The Rose in the Ring/Part 1/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX
A THIEF IN THE NIGHT
That supper was one of the incidents in David Jenison's life always to stand out clear and undimmed. The party of five sat at a table in a remote corner of the dingy little eating-house. At no time were they free from the curious gaze of the people who filled the place, a noisy bumptious crowd of country people making the most of a holiday. The glamour was over them. Some one had recognized "Little Starbright" in the simply clad, demure young girl; the word was passed from table to table. She was stared at and whispered about from the time she entered the place until she left.
David, alert and dogged, soon forgot the boorishness of the country-folk, however, in the painful study of conditions near at hand. Colonel Grand, the host, was most affable. More than that, he was tactful. While there was an unmistakable air of proprietorship in his manner, he had the delicacy or the cleverness not to allow it to become even remotely oppressive. He managed it so that the conversation was carried on almost entirely by the two men. Now and then the three palpably unwilling guests were drawn into it, but with such subtlety on the part of their host that they were surprised into a momentarily active participation. Thomas Braddock, cleanly shaven and rather uncomfortably neat as to the matter of linen, was garrulous to the point of noisiness. He confined his remarks to the Colonel, or, in a general way, to the tables near by, with an occasional furtive glance at his wife's set, unsmiling face by way of noting the effect on her. The topics were commonplace enough: the weather, the prospects ahead, the improvements to be made in the show as business got better.
Mrs. Braddock, who sat at the Colonel's left, was so noticeably pale and repressed that David wondered if she would be able to go to the end of the wretched travesty without fainting. Unutterable despair hung over her lowered eyelids; it stood out plainly in the lines at the corners of her mouth. Christine seldom looked up from her plate. She sat next to David. He felt the restraint and embarrassment under which the girl suffered. Her cheek went red on more than one occasion when her father's coarse humor offended her delicate sensibilities; she paled under the veiled, insinuating compliments of the other. Once David's hand accidentally touched hers, below the edge of the table. His strong fingers at once closed over hers and for many minutes he held them tight, unknown to any but themselves. The dark lashes drooped lower on her cheeks; he could almost detect the flutter in her throat.
The ghastly meal drew to a close. The Colonel, leaning forward, was gazing through half-closed lids at the profile of the woman beside him. His long, white fingers fumbled with an unused spoon beside her plate. Once she had hitched her chair a little farther away from his,—an abrupt proceeding that had not failed to attract David's attention.
"Well, we will have many of these jolly little spreads," he was saying in his oiliest tones. "Birds of a feather, you know. Ha, ha! That's rather a clever way of putting it, eh, Jack?"
Braddock laughed boisterously. He had lighted a cigar regardless of the waiter's polite announcement that smoking was not allowed.
"Yes, we will dine together frequently. I like these gay little affairs," went on the Colonel, not even attempting to conceal his shrug of disgust for Braddock. "I am leaving for home to-night, but I expect to return in two or three days. You must all join hands in breaking me into the circus business. Don't let me be a—what is it you call it? A rube, that's it. We'll be the show's happy family. Every circus has a 'happy family.' Yes, 'pon my soul, I like the life. I do enjoy these quiet, impromptu little suppers."'
David was suddenly conscious that Braddock's eyes were upon him. He met the gaze, curiously impelled. The man's face was almost purple; the look in his eyes was not of anger, but of a shame that sprung from what little there was of manhood left in him. Braddock looked away quickly, and an instant later announced that it was time to get back to the "lot."
In front of the restaurant they came upon Artful Dick Cronk. The pickpocket made no attempt to speak to them, but when his eye caught David's, he closed it slowly in a very expressive wink.
Braddock hurried on ahead, explaining that he was obliged to look after something at the grounds.
"I'll look after them," said the Colonel affably. "With Jack's assistance," he supplemented. Christine clutched her mother's arm. The Colonel and David dropped behind, for the narrow sidewalk was crowded. In this fashion they made their way to the show grounds. Mrs. Braddock and Christine did not once look behind. Colonel Grand chatted amiably with his young companion, but never for an instant was his gaze diverted from the straight, proud figure of the woman ahead.
He entered the dressing-tent with them. There he quietly said good-by to the three of them. The tears of indignation were still standing in Christine's eyes. He willfully misinterpreted their significance. A hateful tenderness came into his voice, but it did not disturb the sneer on his lips.
"Don't cry, little one; it is only for a few days," he said.
Christine's face flamed.
"It's—it's not because you are going away!" she cried in angry astonishment. "I wish you would never come back! Never!"
