VI.
I got into the train, Mag, the happiest girl in all the country. I'd abig basket of things for Tom. I was got up in my Sunday best, for Iwanted to make a hit with some fellow with a key up there, who'd makethings soft and easy for my Tommy.
I had so much to tell him. I knew just how I'd take off every memberof the company to amuse him. I had memorized every joke I'd heardsince I'd got behind the curtain--not very hard for me; things alwayshad a way of sticking in my mind. I knew the newest songs in town, andthe choruses of all the old ones. I could show him the latest trickswith cards--I'd got those at first hand from Professor Haughwout. Youknow how great Tom is on tricks. I could explain the disappearing womanmystery, and the mirror cabinet. I knew the clog dance that Dewitt andDaniels do. I had pictures of the trained seals, the great elephantact, Mademoiselle Picotte doing her great tight-rope dance, and theBrothers Borodini in their pyramid tumbling.
Yes, it was a whole vaudeville show, with refreshments between theacts, that I was taking up to Tom Dorgan. I don't care much for a lotof that truck--funny, isn't it, how you get to turn up your nose at thethings you'd have given a finger for once upon a time? But Tom--oh,I'd got everything pat for him--my big, handsome Tom Dorgan instripes--with his curls all shaved off--ugh!
I'd got just so far in my thoughts, sitting there in the train, when Igave a shiver. I thought for a minute it was at the idea of my Tomwith one of those bare, round convict-heads on him, that look like fatskeleton faces. But it wasn't. It was--
Guess, Mag.
Moriway.
Both of us thought the same thing of each other for the first secondthat our eyes met. I could see that. He thought I was caught at last.And I thought he'd been sharp once too often.
And, Mag, it would be hard to say which of us would have been happierif it had been the truth. Oh, to meet Moriway, bound sure enough forSing Sing!
He got up and came over to me, smiling wickedly. He took the seatbehind me, and leaning forward, said softly:
"Is Miss Omar engaged to read to some invalid up at Sing Sing? And forhow long a term--I should say, engagement?"
I'd got through shivering by then. I was ready for him. I turned andlooked at him in that very polite, distant sort o' way Gray uses in heract when the Charity superintendent speaks to her. It's the only decentthing she does; chances are that that's how Lord Gray's mother looks ather.
"You know my sister, Mr.--Mr.--" I asked humbly.
He looked at me, perplexed for just a second.
"Sister be hanged!" he said at last. "I know you, Nat, and I'm glad tomy finger-tips that you've got it in the neck, in spite of all yoursmartness."
"You're altogether wrong, sir," I said very stately, but hurt a bit,you know. "I've often been taken for my sister, but gentlemen usuallyapologize when I explain to them. It's hard enough to have a sisterwho--" I looked up at him tearfully, with my chin a-wabble with sorrow.
He grinned.
"Liars should have good memories," he sneered. "Miss Omar said she wasan orphan, you remember, and had not a relative in the world."
"Did she say that? Did Nora say that?" I exclaimed piteously. "Oh,what a little liar she is! I suppose she thought it made her moreinteresting to be so alone, more appealing to kind-hearted gentlemenlike yourself. I hope she wasn't ungrateful to you, too, as she was tothat kind Mr. Latimer, before he found her out. And she had such agood position there, too!"
I wanted to look at him, oh, I wanted to! But it was my role to sitthere with downcast eyes, just--the picture of holy grief. I was thegood one--the good, shocked sister, and though I wasn't a bit afraid ofanything he could do to me, or any game he could put up, I yearned tomake him believe me--just because he was so suspicious, so wickedlysmart, so sure he was on.
But his very silence sort of told me he almost believed, or that he waslaying a trap.
"Will you tell me," he said, "how you--your sister got Latimer to liefor her?"
"Mr. Latimer--lie! Oh, you don't know him. He expected a lady to readto him that very evening. He had never seen her, and when Nora walkedinto the garden--"
"After getting a skirt somewhere."
"Yes--the housekeeper's, it happened to be her evening out--why, hejust naturally supposed Nora was Miss Omar."
"Ah! then her name isn't Omar. What might it be?"
