The Rose in the Ring Part 33

We leave all these details to the generous intelligence of the reader, for he knows that the heir to Jenison Hall has come unto his own again; and he also knows that in spite of all that can be done to make life bright and cheerful for David, there is still a shadow in the background that turns the world into a bleak and desolate waste for him.

Two weeks pa.s.sed over his head before he was able to turn away from the bewildering ma.s.s of legal requirements and look once more to the West, whither his heart was forever journeying. Not all the excitement that filled the fortnight to overflowing, nor all the homage that came to him, could ease the dull, insistent pain of separation from interests so vital to his young heart.

He stole away one night, accompanied by a single servant--for now he was "lord of the manor" and traveled only as a true gentleman of the South should travel. Half-way to his destination he stopped off to draw from the savings bank the money he had placed there. With this small fortune in his possession he resumed the journey, now closely guarded by old Jeff, who always had been a slave to the Jenisons and would be till he died, Abraham Lincoln to the contrary.

David's constant prayer was that he might not be too late.

He was destined to find many changes in Van Slye's Great and Only Mammoth Shows.

Let us go back to the night after the one which saw David's departure from the show. For two days Thomas Braddock had slunk about the show grounds, morose, ugly, taciturn. He avoided every one except those with whom he was obliged to consult. His wife and daughter caught fleeting glimpses of him; Colonel Grand and the others saw him but little more.

He held aloof, brooding over his wrongs, acc.u.mulating a vast resentment against the world and all of its inhabitants, obsessed by the single desire to make some one else suffer for the ignominy that had come to him.

Strangely enough, his most bitter resentment was lodged against the wife who had stood by him all these years, through thick and thin, through incessant storm and hardship, with a staunchness that now maddened him, because, down in his heart, he could see no guile in her.

She was too good for him; she held herself above him; she made him to feel that he was not of her world--from the beginning. She was loyal because it would have put her in his cla.s.s if she had lifted her voice in public complaint. He knew that she loathed him; he hated her for the virtue which gave her the right to despise him and yet to remain loyal to him. His sodden, debased soul resented the odious comparison that his own flesh and blood justly could make. There had been bitter moments when this maudlin wretch almost convinced himself that he could rejoice in the discovery that Christine was not of his flesh and blood, that this too virtuous woman was not pure, after all.

His sullen despair brought him to even lower depths. In half-sober moments he began to realize that his daughter feared and despised him.

She had come to feel the distinction between her parents, and she had done the perfectly obvious thing in following the instincts of the gentle blood that was in her: she had cast her lot with her mother. He forgot his own aspirations and hopes for her in this bitter hour. He wanted to hurt her, so that she might cry out with him in ugly rage against the smug, serene paragon. If he only could bring Mary to his level, so that Christine might no longer be so arrogantly proud of the blood that came through the Portmans.

He drove himself at last into such a condition of hatred for all that was good and n.o.ble that he would have hailed with joy the positive proof that his wife had been untrue to him!

All day long he had been singularly abstemious. His brooding had caused him to forget or to neglect the appet.i.te that mastered him. Toward evening he resumed his drinking, however, mainly for the purpose of restoring his courage, which had slumped terribly in this estimate of himself.

When the time came to go over the receipts with the ticket-sellers he pulled himself together and prepared to a.s.sert his authority. He tossed away the empty bottle and advanced upon the wagon, his face blanched by self-pity. He was confounded by the sight of Colonel Grand, sitting inside and going over the cash with Hanks, the seller.

"What do you want?" demanded Colonel Grand, when Braddock, after trying the locked door, showed his convulsed face at the little window. Hanks looked uncomfortable.

"Let me in there, Grand!" grated the man outside.

"I'll attend to this. We can't have you bothering with the finances--"

"I'll kick that door in," roared Braddock; "and I'll kill somebody!"

Colonel Grand picked up the treasurer's revolver. He smiled indulgently.

"I'm taking care of the money after this, Brad."

"I own this show, d.a.m.n you! I-I-I'll fix you!" sputtered the other. He began to cry.

