III.
Oh, Mag, Mag, for heaven's sake, let me talk to you! No, don't sayanything. You must let me tell you. No--don't call the other girls.I can't bear to tell this to anybody but you.
You know how I kicked when Tom hit on Latimer's as the place we were toscuttle. And the harder I kicked the stubborner he got, till he sworehe'd do the job without me if I wouldn't come along. Well--this is therest of it.
The house, you know, stands at the end of the street. If you couldwalk through the garden with the iron fence you'd come right down thebluff on to the docks and out into East River. Tom and I came up to itfrom the docks last night. It was dark and wet, you remember. The mudwas thick on my trousers--Nance Olden's a boy every time when it comesto doing business.
"We'll blow it all in, Tom," I said, as we climbed. "We'll spend aweek at the Waldorf, and then, Tom Dorgan, we'll go to Paris. I want ared coat and hat with chinchilla, like that dear one I lost, and alow-neck satin gown, and a silk petticoat with lace, and a chain withrhinestones, and--"
"Just wait, Sis, till you get out of this. And keep still."
"I can't. I'm so fidgety I must talk or I'll shriek."
"Well, you'll shut up just the same. Do you hear me?"
I shut up, but my teeth chattered so that Tom stopped at the gate.
"Look here, Nance, are you going to flunk? Say it now--yes or no."
That made me mad.
"Tom Dorgan," I said, "I'll bet your own teeth chattered the first timeyou went in for a thing like this. I'm all right. You'll squeal beforeI do."
"That's more like. Here's the gate. It's locked. Come, Nance."
With a good, strong swing he boosted me over, handed me the bag oftools and sprang over himself.... He looked kind o' handsome and fine,my Tom, as he lit square and light on his feet beside me. And becausehe did, I put my arm in his and gave it a squeeze.
Oh, Mag, it was so funny, going through Latimer's garden! There wasthe garden table where I had sat reading and thinking he took me forMiss Omar. There was the bench where that beast Moriway sat sneeringat me. The wheeled chair was gone. And it was so late everythinglooked asleep. But something was left behind that made me think Iheard Latimer's slow, silken voice, and made me feel cheap--turnedinside out like an empty pocket--a dirty, ragged pocket with a seam init.
"You'll stay here, Nancy, and watch," Tom whispered. "You'll whistleonce if a cop comes inside the gate, but not before he's inside thegate. Don't whistle too soon--mind that--nor too loud. I'll hear yeall right. And I'll whistle just once if--anything happens. Then yourun--hear me? Run like the devil--"
"Tommy--"
"Well, what?"
"Nothing--all right." I wanted to say good-by--but you know Tom.
Mag, were you ever where you oughtn't to be at midnight--alone? No, Iknow you weren't. 'Twas your ugly little face and your hair that savedyou--the red hair we used to guy so at the Cruelty. I can see younow--a freckle-faced, thin little devil, with the tangled hair to thevery edge of your ragged skirt, yanked in that first day to the Crueltywhen the neighbors complained your crying wouldn't let 'em sleepnights. The old woman had just locked you in there, hadn't she, tostarve when she lit out. Mothers are queer, ain't they, when they arequeer. I never remember mine.
Yes, I'll go on.
I stood it all right for a time, out there alone in the night. But Inever was one to wait patiently. I can't wait--it isn't in me. Butthere I had to stand and just--God!--just wait.
If I hadn't waited so hard at the very first I wouldn't 'a' given outso soon. But I stood so still and listened so terribly hard that thetrees began to whisper and the bushes to crack and creep. I heardthings in my head and ears that weren't sounding anywhere else. Andall of a sudden--tramp, tramp, tramp--I heard the cop's footsteps.
He stopped over there by the swinging electric light above the gate. Icrouched down behind the iron bench.
And my coat caught a twig on a bush and its crack--ck was like a yell.
I thought I'd die. I thought I'd scream. I thought I'd run. I thoughtI'd faint. But I didn't--for there, asleep on a rug that some one hadforgotten to take in, was the house cat. I gave her a quick slap, andshe flew out and across the path like a flash.
The cop watched her, his hand on the gate, and passed on.
Mag Monahan, if Tom had come out that minute without a bean and gonehome with me, I'd been so relieved I'd never have tried again. But hedidn't come. Nothing happened. Nights and nights and nights went by,and the stillness began to sound again. My throat went choking mad. Ibegan to shiver, and I reached for the rug the cat had lain on.
Funny, how some things strike you! This was Latimer's rug. I hadnoticed it that evening--a warm, soft, mottled green that looked likesilk and fur mixed. I could see the way his long, white hands lookedon it, and as I touched it I could hear his voice--
Oh, Thou, who Man of baser Earth didst make, And ev'n with Paradise devise the Snake: For all the Sin wherewith the Face of Man Is blacken'd--Man's forgiveness give--and take!
Ever hear a man like that say a thing like that? No? Well, it's--it'sdifferent. It's as if the river had spoken--or a tree--it's so--it'sso different.
