Part 7

To his chagrin and surprise, Esther got up and, going back to the harmonium, began to play loud, triumphant hymns. He could not guess her mood. He was afraid he had offended her; and with that a shade of the old magnificence returned.

“Esther darling, you’re not angry, are you?” he asked.

“Oh, no,” she replied cheerfully; “but I want to think. Let’s sing.”

She had a book of “College Songs,” ugly and tasteless, like everything else in her life, and they sang them, one after the other, until bedtime. In the next room the mother and father listened, proud and pleased.

“Hark to sis!” said old Van Brink. “Sings and plays pretty good, hey, mother?”

“My, yes! It’s real sweet!”

“I’ll bet you that young man don’t see many girls like sis, city or country, hey, mother? He’s no call to turn up his nose at our gal, hey?”

“He don’t,” she answered thoughtfully.

The next morning, at breakfast, as soon as they were alone for a minute, Esther whispered:

“Tommy, I’ve got a plan! Let’s go out on the porch,” she suggested aloud, as her mother came in to clear the table.

“Well!” said Tommy, when they were alone again.

“Well!” she repeated. “Come on--sit down and listen. I want you to take me to the city to see your uncle.”

“No!” cried Tommy, startled. “No, my dear girl! That wouldn’t do at all!”

“It would! I’ll be so nice he’ll _have_ to like me. I thought and thought about it last night. _Please_ do, Tommy!”

“But, my dear child, don’t you see that you couldn’t go off with me that way? You’d--you’d compromise yourself!”

“Not if we got married right away.”

“But suppose Uncle James said no?”

“But he wouldn’t--especially when he sees how I trust you.”

Tommy put forward all the objections he could think of, but she was able to answer them all.

“_I’ll_ manage him,” she insisted. “Only let me see him! And then, Tommy,” she went on, “it’s getting horrid for me here. Egbert is jealous. He says he won’t give me up, and won’t take back his old ring. And”--amazing invention!--“mommer and popper say that you’re just trifling with me, and they want me to take back Will. Every one says I’m a silly little fool to think so much of you!” Tears came into her gray eyes.

“Oh, _do_, Tommy, _please_, take me away! I’m so miserable here!”

And at last, because she wept, and because he could see no other way, he agreed to take her.

VII

Reluctant and harassed as he was, he couldn’t help a certain delight in the adventure. He hadn’t yet lost a boyish relish for running away; and this getting up after the others were asleep, stealing downstairs, bag in hand, and meeting Esther in the dark little hall, thrilled him to the marrow.

They hurried through the empty streets, black beneath the shadow of the old trees, and entered the station, where an oil lamp burned. The ticket office was closed; there wasn’t a soul in sight. They sat down side by side on a bench, to wait for the New York train.

In her usual way, Esther put her hand in Tommy’s. He turned to look down at her in the dim lamplight, and the sight of her flushed, excited little face, combined with the pressure of her hand, nearly brought tears to his eyes. How she trusted him, poor little girl! Leaving her home and her parents and going off with him this way! He swore to himself that she should never be sorry for it; that, even if she were not quite the wife he would have chosen, he would respect her forever for this generous, this noble trust in him.

He had, in short, never in his life been so overwhelmingly asinine. His fair, infantile face was pale from the intense seriousness of his resolutions and the weight of his responsibility. He would at that moment have been ready to assure you that it was he who had implored and persuaded Esther to run away with him--that it was his idea and his wish.

It was midnight when they arrived at the Grand Central. The moment they stepped off the train, a realization of his colossal folly rushed over the boy. The subtle excitement of the hurrying crowds, the sophistication of this environment, suddenly destroyed his rustic romance, and he grew cold with fright.

What was this that he had done? What was he to do with Esther? He couldn’t marry her without a license. He had thought of taking her at once to Uncle James, to convince him on the spot of Esther’s desirability as a wife. Uncle James might be asleep; or, if he were awake, he would surely need some preparation. He was courtly toward ladies--ladies with money; but one never knew--

“Oh, Lord!” he thought. “Oh, Lord! What can I do with her?”

