It was a hot August afternoon in New York, especially hot in the
downtown districts, where it was damp and muggy, for it had been
drizzling all the morning. The sun blazing behind the thin vapour-like
clouds had converted the rain into steam, and the almost complete
absence of a breeze had added to the personal discomfort of those who
were compelled to be out of doors. Altogether it was a most
uncomfortable afternoon; and the task of running up and down stairs and
answering the front door-bell increased the misery of the maid of all
work in Miss Husted's furnished-room establishment on Houston Street,
near Second Avenue.
"Phew, ain't it a scorcher?" muttered the young woman as she mounted
the kitchen stairs in answer to some visitor's second tug at the bell.
She walked across the hall that led to the front door.
"Don't the dratted bell keep goin'," she went on as she tugged open the
door, which the damp weather had caused to swell and stick to the
door-jamb.
"Forgot your key?" she said as she recognised Signor Tagliafico, better
known as Fico, the third-floor, hall-bedroom "guest," as Miss Husted
insisted on calling her lodgers.
"Forgot your key?" repeated the girl, as the gentleman from Italy
shrugged his shoulders and otherwise disported himself in an endeavour
to convey to her the news that he had lost his key and felt extremely
sorry to trouble her.
"Keys is made to open doors, not to forget," continued the girl,
banging the door shut.
The noise brought Miss Husted out into the hall in less time than it
takes to state the fact.
"What is it, Thurza?" she asked, showing evidence of being startled out
of a doze by the noise.
"Third floor front forgot his key, Miss Houston," said the girl
sulkily, as Fico trudged upstairs to his room.
"I wouldn't mind if he wasn't behind three weeks," said Miss Husted,
who usually answered to the name of Miss Houston, chiefly because she
lived in Houston Street.
"Well, _I_ mind it," muttered the girl to herself, "whether he's behind
or whether he isn't. It makes work for me, and there ain't enough time
for regular, let alone extras," she went on, as she turned to go down
stairs to the kitchen.
"Quite right," said Miss Husted, as she closed the door and returned to
her room. Experience had taught her that it was useless to argue with
Thurza. The girl was open to impression, but not to explanation; once
an idea found lodgment in her brain it stayed there, despite all
argument to the contrary. It was most mortifying to Miss Husted that
Thurza had such deep-rooted prejudices against every guest that found
his way into her establishment. Lodgers made work; the more lodgers
the more work; ergo, lodgers were enemies, is the way Thurza reasoned
it out; and she resumed her occupation of cleaning silver (save the
mark) almost as cheerfully as she had left it to answer the door-bell.
"Dear me," sighed Miss Husted, "how hard it is to get help and how much
harder it is to keep them! Back again already? Why, Jenny, you must
have flown!" this last to a rather pretty little girl who had just
entered the door.
"Yes, aunt," replied the girl, "I knew Thurza must be busy--so--I--I
hurried."
"I can see that," her aunt said reprovingly, "you are dripping wet; you
shouldn't walk so fast in this hot weather."
Jenny was a thoughtful child. She had lived rather an unhappy
existence with her parents, for her father had deserted her mother when
she was three years old and after her mother's death she had come to
her aunt "for a few days" until a home could be found for her. The few
days were over some years before, for Miss Husted loved the child far
too well to let her go, and gladly made a home for her. Jenny loved
her aunt and stayed on. Curiously enough, not a word had ever been
spoken between them on the subject, and the little girl just fitted in,
adapting herself to Aunt Sarah's ways. Now this process of adjustment
was by no means an easy accomplishment, for Aunt Sarah had no sense of
time. She thought and felt herself to be just as young as she was
years and years ago.
