XX

Jessie Ogden's supposition with regard to Mary Brainard was justified

by events; the poor exile was allowed to come back to town to attend

her mother's funeral, and, thanks to a providential escort, she was

enabled to bring her child with her. The two arrived under the charge

of a distant relative by marriage of the Centralia Brainards, who was

understood to be on the point of visiting the city anyway, for the

purpose of "buying goods." He was presented by the name of Briggs.

He was a somewhat uncouth and slovenly man of thirty-five--a fair

specimen of the type evolved by the small towns of southern Illinois.

But he had a bright and capable way with him, and it seemed likely

enough that if he were to transfer himself and his business to Chicago,

as he once spoke of doing, he might work himself up into pretty fair

shape. He was a widower.

He showed some fitting sense of the solemnity of the occasion that

had brought him to the house; but it was fair to surmise from various

tokens that his usual treatment of the subdued young mother was in the

line of familiar kindness, which only genuine solicitude kept apart

from semi-jocularity--a jocularity that had almost the effect of an

understanding. He seemed to have about the same understanding with the

baby; he had held it part of the time on the train, and he had shown a

willingness to be useful in the same direction subsequently.

Brainard saw the child once. He looked at the boy's dark hair and eyes

and vented a dreadful oath, and signified that while he and his mother

were in the house the infant must be kept out of sight and out of sound.

Abbie Brainard made no effort towards further mediation between her

father and her sister. The present status was endurable, and there was

little to be gained by additional appeal to the irascible old man; it

was irascibility rather than sorrow which now possessed him. Nothing

irritated him more than an address to the deeper emotions, and the

passing of his life-long partner was an address of this character.

And this irascibility had risen to a pitch of fury on account of the

unfortunate resemblance of Mary Vibert's child to its father.

Abbie was still leading her old life in her old way. She had her

reading, her accounts, her church-work; but she went at these with

less energy than she had shown a year ago. She had lost something in

flesh and something in spirits, but nothing was slighted. She had no

confidants and she made no moan.

"What _is_ the matter with her?" Cornelia would now and then ask

herself. "If she would only rip out and say something; but I never

saw a girl who was so mum. I'll get her out of this place, though, if

anybody can. She has got to come up there and live with me. I'll fetch

that, if I have to pull her up by the roots."

And then, putting generalization in the place of any tangible

particulars, "I believe she's just starving"--which was not altogether

wrong.

Cornelia found no specific grounds for approaching her father-in-law

about Abbie, but she had some words with him about Abbie's sister.

She went to him one evening in his den; it was the day after the

funeral. The distant wailing of the baby's voice had caused him to shut

the door of his little room with a profane slam.

"Mr. Briggs is right there in the parlor," she said to him boldly,

"waiting for her to come down; I don't see that it's going to help

things any to slam doors. If he don't mind the baby, I guess we don't

have to."

He turned upon her fiercely and half rose from his chair. It seemed for

a moment as if he was intending to put her out of the room.

But she stood her ground and stared him full in the face. She was the

only one in the family who, when the real pinch came, could look him

down. He fell back in his seat and fixed an uncertain eye upon the

panels of the door.

"There's such a thing as sense at such places as this, if you'd only

know it," she went on. She spoke out loudly; she knew that if she used

a moderate voice her tones would tremble. "I should think we might hold

in for the day or so that the man's here. He knows why she was sent off

down there, and that's bad enough; but it's worse for him to bring her

up here and have her treated bad right before his face. Why can't you

speak to her at table? Why can't you have--"

"That will do, Cornelia." He beat on the arm of his chair with his

doubled-up fist. "We won't have anything more of this sort of thing.

That will do."

But there was a kind of harsh grin on his face; he either admired her

pluck or anticipated her point. She saw this and knew that she held him

in her hand.

"No, it won't do, Cornelia--not yet. Why do you think he is here? Do

you suppose a man goes travelling around the country with a woman and

a three months' old baby for the fun of it? And he hasn't come up to

'buy goods'--don't you believe it. This is a great chance for Mayme,

everything considered. He's a smart fellow, and you don't want to go

and spoil it all. This is a thing that will take care of itself, if

you'll only give it a show."

He stared at her--still rather forbiddingly. But she saw admiration

appearing through indignation, and she judged that it was gaining the

upper hand.

"Now," she said, with her own hand on the door-knob, "when you ask May

me to-morrow morning if she would like another piece of steak, I want

you to look at her; seems to me this is a time when a family should act

_like_ a family. And I guess it wouldn't hurt you much to put yourself

out far enough to ask that man to smoke a cigar with you. You try. And

I think this door had better stay the way I leave it."

She passed out, leaving the door open. And open it remained.

In such fashion as this came Mary Brainard to her mother's burial. But

her younger brother came not, and no one knew where he was or what he

might be doing.

