Lo Michael! (22 page)

With a mighty effort Michael now reached forth and plucked Sam, struggling fiercely, from the arms of his antagonist and put him behind him in the doorway, standing firmly in front. Carter thus released, sprawled for an instant in the road, then taking advantage of the momentary release struggled to his feet and fled in the opposite direction from that in which the officers were approaching.

“Let me go! I must get him!” muttered Sam pushing fiercely to get by Michael.

“No, Sam, stay where you are and keep quiet. You'll gain nothing by running after him. You'll only get into trouble yourself.”

“I don't care!” said Sam frantically, “I don't care what happens to me. I'll kill him. He stole my girl!”

But Michael stood before him like a wall of adamant in the strength that was his for the extremity.

“Yes, Sam, my poor fellow. I know,” said Michael gently, sadly. “I know, Sam. He stole mine too!”

Sam subsided as if he had been struck, a low awful curse upon his lips, his face pale and baleful.

“You, too?” The yearning tenderness went to Michael's heart like sweet salve, even in the stress of the moment. They were brothers in sorrow, and their brotherhood saved Sam from committing a crime.

Then the police and crowd swept up breathless.

“What does all this mean?” panted a policeman touching his cap respectfully to Michael. “Some one been shooting?”

He stooped and peered into the white face of the still-unconscious woman, and then looked suspiciously toward Sam who was standing sullenly behind Michael.

“He's all right,” smiled Michael throwing an arm across Sam's shoulder, “He only came in to help me when he saw I was having a hard time of it. The fellow made off in that direction.” Michael pointed after Carter whose form had disappeared in the darkness.

“Any of the gang?” asked the officer as he hurried away.

“No!” said Michael. “He doesn't belong here!”

One officer hurried away accompanied by a crowd, the other stayed to look after the woman. He touched the woman with his foot as he might have tapped a dying dog to see if there was still life there. A low growl like a fierce animal came from Sam's closed lips.

Michael put a warning hand upon his arm.

“Steady, Sam, steady!” he murmured, and went himself and lifted the poor pretty head of the girl from its stony pillow.

“I think you'd better send for the ambulance,” he said to the officer. “She's had a heavy blow on her head. I arrived just in time to see the beginning of the trouble—”

“Ain't she dead?” said the officer indifferently. “Best get her into her house. Don't reckon they want to mess up the hospital with such cattle as this.”

Michael caught the fierce gleam in Sam's eyes. A second more would have seen the officer lying beside the girl in the road and a double tragedy to the record of that night; for Sam was crouched and moving stealthily like a cat toward the officer's back, a look of almost insane fury upon his small thin face. It was Michael's steady voice that recalled him to sanity once more, just as many a time in the midst of a game he had put self-control and courage into the hearts of his team.

“Sam, could you come here and hold her head a minute, while I try to get some water? Yes, officer, I think she is living, and she should be got to the hospital as soon as possible. Please give the call at once.”

The officer sauntered off to do his bidding. Michael and Sam began working over the unconscious girl, and the crowd stood idly round waiting until the ambulance rattled up. They watched with awe as the form of the woman was lifted in and Michael and Sam climbed up on the front seat with the driver and rode away; then they drifted away to their several beds and the street settled into its brief night respite.

The two young men waited at the hospital for an hour until a white-capped nurse came to tell them that Lizzie had recovered consciousness, and there was hope of her life. Then they went out into the late night together.

“Sam, you're coming home with me to-night!” Michael put his arm affectionately around Sam's shoulders, “You never would come before, but you must come to-night.”

And Sam, looking into the other's face for an instant, saw that in Michael's suffering eyes that made him yield.

“I ain't fit!” Sam murmured as they walked along silently together. It was the first hint that Sam had ever given that he was not every whit as good as Michael; and Michael with rare tact had never by a glance let Sam know how much he wished to have him cleaner, and more suitably garbed.

“Oh, we'll make that all right!” said Michael fervently thankful that at last the time had come for the presentation of the neat and fitting garments which he had purchased some weeks before for a present for Sam, and which had been waiting for a suitable opportunity of presentation.

