The Purple Heights Part 18

"You can't do nothin'. I'll tell you why. Somehow--I--I'd like you to know."

And she sat there and told him.

"You see?" said she, when she had finished.

"I see," said Peter; and the hand that held his cigarette trembled.

The thing that struck him most forcibly was the stupid waste of it all.

"Look here, Gracie," he said at last, "if you ever get--very unlucky--and things are too hard for you--sort of last ditch, you know,--I want you to go to a certain address. It's to my uncle," he explained, seeing her look blank. "You'll send in the card I'm going to give you, and you will say I sent you. He'll probably investigate you, you know. But you just tell him the truth, and say I told you he'd help. Will you do that!"

She in her turn reflected, watching Peter curiously. Then she fell to tracing patterns on the table-cloth with the point of her knife.

"All right," she said. "If ever I have to, an' I can find him, I will--an' say you sent me."

Peter took out his pocket memorandum, wrote his uncle's name and the address of the house in the Seventies which he was presently to occupy, added, "I wish you'd do what you can, for my sake," and signed it. He handed the girl the slip of paper, and she thrust it into her low-necked blouse.

"And now," he finished kindly, "you'd better go home, Gracie, go to bed, and sleep." He held out his brown hand, and she, rising from her chair, gripped his fingers as a child might have done, and looked at him with dog's eyes.

"Good-by!" said she, huskily. "You _are_ real, ain't you?"

"d.a.m.nably so," admitted Peter. "Good-by, then, Gracie." And he left her standing by the table, the empty wine-gla.s.s before her. The streets stretched before him emptily.--That poor, done-for kid! What _is_ one to do for these Gracies?

"Mister! For G.o.d's sake! I'm hungry!" a hoa.r.s.e voice accosted him. A dirty hand was held out.

Mechanically Peter's hand went to his pocket, found a silver dollar, and held it out. The dirty hand s.n.a.t.c.hed it, and without so much as a thank you the man rushed into a near-by bakery. Peter shuddered.

When he reached his room, he sat for a long time before his open window, and stared at the myriads and myriads of lights. From the streets far below came a subdued, ceaseless drone, as if the huge city stirred uneasily in her sleep--perhaps because she dreamed of the girls she prost.i.tuted and the men she starved. And it was like that everywhere. If the great cities gave, they also took, wastefully. Peter was tormented, confronted by the inexorable question:

"What am _I_ going to do about it?"

He couldn't answer, any more than any other earnest and decent boy could answer, whose whole and sole weapon happened to be a paint-brush. One thing he resolved: he wouldn't add to the sum total; n.o.body should be the worse off because he had lived. So thinking, the bridegroom fell asleep.

When he awoke in the morning, he lay for a moment staring at the strange ceiling overhead; his mind had an uneasy consciousness that something impended. Then he sat up suddenly in his bed, and clutched his head in his hands.

"Lord have mercy on me!" cried Peter. "I've got to get up and get married!"

By ten o'clock his luggage was on its way to the steamer. Dressed in his new clothes, ring and license carefully tucked away in his pocket, Peter took an hour off and jumped on a bus. It delighted him to roll around the streets on top of a bus. He felt that he could never see enough of this wonderful, terrible, beautiful, ugly, cruel, and kind city. Everywhere he turned, something was being torn down or up, something was being demolished or replaced. New York was like an inefficient and yet hard-working housekeeper, forever house-cleaning; her house was never in order, and probably never would be, hence this endless turmoil. Yet, somehow, Peter liked it.

She wasn't satisfied with things as they were.

He stopped at Grant's Tomb, looked at the bronze tablet commemorating the visit of Li Hung Chang, then went inside and stared reflectively at the torn and dusty flags.

"It was worth the price," he decided. "But," he added, with a certain deep satisfaction, "I'm glad we gave them a run for their money while we were at it!" The Champneyses, one remembers, were on the other side.

When he got back to his hotel the car that his uncle had sent for him had just arrived. Deferential help brought out his remaining belongings, were tipped, and stood back while the door was slammed upon the departing one. The car was held up for seven minutes on Forty-second Street, while Peter leaned forward to get his first view of congested traffic. He had once seen two Ford cars and an ox-cart tie up the Riverton Road.

