Read the book: «Lord Loveland Discovers America», page 11

CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Morning Paper

"I shall be able to pay you for my breakfast and the messenger now," said Loveland. "And if you've a private room, I'd like to engage it till afternoon, when I can send to the hotel again, and find the cable telling me how and where to get the money on my letter of credit. It's rather awkward being here in these clothes, and – "

"We haven't got a private room," replied the girl, "except our own parlour. I wish we had, because – because I guess you're just about right. You oughtn't to be here, today, sitting around dressed that way. You might be noticed, and – and – " She hesitated, then began to speak again quickly, in a low voice. "See here, Mr. – Mr. Gordon. I don't know but I'd better tell you something. Bend down; I don't want the waiters to hear. Dutchy don't catch onto English much, but folks always understand when you don't want 'em to. Of course it's all right about Bill, as he's your friend. I suppose he knows?"

"Knows what?" enquired Val, bending down towards her as she had asked, his elbows on the counter, while Bill tactfully retired out of earshot.

"Why – it's – it's in the paper; this morning's 'Light.'"

"Oh!" The blood sprang to Val's face, his scar showing very white. No need, it seemed, for further questions. He thought he knew what Miss Isidora Alexander had been reading in the paper, and cursed himself for having uttered the name of Loveland. If he had not told her that enquiries must be made at the Waldorf for Lord Loveland's cablegram and letters, she would not associate Mr. Gordon, Bill Willing's friend, with the hero of "New York Light's" story.

That cad, Milton, had evidently made up some tale, on recovering his disgusting senses, a tale not too damaging to himself, and had named his assailant.

"Give me the paper, please," Val demanded.

"Not now," said the girl. "Dutchy's looking, and that, silly boy, Blinkey, has just come in. I don't know as Dutchy reads English, and 'tain't likely Blinkey bothers about the news, even when he gets time. But you never can tell. They may have read, and they may be putting things together already. Better not let 'em guess we're alludin' to anything in the paper."

"Is it about my knocking a man down?" asked Loveland.

"Yes, a swell, well known in s'ciety. I've seen his name often in 'Town Chat.' And it's about you at the hotel, too – "

Suddenly it seemed to Val that he would not have the heart to read that article about himself in the newspapers. His sensitive vanity sent a sharp twinge through his body, as if a nerve had been touched with the point of a knife. That scene of his humiliation in the Waldorf Restaurant, and afterwards in the hall! how could he bear to see it all set out in vulgar print, accompanied perhaps by an "interview" with the hotel employé who had turned him into the street? No, he could not look at the paper, could not see himself held up to public ridicule – probably by the pen of the man he had ordered from his door with Cadwallader Hunter yesterday in the morning.

Physically, Loveland was not a coward; but touch his vanity and he shrank as if with fear, and, mortified to the quick, as his imagination pictured the amusement his plight must be at this moment creating round thousands of breakfast tables, he broke in upon the girl's revelations, almost roughly. "Never mind – that part now," he said. "That's nothing. Has the man Milton set the police on me?"

"Nope. I guess not. There's a kind of interview with him in the paper, and he says he deserved what he got for havin' anything to do with a man of your sort. He says after he'd told you exactly what he thought of you, you hit him from behind; which I don't believe, because you ain't that kind, I'll bet – "

"Thank you," said Loveland, looking so handsome in the pallor of his anger that the Jewish girl could not take her eyes from his face. Her sensuous temperament made her adore beauty, of which she saw little in her everyday life. It was because she loved beauty and colour that she chose red and other vivid-hued dresses for herself. Because she loved beauty she studied fashion-plates, and pinched in her plump waist to what she considered perfect elegance of form. Because she loved beauty and thought she was attaining it, she covered her smooth polished skin with pearl powder, and tortured her hair with metal curling-pins. Because she loved beauty she was now ready to fling her soul at this stranger's feet. Having read the newspaper, she believed him to be a blackguard; but she had not been taught a high standard of virtue for men; and if she had, she would still have been fiercely ready to protect this splendid scoundrel.

"No, I'm not that kind of man," Val echoed her words. "Evidently the cowardly beast must have picked himself up before he was seen, otherwise, as he was lying flat on his fat back, his story about having been hit from behind would hardly have held water. Will the police do anything on their own responsibility, do you think?"

"Not unless somebody sends them lookin' for you, I hope," Isidora reassured him, flattered that she should be taken into consultation. "This Milton says in the interview, he don't want to be mussed up in a scandal, or called on as a witness against you in a police-court."

"It's his own scandal!" broke out Loveland. "He knows I could defend myself only too well. And being a cad himself, he doesn't know that I wouldn't bring in certain names."

