The Luck of the Irish/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX
IT was rather remarkable that William should recognize the futility of his love the moment it came into the range of his understanding. The true lover immediately sees all his defects, more or less colossal; his conceit and complacency collapse, and he never recovers them in the same proportions. William took no inventory; it was not at all necessary. It was not that he was merely homely; there was his lack of education, his lack of breeding. To a girl like Ruth Warren, physical attractions were only small change; any man to be successful with her had to have breeding and education; if he possessed physical beauty, he was only so much luckier. William was strong in moral fiber; abnegation is not an inherent quality in weak men. So he did not go mooning about, cursing the day he was born and questioning the stars at night.
The girl was serenely unconscious of this state of affairs. She saw the same class distinctions that he saw. She did not even think of him in the light of a candidate. From the other approach, however, that of friendship, she met him more than half-way. She could not remember having a sincerer liking for a man. Above all things she needed the comradeship of a cheerful person; and William Grogan was that. That the Spartan fox was gnawing at his vitals as he laughed and jested would have appealed to her as impossible.
Beyond the fact that she was Professor Warren's daughter he made not the least effort to penetrate. This was because he possessed, without knowing it for what it was, an innate chivalry. Her secrets were her own; and if the day should come when she felt the need of taking him into her full confidence, why, he would be ready to accept it, to give what advice he could.
She did not make friends readily, and he rather regretted this. She had the disconcerting habit of letting the other person carry on the conversation until it died a natural death. The women were beginning to leave her alone, and that was a bad sign. It was William's opinion that she ought to make acquaintances port and starboard. Six months amounted to a great many days; and those whom she had politely snubbed would not forget it, happen she had need of them some day. He was frank enough to put this opinion into words. And he was both surprised and gratified when she said humbly that from now on she would snub no one.
Of Camden they now saw but little; and neither missed him. He was carrying on a mild flirtation with a young woman who had social ambitions; and to her Camden seemed to be the only eligible man on board.
It was the second Sunday of the voyage, half after ten in the morning. William came around to his chair and dropped into it with a sigh of contentment.
"Church over?" Ruth asked, closing her book.
"No. But I was getting fidgety, and sloped. They told me there's several hundred millions of heathen to convert. Confronted by such a hopeless job, I gave up my pew."
She laughed. "You shouldn't make fun of the missioners," she reproved.
"I know it. But several hundred millions! And he shook his finger at me, too. Well, maybe I am a heathen. I don't go to church; I can't sit still long enough. But if you want my idea of Christianity, give me the Salvation Army. I'm not joking. You don't hear much about them. They toot cornets and bang bass-drums on the corner, and it makes you grin; but for doing downright good they've got all the missioners buffaloed. Take it from me; I know. They don't go around trying to convert Rockerbilt into giving a memorial window to the Cathedral of Everlasting Lugs—nope. They go to the back door and ask for old clothes, cast-off shoes, and magazines. Then they go out after the poor souses, the homeless devils, the good-for-naughts, the girls of the street, the drunkard's wife, and the like. Do they preach sermons about the poor heathen ? Nix. They pass around hot soup, old coats and shoes, and throw in a cot for the night if you don't happen to have one. That kind of makes the poor devils believe there is a God. But if you make a Christian out of a happy Hottentot, you usually have to stand over him with a club. Say," with sudden eagerness, "the bulletin says we reach Naples Tuesday morning around ten o'clock."
"Glorious! Sorrento, the Blue Grotto, Pompeii! Isn't it wonderful?"
"It sure is, sister."
"But I don't think you're very pious."
"Maybe not. Stained glass, pipe-organs, and white neckties never gave me a shiver yet. I poke fun at 'em sometimes, if that's what you mean. Aw, the whole thing is twisted up, somehow. They've all got the right idea, but everybody wants to do the leading; nobody wants to be led. I'm for the Salvationists."
"Do you like music?" she asked, presently.
"Like it? Why, you can get me away from my meat with a piece of paper and a hair-comb. When I was a kid I got lost twice in New York, following the German bands.'
