Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 by Various

V >> Various >> Stories by American Authors, Volume 6

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She was not very far from right, for suddenly the man did appear.

He one day turned the corner, as she was looking out at the window
fearing that she should see him, and came in a diagonal direction across
the hot, flagged square.

Miss Eunice's pulse leaped into the hundreds. She glued her eyes upon
him. There was no mistake. There was the red face, the evil eyes, the
large mouth, the gray hair, and the massive frame.

What should she do? Should she hide? Should she raise the sash and
shriek to the police? Should she arm herself with a knife? or--what? In
the name of mercy, what? She glared into the street. He came on
steadily, and she lost him, for he passed beneath her. In a moment she
heard the jangle of the bell. She was petrified. She heard his heavy
step below. He had gone into the little reception-room beside the door.
He crossed to a sofa opposite the mantel. She then heard him get up and
go to a window, then he walked about, and then sat down; probably upon a
red leather seat beside the window.

Meanwhile the servant was coming to announce him. From some impulse,
which was a strange and sudden one, she eluded the maid, and rushed
headlong upon her danger. She never remembered her descent of the
stairs. She awoke to cool contemplation of matters only to find herself
entering the room.

Had she made a mistake, after all? It was a question that was asked and
answered in a flash. This man was pretty erect and self-assured, but she
discerned in an instant that there was needed but the blue woollen
jacket and the tall cap to make him the wretch of a month before.

He said nothing. Neither did she. He stood up and occupied himself by
twisting a button upon his waistcoat. She, fearing a threat or a demand,
stood bridling to receive it. She looked at him from top to toe with
parted lips.

He glanced at her. She stepped back. He put the rim of his cap in his
mouth and bit it once or twice, and then looked out at the window. Still
neither spoke. A voice at this instant seemed impossible.

He glanced again like a flash. She shrank, and put her hands upon the
bolt. Presently he began to stir. He put out one foot, and gradually
moved forward. He made another step. He was going away. He had almost
reached the door, when Miss Eunice articulated, in a confused whisper,
"My--my glove; I wish you would give me my glove."

He stopped, fixed his eyes upon her, and after passing his fingers up
and down upon the outside of his coat, said, with deliberation, in a
husky voice, "No, mum. I'm goin' fur to keep it as long as I live, if it
takes two thousand years."

"Keep it!" she stammered.

"Keep it," he replied.

He gave her an untranslatable look. It neither frightened her nor
permitted her to demand the glove more emphatically. She felt her cheeks
and temples and her hands grow cold, and midway in the process of
fainting she saw him disappear. He vanished quietly. Deliberation and
respect characterized his movements, and there was not so much as a jar
of the outer door.

Poor philanthropist!

This incident nearly sent her to a sick-bed. She fully expected that her
secret would appear in the newspapers in full, and she lived in dread of
the onslaught of an angry and outraged society.

The more she reflected upon what her possibilities had been and how she
had misused them, the iller and the more distressed she got. She grew
thin and spare of flesh. Her friends became frightened. They began to
dose her and to coddle her. She looked at them with eyes full of supreme
melancholy, and she frequently wept upon their shoulders.

In spite of her precautions, however, a thunder-bolt slipped in.

One day her father read at the table an item that met his eye. He
repeated it aloud, on account of the peculiar statement in the last
line:

"Detained on suspicion.--A rough-looking fellow, who gave the name of
Gorman, was arrested on the high-road to Tuxbridge Springs for suspected
complicity in some recent robberies in the neighborhood. He was
fortunately able to give a pretty clear account of his late whereabouts
and he was permitted to depart with a caution from the justice. Nothing
was found upon him but a few coppers and an old kid glove wrapped in a
bit of paper."

Miss Eunice's soup spilled. This was too much, and she fainted this time
in right good earnest; and she straightway became an invalid of the
settled type. They put her to bed. The doctor told her plainly that he
knew she had a secret, but she looked at him so imploringly that he
refrained from telling his fancies; but he ordered an immediate change
of air. It was settled at once that she should go to the "Springs"--to
Tuxbridge Springs. The doctor knew there were young people there, also
plenty of dancing. So she journeyed thither with her pa and her ma and
with pillows and servants.

