The City of Masks/Chapter 18
CHAPTER XVIII
FRIDAY FOR BAD LUCK
SPEAKING of Friday and the mystery of luck. Luck is supposed to shift in one direction or another on the sixth day of every week in the year. It is supposed to shift for everybody. A great many people are either too ignorant or too supercilious to acknowledge this vast and oppressive truth, however. They regard Friday as a plain, ordinary day, and go on being fatuously optimistic.
On the other hand, when it comes Friday, the capable and the far-seeing are prone to accept it as it was intended by the Creator, who, from confidential reports, paused on the sixth day (as we reckon it) of his labours and looked back on what already had been accomplished. He was dissatisfied. He set to work again. Right then and there Friday became an unlucky day, according to a great many philosophers. If the Creator had stopped then and let well-enough alone, there wouldn't have been any cause for complaint. He would have failed to create Adam (an afterthought), and the human race, lacking existence, would not have been compelled to put up with life,—which is a mess, after all.
If more people would pause to consider the futility of living between Thursday and Saturday, a great deal of woe and misfortune might be avoided.
For example, when Mrs. Smith-Parvis called on Mrs. McFaddan on the Monday of the week that is now making history through these pages, she completely overlooked the fact that there was a Friday still to be reckoned with.
True, she had in mind a day somewhat more remote when, after coming face to face with the blooming Mrs. McFaddan who happened to open her own front door,—it being Maggie's day out,—she had been compelled to substitute herself in person for the cards she meant to leave. Mrs. McFaddan had cordially sung out to her from the front stoop, over the head of the shocked footman, that she was at home and would Mrs. Smith-Parvis please step in.
Thursday, two weeks hence, was the day Mrs. Smith-Parvis had in mind. She had not been in the McFaddan parlour longer than a minute and a half before she realized that an invitation by word of mouth would do quite as well as an expensively engraved card by post. There was nothing formal about Mrs. McFaddan. She was sorry that Con wasn't home; he would hate like poison to have missed seeing Mrs. Smith-Parvis when she did them the honour to call. But Con was not likely to be in before seven,—he was that busy, poor man,—and it would be asking too much of Mrs. Smith-Parvis to wait till then.
So, the lady from the upper East Side had no hesitancy in asking the lady from the lower West Side to dine with her on Thursday the nineteenth.
"I am giving a series of informal dinners, Mrs. McFad-dan," she explained graciously.
"They're the nicest kind," returned Mrs. McFaddan, somewhat startled by the pronunciation of her husband's good old Irish name. She knew little or nothing of French, but somehow she rather liked the emphasis, crisply nasal, her visitor put upon the final syllable. Before the visit came to an end, she was mentally repeating her own name after Mrs. Smith-Parvis, and wondering whether Con would stand for it.
"What date did you say?" she inquired, abruptly breaking in on a further explanation. The reply brought a look of disappointment to her face. "We can't come," she said flatly. "We're leaving on Saturday this week for Washington to be gone till the thirtieth. Important business, Con says."
Mrs. Smith-Parvis thought quickly. Washington, eh?
"Could you come on Friday night of this week, Mrs. McFad-dan?"
"We could," said the other. "Don't you worry about Con cooking up an excuse for not coming, either. He does just about what I tell him."
"Splendid!" said Mrs. Smith-Parvis, arising. "Friday at 8:30."
"Have plenty of fish," said Mrs. McFaddan gaily.
"Fish?" faltered the visitor.
"It's Friday, you know."
Greatly to Mrs. Smith-Parvis's surprise,—and in two or three cases, irritation,—every one she asked to meet the McFaddans on Friday accepted with alacrity. She asked the Dodges, feeling confident that they couldn't possibly be had on such short notice,—and the same with the Bittinger-Stuarts. They did have previous engagements, but they promptly cancelled them. It struck her as odd,—and later on significant,—that, without exception, every woman she asked said she was just dying for a chance to have a little private "talk "with the notorious Mr. McFaddan.
People who had never arrived at a dinner-party on time in their lives, appeared on Friday at the Smith-Parvis home all the way from five to fifteen minutes early.