They had eloped from the girl’s home. He was now and forever responsible for little Esther. There she sat, waiting for his wise decision.

They sat down on a bench in the immense hall, he with his latest thing in traveling bags, Esther with a shabby little wicker suit case. Forlorn, young, weary, they sat in silence--waiting, both of them, for Tommy to become a man.

“I know!” he cried suddenly. “Esther, you go into the ladies’ waiting room while I telephone. I have a cousin. I think she’d be willing to do something. At least she’ll put you up overnight.”

But in the telephone booth his courage fled. He couldn’t explain all this over the wire. He ran out and got a taxi, and at one o’clock he arrived at his cousin’s little flat uptown.

She was a charming, gracious, good-natured young widow. She got up, put on a dressing gown, and sat listening with angelic patience to Tommy’s story; but she could not conceal her horror.

“Oh, Tommy, my _dear_ boy! You’re so young! Don’t be hasty! Oh, Tommy, don’t rush into--anything!”

“Now, look here!” said Tommy, sick with nervousness and alarm. “Don’t lecture me, Alison. It’s done. Just suggest something. She can’t go back now. I’ll have to see Uncle James about getting married; but what shall I do now? I can’t leave the poor kid sitting there in the Grand Central Station all night.”

“No, of course you can’t,” Alison agreed. “Bring her here, Tommy--and hurry: I’ll wait up for her.”

She set about making preparations for this most unwelcome guest, thinking and hoping all the time that Tommy might be saved--that this distressing thing might blow over without hurting him.

She pictured Esther as a poor innocent little rustic, as simple as Tommy. She never saw the girl, and so was never enlightened. She waited for two hours, but no one came. Then, worried, heavy-hearted, she went back to bed.

VIII

Tommy had hurried back to Esther, and found her just as he had left her--a model of patience and propriety, with her little bag beside her. Though she was pale and heavy-eyed with sleep, she was as neat and fresh as ever. He told her his plan.

“Come on,” he said. “Hurry up! Alison said she’d wait for you.”

“I’m not going there,” she said. “I can’t, Tommy.”

“You’ll have to, dear!”

Her eyes filled with tears.

“I can’t! I can’t! I just couldn’t face a strange woman now. What would she think of me, running away with you like this?”

“But what can I do with you, Esther?”

She clasped his arm and looked up into his face with streaming eyes.

“Oh, Tommy! Please don’t leave me! I’m so frightened and so lonely! Don’t send me away!”

“But you must be reasonable, sweetheart,” he implored. He began to realize how terribly he had mismanaged this affair. He cursed himself. Why hadn’t he made plans? “You know we’ve got to consider your reputation,” he said.

“Oh, that doesn’t matter!” she cried. “No one’ll ever know about it. Only don’t go away from me, Tommy! I couldn’t bear it!”

He yielded. He was so distressed, so confused, so alarmed, that he had no moral strength to withstand her. He took her to the Tressillon, a quiet, dingy place where he had once or twice had dinner. He took two rooms for them, on different floors, and he registered as “Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Ellinger, Jr.” What else could he have done?

He slept soundly, although he hadn’t expected to close an eye. The first thing he thought of upon waking was to telephone to Esther’s room. He was told that she wasn’t there.

He dressed and hurried down to look for her everywhere--in the dining room, the grill, the lounge; but he couldn’t find her. He was seized with panic.

When he found that her bag was still in her room, he resigned himself to wait; but he was angry--more angry than he had ever been in his life.

She came back at lunch time, composed and smiling. He was sitting on the lounge when she entered. He got up, took her arm with a nervous grip, and led her into a quiet corner.

“Look here, Esther!” he said. “You mustn’t act like this! Where have you been?”

“Oh, nowhere special--just for a walk.”

