The Luck of the Irish/Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII
WILLIAM had picked up his odds and ends of life in the streets, and these, as I have already observed, had formed the basis of a cynical philosophy. But to offset this he possessed an imagination as boundless and irresponsible as the perspectives of a Chinese painter. He knew nearly all there was to know about mankind, and enough of woman to be on his guard; but he was always soaring to heaven and tumbling back to earth, and so his philosophy was less a staff to lean on than an air-cushion for his frequent bumps.
When he reached the forward rail, under the bridge, he stopped. His mind was awhirl. The two episodes, the prayer and the kindling of his heart, had shaken him profoundly. How he wanted her! How every drop of blood in his body leaped at the thought of her! And yet there was lacking that burning primordial desire to break down all barriers, brush aside all obstacles, crush anything that stood between him and this woman. Why? He saw clearly the immeasurable gulf. He knew that in these days men did not take their women under their arm and run away with them. He was like that lantern up there at the mast-head; and she was like one of those stars beyond. There was no earthly way of bridging such a gulf.
Evil and temptation ; the words recurred to him. What had she done? From what had she fled? Who and what was she, after all? That for three years she had been a school-teacher was an established fact. But before that? Was there a husband in the coil somewhere? Evil and temptation.
A fine future for him; and that dream of his about a home of his own, a garden to play in, a wife and a couple of kids, was dissipating like that streamer of fog off the port bow.
Up from under these bitter thoughts came the old superstition. He found that he still adhered to the belief that his presence on board here was a calculated move in the checker-game of fate. Some day she might need him, and when that day came William Grogan would not be found wanting.
Far up in the crow's-nest he saw the dim outline of the lookout. He heard the "All's well!" It startled him. Then his back stiffened. Who could say? That might be a message to him as well as to the man at the wheel above. … Aw, was he going to let those pipe-dreams of his carry him up again, only to slam him down? Not all his philosophy, such as it was, nor the recollection of his buffets and how he had taken them upstanding, nor the knowledge that financially he need no longer worry, sufficed to ease a corner of this dull weight of misery. He had fallen in love with a woman who was not his kind.
She was good, anyhow. No woman could pray like that and not be good. It was just a simple prayer of a soul in trouble. His clean heart and his cynical knowledge fought over this conclusion. It is impossible for a man to let sordidness touch the skirts of the woman he loves. He must idealize her and put her on a pedestal, for man cannot worship anything not above his own level. It is a healthy sign for all that the world is full of wabbly pedestals. It is a phase of that indefinable longing to find something by which to pull ourselves upward. In other words, we still make little gods of our own.
"I'm a poor simp," he murmured, looking up at the moon and finding it far over the other side of the ship. He pulled out his watch—the old fat silver timepiece which had been his father's. Half after two!
He remembered reading somewhere about the glamour of love. There was nothing to it; it was all doubt and then some more doubt. He was very unhappy. In this love-game he had no assets, only liabilities.
It was time for bed. As he entered the port companionway she came into the starboard, and they met on the first landing.
"Why!" she exclaimed, startled at the sight of him.
"I couldn't sleep, somehow," he said.
"Nor could I."
"I guess we overdid a little in Gibraltar," he suggested.
"I never thought of that," she replied, listlessly.
Together they went down to the main deck. Their cabins were on opposite sides of the ship.
"Good night, Mr. Grogan," she said as she turned into her corridor.
We are eternally diving into the crowds for our Bayards, our Jeanne d'Arcs, and all the while our elbows are rubbing theirs.
"Goodnight."
As he repeated this empty phrase he pondered over the lack of desire on his part to sweep her up into his arms. Where was that fire he had so often read about? One thing was certain: as he lifted himself into his berth he vowed never again to read a novel with a woman in it.
He rose the next morning in time to reach the dining-room before the doors closed. He was very much astonished to find that his appetite was as normal as ever. Nothing seemed to work out according to schedule. All the people he had ever heard speak on the subject adhered to the supposition that when a person was in love that person lost his or her appetite. At the old boarding-house this was one of the set table jests. "You're not eating anything to-night, Mr. Haberdasher. In love?" How they all would "guy" the object of this solicitude!