Her looking-glass must have given her several hard jolts, but she
either believed a looking-glass to be an illusion or ignored its
evidence altogether; for though it showed her the face of a woman near
the danger line of fifty, she insisted on considering herself as in the
neighbourhood of thirty. She carried herself with the dignity of a
duchess; that is, a conventional duchess, and talked habitually with
the hauteur and elegance of a stage queen. Her kingdom was the Houston
Street establishment, her guests were her subjects, her aristocracy
were the foreign gentlemen who occupied rooms in the various parts of
her house, mostly hall bedrooms. She doted on fashion, refinement,
pungent perfumery and expensive flowers; anything that to her mind
suggested social grandeur appealed intensely to her. Even the old
house, now situated in an exceedingly unfashionable quarter, held a
place in her affections because years before it had been a part of
fashionable New York, and she felt quite proud because she was known as
Miss Houston of Houston Street. The name suggested a title, and a
title of all things was dear to her heart. Perhaps her love for Jenny
was stronger because her father was supposed--by his unfortunate wife
at least--to have been the scion of a proud and aristocratic family,
who had not been too proud, however, to leave her to starve.
Altogether, Miss Husted was an exceedingly romantic, high-strung,
middle-aged spinster, miles and miles above her station in life, whose
heart and purse were open to any foreigner who had discernment enough
to see her weakness and tact enough to pander to it by hinting at his
noble lineage. This love of things and beings aristocratic was more
than a weakness. It was a disease, for it kept poor a good soul, who
otherwise might have been, if not well-to-do, at least fairly
prosperous.
Jenny, young as she was, knew all this. She knew that Fico, or Signor
Tagliafico, was a struggling musician and not an artist in any sense of
the word. She knew he was an ordinary Italian fiddler who preferred to
fiddle for food rather than to work manually for it. And yet her aunt
had confided to her that she was sure he was a count, because one day
Miss Husted had asked him the question, and the man, not quite
understanding, had smiled and shrugged his shoulders. Still, he had
not denied it, so thenceforth was known as Count Fico.
And Pinac, the gentleman who occupied the other back room next to that
of Fico? Miss Husted was sure that he was a descendant of the noble
refugees from France, who emigrated during the Reign of Terror in the
French Revolution. The romance of this appealed highly to her.
Monsieur Pinac was always silent when questioned on this point, but
Miss Husted was much interested. His silence surely meant something,
and besides, he looked every inch a nobleman with his fashionably cut
Van Dyck beard. There was a picture of the Duc de Guise in one of the
bedrooms--Heavens only knows where Miss Husted got it, but there it
was--and pointing to it with great pride, she defied Monsieur Pinac to
deny his relationship to the defunct duke. Pinac did not take the
trouble to deny it! As a matter of fact, he was simply an ordinary
musician who continued to follow his profession because it paid him
better than any other business he could embark in. Music is often the
line of easiest resistance, and many there be that slide down its
graceful curves. In more senses than one, it is easier to play than to
work. But when Miss Husted conferred a patent of nobility on a foreign
gentleman, were he an Italian organ-grinder or a French waiter, that
title stood, his own protest to the contrary notwithstanding. In this
particular view-point Miss Husted was completely opposite to her maid
of all work.
Thurza's mental attitude was the socialistic slant that made for the
destruction of aristocracy; Miss Husted's system created one of her
own. To Thurza foreigners were either "dagoes" or "Dutch"; to Miss
Husted they were either "gentlemen" or "noblemen" or both. In this
way, perhaps, the balance of harmony was restored in Houston Mansion,
as Miss Husted dearly loved to call her home. There was some
foundation for believing that the name Houston Mansion was painted on
the glass over the front door, but it was so worn that no one could
decipher it.
A violent ring at the door-bell interrupted the conversation between
Miss Husted and her niece.
"They'll break the bell if they're not careful," remarked the elder
lady, arranging her ringlets in the event that it might be some one to
see her.
"It's a lady," whispered Jenny to her aunt a few moments later. "She
wants a room."
Miss Husted sniffed. "I don't like ladies; they're twice the trouble
that gentlemen are, and--I don't know--I don't like 'em. Ladies
looking for furnished rooms always have a history--and a past; I don't
like 'em."
