JEAN MORLEY
The parish house of St. Luke’s was a remodeled two-story business block
adjoining the frame church. One of the store-rooms had been cut in two,
half of it serving as a reading-room for men; the rest of it was used
as a _crèche_ where young children were looked after at hours when
their mothers were too busy to care for them. The other half of the
building served as an assembly room on occasions and here the exercises
of the evening were already in progress when Wayne arrived. At one end
of the room a ring had been improvised and within the roped enclosure a
string quartet was playing a waltz to which the feet of a considerable
portion of the audience kept time. The place was packed and Wayne
stood until the end of the number sandwiched between two labourers
who had paused on their way home. Their faces were still grimy; their
dinner-pails rubbed Wayne’s legs democratically. A prestidigitator
followed the quartet with a series of sleight-of-hand tricks. He was a
young Italian and was warmly applauded by representatives of his race
in the audience. A young woman sang a popular ballad, the pastoral note
of whose refrain, “In the woodland, by the river, I await my love, my
own,” was plaintively incongruous in the place.
Wayne was aware of an undercurrent of excitement, especially among the
men and boys. They were on their good behaviour, but the tameness of
the programme had begun to cloy. A recitation by a girl in pale blue,
who stood in painful embarrassment for several minutes while her memory
teased her afar off with forgotten rhymes, elicited a few mutterings
of disapproval. Someone on the back benches cried, during a long and
seemingly endless pause, “Where did you lose it, Minnie?” whereat she
withdrew in tearful confusion, followed by sympathetic applause. A
scuffle in the rear caused general disorder and drew attention away
from the platform. The brother of the recitationist was, it seemed,
trying to punch the head of the culprit who had mocked her. Wayne had
so far seen nothing of Paddock, but the minister now rose near the
scene of conflict and with a quiet word subdued the belligerents. A
young man, in a necktie of violent green, who appeared to be the master
of ceremonies, leaped to the stage and called for order. He announced
that the literary and musical numbers were concluded. “If the gents
back there wot wants to fight will ca’m theirselves, we’ll give ’em a
few points on how it’s done by real scrappers. The evenin’s stunts will
close with five rounds between Jim Balinski of Altoona, and Mike, the
motorman. You fellas that want to be noisy better get out now or be
chased out.”
A wild cheer, punctuated by cat-calls, greeted the two boxers, as, clad
in tights, they stepped nimbly into the roped enclosure and saluted
the admiring audience. A howl of “Kill the Irishman” from a violent
partisan was drowned in groans and shrieks of “Put him out” in four
languages. At this moment Paddock appeared, divested of his coat and
waistcoat, gave a hitch to his belt, amid cheers, examined the gloves
of the combatants and admonished them as to the rules. Wayne noted with
interest that Joe, his chauffeur, was time-keeper, with a dish-pan and
stick for gong. A hush fell upon the crowd as the men warily began
feeling of each other. The round ended in lively sparring without
apparent advantage to either man. The Irishman was, Wayne learned from
one of his neighbours, a member of Paddock’s own class in boxing at
the parish house and sentiment seemed to favour him. The second round
was marked by clever foot-work by the Irishman, who walked round the
Altoona visitor to the delight of the spectators. In the third and
fourth rounds the Irishman continued to play with his antagonist, who
doggedly sought an opening for a heavy blow. He landed heavily with
his right several times, but the Irishman’s nimbleness saved him from
damage. In mere cleverness, the local man was the better boxer, a fact
which was clear enough to his adversary, who held back and waited
for an opportunity to break through the Irishman’s ready guard with
a telling blow. The strategic moment came when, in the last round,
the Irishman jumped away after raining half a dozen blows on the
enemy’s head, and grinned his satisfaction amid laughter and howls of
delight. In his joy of the situation he made a gesture that indicated
his complete confidence in the fortune of battle to his friends in the
crowd, and his insolence was promptly rewarded by a telling clip in the
face that brought him blinking to his knees.