Briggs left for Centralia on the following evening, his charges

remaining behind, by an inconclusive arrangement that might terminate

in almost any way. Cornelia, who attended his departure with a lively

interest, noticed that Abbie, in her hat and cloak, was trying to

take advantage of this same occurrence to steal out of the house. She

followed her through the vestibule and overtook her half way down the

steps.

"Abbie!" she called after her, "where are you going?"

"'Sh!" Abbie said, softly. "I'm just going out for a few minutes."

"Neighbors?"

"No, not exactly," the girl hesitated. "I'm just going a block or two."

"You don't want to be trotting around alone this time of night. Sha'n't

I go with you?"

She placed her hand on Abbie's arm to draw her back while she put on

her own things. She felt her companion tremble, and saw an expression

of anxiety on her face which she took to mean embarrassment.

"No, Cornelia, I don't want you to go with me. I don't need you, I've

got to go alone."

"Upon my word, I think you're acting mighty queer. I just believe,

Abbie Brainard, that you are going out to meet somebody--you, of all

people!"

Abbie started. "Supposing I am?" she stammered.

"Who is it?" asked Cornelia, peremptorily. Only an extremely eager

interest would have made her take this tone with Abbie. "Well, I must

say, I think your father is a little too bad. Why can't he see that

girls have got to be girls? First it's Mayme and now it's--"

"Cornelia!" cried Abbie, with a violent blush and the trembling voice

that foreshadows tears. "It's my brother! It's Marcus!"

"Marcus!" exclaimed Cornelia. "Then I _am_ going, sure. Where are you

to meet him--in the park?"

Abbie bowed assent.

"Well, then, you wait one second. I'll he right out again."

"Don't come. He won't speak to me if he sees anybody with me."

"I can stand around somewhere--I won't do any harm."

She was actuated as much by curiosity as by sympathy. She had never

seen Marcus, but she remembered the "erring son" of her first play,

and nothing more than one's first play has a fixed footing in one's

association of ideas.

The park lay under the cold glare of the electric light, in the state

of forbidding bareness that overtakes all such urban tracts during

the earlier days of spring. Soggy footprints showed everywhere in the

soaked brown turf that bordered the winding paths, and masses of dead

leaves were matted together at the roots of the spindling shrubbery.

The arc-lights threw a ghastly illumination on the flat white fronts

of the houses that stood around in rows outside as well as on the

stretches of theatrical posters which filled up the spaces between; and

they flung deep shadows into the flimsy arbors and kiosks that started

up here and there within. Abbie, with her companion, traversed a number

of spongy, gravelled paths, and presently the figure of a man emerged

from a summer-house and advanced to meet her. Cornelia turned off, and

paused behind the thickened stalks of a bare bush.

"Marcus!" cried Abbie, as her brother moved towards her, "Marcus, why

didn't you come? I waited at the door to let you in. Could anybody have

made any trouble at such a time as that?"

He came up to her with a few unsteady steps. His eyes were blood-shot,

and on his face, which seemed paler and thinner than ever under the

white flood from the globe overhead, there was a long, half-healed

scar. He looked at her in a dull, dazed way; perhaps he simply

misapprehended these present words, perhaps he was unable to fully

comprehend any words at all.

"You could have gone in a carriage all alone with me," she went on,

in pitiful reproach. "And you could have stayed in it--you needn't

have seen anybody else at all. I wanted you so much. Mayme came; why

couldn't you? Oh, Marcus, you were thought of; your name was almost the

last one said."

She threw her head on his shoulder and burst into tears. He gave way a

little, and then, with an effort, he mastered a steadier pose.

Her crape brushed his face; he felt it, rather than saw it.

[Illustration: "'Is he dead?'"]

"Is he dead?" Something like light came into his dull eye. The

lamp above gave a sudden vast flicker, and the long scar on his face

deepened and lengthened and came back to itself again. It was all like

a sinister and cynical smile.

"Marcus! don't you know? Where have you been? Haven't you got any of my

letters?"

He leaned against the silly rusticity of the summer-house, and looked

at her with a dazed but inquiring eye.

"It's mother! It's mother!" the poor girl cried. "Why didn't you come?"

"Why, how is this?" asked Cornelia, stepping forward. "Hadn't he heard?"

"I mailed them to the same place. And the money--didn't you get that,

either?"

He looked at her steadily and soberly, but his eyes had a heavy droop.

"It's mother," he said at length; "it's mother that's dead." He sat

down carefully on the steps of the summerhouse. "And my name was the

last. Always the last, Abbie. When was it?"

"Has he moved--do you suppose?" asked Cornelia. She regarded him long

and steadily. She seemed about to recognize him--though voice was

apparently counting for more than face.

"It was only day before yesterday," Abbie said. "I tried to see you,

but it was so far and there was so much to do. But I sent you word."