The dawn was hovering in the East when Michael led Sam up to his own room, and throwing wide the door of his own little private bath-room told Sam to take a hot bath, it would make him feel better.

While Sam was thus engaged Michael made a compact bundle of Sam's old garments, and stealing softly to the back-hall window, landed them by a neat throw on the top of the ash barrel in the court below. Sam's clothes might see the alley again by way of the ash man, but never on Sam's back.

Quite late that very same morning, when Sam, clothed and in a new and righter mind than ever before in his life, walked down with Michael to breakfast, and was introduced as “my friend Mr. Casey” to the landlady, who was hovering about the now-deserted breakfast table; he looked every inch of him a respectable citizen. Not handsome and distinguished like Michael, of course, but quite unnoticeable, and altogether proper as a guest at the respectable breakfast table of Mrs. Semple.

Michael explained that they had been detained out late the night before by an accident, and Mrs. Semple gave special orders for a nice breakfast to be served to Mr. Endicott and his friend, and said it wasn't any trouble at all.

People always thought it was no trouble to do things for Michael.

While they ate, Michael arranged with Sam to take a trip out to see Buck.

“I was expecting to go this morning,” he said. “I had my plans all made. They write me that Buck is getting uneasy and they wish I'd come, but now”—he looked meaningly at Sam—“I think I ought to stay here for a little. Could you go in my place? There are things here I must attend to.”

Sam looked, and his face grew dark with sympathy. He understood.

“I'll keep you informed about Lizzie,” went on Michael with delicate intuition, “and anyway you couldn't see her for some time. I think if you try you could help Buck as much as I. He needs to understand that breaking laws is all wrong. That it doesn't pay in the end, and that there has got to be a penalty—you know. You can make him see things in a new way if you try. Are you willing to go, Sam?”

“I'll go,” said Sam briefly, and Michael knew he would do his best. It might be that Sam's change of viewpoint would have more effect upon Buck than anything Michael could say. For it was an open secret between Sam and Michael now that Sam stood for a new order of things and that the old life, so far as he was concerned, he had put away.

And so Sam was got safely away from the danger spot, and Michael stayed to face his sorrow, and the problem of how to save Starr.

CHAPTER XXI

The papers the next morning announced that Mr. Stuyvesant Carter while taking a short cut through the lower quarter of the city, had been cruelly attacked, beaten and robbed, and had barely escaped with his life.

He was lying in his rooms under the care of a trained nurse, and was recovering as rapidly as could be expected from the shock.

Michael reading it next morning after seeing Sam off to Kansas, lifted his head with that quiet show of indignation. He knew that the message must have been telephoned to the paper by Carter himself shortly after he had escaped from the police. He saw just how easy it was for him to give out any report he chose. Money and influence would buy even the public press. It would be little use to try to refute anything he chose to tell about himself.

The days that followed were to Michael one long blur of trouble. He haunted Mr. Endicott's office in hopes of getting some news of his return but they told him the last letters had been very uncertain. He might come quickly, and he might be delayed a month yet, or even longer; and a cablegram might not reach him much sooner than a letter, as he was travelling from place to place.

After three days of this agony, knowing that the enemy would soon be recovering from his bruises and be about again, he reluctantly wrote a note to Starr:

“My dear Miss Endicott:

“At the risk of offending you I feel that I must make one more attempt to save you from what I feel cannot but be great misery. The young man of whom we were speaking has twice to my knowledge visited a young woman of the slums within the last month, and has even since your engagement been maintaining an intimacy with her which can be nothing but an insult to you. Though you may not believe me, it gives me greater pain to tell you this than anything I ever had to do before. I have tried in every way I know to communicate with your father, but have thus far failed. I am writing you thus plainly and painfully, hoping that though you will not take my word for it, you will at least be willing to find some trustworthy intimate friend of your family in whom you can confide, who will investigate this matter for you, and give you his candid opinion of the young man. I can furnish such a man with information as to where to go to get the facts. I know that what I have said is true. I beg for the sake of your future happiness that you will take means to discover for yourself.

