IV
Now it happened that Miss Cigale, although she had said she hadn’t a penny in the world, really did have sixty-five dollars. Considered as the savings of a lifetime, it might pretty well be called nothing, and in her careless way she had so thought of it; but now she saw it in a quite different light.
She had kept that ticket when she had picked up the others, for her idea was to get back the watch for her nephew and make him happy. And to make him, perhaps, a little fond of her. She had thought it possible last night; had thought that if she brought him his watch, and told him that she was going to take a position, he would see she wouldn’t be simply an extra person to feed, but a friend and a helper; that he would like her, and they would all three live together in that dear little house, in that sweet, dear garden, in the jolliest way. She didn’t expect any of that now, though.
“No,” she said to herself. “I irritate and annoy him. I can see that. I’m afraid he belongs to the ants, and he can’t endure grasshoppers. Oh, I’m sorry! He’s such a dear boy!”
She didn’t cry, for her tears were far more apt to be brought by joy than by pain; but she was certainly unhappy, all by herself there in the daisy field. To tell the truth, Miss Cigale was very tired, and had of late been haunted by specters. Wan failure she knew and didn’t mind, but when loneliness and uselessness came out hand in hand, she trembled.
“I’ll get the watch,” she decided. “I’ll do that, anyhow. But I shan’t come back. He doesn’t want me here, and—he’s a dear boy, but I don’t think I want to come.”
It was characteristic of her that she didn’t tell her sister she would not return. If she had to do anything unpleasant, well, then, she did it, as gallantly as she could; but if unpleasant things could be avoided, right gladly would she sheer off. So she only said that she had to “run into town,” and hugged and kissed her rather unresponsive sister, and off she went, leaving behind her those heavy bags which contained all the clothes and books and ridiculous, sentimental rubbish she had in the world.
“I can send for them,” she thought, “when I decide where I’m going.” And she troubled her head no more about them. What did trouble her was a memory. It was a memory of a girl—a tall, slender, fair-haired girl, a music student in New York, living on an allowance from home. And living all too carelessly on it, so that one day she found herself penniless, and very hungry, and with four days to wait before the allowance could arrive. And this girl—in the persistent memory—had taken a little gold locket and a silver watch to the pawnbroker. She had thought it rather a joke, until she had got there.
“It’s silly to feel like that,” she said to herself this morning. “Very silly. There’s nothing dishonorable or disgraceful in—in being temporarily short of money. The most important business men have to get loans. Heads of trusts and—every one. People go to their banks to get loans, and they’re not ashamed of it. Well, this is exactly the same thing. I simply walk in, repay the loan, take the watch, and go. Exactly like paying a note at the bank.”
Was it, though? Exactly like a bank—this queer, dark little shop, with barred windows—and the man behind the counter was exactly like the cashier her father used to bring home to dinner. She handed the ticket across the counter, with the money; but the man pushed the money back to her.
“Wait a moment!” said he, with a curious glance at her.[Pg 436]
Then he disappeared, and Miss Cigale stood there, trying desperately hard not to feel like a criminal, an outlaw, a highly suspicious character. If she had been a man she would certainly have whistled; but, as it was, she stared about her with the most casual, offhand air.
Oh, but it was pitiful! To think that there were people so hard pressed that they must bring here a cotton quilt, or a dingy umbrella, or, worst of all, a child’s pair of rubber boots. Hanging on a line from the ceiling were guitars and banjos and mandolins and ukeleles—music sold into bondage.
“Is this your own ticket, madam?” asked a voice, and, turning, she saw a severe little elderly man looking at her through his spectacles. The question dismayed her. He appeared so very much displeased; perhaps it was a wrong sort of ticket, which Geordie shouldn’t have had.
“Yes. Oh, yes!” she answered, with a very poor attempt at sprightliness. “It’s mine.”
“You didn’t buy it—or find it?” he asked.
“Oh, no!” Miss Cigale replied, quite certain now that there was something wrong. “It’s my own!”
