Lo, Michael! Part 38

During that eventful night while Starr still lay like a crushed lily torn rudely from its stem, her mother, after a stormy scene with her husband, in which he made it plain to her just what kind of a man she was wanting her daughter to marry, and during which she saw the fall of her greatest social ambitions, was suddenly stricken with apoplexy.

The papers next morning told the news as sympathetically as a paper can tell one's innermost secrets. It praised the wonderful ability of the woman who had so successfully completed all the unique arrangements for what had promised to be the greatest wedding of the season, if not of all seasons; and upon whose overtaxed strength, the last straw had been laid in the illness of the bridegroom. It stated that now of course the wedding would be put off indefinitely, as nothing could be thought of while the bride's mother lay in so critical a state.

For a week there were daily bulletins of her condition published always in more and more remote corners of the paper, until the little ripple that had been made in the stream of life pa.s.sed; and no further mention was made of the matter save occasionally when they sent for some famous specialist: when they took her to the sh.o.r.e to try what sea air might do; or when they brought her home again.

But all the time the woman lay locked in rigid silence. Only her cold eyes followed whoever came into her room. She gave no sign of knowing what they said, or of caring who came near her. Her husband's earnest pleas, Starr's tears, drew from her no faintest expression that might have been even imagined from a fluttering eyelash. There was nothing but that stony stare, that almost unseeing gaze, that yet followed, followed wherever one would move. It was a living death.

And when one day the release came and the eyes were closed forever from the scenes of this world, it was a sad relief to both husband and daughter.

Starr and her father stole away to an old New England farm-house where Mr.

Endicott's elderly maiden sister still lived in the old family homestead; a mild-eyed, low-voiced woman with plain gray frocks and soft white laces at wrists and neck and ruched about her sweet old face above the silver of her hair.

Starr had not been there since she was a little child, and her sad heart found her aunt's home restful. She stayed there through the fall and until after the first of the year; while her father came and went as business dictated; and the Endicott home on Madison Avenue remained closed except for the caretakers.

Meanwhile young Carter had discreetly escorted his mother to Europe, and was supposed by the papers to be going to return almost immediately. Not a breath of gossip, strange to say, stole forth. Everything seemed arranged to quiet any suspicion that might arise.

Early in the fall he returned to town but Starr was still in New England.

No one knew of the estrangement between them. Their immediate friends were away from town still, and everything seemed perfectly natural in the order of decency. Of course people could not be married at once when there had been a death in the family.

No one but the two families knew of Carter's repeated attempts to be reconciled to Starr; of his feeble endeavor at explanation; of her continued refusal even to see him; and the decided letter she wrote him after he had written her the most abject apology he knew how to frame; nor of her father's interview with the young man wherein he was told some facts about himself more plainly than anyone, even in his babyhood, had ever dared to tell him. Mr. Endicott agreed to keep silence for Starr's sake, provided the young man would do nothing to create any gossip about the matter, until the intended wedding had been forgotten, and other events should have taken the minds of society, from their particular case. Carter, for his own sake, had not cared to have the story get abroad and had sullenly acceded to the command. He had not, however, thought it necessary to make himself entirely miserable while abroad; and there were those who more than once spoke his name in company with that of a young and dashing divorcee. Some even thought he returned to America sooner than he intended in order to travel on the same steamer that she was to take. However, those whispers had not as yet crossed the water; and even if they had, such things were too common to cause much comment.

Then, one Monday morning, the papers were filled with horror over an unusually terrible automobile accident; in which a party of seven, of whom the young divorcee was one and Stuyvesant Carter was another, went over an embankment sixty feet in height, the car landing upside down on the rocks below, and killing every member of the party. The paper also stated that Mr. Theodore Brooks, intimate friend of Carter's, who was to have been best man at the wedding some months previous, which was postponed on account of the sudden illness and death of the bride's mother, was of the party.

Thus ended the career of Stuyvesant Carter, and thus the world never knew exactly why Starr Endicott did not become Mrs. Carter.

Michael, from the moment that he went forth from delivering his message in the church, saw no more of the Endicotts. He longed inexpressibly to call and enquire for Starr; to get some word of reconciliation from her father; to ask if there was not some little thing that he might be trusted to do for them; but he knew that his place was not there, and his company was not desired. Neither would he write, for even a note from him could but seem, to Starr, a reminder of the terrible things of which he had been witness, that is if anybody had ever told her it was he that brought her home.