“Faithfully yours,

“Michael”

To this note, within two days, he received a condescending, patronizing reply:

“Michael:

“I am exceedingly sorry that you have lent yourself to means so low to accomplish your end, whatever that may be. It is beyond me to imagine what possible motive you can have for all this ridiculous calumny that you are trying to cast on one who has shown a most noble spirit toward you.

“Mr. Carter has fully explained to me his presence at the home of that girl, and because you seem to really believe what you have written me, and because I do not like to have
anyone
think evil of the man whom I am soon to marry, I am taking the trouble to explain to you. The young woman is a former maid of Mr. Carter's mother, and she is deeply attached to her. She does up Mrs. Carter's fine laces exquisitely, and Mr. Carter has twice been the bearer of laces to be laundered, because his mother was afraid to trust such valuable pieces to a servant. I hope you will now understand that the terrible things you have tried to say against Mr. Carter are utterly false. Such things are called blackmail and bring terrible consequences in court I am told if they become known, so I must warn you never to do anything of this sort again. It is dangerous. If my father were at home he would explain it to you. Of course, having been in that out-of-the-way Florida place for so long you don't understand these things, but for papa's sake I would not like you to get into trouble in any way.

“There is one more thing I must say. Mr. Carter tells me that he saw you down in that questionable neighborhood, and that you are yourself interested in this girl. It seems strange when this is the case, that you should have thought so ill of him.

“Trusting that you will cause me no further annoyance in this matter,

“S. D. Endicott.”

When Michael had read this he bowed himself upon his desk as one who had been stricken unto death. To read such words from her whom he loved better than his own soul was terrible! And he might never let her know that these things that had been said of him were false. She would probably go always with the idea that his presence in that alley was a matter of shame to him. So far as his personal part in the danger to herself was concerned, he was from this time forth powerless to help her. If she thought such things of him,—if she had really been made to believe them,—then of course she could credit nothing he told her. Some higher power than his would have to save her if she was to be saved.

To do Starr justice she had been very much stirred by Michael's note, and after a night of wakefulness and meditation had taken the letter to her mother. Not that Starr turned naturally to her most unnatural mother for help in personal matters usually; but there seemed to be no one else to whom she could go. If only her father had been home! She thought of cabling him, but what could she say in a brief message? How could she make him understand? And then there was always the world standing by to peer curiously over one's shoulder when one sent a message. She could not hope to escape the public eye.

She considered showing Michael's note to Morton, her faithful nurse, but Morton, wise in many things, would not understand this matter, and would be powerless to help her. So Starr had gone to her mother.

Mrs. Endicott, shrewd to perfection, masked her indignation under a very proper show of horror, told Starr that of course it was not true, but equally of course it must be investigated; gave her word that she would do so immediately and her daughter need have no further thought of the matter; sent at once for young Carter with whom she held a brief consultation at the end of which Starr was called and cheerfully given the version of the story which she had written to Michael.

Stuyvesant Carter could be very alluring when he tried, and he chose to try. The stakes were a fortune, a noble name, and a very pretty girl with whom he was as much in love at present as he ever had been in his checkered career, with any girl. Moreover he had a nature that held revenge long. He delighted to turn the story upon the man who pretended to be so righteous and who had dared to give him orders about a poor worthless girl of the slums. He set his cunning intellect to devise a scheme whereby his adversary should be caught in his own net and brought low. He found a powerful ally in the mother of the girl he was to marry.

For reasons of ambition Mrs. Endicott desired supremely an alliance with the house of Carter, and she was most determined that nothing should upset her plans for her only daughter's marriage.

