The Man Without a Country and Other Tales Part 15

Miss Jones determined that evening to breakfast on the boat. Be it observed that I did not then know her by any other name. She was to go to an aunt's house, and she knew that if she left the boat on its early arrival in New York, she would disturb that lady by a premature ringing at her bell. I had no reason for haste, as the reader knows. The distribution of the cyclopaedias was not to take place till the next day, and that absurd trifle was the only distinct excuse I had to myself for being in New York at all. I asked Miss Jones, therefore, if I might not be her escort still to her aunt's house. I had said it would be hard to break off our pleasant journey before I had seen where she lived, and I thought she seemed relieved to know that she should not be wholly a stranger on her arrival. It was clear enough that her aunt would send no one to meet her.

These preliminaries adjusted, we parted to our respective cabins. And when, the next morning, at that unearthly hour demanded by Philadelphia trains and other exigencies, the Newton made her dock, I rejoiced that breakfast was not till seven o'clock, that I had two hours more of the berth, which was luxury compared to Zekiel's bunk,--I turned upon my other side and slept on.

Sorry enough for that morning nap was I for the next thirty-six hours.

For when I went on deck, and sent in the stewardess to tell Miss Jones that I was waiting for her, and then took from her the check for her trunk, I woke to the misery of finding that, in that treacherous two hours, some pirate from the pier had stepped on board, had seized the waiting trunk, left almost alone, while the baggage-master's back was turned, and that, to a certainty, it was lost. I did not return to Fausta with this story till the breakfast-bell had long pa.s.sed and the breakfast was very cold. I did not then tell it to her till I had seen her eat her breakfast with an appet.i.te much better than mine. I had already offered up stairs the largest reward to anybody who would bring it back which my scanty purse would pay. I had spoken to the clerk, who had sent for a policeman. I could do nothing more, and I did not choose to ruin her chop and coffee by ill-timed news. The officer came before breakfast was over, and called me from table.

On the whole, his business-like way encouraged one. He had some clews which I had not thought possible. It was not unlikely that they should pounce on the trunk before it was broken open. I gave him a written description of its marks; and when he civilly asked if "my lady" would give some description of any books or other articles within, I readily promised that I would call with such a description at the police station. Somewhat encouraged, I returned to Miss Jones, and, when I led her from the breakfast-table, told her of her misfortune. I took all shame to myself for my own carelessness, to which I attributed the loss.

But I told her all that the officer had said to me, and that I hoped to bring her the trunk at her aunt's before the day was over.

Fausta took my news, however, with a start which frightened me. All her money, but a shilling or two, was in the trunk. To place money in trunks is a weakness of the female mind which I have nowhere seen accounted for. Worse than this, though,--as appeared after a moment's examination of her travelling _sac_,--her portfolio in the trunk contained the letter of the aunt whom she came to visit, giving her her address in the city. To this address she had no other clew but that her aunt was Mrs. Mary Mason, had married a few years before a merchant named Mason, whom Miss Jones had never seen, and of whose name and business this was all she knew. They lived in a numbered street, but whether it was Fourth Street, or Fifty-fourth, or One Hundred and Twenty-fourth, or whether it was something between, the poor child had no idea. She had put up the letter carefully, but had never thought of the importance of the address. Besides this aunt, she knew no human being in New York.

"Child of the Public," I said to myself, "what do you do now?" I had appealed to my great patron in sending for the officer, and on the whole I felt that my sovereign had been gracious to me, if not yet hopeful.

But now I must rub my lamp again, and ask the genie where the unknown Mason lived. The genie of course suggested the Directory, and I ran for it to the clerk's office. But as we were toiling down the pages of "Masons," and had written off thirteen or fourteen who lived in numbered streets, Fausta started, looked back at the preface and its date, flung down her pencil in the only abandonment of dismay in which I ever saw her, and cried, "First of May! They were abroad until May. They have been abroad since the day they were married!" So that genie had to put his glories into his pocket, and carry his Directory back to the office again.

