The Luck of the Irish/Chapter 24
CHAPTER XXIV
AND so they were married. No more romance, nothing but realities from now on; and some of these realities bitter and sad, and some of them touched with incomparable glory. No life moves forever on one level, no life is so drab that happiness does not pierce it somewhere, somehow.
Christmas, with a sky of faded blue and burning brass; dust, heat, enervation. Clouds came up quickly, there was the usual downpour of lukewarm rain; then more heat, more dust, more glare. To William it was an unbelievable Christmas. He saw not a single face in which the spirit of this day was manifest. … Snow blowing into his face with cold freshness; snow under his feet, sparkling on his coat, covering the trees in the park with fleecy mantles; cold, wind-driven snow; never had he been so homesick as on this, his wedding-day.
Two rings, a small diamond and a plain gold band, took all but eighteen dollars of his small store. But Ruth had a few hundred, and he could borrow from her until either they sent him his letter of credit or he went to Hong-Kong for it. So there was no financial worry in his mind. He knew that the diamond was a bit of sentimental foolishness, but he could not resist the temptation.
They were married at two o'clock, at the American mission. Never had the missioner officiated at a stranger wedding. In the first place, there was something in the bride's eyes that baffled him. They were more like the eyes of a person in a trance. The girl looked not at objects, but through them. And the man appeared to be all hands and feet; he could not move without blundering into something; and he spoke as if he was afraid of the sound of his voice. Besides, one of his eyes was discolored, his lips were bruised, a piece of court-plaster stretched diagonally across his forehead. The missioner decided that this was a plain case of mismating. The girl had beauty and breeding; the man had neither, though none could doubt the frank honesty of his blue eyes.
In other latitudes the missioner would have insisted upon knowing a little more of the family history, and in the event of their refusing to acquaint him with the facts which inclined them toward matrimony would have politely declined to act. But this was the Orient, a world where laxity disintegrated vigor, where all the mysterious kinks in human nature developed quickly and became the salients in character.
He took William aside, however, and asked him if the young lady was, or had been, ill.
"Ill? Why, no. But she's been through a lot of worry. She'll be all right when things settle down again."
"Do you wish to marry this man? Are you acting of your own free will?" asked the missioner, as a final attempt to get at the truth.
Ruth stared out of the window at the patch of brilliant sunshine in the middle of the red dust of the compound. The pause was so long that the missioner began to fidget, and William's freckles grew deeper and deeper in hue. Why didn't she answer?
"Ruth?"
"Oh, I beg your pardon! Yes, I wish to marry Mr. Grogan."
With a sigh the missioner opened his book to the marriage ritual. Ruth spoke her affirmatives in a colorless tone. William had to clear his throat a dozen times.
"Now," said the missioner, smiling, after the gold band had been clumsily slipped over Ruth's finger, "we are all Americans. Why not have your Christmas dinner with us?"
"Thank you," said Ruth; "but we have planned to have our dinner at the Raffles." She wanted no curious strangers about. Her head was on fire, and she wanted to be alone, alone.
William's face expressed his disappointment. Strangers would have been most welcome to him. Now that the ceremony was over, a fear laid hold of him. Had he done right? Ought he not to have waited until Ruth had had a few days' rest?
"You'd better watch her," whispered the missioner as he escorted this strange pair to the door. "I don't know what her worry is, but it strikes me that she is going to be ill."
"Ill?"
"Yes."
The missioner was now positive that the girl was not fully aware of the step she had taken. Confused and troubled, he let them go out into the compound before he recalled that he had not blessed them. He ran after, waving his hands. William's thought was that he had innocently given the missioner some bad money.
"I forgot to bless you, you poor children!"
William bent his head, but Ruth stared straight on.
Their dinner at Raffles's was sadder even than the wedding. Neither could eat; neither could talk; neither of them heard the cheerful Chinese table-boy repeat his "Melly Clistmus!"
William thought he understood what was going on in Ruth's mind. She was reviewing her life, her failures, and this final smash of all her woman's dreams. He knew. The man she had picked out in fancy did not in the least resemble William Grogan. He had not meant anything wrong; yet it was now evident that he had committed a crime he had taken advantage of her helplessness, he had not given her a chance to recover her balance.
