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THE ART OF
DISAPPEARING
_By_ John Talbot Smith
_AUTHOR:_
"SARANAC" "HIS HONOR THE MAYOR," "A WOMAN OF CULTURE,"
"SOLITARY ISLAND," "TRAINING OF A PRIEST," ETC., ETC.
NEW YORK, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO:
BENZIGER BROTHERS
PRINTERS TO THE HOLY APOSTOLIC SEE.
COPYRIGHT, 1902,
BY
JOHN TALBOT SMITH
_All Rights Reserved_
CONTENTS.
DISAPPEARANCE.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. The Holy Oils 1
II. The Night at the Tavern 7
III. The Abysses of Pain 16
IV. The Road to Nothingness 25
V. The Door is Closed 33
AMONG THE EXILES.
VI. Another Man's Shoes 40
VII. The Dillon Clan 55
VIII. The Wearin' o' the Green 68
IX. The Villa at Coney Island 77
X. The Humors of Election 87
XI. An Endicott Heir 100
THE GREEN AGAINST THE RED.
XII. The Hate of Hannibal 107
XIII. Anne Dillon's Felicity 119
XIV. Aboard the "Arrow" 128
XV. The Invasion of Ireland 137
XVI. Castle Moyna 147
XVII. The Ambassador 158
AN ESCAPED NUN.
XVIII. Judy Visits the Pope 170
XIX. La Belle Colette 177
XX. The Escaped Nun 190
XXI. An Anxious Night 199
XXII. The End of a Melodrama 208
XXIII. The First Blow 218
XXIV. Anne Makes History 227
XXV. The Cathedral 236
XXVI. The Fall of Livingstone 248
THE TEST OF DISAPPEARANCE.
XXVII. A Problem of Disappearance 258
XXVIII. A First Test 266
XXIX. The Nerve of Anne 274
XXX. Under the Eyes of Hate 283
XXXI. The Heart of Honora 296
XXXII. The Pauline Privilege 304
XXXIII. Love is Blind 312
XXXIV. A Harpy at the Feast 320
XXXV. Sonia Consults Livingstone 327
XXXVI. Arthur's Appeal 335
XXXVII. The End of Mischief 344
XXXVIII. A Tale Well Told 351
XXXIX. Three Scenes 360
DISAPPEARANCE.
THE ART OF DISAPPEARING.
CHAPTER I.
THE HOLY OILS.
Horace Endicott once believed that life began for him the day he married
Sonia Westfield. The ten months spent with the young wife were of a hue
so roseate as to render discussion of the point foolish. His youth had
been a happy one, of the roystering, innocent kind: noisy with yachting,
baseball, and a moderate quantity of college beer, but clean, as if his
mother had supervised it; yet he had never really lived in his
twenty-five years, until the blessed experience of a long honeymoon and
a little housekeeping with Sonia had woven into his life the light of
sun and moon and stars together. However, as he admitted long
afterwards, his mistake was as terrible as convincing. Life began for
him that day he sat in the railway carriage across the aisle from
distinguished Monsignor O'Donnell, prelate of the Pope's household,
doctor in theology, and vicar-general of the New York diocese. The train
being on its way to Boston, and the journey dull, Horace whiled away a
slow hour watching the Monsignor, and wondering what motives govern the
activity of the priests of Rome. The priest was a handsome man of fifty,
dark-haired, of an ascetic pallor, but undoubtedly practical, as his
quick and business-like movements testified. His dark eyes were of fine
color and expression, and his manners showed the gentleman.
"Some years ago," thought Horace, "I would have studied his person for
indications of hoofs and horns--so strangely was I brought up. He is
just a poor fellow like myself--it is as great a mistake to make these
men demi-gods as to make them demi-devils--and he denies himself a wife
as a Prohibitionist denies himself a drink. He goes through his
mummeries as honestly as a parson through his sermons or a dervish
through his dances--it's all one, and we must allow for it in the
make-up of human nature. One man has his parson, another his priest, a
third his dervish--and I have Sonia."
This satisfactory conclusion he dwelt upon lovingly, unconscious that
the Monsignor was now observing him in turn.
