bigness in the man pa.s.sed through him. He had been prepared for his quiet, well-bred dignity. All the priests he had known were thoroughbreds in their manner and bearing; their self-imposed restraint, self-effacement, absence of all unnecessary gesture, and modulated voices had made them so; but the warmth of this one's underlying nature was as unexpected as it was pleasurable.

"Yes, you have many such," O'Day repeated simply after a slight pause during which his thoughts seemed to have wandered afar. "And now tell me," he asked, rousing himself to renewed interest, "where your work lies--your real work, I mean. The ma.s.s is your rest."

The priest turned quickly. He wondered if there were a purpose behind the question. "Oh, among my people," he answered, the slow, even, non-committal tones belying the eagerness of his gesture.

"Yes, I know; but go on. This is a great city--greater than I had ever supposed--greater, in many ways, than London. The luxury and waste are appalling; the misery is more appalling still. What sort of men and women do you put your hands on?"

"Here are some of them," answered the priest, his forefinger pointing to Kitty and John.

"We could all of us do without churches and priests," ventured Felix, his eyes kindling, "if your parishioners were as good as these dear people."

"Well, there's Bobby," laughed the priest, his face turned toward the boy, who was sound asleep in his chair, Toodles, the door-mat of a dog, sprawled at his feet.

"And are there no others, Father Cruse?"

The priest, now convinced of a hidden meaning in the insistent tones, grew suddenly grave, and laid his hand on O'Day's knee. "Come and see me some time, and I will tell you. My district runs from Fifth Avenue to the East River, from the homes of the rich to the haunts of the poor, and there is no form of vice and no depth of suffering the world over that does not knock daily at my study door. Do not let us talk about it here. Perhaps some day we may work together, if you are willing."

Kitty, who had been listening, her heart throbbing with pride over Felix, who had held his own with her beloved priest, and still fearing that the talk would lead away from what was uppermost in her mind--O'Day's welfare--now sprang from her chair before Felix could reply. "Of course he'll come, Father, once he's seen ye."

"Yes, I will," answered Felix cordially. "And it will not be very long either, Father. And now I must say good night. It has been a real pleasure to meet you. You have been a most kindly grindstone to a very dull and useless knife, and I am greatly sharpened up. After all, I think we both agree that it is rather difficult to keep anything bright very long unless you rub it against something still brighter and keener.

Thank you again, Father," and with a pat of his fingers on Kitty's shoulder as he pa.s.sed, and a good night to John, he left the room on his way to his chamber above.

Kitty waited until the sound of O'Day's footsteps told her that he had reached the top of the stairs and then turned to the priest. "Well, what do ye think of him? Have I told ye too much? Did ye ever know the beat of a man like that, livin' in a place like this and eatin' at my table, and never a word of complaint out o' him, and everybody lovin' him the moment they clap their two eyes on him?"

The priest made no immediate answer. For some seconds he gazed into the fire, then looked at John as if about to seek some further enlightenment, but changing his mind faced Kitty. "Is his mail sent here?"

"What? His letters?"

"Yes."

"He don't have any--not one since he's been wid us."

"Anybody come to see him?"

"Niver a soul."

The priest ruminated for a moment more, and then said slowly, as if his mind were made up: "It does not matter; somebody or something has hurt him, and he has gone off to die by himself. In the old days such men sought the monasteries; to-day they try to lose themselves in the crowd."

Again he ruminated, the delicate antennae of his hands meeting each other at the tips.

"A most extraordinary case," he said at last. "No malice, no bitterness--yet eating his heart out. Pitiful, really; and the worst thing about it is that you can't help him, for his secret will die with him. Bring him to me sometime, and let me know before you come so I may be at home."