Lord Loveland Discovers America Part 25

"I wanted to get the lot," she said, "but my, the bill was high!--way above me. I'd twenty-five dollars I'd been savin' up--oh, for something; but you needn't care. I'd a heap rather do this than buy any old thing for myself. And here's what they give me after a lot of fuss."

She tore off the brown paper with a dramatic gesture, and triumphantly displayed the suit of tweed clothing which Loveland had taken off the evening before in dressing for dinner. Then her face fell, as she saw that his expressed no pleasure.

"I thought you'd like these better than anything, as I couldn't run to all," the girl went on disappointedly.

"You paid my hotel bill!" exclaimed Loveland.

"Only a little, weeny part," Isidora broke in. "Wisht I could have done more."

"I don't," said Val, hastily. "Oh, you're very kind--too kind. I don't know what to say. But--your money, that you were saving--why, I--Jove!

it's horrible. And I mayn't be able to pay you back for days."

"I don't want you to pay me back," the girl said proudly. "It's been a pleasure."

Loveland's heart reproached him. He had shuddered a little at the thought that this gaudy young beauty in flaunting feathers and cheap finery had gone to the Waldorf claiming him as her "gentleman friend."

But it was a thought far less palatable that she should spend her savings for him. He was grateful--more grateful than he would have known how to be yesterday, to a person not of his own cla.s.s--yet grat.i.tude was not now his strongest emotion.

He thanked her as best he could for all she had done, and talked down her objections to being repaid. Now, he said, owing to her kindness he could walk the streets without being stared at, and would lose no time in cabling to his mother. Oh, he had plenty of money for that! and smiling as if it were part of a huge joke, he showed what the payment of his small debt to the restaurant had left of his eight dollars.

Seven dollars and a bit-nearly thirty shillings! Why, he was rich. All he asked now, was a room in which to change his clothes.

As there was a houseful of empty rooms, this request was easily granted; and presently Loveland came back to the kitchen suitably clad for daylight--except for the detail of his necktie. He would have given a good deal for a change of linen; but there was no use in crying for the moon. And Isidora saw no fault in his appearance as she walked proudly at his side, on the way to send a cablegram to Scotland.

Secretly, Loveland would have been glad to dispense with her company, but she a.s.sured him that she had "more time than anything else," and that she would be delighted to guide him. Only, they "mustn't go past home, for if Pa saw her with a strange gentleman, there'd be trouble."

Isidora peered over her companion's shoulder, as he wrote out his message to his mother, and was much interested in the address. To save expense, he put only "Loveland, Dorloch, North Britain," therefore the girl's curiosity was not greatly rewarded. All she could say to herself was that, apparently, he had some right to the name of Loveland, and that he really did seem to expect that "somebody over there" might send him a remittance. Otherwise why should he waste good money on a cablegram, and without a code, too?

Loveland had not written to his mother since his change of plan about the ships. But after all, he said to himself, it did not matter. He was always a bad correspondent--always had been--and the mater just put up with it, poor dear. She wouldn't be worrying anyway, as she must suppose him to be on the high seas at this moment, a pa.s.senger on the _Baltic_--unless she had heard from Betty or Jim--an improbable contingency. Even if he had sent off a letter directly after landing, she would not get it for days yet, so his negligence had done no harm.

As for the Marconigram Jim had suggested--why, as things had turned out, it was as well he hadn't wasted money on it.

Unfortunately, to make his need of money clear, Val was obliged to write a long message, even though he attempted no elaborate explanation, beyond saying: "Don't believe newspaper canards." When he had finished, and did not see his way to striking out a single word, he was vexed to find that he would have to pay six dollars and fifty cents. Still, his mother would instantly send the fifty pounds he asked for, even if she had to borrow, and in a few hours this hideous situation would be ended.

He could pay all he owed; and then, if there were no hope of anything good in America, he would take pa.s.sage on the first homeward bound ship.

Isidora advised him to give as an address the house where Mrs.

Gernsbacher was caretaker, as embarra.s.sing questions might be asked by Pa if an answer came to the restaurant. She was afraid that Mr. Gordon would have to "chum up" with Bill again for the night, if he were determined not to accept a little loan from her; and she was grieved to think of the boring evening he would have to spend.

