THE COMING OF JOHN STARK
Harry rose from his seat at the desk in the Record-Room and went over
to the window. The frost had painted silver ferns and sea weed on its
pane, and the prison yard, under the high, saffron-tinted sun, was
white with a light powdering of snow which hid its harsh outlines and
dingy yellow hue with a mantle of purity and beauty. It was a stinging
cold though sunshiny afternoon. Along the wall the sentries, as they
paced, swung benumbed arms to start the sluggish blood coursing to
warmth. Here and there on the hard ground a pigeon traced its feathery
footprints, startling the quarrelsome sparrows, and above in the clear
sky a buzzard drew widening circles, an ink-blot on the blue. Across
the open space came the muffled roar of the shops and down under the
inner gateway the gate-keeper was stamping his Arctic-shod feet and
whistling "Weep no more my lad-ee," in syncopated time.
Two weeks Harry had been in the hospital ward, for after those months
of confinement the depleted blood had made recuperation slow; but he
had steadily mended, and now, though still at times his healing
shoulder pained him somewhat, he was practically as strong as before.
He had been acutely grateful for the change to the pleasant
Record-Room, with its broad window to the sunshine and the drier upper
air, for the fact that he no longer tramped in the lock-step or took
his meals in the common mess-room--most of all for release from his
unsavoury cell-mate. For since the affair in the shop, he had been
given a cell to himself.
His momentary glimpse on that day of Echo had stung his every sense to
quivering protest. It had pierced, as with a fiery sword, the torpor
which had unwrapped his love with its protecting armour and that love
had awaked to agonised consciousness, vivified and intensified. Then,
in his loneliness, the knowledge that the woman he would have died for
had left him to drag out his penalty, would sweep over him till a
fierce hatred of her would rise up in him--to be swept away as swiftly
by something sweeter and stronger that would not be denied. So, in the
end, mingled with this confusion of feeling, there came to him the
knowledge that the bitter conviction that she could never again be
anything to him, with the contempt for life which had grown from it,
had been nevertheless inexpressibly softened by the living warmth of
her presence, sad and fleeting as that had been.
Presently Harry turned back to the desk, and picked up the annotated
card, a portion of whose record he had been about to transcribe in
permanent form in a leathern tome that lay there. It was the
filing-card on whose reverse side was pasted his own photograph,
full-face and profile, and containing his physical measurements--taken
upon the precise and delicate instruments that lined the room--which
had been filled out on the day of his arrival. It was the sight of
this, with the bitter memories it evoked, which had given him pause.
There it was, an enduring monument, stamping forever the man to whom it
corresponded, a convict, thrust, so long as he should live, from the
society of clean and upright men and women, debarred even from the
exercise of the functions of citizenship!
As he dipped his pen in the ink, a quick step sounded on the stairway,
and the door opened to admit a man wearing a frogged overcoat with huge
fur collar and lapels, and a fur cap whose flaps were turned down over
his ears. He was about Harry's age though of slightly heavier build,
with somewhat similar firm chin and grey eyes, but with cheeks in which
the blood darkled redly, and across one was a slanting scar, slight but
sufficiently perceptible. He carried a small valise which he set down,
blowing on his nattily-gloved fingers.
"Oh! I beg pardon," he said. "The Warden told me I might change my
togs up here. I didn't know the room was occupied."
"You'll not disturb me," answered Harry. "As it happens, I am occupied
too."
The stranger laughed--a rather eager, boyish laugh which caught Harry
with a subtle tang of old acquaintance. With the pen in his hand, he
was staring curiously at that ruddy cheek and its slanting scar, his
mind following something elusive and far away. He was feeling the edge
of a half-recollection, vague and shadowy and dream-like, of a saw-dust
bar-room floor lighted with flaring lamps, of ribald conversation, of a
deal table across which a face like that had looked at him. But the
memory at which he grasped had belonged to that phase of intoxication
in which sense-impression had left no enduring record, and he could not
capture it.
