BOOKS BY F. HOPKINSON SMITH
PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
FELIX O’DAY. Illustrated _net_ $1.35
THE ARM-CHAIR AT THE INN. Illustrated _net_ 1.30
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IN DICKENS’S LONDON. Illustrated _net_ 2.00
OUTDOOR SKETCHING. Illustrated _net_ 1.00
ENOCH CRANE. A novel planned and begun by
F. Hopkinson Smith and completed by F.
Berkeley Smith. Illustrated _net_ 1.35
ENOCH CRANE
[Illustration: Lamont ... was again beside her, pleading to take her
home.
[_Page 114_]
ENOCH CRANE
A NOVEL PLANNED AND BEGUN BY
F. HOPKINSON SMITH
AND COMPLETED BY
F. BERKELEY SMITH
ILLUSTRATED BY
ALONZO KIMBALL
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1916
COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
Published September, 1916
[Illustration]
PREFACE
It was my father’s practise, in planning a novel, first to prepare a
most complete synopsis from beginning to end--never proceeding with the
actual writing of the book until he had laid out the characters and
action of the story--chapter by chapter.
This synopsis, which closely resembled the scenario of a play, he
kept constantly enriching with little side-notes as they occurred to
him--new ideas and points of detail.
So spirited were these synopses, and so clearly did they reflect the
process of his mind, that by the few who saw them in the course of
publishing consultations, or friendly confidence, they were remembered
often after the finished novel had obliterated its constructive lines.
A scheme like this he had prepared for “Enoch Crane”--a story which,
like “Felix O’Day,” he had very much at heart. Once he had begun a
novel it occupied his whole mind. He lived--as it were--with the
characters he was developing, to the exclusion of all other work. He
would talk to me constantly of their welfare or vicissitudes, and was
often in grand good-humor when any of them had proved themselves worthy
by their wit, their courage, or their good breeding. They all seemed
to be old personal friends of his, whom by some chance I had never met.
My father had written three chapters of “Enoch Crane” when his brief
illness came. Thus there has remained to me as a legacy of his
unquenchably youthful spirit an unfinished novel, which to reach his
readers needed to be wrought out on the lines he had so carefully laid
down with that untiring enthusiasm with which he undertook everything;
and this--his last story--it has been my privileged task to complete.
F. BERKELEY SMITH.
NEW YORK, 1916.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Lamont was again beside her pleading to take her home _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
“I forbid you,” he cried, facing him savagely, “to drag
that child’s name before this company” 210
“Well, neighbor, ain’t a minute late, am I?” 230
“Tell me you love me,” he insisted 298
ENOCH CRANE
CHAPTER I
Joe Grimsby stood on the door-mat--a very shabby and badly worn
door-mat, I must say--trying to fit his key into the tiny slit which,
properly punctured, shot back the bolt which loosened the door,
admitting him to the hallway leading to his apartment on the third
floor of No. 99 Waverly Place.
“Somebody must have--no, here it is. Hello, Moses, is that you? I was
just going to put my knee against it and----”
The old negro janitor bowed low.
“I wouldn’t do dat, sir; ’spec’ yo’ hand is a little unstiddy. You
young gemmen gets dat way sometimes, ’specially when so much is goin’
on. Hold on till I turn up de gas. It gets dark so early, can’t find
yo’ way up-stairs in de broad daylight, let alone de evenin’. I jes’
lighted a fire in yo’ room.”
“Bully for you, Moses. And don’t forget to come up-stairs when I ring.
Mr. Atwater in yet?”
“No, sir; not as I knows on. Ain’t seen nuffin’ of him. ’Spec’ he’s
a little mite how-come-you. I seen in de papers dat bofe on yo’ was
at de big ball last night. Matilda was a-readin’ it out while I was
a-brushin’ yo’ shoes.”
The young architect waved his hand in reply and mounted the stairs,
his strong, well-knit frame filling the space between the wall and the
banisters. He had mounted these same stairs in the small hours of the
morning, but if he was at all fatigued by his night’s outing, there was
no evidence of it in his movements. He was forging his way up, his coat
thrown back, arms swinging loose, head erect, with a lifting power and
spring that would have done credit to a trained athlete.
Only once did he pause, and that was when the door of Miss Ann’s
apartment on the second floor was opened softly and the old lady’s
fluffy gray head was thrust out. He had never met the dear woman, but
he lifted his hat in a respectful salute, and brought his body to a
standstill until she had closed the door again.
She, no doubt, misunderstood the sound of his tread, a curious mistake
had she thought a moment, for no one of the occupants of 99--and
there were a good many of them--had ever mounted the dingy stairs two
steps at a time, humming a song between jumps, except the handsome,
devil-may-care young architect. The others climbed and caught their
breath. And climbed again and caught another breath. So did most of the
visitors. As for her own invalid sister, Miss Jane, who shared with her
the rooms behind this partly opened and gently closed door, the poor
lady had no breath of any kind to catch, and so wheezed up one step at
a time, her thin, bird-claw fingers clutching the hand-rail. It was
she Miss Ann was waiting for, it being after five o’clock, and the day
being particularly raw and uncomfortable, even for one in January.
He had reached his own door now, the one on the third floor--there was
only one flight above it--and with the aid of a second key attached to
his bunch made his way into the apartment.
The sight of his cosey sitting-room loosened up the bar of another
song: the janitor’s fire was still blazing, and one of the three big
piano-lamps with umbrella-shades Moses had lighted and turned down was
sending a warm glow throughout the interior.