She knew that if her husband should return and hear any hint of the story about Carter he would at once put an end to any relations between him and Starr. He had always been “queer” about such things, and “particular,” as she phrased it. It would be mortifying beyond anything to have any balk in the arrangements after things had gone thus far; and there was that hateful Mrs. Waterman, setting her cap for him so odiously everywhere even since the engagement had been announced. Mrs. Endicott intended to risk nothing. Therefore she planned with the young people for an early marriage. She was anxious to have everything so thoroughly cut and dried, and matters gone so far that her husband could not possibly upset them when he returned. Finally she cabled him, asking him to set a positive date for his home-coming as the young people wished to arrange for an early wedding. He cabled back a date not so very far off, for in truth, though he had received none of Michael's warnings he was uneasy about this matter of his daughter's engagement. Young Carter had of course seemed all right, and he saw no reason to demur when his wife wrote that the two young people had come to an understanding, but somehow it had not occurred to him that the marriage would be soon. He was troubled at thought of losing the one bright treasure of his home, when he had but just got her back again from her European education. He felt that it was unfortunate that imperative business had called him abroad almost as soon as she returned. He was in haste to be back.

But when his wife followed her cable message with a letter speaking of an immediate marriage and setting a date but four days after the time set for his arrival, he cabled to her to set no date until his return, which would be as soon as he could possibly come.

However, Mrs. Endicott had planned well. The invitations had been sent out that morning. She thought it unnecessary to cable again but wrote, “I'm sorry, but your message came too late. The invitations are all out now, and arrangements going forward. I knew you would not want to stop Starr's plans and she seems to have her heart set on being married at once. Dear Stuyvesant finds it imperative to take an ocean trip and he cannot bear the thought of going without his wife. I really do not see how things could possibly be held off now. We should be the laughingstock of society and I am sure you would not want me to endure that. And Starr, dear child, is quite childishly happy over her arrangements. She is only anxious to have you properly home in time, so do hurry and get an earlier boat if possible.”

Over this letter Mr. Endicott frowned and looked troubled. His wife had ever taken things in her own hands where she would; but concerning Starr they had never quite agreed, though he had let her have her own way about everything else. It was like her to get this marriage all fixed up while he was away. Of course it must be all right, but it was so sudden! And his little Starr! His one little girl!

Then, with his usual abrupt action he put the letter in his inner pocket and proceeded to hurry his business as much as possible that he might take an earlier boat than the one he had set. And he finally succeeded by dint of working night as well as day, and leaving several important matters to go as they would.

The papers at last announced that Mr. Delevan Endicott who had been abroad for three months on business had sailed for home and would reach New York nearly a week before the date set for the wedding. The papers also were filled with elaborate foreshadowings of what that event was likely to mean to the world of society.

And Michael, knowing that he must drink every drop of his bitter cup, knowing that he must suffer and endure to the end of it, if perchance he might yet save her in some miraculous way, read every word, and knew the day and the hour of the boat's probable arrival. He had it all planned to meet that boat himself. If possible he would go out on the pilot and meet his man before he landed.

Then the silence of the great deep fell about the traveller; and the days went by with the waiting one in the city; the preparations hurried forward by trained and skilful workers. The Endicott home was filled with comers and goers. Silks and satins and costly fabrics, laces and jewels and rare trimmings from all over the world were brought together by hands experienced in costuming the great of the earth.

Over the busy machinery which she had set going, Mrs. Endicott presided with the calmness and positive determination of one who had a great purpose in view and meant to carry it out. Not a detail escaped her vigilant eye, not an item was forgotten of all the millions of little necessities that the world expected and she must have forthcoming. Nothing that could make the wedding unique, artistic, perfect, was too hard or too costly to be carried out. This was her pinnacle of opportunity to shine, and Mrs. Endicott intended to make the most of it. Not that she had not shone throughout her worldly career, but she knew that with the marriage of her daughter her life would reach its zenith point and must henceforth begin to decline. This event must be one to be remembered in the annals of the future so long as New York should continue to marry and be given in marriage. Starr's wedding must surpass all others in wonder and beauty and elegance.

So she planned, wrought, carried out; and day by day the gleam in her eyes told that she was nearing her triumph.

It did not disturb her when the steamer was overdue one whole day, and then two. Starr, even amid the round of gaieties in her young set, all given in her honor, found time to worry about her father; but the wife only found in this fact a cause for congratulation. She felt instinctively that her crucial time was coming when her husband reached home. If Michael had dared to carry out his threats, or if a breath of the stories concerning young Carter's life should reach him there would be trouble against which she had no power.