John Stark was unconscious of the fixed gaze. He had opened the valise
upon a chair and now was laying its contents upon another. Harry saw
with surprise that these included a striped jacket and trousers, flat
peaked cap and heavy hob-nailed shoes such as each inmate of the prison
wore. Last he took out a flat tin box which opened out in two
sections, and set it on the end of the desk. It was a "make-up" box of
the stage dressing-room, and the sight of its tiny compartments,
holding rouge, lamp-black, powder and grease-paint, the pencils and
hare's foot, brought back to Harry with a rush old days of amateur
theatricals and society stagery. These articles laid out, the other
began rapidly to undress. He chuckled as, turning, he caught the look
of puzzle on Harry's face.
"I'm not really crazy," he said laughingly. "The fact is, I'm trying
an experiment--with the Warden's permission. For half an hour I'm
going to take my place with those fellows down there;"--he nodded
towards the window--"going in to supper with them. I have a bet on
with the Deputy Warden that I can do it so that none of the
Superintendents will spot me!"
He had discarded shirt, collar and shoes, and was now arraying himself
in the coarse striped garments and clumsy foot-wear. He looked himself
over half-humorously. "Ugh!" he exclaimed. "I swear, it gives me the
creeps. This is the real stuff, you see! I don't get the true spirit
of the thing when I play it."
"When you play it?" repeated Harry, inquiringly.
"Oh," said the other. "I ought to explain. I'm starring in 'The Jail
Bird'--the play that's on here this week. I have the title-role. It's
a fad with me to get up my 'business' first-hand, and this institution
is too good a chance to miss. It's mighty good press-agent stuff for
the local papers, incidentally!" The lid of the tin box was a mirror,
and propping this upright, he now busied himself with the facial
make-up, applying a greyish grease-paint which obliterated the scar on
the cheek and lent the requisite pallor, and deepening this with darker
pencilled shades. In the midst of his labour he asked:
"Have you seen the piece?"
"No," said Harry, grimly. "Our business here interferes somewhat with
our evening pleasures."
Something in the tone made the other look up quickly. Harry's cap had
been pushed back when the visitor had entered. He had on, also, a
spotless duck over-jacket which buttoned close up to the throat. Now
the cap was pulled low on his forehead, and the jacket was open,
revealing the tell-tale stripes beneath. The actor started.
"By Jove!" he ejaculated, in embarrassment. "I thought--I didn't
know--"
"So I perceived," said Harry calmly. "Pray do not apologise, however.
The atmosphere does not tend to develop over-sensitiveness. I must
congratulate you on your appearance. The effect is really wonderful."
There was no sarcasm in his words: the illusion was marvellously
carried. When the peaked cap was pulled over the other's forehead, a
little to one side, Harry thought him highly likely to carry off his
wager with the Deputy Warden.
At the moment the bell sounded--the signal to knock off work for the
early supper--and John Stark rose hastily. "I'm off now for the
lock-step," he said, with his hand on the door. "By the way, if these
duds of mine are in the way, chuck 'em in some other room. I can dress
anywhere."
The brogans clattered down the stair.
Harry went to the window and watched him cross the yard, a turnkey,
wearing a suppressed grin, by his side. Then he returned to the desk,
but his pen lay idle by his hand. The curious visit, with its whiff of
the outside world, had been packed with clutching reminders of things
that had had pleasant part in his past--reminders of society nights
when, for sweet charity's sake, he had played those old mimic roles.
Some one entered, bringing his supper in a tin pail, and went out
again, but he did not look up. He was thinking with bitterness that
the flippant masquerader, sitting now with that striped company in the
mess-room, would presently emerge, free to pass out into the glad
world. It would be only a lark to laugh over, an essay in effrontery
performed for a wager and the delectation of a press-agent!
Harry suddenly felt the longing to be free take him by the throat, so
that he trembled in every limb with the force of it. He smelled the
wind racing across frosty meadows; he could almost fancy that he heard
the flow of river-water under its icy coverlet; he could almost see the
gnarled catalpas along the Allen driveway lifting their wintry twisted
arms toward him. What would it not mean to him if he, like that
cheerful stroller, might but slough off this hateful, unnatural
character and step forth, himself again!
He started. A thought mad as a nightmare had flashed through his
brain. He felt his blood beat to his temples; then instantly he became
icily cool and tense in every nerve.
In another moment he had thrown off his over-jacket, and was seated
before the make-up box.