Part 13 (1/2)
I HEAR RUMORS ABOUT GORDON
When we reached the top floor, Frances took the baby from me, while I lit her gas-jet. She kissed Baby Paul effusively, and placed him on the bed, after which she turned to me.
”It has done him ever so much good,” she declared. ”See how splendidly he looks now. Tell me, why are you so kind to me?”
Women have been in the habit of propounding riddles ever since the world began. This was a hard one, indeed, to answer, because I didn't know myself. I could hardly tell her that it was because, at least theoretically, every beautiful woman is loved by every man, nor could I say that it was because she had inspired me with pity for her.
”We have had a few pleasant moments together,” I replied, ”and I am ever so glad that Baby Paul has derived so much benefit. The kindness you speak of is mere egotism. I have given myself the great pleasure of your company. I do not suppose you realize how much that means to a chap whose usual confidant is his writing machine, and whose society, except at rare intervals, is made up of old books. My dear child, in this transaction I am the favored one.”
I was surprised to see a little s.h.i.+ver pa.s.s over her frame.
”Oh! Mr. Cole, sometimes I can't help feeling such wonder, such amazement, when I think of how differently all these things might have come to pa.s.s. I--I was going off to the hospital on the next day. I should surely have met kindness and good enough care, but no one can understand what it was to me to have Frieda come in, with her sweet sympathetic face. It was as if some loving sister had dropped down to me from Heaven, and--and she told me about you. I--I remember her very words; she said that you were a man to be trusted, clean of soul as a child, the only one she had ever met into whose keeping she would entrust all that she holds most dear.”
”Frieda is much given to exaggeration,” I remarked, uneasily.
”She is not. Think of what my feelings would have been on the day when they would have sent me out of the hospital, with not a friend in the world, not a kindly heart to turn to!”
”My dear child,” I said, ”I believe that, if you have not been altogether forgotten by the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses, it was because you were worthy of their kindest regard. I am confident that our little trip on the water will make you sleep soundly, and I trust that you will have pleasant dreams.”
Yes! I occasionally call her my dear child, now. Neither my forty years nor the thinness of my thatch really ent.i.tles me to consider myself sufficiently venerable to have been her parent. But I am the least formal of men and find it difficult to call her Madame or Mrs. Dupont.
If I did so now, I think that she would wonder if I was aggrieved against her, for some such foolish reason as women are always keen on inventing and annoying themselves with. Once in a while I even call her Frances, but it is a habit I ought not to permit to grow upon me. There are altogether too many O'Flaherty's in the world, masculine, feminine and neuter.
She closed her door, after a friendly pressure of our hands, and I went to my room to write. The ideas, however, came but slowly and, upon arrival, were of the poorest. I, therefore, soon took my pipe, put my feet on the window ledge and listened to a distant phonograph. At last, came silence, a gradual extinguis.h.i.+ng of lights in windows opposite, and yawns from myself. I must repeat these trips, they make for sound slumber.
On the next day I took it upon myself to go to the small house in Brooklyn where Frances had formerly boarded. She was anxious to know if any letters might have come for her that had not been forwarded. She had wondered why her husband's parents had never written to announce the dreadful news which, however, had been briefly confirmed on inquiry at the Consulate. In the eastern section of our Greater City, which is about as familiar to me as the wilds of Kamchatka, I promptly lost myself. But kindly souls directed me, and I reached a dwelling that was all boarded up and bore a sign indicating that the premises were to be let. Thence, I went to a distant real estate office where the people were unable to give me any indication or trace of the former tenants, who had rented out rooms.
On my return I found Eulalie rummaging among my bureau drawers. She held up two undergarments and bade me observe the perfection of her darning, whereupon I a.s.sured her that she was a large, fat pearl without price.
”_Oui, Monsieur_,” she a.s.sented, without understanding me in the least.
”Madame Dupont has gone to my cousin, Madame Smith. Her name was Carpaux, like mine, but she married an American painter.”
”An artist?” I inquired.
”_Oui, Monsieur._ He used to paint and decorate and put on wallpaper.
Then, he went away to Alaska after gold and never sent his address. So Felicie has opened a cleaning and dyeing shop and is doing very well.
She has not heard from Smith for sixteen years, so that she thinks he is, perhaps, lost. She has told me that she wanted an American person, who could speak French, to wait on customers and keep the books and send the bills and write names and addresses on the packages. She lives in the back of the store. There is a big bed that would be very commodious for putting the baby on. Madame Dupont has gone to see. Next week I go to work there also and I will keep an eye on the baby when Madame is at the counter.”
I know the shop; it is on Sixth Avenue, not far away. In the window always hang garments intended to show the perfection of dyeing and cleaning reached by the establishment. There is a taxidermist on one side of it and a cheap restaurant on the other. When weary of the odor of benzine and soap suds, Frances will be able to stand on the door-sill for a moment and inhale the effluvia of fried oysters or defunct canaries.
Eulalie left my room, and I remained there, appalled. I wish I could have found some better or more pleasant occupation for Frances.
When the latter returned, she looked cheerfully at me and announced that she had accepted the position tendered to her.
”I shall be able to have Baby with me,” she explained, ”and it will keep our bodies and souls together. I hope I shall suit Madame Smith. Do you know anything about how to keep books?”
At once I took paper and pencil and launched into a long explanation, undoubtedly bewildering her by the extent of my ignorance. Then I went out and got her a little book on the subject, over which she toiled fiercely for two days, after which she went to work, bearing little Paul in her arms, and returned at suppertime, looking very tired.
”It is all right,” she announced. ”Felicie is a very nice, hard-working woman, and tells me that Baby is a very fine child. I'll get along very well.”