John Marvel, Assistant Part 38

I will not go into the steps I took to reach my ends, nor the difficulties I encountered, which grew as I progressed in my investigation until they appeared almost insurmountable; but finally I struck a lead which at last led me to a conviction that if I could but secure the evidence I could establish such a case of fraud for my two old clients as would give promise of a fair chance to recover for them, at least, a part of their patrimony. The difficulty, or one of them--for they were innumerable--was that to establish their case it was necessary to prove that several men who had stood high in the public esteem, had been guilty of such disregard of the rights of those to whom they stood in the relation of trustees that it would be held a fraud. I was satisfied that had McSheen taken proper steps to secure his clients'

rights, he might have succeeded and further, that he had been bought off, but the difficulty was to prove it.

However, I determined to make the effort to get the proof and my zeal was suddenly quickened.

I had now begun to watch for my young lady wherever I went, and it was astonishing how my quickened senses enabled me to find her in the most crowded thoroughfare, or in strange and out-of-the-way places. It was almost as if there were some secret power which drew us together. And when I was blessed to meet her the day was always one of sunshine for me, however heavy lowered the dim clouds.

The next afternoon our meeting was so unexpected that I could not but set it down to the ruling of a higher power. I had gone out to see how my McNeil clients were coming on, having doubtless some latent hope that I might find her there; but she had not been there for several days.

They had heard of her, however, for she had got the husband and father a place and that made sunshine in the wretched little hovel, as bare as it was. I was touched by their grat.i.tude, and after taking note of the wretched poverty of the family, and promising that I would try to get the mother some sort of work, I strolled on. I had not gone far when I suddenly came on her face to face. The smile that came into her eyes must have brought my soul into my face.

Love is the true miracle-worker. It can change the most prosaic region into a scene of romance. At sight of Eleanor Leigh's slim figure the dull street suddenly became an enchanted land.

"Well, we appear fated to meet," she said with a smile and intonation that my heart feasted on for days. She little knew how a.s.siduously I had played Fate during these past weeks, haunting the streets near her home or those places which she blessed with her presence. This meeting, however, was purely accidental, unless it be true, as I sometimes almost incline to think, that some occult power which we cannot understand rules all our actions and guides our footsteps toward those we love supremely. John Marvel always called it Providence.

"Well, may I not see you home?" I asked, and without waiting for her consent, I took it for granted and turned back with her, though she protested against taking me out of my way. I had indeed some difficulty in not saying then and there, "My way is where you are."

She had been to see one of her scholars who was sick, "the little cripple, whom you know," she said. I suddenly began to think cripples the most interesting of mortals. She gave me, as we strolled along, an account of her first acquaintance with her and her mother; and of how John Marvel had found out their condition and helped them. Then she had tried to help them a little, and had gotten the mother to let her have the little girl at her school.

"Now they are doing a little better," she said, "but you never saw such wretchedness. The woman had given up everything in the world to try to save her husband, and such a wretched hole as they lived in you couldn't imagine. They did not have a single article of furniture in their room when I--when Mr. Marvel first found them. It had all gone to the Loan Company--they were starving."

John Marvel had a nose like a pointer for all who were desolate and oppressed. How he discovered them, except, as Eleanor Leigh said, by some sort of a sixth sense like that of the homing pigeon, surpa.s.ses my comprehension. It is enough that he found and furrowed them out. Thus, he had learned that a little girl, a child of a noted criminal, had been ill-treated by the children at a public school and that her mother and herself were almost starving, and had hastened at once to find her. Like a hunted animal she had gone and hidden herself in what was scarcely better than a den. Here John Marvel found her, in a wretched cellar, the mother ill on a pallet of straw, and both starving, without food or fire. The door was barred, as was her heart, and it was long before any answer came to the oft-repeated knock. But at last his patience was rewarded. The door opened a bare inch, and a fierce black eye in a haggard white face peered at him through the c.h.i.n.k.

"What do you want?"

"To help you."

The door opened slowly and John Marvel entered an abode which he said to me afterward he was glad for the first time in his life to be so near-sighted as not to be able to see. A pallet of rags lay in a corner, and on a box crouched, rather than sat, a little girl with a broken crutch by her side, her eyes fastened on the newcomer with a gaze of half bewilderment. It was some time before John Marvel could get anything out of the woman, but he held a key which at last unlocks every heart,--a divine and penetrating sympathy. And presently the woman told him her story. Her husband was a fugitive from justice. She did not say so, but only that he had had to leave the city because the police were after him. His friends had turned against him and against her. She did not know where her husband was, but believed he had left the country, unless, indeed, he were dead. She was waiting to hear from him, and meantime everything which she had had gone, and now, though she did not say so, they were starving. To relieve them was as instinctive with John Marvel as to breathe. The next step was to help them permanently. It was hard to do, because the woman was at bay and was as suspicious as a she-wolf, and the child was as secretive as a young cub. John turned to one, however, who he believed, and with good reason, knew how to do things which were lost to his dull comprehension.

