Felix O'Day Part 23

"It's good to get back to you," she continued, sinking into a chair near the mantel and unfastening her cloak. "The stairs seem to grow steeper every time I come up. Thank you. Just hang it behind the door. And now my hat, please." She lifted the cheap black straw from her head, freeing a fluff of light-golden hair, and with her fingers combed it back from her forehead.

"And please bring me my slippers. I have walked all the way home, and my poor feet ache."

The nurse stooped for the hat, patted the thin shoulders, and went into the adjacent room for the slippers, whispering to Carlin on her way back to keep hidden until she called. He was still standing concealed by the folds of the calico curtain dividing the apartment, a choke in his throat as he watched the frail woman, her sharpened knees outlined under the folds of the black dress and, below it, the edge of a white petticoat bespattered with mud, the whole figure drooping as if there were not strength enough along its length to hold the body upright. What shocked him even more were the deep-sunken eyes and the hollows in the cheeks and about the brows. All the laugh and sparkle of the once joyous, beautiful girl he had known were gone. Only the gentle voice was left.

Martha was now back, kneeling on the floor, untying the shabby shoes, rubbing the small, delicately shaped feet in her plump hands to rest and warm them. "There, my lamb, that's better," he heard her say, as she drew on the heelless slippers. "I'll have tea in a minute. The kettle's been boiling this hour." Then, as though it were an afterthought: "Stephen wants to see you, so I told him maybe you would let him. Shall I tell him to come?"

"Your brother, you mean? The one who lives here in New York?" she asked listlessly.

"Yes, he's never forgotten you. And--"

"Some day I will see him, Martha. I shall be better soon, and then--"

She stopped and stared at Carlin, who misunderstanding Martha's words, had drawn aside the calico curtain and was advancing toward her, bowing as he walked, the choke still in his throat. "I hope your ladyship is not offended," he ventured. "It was all one family once, if I may say so, and there is only Martha and me."

She had straightened as she saw him coming and then, remembering that she was in Martha's room, and he Martha's brother, she held out her hand. "No, Stephen, I am very glad. I was only a little startled. It is a long time since I saw you, but I remember you quite well, and you have not changed. A little grayer perhaps. When was it?"

"When I came back from Calcutta, your ladyship, and the Rover was wrecked. Your father ordered the crew home. I was first mate, your ladyship remembers, and had to look after them. Some six years agone, I take it."

"Yes, it all comes back to me now," she answered dreamily "six years--is it not more than that?"

"No, your ladyship. Just about six."

She paused, rested her head on her hand, and looked at him intently from beneath the wave of hair that had dropped again about her brow, and asked: "Why do you still call me 'your ladyship' Stephen?"

"Well, I don't know, your ladyship. Mebbe it's because I've always been used to it. But I won't if your ladyship doesn't want me to."

"Never mind, it does not matter. It has been so long since I have heard it that it sounded odd, that was all." She roused herself with an effort and added, in a brighter tone, changing the topic: "It was very good of you to come to see Martha. She has me to look after now, and I am afraid she gets unhappy at times. You cannot think how good she is to me--so good--so good! I often wake in the night dreaming I am a child again and stretch out my hand to her, just as I used to do years ago when she slept beside me. She often speaks of you. I am glad you came to-day."

Carlin had been standing over her all the time, his rough pea-jacket b.u.t.toned across his broad chest, his ruddy sailor's face with its fringe of gray whiskers, bushy eyebrows, and clear, steady gaze in vivid contrast to her own shrinking weakness.

"It ain't altogether Martha," he exclaimed in tones suddenly grown deliberate. "It's you, your ladyship, that I particular came to see. You ain't fit to take care of yourself, and there ain't n.o.body but me and Martha that I can lay hands on now to help--n.o.body but just us two. I'm not here to judge n.o.body. I know what's happened and what you're going through, and you've got to let me lend a hand. If I lived to be a hundred I could never forget his lordship's kindness to me, and things can't go on as they are with you. There is a way out of it if you only knew it."

She threw back her head quickly. "Not my Father?"