They were shown to their rooms, and strong porters followed with the
luggage. One of them had her huge trunk upon his shoulder. He put it
carefully upon the floor, and by so doing he disclosed the ex-prisoner
to Miss Eunice and Miss Eunice to himself. He was astonished, but he
remained silent. But she must needs be frightened and fall into another
fit of trembling. After an awkward moment he went away, while she called
to her father and begged piteously to be taken away from Tuxbridge
Springs instantly. There was no appeal. She hated, _hated_, HATED
Tuxbridge Springs, and she should die if she were forced to remain. She
rained tears. She would give no reason, but she could not stay. No,
millions on millions could not persuade her; go she must. There was no
alternative. The party quitted the place within the hour, bag and
baggage. Miss Eunice's father was perplexed and angry, and her mother
would have been angry also if she had dared.

They went to other springs and stayed a month, but the patient's fright
increased each day, and so did her fever. She was full of distractions.
In her dreams everybody laughed at her as the one who had flirted with a
convict. She would ever be pursued with the tale of her foolishness and
stupidity. Should he ever recover her self-respect and confidence?

She had become radically selfish. She forgot the old ideas of
noble-heartedness and self-denial, and her temper had become weak and
childish. She did not meet her puzzle face to face, but she ran away
from it with her hands over her ears. Miss Crofutt stared at her, and
therefore she threw Miss Crofutt's book into the fire.

After two days of unceasing debate, she called her parents, and with
the greatest agitation told them _all_.

It so happened, in this case, that events, to use a railroad phrase,
made connection.

No sooner had Miss Eunice told her story than the man came again. This
time he was accompanied by a woman.

"Only get my glove away from him," sobbed the unhappy one, "that is all
I ask!" This was a fine admission! It was thought proper to bring an
officer, and so a strong one was sent for.

Meanwhile the couple had been admitted to the parlor. Miss Eunice's
father stationed the officer at one door, while he, with a pistol, stood
at the other. Then Miss Eunice went into the apartment. She was wasted,
weak, and nervous. The two villains got up as she came in, and bowed.
She began to tremble as usual, and laid hold upon the mantelpiece. "How
much do you want?" she gasped.

The man gave the woman a push with his forefinger. She stepped forward
quickly with her crest up. Her eyes turned, and she fixed a vixenish
look upon Miss Eunice. She suddenly shot her hand out from beneath her
shawl and extended it at full length. Across it lay Miss Eunice's glove,
very much soiled.

"Was that thing ever yours?" demanded the woman, shrilly.

"Y-yes," said Miss Eunice, faintly.

The woman seemed (if the apt word is to be excused) staggered. She
withdrew her hand, and looked the glove over. The man shook his head,
and began to laugh behind his hat.

"And did you ever give it to him?" pursued the woman, pointing over her
shoulder with her thumb.

Miss Eunice nodded.

"Of your own free will?"

After a moment of silence she ejaculated, in a whisper, "Yes."

"Now wait," said the man, coming to the front; "'nough has been said by
you." He then addressed himself to Miss Eunice with the remains of his
laugh still illuminating his face.

"This is my wife's sister, and she's one of the jealous kind. I love my
wife" (here he became grave), "and I never showed her any kind of slight
that I know of. I've always been fair to her, and she's always been fair
to me. Plain sailin' so far; I never kep' anything from her--but this."
He reached out and took the glove from the woman, and spread it out upon
his own palm, as Miss Eunice had seen him do once before. He looked at
it thoughtfully. "I wouldn't tell her about this; no, never. She was
never very particular to ask me; that's where her trust in me came in.
She knowed I was above doing anything out of the way--that is--I mean--"
He stammered and blushed, and then rushed on volubly. "But her sister
here thought I paid too much attention to it; she thought I looked at it
too much, and kep' it secret. So she nagged and nagged, and kept the
pitch boilin' until I had to let it out: I told 'em" (Miss Eunice
shivered). "'No,' says she, my wife's sister, 'that won't do, Gorman.
That's chaff, and I'm too old a bird.' Ther'fore I fetched her straight
to you, so she could put the question direct."

He stopped a moment as if in doubt how to go on. Miss Eunice began to
open her eyes, and she released the mantel. The man resumed with
something like impressiveness:

"When you last held that," said he, slowly, balancing the glove in his
hand, "I was a wicked man with bad intentions through and through. When
I first held it I became an honest man, with good intentions."

A burning blush of shame covered Miss Eunice's face and neck.