Very remote that boarding-house seemed just now, with its shop-girls and warehouse-clerks and their sensible views of life, their dogged pluck, their amazing economies. To address one as "Mister" or "Miss" was considered to be the last word in irony. Petty squabbles were frequent enough; but let one of them get into financial difficulties, and every poor, slim purse came forth. Could he ever go back there? He doubted it. Somehow his horizon had broadened mysteriously. He had stepped out of the humdrum, and he knew that only a reverse in fortune could force him back to it. It was in no sense snobbery. It was simply that these old acquaintances had dropped out of his orbit, or, to be exact, he had been switched into a new one and had not quite steadied himself to the speed of it.
He went to his chair, hoping to find her and yet relieved when he found her not. He was curious to learn how the sight of her would affect him in the daylight, now that he was assured that he loved her, but there was a generous portion of dread mixed with this curiosity. She was up and about somewhere, "for some new books lay on her steamer rug. Baedekers; he knew that flaming red cover tolerably well by now.
To take a book from the chair of a friend during that friend's temporary absence could in no wise be looked upon as an indiscretion. William went over to the girl's chair and picked up the three volumes: Southern Italy, Central Italy, and Northern Italy. Idly he turned the cover of one book. On the fly-leaf he discovered a bit of writing—"Ruth Warren, her book." The two other volumes contained this name also. The signatures had been written quite recently, probably that very morning. No doubt this was her real name.
The purser had these books for sale. It would be a simple matter to make an inquiry.
Yes, Miss Jones had bought three guide-books that morning.
"Anything turned up about that wallet of mine?"
"No, Mr. Grogan. That has turned out to be something of a mystery. No one has reported having found it."
"Well, I haven't lost any sleep over it," said William.
"Ruth Warren." When she had written that in those books she had forgotten; either that or she no longer cared. And if she didn't care, the past could not be very dark. He caught himself up sharply. Always ready to go soaring, always ready to make excuses. She had written her true name in an unguarded moment.
As a detective William might have made a passable success. If his logical deductions weren't up to the approved mark, he sometimes made shrewd guesses. If she had told the truth about her father being a professor and a man of science, it would not be difficult to prove it. So he proceeded to hunt up one of his ancients, whom he found in the smoke-room, deep in one of George Eber's Egyptian tales.
"Good morning, Mr. Greenwood," said William, sitting down beside the old man.
"Ah, good morning, Mr. Grogan." The archeologist pushed aside his Tauchnitz reluctantly.
"Say, I was wondering if you could answer a question of mine. You know all about these scientific guys. Did you ever hear of a professor named Warren?"
"Warren?" ruminatively. "Why, yes. Professor Warren wrote a capital book on gravities."
"Is he alive?"
"No; I believe he has been dead some years. If I'm not mistaken you'll find his book in the ship's library. It contains a good deal of nautical information."
"Thanks. I'll see if I can get it. "
"It is rather dry," the old man warned.
"That won't matter. I'm curious to learn what keeps my feet on deck when I ought to be standing on my head."
"You are a very amusing young man, Mr. Grogan."
"I know it. I ought to be in the two-a-day vaudeville."
He found the book. It was dry, dry as anything William had ever picked up in the form of books. It was a combination of chemistry, geology, and arithmetic. A casual glance was enough. He sat down in his chair and patiently waited for the girl to appear. It was a mean kind of trap; and under ordinary circumstances he would not have stooped to it. But how in the world could he protect her if he did not know what menaced her?
She arrived at the moment the steward was serving the broth. She smiled brightly, dropped the Baedekers to the deck, plumped into her chair, and drank her broth greedily. She did not look like a person who had spent most of the night on deck.
The daughter of a scholar, herself well educated, well bred, beautiful; what chance had William Grogan, of Burns, Dolan & Co., estimable plumbers though they were? No chance whatever. So he bravely laid away his love in lavender. But there was no barrier to friendship. He might salvage that prize out of the wreck of his dreams.