He came to time, however, with rage in his eyes. Several women shrieked
at the sight of his blood-smeared nose and there was a slight commotion
as a girl near the door was led out to faint. “Kill ’im, Mike!” roared
a dozen voices. “You’re all right, Altoona!” yelled a lone supporter of
the visitor. They clinched, but the Altoona man flung off the Irishman
with ease. “Knock ’im out, Mike!” chorused the motorman’s friends. The
Irishman feinted elaborately, but his antagonist sullenly maintained
his guard and waited. The time was short in which to achieve victory,
but he had saved himself for a supreme effort. The Irishman hit him a
smart clip on the chin that staggered him for a moment, and then the
man from Altoona drew back and gathered himself together. He swung his
arm high, as though it had been a hammer, and the Irishman cowered
under it, slipped as he side-stepped and the Altoona man, striking out
wildly, landed in a heap with his knees in the Irishman’s face.
The male portion of the crowd charged the stage with a roar. Wayne was
aware that Joe, whose voice had occasionally risen above the tumult,
seemed now to be trying to bring order out of the prevailing chaos.
The combatants quickly retired; Paddock donned his coat and begged all
to remain for refreshments, which were further announced in the odour
of coffee that stole up from the basement. Many to whom the boxing
contest had been the beginning and end of the entertainment, were
already crowding into the street, and no effort was made to detain
them. Half the benches were carried out under Joe’s direction by two
or three stalwart young fellows while the former light of the diamond,
filled with the pride of brief authority, watched its effect upon
Wayne, who was somewhat embarrassed to know what to do with himself.
Paddock strolled about addressing a few words to everyone. The colour
glowed warmly under the clergyman’s dark skin; his smile was less sad
than usual. A young man dropped the plate of ice cream he was passing
to a girl and Paddock met the tragic situation by telling a story of a
similar mishap of his own.
He spoke to Wayne last of all and drew him into a group of half a
dozen saying, “Young friends, this is an old schoolmate of mine; won’t
you make room for us?” With paper napkins on their knees he and Wayne
were soon taunting each other with some of their old-time adventures,
while the listeners beamed their delight at the intimate quality of the
colloquy. Wayne told several stories about Paddock that were listened
to eagerly by the little circle. The girls giggled; the young men
laughed aloud. Paddock threw in a word here and there to elicit some
new tale. Wayne’s success with his auditors stimulated him; the circle
widened, and he talked of some of his experiences in the coal mines
during the year of his probation, using colloquial phrases of the men
underground as he had learned them in the bituminous mines. The simple
frocks of the girls; their red, labour-scarred hands; these young men
in their cheap, ready-made clothing; the brassy jewelry worn by several
of them, touched both his humour and his pity. But he was aware, too,
that he enjoyed their attention. In his sister’s house a few nights
before, among people of his own order, no such experience as this would
have been possible. He rose presently at the climax of an anecdote that
had pleased his hearers particularly.
“Don’t hurry away; I want to show you what we have here,” said Paddock.
“About all I say for it is that it is clean--most of the time. In there
is the men’s reading-room; a table for writing, too. Pipes, you notice,
are not discouraged.”
They looked in where a dozen men of all ages sat about small tables
reading newspapers and periodicals.
“Some of these old fellows are as regular as British Museum readers.
Every man who comes here can have a cup of coffee and a sandwich in
the evening for the asking; the cooking class downstairs looks after
that. I’m putting on a lot of foreign newspapers. A few books over
there--just a beginning. Anybody can take a book home by writing his
name on a card. Bring them back? Oh, well, what if they don’t? Down
below is the kitchen--mind the step!--the building was in bad shape
when I got hold of it; I’ll get after that stairway to-morrow. Here’s
the cooking school; about twenty girls are taught by a domestic science
teacher regularly. A part of the class volunteered to provide the
refreshments to-night. That coffee wasn’t bad, was it?”
At the foot of the dark stairway they emerged into a low basement whose
cleanliness and order were at once apparent even to the lay sense.
“Don’t let me bore you. I just want you to get a bird’s-eye view. This
plant isn’t complete yet--we have only the essential requirements; the
frills will come later. These are more advanced pupils; younger girls
we get in the afternoons. Rather remarkable young woman over there,
wiping dishes. Came out last Sunday and volunteered to help in her
leisure. I must speak to those girls a minute.”
Wayne followed the clergyman through the unfamiliar apparatus of
the school kitchen to the farther end of the room. The young women
indicated were evidently enjoying themselves and as the two men
approached one of them laughed happily--a laugh of quality that drew
Wayne’s attention to her. He stopped suddenly, seeing that she was
beyond question the girl he had met in the art gallery; there was no
mistaking that head of hers! Her back was toward the door, and she
had not heard the men approach. Her laugh rang out again--it was
like a flash of water down a hillside, or any other bright and happy
thing. She turned, towel and cup in hand, as the minister greeted her
companion and introduced Wayne.