The elderly man looked at her steadily for a moment.
“Wait a minute, please!” he said. “Be seated, madam!”
So Miss Cigale sat down on a chair in a black corner, where a fur neckpiece, smelling terribly of moth balls, brushed her shoulder, and waited and waited. A little girl came in, gave up a ticket, and while she, too, waited, stared at Miss Cigale, and diligently chewed gum.
Such a queer little girl, with wispy hair, and a pale, drawn little face, and so very nonchalant an air. At last she was given a small gas stove, and went off with it. A young man came in with a traveling bag to dispose of; a stout woman came and drove a hard bargain over a ring. Nobody else had to wait, only Miss Cigale.
“Something is wrong!” she thought. “Oh, what has the poor boy done?”
Her hands and feet were very cold, her thin cheeks flushed and hot; she wished now that she had taken a cup of coffee. For she was very far away now from any such consolations as daisy fields. A burly man, with a straw hat at the back of his head, entered the shop; he spied her, and, to her horror, came directly over to her.
“You, the one with this here ticket; what’s the number?” he asked.
“I don’t remember the number,” said Miss Cigale faintly. He went over to the counter and spoke to the elderly man in a voice too low for her to hear. Then he sat down beside her, tipping his chair, and lit a cigar. The smoke blew into her face, and his boot, crossed on his knee, brushed her skirt.
“I can’t stand this,” thought she. “I’ll take the ticket, and come back later. I can’t bear this.” And she got up to go to the counter and ask for the ticket.
“Here!” said the man beside her. “Where you goin’?”
Miss Cigale didn’t trouble to answer, but, to her amazement, he sprang up and barred her way.
“Go away!” she cried, in a trembling voice, but with a jerk of the thumb he turned back his coat lapel and revealed a badge.
Miss Cigale sank back into her chair again, in the dark corner. The man was speaking to her, but she did not hear him.
“What has he done?” she thought. “A detective! If I can only make them think it was me. But, oh! How can I bear this?”
Because, for all her failures, Miss Cigale had never before encountered disgrace. She had suffered the crudest disappointments, she had been hungry, cold, shabby, sleepless with anxiety, and all this she had endured gallantly. But to be arrested by a detective in a pawnshop!
Her idea of what was going to be done to her might have been laughable if there could be found on earth any one able to laugh at the stricken, heartsick creature. She thought that she would presently be taken before a judge, and that, if she kept silent, as she intended to do, she would be put into prison for whatever unimaginable offense the real owner of the ticket had committed.
“I can’t be brave about it!” she said to herself. “I can’t; I’m—I’m frightened.”
Why must she sit here so long? Why didn’t they take her away? It would be almost better to be in prison than here, where the door opened and closed, and people came in and out, and every one had a glance, casual or curious, at her corner. The detective was writing in a notebook. What was he waiting for?
“Handcuffs!” thought Miss Cigale. “Or—or a—warrant.” Imagination carried her[Pg 437] very far; she would not have been surprised by the entrance of a file of soldiers, or white-coated doctors with a strait-jacket. The most astounding images of things read or heard of filled her mind; she lost track of time and space; what she suffered was a timeless, universal thing, such as had been suffered these thousands of years by how many dazed and trembling victims. The law—The Law!
“Here she is!” said the detective to some one who had just entered. “Claims it’s her own ticket.”
“Oh—good—Lord!” cried a voice which reached Miss Cigale from very far away.
“Well, come along!” said the detective. “Come over to the station an’ you can make your charge.”
Miss Cigale did not understand; all she knew was that Geordie was here, and in danger.
“I—I don’t know that man,” she said, faintly.
“Never mind!” the detective retorted, laughing. “You will, soon enough!”
“No! Look here! It’s—it’s a mistake!” said Geordie. “It’s—I’ll drop it.”
Miss Cigale moved nearer to him.
“Pretend you don’t know me!” she whispered. “I’ll—”