The City of Masks/Chapter 5
CHAPTER V
MR. THOMAS TROTTER HEARS SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE
TWO days later Thomas Trotter turned up at the old book shop of J. Bramble, in Lexington Avenue.
"Well," he said, as he took his pipe out of his pocket and began to stuff tobacco into it, "I've got the sack."
"Got the sack?" exclaimed Mr. Bramble, blinking through his horn-rimmed spectacles. "You can't be serious."
"It's the gospel truth," affirmed Mr. Trotter, depositing his long, graceful body in a rocking chair facing the sheet-iron stove at the back of the shop. "Got my walking papers last night, Bramby."
"What's wrong? I thought you were a fixture on the job. What have you been up to?"
"I'm blessed if I know," said the young man, shaking his head slowly. "Kicked out without notice, that's all I know about it. Two weeks' pay handed me; and a simple statement that he was putting some one on in my place today."
"Not even a reference?"
"He offered me a good one," said Trotter ironically. "Said he would give me the best send-off a chauffeur ever had. I told him I couldn't accept a reference and a discharge from the same employer."
"Rather foolish, don't you think?"
"That's just what he said. I said I'd rather have an explanation than a reference, under the circumstances."
"Um! What did he say to that?"
"Said I'd better take what he was willing to give."
Mr. Bramble drew up a chair and sat down. He was a small, sharp-featured man of sixty, bookish from head to foot.
"Well, well," he mused sympathetically. "Too bad, too bad, my boy. Still, you ought to thank goodness it comes at a time when the streets are in the shape they're in now. Almost impossible to get about with an automobile in all this snow, isn't it? Rather a good time to be discharged, I should say."
"Oh, I say, that is optimism. 'Pon my soul, I believe you'd find something cheerful about going to hell," broke in Trotter, grinning.
"Best way I know of to escape blizzards and snow-drifts," said Mr. Bramble, brightly.
The front door opened. A cold wind blew the length of the book-littered room.
"This Bramble's?" piped a thin voice.
"Yes. Come in and shut the door."
An even smaller and older man than himself obeyed the command. He wore the cap of a district messenger boy.
"Mr. J. Bramble here?" he quaked, advancing.
"Yes. What is it? A telegram?" demanded the owner of the shop, in some excitement.
"I should say not. Wires down everywheres. Gee, that fire looks good. I gotta letter for you, Mr. Bramble." He drew off his red mittens and produced from the pocket of his thin overcoat, an envelope and receipt book. "Sign here," he said, pointing.
Mr. Bramble signed and then studied the handwriting on the envelope, his lips pursed, one eye speculatively cocked.
"I've never seen the writing before. Must be a new one," he reflected aloud, and sighed. "Poor things!"
"That establishes the writer as a woman," said Trotter, removing his pipe. "Otherwise you would have said 'poor devils.' Now what do you mean by trifling with the women, you old rogue?" The loss of his position did not appear to have affected the nonchalant disposition of the good-looking Mr. Trotter.
"God bless my soul," said Mr. Bramble, staring hard at the envelope, "I don't believe it is from one of them, after all. By 'one of them,' my lad, I mean the poor gentlewomen who find themselves obliged to sell their books in order to obtain food and clothing. They always write before they call, you see. Saves 'em not only trouble but humiliation. The other kind simply burst in with a parcel of rubbish and ask how much I'll give for the lot. But this,— Well, well, I wonder who it can be from? Doesn't seem like the sort of writing—"
"Why don't you open it and see?" suggested his visitor.
"A good idea," said Mr. Bramble; "a very clever thought. There is a way to find out, isn't there?" His gaze fell upon the aged messenger, who warmed his bony hands at the stove. He paused, the tip of his forefinger inserted under the flap. "Sit down and warm yourself, my friend," he said. "Get your long legs out of the way, Tom, and make room for him. That's right! Must be pretty rough going outside for an old codger like you."
The messenger "boy" sat down. "Yes, sir, it sure is. Takes 'em forever in this 'ere town to clean the snow off'n the streets. 'Twasn't that way in my day."
"What do you mean by your 'day'?"
"Haven't you ever heard about me?" demanded the old man, eyeing Mr. Bramble with interest.
"Can't say that I have."