Jenny nodded without in the least understanding her aunt. She had
heard this before, but she knew it was a peculiarity of Miss Husted
always to say the same thing under the same circumstances, whether the
occasion called for it or not.
"Shall I ask her in, or will you come out into the hall?" went on the
child.
"Ask her kindly to step into the reception-room," said her aunt,
kicking a feather duster under the sofa and generally tidying up a bit.
A large, stout person of uncertain age stood in the doorway.
"Is this the reception-room?" asked the lady, fixing her glasses and
looking about her as if quite prepared to disbelieve any statement Miss
Husted was about to make. That lady, much offended, drew herself up
stiffly.
"Yes, this is the reception-room," she said, in a tone intended to be
frigidly polite. "May I inquire to what am I indebted for the honour
of this visit?"
The fat lady sniffed contemptuously and sat down.
"I think it's the sign 'Furnished Rooms' that can claim the honour,"
she said simply.
"Sit down, Jenny, and stop fidgeting," Miss Husted snapped out,
ignoring the fat lady's attempt at smartness.
"I want a room if you have one vacant. My name is Mangenborn."
"Top floor?" inquired Miss Husted.
"I suppose you think a lady of my avoirdupois ought to live on the top
floor so as to have plenty of exercise, eh?" inquired Mrs. Mangenborn
with an attempt at humour. Then, without waiting for a reply, she went
on:
"Well, you've just guessed right! What kind of people do you have in
this house?"
"My guests are artists and gentlemen."
"Which?" inquired the stout lady, and laughed; she saw the joke if Miss
Husted didn't and was good natured enough to laugh even if it were her
own. "Well, I'm an artist," she said after a pause.
"Indeed?" said Miss Husted, and there was a slight inflection of
sarcasm in that lady's voice.
Mrs. Mangenborn was either deaf or did not notice it, for she went on
unconsciously:
"Yes, I am an artist--a second-sight artist."
"Second-sight?"
"Yes; I tell fortunes, read the future----"
"Oh?" said Miss Husted, and that one word was enough to have driven an
ordinary person out of the front door, convinced of being insulted, but
Mrs. Mangenborn was not sensitive.
"I should like a cup of tea," she said simply. "It's a very hot day."
The magnificent coolness of this request fairly caught Miss Husted.
This woman spoke like one accustomed to command; and much to Jenny's
astonishment (she had been listening attentively) her aunt sent her to
order tea for two.
Given a person who can tell fortunes, and another person on the lookout
for one, a person who has infinite hope in the future, whose whole life
indeed is in the future, and it doesn't take long to establish an
_entente cordiale_. When Jenny came back a few minutes later, to her
utter astonishment she saw the mysterious fat lady dealing cards to her
aunt and talking of events past, present, and future; and her aunt
chatting as pleasantly as if she had known the woman all her life.
"However can you tell that?" asked Miss Husted as she sipped her tea
and cut the cards for the ninetieth time.
"Don't you see the king? That means a visitor!"
"Yes; but how did you know that my best first-floor rooms were to let?"
Mrs. Mangenborn shrugged her shoulders and smiled.
"_That_ I cannot tell you; I can't even tell myself; it just comes to
me."
She did not remind Miss Husted that the best rooms in most boarding
establishments in that locality were usually to let, because the people
who could afford to pay the price seldom wanted to live in that
neighbourhood; but she did tell her several things that must have
pleased her immensely, for in a short while, after Mrs. Mangenborn had
disposed of a second cup of tea, that lady was fairly ensconced in a
seven-dollar front room on the first floor for a price that did not
exceed three dollars. However, if half her predictions came true, it
would have been a fine bargain for Miss Husted or any other landlady to
have her as a guest.