"No, not your father. Although his lordship would haul down his colors mighty quick if once he saw you as I do now. But there are others who would be glad to take a hand at the wheel and help you steer out of all this misery. You ain't accustomed to it and you don't deserve it, and I'm going to put a stop to it if I can." This last came with still greater emphasis--the first mate was speaking now.

"Thank you, Stephen. You and Martha are very much alike. She has the loyalty of an old servant, and you have the loyalty of an old friend.

But we must all pay for our mistakes--" she halted, drew in her breath, and added, picking at her dress, "--and our sins. Everybody condemns us but G.o.d. He is the only one who forgets, when we are sorry."

"Not so many remember as you may think, your ladyship. Some of 'em have forgotten--forgotten everything--and are standing by ready to catch a line or man a boat."

"Yes, there are always kind people in the world."

"Well, there mayn't be such an awful lot of 'em as you think, but I know one. There's Mr. Felix, for instance, who--"

She sprang to her feet, her hands held out as a barrier, and stood trembling, staring wildly at him, all the blood gone from her cheeks.

"Stop, Stephen! Not another word. You must not mention that name to me.

I cannot and will not permit it. I have listened too long already. I am very grateful for your kindness and for your offers to me, but you must not touch on my private affairs. I am earning my own living, and I shall continue to do so. And now I would like to be alone."

"But, your ladyship, I've got something to tell you which--"

Martha stepped between them. "I think, Stephen, you'd better not talk to her ladyship any more. You might come some other night when she's more rested. You see she's had a very bad day and--"

Stephen's voice rang out clear. "Not say anything more, when--"

Martha dug her fingers into his arm. "Hush!" she whispered hoa.r.s.ely, her lips close against his hairy cheek. "She'll be on the floor in a dead faint in a minute. Didn't I tell you not to mention his name?"

She stepped quickly to the side of her charge, who had walked falteringly toward the window and now stood peering into the darkness through the panes of the dormer.

"It's only Stephen's way, child, and you mustn't mind him. He doesn't mean anything. He hasn't seen much of women, living aboard ship half his life. It's only his way of trying to be kind. And you see he's known you from a baby, same as me--and that's why he lets out."

She had folded the pitiful figure in her arms, her hand patting the bent shoulders. "But we'll get on together, my lamb--you and me. And we'll have supper right away--And I must ask you, Stephen, to go, now, because her ladyship is worn out and I'm going to put her to bed."

Carlin picked up his hat and stood fingering the rim, trying to make up his mind whether he should force the truth upon her then or obey orders and wait. The training of long years told.

"Well, just as you say, your ladyship, I won't stay if you don't want me, but don't forget I'm within call, not more than a half-hour away.

All Martha's got to do is to send a postal card and I'm here. I'm sorry I hurt your feelings. G.o.d knows I didn't mean to! Martha knows what I wanted to tell you. You'll have to come to it sooner or later. Good night. I hope your ladyship will be rested in the morning. Good night, Martha. You know you can write when you want me. Good night again, your ladyship."

He opened the door softly, closed it behind him without a sound, placed his hat on his head, and, reaching out for the hand-rail, felt his way in the dark down the rickety stairs and out onto the sidewalk.

Once there, he looked up and down the street as if undecided, turned sharply, and bent his steps toward Second Avenue, muttering to himself over and over again as he walked: "I got to find Mr. Felix. I got to find Mr. Felix."

Chapter XIV

Felix O'Day's runaway wife, despite the many quiet hours spent in Martha's room, near St. Mark's Place, had not told her old nurse all her story. She had wept her heart out on the dear woman's shoulder and had cuddled close in her arms, giving her sc.r.a.ps and bits of her unfortunate history, with side-lights here and there on a misery so abject and so terrifying that the dear nurse had hugged the frail figure all the tighter, seeing only the wound and knowing nothing of the steps that had led up to the final blow or the anger that hastened it.