The Cricklewicks were not asked. Mr. Smith-Parvis remembered in time that the Irish hate the English, and it wouldn't do at all.
Mr. McFaddan and his wife were the last to arrive. They were so late that not only the hostess but most of her guests experienced a sharp fear that they wouldn't turn up at all. There were side glances at the clock on the mantel, surreptitious squints at wrist-watches, and a queer, unnatural silence while the big clock in the upper hall chimed a quarter to nine.
"Really, my dear," said Mrs. Dodge, who had the New York record for tardiness,—an hour and three-quarters, she claimed,—" I can't understand people being late for a dinner,—unless, of course, they mean to be intentionally rude."
"I can't imagine what can have happened to them," said Mrs. Smith-Parvis nervously.
"Accident on the Subway, no doubt," drawled Mr. Bittinger-Stuart, and instantly looked around in a startled sort of way to see if there was any cause for repenting the sarcasm.
"Where is Stuyvesant?" inquired Mrs. Millidew the elder, who had arrived a little late. She had been obliged to call a taxi-cab at the last moment on account of the singular defection of her new chauffeur,—who, she proclaimed on entering, was to have his walking papers in the morning. Especially as it was raining pitchforks.
"He is dressing, my dear," explained Stuyvesant's mother, with a maternal smile of apology.
"I should have known better," pursued Mrs. Millidew, still chafing, "than to let him go gallivanting off to Long Island with Dolly."
"I said he was dressing, Mrs. Millidew," said Mrs. Smith-Parvis stiffly.
"If I could have five minutes alone with Mr. McFaddan," one of the ladies was saying to the host, "I know I could interest him in our plan to make Van Cortlandt Park the most attractive and the most exclusive country club in—"
"My dear," interrupted another of her sex, "if you get him off in a corner and talk to him all evening about that ridiculous scheme of yours, I'll murder you. You know how long Jim has been working to get his brother appointed judge in the United States District Court,—his brother Charlie, you know,—the one who doesn't amount to much,—and I'll bet my last penny I can fix it if—"
"It's an infernal outrage," boomed Mr. Dodge, addressing no one in particular. "Yes, sir, a pernicious outrage."
"As I said before, the more you do for them the worse they treat you in return," agreed Mrs. Millidew. "It doesn't pay. Treat them like dogs and they'll be decent. If you try to be kind and—"
Mr. Dodge expanded.
"You see, it will cut straight through the centre of the most valuable piece of unimproved property in New York City. It isn't because I happen to be the owner of that property that I'm complaining. It's the high-handed way— Now, look! This is the Grand Concourse, and here is Bunker Avenue." He produced an invisible diagram with, his foot, jostling Mr. Smith-Parvis off of the rug in order to extend the line beyond the intersection to a point where the proposed street was to be opened. "Right smack through this section of—"
At that instant Mr. and Mrs. McFaddan were announced.
"Where the deuce is Stuyvie?" Mr. Smith-Parvis whispered nervously into the ear of his wife as the new arrivals approached.
"Diplomacy," whispered she succinctly. "All for effect. Last but not least. He— Good evening, dear Mrs. McFad-dán!"
In the main hall, a moment before, Mr. McFaddan had whispered in his wife's ear. He transmitted an opinion of Peasley the footman.
"He's a mutt." He had surveyed Peasley with a discriminating and intensely critical eye, taking him in from head to foot. "Under-gardener or vicar's man-of-all-work. Trained in a Sixth Avenue intelligence office. Never saw livery till he—"
"Hush, Con! The man will hear you."
"And if he should, he can't accuse me of betrayin' a secret."
To digress for a moment, it is pertinent to refer to the strange cloud of preoccupation that descended upon Mr. McFaddan during the ride uptown,—not in the Subway, but in his own Packard limousine. Something back in his mind kept nagging at him,—something elusive yet strangely fresh, something that had to do with recent events. He could not rid himself of the impression that the Smith-Parvises were in some way involved.