The more closely he looked into his act, the more reprehensible it became. Marriage! God help him, he saw clearly enough now that what in his generosity he had intended doing might have been done without tragedy. He had wrecked her future without benefiting his own in the least. He was a thousand times a fool. He no longer kept up the farce of self-deception; he had hoped that some day she might learn to care for him. Blind, unhappy fool! She would now hate him until the end of her days.
Ruth broke in upon these melancholy cogitations. "My head aches very badly. You won't mind if I go to my room?"
"Good Lord, no!"
He went with her to the room he had engaged for her.
"Where … where is your room?"
So she was worrying about that? "On the other side," he lied. "All your things are here. Now, sister, you lie down and take it easy. I'll drop in around about six. And maybe a rickshaw ride along the water-front 'll brace you up."
At six he returned to find her delirious. She did not recognize him. Terrified, he ran down to the office and asked for a doctor. When the doctor came he reported that it was a case of brain fever.
"Will she die?"
"That depends. Plenty of ice-packs, a good nurse, proper care, and there's a chance for her. She looks as if she had natural vitality. Your wife?"
"Yes." Brain fever! God was already beginning his punishment.
"I take it, Mr. Grogan, that you're a tourist, so I'll see to the nurse and order the ice myself. It's a good thing it's winter. I'll have a punka rigged up for the daytime. Until I return you will apply cold compresses; that is, wet the towel frequently and lay it upon her head. Don't be afraid if it drips."
"How long will it last?"
"If it's a slight attack, two or three weeks; if it is serious, a month or more. It depends upon the severity of the congestion—what kind of mental trouble brought it on. But don't get worried; just keep saying to yourself that she's going to pull through, and she will."
All through the long night William sat by the bed. Sometimes he cracked the artificial ice for the nurse, or he put Ruth's threshing arms under the coverlet, or he stood listening to her incoherent babble, hoping in vain to hear his own name. It was of a past he knew but little—the days with her father.
"Go to bed, Mr. Grogan," advised the nurse when three o'clock came around. "You need sleep, lots of it, if you're going to help me. You'll have to do something in watching during the day, until the crisis is past."
William had not engaged any room for himself at the hotel. His idea had been to seek out some near-by boarding-house. He wanted to leave Ruth with a sense of absolute freedom. She alone was registered, and only as Miss Warren. In other parts of the world this would have complicated affairs, but not in Singapore.
Dumbly he went down to the outside café and sat in one of the wicker chairs. He fell asleep almost immediately. He was aroused at dawn by the Chinese scrubs.
Up-stairs there was no change. The nurse slept on a cot in the veranda, while William watched and changed the ice-packs until nine. The nurse then relieved him.
He began to conside his finances. He had thirty-six rupees—about twelve dollars. Ruth's checks would be so much waste paper until she could properly indorse them. If she died … No; God wouldn't do that! And he had believed that trip to Hong-Kong and return the worst hell that could be meted out to him. He had only stepped into the anteroom. Twelve dollars! His only hope lay in the promise of the consul-general.
He went back to the annex of the hotel, where the offices of the American consulate were located, and asked to see the consul-general.
"He is away," said the clerk.
"When will he be back?"
"I can't say. In a week, maybe; he may stay a fortnight. The Sultan of Johore is giving a hunting party. The consul-general left rather unexpectedly last night. But there is seldom anything of importance going on in Singapore at this time of the year."
"Seldom anything of importance!" repeated William, sitting down because a strange attack at his knees made it impossible for him to stand.
"Can I do anything for you?"
"I don't know. My wife is in the hotel, down with brain fever. I have about twelve dollars. My letter of credit is in Hong-Kong, and I can't get it until the consul-general backs up my identity."
"Give me all the details and I'll see what can be done. It will be impossible to reach the chief by telegraph. They go miles up north into the jungles."
William gave the clerk the essential details, and to verify these the clerk inspected the chief's desk calendar: "Memo. Write Cook Hong-Kong relative W. Grogan's letter of credit." The clerk was glad to run across this memorandum; it gave some color to the story.
"I'm afraid he went away without sending that letter. A cable would do no earthly good in a case like this. By this time Cook's people must be up in the air, and the consulate seal would be necessary before they would surrender the letter. I'm sorry, but I have no authority to act."
