STRAINS FROM BOCK’S 'CELLO
Mrs. Leroy was one of the few women in town who realized what Sanford
and his friends had long ago discovered,—the possibilities of New
York in summer. To her it had now become its most delightful season, a
season of long days and short nights—days and nights of utter
idleness, great content, and blessed peace of mind; a season when one
could dine where one chose without a waiting cab and a hurried
departure at the bidding of somebody else; when the eleven o’clock
lecturer is silent, the afternoon tea a memory, and the epidemic of
the ten-course dinner a forgotten plague.
She had grown to believe with Sanford that if one could impress the
possibility of these truths upon the friends one loved, so that they,
and only they, could tiptoe back into their houses, keep their blinds
closed and their servants hidden, and so delude the balance of the
world—those they did not love, the uncongenial, the tiresome, the
bumptious, and the aggressive—into believing that they had fled; if
this little trick could be played on the world every June, and for
three long happy months only congenial spirits could spread themselves
over space and eat their lotus in peace (and with their fingers, if
they so pleased), then would each one discover that New York in summer
could indeed be made the Eldorado of one’s dreams.
Her own front door on Gramercy Park was never barricaded, nor was her
house dismantled. She changed its dress in May and put it into
charming summer attire of matting and chintz, making it a rare and
refreshing retreat; and more than half her time she spent within its
walls, running down to Medford whenever the cares of that
establishment required attention, or a change of mood made a change of
scene desirable.
Since the visit when Captain Joe had dismissed her with his thanks
from the warehouse hospital at Keyport she had gone to Medford but
once.
The major had been a constant visitor, and Jack Hardy and his fiancée,
Helen Shirley, had on more than one occasion hidden themselves, on
moonlight nights, in the shadows of the big palms fringing her balcony
overlooking the Park. Sanford had not seen her as often as he wished.
Work on the Ledge had kept him at Keyport, and allowed him but little
time in town.
With the setting of the derricks, however, he felt himself at liberty
for a holiday, and he had looked forward with a feeling of almost
boyish enthusiasm—which he never quite outgrew—to a few days’
leisure in town, and a morning or two with Mrs. Leroy.
When the maid brought up his card, Mrs. Leroy was at her desk in the
little boudoir, with its heaps of silk cushions, its disorder of
books, and bloom of mignonette and red geraniums filling the windows
that looked straight into the trees of the Park. Here the sun shone in
winter, and here the moonlight traced the outlines of bare branches
upon her window-shades, and here in summer the coolest of cool shadows
fell from tree and awning.
“Why, I expected you yesterday, Henry,” she said, holding out her
hand, seating Sanford upon the divan, and drawing up a chair beside
him. “What happened?”
“Nothing more serious than an elopement.”
“Not Jack and Helen Shirley?” she said, laughing.
“No; I wish it were; they would go on loving each other. This affair
brings misery. It’s Caleb West’s wife. Captain Joe is half crazy about
it, and poor Caleb is heartbroken. She has gone off with that young
fellow she was nursing the day you came up with the major.”
“Eloped! Pretty doings, I must say. Yes, I remember her,—a trim,
rather pretty little woman with short curly hair. I caught a glimpse
of Caleb, too, you know, as he came in from the Ledge. He seemed years
older than she. What had he done to her?”
“Nothing, so far as I know, except love her and take care of her. Poor
Caleb!”
“What did he let her go for, then? I’m sorry for the old diver, but it
was his fault, somewhere. The girl had as good a face as I ever looked
into. She never left her husband without some cause, poor child. What
else has happened at Keyport?”
“Kate, don’t talk so. She’s treated him shamefully. They have only
been married two years.”
Mrs. Leroy bent her head and looked out under the awnings for a moment
in a thoughtful way. “Only two years?” she said, with some bitterness.
“The poor child was impatient. When she had tried it for fifteen she
would have become accustomed to it. It is the same old story, I
suppose. We hear it every day. He ugly and old and selfish, never
thinking of what she would like and what she longed for, keeping her
shut up to sing for him when she wanted now and then to sing for
herself; and then she found the door of the cage open, and out she
flew. Poor little soul! I pity her. She had better have borne it; it
is a poor place outside for a tired foot; and she’s nothing but a
child.” Then musing, patting her slipper impatiently, “What sort of a
man has she gone with? I couldn’t see him that morning, she hung over
him so close, and his head was so bandaged.”