It would be fun, she thought, if he would "just drop in at the restaurant like a stranger," and have some supper, which would cost him as little there as anywhere, since he was bent on paying. But Loveland made an excuse which pleased her so much that she relinquished the plan almost without a pang. It would be difficult, he said, after all her goodness, to treat her like an entire stranger. He said this carelessly, but to her it meant a great deal--so much, that she went straight home almost as happy as if he had been by her side.

With his evening clothes under his arm (the first time in his life, perhaps, that he had carried a parcel larger than a letter), Loveland found his way back to the Bowery, back to the Bat Hotel, back to his friend Bill, who was already in the reading room. And once again the name of "P. Gordon" figured humbly among the hundred and fifty lodgers for that night.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The Man Who Waits

There came no cablegram from Scotland next day. Loveland's mother did not answer his appeal. But Val tried to persuade himself that this was not strange. Perhaps she could not get together such a sum as he had asked for, without a little delay, but she would send as soon as possible. He was sure of that as he was sure that his present address ought to be First Circle, Hades.

The dollar which remained to him after sending his expensive cry across the sea, was gone. He borrowed of Bill Willing, who offered and was delighted to lend. In a day or two at most, Loveland said, he would repay, and planned to give Bill a handsome present as well. Meanwhile Loveland pa.s.sed his time miserably between Alexander the Great's and the Bat Hotel, or walking the streets in the desperate hope of seeing some English face he knew. He saw many pleasant faces, to whom no appeal of sorrow would be made in vain. But they were strangers' faces, and he was not a beggar yet.

He had bought with Bill's money--an advance from Alexander--two or three collars, a change of linen, and a dark necktie, therefore he looked smart and prosperous enough in his tweed suit to pa.s.s muster in a crowd, the absence of an overcoat seeming a mere eccentricity. Perhaps there were men who envied the handsome young Englishman who strolled past them with a jaunty, leisured air, while they were forced to hurry. But he would have given a good deal for the need of hurry.

Four days dragged by, including one ghastly Sunday; and when there was still no word from Lady Loveland, Val began to feel the heavy conviction that none would ever come. Some awful spell had fallen upon him, it seemed, a curse which made him a pariah even for those who loved him best. It had begun with Foxham's treachery; and now it had come to his mother's neglect. What might follow, he could not guess; he would rather not try to guess.

He thought over his past, and realised that he had been selfish; but he did not feel that he had ever done anything which deserved such a punishment as this, if punishment it were--if there were a G.o.d who watched the children of the earth, and punished, or rewarded, their deeds. Never before had it occurred to him to pity others, beyond a "poor old chap, so sorry, don't you know," and a quick forgetting; but now he was filled with a dumb sympathy for everyone who suffered. Above this bright, gay city--the gayest and brightest Val had ever known--it seemed that his eyes had gained a magic keenness to see the smoke of human suffering rise like incense, to the clear remoteness of the sky.

Loveland did not always take his meals at Alexander's. Sometimes he let a meal-time pa.s.s, too deeply depressed to be hungry; or if Bill Willing insisted on food for both, there were places where it could be obtained even more cheaply than at Alexander the Great's--when Alexander himself, and not Isidora, was behind the counter.

Val had met the "Boss" now, though not officially. While he had a few dimes and nickels in his pocket, he patronised the restaurant, glad to have a glimpse of Isidora's friendly, pretty face, and a chance to warm himself at the glowing stove. The "Boss" regarded him as a client--a "queer cuss," down on his luck, but worth being civil to, for in New York you never knew how men's fortunes might change.

Nevertheless, Loveland realised that Alexander had as much real kindness of heart for the world in general as Shylock, or a tiger. He had his friends, perhaps--for tigers may have friends, in their native jungle, if there be no question of a carca.s.s to divide; but when most sleek and smiling, there was something vaguely terrible about the fat Jew. Wake the tiger in him from its sleep of purring prosperity, and it would spring, tearing and rending with unsheathed claws the creature who had roused it.