"I don't care about myself. If I was sure everything would be all right with her, I could manage to shift somehow."
The clerk chewed the end of his lead-pencil. He did not know how to act. Not a day passed that some clever rogue did not try to put through a bit of fraud. He himself had been imposed upon several times, and the word "money" sent him back into his shell. Yet this chap had the identification-book representing the ownership of six hundred pounds, and the chief himself had made a memorandum on his calendar.
"I'll tell you what. Stick to the hotel. They won't bother you with any bill for a couple of weeks, and by that time the chief will be home. Frankly, in this half-way port you don't trust everybody. There's a lot of strange driftwood floating around, and we have our eyes open. I've been stung a dozen times. You stick to the hotel. If they come to you with any bill before the chief returns, hunt me up and I'll try to explain to the management."
"That's pretty white."
"You're welcome. Over here about all we do is to straighten out financial tangles for tourists—and they are always losing money and trunks; ship broken sailors back home; and play charity generally, and no thanks. Anyhow, I'll take a chance. Drop in once in a while and let me know how things work out."
"Sounds pretty good to hear some one talk United States. Thanks."
William returned to the office of the hotel and engaged the cheapest room he could find. On the morrow he would look around for a job—that is, if Ruth were no worse.
From eleven until three he stood his watch while the nurse slept. Man and wife, he mused; the yellow-bird wedded to the crow. What would she do, how would she act, when she came back from this no-land where fevered fancies go? Maybe she'd forgive him when she understood everything.
The doctor called. The temperature had not gone any higher, and this was an encouraging sign. Bravely William laid bare his financial predicament. No matter what happened, he was not going to sail under false colors. The doctor told him to put such worries into the background, or there'd be two patients instead of one.
"There's a lot of white men in this world, after all."
"I'll wager," replied the doctor, putting away his thermometer. "When you're in trouble you find out where they are. To-night or to-morrow night we'll come to the crisis. You see, every case of brain fever is individual. No two persons are affected exactly alike. If the fever goes no higher by to-morrow night, then we can breathe easier. It may hang right where it is for a long time, or it may recede at once. You never can tell. To-night and to-morrow night I'll take turns with the nurse, and you can sleep. If a serious turn comes, I'll send for you. She's quieter now."
Ruth's left arm lay outside the coverlet. William laid his hand upon the forearm. It was dry and hot. He raised it gently to put it back under the coverlet, when the two rings caught his eye. The sight of them gave birth to a Quixotic idea. Slowly he slipped off the rings and dropped them into a pocket. When she came to her senses his act would at least save her the shock of immediate recollection. She need never know until she was strong enough.
The next day, his heart big with misery, William went forth in search of a job. He was obsessed with the idea that he must find some way to make money. It was all right for the doctor and the nurse to trust him, but sooner or later he must have money. There was always the possibility of the consul-general getting killed on that hunting expedition. And then where would he be?
First he sought the few plumbing establishments. They thought he was joking at first, and laughed pleasantly; but when he declared his seriousness they informed him that there was no chance for any but the native. No white man could work for the native wage. Then he tried the hardware-shops and ship-chandlers—natives. It was not pride on William's part; he would have dug trenches with the devil himself if there had been a white man's wage in it. His idea was to get enough ready cash to cable Burns. He dared not ask the doctor to lend him money. The man might turn about and refuse to trust him further. And the clerk at the consulate had hinted that he could not afford to lend anything except his good will, and William was grateful enough for even that. He must find a white man's wage for a week or so. Must.
He returned to the hotel at noon. Ruth's condition was unchanged. He remained two hours at the bedside, then renewed his quest for work. At five he found himself on one of the piers. What drew him toward a group of white men he did not know. It was one of those mysterious "hunches." Perhaps it was their excited gestures. At any rate, he approached. Three of the men were officers off some vessel in the harbor, and the fourth was a landsman.
"I tell you Jason's gone to the palace at Johore. He's the only expert I've got, the only man in Singapore who could handle your work just now. The Sultan is installing new plumbing. It's a four or five weeks' job, and I can't call him back for a job that isn't worth more than three thousand rupees, probably a good deal less."