The natural thing to propose was, that I should find for Miss Jones a respectable boarding-house, and that she should remain there until her trunk was found, or till she could write to friends who had this fatal address, and receive an answer. But here she hesitated. She hardly liked to explain why,--did not explain wholly. But she did not say that she had no friends who knew this address. She had but few relations in the world, and her aunt had communicated with her alone since she came from Europe. As for the boarding-house, "I had rather look for work," she said bravely. "I have never promised to pay money when I did not know how to obtain it; and that"--and here she took out fifty or sixty cents from her purse--"and that is all now. In respectable boarding-houses, when people come without luggage, they are apt to ask for an advance.

Or, at least," she added with some pride, "I am apt to offer it."

I hastened to ask her to take all my little store; but I had to own that I had not two dollars. I was sure, however, that my overcoat and the dress-suit I wore would avail me something, if I thrust them boldly up some spout. I was sure that I should be at work within a day or two. At all events, I was certain of the cyclopaedia the next day. That should go to old Gowan's,--in Fulton Street it was then,--"the moral centre of the intellectual world," in the hour I got it. And at this moment, for the first time, the thought crossed me, "If mine could only be the name drawn, so that that foolish $5,000 should fall to me." In that case I felt that Fausta might live in "a respectable boarding-house" till she died. Of this, of course, I said nothing, only that she was welcome to my poor dollar and a half, and that I should receive the next day some more money that was due me.

"You forget, Mr. Carter," replied Fausta, as proudly as before,--"you forget that I cannot borrow of you any more than of a boarding-house-keeper. I never borrow. Please G.o.d, I never will. It must be," she added, "that in a Christian city like this there is some respectable and fit arrangement made for travellers who find themselves where I am. What that provision is I do not know; but I will find out what it is before this sun goes down."

I paused a moment before I replied. If I had been fascinated by this lovely girl before, I now bowed in respect before her dignity and resolution; and, with my sympathy, there was a delicious throb of self-respect united, when I heard her lay down so simply, as principles of her life, two principles on which I had always myself tried to live.

The half-expressed habits of my boyhood and youth were now uttered for me as axioms by lips which I knew could speak nothing but right and truth.

I paused a moment. I stumbled a little as I expressed my regret that she would not let me help her,--joined with my certainty that she was in the right in refusing,--and then it the only stiff speech I ever made to her, I said:--

"I am the 'Child of the Public.' If you ever hear my story, you will say so too. At the least, I can claim this, that I have a right to help you in your quest as to the way in which the public will help you. Thus far I am clearly the officer in his suite to whom he has intrusted you.

Are you ready, then, to go on sh.o.r.e?"

Fausta looked around on that forlorn ladies' saloon, as if it were the last link holding her to her old safe world.

"Looked upon skylight, lamp, and chain, As what she ne'er might see again."

Then she looked right through me; and if there had been one mean thought in me at that minute, she would have seen the viper. Then she said, sadly,--

"I have perfect confidence in you, though people would say we were strangers. Let us go."

And we left the boat together. We declined the invitations of the noisy hackmen, and walked slowly to Broadway.

We stopped at the station-house for that district, and to the attentive chief Fausta herself described those contents of her trunk which she thought would be most easily detected, if offered for sale. Her mother's Bible, at which the chief shook his head; Bibles, alas! brought nothing at the shops; a soldier's medal, such as were given as target prizes by the Montgomery regiment; and a little silver canteen, marked with the device of the same regiment, seemed to him better worthy of note. Her portfolio was wrought with a cipher, and she explained to him that she was most eager that this should be recovered. The pocketbook contained more than one hundred dollars, which she described, but he shook his head here, and gave her but little hope of that, if the trunk were once opened. His chief hope was for this morning.

"And where shall we send to you then, madam?" said he.

I had been proud, as if it were my merit, of the impression Fausta had made upon the officer, in her quiet, simple, ladylike dress and manner.

For myself, I thought that one slip of pretence in my dress or bearing, a sc.r.a.p of gold or of pinchbeck, would have ruined both of us in our appeal. But, fortunately, I did not disgrace her, and the man looked at her as if he expected her to say "Fourteenth Street." What would she say?