Isidora, thought Loveland, must resemble her mother, who, it appeared, was long ago dead; and maybe that was one reason why the fierce-eyed Jew loved the girl so jealously, as a tiger loves its young, or as Shylock loved Jessica. She had something of his Hebraic cast of feature, although he had taken a Christian wife; but nothing could be less like the hawk-eye, with its fierce glance suddenly unveiled, the cruel nose, and the big rapacious mouth of the gross, elderly man, than the langourous beauty of the young girl.

His father had been a German Jew, but he--once Isaac Solomon, now Alexander the Great--had been born in the slums of New York, and had fought his way up, biting, clawing, or fawning, whichever seemed the wisest course. Now he was growing rich. He was proud of his own portrait on the walls, in the battle-paintings, proud of the queer pictorial menus and smart advertising cards which helped to make the success of the venture in which he had risked his capital; but he acknowledged no debt of grat.i.tude to Bill Willing's ingenuity, and would have sacked the artist the moment he ceased to be useful. He decried the value of Bill's work; he bullied his two black cooks and his ill-paid waiters; nor had his prosperity given him any fellow feeling for others, who, like himself, were struggling to reach the top.

If you deserved to get on, you got on, and devil take the hindmost, was Alexander's motto. But he loved and admired Isidora, and though he grumbled when she asked for money, secretly his chief joy in piling up a fortune was for her future, that she might marry well and hand his name on, for posthumous honours. He had already picked out the bridegroom, a young Jew with goggle eyes, a turned up moustache, and glittering black hair; a fondness for celluloid collars and red neckties; a smooth manner with his prospective father-in-law, and a truculent front for his inferiors. The young man was making "good money" as a "drummer" for a firm of Jewish tobacco merchants, but there was a slight "tache" upon his parentage, and he would be willing to take Alexander's name, on marrying Alexander's daughter. Bye-and-bye, when years from now Alexander might wish to retire on his pies and fried oysters, as other heroes had retired on their laurels, Leo Cohen would, with Isidora, carry on the restaurant and its glory from generation to generation.

This was Alexander's dream, and woe unto him who should try to interfere with its fulfilment! But he had no fear of any such dangerous person, even when Leo was away drumming up interest for a certain firm in the West, and a tall, handsome, sulky-looking young Englishman was dropping in every day for cheap food and a smile from Isidora.

If Loveland had had money, he would have sent off other cablegrams, but he soon came down to his last copper; and Bill, though willing by nature as by name, seldom had in his best days more to lend him than fifteen cents at a time.

On the fifth day the situation pa.s.sed beyond bearing. Not only was Loveland penniless, but he could not bring himself to borrow more of Bill's pitiful nickels and hard-earned dimes. Each one of those coins was more to Bill than a sovereign (usually someone else's sovereign) had been to Lord Loveland in his palmy days. The thing couldn't go on; and so Val was saying to Bill as the two drank hot coffee (at Bill's expense) standing up before the counter at Alexander the Great's on the fifth morning after Loveland's arrival in New York.

It was not quite seven o'clock, but Bill had finished his work on the "meenoos," and had invited P. Gordon to "stoke his furnace" at an expenditure of two cents.

Alexander, who had presided at a political ward meeting the night before, had not yet come down to growl at his man-servant, his maid-servant, and all within his gates. "Dutchy" had been discharged with violence the night before, because he had drowned his vast homesickness in unlimited beer, and "Blinkey" was the only member of the household on view except the black cook d.i.c.k and d.i.c.k's a.s.sistant.

"Bill, I can't stand this any longer. I shall have to work or steal--anything but borrow more--until I can touch my money," Loveland broke out, when Blinkey had disappeared behind the red curtain and was being harangued in the distance by big d.i.c.k.

"It ain't easy to do either in New York," said Bill, mildly.

"To think of my being practically reduced to starvation and nakedness, with a letter of credit for a hundred and fifty pounds in my pocket!"

groaned Val. "Do you think old Alexander would advance me anything if I told him my whole story?"

"Oh, I guess I wouldn't tell him the story," Bill advised, hastily.

"Why not?"

"Well, he's got a sharp tongue, Alexander has."

"In England such a fellow could only get at me at all through my servants."

"I--suppose so," agreed Bill, gently. "But this ain't England."

"I should think it wasn't, worse luck."