"But, man, can't you dig up some one for us? We can't wait for your expert to return and we can't put to sea with fresh-water tanks aleak and the piping broken God knows where! I can't afford to have any native tinkering around my ship. It's no ordinary job. Why can't you handle it personally?"
"Simply because while I manage a shop I'm no expert plumber. Jason is probably the only man in Singapore who knows anything about ship plumbing."
Ship plumbing! William's heart leaped thunderously. So much depended upon his address. He called it bluff. He would have exchanged a year of his life for ten minutes of that old fearlessness. If he could keep his voice steady, mask his anxiety. … He stepped forward.
"Pardon me, but are you looking for an expert plumber? I'm one."
The four turned upon him abruptly and rather resentfully. They were English. Hidebound in their dislike and suspicion of all things which did not conform with routine, they instantly looked upon William as an impertinent bounder. But William's bold front and good clothes dissipated their first impression that he might be a beach-comber. One of the officers saw him for exactly what he was, an idle tourist. He decided in this instance to discount formality in favor of common-sense.
"You are an American, I fancy?"
"I am, and I'm an expert plumber. Couldn't help overhearing your talk. I've nothing to do, so I thought I might be able to help you out. It's dull between boats, and Raffles's isn't a lively joint just now. And I know something about the insides of a ship."
Which was perfectly true. Like all skilled mechanics, William was of an investigating trend. He could pass a Corregio or a Titian without a thrill; but a piece of strange machinery hypnotized him. Due to the friendliness of the Ajax's chief engineer, William had familiarized himself with that marvelous network of pipes which sprawls hither and yon between the decks of all big sea-going steamers until he knew them as the lines in his palm. So he was not throwing his dice blindly.
The chief engineer—for William recognized his stripes—looked at his watch. After all, the situation was quite as unusual as this young man's offer. It was no time to dodder, unless he wanted to lay up in port for weeks. It might be that he had fallen into a bit of genuine luck.
"Five o'clock. I suppose I'll have to take a chance. Step aboard the launch, Mr.—"
"Grogan—William Grogan, of Burns, Dolan & Co., New York."
"Glad if you can help us."
"You've got a good working-plan of the piping?"
"Yes. Queer game. Usually the carpenter and the assistant engineer could have handled the job. They left the ship at Saigon. Lascar crew—good servants, good sailors, but not up to a job like this. And everybody in Singapore is on some other job. Worse luck!"
At seven o'clock William had located the vital spots. The port side of the main deck, forward and amidship, would have to be torn up. The job would take perhaps eight or ten days. He would depend upon the manager for helpers. He would give his services as expert for two hundred dollars; they could accept it or decline it, as they pleased. The manager, seeing his profits dwindling—but forgetting that he was in luck to have any profits—swore roundly that the price was exorbitant.
"Give it and have done arguing," cried the chief engineer. "We're in a bally rotten hole, and this chap seems able to help us out. The whole job will come to about two hundred pounds. Our lines give you a deal of business, man, and for once I fancy you can cut down your profits a little to save us time."
The manager finally agreed to the terms, and William started back to town. The sweat he wiped from his forehead could not be charged to the heat. Two hundred dollars! There was something in this Irish luck, after all.
On the day William pocketed his precious forty pounds Ruth opened her eyes sanely. William came into the room just as he had left the ship. His finger-nails were broken and grimed, his face was streaked with sweat and dust, his clothes were covered with oil-stains and emanated the odor of gasolene, and his beard was three days old. When he saw sanity in her glance, he broke down; and the nurse, fearful that his emotion might upset the patient, ordered him from the room.
In a little while he begged the nurse to let him come back; he promised he'd make no noise, that he would not touch the patient; all he wanted was to see if he was really recognized. It was hard for the nurse to deny this man anything, now that she knew him.
"Just for a minute," she said. "She must have absolute quiet."
William tiptoed to the bed. "Do you know me, sister?"
Sister? He called her that? Had it been a dream, then? But Ruth was too weak and tired to think. She smiled a little and closed her eyes.