Suddenly, as they neared their destination, the fog lifted and his mind was as clear as day. His wife's unctuous reflections were shattered by the force of the explosion that burst from his lips. He remembered everything. This was the house in which Lady Jane Thorne was employed, and it was the scion thereof who had put up the job on young Trotter. Old Cricklewick had come to see him about it and had told him a story that made his blood boil. It was all painfully clear to him now.
Their delay in arriving was due to the protracted argument that took place within a stone's throw of the Smith-Parvis home. Mr. McFaddan stopped the car and flatly refused to go an inch farther. He would be hanged if he'd have anything to do with a gang like that! His wife began by calling him a goose. Later on she called him a mule, and still later, in sheer exasperation, a beast. He capitulated. He was still mumbling incoherently as they mounted the steps and were admitted by the deficient Peasley.
"What shall I say to the dirty spalpeen if he tries to shake hands with me?" Mr. McFaddan growled, three steps from the top.
"Say anything you like," said she, "but, for God's sake, say it under your breath."
However: the party was now complete with one notable exception. Stuyvie was sound asleep in his room. He had reached home late that afternoon and was in an irascible frame of mind. He didn't know the McFad-dáns, and he didn't care to know them. Dragging him home from Hot Springs to meet a cheap bounder,—what the deuce did she mean anyhow, entertaining that sort of people? And so on and so forth until his mother lost her temper and took it out on the maid who was dressing her hair.
Peasley was sent upstairs to inform Mr. Stuyvesant that they were waiting for him.
Mrs. Smith-Parvis met her son at the foot of the stairs when he came lounging down. He was yawning and making futile efforts to smooth out the wrinkles in his coat, having reposed soundly in it for the better part of an hour.
"You must be nice to Mr. McFad-dán," said she anxiously. "He has a great deal of influence with the powers that be."
He stopped short, instantly alert.
"Has a—a warrant been issued?" he demanded, leaping to a very natural and sickening conclusion as to the identity of the "powers."
"Not yet, of course," she said, benignly. "It is a little too soon for that. But it will come, dear boy, if we can get Mr. McFad-dán on our side. That is to be the lovely surprise I spoke about in my—"
"You—you call that lovely?" he snapped.
"If everything goes well, you will soon be at the Court of St. James. Wouldn't you call that lovely?"
He was perspiring freely. "My God, that's just the thing I'm trying to avoid. If they get me into court, they'll—"
"You do not understand. The diplomatic court,—corps, I mean. You are to go to London,—into the legation. The rarest opportunity—"
"Oh, Lord!" gasped Stuyvesant, passing his hand over his wet brow. A wave of relief surged over him. He leaned against the banister, weakly. "Why didn't you say that in the first place?"
"You must be very nice to Mr. McFad-dán," she said, taking his arm. "And to Mrs. McFad-dán also. She is rather stunning—and quite young."
"That's nice," said Stuyvie, regaining a measure of his tolerant, blasé air.
Now, while the intelligence of the reader has long since grasped the fact that the expected is about to happen, it is only fair to state that the swiftly moving events of the next few minutes were totally unexpected by any one of the persons congregated in Mrs. Smith-Parvis's drawing-room.
Stuyvesant entered the room, a forced, unamiable smile on his lips. He nodded in the most casual, indifferent manner to those nearest the door. It was going to be a dull, deadly evening. The worst lot of he-fossils and scrawny-necked—
"For the love o' Mike!"
Up to that instant, one could have dropped a ten-pound weight on the floor without attracting the slightest attention. For a second or two following the shrill ejaculation, the crash of the axiomatic pin could have been heard from one end of the room to the other.
Every eye, including Stuyvie's, was fixed upon the shocked, surprised face of the lady who uttered the involuntary exclamation.
Mrs. McFaddan was staring wildly at the newcomer. Stuyvesant recognized her at once. The dashing, vivid face was only too familiar. In a flash the whole appalling truth was revealed to him. An involuntary "Oh, Lord!" oozed from his lips.