"What kind of music do you like?"
"All kinds, if it's good, barring the cornet-player and the Swiss bell-ringers. I don't know anything about music, but I know that it gets me deep. There used to be an old chap at my boarding-house who could play the violin, believe me. He'd put me to sleep, kind of, with old-home stuff, and then yank up the hair on the back of my neck with some of that dago-Dutch music. Couldn't tell you why I liked it, but it always got me."
"I believe church is over." She got up. "Would you like to hear me play the piano?"
"You can play? Well, say!"
"Come along, then. There is a piano in the alcove over the dining-saloon; and if there's no one around I'll play for you. The truth is, I've been hungering to touch that piano."
They succeeded in getting into the alcove without attracting attention; and shortly after William sat back in his chair, feeling that his soul had been plucked out of him and cast among the clouds. She played lightly and dreamily at first; half the time the music was but a low ripple of murmurous sounds. Bach, Grieg, Beethoven, Rubinstein, Chopin; it is doubtful if at that time William had ever heard of them; but, strangers though they were, they knew how to play with his temperamental soul. He was really fond of good music; he had heard just enough of it in the past to whet his taste for it; and what he heard this morning set his desires in full cry. What he could not understand was that she could play all these wonderful compositions without notes.
They both awoke suddenly and embarrassedly to the realization that they had an unsuspected audience. The two balcony-corridors were filled with delighted auditors. A muffled round of applause greeted the performer as she rounded out the brilliant finale of Chopin's Fourth Ballade. She had forgotten herself; her skill and ardor had smothered her caution.
"We're in for it now!" whispered William, with a grin. "There's the entertainment committee edging through the bunch."
Several young women had constituted themselves a committee on entertainments. They had not been elected by popular vote; they had simply agreed to be the committee. At once they arranged a series of card-parties, candy auctions, charades, dances, and musicales. They also passed the hat for the sailors' fund, the stokers' fund, some orphans in the steerage, the band, the heathen, and back to the sailors' fund again. A good deal of tobacco was incinerated in the smoke-room on nights given over to these festivities. In the eye of the committee this young musician was a veritable find.
"Oh, Miss Jones, won't you play at our concert Monday night? Please!"
"I'll be glad to," said Ruth, without the slightest hesitance. The initial embarrassment was gone; nor did she accept the invitation as one conferring a favor. She rose from the stool and left the alcove, smiling.
William pressed after her, self-conscious but exhilarated. He was very proud of her, and what vanity he had was expanding. She had played just to please him. Suddenly the slump came. What had he to offer a woman like this? Nothing, absolutely nothing—that is, if you discounted his willingness to give his heart's blood.
Camden, from the rear of the crowd, nodded his head approvingly.
"That young woman has manner," he declared. "She isn't flustered and doesn't pretend to be, which is better still. And, by George, she can play!"
"You seem very much interested all of a sudden," said the flirt at his elbow. "She is probably some musician returning to her studies."
"Shouldn't wonder," replied Camden; and then, with a smile palpably seasoned with malice: "She has grace and beauty too."
His neighbor frowned. She had no liking for the trend of conversation. On his part he was quite indifferent; she had served his turn.
"But what in the world does she see in that Irishman?"
"He probably amuses her, as he does us. She is an unusual person. Just as everything threatened to sink into the doldrums, she startles us all by proving herself to be a fine musician. Next thing we'll hear she's the daughter of some multi-millionaire. If I were going all the way around I'd cultivate her. A woman, to play like that, must in her gentler moods be charming."
Later Camden went in search of William and found him among the giant cables in the bow.
"Hello!" he hailed. "What are you doing up here among the paint-pots and old iron?"
"Trying to hurry the boat along," said William, without appreciable cordiality.
He did not care to talk to any one. He had chosen this isolated spot because he was superlatively unhappy. His desire had been to crawl away somewhere (like a dumb animal that's been hurt) where he could sigh without half the ship turning around to see what the trouble was. So Camden was not welcome.
"I suppose you'll be leaving us Tuesday."