He smiled broadly. "Dear me! And I thought we were getting on so nicely. Pray control yourself, my dear. I had no idea you could be so ferocious. Who does she get it from, Mary?"
Mrs. Braddock started as if stung. Her eyes dilated. It was the first time he had called her by her Christian name.
"How dare you?" she cried, her breast heaving with suppressed anger.
He shook his head dejectedly. "I have much to learn, it seems."
She opened her lips to say more, but reconsidered, and abruptly turned away, drawing Christine after her into the women's section.
Colonel Grand turned to David. "Young man," he said sharply, "I don't like the way you look at me. Stop! Not a word, sir! I have taken up the show business seriously. I find that our animal tamers are entirely competent. What we need here is a tamer for vicious and ungentle bipeds. There is a way to tame them, just as there is a way to break the spirit of the lion or the tiger. It shall be my special duty to deal with these unruly human beings. I hope you grasp my meaning. It would not be to my liking to begin my experiments on a young gentleman of Virginia."
"Sir, you've already begun!" cried David in a choking voice. "You may do what you like with me, but you've just got to let her alone. You—"
Colonel Grand held up his hand. David seemed to be gasping for breath.
"That's the very thing I like about you, Jack," said his late host derisively. "I can always depend upon you to look after the ladies. They will be absolutely safe while you are with them. There is a distinct advantage in having a real gentleman about. You see, I can't always be on hand to—to protect them from such bullies as Thomas Braddock."
His allusion to Braddock was strikingly impersonal.
"I am making you my first lieutenant—no, my aide-de-camp, Jack. All you are required to do is to obey orders. Don't run the risk of a court-martial, my lad. It occurs to me that an uncle of yours has had an experience of that—but, never mind. Your first duty, sir, is to convince the ladies that I shall expect them to be in better humor when I return from the East."
The words came from his lips with biting emphasis; the smooth oily tone was gone. There was no pretense now; he was showing his fangs.
David could only glare at him, white to the lips. He could not speak. He could only look the hatred that welled in his heart. But down in that heart he was telling himself that some day he would crush this monster.
Colonel Grand studied the clean-cut, aristocratic face for a moment. A conciliatory smile came to his lips.
"Don't forget that I am doing you a good turn," he said. "Christie is a very pretty girl. She's fond of you. If you're smart, you'll make the most of her. You ought to thank me instead of—ah, but I see you do thank me." He willfully misjudged the expression on David's face. "I see no reason why you can't spend a most agreeable season with us. Jack."
"Colonel Grand," said David very slowly, controlling himself admirably, "if it were not that I now regard it as my sacred duty to stay with this show, I would defy you, sir, and denounce you, let the consequences be as disastrous to me as you like. I am not afraid of you. I can go back home—to jail—with my head up and my heart clean, if you choose to send me there. I am not afraid of even that. But I am afraid of something else. That is why I am ready to bear your insults, to humble myself, to submit to your—your commands. Not for my own safety, but for the safety of others. Permit me, sir, as a gentleman, to assure you that you can depend on me to carry out at least a part of your instructions as faithfully as God will let me. I mean by that, sir, your instructions to protect the ladies!"
He turned on his heel and left the Colonel standing there, a flush mounting to his flabby cheek.
"Braddock," he said, a few minutes later, "I'm going to break that Jenison boy if it takes me a year—yes, ten years."
"What's up?" demanded Braddock, rolling his cigar over uneasily. "Been sassing you?"
"People of his class do not sass, as you call it," said Colonel Grand shortly.
"Well, shall I kick him out of the show?" asked the other, perplexed. Remembering David's money, he supplemented quickly: "Say in a week or two?"
"No. That is just what I don't want you to do. He stays, Braddock. Understand?"
"All right," agreed the other hastily. "I like the kid. He's good company for Christie, too. Tony sort of a chap, ain't he? I can tell 'em every pop. I said to my wife that first night—"
"Yes, yes, you you've told me that," interrupted Grand impatiently. "You keep him here, that's all. When I'm through with him you may kick him out. There won't be much left to kick."
For a long time after the departure of his new partner, Thomas Braddock's attitude of extreme thoughtfulness puzzled those who took the trouble to observe him. At last, when his cigar was chewed to a pulp and the night's performance was half over, light broke in upon him. He fancied that he had solved the Colonel's designs regarding David Jenison. His face cleared, but again clouded ominously; he conversed with himself, aloud.