"I'd rather not tell--if you don't mind."
"But when Latimer found out she had the diamonds--he did find out?"
"She confessed to him. Nora's not really so bad a girl as--"
"Very interesting! But it doesn't happen to be Latimer's version. Andyou say Latimer wouldn't lie."
I got pale--but the paleness was on the inside of me. Think I wasgoing to flinch before a chump like Moriway, even if I had walkedstraight into his trap?
"It isn't?" I exclaimed.
"No. Latimer's note to Mrs. Kingdon said the diamonds were found inthe bell-boy's jacket the thief had left behind him."
"Well! It only shows what a bad habit lying is. Nora must have fibbedto me, for the pure pleasure of fibbing. I'll never dare to trust heragain. Do you believe then that she didn't have anything to do withthe hotel robbery? I do hope so. It's one less sin on her wickedhead. It's hard, having such a girl in the family!" Oh, wasn't Igrieved!
He looked me straight in the eye. I looked at him. I was unutterablysad about that tough sister of mine, and I vow I looked holy then,though I never did before and may never again.
"Well, I only saw her in the twilight," he said slowly, watching myface all the time. "You two sisters are certainly miraculously alike."
The train was slowing down, and I got up with my basket. I stood rightbefore him, my full face turned toward him.
"Are we?" I asked simply. "Don't you think it's more the expressionthan anything else, and the voice? Nora's really much fairer than Iam. Good-by."
He watched me as I went out. I felt his eyes on the back of my jacket,and I was tempted to turn at the door and make a face at him. But Iknew something better and safer than that. I waited till the train wasjust pulling out, and then, standing below his window, I motioned tohim to raise it.
He did.
"I thought you were going to get out here," I called. "Are you sureyou don't belong in Sing Sing, Mr. Moriway?"
I can see his face yet, Mag, and every time I think of it, it makes menearly die of laughing. He had actually been fooled another time. Itwas worth the trip up there, to make a guy of him once more.
And whether it was or not, Mag, it was all I got, after all. For--wouldyou believe Tom Dorgan would turn out such a sorehead? He's kicked upsuch a row ever since he got there, that it's the dark cell for him,and solitary confinement. Think of it--for Tom!
I begged, I bluffed, I cried, I coaxed, but many's the Nance Olden thathas played her game against the rules of Sing Sing, and lost. Theywouldn't even let me leave the things for him, or give him a messagefrom me. And back to the station I had to carry the basket, and allthe schemes I had to make old Tom Dorgan grin.
All the way back I had him in my mind. He's a tiger--Tom--when he'sroused. I could see him, shut up there by himself, with not a soul totalk to, with not a human eye to look into, with not a thing on earthto do--Tom, who's action itself! He never was much of a thinker, and Inever saw him read even a newspaper. What would he do to kill thetime? Can't you see him there, at bay, back on his haunches, cursingand cursed, alone in the everlasting black silence?
I saw nothing else. Wherever I turned my eyes, that terrible picturewas before me. And always it was just on the verge of becomingsomething else--something worse. He could throttle the world with hisbare hands, if it had but one neck, in the mood he must be in now.
It was when I couldn't bear it a moment longer that I set my mind tofind something else to think of.
I found it, Mag. Do you know what it was? It was just threewords--of Obermuller's: "Earn it now."
After all, Mis
s Monahan, this graft of honesty they all preach so muchabout hasn't anything mysterious in it. All it is, is putting yourwits to work according to the rules of the game and not against them.I was driven to it--the thought of big Tom crouching for a spring inthe dark cell up yonder sent me whirling out into the thinking place,like the picture of the soul in the big book at Latimer's I read outof. And first thing you know, 'pon honor, Mag, it was as much funplanning how to "earn it now" as any lifting I ever schemed. It'sgetting the best of people that always charmed me--and here was a wayto fool 'em according to law.
So busy I was making it all up, that the train pulled into the stationbefore I knew it. I gave a last thought to that poor old hyena of aTom, and then put him out of my mind. I had other fish to fry.Straight down to Mother Douty I went with my basket.