As Jenny confided to Thurza in the kitchen a few hours later:
"You'll see. If the ground-floor parlor and bedroom aren't let next
week, the new lady in the first floor front will get notice to leave
because she's told a fortune that won't come true, and aunt will be
angry. She keeps her word and she always expects people to keep
theirs."
"My fortune never came true," grunted Thurza as she lifted a tub of
washing off the table.
"Jenny, Mrs. Mangenborn wants you to go on an errand for her," called
her aunt downstairs.
"Thought she wasn't never goin' to take females in her home again,"
said Thurza, as Jenny went upstairs to obey her aunt's order.
As Jenny closed the front door gently on her way to the stores, she
mused sadly on the fact that her aunt, and not Mrs. Mangenborn, had
given her the money with which to make the purchases. She hoped with
childish optimism that the second-sight lady would pay her back; the
other guests never did. Jenny sighed as she thought how much easier it
would be on rent-days if auntie didn't advance money.
The front-door bell rang so often that day that Thurza declared it rang
when it didn't ring, and was equally positive that the dratted bell
didn't ring when it did ring. At all events, when the bell had been
nearly jerked out of its socket for the third time, Miss Husted poked
her head out of Mrs. Mangenborn's room and shouted for Thurza to hurry
up and answer it. As she received no answer, she went down a flight to
the head of the kitchen stairs, and gave vent to a most unusual display
of temper. This was brought on by the fact that Mrs. Mangenborn had
just declared that never in all her born days (to say nothing of her
unborn moments) had she seen such a wonderful display of good fortune
as that which lay in the cards spread on the table before them; there
was a marriage just as sure as death. Mrs. Mangenborn was proceeding
to describe the masculine element in the marriage proposition, and Miss
Husted was trying to think who it could be, when the bell rang for the
third time just as Thurza's head made its appearance above the kitchen
stairs. Miss Husted decided to forget her dignity and go to the door
herself.
Outside stood a hack piled up with baggage, and on the doorstep,
waiting patiently, stood a gentleman who bowed when the door was opened
and asked gently with a foreign accent, if Miss Husted had a room for a
studio and a bedroom. There was much bustle and excitement, a great
deal of noise, and a still greater deal of confusion, but when it had
subsided and the hackman had been paid three times as much as he was
legally entitled to, the baggage was carried, or rather tumbled, into
the rooms engaged by the gentleman with the foreign accent. Miss
Husted rushed into Mrs. Mangenborn's room and breathlessly gasped that
her fortune had come true, for the front parlor and bedroom were let at
their full prices.
"Just think of it, Mrs. Mangborn," as Miss Husted insisted on calling
her "guest," "just think of it, full price in summer!"
Mrs. Mangenborn rose to the occasion.
"Why not?" demanded she, as if offended by Miss Husted's enthusiasm,
"why not? The cards never lie! How much do you say he is to pay?" she
went on, as if Miss Husted had told her and she had forgotten the
precise amount.
"Fourteen," replied Miss Husted, "and it's a good price."
"Not bad! But wait, you'll see that's only the beginning," and Mrs.
Mangenborn mixed up the cards lying on the table oblivious of the fact
that she had just shuffled Miss Husted's marital prospects out of
existence.
"Oh, that's nothing," she hastened to say as she saw the expression of
alarm on Miss Husted's face. "It'll come out again. It's in the cards
and it must come out." Then she asked, "Who is he? What is he?"
"He's an artist of some sort, a fine, noble-looking old gentleman.
German! oh such fine, elegant manners; to the manner born I am sure! A
musician, I think; he had a violin with him."
Mrs. Mangenborn's nose elevated itself a little.
"No money in music! What's his name?" she asked.
"I don't know," said Miss Husted. "He gave me his card, but I was so
flustered I didn't look at it."
She opened the reticule she always carried at her side, containing
keys, recipes, receipts, almost everything that could be crowded into
it, and after quite a little sifting and sorting she took out a card on
which was inscribed:
"Herr Anton Von Barwig."