"A fine boy," the priest thought, "with _man_ written all over him.
Honest face, virtuous expression, daring too, loving-hearted, lovable,
clever, I'm sure, and his life has been too easy to develop any marked
character. Too young to have been in the war, but you may be sure he
wanted to go, and his mother had to exercise her authority to keep him
at home. He has been enjoying me for an hour.... I'm as pleasant as a
puzzle to him ... he preferred to read me rather than Dickens, and I
gather from his expression that he has solved me. By this time I am
rated in his mind as an impostor. Oh, the children of the Mayflower, how
hard for them to see anything in life except through the portholes of
that ship."
With a sigh the priest returned to his book, and the two gentlemen,
having had their fill of speculation, forgot each other directly and
forever. At this point the accident occurred. The slow train ran into a
train ahead, which should have been farther on at that moment. All the
passengers rose up suddenly, without any ceremony, quite speechless, and
flew up the car like sparrows. Then the car turned on its left side, and
Horace rolled into the outstretched arms and elevated legs of Monsignor
O'Donnell. He was kicked and embraced at the same moment, receiving
these attentions in speechless awe, as he could not recall who was to
blame for the introduction and the attitude. For a moment he reasoned
that they had become the object of most outrageous ridicule from the
other passengers; for these latter had suddenly set up a shouting and
screeching very scandalous. Horace wondered if the priest would help him
to resent this storm of insult, and he raised himself off the
Monsignor's face, and removed the rest of his person from the
Monsignor's body, in order the more politely to invite him to the
battle. Then he discovered the state of things in general. The
overthrown car was at a stand-still. That no one was hurt seemed happily
clear from the vigorous yells of everybody, and the fine scramble
through the car-windows. The priest got up leisurely and felt himself.
Next he seized his satchel eagerly.
"Now it was more than an accident that I brought the holy oils along,"
said he to Horace. "I was vexed to find them where they shouldn't be,
yet see how soon I find use for them. Someone must be badly hurt in this
disaster, and of course it'll be one of my own."
"I hope," said the other politely, "that I did you no harm in falling on
you. I could not very well help it."
"Fortune was kinder to you than if the train rolled over the other way.
Don't mention it, my son. I'll forgive you, if you will find me the way
out, and learn if any have been injured."
The window was too small for a man of the Monsignor's girth, but through
the rear door the two crawled out comfortably, Monsignor dragging the
satchel and murmuring cheerfully: "How lucky! the holy oils!" It was
just sundown, and the wrecked train lay in a meadow, with a pretty
stream running by, whose placid ripplings mocked the tumult of the
mortals examining their injuries in the field. Yet no one had been
seriously injured. Bruises and cuts were plentiful, some fainted from
shock, but each was able to do for himself, not so much as a bone having
been broken. For a few minutes the Monsignor rejoiced that he would have
no use for what he called the holy oils. Then a trainman came running,
white and broken-tongued, crying out: "There was a priest on the
train--who has seen him?" It turned out that the fireman had been caught
in the wrecked locomotive, and crushed to death.
"And it's a priest he's cryin' for, sir," groaned the trainman, as he
came up to the Monsignor. The dying man lay in the shade of some trees
beside the stream, and a lovely woman had his head in her lap, and wept
silently while the poor boy gasped every now and then "mother" and "the
priest." She wiped the death-dew from his face, from which the soot had
been washed with water from the stream, and moistened his lips with a
cordial. He was a youth, of the kind that should not die too early, so
vigorous was his young body, so manly and true his dear face; but it was
only a matter of ten minutes stay beside the little stream for Tim
Hurley. The group about him made way for Monsignor, who sank on his
knees beside him, and held up the boy's face to the fading light.
"The priest is here, Tim," he said gently, and Endicott saw the receding
life rush back with joy into the agonized features. With something like
a laugh he raised his inert hands, and seized the hands of the priest,
which he covered with kisses.
"I shall die happy, thanks be to God," he said weakly; "and, father,
don't forget to tell my mother. It's her last consolation, poor dear."