The following day into that den walked Eleanor Leigh, and it was to visit this woman and her child that she was going the morning I met her coming down the steps, when she dropped her violets on the sidewalk. It was a hard task which John Marvel had set her, for as some women may yield to women rather than to men, so there are some who are harder to reach by the former than by the latter, and the lot of Red Talman's wife had separated her from her s.e.x and turned her into a state where she felt that all women were against her. But Eleanor Leigh was equal to the task; having gained admission through the open sesame of John Marvel's name she first applied herself to win the child. Seating herself on the box she began to play with the little girl and to show her the toys she had brought,--toys which the child had never seen before. It was not long before the little thing was in her lap and then the woman had been won. When Eleanor Leigh came away everything had been arranged, and the following night Red Talman's wife and child moved to another quarter of the town, to a clean little room not far from the small school on the way to which I first met the little waif.

"But you don't go into such places by yourself?" I said to her when she had told me their story. "Why, it might cost you your life."

"Oh, no! No one is going to trouble me. I am not afraid."

"Well, it is not safe," I protested. "I wish you wouldn't do it." It was the first time I had ever ventured to a.s.sume such an att.i.tude toward her. "I don't care how brave you are, it is not safe."

"Oh! I am not brave at all. In fact, I am an awful coward. I am afraid of mice and all such ferocious beasts--and as to a spider--why, little Miss m.u.f.fet was a heroine to me."

"I know," I nodded, watching the play of expression in her eyes with secret delight.

"But I am not afraid of people. They are about the only things I am not afraid of. They appear to me so pitiful in their efforts. Why should one fear them? Besides, I don't think about myself when I am doing anything--only about what I am doing."

"What is the name of your little protegee's father--the criminal?" I asked.

"Talman--they call him 'Red Talman.' He's quite noted, I believe."

"'Red Talman!' Why, he is one of the most noted criminals in the country. I remember reading of his escape some time ago. He was in for a long term. It was said no prison could hold him."

"Yes, he has escaped," she said demurely.

I once more began to protest against her going about such places by herself as she had described, but she only laughed at me for my earnestness. She had also been to see the Miss Tippses, she said, and she gave an amusing and, at the same time, a pathetic account of Miss Pansy's brave attempt to cover up their poverty.

"It is hard to do anything for them. One can help the Talmans; but it is almost impossible to help the decayed gentlefolk. One has to be so careful not to appear to know her pathetic little deceits, and I find myself bowing and accepting all her little devices and transparent deceptions of how comfortable they are, when I know that maybe she may be faint with hunger at that very time."

I wondered if she knew their story. But she suddenly said:

"Tell me about their case. I do trust you can win it."

I was only too ready to tell her anything. So, as we walked along I told her all I knew or nearly all.

"Oh! you must win it! To think that such robbery can be committed! There must be some redress! Who were the wretches who robbed them? They ought to be shown up if they were in their graves! I hate to know things and not know the person who committed them." As she turned to me with flashing eyes, I felt a great desire to tell her but how could I do so?

"Tell me. Do you know them?"

"Yes--some of them."

"Well, tell me their names."

"Why do you wish to know?" I hesitated.

"Because I do. Isn't that sufficient?"

I wanted to say yes, but still I hesitated.

"Was it anybody--I know?"

"Why----"

"I must know." Her eyes were on my face and I yielded.

"Mr. Argand was one of the Directors--in fact, was the president of the road--but I have no direct proof--yet."

"Do you mean my aunt's husband?"

I nodded.

She turned her face away.

"I ought not to have told you," I added.

"Oh! yes, you ought. I would have wanted to know if it had been my father. I have the dearest father in the world. You do not know how good and kind he is, and how generous to every one. He has almost ruined himself working for others."

I said I had no doubt he was all she said; but my heart sank as I recalled my part in the paper I had written about him. I knew I must tell her some time, but I hesitated to do it now. I began to talk about myself, a subject I am rather fond of, but on this occasion I had possibly more excuse than usual.

"My mother also died when I was a child," she said, sighing, as I related the loss of mine and said that I was just beginning to realize what it was. It appeared to draw us nearer together. I was conscious of her sympathy, and under its influence I went on and told her the wretched story of my life, my folly and my failure, and my final resolve to begin anew and be something worth while. I did not spare myself and I made no concealments. I felt her sympathy and it was as sweet to me as ever was grace to a famished soul. I had been so long alone that it seemed to unlock Heaven.

"I believe you will succeed," she said, turning and looking me in the face.

A sudden fire sprang into my brain and throbbed in my heart. "If you will say that to me and mean it, I will."