"That depends upon what the time will be. Mr. Carter will call at noon, and will let you know."

We bowed, and were gone. In an instant more she begged my pardon, almost with tears; but I told her that if she also had been a "Child of the Public," she could not more fitly have spoken to one of her father's officers. I begged her to use me as her protector, and not to apologize again. Then we laid out the plans which we followed out that day.

The officer's manner had rea.s.sured her, and I succeeded in persuading her that it was certain we should have the trunk at noon. How much better to wait, at least so far, before she entered on any of the enterprises of which she talked so coolly, as of offering herself as a nursery-girl, or as a milliner, to whoever would employ her, if only she could thus secure an honest home till money or till aunt were found.

Once persuaded that we were safe from this Quixotism, I told her that we must go on, as we did on the ca.n.a.l, and first we must take our const.i.tutional walk for two hours.

"At least," she said, "our good papa, the Public, gives us wonderful sights to see, and good walking to our feet, as a better Father has given us this heavenly sky and this bracing air."

And with those words the last heaviness of despondency left her face for that day. And we plunged into the delicious adventure of exploring a new city, staring into windows as only strangers can, revelling in print-shops as only they do, really seeing the fine buildings as residents always forget to do, and laying up, in short, with those streets, nearly all the a.s.sociations which to this day we have with them.

Two hours of this tired us with walking, of course. I do not know what she meant to do next; but at ten I said, "Time for French, Miss Jones."

"_Ah oui_" said she, "_mais ou_?" and I had calculated my distances, and led her at once into Lafayette Place; and, in a moment, pushed open the door of the Astor Library, led her up the main stairway, and said, "This is what the Public provides for his children when they have to study."

"This is the Astor," said she, delighted. "And we are all right, as you say, here?" Then she saw that our entrance excited no surprise among the few readers, men and women, who were beginning to a.s.semble.

We took our seats at an unoccupied table, and began to revel in the luxuries for which we had only to ask that we might enjoy. I had a little memorandum of books which I had been waiting to see. She needed none; but looked for one and another, and yet another, and between us we kept the attendant well in motion. A pleasant thing to me to be finding out her thoroughbred tastes and lines of work, and I was happy enough to interest her in some of my pet readings; and, of course, for she was a woman, to get quick hints which had never dawned on me before. A very short hour and a half we spent there before I went to the station-house again. I went very quickly. I returned to her very slowly.

The trunk was not found. But they were now quite sure they were on its track. They felt certain it had been carried from pier to pier and taken back up the river. Nor was it hopeless to follow it. The particular rascal who was supposed to have it would certainly stop either at Piermont or at Newburg. They had telegraphed to both places, and were in time for both. "The day boat, sir, will bring your lady's trunk, and will bring me Rowdy Rob, too, I hope," said the officer. But at the same moment, as he rang his bell, he learned that no despatch had yet been received from either of the places named. I did not feel so certain as he did.

But Fausta showed no discomfort as I told my news. "Thus far," said she, "the Public serves me well. I will borrow no trouble by want of faith."

And I--as Dante would say--and I, to her, "will you let me remind you, then, that at one we dine, that Mrs. Grills is now placing the salt-pork upon the cabin table, and Mr. Grills asking the blessing; and, as this is the only day when I can have the honor of your company, will you let me show you how a Child of the Public dines, when his finances are low?"

Fausta laughed, and said again, less tragically than before, "I have perfect confidence in you,"--little thinking how she started my blood with the words; but this time, as if in token, she let me take her hand upon my arm, as we walked down the street together.

If we had been sn.o.bs, or even if I had been one, I should have taken her to Taylor's, and have spent all the money I had on such a luncheon as neither of us had ever eaten before. Whatever else I am, I am not a sn.o.b of that sort. I show my colors. I led her into a little cross-street which I had noticed in our erratic morning pilgrimage. We stopped at a German baker's. I bade her sit down at the neat marble table, and I bought two rolls. She declined lager, which I offered her in fun. We took water instead, and we had dined, and had paid two cents for our meal, and had had a very merry dinner, too, when the clock struck two.