"Still, the hotel people may try to make trouble," the girl suggested. "It was so early when the messenger got there, p'raps they hadn't read the papers, because if they had, they could have followed the boy here, if they wanted."

"I shall have to send again for the cablegram, no matter what happens," said Val. "I must get money."

"Sure you can get it?" Isidora asked in a confidential, yet somewhat doubtful, tone.

"Of course I'm sure. I have my letter of credit – the one thing I did manage to keep."

"Yes, but – "

"There isn't any but," cut in Loveland, impatiently. "It's certain to be all right this afternoon, at latest. The cable will have come to the hotel, and then I shall know what to do. Even supposing the police should arrest me for that affair – well, at worst, the trouble ought to be over and done with in a day or two."

"Oh, indeed it wouldn't," exclaimed the pretty Jewess. "I don't know what mightn't happen to you. You will be careful, won't you – if it's only to please me?" And her eyes were large and beseeching.

"You're very kind to take an interest," said Val, really grateful, though he had to restrain an impulse to draw back from her advances. "Of course I don't want to be let in for a scandal which might do others harm as well as me – and would, if that beast Milton could manage it. I'm not exactly pining to see the inside of a New York gaol – which you seem to think I'm in danger of doing. Things are bad enough, as it is." And his face darkened, for he thought that, after the loathesome publicity the newspapers were now giving the name of Loveland, he might have difficulty in bringing down such game as he had crossed the sea to seek. Also, he remembered with a pang Lesley Dearmer's prophecy that the Louisville journals would reprint New York gossip.

"Oh, I'm sorry you think things here are so bad," retorted Isidora, flushed and pouting.

"You know I don't mean things here," protested Val, with less truth than politeness. "You're too good to me, and I appreciate it all immensely."

"Do you?" she asked, her eyes liquid.

"Of course I do. I hope I shall be able to prove that before long."

She blushed. To her mind, there was only one way in which a young man could prove that he appreciated a girl's goodness to him: by making love to her. And she could almost have fainted with joy at the thought of what it would be to have this glorious hero – villain though he might be – as a lover. Already she had a dim yet intoxicating vision of herself a bride in white silk (or should it be cream satin?) and a wreath of artificial orange blossoms amid clouds of tulle. There would be difficulties – a hundred difficulties, of which the greatest was now upstairs enjoying a well-earned rest. But who cared for a love that ran smooth? And Isidora thrilled as her fancy held a spyglass up to the future.

"Well," she said, warmly, "I mean to go on being good – better – best to you; for I'm studying out a plan to get your things away from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, and all the same to keep you out of trouble. You're a foreigner, and don't understand our ways yet, but I'll see you through all right."

"How are you going to do that, my guardian angel?" Val smiled at the pretty Jewess.

Isidora had the sensation of being bathed in perfumed cream. His "guardian angel"! She had been called a number of nice things, such as a "real beaut," a high-flyer and a Floradora; but no one had ever hailed her as his guardian angel before, and with all her heart she vowed that she would live up to the name.

"I don't know exactly yet how I'll do it," she admitted. "But you leave it to me, and it'll be done, you'll see. Only give me an order signed 'Loveland,' to bring away anything of yours from the hotel. Meantime, I've thought of one thing, which is, you'd better not be seen here till we're sure they ain't onto you, through that messenger boy. I tell you what; I've got a lady friend in this street, Mrs. Johnny Gernsbacher, who's lookin' after an empty house that's for rent."

"A caretaker?" asked Loveland.

"I guess that's right. Me and Mrs. Gernsbacher's good friends. She's a widow lady, quite old, 'most forty-five, so she'll do for a chaperon. Pa had her boy here once to wait, and then through me and friends of mine he got a better job outside. She'd be glad to do me a good turn. You can see to things here for five minutes till I run across and ask if she'll let you stay there in the house, as a friend of mine, till you have time to look around."

"I– see to things?" echoed Loveland, blankly.

"Yes. If anybody comes in, they'll take you for a swell waiter, in those clothes. They'll think Alexander the Great's startin' in for uptown style."

She laughed with amusement at the joke, and Loveland laughed, too, though not very heartily. He was not enchanted at the idea of being mistaken for a "swell waiter," but beggars must not be choosers, and he offered no objection to the plan.

Wrapping over her head a red crocheted scarf which she called a "fascinator," Isidora darted into the street, panting with haste lest the worst should happen in her absence, and her father take it into his head to come downstairs. But she had seen him last dozing over the Police News, in a quilted home-made dressing-gown, and that was such a short time ago that she hardly thought there was danger of a surprise.