It was not until the third morning with still no news of the vessel that Mrs. Endicott began to feel uneasy. It would be most awkward to have to put off the ceremony, and of course it would not do to have it without the bride's father when he was hurrying to be present. If he would arrive just in time so much the better; but late—ah—that would be dreadful! She tightened her determined lips, and looked like a Napoleon saying to herself, “There shall be no Alps!” In like manner she would have said if she could: “There shall be no sea if I wish it.”

But the anxiety she felt was only manifested by her closer vigilance over her helpers as swiftly and hourly the perfected preparations glided to their finish.

Starr grew nervous and restless and could not sleep, but hovered from room to room in the daytime looking out of the windows, or fitfully telephoning the steamship company for news. Her fiancé found her most unsatisfactory and none of the plans he proposed for her diversion pleased her. Dark rings appeared under her eyes, and she looked at him with a troubled expression sometimes when she should have been laughing in the midst of a round of pleasures.

Starr deeply loved her father, and some vague presentiment of coming trouble seemed to shadow all the brightness of life. Now and then Michael's face with its great, true eyes, and pleading expression came between her and Carter's face, and seemed to blur its handsome lines; and then indefinite questions haunted her. What if those terrible things Michael had said were true? Was she sure,
sure
?
And at times like that she fancied she saw a weakness in the lines about Carter's eyes and mouth.

But she was most unused to studying character, poor child, and had no guide to help her in her lonely problem of choosing; for already she had learned that her mother's ways and hers were not the same; and—her father—did not come. When he came it would be all right. It had to be, for there was no turning back, of course, now. The wedding was but two days off.

Michael, in his new office, frankly acknowledged to himself these days that he could not work. He had done all that he could and now was waiting for a report of that vessel. When it landed he hoped to be the first man on board; in fact, he had made arrangement to go out to meet it before it landed. But it did not come! Was it going to be prevented until the day was put off? Would that make matters any better? Would he then have more time? And could he accomplish anything with Mr. Endicott, even, supposing he had time? Was he not worse than foolish to try? Mr. Endicott was already angry with him for another reason. His wife and Starr, and that scoundrel of a Carter, would tell all sorts of stories. Of course he would believe them in preference to his! He groaned aloud sometimes, when he was alone in the office: and wished that there were but a way he could fling himself between Starr and all evil once for all; give his life for hers. Gladly, gladly would he do it if it would do any good. Yet there was no way.

And then there came news. The vessel had been heard from still many miles out to sea, with one of her propellers broken, and laboring along at great disadvantage. But if all went well she would reach her dock at noon of the following day—eight hours before the time set for the wedding!

Starr heard and her face blossomed, into smiles. All would go well after all. She telephoned again to the steamship company a little while later and her utmost fears were allayed by their assurances.

Mrs. Endicott heard the news with intense relief. Her husband would scarcely have time to find out anything. She must take pains that he had no opportunity to see Michael before the ceremony.

The young man heard and his heart beat wildly. Would the time be long enough to save her?

Noon of the next day came, but the steamer had not yet landed, though the news from her was good. She would be in before night, there was no doubt of it now. Mr. Endicott would be in time for the wedding, but just that and no more. He had sent reassurances to his family, and they were going forward happily in the whirl of the last things.

But Michael in his lonely office hung up the telephone receiver with a heavy heart. There would be no time now to save Starr. Everything was against him. Even if he could get speech of Mr. Endicott which was doubtful now, was it likely the man would listen at this the last minute? Of course his wife and daughter and her fiancé could easily persuade him all was well, and Michael a jealous fool!

As he sat thus with bowed head before his desk, he heard footsteps along the stone floor of the corridor outside. They halted at his door, and hesitating fingers fumbled with the knob. He looked up frowning and was about to send any chance client away, with the explanation that he was entirely too much occupied at present to be interrupted, when the face of the woman who opened the door caught his attention.