"By thunder, if he thinks I'm going to let him gobble up that kid's money, he's mistaken. Why didn't I think of this before? I might have known. It's the long green he's after. I wonder who told him about the two thousand." He scratched his head in sudden perplexity. "I wonder what's got into Dick Cronk. He's too blamed good, all of a sudden. That brother of his might try the job, but—no, he'd bungle it. Besides, he'd probably stick a knife into Davy if the kid made a motion." He began chewing a fresh cigar; his pop-eyes were leveled with unseeing fierceness at a certain patch in the "main top"; his brain was seeing nothing but that packet of bank-notes. How to get it into his possession: that was the question that produced the undiverted stare and the lowering droop at the corners of his mouth.
"I've got to get that wad," he was saying to himself, over and over again, with almost tearful insistence. Driven by the value of propinquity, he finally made his way to the dressing-tent. The performers were surprised to find him unnaturally sober and quite jovial. A certain nervousness marked his manner. He chatted amiably with the leading men and women in his company; the fact that he removed the cigar from his lips while conversing with Ruby Noakes and the Iron-jawed Woman, created no little amazement in them. He was especially gentle with his wife, and superlatively so with his daughter, both of whom were slow to show the slightest sense of responsive warmth. He proudly, almost belligerently, proclaimed Christine to be the loveliest creature that ever stepped into the sawdust ring. In spite of that fact, however, it was his plan to have her retire at the end of the season, when, if all went well, she was to go to a splendid school for young ladies.
Mrs. Braddock eyed him narrowly. She was searching for the cause of this sudden ebullience, this astounding surrender to her own views regarding their daughter. As for Christine, she was more afraid of him than she had been in all her life. This new mood suggested some vague, undefinable trouble for her mother. The girl's rapidly developing estimate of her father was taking away all the illusions she had been innocently cherishing up to the last few weeks. To her horror, she was beginning to look for something sinister in all that he undertook to do or say.
Unable to face the speculative anxiety in the eyes of his wife and child, Braddock edged off to the men's section of the tent. His furtive, nervous glances about the small apartment escaped the notice of the men who were changing their apparel. To his own disgust, a cold perspiration began to ooze out all over his body—the moisture of extreme nervousness and indecision. He took a stiff pull at his brandy flask.
His shifting gaze ultimately rested on David Jenison's neatly deposited clothing. The boy was in the ring. His "street-wear" lay on a "keester" somewhat apart from the heterogeneous pile of men's apparel on the adjacent boxes. David's "pile" was close to the outside wall of the tent. Braddock marked its location in respect to a certain side pole. He began to tremble; a weakness fell upon him; the resolution partly formed in the big tent, and which had drawn him resistlessly to this very spot, gained strength as his blinking eyes swerved their gaze from time to time in the direction of the "pile." All the while he was talking volubly and without a sentient purpose.
After fifteen minutes he sauntered from the section, cold with apprehension but absolutely determined on the action which was to follow. Leaving the tent, he strolled off toward the ticket wagon, carefully noting the position of the men who were loading the menagerie tent for the trip ahead. A cautious detour brought him back to the dressing-tent, and directly in front of the spot where David's clothing was deposited.
The trembling increased. His mouth filled with saliva. He felt of his hair. It was wet. As he stood there shivering and irresolute, the band struck up the tune that signified much to his present venture,—the tune heralding the approach of the entire company of male performers in the "ground and lofty tumbling act." It meant that the men's section would be entirely deserted for five or ten minutes.
Thomas Braddock was not a thief. He never had stolen anything in his life. He did not intend to steal now. Before he entered the dressing-tent, half an hour ago, he had justified himself unto himself: he was not going to steal David's money. His purpose was an honest one, or so his conscience had been resolutely convinced. He meant to surreptitiously borrow the idle money, that was all. Toward the end of the season, when he was vastly prosperous—as he was sure to be—he would go to David and restore the money, with interest; whereupon the grateful young man would fall upon his neck and rejoice. He needed the money. David did not need it.
What would his wife say if she came to know of this? What would Christine think of him? They were harsh questions and they troubled him. But above these questions throbbed a still greater one—the one that made his body damp with fear: was the money still in the boy's pocket, or was he carrying it with him in the ring?
Of one thing he was sure: David trusted to the integrity of his fellow performers. As for that, so did Thomas Braddock. In all his experience with circus performers he had never known one of them to steal; somewhat irrelevantly he reminded himself that circus women were notably chaste. No; David's money was quite safe in that dressing-tent.