Joe tossed his hat on a low table, stripped off his overcoat and coat,
pushed his arms into a brown velvet jacket which he took from a hook in
his bedroom, and settled himself at his desk, an old-fashioned colonial
affair, which had once stood in his grandfather’s home in his native
town. Heaped up on a wide pad, the comers bound with silver clamps, was
a pile of letters of various colors, shapes, and sizes.
These the young fellow smoothed out with a sweep of his hand, glancing
hurriedly at the several handwritings, pulled out a drawer of the desk,
opened a box of cigars, and selecting one with the greatest care,
snipped its end with a cutter hung to his watch-chain. In the same
measured way he drew a match along the under-side of the colonial, held
the flame to the perfecto, and, after a puff or two to assure himself
that it was in working order, proceeded leisurely to open his mail.
It is good to be young and good-looking and a favorite wherever you go.
It is better yet to be good-natured, and well-born, and able to earn
your living, and it is better still to so love the work by which you
earn your daily bread that you count as nothing the many setbacks and
difficulties which its pursuit entails.
Joe was all that; twenty-five, well-built, erect, strong of limb,
well-dressed, even if sometimes a little bizarre in his outfit, more
particularly in wide sombreros and low collars with loose ties;
thoroughly content with his surroundings wherever they were, whether
a student at the Beaux-Arts, living on the closest of allowances,
or fighting his way in New York among his competitors; meeting each
successive morning with a laugh and a song, and getting all the fun out
of the remaining hours of which he was capable.
He had moved into these rooms but a fortnight before, and had at once
proceeded to make himself as comfortable as his means and belongings
would allow. His partner, Atwater, had come with him: there was the
rent of the office to pay, and the wages of his two assistants, and
they could save money by doubling up. With this in view, Joe had moved
in some of the old furniture his father had left him, including the
desk, and a set of shelves filled with books; had added a rare old
Spanish sofa that had once stood in a hidalgo salon, to say nothing
of the three or four easy chairs of the sofa-pillow-stuffed-armed
variety, covered with chintz, that he had bought at an auction, and
which had once graced his former quarters. Some small tables had then
been commandeered--two were now surmounted by big lamps; a rug thrown
on the floor and another before the fire--good ones both, one being
a Daghestan and the other a Bokhara; and the two young men proceeded
to make themselves at home. The bedrooms, one Atwater’s and the other
Joe’s, although simply furnished, were equally comfortable, and the
bathroom all that it should be.
As to creature comforts, did not Moses bring them their breakfast, and
did not his wife Matilda cook the same on her own stove in the basement
in the rear? For their dinners, some one of the restaurants on 14th
Street could always be counted upon, unless some Wall Street potentate,
or one of his innumerable friends, or the mother of Joe’s last lady
love--he had a fresh one every month--laid a cover at her table in his
honor.
His one predominant ambition in life, as has been said, was to succeed
in his profession. His uncle had achieved both riches and distinction
as one of the leading architects of his time and, divining Joe’s
talents, had sent him abroad to uphold the honor of the family, a
kindness the young fellow never forgot, and an obligation which
he determined to repay by showing himself worthy of the old man’s
confidence. If he had any other yearning, it was, as has also been
said, to have a good time every moment of the day and night while the
developing process was going on. And the scribe, who knew him well,
freely admits that he succeeded, not only in New York, but in Paris.
When a posse of gendarmes followed a group of students along the Boul
Miche who were shouting at the top of their voices their disapprovals
or approvals, it made very little difference which, of some new law in
the Latin Quarter, Joe’s voice was invariably the loudest. When the
room under the sidewalk at the Taverne was full, every seat occupied,
and the whole place in an uproar, it was Joe who was leading the
merriment.
When, upon the dispersal of the gay revellers from the Quart’z’Arts
ball, the Champs-Elysées was made the background of a howling mob of
bareskinned warriors of the Stone Age, Joe led the chorus, the only
student in the group who was entirely sober, intemperance not being one
of the ways in which he enjoyed himself.
It was, therefore, quite in keeping with his idea of what a normal life
should be that, when he nailed up his shingle in his down-town office,
and started in to earn a crust and a reputation, this same spirit of
fun should have dominated his idle hours to the exclusion of everything
else except the habit of falling in love with every pretty girl he met.
If the beautiful and accomplished and fabulously rich Mrs. A. had a
ball, Joe invariably led the german. If there was a week-end party at
Mrs. B.’s, Joe’s engagements were always consulted and a day fixed to
suit him. They couldn’t help it really. There was an air about the
young fellow that the women, both married and single, could not resist.
The married ones generally counted on him to make their parties a
success, but the single ones manœuvred so as to be within arm’s reach
whenever Joe’s partner was tired out and he ready for another.
Should you have tried to solve the problem of this ever-increasing
popularity and, in marshalling your facts, had gone over his personal
attractions--his well-groomed figure, never so attractive as in a
dress suit, clear brown eyes, perfect teeth shining through straight,
well-modelled lips shaded by a brown mustache blending into a
close-cut, pointed beard, and had compared these fetching attractions
with those possessed by dozens of other young men you knew, you would
be still at sea.
Old Mrs. Treadwell, who, when Joe had sprained his ankle, had kept him
at her country-seat for a whole week, came nearest to the solution.
“Never thinks of himself, that young fellow.” That’s it. Hasn’t an ego
anywhere about him. Never has had. Always thinking of you, no matter
who you are. And he is sanely polite. Treats an apple woman as if she
were a duchess, and a duchess, whenever he runs across one, as first a
woman--after that she can be anything she pleases.
This accounted in a measure for the number and quality of the several
notes he was opening, one after another, his face lighting up or
clouding as he perused their contents.