"That depends upon what news awaits me in Naples," was Camden's reply. "I may wind up in Hong-Kong. My work is full of big jumps. I never know from one day to another where I'm due to land next." Camden laughed. This statement was so frankly true that its appeal to his risibles was too strong to overcome. "As for inclination, I'd like to start back to New York at once."
"Uh-huh. What's this noise about the old burg, anyhow? We're always wanting to get back to it. I was kind of homesick not more than five minutes gone."
"It's because any town we grow up in becomes a part of us; and so when we go away from it we're being amputated after a fashion. Why didn't you tell me Miss Jones played the piano like that?"
"Did we ever talk music?" countered William, evasively.
"Not that I recollect. But she has genius; and such a gift doesn't belong to her alone. A school-teacher? She ought to be performing on the concert stage, making ten or fifteen thousand the year."
"As much as all that?" William was astonished. "That's tough luck. She can't face a real audience. Something the matter with her nerves. She told me she had tried and tried, and failed. She didn't know a crowd had collected until she was through."
"But she promised to play at the concert to-morrow night. I heard her."
"Ye-ah; but no bread and butter depends on to-morrow night."
"Ah, I understand. That's very unfortunate."
"Oh, I don't know. I guess she prefers to belong to herself."
"Well, it was a treat to hear her." Camden lighted a cigarette and stared ahead reflectively.
"Hong-Kong?" thought William. What kind of a job did this man work at that took him from one end of the world to the other at a moment's notice? William still doddered; did he like or dislike Camden? Twelve days had passed since the first friction, and yet he could not decide. Never before had he met a man he could neither like nor dislike, and it bothered him. He was honest enough to admit that he wanted to dislike Camden, but could not find any justifiable reasons.
Two or three times he had essayed to broach the subject to his school-teacher, to ascertain her opinion of the man, but something had always intervened. Camden had not made the slightest attempt to flirt with her, and he had proved elsewhere that he was not above such pastime. Up to the present time his manner had been irreproachable. William put aside these thoughts abruptly. He wasn't getting anywhere. And in a day or so his path and Camden's would deviate indefinitely.
"Have you ever seen the Bay of Naples late in the summer, before the snow-breathing winds come down from the Apennines to clarify the air? I know; doubtless you have sailed over it in autumn and winter and spring, but there is something for you still to see. The whole lovely panorama is like a mirage. If there is any poetry in your nature, this unforgetable picture is going to bring it out to you forthwith, for better or for worse.
Remember the pink stucco of the terraced city, the superlative blue of the water, the dazzling sunshine, the grim, gray ash-heap men call Vesuvius, the pink villages dotting the circular shore to the tip of the Sorrentine peninsula, the amethyst isles?—nothing seems real until you become part of it. The city is an enchanting illusion until your foot touches it, the sea until you dip your fingers into it.
William could not write poetry, not even the popular-song sort, but he often thought in Homeric verse. All in the forty-odd minutes it takes to enter the bay and glide into the haven inside the breakwater he was in rotation a Roman centurion, a gladiator in Pompeii, a Saracen gathering loot, a galley-salve (breaking his chains and killing the brutal overseer), a Christian martyr vanquishing the lions, and a soldier of Garibaldi—all fighters, every blessed one of them.
Mr. Cook, mindful of his commissions, spread the little army among the lesser first-class hotels such as were open at this time of the year. As usual in such arrangements there was a good deal of confusion and friends were separated. The two archeologists, Ruth and the two spinsters who shared her cabin on board the Ajax, and Camden were assigned to the Bristol, while William, much to his indignation, found himself domiciled at the Parker, farther down the Corso Vittorio.
For the next four days William had not time to devote to idle retrospection; Mr. Cook's agents took care of that. They saw Vesuvius, Pompeii, Sorrento, Amalfi, Capri and the Blue Grotto, Naples (north, east, south, and west), and visited the baths at Baia. William was tireless, indefatigable. Many pilgrims fell by the wayside, gasping, and some refused to go farther; but not so William, who was out to see everything, whether he was going to enjoy it or not.