Arrived at Emma Campbell's quarters, he found her sitting stiffly erect, her foot upon her new suit-case, her new cloak over her arm, and the bird-cage under her hand. The expressman who had called for her trunk early that morning had good-naturedly offered to carry the bird-cage along with it, but Emma had flatly refused to let the cat get out of her sight. Even when she climbed into the car she held fast to the cage.

"I don't say nothin' 'bout _me_. All I scared ob is, dat dis unforchnate cat's gwine to lose 'is min' before we-all finishes up."

It was with difficulty that Peter persuaded her to leave the cage in the car when they reached his uncle's hotel.

"Mistuh," said Emma to the chauffeur, "is you-all got any fambly dependin' on you?"

"One wife. Three kids," said the chauffeur, briefly.

"I ain't de kin' ob lady whut makes threats agin' a gent'man," said Emma, looking him unblinklngly in the eye. "All I says is, dat I started whah I come fum wid dat cat an' I 'specks to lan' up whah I 's gwine to wid dat same cat in dat same cage. Bein' as you 's got dem chillun en dat wife, I calls yo' 'tenshun to dat fac', suh."

The chauffeur, a case-hardened pirate, laughed. "All right, lady,"

said he, genially. "It ain't in my line to granny cats, but that one will be the apple of me good eye until you git back. I wouldn't like the missus to be a widder: she's too darn good-lookin'."

With her mind at ease on this point, Emma consented to leave Satan in the car and follow Peter. Emma looked resplendently respectable, and she knew it. She was dressed as well as if she had expected to be buried. By innate wisdom she had retained the snowy head-handkerchief under her sailor hat, and she wore her big gold hoop-earrings. Smart colored servants were common enough at that hotel, but one did not often see such as this tall and erect old woman in her severe black-and-white. Emma belonged almost to another day and generation, although her face, like the faces of many old colored women, was unwrinkled. She had a dignity that the newer generation lacks, and a pride unknown to them.

Peter and Emma went up in an elevator and were ushered into a private sitting-room, where were awaiting them Mr. Chadwick Champneys, a gentleman who was obviously a clergyman, another who was as obviously a member of the Bar, and the latter's wife, a very handsome lady handsomely and expensively panoplied. There was the usual hand-shaking, as Peter was introduced, and the handsome lady stared openly at Emma; one doesn't often see a bridegroom come in accompanied by an old colored woman. Emma courtesied, with the inimitable South Carolina bending of the knees, and then took a modest seat in the background and faded into it. She had good manners, had Emma.

Mr. Champneys glanced at his watch, and presently left the room. The clergyman, book in hand, stepped into the middle of the floor, and looked importantly religious. The lawyer smilingly invited Peter to take his place beside him. Everybody a.s.sumed a solemn look.

And then the door opened and the bride appeared, leaning on her uncle's arm. Emma Campbell, leaning forward, got one glimpse of the face but slightly concealed by the thin, floating tulle veil pinned on with a wreath of orange-blossoms, caught one gleam from the narrowed eyes; and her own eyes bulged in her head, her mouth fell open. Emma wished to protest, to cry, to pray aloud.

The bride was magnificently dressed, in a gown that was much too elaborate for her angular and undeveloped young figure. It made her look over-dressed and absurd to a pitiful degree, as if she were masquerading. The hair-dresser whom she had called to her aid had done her worst. Nancy had an unusual quant.i.ty of hair, and it had been curled and frizzed, and puffed and pulled, until the girl's head appeared twice its natural size. Through the fine lace of her sleeves were visible her thin, sunburned arms. Her naturally dark eyebrows had been accentuated, and there was a bright red patch on each cheek, her lips being equally crimson. Out of the rouged and powdered face crowned by towering red hair, the mult.i.tude of freckles showed defiantly, two fierce eyes lowered.

As Peter met the stare of those narrowed eyes, to save his life he couldn't keep from showing his downright consternation. His aversion and distaste were so manifest, that a deeper red than rouge stained the girl's cheek and mottled her countenance. Her impulse was to raise her hand and strike him across his wincing mouth.