“I’d planned for us to go to the City Hall and get the license this morning, and get married.”

“Oh, Tommy!” she said, with a pout. “I don’t want to get married. I’m too young!”

“Don’t be silly!” he said impatiently. “We’ll have a bite of lunch and then we’ll hurry down town.”

“I think it’s silly to get married. We’re too young. What could we live on?”

“You needn’t worry about that,” he said, wounded. “I dare say I can manage to take care of you.”

“I don’t think you could, Tommy. We’d only be miserable. No, let’s not be married.”

“Esther!” he cried, appalled. “What’s the matter with you?”

“I think we’ve made a mistake. Let’s not be silly and make it any worse. The best thing would be for us to part. I can look out for myself perfectly well. I know a man here in the city--I dropped in to see him this morning, and he said he’d get me an engagement to go on the stage. He’s an advance agent, or something. I met him out in Millersburg. He has lots of pull.”

“Don’t talk that way!” he thundered. “Don’t you realize what you’ve done? Haven’t you enough sense to see that you’re compromised?”

“No one knows anything about it, and there’s no harm done. I’ll write to mommer and tell her I ran away to go on the stage.”

“No, you won’t!” said Tommy. “I sent them a telegram this morning to say that we were married. I thought we would really be by the time they got the message.”

She looked at him in silence.

“Well!” she said at last. “You _are_ a fool!”

“I suppose I am,” he replied bitterly. “However, it’s done now. They know you’re here with me, and they think you’re my wife, so you’ll have to see it through.”

“Not I!” she said cheerfully. “I’m not going to marry a kid like you!”

“For God’s sake, why did you come away with me?” he cried.

She smiled.

“I guess I liked you,” she said.

“Don’t you like me now?”

“Don’t be silly!” she said. “Of course I do; but I think we’re too young to think of marriage. It was a mistake.”

She was absolutely incomprehensible to him; but she could read him through and through, and the better she knew him, the greater grew her contempt.

“It was only a joke,” she said.

“Is that your idea of a joke? It’s a pretty dangerous one.”

She shook her head.

“No, it isn’t. I knew you were a nice boy. I knew I could trust you. I’ll always remember you, Tommy--always. You’re the nicest--”

“What do you propose to tell your parents? They’ll write to you here, or they may come.”

“They won’t find me. I’ll leave to-morrow morning. Mr. Syles told me of a nice boarding house. You’ll go back to your uncle. He’ll never know about it, and we’ll both forget the whole thing, won’t we?”

They went up into her room, and they argued all afternoon. Tommy tried to show her the enormity of her conduct, but she insisted upon regarding it as an escapade. She emphasized her sixteen years. She behaved with an airy childishness which she had never shown before, and which he knew to be false.

He had played the part she had determined he should play, and there was an end to him. Her modest little pocketbook was well stuffed with his money. She was in the city where she wished to be.

Sixteen? Esther sixteen? Preposterous idea! She was as old as the earth.

At last she said she was hungry, and reluctantly he took her downstairs to the dining room, crowded and noisy, with dancing going on to the music of a fiendish orchestra. Gone was his pride, gone was his kindly protectiveness. He was overwhelmed with shame; he saw himself a dupe, when he had fancied himself a hero.

He couldn’t eat. He sat there across the table, in sullen wretchedness, keeping his eyes off her detestable face, listening to her calm voice, telling him that it was “better for them both to part now.” She was affable, but she made no effort to be kind. She had nothing to say about love, about grief at parting. She placidly ignored their romance. She urged him to be “sensible,” and a “good boy.” And with every word she made a fresh wound in his quivering, childish soul--scars never to be healed.

He was sitting with his back to the door, and he hadn’t seen old Van Brink enter. He had looked up in alarm at a shriek from Esther, and there was that face, convulsed with hatred--hatred for _him_! Then the shot, the crowd, the atrocious sense of unreality, of insane confusion, the pain in his wrist.

