The Red Cross Girl
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Richard Harding Davis >> The Red Cross Girl
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At once came a direct answer to his question. The two elderly
gentlemen had risen and, before separating, had halted a few feet
from him.
"I sincerely hope, Sir John," said one of the two, "that you have
no regrets. I hope you believe that I have advised you in the
best interests of all?"
"I do, indeed," the other replied heartily "We shall be thought
entirely selfish; but you know and I know that what we have done
is for the benefit of the shareholders."
Philip was pleased to find that the thoughts of each of the old
gentlemen ran hand in hand with his spoken words. "Here, at
least," he said to himself, "are two honest men."
As though loath to part, the two gentlemen still lingered.
"And I hope," continued the one addressed as Sir John, "that you
approve of my holding back the public announcement of the combine
until the afternoon. It will give the shareholders a better
chance. Had we given out the news in this morning's papers the
stockbrokers would have--"
"It was most wise," interrupted the other. "Most just."
The one called Sir John bowed himself away, leaving the other
still standing at the steps of the lounge. With his hands behind
his back, his chin sunk on his chest, he remained, gazing at
nothing, his thoughts far away.
Philip found them thoughts of curious interest. They were
concerned with three flags. Now, the gentleman considered them
separately; and Philip saw the emblems painted clearly in colors,
fluttering and flattened by the breeze. Again, the gentleman
considered them in various combinations; but always, in whatever
order his mind arranged them, of the three his heart spoke always
to the same flag, as the heart of a mother reaches toward her
firstborn.
Then the thoughts were diverted; and in his mind's eye the old
gentleman was watching the launching of a little schooner from a
shipyard on the Clyde. At her main flew one of the three flags--a
flag with a red cross on a white ground. With thoughts tender and
grateful, he followed her to strange, hot ports, through
hurricanes and tidal waves; he saw her return again and again to
the London docks, laden with odorous coffee, mahogany, red
rubber, and raw bullion. He saw sister ships follow in her wake
to every port in the South Sea; saw steam packets take the place
of the ships with sails; saw the steam packets give way to great
ocean liners, each a floating village, each equipped, as no
village is equipped, with a giant power house, thousands of
electric lamps, suite after suite of silk-lined boudoirs, with
the floating harps that vibrate to a love message three hundred
miles away, to the fierce call for help from a sinking ship. But
at the main of each great vessel there still flew the same
house-flag--the red cross on the field of white--only now in the
arms of the cross there nestled proudly a royal crown.
Philip cast a scared glance at the old gentleman, and raced down
the corridor to the telephone.
Of all the young Englishmen he knew, Maddox was his best friend
and a stock-broker. In that latter capacity Philip had never
before addressed him. Now he demanded his instant presence at the
telephone.
Maddox greeted him genially, but Philip cut him short.
"I want you to act for me," he whispered, "and act quick! I want
you to buy for me one thousand shares of the Royal Mail Line, of
the Elder-Dempster, and of the Union Castle."
He heard Maddox laugh indulgently.
"There's nothing in that yarn of a combine," he called. "It has
fallen through. Besides, shares are at fifteen pounds."
Philip, having in his possession a second-class ticket and a
five-pound note, was indifferent to that, and said so.
"I don't care what they are," he shouted. "The combine is already
signed and sealed, and no one knows it but myself. In an hour
everybody will know it!"
"What makes you think you know it?" demanded the broker.
"I've seen the house-flags!" cried Philip. "I have--do as I tell
you," he commanded.
There was a distracting delay.
"No matter who's back of you," objected Maddox, "it's a big order
on a gamble."
"It's not a gamble," cried Philip. "It's an accomplished fact.
I'm at the Ritz. Call me up there. Start buying now, and, when
you've got a thousand of each, stop!"
Philip was much too agitated to go far from the telephone booth;
so for half an hour he sat in the reading-room, forcing himself
to read the illustrated papers. When he found he had read the
same advertisement five times, he returned to the telephone. The
telephone boy met him half-way with a message.
"Have secured for you a thousand shares of each," he read, "at
fifteen. Maddox."
Like a man awakening from a nightmare, Philip tried to separate
the horror of the situation from the cold fact. The cold fact was
sufficiently horrible. It was that, without a penny to pay for
them, he had bought shares in three steamship lines, which
shares, added together, were worth two hundred and twenty five
thousand dollars. He returned down the corridor toward the
lounge. Trembling at his own audacity, he was in a state of
almost complete panic, when that happened which made his
outrageous speculation of little consequence. It was drawing near
to half-past one; and, in the persons of several smart men and
beautiful ladies, the component parts of different luncheon
parties were beginning to assemble.
