Dark Mondays (15 page)

“Dear, dear,” said Jack.

“Here,” said Dick, stopping beside a glass case wherein sat, large as life, a whimsical old gentleman in the robe and mortarboard of a schoolmaster. His right arm, pen in hand, rested on a small writing-table. “You have to stand in front of him for it to work.”

He took Evangeline’s elbow and steered her to a spot directly in front of the case. He had assumed she would let go of Jack’s arm in the process, but she held tight and Jack followed like an obliging fellow, close at her side.

“Not sure he’ll get the message right, if there’s two of you,” grumbled Dick, but he felt in his pocket for another slug and dropped it in the coin slot.

Professor Honorius raised his head and turned it from side to side, as though peering before him. Then his left hand lifted a pair of spectacles to his eyes, and he looked straight ahead at Evangeline and Jack. He nodded, smiling. As he did so, a card dropped into a small tray on the writing-table.

Professor Honorius lowered his spectacles and turned his face to the writing-table, seeming to look down on the card. His right arm lifted, reached across to an inkwell, whose cap opened for him; he dipped the pen and then, slowly but with perfect articulation of his fingers, wrote upon the card.

“Well, I never!” said Evangeline.

“Very true,” said Jack.

The message having been written, Professor Honorius raised his hand. A peg rose under one side of the tray, tilting the card outward and down a chute; it dropped through the front of the case, and fell to the floor. Jack’s head lowered, and his eyes seemed to focus on the white pasteboard.

“Allow me,” said Jack. With a graceful motion he bent at the waist, and picked up the card. He presented it to Evangeline with a slight bow. She read the card. She blushed, her eyes sparkling with excitement. Dick, leaning past Jack to see what was on the card, read:

“My goodness, what a delightful thought!” said Evangeline to Jack.

“Please,” said Jack. “Tell me about yourself.”

Which Evangeline proceeded to do, as Dick led them along the row of automata, past the Turk who dealt cards and the other Turk who smoked a hookah, past the clown whose little dog balanced on a ball, and they might have been blank walls for all that Evangeline paid the slightest attention to them. She spared not even a glance at the remarkable replica of Vaucanson’s Excreting Duck. When Dick set the Grand Orchestrion playing, blaring out “Wellington’s Victory” so loudly the glass cases all rattled, she merely raised her voice to be heard. The whole while, Jack seemed to follow her words with interest and sympathy. “Ah,” and “Well, well,” and “Do tell!” and “How very interesting,” in no way exhausted his vast repertory of responses.

Presently applause downstairs indicated that Congressman Gookin had staggered to the end of his speech, and a moment later the waiting crowd was let in to climb the stairs to the exhibit hall. Madame Rigby walked at the forefront, firmly clasping Congressman Gookin’s arm. The congressman looked sick and faint, as though he would rather be anywhere else. Madame Rigby had the air of a smiling tigress.

“Well, Jack, have you entertained the young lady properly?”

“I’ll have to think about that,” said Jack.

“Oh, Jack dear, don’t be silly! Madame, he’s too modest; I’m having the most wonderful time!” said Evangeline.

“How very nice. Now, Congressman, I’ve something special to show you,” said Madame Rigby. “The oldest piece in the exhibit, the first one I ever built.”

She pulled him with her to the lovers’ tragedy in six acts. Dick slouched after them, having given up any attempt to draw Evangeline’s notice. Dutifully he dropped a slug in the coin slot, and the first little curtain rose on the scene in the clockmaker’s shop. Congressman Gookin regarded it with a face as waxen as the manikin’s.

Dick, well used to the little play by now, found himself watching its audience instead. He observed Congressman Gookin’s pallor, and the light of baleful joy on Madame Rigby’s face. Suddenly the full import of what Dick beheld dawned on him. He looked uncertainly from one face to the other, and then at the tableau.

“Oh!” he exclaimed under his breath. Shaken with disgust, he left the exhibit hall and went downstairs to the bar, where he fortified himself with a whiskey. In doing so, he missed the congressman’s rapid exit, pulling a protesting Evangeline with him.