“I don’t know much about him. I haven’t known him long,” Sanford
answered carelessly.
“Good-looking, isn’t he, and alive, and with something human and
manlike about him?” she asked, leaning forward eagerly, her hands in
her lap.
“Yes, I suppose so. He could climb like a cat, anyway,” said Sanford.
“Yes, I know, Henry. I see it all. I knew it was the same old story.
She wanted something fresh and young,—some one just to play with,
child as she is, some one nearer her own age to love. She was lonely.
Nothing for her to do but sit down and wait for him to come home. Poor
child,” with a sigh, “her misery only begins now. What else have you
to tell me?”
“Nothing, except that all of the derricks tumbled. I wired you about
it. They are all up now, thank goodness.” He knew her interest was
only perfunctory. Her mind, evidently, was still on Betty, but he went
on with his story: “Everybody got soaking wet. Captain Joe was in the
water for hours. But we stuck to it. Narrowest escape the men have had
this summer, Kate, since the Screamer’s. It’s a great mercy nobody was
hurt. I expected every minute some one would get crushed. No one but
Captain Joe could have got them up that afternoon. It blew a gale for
three days. When did you get here? I thought you had gone back to
Medford until Sam brought me your note.”
“No, I am still here, and shall be here for a week. Now, don’t tell me
you’re going back to-night?”
“No, I’m not, but I can’t say how soon; not before the masonry begins,
anyhow. Jack Hardy is coming to-morrow night to my rooms. I have asked
a few fellows to meet him,—Smearly and Curran, and old Bock with his
'cello, and some others. Since Jack’s engagement he’s the happiest
fellow alive.”
“They all are at first, Henry,” said Mrs. Leroy, laughing, her head
thrown back. The memory of Jack and Helen was still so fresh and happy
a one that it instantly changed her mood.
Betty and Caleb for the moment were forgotten, while they talked of
Helen’s future, of the change in Jack’s life, of his new housekeeping,
and of the thousand and one things that interested them both,—the
kind of talk that two such friends indulge in who have been parted for
a week or more, and who, in the first ten minutes, run lightly over
their individual experiences, so that both may start fresh again with
nothing hidden in either life. When he rose to go, she kept him
standing while she pinned in his buttonhole a sprig of mignonette
picked from her window-box, and said, with the deepest interest, “I
can’t get that poor child out of my mind. Don’t be too hard on her,
Henry; she’s the one who will suffer most.”
When Sanford reached his rooms again he sank into a chair which Sam
had drawn close to the window, and sighed with content. “Oh, these
days off!” he exclaimed.
The appointments of his own apartments seemed never so satisfying and
so welcome as when he had spent a week with his men, taking his share
of the exposure with all the discomforts that it brought. His early
life had fitted him for these changes, and a certain cosmopolitan
spirit in the man, a sort of underlying stratum of Bohemianism, had
made it easy for him to adapt himself to his surroundings, whatever
they might be. Not that his restless spirit could long have endured
any life, either rough or luxurious, that repeated itself day after
day. He could idle with the idlest, but he must also work when the
necessity came, and that with all his might.
Sam always made some special preparation for his home-coming. To-day
the awnings were hung over window and balcony, and the most delightful
of luncheons had been arranged,—cucumbers smothered in ice,
soft-shell crabs, and a roll of cream cheese with a dash of Kirsch and
sugar. “I know he don’t git nuffin fit for a dog to eat when he’s
away. 'Fo’ God I don’t know how he stands it,” Sam was accustomed to
observe to those of his friends who sometimes watched his
preparations.
“Major’s done been hyar 'mos’ ebery day you been gone, sah,” he said,
drawing out Sanford’s chair, when luncheon was served. “How is it,
sah,—am I to mix a cocktail _ebery_ time he comes? An’ dat box
ob yo’ big cigars am putty nigh gone; ain’t no more ’n fo’r 'r five of
’em lef.” The major, Sam forgot to mention, was only partly to blame
for these two shrinkages in Sanford’s stores.
“What does he come so often for, Sam?” asked Sanford, laughing.