Of the luncheon to which Lady Woodcote had invited him, only one
guest had arrived; but, so far as Philip was concerned, that one
was sufficient. It was Helen herself, seated alone, with her eyes
fixed on the doors opening from Piccadilly. Philip, his heart
singing with appeals, blessings, and adoration, ran toward her.
Her profile was toward him, and she could not see him; but he
could see her. And he noted that, as though seeking some one, her
eyes were turned searchingly upon each young man as he entered
and moved from one to another of those already in the lounge. Her
expression was eager and anxious.
"If only," Philip exclaimed, "she were looking for me! She
certainly is looking for some man. I wonder who it can be?"
As suddenly as if he had slapped his face into a wall, he halted
in his steps. Why should he wonder? Why did he not read her mind?
Why did he not KNOW? A waiter was hastening toward him. Philip
fixed his mind upon the waiter, and his eyes as well. Mentally
Philip demanded of him: "Of what are you thinking?"
There was no response. And then, seeing an unlit cigarette
hanging from Philip's lips, the waiter hastily struck a match and
proffered it. Obviously, his mind had worked, first, in observing
the half-burned cigarette; next, in furnishing the necessary
match. And of no step in that mental process had Philip been
conscious! The conclusion was only too apparent. His power was
gone. No longer was he a mind reader!
Hastily Philip reviewed the adventures of the morning. As he
considered them, the moral was obvious. The moment he had used
his power to his own advantage, he had lost it. So long as he had
exerted it for the happiness of the two lovers, to save the life
of the King, to thwart the dishonesty of a swindler, he had been
all-powerful; but when he endeavored to bend it to his own uses,
it had fled from him. As he stood abashed and repentant, Helen
turned her eyes toward him; and, at the sight of him, there
leaped to them happiness and welcome and complete content. It was
"the look that never was on land or sea," and it was not
necessary to be a mind reader to understand it. Philip sprang
toward her as quickly as a man dodges a taxi-cab.
"I came early," said Helen, "because I wanted to talk to you
before the others arrived." She seemed to be repeating words
already rehearsed, to be following a course of conduct already
predetermined. "I want to tell you," she said, "that I am sorry
you are going away. I want to tell you that I shall miss you very
much." She paused and drew a long breath. And she looked at
Philip as if she was begging him to make it easier for her to go
on.
Philip proceeded to make it easier.
"Will you miss me," he asked, "in the Row, where I used to wait
among the trees to see you ride past? Will you miss me at dances,
where I used to hide behind the dowagers to watch you waltzing
by? Will you miss me at night, when you come home by sunrise, and
I am not hiding against the railings of the Carlton Club, just to
see you run across the pavement from your carriage, just to see
the light on your window blind, just to see the light go out, and
to know that you are sleeping?"
Helen's eyes were smiling happily. She looked away from him.
"Did you use to do that?" she asked.
"Every night I do that," said Philip. "Ask the policemen! They
arrested me three times."
"Why?" said Helen gently.
But Philip was not yet free to speak, so he said:
"They thought I was a burglar."
Helen frowned. He was making it very hard for her.
"You know what I mean," she said. "Why did you keep guard outside
my window?"
"It was the policeman kept guard," said Philip. "I was there only
as a burglar. I came to rob. But I was a coward, or else I had a
conscience, or else I knew my own unworthiness." There was a long
pause. As both of them, whenever they heard the tune afterward,
always remembered, the Hungarian band, with rare inconsequence,
was playing the "Grizzly Bear," and people were trying to speak
to Helen. By her they were received with a look of so complete a
lack of recognition, and by Philip with a glare of such savage
hate, that they retreated in dismay. The pause seemed to last for
many years.
At last Helen said: "Do you know the story of the two roses? They
grew in a garden under a lady's window. They both loved her. One
looked up at her from the ground and sighed for her; but the
other climbed to the lady's window, and she lifted him in and
kissed him--because he had dared to climb."
Philip took out his watch and looked at it. But Helen did not
mind his doing that, because she saw that his eyes were filled
with tears. She was delighted to find that she was making it very
hard for him, too.