"A fool girl, mother, on her way up to Sing Sing, lost her basket, andNance Olden found it; it ought to be worth a good deal."
She grinned. You couldn't make old Douty believe that the Lord himselfwouldn't steal if He got a chance. And she knows the chances that comebutting up against Nancy Olden.
Why did I lie to her? Not for practice, I assure you. She'd havebeaten me down to the last cent if she thought it was mine, but shealways thinks there'll be a find for her in something that's stolen.So I let her think I'd stolen it in the railway station, and we came toterms.
With what she gave me I bought a wig. Mag, I want you some day, whenyou can get off, to come and see that wig. I shouldn't wonder butyou'd recognize it. It's red, of very coarse hair, but a wonderfulcolor, and so long it--yes, it might be your own, Mag Monahan, it's somuch like it. I went to the theater and got my Charity rig, took ithome, and sat for hours there just looking at 'em both. When eveningcame I was ready to "earn it now."
You see, Obermuller had given me the whole day to be away, and neitherGray nor the other three Charities expected me back. I had to do it onthe sly, you sassy Mag! Yes, it was partly because I love to cheat,but more because I was bound to have my chance once whether anybodyelse enjoyed it or not.
I came to the theater in my Charity rig and the wig. It looked as ifI'd slept in it, and it came down to the draggled hem of the skirt.All the way there I walked like you, Mag. Once, when a newsboy grinnedat me and shouted "Carrots!" I grinned back--your own, old Crueltygrin, Mag. I vow I felt so much like you--as you used to be--that whenI lurched out on the stage at last, stumbling over my shoe laces andtrying to push the hair out of my eyes, you'd have sworn it was littleMag Monahan I making her debut in the Cruelty room.
Oh, Mag, Mag, you darling Mag! Did you ever hear a whole house, agreat big theater full of a peevish vaudeville audience, just rise atyou, give one roar of laughter they hadn't expected at all to give, andthen settle down to giggle at every move you made?
Girl alive, I just had 'em! They couldn't take their eyes off me. If Isquirmed, they howled. If I stood on one foot, scratching the torn legof my stocking with the other--you know, Mag!--they yelled. If Igrinned, they just roared.
Oh, Mag, can't you see? Don't you understand? I was It. The centerof the stage I carried round with me--it was just Nancy Olden. And forten minutes Nancy had nothing to do but to play with 'em. 'Pon mylife, Mag, it's just like stealing; the old graft exactly; it's sofascinating, so busy, and risky, except that they play the game withyou and pay you and love you to fool 'em.
When the curtain fell it was different. Grays followed by theCharities, all clean and spick-and-span and--not in it; not even on theedge of it--stormed up to Obermuller standing at the wings.
"I'll quit the show here and now," she squawked. "It's a shame, abeastly shame. How dare you play me such a trick, Fred Obermuller? Inever was treated so in my life--to have that dirty little wretch cometumbling on like that, without even so much as your telling me you'dmade up all this new business for her! It's indecent, anyway. Why, Ilost my cue. There was a gap for a full minute. The whole act wassuch a ghastly failure that I--"
"That you'd better go out now and make your prettiest bow, Gray. Phew!Listen to the house roar. That's what I call applause. Go on now."
She went.
Me? I didn't say a word. I looked at Obermuller and--and I just didlike this. Yes, winked, Mag Monahan. I was so crazily happy I had to,didn't I?
But do you know what he did? Do you know what he did?
Well, I suppose I am screaming and the Troyons will put me out, but--hejust--winked--back!
And then Gray came trailing back into the wings, and the shrieking andthumping and whistling out in front just went on--and on--and on--andon. Um! I just listened and loved it--every thump of it. And I stoodthere like a demure little kitten; or more like Mag Monahan after she'dhad a good licking, and was good and quiet. And I never so much asbudged till Obermuller said:
"Well, Nance, you have earned it. The gall of you! But it only provesthat Fred Obermuller never yet bought a gold brick. Only, let me in onyour racket next time. There, go on--take it. It's yours."
Oh, to have Fred Obermuller say things like that to you!
He gave me a bit of a push. 'Twas just a love-pat. I stumbled out onto the stage.