“Well, well, listen to this,” said Madame Rigby, tipping ash from her cigarette. She read from a sheet of scented letter-paper:

My very dear Jack, I am scarcely able to express my pleasure at meeting you Saturday, but even less able to express my indignation and outrage. You may well wonder why! In the Automobile I expressed to Papa my intention to invite you to my Birthday Soiree, and to my shock and horror he positively forbid it! We had quite a Row and the Consequence is, I have canceled the entire affair. Which will end up costing a Great Deal I am sure, as the caterer’s deposit cannot be refunded at such short notice, but as it is my fortune anyhow, or will be, I do not care.

“In any case I shall certainly not let such an Unfair Prejudice as Papa’s stand in the way of my further acquaintance with your gracious self. He is all Affability when there is a Reporter anywhere nearby, but quite another person in Private. Be that as it may, we are not in Ancient Rome and I am free to take the streetcar anywhere I like. It is my intention to visit you at the Exhibition tomorrow, and indeed any day that I am able, when we may continue our Interesting Conversations.

“Unless—perhaps I am too Forward? But surely you do not think so. Do reply by return post and tell me that you share my Enthusiasm for our continued friendship. Yours Affectionately, Miss Evangeline Gookin.

Madame Rigby tossed the letter down on her workbench and took a long pull on her cigarette.

“
Her
fortune anyhow, is it? ‘Or will be’. Now, I wonder if the family fortune wasn’t settled on the child? How unfortunate for the congressman! Where’s my writing-case, Dick? Jack’s got to write her straight back, just as she asked him to.”

“You don’t mean he writes, too?” said Dick, fetching her the case.

“Oh, I reckon I could modify him to do it; but what need, when his own dear mama knows exactly what he’ll say?” said Madame Rigby. She took out a sheet of paper and a reservoir pen of her own design, and paused.

“Now, let’s see. ‘My dear little girl—’ Just so old Fremont Gookin used to begin! But, no; this is Jacky’s first letter, and he’s a gentleman.
He
wouldn’t make so bold.” Madame Rigby began to write, reading aloud as she went.

“ ‘My very dear Miss Gookin; painful as I find the report of your father’s unreasoning dislike, it is difficult to express my corresponding joy at your kind regard and your desire to continue our acquaintance.’ ”

“Ma’am, don’t you think—” said Dick.

“Hush, boy. ‘Especially since it will, sadly, be of such a brief duration; for, you know, we will be returning to Paris when the Exhibition closes at the end of the month.’ ”

“Ah,” said Dick.

“ ‘So I will be delighted to spend my brief interlude here as much in your fair company as possible. Please do meet me at the Exhibition tomorrow, the Twelfth; I shall linger amongst the cases, disconsolate until you come.’ There!” Madame Rigby signed for Jack with a flourish. “Just you run this out to the post box, Dick.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Dick, smiling uneasily. “You know, it’s a fine joke; but do you think you can keep it up for a month? What if Jack’s exposed for what he really is?”

“Exposed! Why, let him be,” said Madame Rigby. “Can you think of better publicity for us? It’s the grandest joke that’s ever been played; and the longer we can keep it going, the bigger the story will break.
Then
we’ll see the money rolling in. I’ve planned this hoax for twenty years, sonny; no matter what may befall, I’ll come out of it a winner. And you’ll stick with me and win too, if you’ve any brains.”

Dick saw before him the prospect of a trip to Paris, France, with all he might learn from Madame Rigby there, and the mansion on Nob Hill that might one day be his if he became a master mechanic. He swallowed hard and said:

“It does seem a little hard on Miss Evangeline, is all.”

Madame Rigby’s eyes glinted. “Hard? Well, she’ll survive it. A few rude shocks are liable to do such a spoiled beauty good.”

The exhibition was a success. It was favorably written up in the
Examiner
, the
Chronicle
and the
Morning Call
. Only the
Examiner
quoted from Congressman Gookin’s speech at any length, so it is unlikely his efforts did much to sway the forthcoming election.

But San Franciscans took the streetcar out to Cliff House in great numbers. There they stood in line to file up the stairs to the gallery, and gladly spent their bright nickels to make the acquaintance of Professor Honorius, or to marvel at the detail and perfection of the Excreting Duck. Not a few of the gentler sex shed a tear over the sorrows of the little black-haired doll in midnight blue. Dick worked for two hours each evening after the gallery closed, emptying the machines; he never failed to retrieve at least two buckets’ worth of nickels, which were satisfyingly heavy when rolled up in brown paper and taken to the bank next morning.