"Get away from that window!" snapped Grand, his eyes glittering.

"Oh, say now Bob, treat me fair, treat me right," pleaded Braddock, all at once abject.

"I'll talk to you later on. Get away!"

"Don't throw me down, Bob. I've always done the square thing by you.

Didn't I pay up everything I owed you by--"

"Are you going to leave that window?" demanded Grand.

The miserable wretch looked into the deadly eyes of the man inside, and realized. A great sob arose in his throat. He held it back for a moment, but it grew and grew as he saw no pity in the steely eyes beyond.

"My soul!" he groaned, with the bursting of the sob. He withdrew his ghastly face and rushed away in the night, stumbling over ropes and pegs, creating no end of havoc among the men who happened to toil in his path. They ran from him, thinking him mad.

Half an hour later Ernie Cronk came upon him. He was sitting on the curb across the street from the circus lot, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands--staring, staring through dry, hot eyes at the tented city that was slipping away from him.

"What's the matter?" asked the hunchback, in his high, querulous voice.

The older man did not respond. He did not alter his position when the questioner spoke to him.

"What are you looking at?" asked the other.

"Ernie," began Braddock in a voice that sent a shiver across the boy's crooked back, it was so sepulchral, "let me take your pistol a second."

Ernie Cronk drew back a step. He eyed Braddock narrowly.

"Who are you going to kill?" he asked after a moment.

"Myself," said Braddock, lifting his haggard face.

Again the hunchback looked long at the man. Then, without a word, he handed a new revolver to Thomas Braddock. It was not the small derringer he was wont to carry.

Braddock seemed surprised by the boy's readiness. He received the weapon gingerly. A sudden spasm shook his big frame.

"Is--is it loaded?" he inquired, less lugubrious than he had been before.

"No," said Ernie shortly. Braddock's chest swelled suddenly. "I suppose you think I'm fool enough to let you kill yourself with my gun and me right here where they could nab me. It's got blank ca'tridges, that's all. Somebody changed 'em on me last night--just before that--that sneak went away on the train."

Volumes could not have told more than that single sentence.

Braddock handed the weapon back to him.

"But if you really want to shoot yourself," went on Ernie maliciously, "I've got a round of real ca'tridges here. While you're loadin' the gun I can make a sneak. If I was you, though, I'd go up that alley there, Brad. It's terrible public here."

"You wicked little brute, you!" cried Braddock in horror, coming to his feet and drawing away as if from a viper. "You cold-blooded whelp! I--I never heard of such--"

"Ain't you going to kill yourself?" demanded Ernie, grinning.

Braddock appeared to ponder. "No," he said with eager finality; "not just now. I've changed my mind. I'm going to have it out with her first. Then, maybe I won't do it at all."

Without another glance at the hunchback he swung off toward the dressing-tent. Ernie's scoffing laugh followed him into the shadows. It was the last straw. He was an object of derision to this thing of jibes and sneers.

The flush of anger had come back into his bloated cheeks by the time he had slipped under the sidewall into the dressing-tent. A sense of loneliness struck him with the force of a blow as he paused to survey the conglomerate ma.s.s of gaudy trappings: the men, the women, the horses, the dye-scented paraphernalia of the ring. The very spangles on the costumes of these one-time friends seemed to twinkle with merriment at the sight of him; the tarletan skirts appeared to flaunt scorn in his face. There was mockery in everything. His humiliation was complete when this motley array of people disdained to greet him with the eager concern that heretofore had marked their demeanor. No one appeared to notice him, further than to offer a curt nod or to exchange sly grins with the others.

Christine was in the ring. Mrs. Braddock stood over by the tattered red curtains, peering out into the "big top." He knew just where to look for her; she always stood there while her daughter was performing with old Tom Sacks. Not Tom Braddock, but all the others, noted the weary droop of her shoulders.

She started violently when he came up from behind and spoke to her.

"Well, how does it look without the gentleman in stripes?" he asked coa.r.s.ely. "It ain't so refined, eh?"