“Dat’s mor’ 'an I know, sah, ’cept he so anxious to git you back, he
says. He come twice a day to see if you’re yere. Co’se dere ain’t
nuffin cooked, an’ so he don’t git nuffin to eat, but golly! he’s
powerful on jewlips. I done tole him yesterday you wouldn’t be back
till to-morrow night. Dat whiskey’s all gin out; he saw der empty
bottle hisse’f; he ain’t been yere agin to-day,” with a chuckle.
“Always give the major whatever he wants,” said Sanford. “And Sam,” he
called as that darky was disappearing in the pantry, “a few gentlemen
will be here to supper to-morrow night. Remind me to make a list in
the morning of what you will want.”
The list was made out, and a very toothsome and cooling list it
was,—a frozen melon tapped and filled with a pint of Pommery sec, by
way of beginning. All the trays and small tables with their pipes and
smokables were brought out, a music-stand was opened and set up near a
convenient shaded candle, and the lid of the piano was lifted and
propped up rabbit-trap fashion.
Just as the moon was rising, silvering the tops of the trees in the
square below, Smearly in white flannels and flaming tie arrived fresh
from his studio, where he had been at work on a ceiling for some
millionaire’s salon. Jack followed in correct evening dress, and
Curran from his office, in a business suit. The major was arrayed in a
nondescript combination of yellow nankeen and black bombazine, that
would have made him an admirable model for a poster in two tints. He
was still full of his experiences at the warehouse hospital after the
accident to the Screamer. His little trip to Keyport as acting escort
to Mrs. Leroy had not only opened his eyes to a class of workingmen of
whose existence he had never dreamed, but it had also furnished him
with a new and inexhaustible topic of conversation. Every visitor at
his downtown office had listened to his recital by the hour. To-night,
however, the major had a new audience, and a new audience always added
fuel to the fire of his eloquence.
When the subject of the work at the Ledge came up, and the sympathy of
everybody was expressed to Sanford over the calamity to the
Screamer,—they had not seen him since the explosion,—the major broke
out:—
“You ought to have gone with us, my dear Smearly.” (To have been the
only eye-witness at the front, except Sanford himself, gave the major
great scope.) “Giants, suh,—every man of ’em; a race, suh, that would
do credit to the Vikings; bifurcated walruses, suh; amphibious titans,
that can work as well in water as out of it. No wonder our dear Henry”
(this term of affection was not unusual with the major) “accomplishes
such wonders. I can readily understand why you never see such fellows
anywhere else; they dive under water when the season closes,” he
continued, laughing, and, leaning over Curran’s shoulder, helped
himself to one of the cigars Sam was just bringing in.
“And the major outdid himself, that day, in nursing them,” interrupted
Sanford. “You would have been surprised, Jack, to see him take hold.
When I turned in for the night on a cot, he was giving one of the
derrickmen a sponge bath.”
“Learned it in the army,” said Curran, with a sly look at Smearly.
Both of them knew the origin of the major’s military title.
The major’s chin was upturned in the air; his head was wreathed in
smoke, the match, still aflame, held aloft with outstretched hand. He
always lighted his cigars in this lordly way.
“Many years ago, gentlemen,” the major replied, distending his chest,
throwing away the match, and accepting the compliment in perfect good
faith; “but these are things one never forgets.” The major had never
seen the inside of a camp hospital in his life.
The guests now distributed themselves, each after the manner of his
likes: Curran full length on a divan, the afternoon paper in his hand;
Jack on the floor, his back to the wall, a cushion behind his head;
Smearly in an armchair; and the major bolt upright on a camp-stool
near a table which held a select collection of drinkables, presided
over by a bottle of seltzer in a silver holder. Sam moved about like a
restless shadow, obedient to the slightest lifting of Sanford’s
eyebrow, when a glass needed filling or a pipe replenishing.
At ten o’clock, lugging in his great 'cello, Bock came,—short, round,
and oily, with a red face that beamed with good humor, and fat puffy
hands that wrinkled in pleats when he held his bow. Across a
perpetually moist forehead was pasted a lock of black hair. He wore a
threadbare coat spattered with spots, baggy black trousers, and a
four-button brown holland waistcoat, never clean,—sometimes connected
with a collar so much ashamed of the condition of its companion
shirt-front that it barely showed its face over a black stock that was
held together by a spring. A man who was kindly and loyal; who loved
all his kind, spoke six languages, wrote for the Encyclopædia, and
made a 'cello sing like an angel.