Two full minutes passed before he could whip the conscience into submission. It was, as it afterwards turned out to be, the last stand of the thing called honor as it applied to whiskey-soaked Tom Braddock. Then he shot forward across the black shadows to the side pole he had been glaring at for a quarter of an hour. Through the lacings in the sidewall he saw that the section was empty.
•••••••
When David put his hand inside the lining of his waistcoat an hour later, he turned pale and his eyes narrowed with suspicion. For an instant he permitted them to sweep the laughing, unconscious group of men surrounding him.
"Joey," he said a moment later, taking the clown aside, "my pocketbook is gone."
"Wot!" gasped Joey. "'Ave you lost it?"
"It has been stolen."
Joey's face grew very sober. "Don't say that, Jacky. It was in your ves'cut—as usual?"
"Yes. The lining is slashed with a knife."
"Jacky, are you sure?" almost groaned the clown. "Why—why, there ain't nobody 'ere as would steal a pin. No, sir, not one of—"
"I know that, Joey," said David. He was very white and his eyes were heavy with pain. "I know who stole it."
Grinaldi looked up sharply. Something darted into his mind like a flash of lightning.
"You—you don't mean—"
"I won't say the name. And you mustn't say it either, Joey. But I am as sure of it as I am sure my heart beats. Casey said he—the man came in here for half an hour—I can't believe he is a thief! Joey, they must never know. We must not mention this thing to any one. I don't mind the money. It is nothing—"
Joey wiped the perspiration from his forehead.
"Right—o! Not a blooming word. I see your meaning. By Cripes, he's sinking pretty low. But," hopefully, "mebby he didn't do it."
"I hope he didn't, but—" The boy shuddered. "Joey, I passed him as I came from the ring awhile ago. He was leaning against a quarter pole. The look he gave me was so queer, so ferocious, that I turned away; I couldn't understand it. But I do now, Joey. It's as clear as day to me. He had discovered that instead of twenty-five hundred dollars, there were but six ten-dollar notes in that pocketbook. Do you understand? He was black with rage and disappointment—"
"I see! Well, blow me, I—I—" Here Joey began to chuckle. "He's wondering where the balance of it is. He was trying to look through your shirt, Jacky. He—"
"Do you remember that he followed us in here and watched us change clothes? Well, I noticed that he never took his eyes off me. He was watching to see if I had anything hidden about me—a belt, a package, or—anything. Joey, it's as plain as day."
"And he did kick that little property boy a minute ago. I remember that. He is mad! He's crazy mad, Jacky, we've got to keep our eyes peeled, you and me—and another pusson, too. We got to stand by tonight to protect 'er. He probably thinks that pusson can tell 'im where it is."
But Thomas Braddock was not thinking of his wife in connection with the disappointment that had come to him in that last hour of degradation. He was thinking of Colonel Bob Grand and wondering what magic influence he had exercised over the boy to compel him to deliver so much money into his hands. Down in the darkest corner of his soul he was cursing Bob Grand for a scheming thief, and David Jenison for a hopeless imbecile.
Before the wagons were well under way for the next stand he was dead drunk in the alley back of the hotel bar, having first thrashed a porter who undertook to eject him from the place.
Mrs. Braddock and Christine waited for him at the lot until the men began to pull down the dressing-tent. David was with them. Not far away was Joey Noakes, the center of a group of performers, held together by his wonderful tale concerning the sensational bit of pocketpicking that had occurred early in the evening. A congressman had been "touched" for his purse and three hundred dollars while waiting for a train at the depot. The town was wild over the theft.
In the midst of the narrative, Artful Dick sauntered up to the group, coming, it seemed, from nowhere. The gossiper abruptly stopped his tale.
"They say it's going to rain before morning," said Dick airily. "You guys will get rust on your joints if you stay out in it. Ta-ta! I'm looking for my brother. Seen him?"
He strolled on, as if he owned the earth.
"That feller'll be as rich as the devil some day, if he keeps on," said one of the group.
That was the mild form of opprobrium that followed Artful Dick into the shadows. As he passed by the Braddocks and David, he doffed his derby gallantly. To this knowing chap there was something significant in the dreary, half-hearted smile that the mother and daughter gave him. At any rate, he took a second look at them out of the corner of his eye.
"Brad's up to something," he thought.
The smile he bestowed upon Ruby Noakes, who stood near by with several of the women, was all-enveloping. Ruby's dark eyes looked after him until his long, jaunty figure disappeared in the darkness.