One solace alone he allowed himself. Night after night as he went home late he would walk far out of his way to pa.s.s the house and look up at her window; and always it comforted him a little to see the dim radiance of her soft night light; behind the draperies of those windows, somewhere, safe, she lay asleep, the dear little white-faced girl that he had been permitted to carry to her home and safety, when she had almost reached the brink of destruction.

About a week after the fateful wedding day Michael received a brief note from Starr.

"My dear Mr. Endicott:

"I wish to thank you for your trouble in bringing me home last week. I cannot understand how you came to be there at that time. Also I am deeply grateful for your kindness in making the announcement at the church. Very sincerely, S.D.E."

Michael felt the covert question in that phrase: "I cannot understand how you came to be there at that time." She thought, perhaps, that to carry his point and stop the marriage he had had a hand in that miserable business!

Well, let her think it. It was not his place to explain, and really of course it could make little difference to her what she believed about him.

As well to let it rest. He belonged out of her world, and never would he try to force his way into it.

And so with the whiteness of his face still lingering from the hard days of tension, Michael went on, straining every nerve in his work; keeping the alley room open nightly even during hot weather, and in constant touch with the farm which was now fairly on its feet and almost beginning to earn its own living; though the contributions still kept coming to him quietly, here and there, and helped in the many new plans that grew out of the many new necessities.

The carpenter had built and built, until there were pretty little bungalows of one and two and three rooms dotted all about the farm to be rented at a low price to the workers. It had come to be a little community by itself, spoken of as "Old Orchard Farms," and well respected in the neighborhood, for in truth the motley company that Michael and Sam gathered there had done far better in the way of law-and-orderliness than either had hoped.

They seemed to have a pride that nothing that could hurt "the boss's"

reputation as a landowner should be laid to their charge. If by chance there came into their midst any sordid being who could not see matters in that light the rest promptly taught him better, or else put him out.

And now the whole front yard was aflame with brilliant flowers in their season. The orchard had been pruned and trimmed and grafted, and in the spring presented a foreground of wonderful pink and white splendor; and at all seasons of the year the gra.s.sy drive wound its way up to the old house, through a vista of branches, green, or brown.

It had long been in Michael's heart to build over the old house--for what he did not know. Certainly he had no hope of ever using it himself except as a transitory dwelling; yet it pleased his fancy to have it as he dreamed it out. Perhaps some day it might be needed for some supreme reason, and now was the time to get it ready. So one day he took a great and simple-hearted architect down to the place to stay over night and get an idea of the surroundings; and a few weeks later he was in possession of a plan that showed how the old house could be made into a beautiful new house, and yet keep all the original outlines. The carpenter, pleased with the prospect of doing something really fine, had undertaken the work and it was going forward rapidly.

The main walls were to be built around with stone, old stone bought from the ruins of a desolated barn of forgotten years, stone that was rusty and golden and green in lovely mellow tones; stone that was gray with age and mossy in place; now and then a stone that was dead black to give strength to the coloring of the whole. There were to be windows, everywhere, wide, low windows, that would let the sunlight in; and windows that nestled in the sloping, rambling roofs that were to be stained green like the moss that would grow on them some day. There was to be a piazza across the entire front with rough stone pillars, and a stone paved floor up to which the orchard gra.s.s would grow in a gentle terrace. Even now Sam and his helpers were at work starting rose vines of all varieties, to train about the trellises and twine about the pillars. Sam had elected that it should be called "Rose Cottage." Who would have ever suspected Sam of having any poetry in his nature?

The great stone fireplace with its ancient crane and place to sit inside was to be retained, and built about with more stone, and the part.i.tions between the original sitting-room and dining-room and hall were to be torn down, to make one splendid living-room of which the old fireplace should be the centre, with a great window at one side looking toward the sea, and a deep seat with book cases in the corner. Heavy beams were somehow to be put in the ceiling to support it, and fine wood used in the wainscoting and panelling, with rough soft-toned plaster between and above. The floors were to be smooth, wide boards of hard wood well fitted.

A little gable was to be added on the morning-side of the house for a dining-room, all windows, with a view of the sea on one side and the river on the other. Upstairs there would be four bedrooms and a bath-room, all according to the plan to be white wainscoting half-way up and delicately vined or tinted papers above.