The army was divided into brigades. The guide who had charge of William's brigade cursed the day he was born. He begged, cajoled, pleaded; in vain; William was relentless. Not the smallest tomb escaped him; he absorbed information at every pore; he fairly drank that guide until he rattled like an empty canteen.
Then came Sunday, and William rested half the day. He summed up his four days' tripping as follows: ten thousand ruins, ten thousand marble statues, ten thousand pieces of bronze, ten thousand cabmen, and twice that number of beggars.
In the afternoon he and Ruth set out to visit William's old friend Tommaso Malfi. They found him on a little farm at the foot of Vesuvius. Tommaso was delighted. He called to his wife frantically. He yelled for little Tony. The three of them executed a tarantella about the embarrassed William. Ruth saw that there was something more than simple cordiality in this effusive welcome.
"Ah, mees, you don' know thees Irisher. But for heem I have no leetle Tony. Si."
"Aw, forget it, Tommy," said William, blushing to his ears. There had been no ulterior purpose in his bringing Ruth to this little farm-house surrounded by fields of artichokes.
"Si, si! I know you, Irisher. See, mees. He beat the Black Han' an' take thees Tony boy away from them an' save me all the money I have in dees worl'. An' now he say, 'Forget eet!' But I don't forget. Oh, the poleece could do nothing. But thees big red-head he go right into them Black Han's an' beat them up weeth hees fists. Soch a fight! Three to one. Bam, bam, bam! Good-night, good-by; an' eet is done! Like that! An' he say, 'Forget eet!' Va via! You mek me laugh. … Maria!" he shrieked! "the chairs, the wine, the cheese, the ripe olives, an' the pickled artichokes! Presto!"
"And so I find you a hero," said Ruth, on the way back through the pale sapphire twilight.
"Why, I didn't do anything but punch a couple of frightened wops."
"But Tommaso's wife said that they were armed and you were not."
"And if I'd 've known that I wouldn't have butted in, believe me! But, say, that Tony boy was a peach those days—red cheeks, black eyes, and all that. A great kid."
"Are you afraid of me?" she asked.
He thought for a while. "Well, sometimes."
"A brother should never be afraid of his sister."
"I know it. But there's something in your eyes, once in a while, that makes me feel like beetles with pins in 'em."
"You are a brave man. Tell me the whole story. I like stories where men do unselfish things."
"I guess Tommy told all there was to tell. I walloped the three leaders, and after that there was no more Black Hand around our neighborhood. They're up in Sing Sing. Scum! Think of it; squeezing the hearts of mothers! Aw, it would make any white man fighting mad. And say, maybe that scrap wasn't fun! Did you ever get so mad that it made you happy? Well, that was me."
A curious wish rushed into the girl's heart. To see him in action, fighting with his bare fists against odds! It was an idle, purposeless wish, and she was almost instantly ashamed of it. Indeed, she searched in vain for the cause. She detested brutality. She was always rather severe with the pugnacious pupils at school. It was perfectly human that young boys should fight among themselves; nevertheless, she did what she could to prevent these miniature wars. And here she was wishing to see this Hercules of the water-pipes in a fight against odds. The puzzle of it was still shifting about in her mind as the carriage stopped in front of the Bristol.
There was to be a band concert down in the Villa Nazionale that night. William ate his dinner impatiently and hurried back to the Bristol, at that moment the center of the universe. He had to wait. So he went into the little writing-room and tried to read the Paris edition of the New York Herald. As he flung it aside he chanced to look down into the waste-basket at the side of the desk. He saw scattered bits of a photograph. Rather odd, he thought. Forgetting that the contents of a waste-basket even in a public writing-room is inviolable, he reached down and picked up a piece of the photograph. Then he recalled that the world had gone crazy over picture-puzzles two or three years before. Here was an opportunity to amuse himself until Ruth appeared.
It required less than five minutes to put the pieces together. He was dumfounded at the result. For the face of the woman he loved smiled up at him wistfully. Painstakingly he turned the bits over, in case there should be writing on the back. There was. In a masculine scrawl was written: "This is the girl."