Romance Island. Gale Zona

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СКАЧАТЬ That's what I always say to my niece. I always say, 'Olivia, nothing need occur to vex one. It always happens because of pure heedlessness.' Not that I accuse my own niece of heedlessness in this particular. It was the elevator boy who was heedless. That is the trouble with life in a great city. Every breath you draw is always dependent on somebody else's doing his duty, and when you consider how many people habitually neglect their duty it is a wonder—I always say that to Olivia—it is a wonder that anybody is alive to do a duty when it presents itself. 'Olivia,' I always say, 'nobody needs to die.' And I really believe that they nearly all do die out of pure heedlessness. Well, and so this frightful mulatto creature: you know her, I understand?"

      Mrs. Hastings leaned back and consulted St. George through her tortoise-shell glasses, tilting her head high to keep them on her nose and perpetually putting their gold chain over her ear, which perpetually pulled out her side-combs.

      "I saw her this morning," St. George said. "I went up to the Reformatory in Westchester, and I spoke with her."

      "Mercy!" ejaculated Mrs. Hastings, "I wonder she didn't tear your eyes out. Did they have her in a cage or in a cell? What was the creature about?"

      "She was in a missionary meeting at the moment," St. George explained, smiling.

      "Mercy!" said Mrs. Hastings in exactly the same tone. "Some trick, I expect. That's what I warn Olivia: 'So few things nowadays are done through necessity or design.' Nearly everything is a trick. Every invention is a trick—a cultured trick, one might say. Murder is a trick, I suppose, to a murderer. That's why civilization is bad for morals, don't you think? Well, and so she talked with you?"

      "No, Mrs. Hastings," said St. George, "she did not say one word. But she wrote something, and that is what I have come to bring you."

      "What was it—some charm?" cried Mrs. Hastings. "Oh, nobody knows what that kind of people may do. I'll meet any one face to face, but these juggling, incantation individuals appal me. I have a brother who travels in the Orient, and he tells me about hideous things they do—raising wheat and things," she vaguely concluded.

      "Ah!" said St. George quickly, "you have a brother—in the Orient?"

      "Oh, yes. My brother Otho has traveled abroad I don't know how many years. We have a great many stamps. I can't begin to pronounce all the names," the lady assured him.

      "And this brother—is he your niece, Miss Holland's father?" St. George asked eagerly.

      "Certainly," said Mrs. Hastings severely; "I have only one brother, and it has been three years since I have seen him."

      "Pardon me, Mrs. Hastings," said St. George, "this may be most important. Will you tell me when you last heard from him and where he was?"

      "I should have to look up the place," she answered, "I couldn't begin to pronounce the name, I dare say. It was somewhere in the South Atlantic, ten months or more ago."

      "Ah," St. George quietly commented.

      "Well, and now this frightful creature," resumed Mrs. Hastings, "do, pray, tell me what it was she wrote."

      St. George produced the paper.

      "That is it," he said. "I fancy you will not know the street. It is 19 McDougle Street, and the name is simply Tabnit."

      "Yes. And is it a letter?" his hostess demanded, "and whatever does it say?"

      "It is not a letter," St. George explained patiently, "and this is all that it says. The name is, I suppose, the name of a person. I have made sure that there is such a number in the street. I have seen the house. But I have waited to consult you before going there."

      "Why, what is it you think?" Mrs. Hastings besought him. "Do you think this person, whoever it is, can do something? And whatever can he do? Oh dear," she ended, "I do want to act the way poor dear Mr. Hastings would have acted. Only I know that he would have gone straight to Bitley, or wherever she is, and held a revolver at that mulatto creature's head, and commanded her to talk English. Mr. Hastings was a very determined character. If you could have seen the poor dear man's chin! But of course I can't do that, can I? And that's what I say to Olivia. 'Olivia, one doesn't need a man's judgment if one will only use judgment oneself.' What is it you think, Mr. St. George?"

      Before St. George could reply there entered the room, behind a low announcement of his name, a man of sixty-odd years, nervous, slightly stooped, his smooth pale face unlighted by little deep-set eyes.

      "Ah, Mr. Frothingham!" said Mrs. Hastings in evident relief, "you are just in time. Mr. St. John was just telling me horrible things about this frightful mulatto creature. This is Mr. St. John. Mr. Frothingham is my lawyer and my brother Otho's lawyer. And so I telephoned him to come in and hear all about this. And now do go on, Mr. St. John, about this hideous woman. What is it you think?"

      "How do you do, Mr. St. John?" said the lawyer portentously. His greeting was almost a warning, and reminded St. George of the way in which certain brakemen call out stations. St. George responded as blithely to this name as to his own and did not correct it. "And what," went on the lawyer, sitting down with long unclosed hands laid trimly along his knees, "have you to contribute to this most remarkable occurrence, Mr. St. John?"

      St. George briefly narrated the events of the morning and placed the slip of paper in the lawyer's hands.

      "Ah! We have here a communication in the nature of a confession," the lawyer observed, adjusting his gold pince-nez, head thrown back, eyebrows lifted.

      "Only the address, sir," said St. George, "and I was just saying to Mrs. Hastings that some one ought to go to this address at once and find out whatever is to be got there. Whoever goes I will very gladly accompany."

      Mr. Frothingham had a fashion of making ready to speak and soliciting attention by the act, and then collapsing suddenly with no explosion, like a bad Roman candle. He did this now, and whatever he meant to say was lost to the race; but he looked very wise the while. It was rather as if he discarded you as a fit listener, than that he discarded his own comment.

      "I don't know but I ought to go myself," rambled Mrs. Hastings, "perhaps Mr. Hastings would think I ought. Suppose, Mr. Frothingham, that we both go. Dear, dear! Olivia always sees to my shopping and flowers and everything executive, but I can't let her go into these frightful places, can I?"

      There was a rustling at the far end of the room, and some one entered. St. George did not turn, but as her soft skirts touched and lifted along the floor he was tinglingly aware of her presence. Even before Mrs. Hastings heard her light footfall, even before the clear voice spoke, St. George knew that he was at last in the presence of the arbiter of his enterprise, and of how much else he did not know. He was silent, breathlessly waiting for her to speak.

      "May I come in, Aunt Dora?" she said. "I want to know to what place it is impossible for me to go?"

      She came from the long room's boundary shadow. There was about her a sense of white and gray with a knot of pale colour in her hat and an orchid on her white coat. Mrs. Hastings, taking no more account of her presence than she had of St. George's, tilted back her head and looked at the primroses in the window as closely as at anything, and absently presented him.

      "Olivia," she said, "this is Mr. St. John, who knows about that frightful mulatto creature. Mr. St. George," she went on, correcting the name entirely unintentionally, "my niece, Miss Holland. And I'm sure I wish I knew what the necessary thing to be done СКАЧАТЬ