Mrs. Gernsbacher must have been very accessible and easily persuaded, for in less than ten minutes the girl was back again, flushed with triumph. "It's all right," she announced. "Beccy G's standing in the basement door, waiting for you to pop in. Bill, you show him the way to Beccy's. Goodbye, Mr. Gordon. Don't stay here another minute. I'll be over as soon as I can, to tell you what's up – and I'll send Bill along at noon with something good for your dinner."

Carried off his feet by her enthusiasm, Loveland did not stop for further argument. Caught by an eddy in the tide of fate, he let himself be swept away.

CHAPTER TWENTY
A Back Number

Nothing had happened when Bill Willing came at half-past twelve, to find Loveland an inappropriately ornamental figure, keeping guard in Mrs. Gernsbacher's kitchen during that lady's absence on a shopping expedition: nothing had happened worth reporting, except that Alexander the Great was "around again."

Isidora had sent, wrapped in a Japanese paper napkin, a ham-sandwich, and a generous slice of pumpkin-pie, a delicacy strange to the Englishman's palate. Bill had brought food for himself, too (that part of his wage which he took out in kind), preferring a cold picnic meal with his friend to the hot meat and potatoes he might have had at the restaurant. He also was provided with pie and a sandwich, and though his portion was smaller than Isidora's surreptitious gift to "Mr. Gordon," he had smuggled in his pocket a bottle of ginger ale for both.

"Have you read the beastly newspaper article about me?" Val forced himself to enquire.

"No," answered Bill, "I ain't seen it. Miss Izzie offered me the paper, but I – well, I didn't care to read it. Seemed as if 'twould sorter be spying on you, behind your back."

"You're a good fellow," said Val. It was a new idea, only born to him last night, that a shabby waif like Bill – a mere autumn leaf, blown here and there by contrary winds of circumstance – could be a "good fellow," with the heart of a man. But here was such a one. And it seemed to Lord Loveland that the leaf was very like a gentleman.

"I don't see where the goodness comes in," protested Bill, modestly. "But I can run back and sneak the paper, if you've changed your mind and want a squint at it."

"No, thank you," said Val; though he half scorned himself for moral cowardice. "I've no wish to see how deep New York journalism has pushed me into the mud."

Bill, who did not wish to be overheard gossiping about his friend's affairs by the returning Mrs. Gernsbacher, pottered away after the meal, promising to run in later with a message from "Miss Izzie," if the young lady were prevented from coming in person. If Isidora had mapped out a definite plan, she had not confided it to Bill, but he had little doubt that her idea would "pan out all right, because she was a mighty smart girl when she set her wits to work."

Some hours passed, and Loveland became as restless as a caged lion lately imported from his native desert. It was only his horror of vague atrocities which might be perpetrated by the New York police – horrors such as he had read or heard of – which restrained him from rushing out of his dreary hiding place, even at the price of being hooted in his evening clothes, in the full glare of noonday. After all, he said to himself, bitterly, those who might see him perambulating Twelfth Street, thus unsuitably clad, would only do as Isidora had suggested – "take him for a swell waiter." But he did not like that dark, haunting vision of the police, and constrained himself to patience.

Rebecca Gernsbacher returned from her morning's shopping to ask almost as many questions as she drew breaths, freezing into a cold statue of suspicion as her mysterious guest froze into reticence. Not having heard the name of Loveland, she did not associate any sensational headlines in the morning paper with Isidora's "swell mash," but there was no crime between pocket picking and murder of which she did not believe the handsome, sulky fugitive easily capable.

Loveland had parted with his watch, but there was a battered "one day Bee" clock in Mrs. Gernsbacher's untidy kitchen, and he had begun to tell himself gloomily, that it would soon be too late to draw money from any bank, when Isidora appeared in great splendour at the basement door. She had on a large picture hat of red velvet, nodding with cheap ostrich plumes which shaded from palest pink to deepest magenta; and in her "electric seal" coat she looked as little like a lady as a beautiful girl could possibly look. But she was enchanted with herself – and evidently expected to impress Loveland by her taste and elegance.

"Well!" she panted, having kissed her friend Beccy, and dusted off a chair with the big muff which matched her cloak. "Well, I've got news for you, Mr. Gordon. Guess what it is."

Val was in no mood for graceful badinage, but he forced himself to reply smilingly that he could not guess, and was anxious to hear. "I began to think you were never coming," he added; which remark was more flattering to Isidora than to Mrs. Gernsbacher.

The girl, pleased at his impatience, which made her conscious of her own importance, gaily plunged into her narrative: what she had done, and why she had been so long in doing it.

