IX.
It's all come so quick, Maggie, and it was over so soon that I hardlyremember the beginning.
Nobody on earth could have expected it less than I, when I came off inthe afternoon. I don't know what I was thinking of as I came into mydressing-room, that used to be Gray's--the sight of him seemed to cutme off from myself as with a knife--but it wasn't of him.
It may have been that I was chuckling to myself at the thought of NancyOlden with a dressing-room all to herself. I can't ever quite get usedto that, you know, though I sail around there with all the airs of theleading lady. Sometimes I see a twinkle in Fred Obermuller's eye whenI catch him watching me, and goodness knows he's been glum enough oflate, but it wasn't--
Yes, I'm going to tell you, but--it's rattled me a bit, Maggie. I'mso--so sorry, and a little--oh, just a little, little bit glad!
I'd slammed the door behind me--the old place is out of repair and thedoor won't shut except with a bang--and I had just squatted down on thefloor to unbutton my high shoes, when I noticed the chintz curtains infront of the high dressing-box waver. They must have moved just likethat when I was behind them months--it seems years--ago. But, you see,Topham had never served an apprenticeship behind curtains, so he didn'tsuspect.
"Lordy, Nancy," I laughed to myself, "some one thinks you've got a rosediamond and--"
And at that moment he parted the curtains and came out.
Yes--Tom--Tom Dorgan.
My heart came beating up to my throat and then, just as I thought Ishould choke, it slid down to my boots, sickening me. I didn't say aword. I sat there, my foot in my lap, staring at him.
Oh, Maggie-girl, it isn't good to get your first glimpse after allthese months of the man you love crouched like a big bull in a smallspace, poking his close-cropped black head out like a turtle that's notsure something won't be thrown at it, and then dragging his big bulkout and standing over you. He used to be trim--Tom--and taut, but inthose shapeless things, the old trousers, the dirty white shirt, andthe vest too big for him--
"Well," he said, "why don't you say something?"
Tom's voice--Mag, do you remember, the merry Irish boy's voice, withits chuckles like a brook gurgling as it runs?
No--'tisn't the same voice. It's--it's changed, Maggie. It's heavyand--and coarse--and--brutal. That's what it is. It sounds like--likethe knout, like--
"Nance--what in hell's--"
"I think I'm--frightened, Tom."
"Oh, the ladyfied airs of her! Ain't you going to faint, Miss Olden?"
I got up.
"No--no. Sit down, Tom. Tell me about it. How--how did you get here?"
He went to the door, opened it a bit and looked out cautiously.Mag--Mag--it hurt me--that. Why, do you suppose?
"You're sure nobody'll come in?" he asked.
I turned the key in the lock, forgetting that it didn't really lock.
"Oh, yes, I'm sure," I said. "Why?"
"Why! You have got slow. Just because I didn't say good-by to themfellows up at the Pen, and--"
"Oh! You've escaped!"
"That's what. First jail-break in fifteen years. What d'ye think ofyour Tommy, old girl, eh? Ain't he the gamest? Ain't you proud ofhim?"
My God, Mag! Proud of him. He didn't know--he couldn't see--himself.He, shut in like a wild beast, couldn't see what this year has done forhim. Oh, the change--the change in him! My boy Tommy, with the gay,gallus manner, and the pretty, jolly brogue, and the laughing mouthunder his brown mustache. And this man--his face is old, Mag,old--oh!--and hard--and--and tough, cheap and tough. There's somethingin his eyes now and about his shaven mouth--oh, Maggie, Maggie!
"Look here, Nance." He caught me by the shoulders, knocking up my chinso that he could look down squarely at me. "What's your graft? What'sit to be between us? What've ye been doing all this time? Out withit! I want to know."
I shook myself free and faced him.
"I've been--Tom Dorgan, I've been to hear the greatest actors andactresses in the world say and do the finest things in the world. I'vewatched princesses and kings--even if they're only stage ones. I'veread a new book every night--a great picture book, in which thepictures move and speak--that's the stage, Tom Dorgan. Much of itwasn't true, but a girl who's been brought up by the Cruelty doesn'thave to be told what's true and what's false. I've met these peopleand lived with them--as one does who thinks the same thoughts and feelswhat others feel. I know the world now, Tom Dorgan, the real world ofmen and women--not the little world of crooks, nor yet the littler oneof fairy stories. I've got a glimpse, too, of that other world whereall the scheming and lying and cheating is changed as if by magic intosomething that deceives all right, but doesn't hurt. It's the world ofart and artists, Tom Dorgan, where people paint their lies, or writethem, or act them; where they lift money all right from men's pockets,but lift their souls and their lives, too, away from the things thattrouble and bore and--and degrade.