"What are you reading this morning?" she inquired.
"Something five thousand miles over my head." He held out the book.
Instantly her expression changed. "Where did you get this?" she cried, seizing the book.
"In the library." William found his embarrassment of sizable dimensions. Spiritually he writhed.
She hugged the book to her heart suddenly, and her eyes sparkled with tears. "My poor, unhappy father! Mr. Grogan, this is no accident. How did you find it?"
"I'm a mean dog, I suppose. Well, I saw you that day at Cook's. I didn't think much of it at the time. But when you turned out to be the school-teacher around the corner, why, that was different. I just couldn't help being interested. You see, for three years you were a friend of mine, though you didn't know it, and I was kind of watching over you. So long as you never slowed up going by that window, I thought everything was all right with you. When I found that you were my school-teacher, I made up my mind that you had run away from something or somebody. The way you said your name was Jones kind of warned me that it wasn't Jones. But, of course, I couldn't ask any questions."
He paused, rather hoping that she would help him out. But she only hugged the book closer, and the fixity of her gaze troubled him so strongly that he let his wander toward the sea.
"I don't meddle with other people's business," he struggled on; "I'm not that kind of a guy. It's only because I want to be a real friend, somebody you can rely on and come to when you're in trouble. It isn't as if I'd just met you. Of course, you don't know anything about me but what I've told you; but I did seem to know you. Your little brown shoes going by my window, one-two-three, like that, caught me. I built up all sorts of stories about you. Reading too much, probably. Anyhow, there you were, every day, rain or shine, except Saturdays and Sundays. I'm a lonesome dub myself. I've had to fight all along the way; and I guess my middle name is Trouble. When I don't hunt for it, they bring it to me on a platter."
"What is it you think I have done?" she asked, quietly.
"Honest, I don't know what I thought. Anyhow, I wasn't thinking of asking any questions. This morning I picked up one of those Baedekers, and I accidentally saw the name on the fly-leaf. I wasn't sure; so I asked one of my ancients if he had ever heard of a Professor Warren. He had. Now, Miss Warren, you don't have to tell William Grogan anything. It isn't because I was just curious. That wasn't it at all. But I thought if I was really your friend I might help you—that is, if you were in any kind of trouble where a friend could help." He spoke depreciatingly, but there was a fine light in his eyes. "I take it that you're all alone, like I am. If you'd had a brother or a family, why, I'd 've shied off."
The girl's heart grew suddenly and gratefully warm. Until this moment she had not believed that such a man existed outside of one's fancy. It was so easy and simple for man to pass on, eying askance all burdens save his own and seldom offering to give others a lift unless impelled by self-interest. His face no longer provoked her sense of the comic; some light, very fine and lofty, seemed to shine through it. The tears which had hung desperately to her eyelids, lost hold, tumbled and plashed upon the book and the hands which clasped it.
"I want you for my friend, Mr. Grogan. I can't say very much. I'm a little choked up just now. My father! And this book was his life, a part of the thing he strove so valiantly to attain. Half the time he never realized that I was living in the same house with him. So there are still some men of intellect who remember what he did? Thank you for letting me know that."
"Then you're going to let me be a real friend, a sort of Brother Bill kind?" William's voice shook.
"Yes. … Brother Bill!" She smiled through her tears.
"The kind you can come to if ever you happen to be in trouble?" He was rather insistent about this article in the compact.
"Yes." She gave him her hand warmly and firmly, and after that the world did not seem so dark to William.
"I wonder," he said, when the tingle of the hand-clasp died away—"I wonder if I'm superstitious? I don't know. But somehow I feel I didn't pick out this old gondola for nothing. Somebody has appointed me your guardian. But you've got to promise that when you need me you'll call me."
"I promise. If ever I need a man, strong and honest, between me and this something you hint of, I'll call to you."
She recollected this promise one dreadful night in the purlieus of Malay Street in far-away Singapore.