"At any moment," Philip said, "I may know whether I owe two
hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars which I can never pay,
or whether I am worth about that sum. I should like to continue
this conversation at the exact place where you last spoke--AFTER
I know whether I am going to jail, or whether I am worth a
quarter of a million dollars."
Helen laughed aloud with happiness.
"I knew that was it!" she cried. "You don't like my money. I was
afraid you did not like ME. If you dislike my money, I will give
it away, or I will give it to you to keep for me. The money does
not matter, so long as you don't dislike me."
What Philip would have said to that, Helen could not know, for a
page in many buttons rushed at him with a message from the
telephone, and with a hand that trembled Philip snatched it. It
read: "Combine is announced, shares have gone to thirty-one,
shall I hold or sell?"
That at such a crisis he should permit of any interruption hurt
Helen deeply. She regarded him with unhappy eyes. Philip read the
message three times. At last, and not without uneasy doubts as to
his own sanity, he grasped the preposterous truth. He was worth
almost a quarter of a million dollars! At the page he shoved his
last and only five-pound note. He pushed the boy from him.
"Run!" he commanded. "Get out of here, Tell him he is to SELL!"
He turned to Helen with a look in his eyes that could not be
questioned or denied. He seemed incapable of speech, and, to
break the silence, Helen said: "Is it good news?"
"That depends entirely upon you," replied Philip soberly.
"Indeed, all my future life depends upon what you are going to
say next."
Helen breathed deeply and happily.
"And--what am I going to say?"
"How can I know that?" demanded Philip. "Am I a mind reader?"
But what she said may be safely guessed from the fact that they
both chucked Lady Woodcotes luncheon, and ate one of penny buns,
which they shared with the bears in Regents Park.
Philip was just able to pay for the penny buns. Helen paid for
the taxi-cab.
Chapter 7. THE NAKED MAN
In their home town of Keepsburg, the Keeps were the reigning
dynasty, socially and in every way. Old man Keep was president of
the trolley line, the telephone company, and the Keep National
Bank. But Fred, his son, and the heir apparent, did not inherit
the business ability of his father; or, if he did, he took pains
to conceal that fact. Fred had gone through Harvard, but as to
that also, unless he told people, they would not have known it.
Ten minutes after Fred met a man he generally told him.
When Fred arranged an alliance with Winnie Platt, who also was of
the innermost inner set of Keepsburg, everybody said Keepsburg
would soon lose them. And everybody was right. When single, each
had sighed for other social worlds to conquer, and when they
combined their fortunes and ambitions they found Keepsburg
impossible, and they left it to lay siege to New York. They were
too crafty to at once attack New York itself. A widow lady they
met while on their honeymoon at Palm Beach had told them not to
attempt that. And she was the Palm Beach correspondent of a
society paper they naturally accepted her advice. She warned them
that in New York the waiting-list is already interminable, and
that, if you hoped to break into New York society, the clever
thing to do was to lay siege to it by way of the suburbs and the
country clubs. If you went direct to New York knowing no one, you
would at once expose that fact, and the result would be
disastrous.
She told them of a couple like themselves, young and rich and
from the West, who, at the first dance to which they were
invited, asked, "Who is the old lady in the wig?" and that
question argued them so unknown that it set them back two years.
It was a terrible story, and it filled the Keeps with misgivings.
They agreed with the lady correspondent that it was far better to
advance leisurely; first firmly to intrench themselves in the
suburbs, and then to enter New York, not as the Keeps from
Keepsburg, which meant nothing, but as the Fred Keeps of Long
Island, or Westchester, or Bordentown.
"In all of those places," explained the widow lady, "our smartest
people have country homes, and at the country club you may get to
know them. Then, when winter comes, you follow them on to the
city."
The point from which the Keeps elected to launch their attack was
Scarboro-on-the-Hudson. They selected Scarboro because both of
them could play golf, and they planned that their first skirmish
should be fought and won upon the golf-links of the Sleepy Hollow
Country Club. But the attack did not succeed. Something went
wrong. They began to fear that the lady correspondent had given
them the wrong dope. For, although three months had passed, and
they had played golf together until they were as loath to clasp a
golf club as a red-hot poker, they knew no one, and no one knew
them. That is, they did not know the Van Wardens; and if you
lived at Scarboro and were not recognized by the Van Wardens, you
were not to be found on any map.