"You needn't sneer; it's made a different Nance out of me, Tom Dorgan.And, oh, but I'm sorry for the pert little beggar we both knew thatlied and stole and hid and ran and skulked! She was like a poor littleignorant traveler in a great country where she'd sized up the worldfrom the few fool crooks she was thrown in with. She--"
"Aw, cut it!"
"Tom--does--doesn't it mean anything to you? Can't it mean lots toboth of us now that--"
"Cut it, I tell you! Think I killed one guard and beat the other tillI'd broke every bone in his body to come here and listen to such guff?You've been having a high old time, eh, and you never give a thought tome up there! I might 'a' rotted in that black hole for all you'd care,you--"
"Don't! I did, Tom; I did." I was shivering at the name, but Icouldn't bear his thinking that way of me. "I went up once, but theywouldn't let me see you. I wrote you, but they sent back the letters.Mag went up, too, but had to come back. And that time I brought you--"
My voice trailed off. In that minute I saw myself on the way up toSing Sing with the basket and all my hopes and all my schemes foramusing him.
And this is what I'd have seen if they'd let me in--this big, gruff,murdering beast!
Oh, yes--yes--beast is what he is, and it didn't make him look it lessthat he believed me and--and began to think of me in a different way.
"I thought you wouldn't go back on a feller, Nance. That's why I comestraight to you. It was my game to have you hide me for a day or two,till you could make a strike somewhere and we'd light out together.How're ye fixed? Pretty smart, eh? You look it, my girl, you look--Myeye, Nance, you look good enough to eat, and I'm hungry for you!"
Maggie, if I'd had to die for it I couldn't have moved then. You'dthink a man would know when the woman he's holding in his arms isfainting--sick at the touch of him. A woman would. It wasn't my Tomthat I'd known, that I'd worked with and played with and--It was agreat brute, whose mouth--who had no eyes, no ears, no senses but--ah!...
He laughed when I broke away from him at last. He laughed! And I knewthen I'd have to tell him straight in words.
"Tom," I gasped, "you can have all I've got; and it's plenty to get youout of the way. But--but you can't have--me--any more. That's--done!"
Oh, the beast in his face! It must have looked like that when theguard got his last glimpse of it.
"You're kiddin' me?" he growled.
I shook my head.
Then he ripped it out. Said the worst he could and ended with a curse!The blood boiled in me. The old Nance never stood that; she used tosneer at other women who did.
"Get out of here!" I cried. "Go--go, Tom Dorgan. I'll send every centI've got to you to Mother Douty's within two hours, but don't youdare--"
"Don't YOU dare, you she-devil! Just make up your mind to drop thesenewfangled airs, and mighty quick. I tell you you'll come with me'cause I need you and I want you, and I want you now. And I'll keepyou when once I get you again. We'll hang together. No more o' thisone-sided lay-out for m
e, where you get all the soft and it's me forthe hard. You belong to me. Yes, you do. Just think back a bit,Nance Olden, and remember the kind of customer I am. If you've forgot,just let me remind you that what I know would put you behind bars, mylady, and it shall, I swear, if I've got to go to the Chair for it!"
Tom! It was Tom talking that way to me. I couldn't bear it. I made arush for the door.
He got there, too, and catching me by the shoulder, he lifted his fist.
But it never fell, Mag. I think I could kill a man who struck me. Butjust as I shut my eyes and shivered away from him, while I waited forthe blow, a knock came at the door and Fred Obermuller walked in.
"Eh? Oh! Excuse me. I didn't know there was anybody else. Nance,your face is ghastly. What's up?" he said sharply.
He looked from me to Tom--Tom, standing off there ready to spring onhim, to dart past him, to fly out of the window--ready for anything;only waiting to know what the thing was to be.