As troubles never come singly, neither do the good things. The consul-general returned from his hunting trip, despatched documentary evidence sufficient to establish William's right to his letter of credit, explained the situation to the management of the Raffles's, and William's financial difficulties became recollections. He had his trunk and grips brought down to the room adjacent to Ruth's, and his only care was to wait upon her, to share through the nights the burdens of the nurse, and to assume a cheerfulness he was far from feeling. Never he failed to call Ruth sister; never by word or sign did he refer to the past. When the day came when she was able to walk alone he would tell her. It was going to be very, very hard; but he had tightened up his resolve to a point where no self-interest could weaken it. He would tell her the plain, honest truth.
The slowness of Ruth's convalescence rather baffled the doctor. Apparently this young wife did not care whether she got well or not. There was none of the usual fretting over staying in bed; she seemed content to lie there upon her pillows. The doctor, however, did not confide this fact to William.
Two weeks passed before Ruth was able to sit in a chair. They carried her out to the wide veranda-gallery whence she could view the lovely panorama of the harbor. And hour after hour she sat there, staring at the ships as they came in or went out to sea.
During the hours of delirium the nurse had managed to pick up enough odds and ends of the truth to form a coherent story. And all her sympathies went out to the man. The moment he came into the room he radiated love. It beamed from his eyes, it was in the touch of his big, clumsy, toil-stained hands, it was manifest in his unforgetfulness. All day long he labored in the heat; but he never was too weary to spend half the night at the bedside. The nurse wondered what kind of vitality it was this man drew upon, since, visibly, he had no way of renewing it.
Immediately Ruth regained consciousness, however, the nurse was keen to note the change in the man. The love was there, but he hid it, repressed it, stifled it. This part of the mystery the nurse could not solve.
One day, when she was able to walk about, Ruth asked—in fact, she had been wanting to ask the question for some time, but until now could not push her courage to the point—if she had had any rings on her hands when taken ill.
"Yes. I believe Mr. Grogan took them off for fear you might lose them," said the nurse. "You flung your arms about a good deal. You're a lucky woman, Mrs. Grogan. How that man loves you! Of course, you know that he had no money. He went out and found work. He'd work all day and watch at your bed nearly all night. Sometimes he fell asleep in the chair, and I would not disturb him until breakfast. For ten days he worked from six in the morning until five in the afternoon, and the pity of it, it wasn't needful. But he thought he just had to have money. He didn't know that the doctor and I understood, or that the doctor had quietly informed the office of the circumstances. We let him work because if he didn't have something to occupy his hands he would have fallen ill from sheer worry. He'd got the idea that in this part of the world nobody trusted any one. Well, we don't, everybody. But all we had to do was to look into his eyes."
The nurse, after freshening up Ruth's pillow, went back into the bedroom to make the bed.
From the rickshaw-stand in the court below the veranda Ruth could hear the Chinese boys laughing and talking in their queer gutturals. Occasionally one hailed a prospective passenger. From the sea came the deep-throated warning of an approaching steamer. Ruth stared at the fingers of her left hand. All the puzzling mysteries vanished, all the cobwebs of doubt blew away. She was married. She was Mrs. William Grogan.
Invalids are always the most selfish of individuals. Being an invalid Ruth thought of herself only, her misery, the whole dreary failure she had made of life. And God had not been kind enough to let her die! Married! She was Mrs. William Grogan. He had taken advantage of her helplessness, her mental unbalance, for when she had left that hideous place in Malay Street she had not been strictly accountable for her subsequent acts. Mrs. Grogan!
She barely noticed him when he came in that night. He attributed her demeanor to weariness. He was not especially quick-witted to-night; his thoughts were more or less engaged in going over that afternoon's adventure.
Now that the extraordinary troubles of life had simmered down into the matter-of-fact, every-day affairs—now that Ruth was on the way back and there was money in his pocket—it occurred to William that he would like to know what had become of the man Colburton. After an unsuccessful series of inquiries he finally decided that the only avenue open was the house in Malay Street, and thither he directed his steps, careless of the fact that his hour was irregular, indifferent if any saw him. He wanted news and he was not particular how this news was acquired.
The woman he desired most to see answered his ring. She was not going to let him in, believing his visit of a hostile nature.
"Keep that door open," he said. "I want some questions answered, and I want them answered straight. I could give you a taste of the British jail here if I wanted to."