Since the days of Hendrik Hudson the country-seat of the Van
Wardens had looked down upon the river that bears his name, and
ever since those days the Van Wardens had looked down upon
everybody else. They were so proud that at all their gates they
had placed signs reading, "No horses allowed. Take the other
road." The other road was an earth road used by tradespeople from
Ossining; the road reserved for the Van Wardens, and automobiles,
was of bluestone. It helped greatly to give the Van Warden estate
the appearance of a well kept cemetery. And those Van Wardens who
occupied the country-place were as cold and unsociable as the
sort of people who occupy cemeteries--except "Harry" Van Warden,
and she lived in New York at the Turf Club.
Harry, according to all local tradition--for he frequently
motored out to Warden Koopf, the Van Warden country-seat--and,
according to the newspapers, was a devil of a fellow and in no
sense cold or unsociable. So far as the Keeps read of him, he was
always being arrested for overspeeding, or breaking his
collar-bone out hunting, or losing his front teeth at polo. This
greatly annoyed the proud sisters at Warden Koopf; not because
Harry was arrested or had broken his collar-bone, but because it
dragged the family name into the newspapers.
"If you would only play polo or ride to hounds instead of playing
golf," sighed Winnie Keep to her husband, "you would meet Harry
Van Warden, and he'd introduce you to his sisters, and then we
could break in anywhere."
"If I was to ride to hounds," returned her husband, "the only
thing I'd break would be my neck."
The country-place of the Keeps was completely satisfactory, and
for the purposes of their social comedy the stage-setting was
perfect. The house was one they had rented from a man of charming
taste and inflated fortune; and with it they had taken over his
well-disciplined butler, his pictures, furniture, family silver,
and linen. It stood upon an eminence, was heavily wooded, and
surrounded by many gardens; but its chief attraction was an
artificial lake well stocked with trout that lay directly below
the terrace of the house and also in full view from the road to
Albany.
This latter fact caused Winnie Keep much concern. In the
neighborhood were many Italian laborers, and on several nights
the fish had tempted these born poachers to trespass; and more
than once, on hot summer evenings, small boys from Tarrytown and
Ossining had broken through the hedge, and used the lake as a
swimming-pool.
"It makes me nervous," complained Winnie. "I don't like the idea
of people prowling around so near the house. And think of those
twelve hundred convicts, not one mile away, in Sing Sing. Most of
them are burglars, and if they ever get out, our house is the
very first one they'll break into."
"I haven't caught anybody in this neighborhood breaking into our
house yet," said Fred, "and I'd be glad to see even a burglar!"
They were seated on the brick terrace that overlooked the lake.
It was just before the dinner hour, and the dusk of a wonderful
October night had fallen on the hedges, the clumps of evergreens,
the rows of close-clipped box. A full moon was just showing
itself above the tree-tops, turning the lake into moving silver.
Fred rose from his wicker chair and, crossing to his young bride,
touched her hair fearfully with the tips of his fingers.
"What if we don't know anybody, Win," he said, "and nobody knows
us? It's been a perfectly good honeymoon, hasn't it? If you just
look at it that way, it works out all right. We came here really
for our honeymoon, to be together, to be alone--"
Winnie laughed shortly. "They certainly have left us alone!" she
sighed.
"But where else could we have been any happier?" demanded the
young husband loyally. "Where will you find any prettier place
than this, just as it is at this minute, so still and sweet and
silent? There's nothing the matter with that moon, is there?
Nothing the matter with the lake? Where's there a better place
for a honeymoon? It's a bower--a bower of peace, solitude
a--bower of--"
As though mocking his words, there burst upon the sleeping
countryside the shriek of a giant siren. It was raucous,
virulent, insulting. It came as sharply as a scream of terror, it
continued in a bellow of rage. Then, as suddenly as it had cried
aloud, it sank to silence; only after a pause of an instant, as
though giving a signal, to shriek again in two sharp blasts. And
then again it broke into the hideous long drawn scream of rage,
insistent, breathless, commanding; filling the soul of him who
heard it, even of the innocent, with alarm.
"In the name of Heaven!" gasped Keep, "what's that?"
Down the terrace the butler was hastening toward them. When he
stopped, he spoke as though he were announcing dinner. "A
convict, sir," he said, "has escaped from Sing Sing. I thought
you might not understand the whistle. I thought perhaps you would
wish Mrs. Keep to come in-doors."
"Why?" asked Winnie Keep.