"I haven't been there lately," he said slowly. "I couldn't have come

day before yesterday," he added presently.

"Where have I seen him before?" thought Cornelia. And, "What is the

matter with him?" she seemed to ask of Abbie.

"I couldn't come," he repeated. "I'm sorry," he added humbly. "I

was--somewhere else."

"Have you been away all these three months? I haven't seen you since

almost New Year's. Have you been away from the city all this time?"

"I have been somewhere--somewhere else," he repeated thickly. 'He rose

tremblingly. "I suppose they'll have me there again, some time. Well,

all right," he said, with resignation.

"What does he mean?" asked Abbie, turning appealingly to Cornelia.

Marcus followed his sister's eyes. He looked at Cornelia narrowly, his

own eyes half closed. "Who is this?" he asked.

"It's Cornelia--Burt's wife."

"Burt's wife?" He held her with an enigmatical stare. "I have seen

her," he said; "before."

"Where?" thought Cornelia. "Not possibly at--the theatre?"

"In church," he explained, with a slow gravity. "He isn't dead--Burt?"

"Dead?" cried Cornelia. "No, indeed."

"No, he isn't dead," Marcus repeated deliberately. His eyelids raised

themselves. "He is married; he has half a million," he went on, with

the same slowness. His eye lighted up with a malignant glare. "No, he

isn't dead. But--"

He stretched himself aloft, and thrust out his arm, and staggered, and

only half-saved himself.--"but I will kill him," he added suddenly.

"Marcus!" his sister screamed; "are you mad?"

He lay slantingly against the corner of the summer-house. His arm

caught at the crosspieces of the rustic carpentry, and he hung there

panting. Presently a little stream of blood began to trickle across the

palm of his hand--he had torn himself on a nail. He felt the warm fluid

on his skin, and held up his hand to his own curious and impersonal

inspection.

"Give me your handkerchief, Cornelia," Abbie implored pitifully. She

folded her own and laid Cornelia's over it, and twisted it around his

thumb and tied it over his wrist.

His fingers felt thin and claw-like, and there was a grime rubbed into

their cracked and roughened skin--those girlish fingers (his mother's

fingers) that had once held a pencil so delicately.

"I have seen her--before," he repeated. "Here." He jerked his hand out

of his sister's hold and waved it over the circumscribed and shabby

landscape. The light shimmered on the leaden surface of the pond behind

them, and the wind rustled the stark weeds along its muddy edges. "I

knew it was coming." Abbie caught his hand back. "Half a million; he

never did anything for me. I will kill _him_" he muttered faintly.

Cornelia continued her inspection of him. "Abbie, just look at these

clothes, will you? And he hasn't got any cuffs on, either."

"Marcus!" his sister called appealingly. Her raised voice indicated

that, after all, she must acknowledge him as other than himself. "All

that money I sent you--you need it. Go right away to-morrow to your old

number and get it." She turned to Cornelia. "I haven't got any; have

you? I forgot it, after all."

"Just this half-dollar," she answered. "Exactly what I paid," she said

to herself, "to see him in this part once before." She recognized him

now; she saw that she had been interested in the new actor because

nobody else had seemed so; and she felt sure that his attempt on the

stage had been the same brief failure that all of his other attempts

must have been as well.

Marcus raised himself, and a sly smile came over his face. "Money?" he

said. "Keep it. I don't want it. I can raise all I need. Vibert knew

the ropes, and now I know them just as well myself. I can do business

all right again. No money, Abbie; no." He thrust it back upon her. "He

always said I wasn't _fit_ for business; but I'll show him."

He braced himself and stepped out decidedly into the path. He turned in

the direction of the exit. The other two insensibly took this direction

as well, and fell to regulating their steps by his.

"You are a good sister, Abbie," he said, as they passed out. "You have

been good to me. Good." He put his hand on hers; he had forgotten

that it was bandaged. There was a soft stringency in the folds of the

handkerchiefs, but she felt his grateful pulses underneath.

"Oh, Cornelia," moaned poor Abbie; "I must take him home--I must--I

must! So near at hand--and the place where he belongs. I can't leave

him to go wandering around like this."

Marcus laid his bandaged hand on his sister's shoulder. "No, Abbie."

The earlier waves of a sodden stupor now seemed to be washing over him,

and he looked on the two girls with a dull leer. "Not home. Better

place than home. But some time--I will come home some time. He never

treated me as well as he did Burt." His tones came thickly. "I will

kill him," he murmured softly to himself in a drunken confidence.

He turned off, down a side street. Abbie stood watching him as he

disappeared, to reappear in the light of frequent lamp-posts. Presently

he turned a corner. Abbie clasped her hand tightly in her companion's

and allowed herself to be led home.

"Another job for me," said Cornelia, thoughtfully.