"An' as I kep' it my intentions went on improvin' and improvin', till I
made up my mind to behave myself in future, forever. Do you
understand?--forever. No backslidin', no hitchin', no slippin'-up. I
take occasion to say, miss, that I was beset time and again; that the
instant I set my foot outside them prison-gates, over there, my old
chums got round me; but I shook my head. 'No,' says I, 'I won't go back
on the glove.'"

Miss Eunice hung her head. The two had exchanged places, she thought;
she was the criminal and he the judge.

"An' what is more," continued he, with the same weight in his tone, "I
not only kep' sight of the glove, but I kep' sight of the generous
sperrit that gave it. I didn't let _that_ go. I never forgot what you
meant. I knowed--I knowed," repeated he, lifting his forefinger--"I
knowed a time would come when there wouldn't be any enthoosiasm, any
'hurrah,' and then perhaps you'd be sorry you was so kind to me; an' the
time did come."

Miss Eunice buried her face in her hands and wept aloud.

"But did I quit the glove? No, mum. I held on to it. It was what I
fought by. I wasn't going to give it up, because it was asked for. All
the police-officers in the city couldn't have took it from me. I put it
deep into my pocket, and I walked out. It was differcult, miss. But I
come through. The glove did it. It helped me stand out against
temptation when it was strong. If I looked at it, I remembered that once
there was a pure heart that pitied me. It cheered me up. After a while I
kinder got out of the mud. Then I got work. The glove again. Then a girl
that knowed me before I took to bad ways married me, and no questions
asked. Then I just took the glove into a dark corner and blessed it."

Miss Eunice was belittled.

A noise was heard in the hallway. Miss Eunice's father and the policeman
were going away.

The awkwardness of the succeeding silence was relieved by the moving of
the man and the woman They had done their errand, and were going.

Said Miss Eunice, with the faint idea of making a practical apology to
her visitor, "I shall go to the prison once a week after this, I think."

"Then may God bless ye, miss," said the man. He came back with tears in
his eyes and took her proffered hand for an instant. Then he and his
wife's sister went away.

Miss Eunice's remaining spark of charity at once crackled and burst into
a flame. There is sure to be a little something that is bad in
everybody's philanthropy when it is first put to use; it requires to be
filed down like a faulty casting before it will run without danger to
anybody. Samaritanism that goes off with half a charge is sure to do
great mischief somewhere; but Miss Eunice's, now properly corrected,
henceforth shot off at the proper end, and inevitably hit the mark. She
purchased a new Crofutt.

BROTHER SEBASTIAN'S FRIENDSHIP.

BY HAROLD FREDERIC.

I, who tell this story, am called Brother Sebastian. This name was given
me more than forty years ago, while Louis Philippe was still king. My
other name has been buried so long that I have nearly forgotten it. I
think that my people are dead. At least I have heard nothing from them
in many years. My reputation has always been that of a misanthrope--if
not that, then of a dreamer. In the seminary I had no intimates. In the
order, for I am a Brother of the Christian Schools, my associates are
polite--nothing more. I seem to be outside their social circles, their
plans, their enjoyments. True, I am an old man now. But in other years
it was the same. All my life I have been in solitude.

To this there is a single exception--one star shining in the blackness.
And my career has been so bleak that, although it ended in deeper
sadness than I had known before, I look back to the episode with
gratitude. The bank of clouds which shut out this sole light of my life
quickened its brilliancy before they submerged it.

After the terrible siege of '71, when the last German was gone, and our
houses had breasted the ordeal of the Commune, I was sent to the South.
The Superior thought my cheeks were ominously hollow, and suspected
threats of consumption in my cough. So I was to go to the Mediterranean,
and try its milder air. I liked the change. Paris, with its gloss of
noisy gayety and its substance of sceptical heartlessness, was repugnant
to me. Perhaps it was because of this that Brother Sebastian had been
mured up in the capital two thirds of his life. If our surroundings are
too congenial we neglect the work set before us. But no matter; to the
coast I went.

My new home was a long-established house, spacious, venerable, and
dreary. It was on the outskirts of an ancient town, which was of far
more importance before our Lord was born than it has ever been since. We
had little to do. There were nine brothers, a handful of resident
orphans, and some three-score pupils. Ragged, stupid, big-eyed urchins
they were, altogether different from the keen Paris boys. For that
matter, every feature of my new home was odd. The heat of the summer was
scorching in its intensity. The peasants were much more respectful to
our cloth, and, as to appearance, looked like figures from Murillo's
canvases. The foliage, the wine, the language, the manners of the
people--everything was changed. This interested me, and my morbidness
vanished. The Director was delighted with my improved condition. Poor
man! he was positive that my cheeks had puffed out perceptibly after the
first two months. So the winter came--a mild, wet, muggy winter, wholly
unlike my favorite sharp season in the North.