That saved me--that verse that I remembered. I said it over and overand over again to myself. I fitted it to the ferry whistles on thebay--to the cop's steps as they passed again--to the roar of theL-train and the jangling of the surface cars.
And right in the middle of it--every drop of blood in my body seemed toleak out of me, and then come rushing back to my head--I heard Tom'swhistle.
Oh, it's easy to say "run," and I really meant it when I promised Tom.But you see I hadn't heard that whistle then. When it came, it changedeverything. It set the devil in me loose. I felt as if the world wastearing something of mine away from me. Stand for it? Not Nance Olden.
I did run--but it was toward the house. That whistle may have meant"Go!" To me it yelled "Come!"
I got in through the window Tom had left open. The place was stillquiet. Nobody inside had heard that whistle so far as I could tell.
I crept along--the carpets were thick and soft and silky as the rug I'dhad my hands buried in to keep 'em warm.
Along a long hall and through a great room, whose walls were thick withbooks, I was making for a light I could see at the back of the house.That's where Tom Dorgan must be and where I must be to find out--toknow.
With my hands out in front of me I hurried, but softly, and just as Ihad reached the portieres below which the light streamed, my armsclosed about a thing--cold as marble, naked--I thought it was a deadbody upright there, and with a cry, I pitched forward through thecurtains into the lighted room.
"Nance!--you devil!"
You recognize it? Yep, it was Tom. Big Tom Dorgan, at the foot ofLatimer's bed, his hands above his head, and Latimer's gun aimed rightat his heart.
Think of the pluck of that cripple, will you?
His eyes turned on me for just a second, and then fixed themselvesagain on Tom. But his voice went straight at me, all right.
"You are something of a thankless devil, I must admit, Miss--Omar," hesaid.
I didn't say anything. You don't say things in answer to things likethat. You feel 'em.
Ashamed? What do I care for a man with a voice like that! ... But youshould have heard how Tom's growl sounded after it.
"Why the hell didn't you light out?"
"I couldn't, Tom. I just--couldn't," I sobbed.
"There seems invariably to be a misunderstanding of signals where MissOmar is concerned. Also a disposition to use strong language in thelady's presence. Don't you, young man!"
"Don't you call me Miss Omar!" I blazed, stamping my foot.
He laughed a contemptuous laugh.
I could have killed him then, I hated him so. At least, I thought Icould; but just then Tom sent a spark out of the corner of his eye tome that meant--it meant--
You know, Mag,
what it would have meant to Latimer if I had done whatTom's eye said.
I thought at first I had done it--it passed through my mind so quick;the sweet words I'd say--the move I'd make--the quick knocking-up ofthe pistol, and then--
It was that--that sight of Tom, big Tom Dorgan, with rage in his heartand death in his hand, leaping on that cripple's body--it made me sick!
I stood there gasping--stood a moment too long. For the curtains werepushed aside, and Burnett, Latimer's servant, and the cop came in.
Tom didn't fight; he's no fool to waste himself.
But I--well, never mind about me. I caught a glimpse of a crazy whiteface on a boy's body in the great glass opposite and heard my own voicebreak into something I'd never heard before.
Tom stood at last with the handcuffs on.
"It's your own fault, you damned little chump!" he said to me, as theywent out.
You lie, Mag Monahan, he's no such thing! He may be a hard man to livewith, but he's mine--my Tom--my Tom!
What? Latimer?
Well, do you know, it's funny about him. He'd told the cop that I'dpeached--peached on Tom! So they went off without me.
Why?
That's what he said himself when we were alone.
"In order to insure for myself another of your most interesting visits,I suppose, Miss--not Omar? All right.... Tell me, can I do nothingfor you? Aren't you sick of this sort of life?"
"Get Tom out of jail."
He shook his head.
"I'm too good a friend of yours to do you such a turn."
"I don't want any friend that isn't Tom's."
He threw the pistol from him and pulled himself up, till he sat lookingat me.
"In heaven's name, what can you see in a fellow like that?"
"What's that to you?" I turned to go.
"To me? Things of that sort are nothing, of course, to me--me, that'luckless Pot He marr'd in making.' But, tell me--can a girl like youtell the truth? What made you hesitate when that fellow told you withhis eyes to murder me?"
"How did you know?"
"How? The glass. See over yonder. I could watch every expression onboth your faces. What was it--what was it, child, that made you--oh,if you owe me a single heart-beat of gratitude, tell me the truth!"
"You've said it yourself."
"What?"
"That line we read the other night about 'the luckless Pot'."
His face went gray and he fell back on his pillows. The strenuous lifewe'd been leading him, Tom and I, was too much for him, I guess.
Do you know, I really felt sorry I'd said it. But he is a cripple.Did he expect me to say he was big and strong and dashing--like Tom?
I left him there and got out and away. But do you know what I saw,Mag, beside his bed, just as Burnett came to put me out?
My old blue coat with the buttons--the bell-boy's coat I'd left in thehousekeeper's room when I borrowed her Sunday rig. The coat washanging over a chair, and right by it, on a table, was that big bookwith a picture covering every page, still open at that verse about
Through this same Garden--and for ONE in vain!