FOLLOWED IN THE STREET.
It was noon when Fair sealed her letter, and, putting on her little
black turban, went down the hall toward good Mrs. Burns’ room.
She intended to leave the letter for Sadie Allen in the woman’s care,
and also to entreat her to go with her as far as the factory, where she
would beg Mrs. Jones, the forewoman, to find her a safe place to stay
until Sadie Allen came back.
But in Mrs. Burns’ room she found only little Emma, the ten-year-old
girl, minding the baby and the younger children, while her mother went
out for the day, to assist a lady in house-cleaning.
Fair’s heart sank, but she knew she had to go, so she said to the child:
“Little Emma, I am going away. Mrs. Levy has ordered me to leave the
house, so I am going back to the factory to work. Tell your mother
good-by.”
Then she placed the letter in the child’s hand.
“My dear, will you take care of this until Miss Sadie Allen comes, and
give it to her with your own hands?” she asked, and the child promised
faithfully to do so.
Fair bade her good-by, left the key of Sadie’s room with her, and,
having no further excuse to linger, went downstairs and out of the
house into the street, half dead with fear and hunger combined, so that
her limbs trembled beneath her as she walked.
She felt quite sure that Carl Bernicci was watching for her to come
out of the door, and she looked fearfully up and down the street, but
saw nothing of him. He was on the lookout, indeed, but too wary to be
detected.
But Fair saw a policeman passing, and darted to his side.
“Oh, sir, will you let me walk with you down this street? I’m afraid to
go alone, as I think I’m followed by a bad man,” she panted.
“Why, certainly, child,” said the officer, who was old enough to be her
father, and looked very good-natured.
Fair walked along close to his side, and Carl Bernicci, who beheld it
all, gnashed his teeth with rage.
“I’d like to see any bad man bothering you, little one. He’d get a
taste of my club, sure,” said the friendly policeman. “But how far are
you going? You know, my beat is only a few squares farther on.”
“To the factory where I work.”
“Why don’t you take a street car? He couldn’t molest you in there.”
She blushed deeply, and faltered:
“I have no money.”
“Pshaw! That needn’t stand in the way,” and he drew from his pocket a
little package of car tickets. “Take these,” he said, and escorted her
to the first car.
“Bless you!” she faltered, as they parted, and she said to herself that
if she had had a fortune she would have been willing to divide it with
the good man.
She was fortunate enough to reach the factory without being molested,
and went up to the workroom, where, to her dismay, she found that her
machine had been given to another girl.
“The foreman thought you were not coming back, as you stayed away so
long without an excuse,” Mrs. Jones said, rather sternly. Then, seeing
what a frightened, despairing look came into the lovely pallid face,
she added, more kindly: “But I think they want a new errand girl, and
if you will apply to the foreman at once perhaps you may secure the
place until you can get a machine again.”
“I will apply for the place,” said Fair. Then she added hurriedly:
“Mrs. Jones, I have left the house where I was staying with Sadie
Allen. Do you--think--you--could let me board at your house
until--Sadie comes home? I’d pay you all my wages.”
The forewoman frowned, and answered:
“I don’t like to seem rude, my dear, but I don’t think I could take
you, I have so little room; besides, you know, I should be liable to
prosecution by your husband, as he has published you in the paper,
threatening any one who harbors you with the law.”
Fair’s face flushed burning red.
“How dare he--the coward!” she exclaimed; but the forewoman replied
tartly:
“He had a right to do so.”
“Am I to be hunted down like this?” Fair cried despairingly; but the
forewoman told her that it would be much better for her to forgive her
husband and go home with him.
“I will never do it. I would die first!” Fair replied, as she turned
away, and the emphatic words were overheard by many.
Many of Fair’s old friends and companions nodded and smiled at her as
she passed them by, and if they had known that she was suffering and
starving they would have divided their purses and their lunches with
her, and some, perhaps, would have tried to find her a refuge for her
defenseless head; but she had begun to think that not a friend remained
to her in the whole world. She distrusted their smiles and friendly
glances, and passed on in silence, followed by a sneer from Belva Platt
and several others whom she had brought to her way of thinking.