In the first place, Pa had been cross, and hadn't wanted her to go out; but when she had teased, he had only grumbled a little, and directly after dinner – before Bill came back – she had taken an "L" train downtown, to consult the husband of a great friend of hers. This gentleman she had persuaded to leave business – he being a tobacco merchant – and to drop in at the Waldorf-Astoria, with the object of making certain enquiries. She had not, she said, confided any secrets to her friend, though she was sure she might have done so safely, but had merely pleaded a passionate yearning for further details of the "story" in "New York Light." What were the hotel people going to do? Were they searching for the Englishman, and if so, had they got upon his track?

Mr. Rosenstein being an occasional customer of the Waldorf bar, when he "had on his gladdest rags and was out to do himself well," did not hesitate to undertake the mission. He went to the hotel and asked questions without arousing any suspicion that he was actuated by a deeper motive than idle curiosity, and he learned that the staff of the Waldorf-Astoria took but little interest in the gentleman calling himself Lord Loveland. The Englishman had gone away without paying for his rooms, as the newspapers had said, the hotel people admitted, but goods worth about the amount owing had been left behind. Possibly the owner would redeem the things; and if not, it was a matter of no great importance to the hotel, which was full of other clients and of other business. Anything that might have happened, anything of which the Englishman might be accused, did not concern the Waldorf-Astoria, now that he was no longer a resident of the hotel, and employés had been instructed not to gossip either in his favour or disfavour. Besides, a good deal of water had run through the mill since his eviction, and the late Lord Loveland was now shelved as a "Back Number."

Having got this information, passed on from Mr. Rosenstein, Isidora had felt safe in attempting her coup d'état. Bidding her obliging friend goodbye with thanks, she went herself to the Waldorf-Astoria. Assuming the air of a Duchess (as she conceived it) she showed to a clerk the paper given her by Loveland, and signed by him. At the same time she mentioned haughtily that she was a friend of the gentleman's, and had dropped in for his mail.

There was no mail, had come the laconic answer; no cablegram; no letters; no visiting cards; and nobody had called with the exception of two or three newspaper men.

Loveland's heart was cold as iron, and as heavy, when Isidora's story had reached this climax. Difference in time could no longer account for the London bank's failure in replying to his wire of yesterday. There was some other reason for silence – some strange, sinister reason connected, no doubt, with the attitude of the New York cashier twenty-four hours ago. Val asked himself insistently what that reason might be, and could get no answer, although various disturbing conjectures flitted through his brain. He thought of the debts he had left behind in London, and wondered if any of his creditors could possibly be responsible for the mysterious trouble which had attacked him simultaneously from both sides of the world.

And nobody had called or written! This lack of courtesy showed, to his mind, that Jim's and Betty's friends had all read the newspapers, and had taken his affair with Milton in bad part. The man Milton was to blame for the scandal, which had doubtless been spread by Cadwallader Hunter's journalist friend, in revenge for a snub. Cadwallader Hunter's malice, too, must have been another match to light the fire of mischief; and taking everything together, Loveland began to fear that the game in America was up. He hated to fail, hated to be thwarted – pushed back with brutal violence from the very threshold of success; but it was all too sordid, too humiliating for a gentleman to contend against. He began to tell himself that the dignified course was to turn his back on America and march homeward with flags flying as if he had suffered no defeat. Yes, that was what he would do. It would be disgracing himself and his name, to go down and wrestle in the arena with enemies who did not pretend to fight fair. Yet – to leave this country for ever, with no hope of seeing Lesley Dearmer again! She had not even given him her address, and had only laughed elusively when he suggested "calling on her some day, after everything was comfortably settled." He knew no more than that she lived "near Louisville," therefore he could not write to beg that she would not believe any hateful tales the newspapers might invent. Oh, yes, it was all over – that, little episode, which had been so sweet, which had taught him that he had heart enough to love and long for a woman, because of what she was, not because of what she had.

"You needn't look so broken up," said Isidora. "Wait till I come to the end of the story. I've got a messenger waitin' in the street with something for you. I wouldn't let him in, till we'd had our talk. Now I'm going to call him down, to cheer you up a bit."

She bounced off her chair, ran to the door, and shouted up from the level of the basement to the street. In another moment a uniformed youth walked in and deposited a large paper-wrapped bundle; but it was not until he had been sent away that Isidora began to open the parcel.

"I wanted to get the lot," she said, "but my, the bill was high! – way above me. I'd twenty-five dollars I'd been savin' up – oh, for something; but you needn't care. I'd a heap rather do this than buy any old thing for myself. And here's what they give me after a lot of fuss."