Despite his frouziness, everybody who knew Bock liked him; those who
heard him play loved him. There was a pathos, a tender, sympathetic
quality in his touch, that one never forgot: it always seemed as if,
somehow, ready tears lingered under his bow. “With a tone like Bock’s”
was the highest compliment one could pay a musician. To Sanford this
man’s heart was dearer than his genius.
“Why, Bock, old man,” he called, “we didn’t expect you till eleven.”
“Yes, I know, Henri, but ze first wiolin, he take my place. Zey will
not know ze difference.” One fat hand was held up deprecatingly, the
fingers outspread. “Everybody fan and drink ze beer. Ah, Meester
Hardy, I have hear ze news; so you will leave ze brotherhood. And I
hear,” lowering his voice and laying his other fat hand affectionately
on Jack’s, “zat she ees most lofely. Ah, it ees ze best zing,” his
voice rising again. “When ve get old and ugly like old Bock, and so
heels over head wiz all sorts of big zings to build like Mr. Sanford,
or like poor Smearly paint, paint, all ze time paint, it ees too late
to zink of ze settle down. Ees it not so, you man Curran over zere,
wiz your newspaper over your head?” This time his voice was flung
straight at the recumbent editor as a climax to his breezy salutation.
“Yes, you’re right, Bock; you’re ugly enough to crowd a dime museum,
but I’ll forgive you everything if you’ll put some life into your
strings. I heard your orchestra the other night, and the first and
second violins ruined the overture. What the devil do you keep a lot
of”—
“What ees ze matter wiz ze overture, Meester Ole Bull?” said Bock,
pitching his voice in a high key, squeezing down on the divan and
pinching Curran’s arm with his fat fingers.
“Everything was the matter. The brass drowned the strings, and Reynier
might have had hair-oil on his bow for all the sound you heard. Then
the tempo was a beat too slow.”
“Henri Sanford, do you hear zis crazy man zat does not know one zing,
and lie flat on his back and talk such nonsense? Ze wiolin, Meester
Musical Editor Curran, must be pianissimo,—only ze leetle, ze ve’y
leetle, you hear. Ze aria is carried by ze reeds.”
“Carried by your grandmother!” said Curran, springing from the divan.
“Here, Sam, put a light on the piano. Now listen, you pagan. Beethoven
would get out of his grave if he could hear you murder his music. The
three bars are so,”—touching the keys, “not so!” And thus the
argument went on.
Out on the balcony, Smearly and Quigley, the marine painter, who had
just come in, were talking about the row at the Academy over the
rejection of Morley’s picture, while the major was in full swing with
Hardy, Sanford, and some of the later arrivals, including old
Professor Max Shutters, the biologist, who had been so impressively
introduced by Curran to the distinguished Pocomokian that the
professor had at once mistaken the major for a brother scientist.
“And you say, Professor Slocomb,” said the savant, his hand forming a
sounding-board behind his ear, “that the terrapin, now practically
extinct, was really plentiful in your day?”
“My learned suh, I have gone down to the edge of my lawn, overlooking
the salt-marsh, and seen ’em crawling around like potato bugs. The
niggahs couldn’t walk the shore at night without trampling on ’em.
This craze of yo’r millionaire epicures for one of the commonest
shell-fish we have is”—
“Amphibia,” suggested the professor, as if he had recognized a mere
slip of the tongue. “I presume you are referring to the _Malaclemmys
palustris_,—the diamond-back species.”
“You are right, suh,” said the major. “I had forgotten the
classification for the moment,” with an air of being perfectly at home
on the subject. “The craze for the palustris, my dear suh, is one of
the unaccountable signs of the times; it is the beginning of the fall
of our institutions, suh. We cannot forget the dishes of peacock
tongues in the old Roman days,—a thousand peacocks at a cou’se, suh.”
The major would have continued down through Gibbon and Macaulay if
Curran had not shouted out, “Keep still, every soul of you! Bock is
going to give us the Serenade.”
The men crowded about the piano. Smearly stood ready to turn the
leaves of the music for Curran, and Jack drew a chair closer to the
'cellist.
Bock uncovered the 'cello and held it between his knees, his fat hand
resting lightly on the strings. As Curran, with his foot on the pedal
of the piano, passed his hand rapidly over the keys, Bock’s head sank
to the level of his shoulders, his straggling hair fell over his coat
collar, his raised fingers balanced for a moment the short bow, and
then Schubert’s masterpiece poured out the very fullness of its heart.