Some one had hurried him off in a taxi. He had looked back blankly from the doorway at the brightly lighted room, at an old man held by force from following him. It wasn’t, it couldn’t be real!

Once again he picked up the newspaper and looked at that shameful headline:

TRAGEDY NARROWLY AVERTED AT HOTEL TRESSILLON

It occurred to young Thomas Ellinger that perhaps the tragedy had not, after all, been averted.

IX

“Everything passes,” runs the old saying, and the contrary is also true. Nothing passes.

If you had looked at that stalwart and serious gentleman in the box, correct, evidently prosperous, with his honest and rather blank gaze, you would certainly have imagined him to be one of those fortunate creatures without a history, a soul without a scar. He was there with an agreeable, well-bred wife and a pretty young daughter, and he was apparently enjoying the play with a temperate and sedate enjoyment--interested, but not very much interested, you know.

And yet he is none other than the black sheep of twenty years ago, the disgraced and abandoned Tommy. Moreover, the actress whom he is watching with so tepid an air is Esther herself, and he is very cunningly concealing a great confusion of feelings.

He had casually suggested going to see her act that evening, as he had done four or five times before, since he had by chance discovered that Esther and the celebrated Elinor Vaughn were one and the same person. He had no knowledge of the means by which she had risen, but he was by no means surprised to find her at the top. Why shouldn’t she be? Indeed, how could she not be? She was certainly born for victory.

Each time that he watched her magnificent outbursts of dramatic passion, her rages and her griefs, he felt a secret and delightful joy. Only imagine what he had escaped! Only think what such a woman, capable of moving the most cynical heart, could have done with him! He looked cautiously at the people about him, saw them stirred to horror, grief, or delight, and he felt himself superior to them all. They didn’t know that it was only Esther Van Brink!

He watched her to-night, at the end of her famous second act, winning by heartbreaking entreaties the mercy of a vindictive and obdurate husband. Never could he have withstood her. He would have been lost!

The curtain fell, rose again, fell, and she came out to stand for a moment before the footlights, bowing, smiling a little wearily; and then she saw him.

He drew back hastily, but it was too late. When she came before the curtain again, she looked at him and smiled. Before the third act began, a boy came to the box with a note:

Please, Tommy, come behind and see me for a moment.

ESTHER.

“It seems she’s some one I used to know,” he explained to his wife. She raised her eyebrows and smiled politely, but he knew she wasn’t satisfied. “I suppose I’ll have to go,” he said.

“Oh, by all means!” replied his wife. “Alice and I won’t wait.”

He was uneasy and annoyed. That was just like Esther--no consideration!

He found her in her dressing room, with a crowd of people, but she sent them all away.

“He’s an awfully old friend,” she explained, “and very shy. I’ll never be able to catch him again.”

The little country girl had certainly become a handsome woman, he reflected, and she had lost none of her impudent charm, her mocking tranquillity.

“Well, Tommy!” she said.

“Well!” he answered, and he had exactly his old air of a boy acting the man of the world.

“My, you’ve got on!” she said admiringly. “You’re really splendid, Tommy! Are you a millionaire?”

“No,” he answered, flushing, well aware that she was laughing at him. “I’m in business.”

“How did you do that?”

Naturally he didn’t care to talk about his heroic effort to rehabilitate himself--how he had actually found himself a job, and won his alarming uncle’s forgiveness for his one wickedness by patient industry and some years of complete self-effacement.

“And you’re married, if my eyes do not betray me.”

“Yes, I’m married,” he answered stiffly.

He wasn’t going to permit any Esther on earth to make light of that respectable and very happy union.

“Oh, Tommy!” she sighed. “I’m glad! I’m glad it’s all turned out so well for you--and for me, too. I don’t believe I would ever have become the actress I am if it hadn’t been for all I suffered through your desertion.”

“What?” he cried, astounded. “_My_ desertion?”

And there were actually tears in her eyes.