Cornelius McFaddan suddenly clapped his hand to his mouth, smothering the words that surged up from the depths of his injured soul. He became quite purple in the face.
"This is my son Stuyvesant, Mr. McFaddan," said Mrs. Smith-Parvis, in a voice strangely faint and faltering. And then, sensing catastrophe, she went on hurriedly: "Shall we go in to dinner? Has it been announced, Rogers?"
Mr. McFaddan removed his hand.
The hopes and ambitions, the desires and schemes of every one present went hurtling away on the hurricane of wrath that was liberated by that unfortunate action of Cornelius McFaddan. An unprejudiced observer would have expained, in justice to poor Cornelius, that the force of the storm blew his hand away, willy-nilly, despite his heroic efforts to check the resistless torrent.
I may be forgiven for a confessed inadequacy to cope with a really great situation. My scope of delivery is limited. In a sense, however, short-comings of this nature are not infrequently blessings. It would be a pity for me or any other upstart to spoil, through sheer feebleness of expression, a situation demanding the incomparable virility of a Cornelius McFaddan.
Suffice to say, Mr. McFaddan left nothing to the imagination. He had the stage to himself, and he stood squarely in the centre of it for what seemed like an age to the petrified audience. As a matter of fact, it was all over in three minutes. He was not profane. At no time did he forget there were ladies present. But from the things he said, no one doubted, then or afterwards, that the presence of ladies was the only thing that stood between Stuyvesant Smith-Parvis and an unhallowed grave.
It may be enlightening to repeat his concluding remark to Stuyvie.
"And if I thought ye'd even dream of settin' foot outside this house I'd gladly stand on the sidewalk in the rain, without food or drink, for forty-eight hours, waitin' for ye."
And as that was the mildest thing he said to Stuyvie, it is only fair to state that Peasley, who was listening in the hall, hastily opened the front door and looked up and down the street for a policeman. With commendable foresight, he left it ajar and retired to the foot of the stairs, hoping, perhaps, that Stuyvesant might undertake to throw the obnoxious guest into the street,—in which case it would be possible for him to witness the whirlwind without being in the path of it.
To Smith-Parvis, Senior, the eloquent McFaddan addressed these parting words:
"I don't know what you had in mind when you invited me here, Mr. Smith-Parvis, but whatever it was you needn't worry about it,—not for a minute. Put it out of your mind altogether, my good man. And if I've told you anything at all about this pie-faced son of yours that ye didn't already know or suspect, you're welcome to the information. He's a bad egg,—and if ye don't believe me, ask Lady Jane Thorne,—if she happens to be about."
He spoke without thinking, but he did no harm. No one there had the remotest idea who he meant when he referred to Lady Jane Thorne.
"Come, Peggy, we'd better be going," he said to his wife. "If we want a bite o' dinner, I guess we'll have to go over to Healy's and get it."
Far in the night, Mrs. Smith-Parvis groaned. Her husband, who sat beside her bed and held her hand with somnolent devotion, roused himself and inquired if the pain was just as bad as ever.
She groaned again.
He patted her hand soothingly. "There, there, now,—go to sleep again. You'll be all right—"
"Again?" she cried plaintively. "How can you say such a thing? I haven't closed my eyes."
"Oh, my dear," he expostulated. "You've been sound asleep for—"
"I have not!" she exclaimed. "My poor head is splitting. You know I haven't been asleep, so why will you persist in saying that I have?"
"At any rate," said he, taking up a train of thought that had become somewhat confused and unstable by passing through so many cat-naps, "we ought to be thankful it isn't worse. The dear boy might have gone to the electric chair if we had permitted him to follow the scoundrel to the sidewalk."
Mrs. Smith-Parvis turned her face toward him. A spark of enthusiasm flashed for an instant in her tired eyes.
"How many times did he knock him down at Spangler's?" she inquired.
"Four," said Mr. Smith-Parvis, proudly.
"And that dreadful woman was the cause of it all, writing notes to Stuyvesant and asking him to meet her— What was it Stuyvesant called them?"
"Crush-notes, Angie. Now, try to go to sleep, dearie."