A profound hush, broken only by the music, fell on the room. The old
professor leaned forward, both hands cupped behind his ears. Sanford
and Jack smoked on, their eyes half closed, and even the major
withheld his hand from the well-appointed tray and looked into his
empty glass.
At a time when the spell was deepest and the listeners held their
breath, the perfect harmony was broken by a discordant ring at the
outer door. Curran turned his head angrily, and Sanford looked at Sam,
who glided to the door with a catlike tread, opening it without a
sound, and closing it gently behind him. The symphony continued, the
music rising in interest, and the listeners forgot the threatened
interruption.
Then the door opened again, and Sam, making a wide détour, bent over
Sanford and whispered in his ear. A woman wanted to see him in the
hall. Sanford started, as if annoyed, arose from his seat, and again
the knob was noiselessly turned and the door as noiselessly closed,
shutting Sanford into the corridor.
“Do you wish to see me, madam?” he asked, crossing to a chair in which
the woman sat wrapped in a long cloak, her face buried in her hands.
The woman turned her head towards him without raising her eyelids.
“And you don’t know me any more, Mr. Sanford?”
“Betty! You here!” said Sanford, looking in astonishment at the
crouching figure before him.
“I had to come, sir. The druggist at the corner showed me the house. I
was a-waitin’ outside in the street below, hopin’ to see you come in.
Then I heard the music and knew you were home.” The voice shook with
every word. The young dimpled face was drawn and pale, the pretty
curly hair in disorder about her forehead. She had the air of one who
had been hunted and had just found shelter.
“Does Lacey know you are here?” asked Sanford, a dim suspicion rising
in his mind.
Betty shivered slightly, as if the name had hurt her. “No, sir. I left
him two nights ago. I got away while he was asleep. All I want now is
a place for to-night, and then perhaps to-morrow I can get work.”
“And you have no money?” asked Sanford.
Betty shook her head. “I had a little of my own, but it’s all gone,
and I’m so tired, and—the city frightens me so—when the night
comes.” The head dropped lower, the sobs choking her. After a little
she went on, drying her eyes with her handkerchief, rolled tight in
one hand; and resting her cheek on the bent fingers, “I didn’t know
nobody but you, Mr. Sanford. I can pay it back.” The voice was
scarcely audible.
Sanford stood looking down upon her bowed head. The tired eyelids were
half closed, the tears glistening in the light of the overhanging
lamp, the shadows of her black curls flecking her face. The cloak hung
loosely about her, the curve of her pretty shoulders outlined in its
folds. Then she lifted her head, and, looking Sanford in the eyes for
the first time, said in a broken, halting voice, “Did you—did
you—see—Caleb—Mr. Sanford?”
Sanford nodded slowly in answer. He was trying to make up his mind
what he should do with a woman who had broken the heart of a man like
Caleb. Through the closed door he heard the strains of Bock’s 'cello,
the notes vibrating plaintively. They belonged to some other world.
“Betty,” he said, leaning over her, “how could you do it?”
The girl covered her face with her hands and shrank within her cloak.
Sanford went on, his sense of Caleb’s wrongs overpowering him: “What
could Lacey do for you? If you could once see Caleb’s face you would
never forgive yourself. No woman has a right to leave a man who was as
good to her as your husband was to you. And now what has it all come
to? You’ve ruined yourself, and broken his heart.”
The girl trembled and bent her head, cowering under the pitiless
words; then, in a half-dazed way, she rose from her seat, and, without
looking at Sanford, said in a tired, hopeless voice, as if every word
brought a pain, “I think I’ll go, Mr. Sanford.”
Sanford watched her silently as she drew her cloak about her and
turned to the door. The pathos of the shrinking girlish figure
overcame him. He began to wonder if there were something under it all
that even Captain Joe did not know of. Then he remembered the tones of
compassion in Mrs. Leroy’s voice when her heart had gone out to this
girl the morning before, as she said, “Poor child, her misery only
begins now; it is a poor place for a tired foot.”
For an instant he stood irresolute. “Wait,” he said. “Wait a moment.”
Betty stood still, without raising her head.
Sanford paused in deep thought, with averted eyes.
“Betty,” he murmured at last in a softened voice, “you can’t go out
like this alone. I’ll take you, child, where you will be safe for the
night.”