The Rose in the Ring Part 9

"And let me add something else," resumed Braddock, with an unnecessary oath. "I'm not going to have you hangin' around my wife and daughter if you _do_ stay with us. Remember one thing: you're a cheap clown, and you've got to know your place. My daughter's a decent girl. She's got good blood in her, understand that. _d.a.m.n' fine blood._ I'm not going to have her a.s.sociatin' with a--"

"'Old on, Brad!" interrupted the old clown, glaring at him. "Cheese it, will you? I won't stand for it. You got five 'undred from this boy and you ought to treat 'im decent. He's got just as good blood in 'im as Christie's got--and better, blow me, because it's probably good on both sides--which is more than you can say for her, poor girl. Thank G.o.d, she don't show that she's got your blood in 'er veins."

"Here! Do you mean to insinuate that she's not _mine_?" gasped Braddock, suddenly a-tremble. Much as he trusted to the virtue of his wife, he was never able to comprehend the miracle that gave him Christine for a daughter. There was no trace of him to be seen in her.

"You know better than that," said the clown coldly.

"Well," said Braddock, nervously shifting his cigar and lowering his gaze. If he had intended to say more, he changed his mind and walked off toward the center of the tent where men were throwing up a circular bank about the ring.

"He's a drunken dog," said the clown, glaring after him. "She's the finest woman in the world. And to think of 'er bein' the wife of that bounder."

David had been thinking of it and puzzling his tired brain for hours.

"How did she happen to marry--"

"No time for that now," said Grinaldi briskly. "Mebby I'll tell you about her some other time, not now. You'd better keep away from her and Christine for a couple of days. Brad will forget it in no time, 'specially if he thinks he can sc.r.a.pe some more o' that money out of you. Oh, he's a slick one. He's got 'is eye on that wad. Now, let's get down to business. I advise you to stick to the show for awhile--at least until we're a good ways off. Take up 'is offer. It ain't bad. You can 'ave chuck with me and Ruby. I'll look out for that. You just do wot I tell you, and you'll be a clown. Not a real one, but good enough to earn two and a 'arf. I'm not doin' this for you, my boy, because I think I need an a.s.sistant. Joey Grinaldi has been a fav'rit clown in two hemispheres for forty years. Some day I'll show you the medals I got in London and Paris and--but never mind now. You start right in this afternoon, doin' just wot I tells you. You'll be all right and them blokes as is 'untin' for you won't be able to twig you from sole leather. Wot say?"

"I'll do just as you say," said David simply.

"Good! Now come over 'ere by the band section and I'll tell how we'll work it out. Of course, we'll improve it every day. All you needs is confidence. We 'ave dinner at twelve-thirty in the performer's end of the cook-tent. It's all right there. I'll fetch yours into the dressin'-tent for you, so's you won't be seen. There's my daughter over there. Ain't she a stunner? Say, she's a gal as is a gal. Best trapeze worker in the business, if I do say it myself. And 'er mother was the best columbine that ever appeared in a Drury Lane pantomime, poor la.s.s." He abruptly pa.s.sed his hand across his eyes.

"The columbine?" said David, his eyes beaming. "I remember the columbine and the harlequin and the pantaloon in Drury Lane one boxing week when I was in London with my grandfather. Was a columbine really your wife?"

"She was," said Joey proudly. "But," he added hastily, "it ain't likely you saw _her_. She died when Ruby was born."

That afternoon David appeared in the ring, once more clad in the striped suit and besmeared with bis.m.u.th. He was even more frightened than at his first appearance, when he was driven by another fear. Ruby Noakes, black-eyed and dashing, winked at him saucily from her perch on the high trapeze, having caught his eye. When she slid down the stout lacing and wafted kisses to the mult.i.tude, he was near enough to catch her merry undertone:

"You have no idea how funny you are," she said, pa.s.sing him by with a skip.

"There's your friend, the detective," remarked Joey, later on, jerking his head in the direction of the animal tent. Sure enough, Blake was standing at the end of the tier of seats, talking with Thomas Braddock.

"But he doesn't reckernize you, David, so don't turn any paler than you are already."