“This is Mr. Craighill, looking for a model cooking school, and he knew
where to come!”
“Oh, Miss Morley, this is my friend, Mr. Craighill. He’s been watching
our show upstairs. I haven’t dared ask how he liked it, but he’s a
judge of coffee and he drank all of yours!”
Paddock’s joy in his work shone in his face; he was immensely pleased
that Wayne had given him the evening. One of the dish-washers drew
him away to meet a newcomer, and Wayne and Miss Morley regarded each
other gravely. Her arms were bared to the elbows; she held a half-dried
cup in her hands; a blue check apron covered her gown. There was no
question of recognition; both remembered their former meeting. Wayne
spoke at once.
“This is different from the art gallery. I was sorry about that. You
were quite right--not to want to know me. I have thought about that
afternoon a good deal.”
“I have thought about it too,” said the girl, “and I have been sorry I
spoke to you as I did. I had no right to assume that you did not mean
to be kind. I shouldn’t have stopped to talk to you that afternoon if
I had not been so full of the picture that I really didn’t think about
myself--or you. The portrait seemed somehow to make it right enough
in the first place--it all seemed impersonal. But I didn’t like your
wanting to take my sketch.”
“You didn’t like it,” said Wayne, “because I am who I am. And you
were right. I have thought of it since and you were quite right. I am
glad to have this chance of telling you so. I saw you in my sister’s
house that same afternoon and I asked her who you were and she would
not tell me--you see I am a very bad man,” he concluded, and bowed
slightly, looking down at her hands that were long and fine, but
labour-roughened, as he had seen that first day.
“I didn’t know you were interested in this sort of work,” she said,
so obviously wishing to be kind that he smiled as their eyes met. Her
crown of dark hair, her fair skin, her splendid blue eyes with their
mystical gray shadows struck him anew.
“I can’t allow you to be deceived about me. I was never here before or
in any such place. I have heard of such things, and haven’t approved of
them. I came out to-night because Mr. Paddock is an old friend.”
“He is wonderful; I came to a service last Sunday out of curiosity; I
had never seen any of this settlement work. He talked to the people
as though he were one of themselves--I suppose you wouldn’t call it
preaching at all--and it is easy to see how they all love him.”
“No doubt he interests them; but I suppose we’ll have to judge his work
by its results,” he ventured, wishing to see what she would say.
“I don’t agree with that, Mr. Craighill. If a man has the heart for a
work like this, that’s enough, isn’t it? The results don’t matter.”
He smiled at her earnestness, but replied gravely:
“It’s a good deal; it’s undoubtedly a whole lot!”
He had not been deeply impressed by the evening’s entertainment as
a moral force. It seemed, in fact, a far cry from the performances
of Paddock’s clumsy amateurs to the souls of the spectators. The
reading-room he had liked better; and the cooking school was well
enough, though it was difficult to reconcile any of it with his earlier
knowledge of Paddock. He did not quite formulate the idea into words,
but he was unable to see just how Paddock was to profit by these
labours; nor was he persuaded that the people the minister served would
be materially benefited. So far as Paddock was personally concerned
he could join heartily enough in the girl’s admiration. But now that
chance had thrown her again in his way, he wished to make the most
of it; a poor art student, contributing her services in this humble
fashion to the work of a social settlement, was a new species. She must
be an unusual young woman or Fanny Blair would not have taken her up.
The remembrance of her sharp rebuff in the art gallery did not make
it easy to talk to her now; but she put down her cup and towel and
addressed him with a directness that was disquieting.
“I said a moment ago that I was sorry I had spoken to you in the way
I did. I want to put it a little differently now. It troubled me
afterward--I felt that I had been unjust; and I don’t think we ought to
feel about anybody as I showed I felt about you--as though----”
“As though being an infamous sort of person decent people shrink from
was a bar,” he supplied, curious as to what she meant to say further.
“Well,” she continued, “I didn’t apply to you that day one of my own
principles: that we all owe something to each other--that we have
no right to hurt anyone, no matter who it is. It’s what I think Mr.
Paddock has come here to teach; it’s what I think religion is!”
She was trying to apply Paddock’s religion to his case, and her
sincerity was making a serious business of it. It was an odd sensation,
this, of talking to a remarkably handsome young woman who frankly
wished to deal with him in the light of her religion. He was surprised
to find that he felt no inclination to laugh at her; she interested him
immensely and he was sorry when Paddock returned and interrupted their
interview.