What Nancy saw was a tall, thin, shambling young fellow whose face was pale with an emotion not at all complimentary to herself. He didn't like her! He thought her hideous! He despised her! So she read Peter's expressive eyes. She thought him a fool, to stand there staring at her like that, and she hated him. She detested him.

Puppy!

She saw his glance of piteous entreaty, and Mr. Chadwick Champneys's bland, blind ignoring of its silent reproach and appeal. And then the long-legged young fellow pulled himself together. His head went up, his mouth hardened, and his voice didn't shake when he promised to cherish and protect her, until death did them part.

All the while Peter felt that he was struggling in a hideous dream.

That bride in white satin wasn't real; his uncle wouldn't play him such a trick! Peter cringed when the defiant voice of the girl snapped her "I do" and "I will."

The clergyman's voice had trailed off. He was calling her "Mrs.

Champneys." And Mr. Vandervelde and his handsome wife were shaking hands with her and Peter, and saying pleasant, polite, conventional things to them both. She signed a paper. And that old n.i.g.g.e.r-woman kept staring at her; but Peter avoided meeting her eyes. And her uncle was saying that she must change her frock now, my dear: Peter's boat sailed within the hour, remember. And then she was back in her room, tearing off the dress that only last night she had so fondly fingered.

It lay on the floor in a s.h.i.+mmering heap, and she trampled on it.

She had torn the tulle veil and orange-blossoms from her hair, and she stamped on those, too. The maid who had been engaged to help her stood aghast when the bride kicked her wedding-gown across the room.

She folded it with shaking hands and smoothed the torn veil as best she could. The beautiful lace-and-ivory fan was snapped and torn beyond hope of salvage. Nancy tossed it from her. With round eyes the maid watched her tear hair-pins out of her hair, rush into the bath-room, and with furious haste belabor her head with a wet brush to remove the fatal frizzings; but the work had been too thoroughly done to hope to remove all traces of it so easily. Nancy brushed it as best she could, and then rolled it into a stout coil on the top of her head. Her satin slippers came hurtling across the room as she kicked them off, and the maid caught them on the fly.

Back into the bath-room again, and the maid could hear her splas.h.i.+ng around, as she scrubbed her face. When she came out, it was brick-red, but powderless and paintless. She got into her blue tailored suit without a.s.sistance, and, sitting on the floor, b.u.t.toned her shoes with her own fingers, to the maid's disgust. Then she jerked on her hat, stuck a hat-pin through it carelessly, s.n.a.t.c.hed up gloves and hand-bag, and was ready for departure. The expression of her face at that moment sent the maid cowering against the wall, and tied her tongue; the bride looked as if she were quite capable of pitching an officious helper out of a ten-story window.

"My G.o.d!" said the girl to herself, as Nancy, without so much as a word or a look in her direction, slammed the door behind her. "My G.o.d, if that poor fellow that's just been married to _her_ was any kin to me, I'd have a High Ma.s.s said for his soul!"

The brick-red apparition that swept into the room put the final touch upon Peter's dismay. He thought her the most unpleasant human being he had ever encountered, and almost the ugliest. The Vanderveldes had taken the clergyman off in their car, and only Peter, his uncle, and Emma remained.

"I'm ready!" snapped the bride. She didn't glance at the bridegroom, but the look she bestowed upon Emma made that doughty warrior quail.

Emma conceived a mortal terror of Peter's wife. She took the place of the Boogerman and of ha'nts.

Chadwick Champneys had his hand on his nephew's shoulder, and was talking to him in a low and very earnest voice--rather like a clergyman consoling a condemned man with promises of heaven after hanging. Peter received his uncle's a.s.surances in resigned silence.

Two cars were waiting outside the hotel for the wedding-party. As Emma Campbell stepped into the one that was to convey her and Peter to the boat, Nancy saw her stoop and lift a large bird-cage containing, of all things, an immense black cat, which mewed plaintively at sight of her. It was the final touch of grotesqueness upon her impossible wedding. The two Champneyses wrung hands silently. The older man said a few words to the colored woman, and shook hands with her, too.