"Well, can you beat that? There's a big, long street named after me way down town. My name is Canal, Jotham W. Canal." He winked and showed his toothless gums in an amiable grin. "I used to be purty close to old Boss Tweed; kind of a lieutenant, you might say. Things were so hot in the old town in those days that we used to charge a nickel apiece for snowballs. Five cents apiece, right off the griddle. That's how hot it was in my day."
"My word!" exclaimed Mr. Bramble.
"He's spooffing you," said young Mr. Trotter.
"My God," groaned the messenger, "if I'd only knowed you was English I'd have saved my breath. Well, I guess I'll be on my way. Is there an answer, Mr. Bramble?"
"Um—aw—I quite forgot the—" He tore open the envelope and held the missive to the light. "'Pon my soul!" he cried, after reading the first few lines and then jumping ahead to the signature. "This is most extraordinary." He was plainly agitated as he felt in his pocket for a coin. "No answer,—that is to say,—none at present. Ahem! That's all, boy. Good-bye."
Mr. Canal shuffled out of the shop,—and out of this narrative as well.
"This will interest you," said Mr. Bramble, lowering his voice as he edged his chair closer to the young man. "It is from Lady Jane Thorne—I should say. Miss Emsdale. Bless my soul!"
Mr. Trotter's British complacency was disturbed. He abandoned his careless sprawl in the chair and sat up very abruptly.
"What's that? From Lady Jane? Don't tell me it's anything serious. One would think she was on her deathbed, judging by the face you're—"
"Read it for yourself," said the other, thrusting the letter into Trotter's hand. "It explains everything,—the whole blooming business. Read it aloud. Don't be uneasy," he added, noting the young man's glance toward the door. "No customers on a day like this. Some one may drop in to get warm, but—aha, I see you are interested."
An angry flush darkened Trotter's face as his eyes ran down the page.
"'Dear Mr. Bramble: (she wrote) I am sending this to you by special messenger, hoping it may reach you before Mr. Trotter drops in. He has told me that he spends a good deal of his spare time in your dear old shop, browsing among the books. In the light of what may already have happened, I am quite sure you will see him today. I feel that I may write freely to you, for you are his friend and mine, and you will understand. I am greatly distressed. Yesterday I was informed that he is to be summarily dismissed by Mr. Carpenter. I prefer not to reveal the source of information. All I may say is that I am, in a way, responsible for his misfortune. If the blow has fallen, he is doubtless perplexed and puzzled, and, I fear, very unhappy. Influence has been brought to bear upon Mr. Carpenter, who, you may not be by way of knowing, is a close personal friend of the people in whose home I am employed. Indeed, notwithstanding the difference in their ages, I may say that he is especially the friend of young Mr. S-P. Mr. Trotter probably knows something about the nature of this friendship, having been kept out till all hours of the morning in his capacity as chauffeur. My object in writing to you is two-fold: first, to ask you to prevail upon him to act with discretion for the present, at least, as I have reason to believe that there may be an attempt to carry out a threat to "run him out of town"; secondly, to advise him that I shall stop at your place at five o'clock this afternoon in quest of a little book that now is out of print. Please explain to him also that my uncertainty as to where a letter would reach him under these new conditions accounts for this message to you. Sincerely your friend,
"Read it again, slowly," said Mr. Bramble, blinking harder than ever.
"What time is it now?" demanded Trotter, thrusting the letter into his own pocket. A quick glance at the watch on his wrist brought a groan of dismay from his lips. "Good Lord! A few minutes past ten. Seven hours! Hold on! I can almost see the words on your lips. I'll be discreet, so don't begin prevailing, there's a good chap. There's nothing to be said or done till I see her. But,—seven hours!"
"Stop here and have a bite of lunch with me," said Mr. Bramble, soothingly.
"Nothing could be more discreet than that," said Trotter, getting up to pace the floor. He was frowning.
"It's quite cosy in our little dining-room upstairs. If you prefer, I'll ask Mirabeau to clear out and let us have the place to ourselves while—"
"Not at all. I'll stop with you, but I will not have poor old Mirabeau evicted. We will show the letter to him. He is a Frenchman and he can read between the lines far better than either of us."