"And I have the holy oils, Tim," said Monsignor softly.
Another rush of light to the darkening face!
"Tell her that, too, father dear," said Tim.
"With my own lips," answered Monsignor.
The bystanders moved away a little distance, and the lady resigned her
place, while Tim made his last confession. Endicott stood and wondered
at the sight; the priest holding the boy's head with his left arm, close
to his bosom and Tim grasping lovingly the hand of his friend, while he
whispered in little gasps his sins and his repentance; briefly, for time
was pressing. Then Monsignor called Horace and bade him support the
lad's head; and also the lovely lady and gave her directions "for his
mother's sake." She was woman and mother both, no doubt, by the way she
served another woman's son in his fatal distress. The men brought her
water from the stream. With her own hands she bared his feet, bathed and
wiped them, washed his hands, and cried tenderly all the time. Horace
shuddered as he dried the boy's sweating forehead, and felt the chill of
that death which had never yet come near him. He saw now what the priest
meant by the holy oils. Out of his satchel Monsignor took a golden
cylinder, unscrewed the top, dipped his thumb in what appeared to be an
oily substance, and applied it to Tim's eyes, to his ears, his nose, his
mouth, the palms of his hands, and the soles of his feet, distinctly
repeating certain Latin invocations as he worked. Then he read for some
time from a little book, and finished by wiping his fingers in cotton
and returning all to the satchel again. There was a look of supreme
satisfaction on his face.
"You are all right now, Tim," he said cheerfully.
"All right, father," repeated the lad faintly, "and don't forget to tell
mother everything, and say I died happy, praising God, and that she
won't be long after me. And let Harry Cutler"--the engineer came forward
and knelt by his side--"tell her everything. She knew how he liked me
and a word from him was more----"
His voice faded away.
"I'll tell her," murmured the engineer brokenly, and slipped away in
unbearable distress. The priest looked closer into Tim's face.
"He's going fast," he said, "and I'll ask you all to kneel and say amen
to the last prayers for the boy."
The crowd knelt by the stream in profound silence, and the voice of the
priest rose like splendid music, touching, sad, yet to Horace
unutterably pathetic and grand.
"Go forth, O Christian soul," the Monsignor read, "in the name of God
the Father Almighty, who created thee; in the name of Jesus Christ, Son
of the living God, who suffered for thee; in the name of the Holy Ghost,
who was poured forth upon thee; in the name of the Angels and
Archangels; in the name of the Thrones and Dominations; in the name of
the Principalities and Powers; in the name of the Cherubim and Seraphim;
in the name of the Patriarchs and Prophets; in the name of the holy
Apostles and Evangelists; in the name of the holy Martyrs and
Confessors; in the name of the holy Monks and Hermits; in the name of
the holy Virgins and of all the Saints of God; may thy place be this day
in peace, and thy abode in holy Sion. Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen."
Then came a pause and the heavy sigh of the dying one shook all hearts.
Endicott did not dare to look down at the mournful face of the fireman,
for a terror of death had come upon him, that he should be holding the
head of one condemned to the last penalty of nature; at the same moment
he could not help thinking that a king might not have been more nobly
sent forth on his journey to judgment than humble Tim Hurley. Monsignor
took another look at the lad's face, then closed his book, and took off
the purple ribbon which had hung about his neck.
"It's over. The man's dead," he announced to the silent crowd. There was
a general stir, and a movement to get a closer look at the quiet body
lying on the grass. Endicott laid the head down and rose to his feet.
The woman who had ministered to the dying so sweetly tied up his chin
and covered his face, murmuring with tears, "His poor mother."
"Ah, there is the heart to be pitied," sighed the Monsignor. "This heart
aches no more, but the mother's will ache and not die for many a year
perhaps."
Endicott heard his voice break, and looking saw that the tears were
falling from his eyes, he wiping them away in the same matter-of-fact
fashion which had marked his ministrations to the unfortunate fireman.
"Death is terrible only to those who love," he added, and the words sent
a pang into the heart of Horace. It had never occurred to him that death
was love's most dreaded enemy,--that Sonia might die while love was
young.