She went to the foreman’s office, and made her request for the place of
errand girl, and the foreman gave it to her, promising that she should
have her place at a machine again as soon as possible.
Encouraged by his kindness, Fair timidly asked if she could get a very
small sum in advance.
If he had known that she was literally starving, he would not have
refused her faltering request; but she would not tell him that she
wished the money to buy food, so he answered that it was impossible, as
it was against the rules.
“And, by the way, you had better go at once to this address,” he
said, handing her a card on which was engraved a name and number on
Fifth Avenue. “We furnished a very handsome robe for a young girl
who has just died there, and a note came just now, stating that some
alteration must be made in the neck trimming. You can go there and do
the necessary work.”
Fair blessed the noble policeman again in her heart as she thought of
the packet of car tickets he had given her. She would not have to walk
to Fifth Avenue now. Indeed, she well knew that she could not have done
it, for her limbs tottered painfully beneath her, and her head swam as
she went out of the factory door, struggling bravely with the pangs of
hunger, and longing for even a crust of bread with which to satisfy her
terrible craving for food.
She rode along in the car, starting as every person entered it,
fearing lest Carl Bernicci’s unwelcome face should present itself;
but although he was near the factory she had left, his thirst had
driven him into a barroom just at the moment that she appeared upon the
street, so he missed her, and while she was on her way to Fifth Avenue
he was watching the factory and cursing at her delay in coming forth,
for Belva had advised him that Fair’s place had been filled, and he
could not imagine what had detained her so long.
“I’ll make my lady pay for all I’ve endured since I married her, if
ever I get her into my clutches!” he muttered fiercely.
But “my lady” at that moment was standing with wet eyes and bated
breath in a house furnished with palatial magnificence, beside the
white velvet casket that held the body of a beautiful young girl
of about her own age--a lovely marble mask that, strangely enough,
resembled Fair in a high degree, for the beautiful hair lying in loose
curls upon the fragrant pillow of white flowers was the same shade of
bright-red gold, and the face and features had so subtle a likeness
that the neat maid who had been sent to show Fair the necessary
alterations she was to make started, and exclaimed:
“Gracious, miss, you look very much like poor Miss Azalia did when she
was alive.”
Fair scarcely noticed the words. She was threading her needle through
tears that dimmed her sight, and when the maid went out to call her
mistress, the dead girl’s mother, she bent over the girl, and sobbed
forlornly:
“Oh, you beautiful angel! I wish that Heaven had taken me, instead
of you, for you had father, mother, home, and friends, while I am an
unhappy orphan, without a friend and without a home.”
In her agitation, she did not notice that the door had opened
noiselessly, admitting a handsome, pale-faced, elderly woman, dressed
in deep, rich black. She paused and listened in amazement to the
mournful plaint of the girl who had come from the factory to arrange
her daughter’s burial robe.
Believing herself quite alone, Fair continued, half deliriously:
“How beautiful you are, sweet one! Many must have loved you in your
short, happy life; but I have no one to love me while I live, nor to
grieve for me when I die. I, who have no more tears left to shed for
my own misery, cannot help weeping for you. I love you!”
And her tears rained among the white roses and lay glittering upon them
like dew.
The lady came gliding forward, and stood opposite Fair, gazing with
heavy, despairing eyes at the beautiful marble form before her; and
then Fair started, and exclaimed falteringly:
“I beg your pardon!”
“Who are you, child?” asked the lady, in a sad, gentle voice.
“I am a sewing girl from the factory. I came to alter this,” she said,
pointing to the exquisite robe that enveloped the body of Azalia Howard.
“Ah, yes,” said Mrs. Howard, and she indicated what she wished done,
and the small alteration was performed in silence, the lady watching
the work, and noting, as the maid had done, the striking resemblance of
the humble working girl to the dead heiress.
Fair finished the task, and lifted from it a face almost as white as
the one in the casket.
“That is very satisfactory,” the lady began, and Fair faltered faintly:
“I am very glad--for--for--I am sick. The flowers made me feel faint;
they--they--are so heavy.”
She was staggering, with weak, uncertain footsteps, past the lady; but
she caught her arm, and said kindly:
“Wait and have a little wine.”