"The house is near the road, madam," said the butler. "And there
are so many trees and bushes. Last summer two of them hid here,
and the keepers--there was a fight." The man glanced at Keep.
Fred touched his wife on the arm.
"It's time to dress for dinner, Win," he said.
"And what are you going to do?" demanded Winnie.
I'm going to finish this cigar first. It doesn't take me long to
change." He turned to the butler. "And I'll have a cocktail, too
I'll have it out here."
The servant left them, but in the French window that opened from
the terrace to the library Mrs. Keep lingered irresolutely.
"Fred," she begged, "you--you're not going to poke around in the
bushes, are you?--just because you think I'm frightened?"
Her husband laughed at her. "I certainly am NOT!" he said. "And
you're not frightened, either. Go in. I'll be with you in a
minute."
But the girl hesitated. Still shattering the silence of the night
the siren shrieked relentlessly; it seemed to be at their very
door, to beat and buffet the window-panes. The bride shivered and
held her fingers to her ears.
"Why don't they stop it!" she whispered. "Why don't they give him
a chance!"
When she had gone, Fred pulled one of the wicker chairs to the
edge of the terrace, and, leaning forward with his chin in his
hands, sat staring down at the lake. The moon had cleared the
tops of the trees, had blotted the lawns with black, rigid
squares, had disguised the hedges with wavering shadows.
Somewhere near at hand a criminal--a murderer, burglar, thug--was
at large, and the voice of the prison he had tricked still
bellowed in rage, in amazement, still clamored not only for his
person but perhaps for his life. The whole countryside heard it:
the farmers bedding down their cattle for the night; the guests
of the Briar Cliff Inn, dining under red candle shades; the joy
riders from the city, racing their cars along the Albany road. It
woke the echoes of Sleepy Hollow. It crossed the Hudson. The
granite walls of the Palisades flung it back against the granite
walls of the prison. Whichever way the convict turned, it hunted
him, reaching for him, pointing him out--stirring in the heart of
each who heard it the lust of the hunter, which never is so cruel
as when the hunted thing is a man.
"Find him!" shrieked the siren. "Find him! He's there, behind
your hedge! He's kneeling by the stone wall. THAT'S he running in
the moonlight. THAT'S he crawling through the dead leaves! Stop
him! Drag him down! He's mine! Mine!"
But from within the prison, from within the gray walls that made
the home of the siren, each of twelve hundred men cursed it with
his soul. Each, clinging to the bars of his cell, each, trembling
with a fearful joy, each, his thumbs up, urging on with all the
strength of his will the hunted, rat-like figure that stumbled
panting through the crisp October night, bewildered by strange
lights, beset by shadows, staggering and falling, running like a
mad dog in circles, knowing that wherever his feet led him the
siren still held him by the heels.
As a rule, when Winnie Keep was dressing for dinner, Fred, in the
room adjoining, could hear her unconsciously and light-heartedly
singing to herself. It was a habit of hers that he loved. But on
this night, although her room was directly above where he sat
upon the terrace, he heard no singing. He had been on the terrace
for a quarter of an hour. Gridley, the aged butler who was rented
with the house, and who for twenty years had been an inmate of
it, had brought the cocktail and taken away the empty glass. And
Keep had been alone with his thoughts. They were entirely of the
convict. If the man suddenly confronted him and begged his aid,
what would he do? He knew quite well what he would do. He
considered even the means by which he would assist the fugitive
to a successful get-away.
The ethics of the question did not concern Fred. He did not weigh
his duty to the State of New York, or to society. One day, when
he had visited "the institution," as a somewhat sensitive
neighborhood prefers to speak of it, he was told that the chance
of a prisoner's escaping from Sing Sing and not being at once
retaken was one out of six thousand. So with Fred it was largely
a sporting proposition. Any man who could beat a
six-thousand-to-one shot commanded his admiration.
And, having settled his own course of action, he tried to imagine
himself in the place of the man who at that very moment was
endeavoring to escape. Were he that man, he would first, he
decided, rid himself of his tell-tale clothing. But that would
leave him naked, and in Westchester County a naked man would be
quite as conspicuous as one in the purple-gray cloth of the
prison. How could he obtain clothes? He might hold up a
passer-by, and, if the passer-by did not flee from him or punch
him into insensibility, he might effect an exchange of garments;
he might by threats obtain them from some farmer; he might
despoil a scarecrow.
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