We were killing time in the library one afternoon, the Director and a
Swiss Brother sitting by the lamp reading, I standing at one of the
tall, narrow windows, drumming on the panes and dreaming. The view was
not an inspiring one. There was a long horizontal line of pale yellow
sky and another of flat, black land, out of which an occasional poplar
raised itself solemnly. The great mass below the stripes was brown;
above, gloomy gray. Close under the window two boys were playing in the
garden of the house. I recall distinctly that they threw armfuls of wet
fallen leaves at each other with a great shouting. While I stood thus,
the Brother Servitor, Abonus, came in and whispered to the Director. He
always whispered. It was not fraternal, but I did not like this Abonus.

"Send him up here," said the Director. Then I remembered that I had
heard the roll of a carriage and the bell ring a few moments before.
Abonus came in again. Behind him there was some one else, whose
footsteps had the hesitating sound of a stranger's. Then I heard the
Director's voice:

"You are from Algiers?"

"I am, Brother."

"Your name?"

"Edouard, Brother."

"Well, tell me more."

"I was under orders to be in Paris in January, Brother. As my health was
poor, I received permission to come back to France this autumn. At
Marseilles I was instructed to come here. So I am here. I have these
papers from the Mother house, and from Etienne, Director, of Algiers."

Something in the voice seemed peculiar to me. I turned and examined the
new-comer. He stood behind and to one side of the Director, who was
laboriously deciphering some papers through his big horn spectacles. The
light was not very bright, but there was enough to see a wonderfully
handsome face, framed in dazzling black curls. Perhaps it looked the
more beautiful because contrasted with the shaven gray poll and surly
features of grim Abonus. But to me it was a dream of St. John the
Evangel. The eyes of the face were lowered upon the Director, so I could
only guess their brilliancy. The features were those of an extreme
youth--round, soft, and delicate. The expression was one of utter
fatigue, almost pain. It bore out the statement of ill-health.

The Director had finished his reading. He lifted his head now and
surveyed the stranger in turn. Finally, stretching out his fat hand, he
said:

"You are welcome, Brother Edouard. I see the letter says you have had no
experience except with the youngest children. Brother Photius does that
now. We will have you rest for a time. Then we will see about it.
Meanwhile I will turn you over to the care of good Abonus, who will give
you one of the north rooms."

So the two went out, Abonus shuffling his feet disagreeably. It was
strange that he could do nothing to please me.

"Brother Sebastian," said the Director, as the door closed, "it is
curious that they should have sent me a tenth man. Why, I lie awake now
to invent pretences of work for those I have already. I will give up all
show of teaching presently, and give out that I keep a hospital--a
retreat for ailing brothers. Still, this Edouard is a pretty boy."

"Very."

"Etienne's letter says he is twenty and a Savoyard. He speaks like a
Parisian."

"Very likely he is seminary bred," put in the Swiss.

"Whatever he is, I like his looks," said our Superior. This good man
liked every one. His was the placid, easy Alsatian nature, prone to find
goodness in all things--even crabbed Abonus. The Director, or, as he was
known, Brother Elysee, was a stout, round little man, with a fine face
and imperturbable good spirits. He was adored by all his subordinates.
But I fancy he did not advance in favor at Paris very rapidly.

I liked Edouard from the first. The day after he came we were together
much, and, when we parted after vespers, I was conscious of a vast
respect for this new-comer. He was bright, ready spoken, and almost a
man of the world. Compared with my dull career, his short life had been
one of positive gayety. He had seen Frederic le Maitre at the Comedie
Francaise. He had been at Court and spoken with the Prince Imperial. He
was on terms of intimacy with Monsignori, and had been a protege of the
sainted Darboy. It was a rare pleasure to hear him talk of these things.