"What do you want to know?"
"What's become of Colburton?"
"He has gone. Sailed away in his yacht."
"Didn't know but he might be dead."
"No fault of yours that he's alive," the woman replied, sullenly.
"What happened to him before I took my wife out of here?"
The woman fell back, her mouth open. "Your wife?"
"Ye-ah."
"She is your wife? Then he lied to me. God knows I'm an outcast, but I'm not fool enough to touch anything like that. I thought she was one of those women who play for big stakes. He swore on his oath that she'd run away from him. He offered me a thousand rupees to hold her for a few days. How was I to know that he was lying?"
"Nothing doing with that line of talk. You can tell a good woman when you see her."
"I only saw her the night they brought her here. One of my girls took care of her."
"Did you get your thousand?" ironically.
"Yes."
"Well, then, I wont offer to buy you a new banister. I want to know just what happened."
"You're a strong man. When you flung him through the banister he fell upon his face in the lower hall. I had him carried to the Chinese quarters in the rear and held him there until I could get him to the hospital without having the police nosing around. He was in the hospital ten days. He came out badly disfigured."
"That's the best news I've heard in days. Then the ladies won't break their necks in the future running after him? How badly disfigured?"
"His nose and jaw were broken. His face will always be twisted. Is that all?"
"All, Isobel, all that I wish to know."
"You won't report me to the police?"
"I guess not. You and I know why. A decent woman doesn't want this kind of a story tagging her around. Disfigured, huh? What became of the other man, Camden?"
"I don't know."
"Well, that's all I can think of to-day."
The woman shut the door and William stepped off the porch into the street. So Colburton would go through life disfigured? That was more comforting than to know that he was dead. He judged Colburton more or less accurately. Repulsive to women, no longer fawned upon except for his money, never able to shut out the memory of that humiliating beating he had received in the presence of the woman he had wronged, Colburton would go through what remained of life tasting daily a bit of the hell he had so carelessly and callously brewed for others. Charity? William laughed. Pity? He rubbed his hands pleasurably. There are some deeds it is not human to forget or forgive; and so long as he lived there would remain in William's heart some dregs of the poison this man Colburton had instilled there. All the sermons ever preached will not change or uproot this quality of hatred; not in a strong man.
The nurse still slept on the cot on the veranda. So Ruth was alone now during the nights. The doctor had decreed thus. The patient's eyes, unattracted by movement of any kind, were more likely to close; and Ruth needed sleep, long hours of it. But if she could not see, she could hear the infinitesimal sounds of the night: the ticking of the clock on the stand, running water in some room a dozen doors away, the light crunch of passing rickshaws, the snap of a match in the court, and the pacing of the man in the next room, her husband.
She had fallen into the habit of counting these steps. It took fourteen to make the length of his room, but always on the return he paused midway for some reason. He was thinking, then? Ah, she believed she knew what.
Suddenly, one night, she heard a new sound. It was the door-knob! The white enamel fascinated her, for she could see it dimly beyond the foot of the bed. Knowing how powerful he was, that a lock was nothing if once he set his strength against it, she became icy with terror. She was about to summon the nurse when the rattle ceased. She heard him walk out to the veranda, and later she sensed the faint odor of pipe-tobacco. She looked at the clock. It was nine. The door-knob was not disturbed again that night.
For five consecutive nights, however, the knob rattled; always somewhere around nine, after the nurse had retired. Her terror grew and grew; it was setting her back. And yet, how could she tell him? How could she call the nurse and tell her?
On the sixth night, after the usual pacing, she heard him turn the knob again, but this time there came a gentle rapping.
"Ruth?" he called.
She did not answer. She sat up rigidly.
"Ruth, I must talk to you."
Then she spoke. "What is it?"
"I've got something to say to you, and I can't tell it to you while the nurse is around."
"Can't you tell me through the door?"
"No. This thing has got to be a face-to-face business."
She got out of bed, turned on the light, and put on her kimono. Easily five minutes passed before she felt strong enough to go to the door.
As she opened it and stepped back, her shoulders were dripping. She was so weak that if he touched her she must fall. But he did not enter the room. He stood on the threshold and stared at her miserably.