At twelve-thirty, Mr. Bramble stuck a long-used card in the front door and locked it from the inside. The world was informed, in bold type, that he had gone to lunch and would not return until one-thirty.
In the rear of the floor above the book-shop were the meagrely furnished bedrooms and kitchen shared by J. Bramble and Pierre Mirabeau, clock-maker and repairer. The kitchen was more than a kitchen. It was also a dining-room, a sitting-room and a scullery, and it was as clean and as neat as the proverbial pin. At the front was the work-shop of M. Mirabeau, filled with clocks of all sizes, shapes and ages. Back of this, as a sort of buffer between the quiet bedrooms and the busy resting-place of a hundred sleepless chimes, was located the combination store-room, utilized by both merchants: a musty, dingy place crowded with intellectual rubbish and a lapse of Time.
Mirabeau, in response to a shout from the fat Irish-woman who came in by the day to cook, wash and clean up for the tenants, strode briskly into the kitchen, drying his hands on a towel. He was a tall, spare old man with uncommonly bright eyes and a long grey beard.
His joy on beholding the young guest at their board was surpassed only by the dejection communicated to his sensitive understanding by the dismal expression on the faces of J. Bramble and Thomas Trotter.
He broke off in the middle of a sentence, and, still grasping the hand of the guest, allowed his gaze to dart from one to the other.
"Mon dieu!" he exclaimed, swiftly altering his tone to one of the deepest concern. "What has happened? Has some one died? Don't tell me it is your grandfather, my boy. Don't tell me that the old villain has died at last and you will have to go back and step into his misguided boots. Nothing else can—"
"Worse than that," interrupted Trotter, smiling. "I've lost my situation."
M. Mirabeau heaved a sigh of relief. "Ah! My heart beats again. Still," with a vastly different sigh, "he cannot go on living for ever. The time is bound to come when you—"
An admonitory cough from Mr. Bramble, and a significant jerk of the head in the direction of the kitchen-range, which was almost completely obscured by the person of Mrs. O'Leary, caused M. Mirabeau to bring his remarks to an abrupt close.
When he was twenty-five years younger. Monsieur Mirabeau, known to every one of consequence in Paris by his true and lawful name, Count André Drouillard, as handsome and as high-bred a gentleman as there was in all France, shot and killed, with all the necessary ceremony, a prominent though bourgeoise general in the French Army, satisfactorily ending a liaison in which the Countess and the aforesaid general were the principal characters. Notwithstanding the fact that the duel had been fought in the most approved French fashion, which almost invariably (except in case of accident) provides for a few well-scattered shots and subsequent embraces on the part of the uninjured adversaries, the general fell with a bullet through his heart.
So great was the consternation of the Republic, and so unpardonable the accuracy of the Count, that the authorities deemed it advisable to make an example of the unfortunate nobleman. He was court-martialled by the army and sentenced to be shot. On the eve of the execution he escaped and, with the aid of friends, made his way into Switzerland, where he found refuge in the home of a sequestered citizen who made antique clocks for a living. A price was put upon his head, and so relentless were the efforts to apprehend him that for months he did not dare show it outside the house of his protector.
He repaid the clockmaker with honest toil. In course of time he became an expert repairer. With the confiscation of his estates in France, he resigned himself to the inevitable. He became a man without a country. One morning the newspapers in Paris announced the death, by suicide, of the long-sought pariah. A few days later he was on his way to the United States. His widow promptly re-married and, sad to relate, from all reports lived happily ever afterwards.
The bourgeoise general, in his tomb in France, was not more completely dead to the world than Count André Drouillard; on the other hand, no livelier, sprightlier person ever lived than Pierre Mirabeau, repairer of clocks in Lexington Avenue.
And so if you will look at it in quite the proper spirit, there is but one really morbid note in the story of M. Mirabeau: the melancholy snuffing-out of the poor general,—and even that was brightened to some extent by the most sumptuous military funeral in years.
"What do you make of it?" demanded Mr. Trotter, half-an-hour later in the crowded work-shop of the clockmaker.
M. Mirabeau held Miss Emsdale's letter off at arm's length, and squinted at it with great intensity, as if actually trying to read between the lines.
"I have an opinion," said M. Mirabeau, frowning. Whereupon he rendered his deductions into words, and of his two listeners Thomas Trotter was the most dumbfounded.