"Too bad he's a thie—what he is," ventured the Iron-jawed Woman pityingly. She addressed the reflection to Ruby, who started and then positively glared at the speaker.
David escorted Mrs. Braddock and Christine to the hotel, where he also was to "put up" under the new dispensation. They had but little to say to each other. A deep sense of restraint had fallen upon them. He understood and appreciated their lack of interest in anything but their own unexpressed thoughts. As for himself, he was sick at heart over the discovery he had made. Not for all the world would he have added to their unhappiness by voicing the thoughts that were uppermost in his mind, rioting there with an insistent clamor that almost deafened him.
Christine's father was a thief!
From time to time, as they walked down the dark, still street, he glanced at her face, half fearing that his thoughts might have reached her by means of some mysterious telepathic agency. Even in the shadows her face was adorable. He could not see her dark eyes, but he knew they were troubled and afraid. He would have given worlds to have taken her in his arms, then and there, to pour into her little sore heart all the comfort of his new-found adoration.
For days it had been growing upon him, this delicious realization of what she had come to stand for in his life. She had crept into his heart and he was glad. Innate gallantry and a sense of the fitness of things had kept him from uttering one word of love to this young, trusting, unconscious girl. He was very young—stupidly young, he felt—but he was old enough to know that she would not understand. He was content to wait, content to watch. The time would come when he could tell her of the love that was in his heart; but it was not to be thought of now.
He walked between them, carrying Mrs. Braddock's handbag. Christine refused to burden him with hers. As they neared the business section of the town—one of the Ohio River towns—they encountered drunken men and merry-makers. A particularly noisy but amiable group approached them from the opposite direction. Christine nervously clutched David's arm. She came very close to him. He was thrilled by the contact. After the revelers had lurched by them, she gave an odd little laugh and would have removed her hand. He pressed his arm close to his side, imprisoning it. She looked up quickly, a sharp catch in her breath. Then she allowed her hand to rest there passively.
They were nearing the hotel when David impulsively gave utterance to the hungry cry that was struggling in his throat:
"Oh, Mrs. Braddock, if I were free to go back to Jenison Hall! I could ask you and Christine to come there and stay. You'd love it there. It's the finest old place in—"
"Why, David!" cried Mrs. Braddock in surprise.
"Forgive me!" he cried abjectly.
"Oh, I should love it—I should love it, David," cried Christine in a low, wistful voice. It seemed to him that there was a strange, mysterious wail at the back of the words.
Mrs. Braddock uttered a short, bitter laugh. "How good you are, David. What would your friends think if you took circus people there to visit you?"
He replied with grave dignity. "My friends, Mrs. Braddock, include the circus people you mention. I am not likely to forget that you took me in and—"
"And made a clown of you," she interrupted. He was gratified to see a smile on her lips. The light from a window shone in her face. Her eyes were wet and glistening.
He held his tongue for a moment, wavering between impulse and delicacy. His gaze went to Christine's half-averted face. He was moved by sudden apprehension. Was she beginning to suspect the real attitude of Colonel Bob Grand toward her mother? Was it something more than mere antipathy that filled her heart?
"See here, Mrs. Braddock," he began hastily, "I'm right young to be saying this to you, but I want you to know that I am terribly distressed by what has taken place in—in your life. I know you hate Colonel Grand. I know he is a bad man. His new interest in this show is the outgrowth of an old one."
She started. Her eyes were full upon his face.
"You are not likely to know any more peace or happiness here. Why don't you give it up? Why don't you leave the show? Why—"
"David," she said, laying her hand on his arm, "you don't know what you are saying."
"You could go back to your father," he went on ruthlessly. "I know it would be all right. He would not—"
She interrupted him quickly.
"Who has been talking to you of my affairs?"
He bit his lip. "Why, I—well, Joey Grinaldi. He is your best, truest friend. He told me all—"
Christine was leaning forward, peering past him at her mother's averted face. The girl's clutch on his arm tightened perceptibly.
"Mother," she said wonderingly, "what does he mean? Isn't—isn't your father dead? What is it that Joey Noakes has told you, David?"
David realized and was dumb with a sort of consternation. Mrs. Braddock hesitated for a moment, and then said to him, drear despair in her voice:
"Poor David! You don't know what you have done. No, Christine, my father is not dead. Be patient, my darling; I will tell you all there is to tell."
"To-night?" half whispered Christine, dropping David's arm, moved by the horrid fear that there was some dark secret in her life which was to put a barrier between him and her forever.
"Yes, my dear."