She tore off the brown paper with a dramatic gesture, and triumphantly displayed the suit of tweed clothing which Loveland had taken off the evening before in dressing for dinner. Then her face fell, as she saw that his expressed no pleasure.

"I thought you'd like these better than anything, as I couldn't run to all," the girl went on disappointedly.

"You paid my hotel bill!" exclaimed Loveland.

"Only a little, weeny part," Isidora broke in. "Wisht I could have done more."

"I don't," said Val, hastily. "Oh, you're very kind – too kind. I don't know what to say. But – your money, that you were saving – why, I – Jove! it's horrible. And I mayn't be able to pay you back for days."

"I don't want you to pay me back," the girl said proudly. "It's been a pleasure."

Loveland's heart reproached him. He had shuddered a little at the thought that this gaudy young beauty in flaunting feathers and cheap finery had gone to the Waldorf claiming him as her "gentleman friend." But it was a thought far less palatable that she should spend her savings for him. He was grateful – more grateful than he would have known how to be yesterday, to a person not of his own class – yet gratitude was not now his strongest emotion.

He thanked her as best he could for all she had done, and talked down her objections to being repaid. Now, he said, owing to her kindness he could walk the streets without being stared at, and would lose no time in cabling to his mother. Oh, he had plenty of money for that! and smiling as if it were part of a huge joke, he showed what the payment of his small debt to the restaurant had left of his eight dollars.

Seven dollars and a bit-nearly thirty shillings! Why, he was rich. All he asked now, was a room in which to change his clothes.

As there was a houseful of empty rooms, this request was easily granted; and presently Loveland came back to the kitchen suitably clad for daylight – except for the detail of his necktie. He would have given a good deal for a change of linen; but there was no use in crying for the moon. And Isidora saw no fault in his appearance as she walked proudly at his side, on the way to send a cablegram to Scotland.

Secretly, Loveland would have been glad to dispense with her company, but she assured him that she had "more time than anything else," and that she would be delighted to guide him. Only, they "mustn't go past home, for if Pa saw her with a strange gentleman, there'd be trouble."

Isidora peered over her companion's shoulder, as he wrote out his message to his mother, and was much interested in the address. To save expense, he put only "Loveland, Dorloch, North Britain," therefore the girl's curiosity was not greatly rewarded. All she could say to herself was that, apparently, he had some right to the name of Loveland, and that he really did seem to expect that "somebody over there" might send him a remittance. Otherwise why should he waste good money on a cablegram, and without a code, too?

Loveland had not written to his mother since his change of plan about the ships. But after all, he said to himself, it did not matter. He was always a bad correspondent – always had been – and the mater just put up with it, poor dear. She wouldn't be worrying anyway, as she must suppose him to be on the high seas at this moment, a passenger on the Baltic– unless she had heard from Betty or Jim – an improbable contingency. Even if he had sent off a letter directly after landing, she would not get it for days yet, so his negligence had done no harm. As for the Marconigram Jim had suggested – why, as things had turned out, it was as well he hadn't wasted money on it.

Unfortunately, to make his need of money clear, Val was obliged to write a long message, even though he attempted no elaborate explanation, beyond saying: "Don't believe newspaper canards." When he had finished, and did not see his way to striking out a single word, he was vexed to find that he would have to pay six dollars and fifty cents. Still, his mother would instantly send the fifty pounds he asked for, even if she had to borrow, and in a few hours this hideous situation would be ended. He could pay all he owed; and then, if there were no hope of anything good in America, he would take passage on the first homeward bound ship.

Isidora advised him to give as an address the house where Mrs. Gernsbacher was caretaker, as embarrassing questions might be asked by Pa if an answer came to the restaurant. She was afraid that Mr. Gordon would have to "chum up" with Bill again for the night, if he were determined not to accept a little loan from her; and she was grieved to think of the boring evening he would have to spend.

It would be fun, she thought, if he would "just drop in at the restaurant like a stranger," and have some supper, which would cost him as little there as anywhere, since he was bent on paying. But Loveland made an excuse which pleased her so much that she relinquished the plan almost without a pang. It would be difficult, he said, after all her goodness, to treat her like an entire stranger. He said this carelessly, but to her it meant a great deal – so much, that she went straight home almost as happy as if he had been by her side.

With his evening clothes under his arm (the first time in his life, perhaps, that he had carried a parcel larger than a letter), Loveland found his way back to the Bowery, back to the Bat Hotel, back to his friend Bill, who was already in the reading room. And once again the name of "P. Gordon" figured humbly among the hundred and fifty lodgers for that night.