“I thank you,” he said; “I appreciate your kindness to me.”
Paddock carried him off to see the remainder of the house, whose
facilities he hoped to augment by purchasing the adjoining property and
adding a swimming pool.
“I think I like the cooking school best,” observed Wayne, “but a pool
would be a valuable addition; I see that. If you bathe the flock and
persuade them not to fry their food you’re doing a lot for their
bodies, and I suppose it won’t hurt their souls any.”
Paddock opened a door at the back of the second floor and turned on
the electric lights, disclosing a small room containing an iron bed, a
table, a shelf of books, a desk and little else.
“Remember that cup? Got it at St. John’s for sprinting. You were
second, Craighill, a fact which I always remember with satisfaction.
That’s the only bit of ancient memorabilia that I lug about with me.
Those were the good times of the consulship of Plancus all right, and
seeing you brings them back with a rush. Off here is a little special
indulgence I allow myself--a shower; I take all my ice water that way.
But let’s go down and see what they’re doing below.”
Joe had put the assembly room in order and stood by the door discussing
baseball with a group of admiring youngsters. Paddock had carried his
hat and coat to the assembly room.
“I’m going to take Miss Morley and her friend into town. Here they are
now.”
The young women were just appearing at the head of the basement
stairway. Joe crossed the room to meet Wayne.
“Are you ready, sir?”
“Yes, bring the car up. And, Paddock, if you are going in with those
women, I’ll take you all in the car; there’s plenty of room.”
“Thank you. I’m sure we’ll be grateful. The trolleys are a torture.”
Wayne went into the street to where Joe was lighting the car lamps at
the curb, leaving Paddock to repeat his invitation to the young women.
As he returned to the assembly room Miss Morley met him.
“It’s kind of you to offer to take us in; but it’s unnecessary for Mr.
Paddock to go. He means to come back here to-night and it’s a hard
trip. After what I said to you that day at the Institute you might
think----”
“Yes,” he said, fumbling the buttons of his coat.
“Whatever I felt that day I don’t feel any more. And I don’t want to be
a trouble to Mr. Paddock.”
He smiled as she finished. What she meant was that having seen him in
this place and having found that he and Paddock were friends, she could
forgive him for having tried to flirt with her; that his visit to the
settlement had in a way lightened the burden of his sins and made their
acquaintance possible.
Paddock saw them into the car, not sorry to be relieved of the long
journey into town. Wayne said that he would drive himself, and when
Paddock had bidden the young women good night, the minister turned
and shook hands with Joe, who had been making sure of the rear light.
Wayne leaned out to ask him what was the matter and saw Joe staring
into the car with an odd look on his face. His hand went to his cap
and he mumbled something which the noise of the engine drowned. Then
he ran round and jumped to the vacant seat beside Wayne, where he
crouched in silence throughout the journey. Occasionally Wayne checked
the car’s speed to ask the chauffeur the way, and once Joe jumped out
to investigate an ominous change in the throb of the engine; but Wayne
was spared the familiar ironies with which Joe usually criticized
his driving. The expression of Joe’s face at the car door and this
subsequent moody silence puzzled Wayne; and as his memory sought to
reconstruct in all its trifling details his encounter with Miss Morley
at the Institute the fact that he had afterward seen Joe following
the girl through the dusk as he sat with Wingfield pondering the
orchestra’s affairs took precedence of every other incident of that
first meeting. He heard the voices of the passengers occasionally, but
he did not once turn his head. He was trying, for almost the first
time, to drive the car carefully, and the effort began presently to vex
him.
“You take it, Joe,” he said.
He repeated the address Miss Morley had given him, and Joe drove to it
without comment, a boarding house in an unfashionable quarter at the
edge of that anomalous borderland where the long line of dingy shops
and tenements paused a little nonplussed before the broad open area in
which cathedral spires and new smart dwellings strove, it seemed, to
make peace with art and music as enthroned within the solid walls of
the Institute.
Wayne waited on the steps until Miss Morley and her companion had
opened the door. The young women expressed their thanks cordially
in the flickering light of the hall lamp. As he turned back to the
car, the voice of Miss Morley’s friend was flung out by the closing
door--“Jean!”
Wayne bade Joe drive home, and shut himself in with her name.