Though Miss Evangeline Gookin visited the exhibition on very nearly a daily basis, she spent no coin, and scarcely looked again at the
scenes mecaniques
. All her time was spent with Jack, walking round and round the fourth-floor porch outside the exhibition. The sun shone, the salt-gray sea roared and surged around Seal Rock, the booming wind streamed her hair out and brought her the squeals of bathers far down Ocean Beach; it is unlikely Evangeline noticed any of this, so caught up was she in her conversations with Jack.

She thought him quite the kindest and most thoughtful youth she’d ever met. He never interrupted her, as every other boy of her acquaintance did; never told her that her opinions were silly, never scoffed at her tastes in Literature or Art, never boasted, never grew impatient, never attempted to change the topic under discussion to Sports, and never, never in word or deed suggested anything immoral.

Indeed, Jack seemed to like nothing more than to listen to her, chastely holding her hand all the while. Evangeline supposed that this was because he was a pure and chivalrous person, though she had to admit to herself that Jack’s behavior might have been a little more ardent, had Madame Rigby not loitered continually in the near distance. But this too was entirely proper; and Madame Rigby played the smiling chaperone on the several occasions they took tea in the ladies’ parlor next to the Gallery Hall. And if Jack’s hands were a little cold, Evangeline never wondered at it; for the porch at Cliff House, exposed as it was to the full force of the wind off the Golden Gate, ranked just above Alaska in January on any list of the world’s chilliest places to court a lover.

It must be admitted that sometimes Evangeline found Jack’s conversation a little vague and absent-minded. His letters to her (for they wrote each other often) were another matter, however. He wrote in a witty, dashing style, and used the courtliest expressions of love she had ever heard. Had Evangeline known that their source and origin was a bundle of yellowed deception written by Congressman Gookin himself, harbored in the bottom of Madame Rigby’s trunk these twenty years, she would have recoiled in horror; but she didn’t know, and so continued to treasure Jack’s correspondence.

The closing day of the exhibition drew inexorably nearer. If Jack’s letters and manner remained serene, Evangeline was increasingly wretched to contemplate that she might shortly be deprived of his company forever.

“Whew! I want a brandy,” said Madame Rigby, throwing down her hat and gloves. “I’d forgotten how cold the wind blows out there. Dick, take Jack to the water closet; he drank three cups of tea today. I wonder he hasn’t leaked.”

Dick rose, shuddering, and guided Jack to the lavatory. Fortunately, he was not obliged to assist Jack further at this point; as he slouched in the doorway, he blessed his predecessor, the nameless fellow from the Polytechnic who had worked out all Jack’s more detailed masculine commands. One terse phrase was all that was required for Jack to make the necessary adjustments to his trousers before draining off approximately twenty-four ounces of stale tea, after which he buttoned himself once more and turned with a beaming face to receive his next order. Taking Jack by the shoulder, Dick walked him to his cabinet and thrust the key up his nose before shutting him away for the night.

“Lordy! Here’s another letter from Miss Evangeline,” said Madame Rigby. “Well, well! Are these tear-stains I see? Jack, you rogue, what have you been up to?”

She poured herself a brandy and lit another cigarette before settling down to read the latest letter. Dick sat down wearily and unwrapped a ham sandwich bought from a pushcart vendor, for he had yet to dine. He was not to enjoy his meal in peace, however. Madame Rigby perused but a few lines before she leaped to her feet and began to pace as she read, puffing out furious clouds of smoke.

“Listen to this!” she said, from the corner of her mouth. “ ‘Oh, my Beloved! You may well wonder at my Tears, or maybe the fact that my writing is so Tremulous. I am a Prisoner in my Own Room! You shall not wonder long, for here is the whole Dreadful Truth!

“ ‘Papa has found one of your Letters and for Heaven’s Sake I thought he was going to Drop Down Dead right there on the Floor from Apoplexy! Never have I heard Such Language! He has called you all kinds of Dreadful Things I will not repeat, and (Which is Worse to my Way of Thinking) your dear Mother also.

“ ‘I am Forbidden to see or speak to you Ever Again!!! And am presently Locked In on the Third Floor!!!!

“ ‘Yet, Despair Not, for the man doesn’t live who can keep Evangeline Gookin from her True Love. Hear me Patiently a Little While, for I think I see a Way we may yet be Happy.