"But I don't know the blooming bounder," he exclaimed,—"except by sight and reputation. And I have reason to know that Lady Jane loathes and detests him."
"Aha! There we have it! Why does she loathe and detest him?" cried M. Mirabeau. "Because, my stupid friend, he has been annoying her with his attentions. It is not an uncommon thing for rich young men to lose their heads over pretty young maids and nurses, and even governesses."
"'Gad, if I thought he was annoying her I'd— I'd—"
"There you go!" cried Mr. Bramble, nervously. "Just as she feared. She knew what she was about when she asked me to see that you did not do anything—"
"Hang it all, Bramble, I'm not doing anything, am I? I'm only saying things. Wait till I begin to do things before you preach."
"That's just it!" cried Mr. Bramble. "You invariably do things when you get that look in your eyes. I knew you long before you knew yourself. You looked like that when you were five years old and wanted to thump Bobby Morgan, who was thirteen. You—"
M. Mirabeau interrupted. He had not been following the discussion. Leaning forward, he eyed the young man keenly, even disconcertingly.
"What is back of all this? Admitting that young Mr. S.-P. is enamoured of our lovely friend, what cause have you given him for jealousy? Have you—"
"Great Scot!" exclaimed Trotter, fairly bouncing off the work-bench on which he sat with his long legs dangling. "Why,—why, if that's the way he feels toward her he must have had a horrible jolt the other night. Good Lord!" A low whistle followed the exclamation.
"Aha! Now we are getting at the cause. We already have the effect. Out with it," cried M. Mirabeau, eager as a boy. His fine eyes danced with excitement.
"Now that I think of it, he saw me carry her up the steps the other night after we'd all been to the Marchioness's. The night of the blizzard, you know. Oh, I say! It's worse than I thought." He looked blankly from one to the other of the two old men.
"Carried her up the steps, eh? In your good strong arms, eh? And you say 'now that I think of it.' Bless your heart, you scalawag, you've been thinking of nothing else since it happened. Ah!" sighed M. Mirabeau, "how wonderful it must have been! The feel of her in your arms, and the breath of her on your cheek, and— Ah! It is a sad thing not to grow old. I am not growing old despite my seventy years. If I could but grow old, and deaf, and feeble, perhaps I should then be able to command the blood that thrills now with the thought of— But, alas! I shall never be so old as that! You say he witnessed this remarkable—ah—exhibition of strength on your part?" He spoke briskly again.
"The snow was a couple of feet deep, you see," explained Trotter, who had turned a bright crimson. "Dreadful night, wasn't it, Bramble?"
"I know what kind of a night it was," said the old Frenchman, delightedly. "My warmest congratulations, my friend. She is the loveliest, the noblest, the truest—"
"I beg your pardon," interrupted Trotter, stiffly. "It hasn't gone as far as all that."
"It has gone farther than you think," said M. Mirabeau shrewdly. "And that is why you were discharged without—"
"By gad! The worst of it all is, she will probably get her walking papers too,—if she hasn't already got them," groaned the young man. "Don't you see what has happened? The rotter has kicked up a rumpus about that innocent,—and if I do say it,—gallant act of mine the other night. They've had her on the carpet to explain. It looks bad for her. They're the sort of people you can't explain things to. What rotten luck! She needs the money and—"
"Nothing of the kind has happened," said M. Mirabeau with conviction. "It isn't in young Mr. S.-P.'s plans to have her dismissed. That would be—ah, what is it you say?—spilling the beans, eh? The instant she relinquishes her place in that household all hope is lost, so far as he is concerned. He is shrewd enough to realize that, my friend. You are the fly in his ointment. It is necessary to the success of his enterprise to be well rid of you. He doesn't want to lose sight of her, however. He—"
"Run me out of town, eh?" grated Trotter, his thoughts leaping back to the passage in Lady Jane's letter. "Easier said than done, he'll find."
Mr. Bramble coughed. "Are we not going it rather blindly? All this is pure speculation. The young man may not have a hand in the business at all."
"He'll discover he's put his foot in it if he tries any game on me," said Mr. Trotter.