“Yes,” she said. “You nearly broke my heart, but it made me.”

He could scarcely believe his ears.

“But--but--” he stammered, with a feeble effort to remind her of her own treachery.

“I only wanted to see you and tell you that I forgave you long ago, Tommy--forgave you frankly and freely. I owe my success to that suffering.”

She held out her hand. He grasped it, and hurriedly took his leave. She forgave him! She forgave him his desertion, which had nearly broken her heart!

He stopped in the street outside the theater, ready to denounce her to the silent sky; but in spite of himself began to smile, with reluctance, with an immense and grudging admiration.

“Upon my word!” he said aloud. “What a woman!”

MUNSEY’S MAGAZINE

NOVEMBER. 1922 Vol. LXXVII NUMBER 2

Like a Leopard

HOW JOHNNY BRECKENBRIDGE RECEIVED A NEW LIGHT ON THE NATURE OF A GOOD WIFE

By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

It was a frightful night. Brecky turned up the collar of his overcoat, pulled his cap lower over his eyes, and left the shelter of the railway station for the open road. He heard the train that had brought him from the city pull out again and rush whistling through the fields and marshes. When it had gone, everything human had vanished, leaving him alone with the great and terrible wind and the cold rain.

He made what haste he could along the muddy road, his head down against the gale. The driving rain half blinded him, the tumult confused him, with the unceasing rush of the wind and the dull sound of the sea. His way lay through immeasurable desolation, past house after house empty and black, shops all closed and shuttered, streets in which there was not one human creature. It was a sort of Pompeii, a deserted village, a nightmare; but to the practical Brecky it was nothing more or less than Shorehaven, a summer resort, naturally deserted in midwinter.

He was not a man of imagination, this Johnny Breckenbridge. He was a wiry young chap with an impassive, weather-beaten face. He dressed very soberly, but he had an incorrigibly sporting air, and there was something rakish and jaunty about him. He was nimble, alert, and just a trifle bow-legged. He was never tired, never discouraged. He had all his wits about him, and knew his way in the world.

He had been, one might say, born a jockey, and he had been a good one, too, for years; but he had grown tired of the restrictions of a jockey’s life. He was fond of eating and drinking, and he liked to be his own master.

He had continued his activities on the race track in a less official capacity. He had done well as a bookie, too, for he was shrewd, cautious, and trustworthy; but he had suddenly fallen in love and married.

“And that’s no life for a married man,” he observed to his many friends. “Got to settle down now.”

Brecky was thorough in everything, and he wished to be a thoroughly married man. He took his new obligations with great seriousness. He intended to do well for his jolly little Kathleen. He knew that his duty in life was to make money for her.

He never thought of consulting her, however. She had been a waitress in a little restaurant in the city, and he had admired her brisk good humor and her common sense. She was a pretty kid, too--dark, small, vigorous. She had received a great deal of attention, but she was never silly or vain about it. She knew how to take care of herself. She liked a good time, but no monkey business. She was mighty independent, Kathleen was.

To Brecky’s uncomplex mind, the wedding ring was to transform her completely. She was to be no longer Kathleen, but a wife; and to him all good wives were alike. They were kind, gentle, contented, and very helpful. You made money gladly for them; but if you were a real man, you didn’t let them spend much of it.

He had looked about the world thoughtfully for a few months. Then he had taken nearly every penny he had saved and had bought a hotel at the seaside, with a heavy mortgage on it. To this place he had brought his Kathleen, that she might help and comfort him while he mastered his new business.

Extraordinary friends of his used to come down and give him advice. He listened and learned. He knew a number of men connected with hotels, night clerks, head waiters, and so on; and they were willing and anxious to help him, because every one liked him.

He had no iconoclastic ideas. He wished to run his hotel according to all the tried and tested rules of the business. He wore out his advisers. Those who came down to look over Brecky’s hotel went away exhausted and squeezed dry, leaving whatever valuable knowledge they owned in Brecky’s possession.