Michael took great pleasure in going down to look at the house, and watching the progress that was made with it, as indeed the whole colony did. They called it "The Boss's Cottage," and when they laid off work at night always took a trip to see what had been done during the day, men, women and children. It was a sort of sacred pilgrimage, wherein they saw their own highest dreams coming true for the man they loved because he had helped them to a future of possibilities. Not a man of them but wistfully wondered if he would ever get to the place where he could build him a house like that, and resolved secretly to try for it; and always the work went better the next day for the visit to the shrine.

But after all, Michael would turn from his house with an empty ache in his heart. What was it for? Not for him. It was not likely he would ever spend happy hours there. He was not like other men. He must take his happiness in making others happy.

But one day a new thought came to him, as he watched the laborers working out the plan, and bringing it ever nearer and nearer to the perfect whole.

A great desire came to him to have Starr see it some day, to know what she would think about it, and if she would like it. The thought occurred to him that perhaps, some time, in the changing of the world, she might chance near that way, and he have opportunity to show her the house that he had built--for her! Not that he would ever tell her that last. She must never know of course that she was the only one in all the world he could ever care for. That would seem a great presumption in her eyes. He must keep that to himself. But there would be no harm in showing her the house, and he would make it now as beautiful as if she were to occupy it. He would take his joy in making all things fair, with the hope that she might one day see and approve it.

So, as the work drew near its completion he watched it more and more carefully, matching tints in rooms, and always bringing down some new idea, or finding some particular bit of furniture that would some day fit into a certain niche. In that way he cheated the lonely ache in his heart, and made believe he was happy.

And another winter drew its white mantle about its shoulders and prepared to face the blast.

It bade fair to be a bitter winter for the poor, for everything was high, and unskilled labor was poorly paid. Sickness and death were abroad, and lurked in the milk supply, the food supply, the unsanitary tenements about the alley; which, because it had not been so bad as some other districts had been left uncondemned. Yet it was bad enough, and Michael's hands were full to keep his people alive, and try to keep some of them from sinning.

For always where there is misery, there is the more sinning.

Old Sal sat on her doorstep shivering with her tattered shawl about her shoulders, or when it grew too cold peered from her little muslin curtained window behind the geranium, to see the dirty white hea.r.s.e with its pink-winged angel atop, pa.s.s slowly in and out with some little fragment of humanity; and knew that one day her turn would come to leave it all and go--! Then she turned back to her little room which had become the only heaven she knew, and solaced herself with the contents of a black bottle!

CHAPTER XXV

During the years of his work in the alley Michael had become known more and more among workers for the poor, and he found strength in their brotherhood, though he kept mainly to his own little corner, and had little time to go out into other fields. But he had formed some very pleasant distant friendships among workers, and had met prominent men who were interested in reforms of all sorts.

He was hurrying back to his boarding place one evening late in January with his mind full of the old problem of how to reach the ma.s.s of humanity and help them to live in decency so that they might stand some little chance of being good as well as being alive.

At the crossing of another avenue he met a man whose eloquence as a public speaker was only equalled by his indefatigable tirelessness as a worker among men.

"Good evening, Endicott," he said cordially, halting in his rapid walk, "I wonder if you're not the very man I want? Will you do me a favor? I'm in great straits and no time to hunt up anybody."

"Anything I can do, Doctor, I am at your service," said Michael.

"Good! Thank you!" said the great man. "Are you free this evening for an hour?"

"I can be," said Michael smiling. The other man's hearty greeting and warm "thank you" cheered his lonely heart.

"Well, then you'll take my place at Madison Square Garden to-night, won't you? I've just had a telegram that my mother is very ill, perhaps dying, and I feel that I must go at once. I'm on my way to the station now. I thought Patton would be at his rooms perhaps and he might help me out, but they tell me he is out of town on a lecture tour."

"Take your place?" said Michael aghast. "That I'm sure I could never do, Doctor. What were you going to do?"

"Why, there's a ma.s.s meeting at Madison Square Garden. We're trying to get more playgrounds and roof gardens for poor children, you know. I was to speak about the tenement district, give people a general idea of what the need is, you know. I'm sure you're well acquainted with the subject.

They're expecting some big men there who can be big givers if they're touched in the right way. You're very good to help me out. You'll excuse me if I hurry on, it's almost train time. I want to catch the six o'clock express West--"

"But, Doctor," said Michael in dismay, striding along by his side down the street, "I really couldn't do that. I'm not a public speaker, you know--I never addressed a big audience in my life! Isn't there some one else I could get for you?"