M. Mirabeau beamed. "There is always a way to checkmate the villain in the story. You see it exemplified in every melodrama on the stage and in every shilling shocker. The hero,—and you are our hero,—puts him to rout by marrying the heroine and living happily to a hale old age. What could be more beautiful than the marriage of Lady Jane Thome and Lord Eric Carruthers Ethelbert Temple? Mon dieu! It is—"
"Rubbish!" exclaimed Mr. Trotter, suddenly looking down at his foot, which was employed in the laudable but unnecessary act of removing a tiny shaving from a crack in the floor. "Besides," he went on an instant later, acknowledging an interval of mental consideration, "she wouldn't have me."
"It is my time to say 'rubbish,'" said the old Frenchman. "Why wouldn't she have you?"
"Because she doesn't care for me in that way, if you must know," blurted out the young man.
"Has she said so?"
"Of course not. She wouldn't be likely to volunteer the information, would she?" with fine irony.
"Then how do you know she doesn't care for you in that way?"
"Well, I—I just simply know it, that's all."
"I see. You are the smartest man of all time if you know a woman's heart without probing into it, or her mind without tricking it. She permitted you to carry her up the steps, didn't she?"
"She had to," said Trotter forcibly. "That doesn't prove anything. And what's more, she objected to being carried."
"Um! What did she say?"
"Said she didn't in the least mind getting her feet wet. She'd have her boots off as soon as she got into the house."
"Is that all?"
"She said she was awfully heavy, and— Oh, there is no use talking to me. I know how to take a hint. She just didn't want me to—er—carry her, that's the long and the short of it."
"Did she struggle violently?"
"What?"
"You heard me. Did she?"
"Certainly not. She gave in when I insisted. What else could she do?" He whirled suddenly upon Mr. Bramble. "What are you grinning about, Bramby?"
"Who's grinning?" demanded Mr. Bramble indignantly, after the lapse of thirty or forty seconds.
"You were, confound you. I don't see anything to laugh at in—"
"My advice to you," broke in M. Mirabeau, still detached, "is to ask her."
"Ask her? Ask her what?"
"To marry you. As I was saying—"
"My God!" gasped Trotter.
"That is my advice also," put in Mr. Bramble, fumbling with his glasses and trying to suppress a smile,—for fear it would be misinterpreted. "I can't think of anything more admirable than the union of the Temple and Wexham families in—"
"But, good Lord," cried Trotter, "even if she'd have me, how on earth could I take care of her on a chauffeur's pay? And I'm not getting that now. I wish to call your attention to the fact that your little hero has less than fifty pounds,—a good deal less than fifty,—laid by for a rainy day."
"I've known a great many people who were married on rainy days," said M. Mirabeau brightly, "and nothing unlucky came of it."
"Moreover, when your grandfather passes away," urged Mr. Bramble, "you will be a very rich man,—provided, of course, he doesn't remain obstinate and leave his money to some one else. In any event, you would come in for sufficient to—"
"You forget," began Trotter, gravely and with a dignity that chilled the eager old man, "that I will not go back to England, nor will I claim anything that is in England, until a certain injustice is rectified and I am set straight in the eyes of the unbelievers."
Mr. Bramble cleared his throat. "Time will clear up everything, my lad. God knows you never did the—"
"God knows it all right enough, but God isn't a member of the Brunswick Club, and His voice is never heard there in counsel. He may lend a helping hand to those who are trying to clear my name, because they believe in me, but the whole business is beginning to look pretty dark to me."
"Ahem! What does Miss—ah. Lady Jane think about the—ah, unfortunate affair?" stammered Mr. Bramble.
"She doesn't believe a damn' word of it," exploded Trotter, his face lighting up.
"Good!" cried M. Mirabeau. "Proof that she pities you, and what more could you ask for a beginning? She believes you were unjustly accused of cheating at cards, that there was a plot to ruin you and to drive you out of the Army, and that your grandfather ought to be hung to a lamp post for believing what she doesn't believe. Good! Now we are on solid, substantial ground. What time is it, Bramble?"
Mr. Bramble looked at a half-dozen clocks in succession.
"I'm blessed if I know," he said. "They range from ten o'clock to half-past six."
"Just three hours and twenty-two minutes to wait," said Thomas Trotter.