Before this, the ceaseless shifting of brothers from one house to
another had been indifferent to me. For the hundreds of strangers who
came and went in the Paris house on Oudinot Street I cared absolutely
nothing, I did not suffer their entrance nor their exit to excite me.
This was so much the case that they called me a machine. But with
Edouard this was different. I grew to love the boy from the first
evening, when, as he left my room, I caught myself saying, "I shall be
sorry when he goes." He seemed to be fond of me, too. For that matter
most of the brothers petted him, Elysee especially. But I was flattered
that he chose me as his particular friend. For the first time my heart
had opened.

We were alone one evening after the holidays. It was cold without, but
in my room it was warm and bright. The fire crackled merrily, and the
candles gave out a mellow and pleasant light. The Director had gone up
to Paris, and his mantle had fallen on me. Edouard sat with his feet
stretched to the fender, his curly head buried in the great curved back
of my invalid chair, the red fire-light reflected on his childish
features. I took pleasure in looking at him. He looked at the coals and
knit his brows as if in a puzzle. I often fancied that something
weightier than the usual troubles of life weighed upon him. At last he
spoke, just as I was about to question him:

"Are you afraid to die, Sebastian?"

Not knowing what else to say, I answered, "No, my child."

"I wonder if you enjoy life in community?"

This was still stranger. I could but reply that I had never known any
other life; that I was fitted for nothing else.

"But still," persisted he, "would you not like to leave it--to have a
career of your own before you die? Do you think this is what a man is
created for--to give away his chance to live?"

"Edouard, you are interrogating your own conscience," I answered. "These
are questions which you must have answered yourself, before you took
your vows. When you answered them, you sealed them."

Perhaps I spoke too harshly, for he colored and drew up his feet. Such
shapely little feet they were. I felt ashamed of my crustiness.

"But, Edouard," I added, "your vows are those of the novitiate. You are
not yet twenty-eight. You have still the right to ask yourself these
things. The world is very fair to men of your age. Do not dream that I
was angry with you."

He sat gazing into the fire. His face wore a strange, far-away
expression, as he reached forth his hand, in a groping way, and rested
it on my knee, clutching the gown nervously. Then he spoke slowly,
seeking for words, and keeping his eye on the flames:

"You have been good to me, Brother Sebastian. Let me ask you: May I tell
you something in confidence--something which shall never pass your lips?
I mean it."

He had turned and poured those marvellous eyes into mine with
irresistible magnetism. Of course I said, "Speak!" and I said it without
the slightest hesitation.

"I am not a Christian Brother. I do not belong to your order. I have no
claim upon the hospitality of this roof. I am an impostor!"

He ejected these astounding sentences with an energy almost fierce,
gripping my knee meanwhile. Then, as suddenly, his grasp relaxed, and he
fell to weeping bitterly.

I stared at him solemnly, in silence. My tongue seemed paralyzed.
Confusing thoughts whirled in a maze unbidden through my head. I could
say nothing. But a strange impulse prompted me to reach out and take his
hot hand in mine. It was piteous to hear him sobbing, his head upon his
raised arm, his whole frame quivering with emotion. I had never seen any
one weep like that before. So I sat dumb, trying in vain to answer this
bewildering self-accusation. At last there came out of the folds of the
chair the words, faint and tear-choked:

"You have promised me secrecy, and you will keep your word; but you will
hate me."

"Why no, no, Edouard, not hate you," I answered, scarcely knowing what I
said. I did not comprehend it at all. There was nothing more for me to
say. Finally, when some power of thought returned, I asked:

"Of all things, my poor boy, why should you choose such a dreary life as
this? What possible reason led you to enter the community? What
attractions has it for you?"

Edouard turned again from the fire to me. His eyes sparkled. His teeth
were tight set.

"Why? Why? I will tell you why, Brother Sebastian. Can you not
understand how a poor hunted beast should rejoice to find shelter in
such an out-of-the-way place, among such kind men, in the grave of this
cloister life? I have not told you half enough. Do you not know in the
outside world, in Toulon, or Marseilles, or that fine Paris of yours,
there is a price on my head?--or no, not that, but enemies that are
looking for me, searching everywhere, turning every little stone for the
poor privilege of making me suffer? And do you know that these enemies
wear shakos, and are called gens d'armes? Would you be pleased to learn
that it is a prison I escape by coming here? _Now_, will you hate me?"

The boy had risen from his chair. He spoke hurriedly, almost
hysterically, his eyes snapping at mine like coals, his curls
dishevelled, his fingers curved and stiffened like the talons of a hawk.
I had never seen such intense earnestness in a human face. Passions like
these had never penetrated the convent walls before.

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