"And now, Mr. Carter," said she, "I will steal no more of your day. You did not come to New York to escort lone damsels to the Astor Library or to dinner. Nor did I come only to see the lions or to read French. I insist on your going to your affairs, and leaving me to mine. If you will meet me at the Library half an hour before it closes, I will thank you; till then," with a tragedy shake of the hand, and a merry laugh, "adieu!"

I knew very well that no harm could happen to her in two hours of an autumn afternoon. I was not sorry for her _conge_, for it gave me an opportunity to follow my own plans. I stopped at one or two cabinet-makers, and talked with the "jours" about work, that I might tell her with truth that I had been in search of it;--then I sedulously began on calling upon every man I could reach named Mason. O, how often I went through one phase or another of this colloquy:--

"Is Mr. Mason in?"

"That's my name, sir."

"Can you give me the address of Mr. Mason who returned from Europe last May?"

"Know no such person, sir."

The reader can imagine how many forms this dialogue could be repeated in, before, as I wrought my way through a long line of dry-goods cases to a distant counting-room, I heard some one in it say, "No, madam, I know no such person as you describe"; and from the recess Fausta emerged and met me. Her plan for the afternoon had been the same with mine. We laughed as we detected each other; then I told her she had had quite enough of this, that it was time she should rest, and took her, _nolens volens_, into the ladies' parlor of the St. Nicholas, and bade her wait there through the twilight, with my copy of Clementine, till I should return from the police-station. If the reader has ever waited in such a place for some one to come and attend to him, he will understand that n.o.body will be apt to molest him when he has not asked for attention.

Two hours I left Fausta in the rocking-chair, which there the Public had provided for her. Then I returned, sadly enough. No tidings of Rowdy Rob, none of trunk, Bible, money, letter, medal, or anything. Still was my district sergeant hopeful, and, as always, respectful. But I was hopeless this time, and I knew that the next day Fausta would be plunging into the war with intelligence-houses and advertis.e.m.e.nts. For the night, I was determined that she should spend it in my ideal "respectable boarding-house." On my way down town, I stopped in at one or two shops to make inquiries, and satisfied myself where I would take her. Still I thought it wisest that we should go after tea; and another cross-street baker, and another pair of rolls, and another tap at the Croton, provided that repast for us. Then I told Fausta of the respectable boarding-house, and that she must go there. She did not say no. But she did say she would rather not spend the evening there. "There must be some place open for us," said she. "There! there is a church-bell! The church is always home. Let us come there."

So to "evening meeting" we went, startling the s.e.xton by arriving an hour early. If there were any who wondered what was the use of that Wednesday-evening service, we did not. In a dark gallery pew we sat, she at one end, I at the other; and, if the whole truth be told, each of us fell asleep at once, and slept till the heavy organ tones taught us that the service had begun. A hundred or more people had straggled in then, and the preacher, good soul, he took for his text, "Doth not G.o.d care for the ravens?" I cannot describe the ineffable feeling of home that came over me in that dark pew of that old church. I had never been in so large a church before. I had never heard so heavy an organ before.

Perhaps I had heard better preaching, but never any that came to my occasions more. But it was none of these things which moved me. It was the fact that we were just where we had a right to be. No impudent waiter could ask us why we were sitting there, nor any petulant policeman propose that we should push on. It was G.o.d's house, and, because his, it was his children's.

All this feeling of repose grew upon me, and, as it proved, upon Fausta also. For when the service was ended, and I ventured to ask her whether she also had this sense of home and rest, she a.s.sented so eagerly, that I proposed, though with hesitation, a notion which had crossed me, that I should leave her there.

"I cannot think," I said, "of any possible harm that could come to you before morning."

"Do you know, I had thought of that very same thing, but I did not dare tell you," she said.

Was not I glad that she had considered me her keeper! But I only said, "At the 'respectable boarding-house' you might be annoyed by questions."