My senses came back to me then. The sight of Obermuller, with thosekeen, quick eyes behind his glasses, his strong, square chin, and thewhole poise of his head and body that makes men wait to hear what hehas to say; the knowledge that that man was my friend, mine--NancyOlden's--lifted me out of the mud I'd sunk back in, and put my feetagain on a level with his.
"Tom," I said slowly, "Mr. Obermuller is a friend of mine. No--listen!What we've been talking about is settled. Don't bring it up again. Itdoesn't interest him and it can't change me; I swear to you, it can't;nothing can. I'm going to ask Mr. Obermuller to help you withouttelling him just what the scrape is, and--and I'm going to be sure thathe'll do it just because he--"
"Because you've taken up with him, have you?" Tom shouted savagely."Because she's your--"
"Tom!" I cried.
"Tom--oh, yes, now I remember." Obermuller got between us as he spoke."Your friend up--in the country that you went to see and couldn't. Nota very good-looker, your friend, Nance. But--farming, I suppose,Mr.--Tom?--plays the deuce with one's looks. And another thing itdoes: it makes a man forget sometimes just how to behave in town. I'llbe charmed, Mr. Tom, to oblige a friend of Miss Olden's; but I mustinsist that he does not talk like a--farmer."
He was quite close to Tom when he finished, and Tom was glaring up athim. And, Mag, I didn't know which one I was most afraid for. Don'tyou look at me that way, Mag Monahan, and don't you dare to guessanything!
"If you think," growled Tom, "that I'm going to let you get off withthe girl, you're mighty--"
"Now, I've told you not to say that. The reason I'll do the thingshe's going to ask of me--if it's what I think it is--is because thisgirl's a plucky little creature with a soul big enough to lift her outof the muck you probably helped her into. It's because she's gotbrains, talent, and a heart. It's because--well, it's because I feellike it, and she deserves a friend."
"You don't know what she is." It was a snarl from Tom. "You don't--"
"Oh, yes, I do; you cur! I know what she was, too. And I even knowwhat she will be; but that doesn't concern you."
"The hell it don't!"
Obermuller turned his back on him. I was dumb and still. Tom Dorganhad struck me after all.
"What is it you want me to do, Nance?" Obermuller asked.
"Get him away on a steamer--quick," I murmured--I couldn't look him inthe face--"without asking why, or what his name is."
He turned to Tom. "Well?"
"I won't go--not without her."
"Because you're so fond of her, eh? So fond, your first thought onquitting the--country was to come here to get her in trouble. If you'vebeen traced--"
"Ah! You wouldn't like that, eh?" sneered Tom. "Would you?"
"Well, I've had my share of it. And she ain't. Still--I ... Just whatwould it be worth to you to have me out of the way?"
"Oh, Tom--Tom--" I cried.
But Obermuller got in front of me.
"It would be worth exactly one dollar and seventy-five cents. I thinkit will amount to about that for cab-hire. I guess the cars aren't anytoo safe for you, or it might be less. It may amount to something morebefore I get you shipped before the mast on the first foreign-boundboat. But what's more important," he added, bringing his fist downwith a mighty thump on the table, "you have just ten seconds to make upyour mind. At the end of that time I'll ring for the police."
* * * * * * * * * * *
I went down to the boat to see it sail, Mag, at seven this morning.No, not to say good-by to him. He didn't know I was there. It was tosay good-by to my old Tommy; the one I loved. Truly I did love him,Mag, though he never cared for me. No, he didn't. Men don't pull downthe women they love; I know that now. If Tom Dorgan had ever cared forme he wouldn't have made a thief of me. If he'd cared, the last placeon earth he'd have come to, when he knew the detectives would be on histrack, would have been just the first place he made for. If he'dcared, he--
But it's done, Mag. It's all over. Cheap--that's what he is, this TomDorgan. Cheaply bad--a cheap bully, cheap-brained. Remember mywishing he'd have been a ventriloquist? Why, that man that tried tosell me to Obermuller hasn't sense enough to be a good scene-shifter.Oh--
The firm of Dorgan & Olden is dissolved, Mag. The retiring partner hasgone into the theatrical business. As for Dorgan--the real one, poorfellow! jolly, handsome, big Tom Dorgan--he died. Yes, he died,Maggie, and was buried up there in the prison graveyard. A hard lotfor a boy; but it's not the worst thing that can happen to him. Hemight become a man; such a man as that fellow that sailed away beforethe mast this morning.