The new clown, wretchedly unsuited to his new occupation, managed to get through the performance without mishap. He followed instructions blindly but faithfully, barking his shins twice and tripping over an equestrian banner once with almost direful results. The audience laughed with glee, and Grinaldi congratulated him on the hit he was making.

"Hit?" moaned David, rubbing his elbow in earnest. "Good heaven! Was that a hit?"

"My boy, they'd laugh if you were to break your neck," said the clown gravely.

Christine Braddock came on for her turn early in the program. David was told that her mother, who persistently though vainly opposed a ring career for her loved one, compromised with Braddock on the condition that she was to appear early in the performance.

"Brad was a circus rider in his younger days, before he took to drink,"

explained Joey, as he and David sat together at the edge of the ring while Briggs, the ringmaster, announced the approach of "the world-famed child marvel, Little Starbright, and Monseer Dupont, in the great-est eques-trian feats evah attempted by mor-tal crea-tuah!"

"When Christie was a wee bit of a thing he took 'er into the ring with 'im. She sat on 'is shoulder and the crowd thought it wonnerful. Arter that he took 'er in reg'lar. Mrs. Braddock almos' lost 'er mind, but Brad coaxed 'er into seein' it 'is way. It was before he took to drinking steady. That gal 'as no more business being a circus rider than nothink. But you can't make Brad see it that way now. He says she's got to earn 'er bread and keep, and that she's no better than wot 'er father is. If circus riding is good enough for 'im, it's good enough for 'is offspring, says he. Her mother just had to give in to 'im. Well, when she was about ten, Brad took to drinking. That was before he bought old Van Slye out. One day he fell off the 'oss with 'er and broke 'is arm. Fort'nitly, the younker wasn't 'urt. So, then he had sense enough to listen to 'is wife. He quit riding 'isself, but he put big Tom Sacks into the act in 'is place. Tom is the present Mons.

Dupont--a fine feller and as steady as can be. He's powerful strong and a fairish sort of rider--but nothink like wot Brad used to be in his best day. Christine's getting a bit biggish for 'im to 'andle; I daresay this is the last season for their double act. But for four seasons she's been doing amazing fine work with old Tom. She seems to like it, and she's as daring as the very old Nick. Don't know wot fear is, I might say. She's so fairy-like and so purty that the crowds just naterally love 'er to death. She's going to be a wonnerful 'ansome woman, David, that gal is, take it from me. 'Ere she is!"

"She's like a rose," said David, following the slim, scarlet creature with his eyes.

"And a rose she is, my heartie," said Joey. "When I was a lad at 'ome, there was a chap named Thackeray writing wonderful clever tales. I remembers one of them particular. It was called 'The Rose and the Ring.' I never see Christine in them togs without thinking of the name of that book--The Rose and the Ring, d' ye get my idea? Mr. Thackeray was a well-known writer when I was a boy. That was thirty year ago. I daresay he's dead and forgotten now."

David smiled. "He'll never die, Mr. Noakes. He's more alive now than ever. 'The Rose and the Ring.' Why not 'The Rose _in_ the Ring'?"

"Hi! Hi!" cried Joey approvingly, "Right you are."

During the entire act of Little Starbright and Monsieur Dupont David gazed entranced. He followed Grinaldi, but his eyes were not always leveled against the spotted back of his mentor; they were for the lithe, graceful figure in scarlet riding atop of the st.u.r.dy Tom Sacks, sometimes standing upright on his shoulders, again leaning far out from his thigh, or even more daringly dancing on his broad back while he squatted on the pad. First on one foot, then the other, then clear of his back with both of them twinkling in merry time to the quickstep of the band, her dark hair fluttering from beneath the saucy cap, her hands waving and her eyes sparkling. Kisses went wafting to every section of the tent, and with them smiles such as David had never seen before.

He was standing near when she leaped from the horse's back and skipped to the center of the ring to blow her final kisses to the mult.i.tude. It occurred to him all at once that he was staring at this wonderfully graceful, fairy-like little creature with the eyes of a delighted spectator and not as a clown. He guiltily looked for a reprimand from Grinaldi. To his surprise and disappointment she pa.s.sed him by without a sign of recognition, slipping her tiny feet into the ground shoes and shuffling off to the dressing-tent with the stride peculiar to ring performers. For a moment he felt as if she had struck him in the face, so quick was his pride to resent the slight.