Martha had known, of course, that there had been bankruptcy and ruin; that Oakdale, the ancestral estate of the O'Days--theirs for two centuries, with all its priceless old furniture, tapestries, pictures, and porcelains--had, after the owner's death, been sold at public auction; that Fernlodge, Mr. Felix's own home, had gone in the same way; that Lady Barbara, for some reason, had returned to her father, Lord Carnavon; that the girl baby had died; and that "Mr. Felix," as she always called him, had gone to London where he had taken up his abode at his club. Lady Barbara herself had given these details in a letter written a couple of weeks after the death of the child, Martha being in Toronto at the time.

Martha had also learned, through a letter from the head gardener's wife, that after a few months' stay, Lady Barbara had left her father's house because of a fierce scene with Lord Carnavon, who had sent for his carriage, conducted her into it, and given directions to his coachman either to set his daughter down on the main road, outside his gates, or to take her to the nearest public house.

She had learned, too, that her former charge, after having eloped with Dalton, had dropped entirely out of sight and, so far as her own knowledge was concerned, had never come to light again until, with a cry of joy, Lady Barbara sank sobbing on her shoulder in that Third Avenue car.

Much of this information had been gathered from newspaper clippings that her old uncle, living in London, had mailed to her. More particulars had come in a letter from James Muldoon, one of the grooms at Oakdale, who gave a most pitiful and graphic account of the way the London dealers crowded about the old porcelains in the ebony cabinets, and of the prices paid by the Earl of Brinsmore, who bought most of the pictures, half of the old Spanish furniture, as well as the largest but one of the great tapestries, to enrich the new mansion he was then building in London and in which James Muldoon was happy to say he had been promised a place.

In still other letters, open references had also been made to a much discussed speculation, entangling many of those whom Martha had formerly known, followed by a grand financial explosion in which some of the same people had been badly injured. In connection with these disasters mention was likewise made of a certain Mr. Dalton, who had disappeared shortly after, leaving rather a bad name behind him, altogether undeserved, according to many of the papers, he always having been a "financier of the highest standing." This last ball of gossip was rolled Martha's way by her nephew, who was a clerk in a solicitor's office off the Strand and who had mailed an editorial on the matter to his uncle, who promptly forwarded it to Martha. She had read it carefully to the end and had put it in her drawer without at first grasping the full meaning of the fact that, but for the activities of this same Mr.

Dalton, her dear mistress and her dear mistress's husband, Felix O'Day, and her dear mistress's father-in-law, the late Sir Carroll O'Day, would still be in possession of their ancestral estates and in undisturbed enjoyment of whatever happiness they, individually and collectively, could get out of life.

What the dear woman never knew, and it was just as well that she did not, were the special happenings which ended in the overwhelming catastrophe.

It really began with a tea basket, holding enough for two, which was opened one lovely afternoon under the big willows skirting that little strip of land bordering the backwater at Cookham-on-Thames. My lady at the time was wearing a wide leghorn hat with blue ribbons that matched her eyes and set off the roses in her fair English cheeks. Her companion was in white flannels--a muscular, well-set-up young man of thirty, fifteen years younger than her husband and with twice his charm--one of those delightful companions who possess the rare quality of making an hour seem but five minutes. A gay party had dropped down the river in her father's launch, which had been tied up at Ferry Inn, and Dalton had insisted on taking my lady for just a half-hour's poling in a punt, Felix and the others preferring to take their tea at the Inn--plans readily agreed to and carried out, except that the half-hour prolonged itself into two whole ones.

Then there had come a week-end at Glenmore Castle and a garden party outside London, and then five-o'clock teas at half a dozen private houses, including one or two meetings a trifle more secluded. And all quite as it should be, for a most desirable and valuable guest was this same Mr. Guy Dalton, a man received everywhere with open arms, as "one of the rising men of the time, my dear sir," a financier of distinction, indeed, and a promoter of such skill that he had only to issue a prospectus, or wink knowingly on the street, or take you aside at the club and whisper confidentially to you, when everything he had issued, winked at, or whispered about would go up with a rush, and countless men and women--a goodly number were women--would be hundreds, nay, thousands of pounds the richer before the week was out.