"This ain't a parlor, my lad," said Joey, shrewdly a.n.a.lyzing the feelings of his _protege_. "You mustn't expect the ladies to stop and chat with you in the ring. It ain't reg'lar. She didn't mean nothink--nothink at all, bless 'er 'eart."

When the performance was over, David was whisked into the men's section of the dressing-tent and told to stay there until further orders. He changed his clothes and "washed up," listening meanwhile to the congratulations and the good-natured chaffing of the performers who were there with him. Despite their ribald scoffing, he knew they were his friends: there was something about these careless, inconsequent knights of the sawdust ring, in spangles or out, that warmed the c.o.c.kles of his sore, despairing heart.

He came before long to laugh with them and to take their jibes as they were meant--good-naturedly. Joey Grinaldi beamed with congratulation.

He laid himself out to make the going easy for his "gentleman pardner,"

appreciating the vast distinction that lay between these men and the kind David had known all of his life. And David saw that he was trying to make it easy for him. His heart swelled with a strange grat.i.tude; he unbent suddenly and met the rough kindnesses more than half way. They were not the kind of men he was used to,--they were not gentlemen; but they stood ready to be his friends, and something told him that they would ring true to the very end if he met them half way.

They had their own undeviating regard for what they called honor: honor meant loyalty and fairness, nothing more. Simple, genial, unpolished braggarts were they, but their word was as good or better than a gentleman's bond. David was soon to fall under the spell of this bland comradeship: he was to see these men in a light so bright that it blinded him to their vulgarities, their quaint blasphemy and their prodigious lack of veracity as applied to personal achievements. He was to find in them a splendid chivalry, almost unbelievable at first: their regard for the women in the troupe was in the nature of a revelation to him, who came from the land of gallantry itself.

"Say, kid," said Signor Anaconda, "the human snake," suddenly adopting a serious mien,--which did not become him,--"you gotta change your name. What'll we call him, fellers? Now, le' 's give him a reg'lar story-book name. Prince Something-or-other. What say to--"

"That's all settled," said old Joey, his eyes full of soap and water and squeezed so tightly together that they looked like wrinkles.

"Christine Braddock named 'im this morning. I forgot to tell you, David. Your name is Snipe--Jack Snipe."

David flushed. "Why did she call me _that_?" he asked.

"Because you were lonesome, and there is nothink so lonesome as a jack-snipe. Leastwise, that's wot she says. She asked me if I'd ever seen a jack-snipe on a wet, dreary day, a-standing on a sandbar, all alone like and forlorn. She said she always felt so sorry for the poor little cuss--no, she didn't say cuss either. What was it she said, Casey? You was there."

"She said 'thing,'" said Casey briefly.

"Right, my lad. Thing it was. Well, wot she says goes in this 'ere aggergation, so from now on you are just Jack Snipe." He lowered his voice. "There won't n.o.body call you David or Jenison after this, my boy. It's too dangerous."

David was thoughtful. "Do you mean to say," he said, after a pause, "that every person in this show knows who I really am?"

"You bet your life they do," said Casey.

"And what I am wanted for?"

"Certain. Wot's that got to do with it?"

"Do they think I'm--I'm guilty?"

"Well, I reckon most of 'em do," said the contortionist blandly. "But,"

he added in some haste, "they don't give a dang for a little thing like that."

"But," said David fiercely, "I don't want them to think I am guilty. I can't bear to think that every one is looking upon me as a criminal.

Why--why, what must the ladies of the--of the show think of me? I--I--"

Joey Grinaldi put his hand on the young fellow's shoulder: "They don't think you done it, Jack--not one of 'em. I heard 'em speaking of you last night as if you was a reg'lar angel. For the fust time since I've knowed all of them women, they are all agreed on one thing: they _all_ agree that you are the sweetest kid they've ever seen and that you never done anything naughty in your life. Come on, now. Mrs. Braddock wants to see you a minute."