THE ARM OF JUSTICE ON CLEANING DAY: AN OVERTURE TO A COMIC OPERA
Mrs. Pascoe had some last minute shopping on hand, including farewell gifts for her niece's family and a special token for Maria Rosa, and she was quite unaware that it would have been a godsend for her daughter's plans had she kept her sharp eyes, that day, on the interior of the table d'hôte. But even had this occurred to her the number of figures on the background of her son's life had lately so increased that she could scarcely have been expected to recognize that the friendly Italians who arrived at the appointed time were not a guard of Nicola's choosing, sent to carry a willing captive to the freedom of Allegra's waiting ship, but plain clothes men, who bore their prisoner back to jail. She and little Maria Rosa shopped successfully, refreshed themselves at an ice-cream parlor, returned home for a distribution of the farewells and, re-emerging from the house in mid-afternoon, walked briskly enough eastward, though now laden with heavier packages. Mrs. Pascoe carried so many bottles of wine that even the stout wrappings threatened to give way and, wrapped in many folds of clean dust-cloth, Maria bore the pretty jugs.
"I did lay out you should wait an' take those home," said Mrs. Pascoe to the little girl, "since your cousin Ally's fixed 'em up so pretty! But it'll be too late, likely, an' I don't like you should be crossin' the street after dark. You better tell me good-by an' run home soon 's I get the loft cleaned up fer the meetin'. I told yer ma you an' me 'd unpack that barrel o' backyard party truck an' the boys could bring a bundle of it over when they leave to-night. No use it settin' in a empty garradge. Don't fergit yer old great-aunt, now will you, M'ree?—an' I'll send you somepun' reel pretty from furrin' parts, where yer parrot come from." She added, as they crossed under a bend of the Elevated Road into South Fifth Avenue, "Remember, I've told yer ma ye're always to go out an' visit my folks, same as if I was there. Mercy, I hope it don't rain with all of us trapesin' out there fer our last night! I don't see how the boys are goin' to get that feller out, with them fools skiddin' round the roads the way they be—an' Filly'll faint away most likely!"
They turned in at the door of a small dingy structure, which had been something else before it became a garage and that now looked vaguely out of use; from its obscure depths emerged the tall Sicilian, Mr. Gumama, who relieved her of the wine. She and the child mounted a ladder-like staircase and emerged through a sort of hatchway, scarcely more than an opening in the boards, with its lid tipped back against the wall.
It was not yet four in the afternoon, but the September light was already failing under the low roof of the loft. The windows were built close to the floor and that at the rear had a little, begrimed straggle of vine waving in at it. For the window looked out upon a triangle of trodden earth, heaped as with the rubbish of an old machine-shop but producing spears of grass and black, stunted bushes to show it had once been part of a yard. In front the loft gave directly upon a turning of the Elevated Road, and when a deafening train roared by the whole flimsy structure rattled and shook; the walls were irregularly studded with nails and hooks from which hung lengths of rope and buckled straps as of old harness that shook, too. Among these, from a cleared space of honor, a head of Garibaldi, in gaily colored lithograph, confronted the flyspecked grandeur of the Italian royal family, domestically grouped; the pink paper of cheap gazettes brightened some of the murkier boards with woodcuts of prizefighters or disrobing ladies. Three or four stools stood about on the dingy boards and rather a greater number of worn out chairs; a couple of heaping barrels in one corner were covered with an old awning; there was a small bureau, once yellowishly glazed, without any glass; a kitchen table, stained with al fresco dinners, had been brought in from the yard; in another corner, torn rubber curtain-flaps, collapsed tires and threadbare leather cushions supported each other. Suddenly Mrs. Pascoe uttered a little hiss. She had perceived, sitting in the frame of the front window, a listless, undersized, undeveloped lad with the delicate, soft-eyed face of a young seraph, who looked seventeen and had probably turned twenty.
This young person was reading an Italian newspaper and sucking a limp cigarette which hung from between his teeth and occasionally scattered sparks down the slim chest which his inconceivably filthy shirt left open to his belt. He was greeted devotedly by Maria as Cousin Beppo and, though he was evidently the old lady's abomination, when she accosted him with the unconciliatory greeting, "Here, you! You stir yourself!" he reared himself slowly to his feet and, with a good-natured smile, sagged amicably toward her.
"I don't s'pose you think so," snapped Mrs. Pascoe, "but this place's got to be swep' out!"
Fortunately, the tidying of the loft did not depend upon the sweet-smiling indolence which remained unbroken while she swept and rubbed; when the barrels were despoiled of their green and pink netting, their feast-day lanterns and paper flowers Beppo nosed ingratiatingly up; but long before the old woman had laid clean oil-cloth over table and bureau he was playing charmingly with Maria, whom he coaxed to carry a chair to the rear window, to fill and set upon it a tin basin, and to filch him a clean dust-cloth.
Then he began cautiously to wash his face, down almost to the black rim midway of his pretty throat; cleansing his hands, too, but not so as to disturb the fingernails. Out from the top drawer of the bureau he took a broken bit of mirror, also richly scented pomatum with which he smoothed his hair well down over his brows and then he brought forth a velvet jacket and a waistcoat sprigged with embroidered flowers. He handled them as if they were vestments and, despite the warmth of the afternoon, their weight did not appal him. To these, over the filthy shirt, he added a silk neckerchief of robin's egg blue and a glittering scarfpin; there came forth, from its hiding-place about his person, a very graceful little knife which he stuck with airy bravado in his belt. Lastly, he lighted a huge cigar and assumed, though for indoor display only, a soft hat balanced on the left side of the head, and a light cane swung from the left hand. Standing thus, full-costumed, with a hip-swaying swagger, he was more picturesque though less fashionable than his confreres of northern races, but his infamous profession was none the less proclaimed in every line of him. And once more he turned the sweet beam of his smile upon the little girl.
Beppo had not, however, dressed himself for professional purposes. The coming occasion was more solemn and his toilette an act of the purest piety. Perhaps that was why, when Mrs. Pascoe turned her contempt on him again, he was no longer amused.
The old woman, as she set out the jugs, was saying, "Fetch up them bottles, M'ree. An' Becky or whatever your name is—"
She turned and beheld the basin of dirty water. "You take that right down stairs!" cried she, in outrage. "An' the rest o' yer trash with yeh! When I clean a place, I want it left clean!"
He said something, sulkily, about emptying it herself.
"Well, when I come to emptyin' swill, 't won't be no Dago swill! Here—"
For he had furiously snatched the basin above his head to dash it on the floor.
She caught at and somehow prevented him, but not from whirling it through the window into the back yard. He was smiling again at this assuagement to his dignity when he suddenly perceived that the struggle had sprinkled his vest; spots appeared also upon his scarf's cerulean blue! He became, on the instant, a maniac, not human; he raved, he shrieked, his delicate skin flamed, tears suffused his eyes, he ran up and down scattering prayers, howls and curses. Until, one of these voyages bringing him close to Mrs. Pascoe's small disgusted figure, he seized her by the wrist and with the deliberate, systematic skill of custom began to wrench her arm.
Mrs. Pascoe very promptly kicked him in the shins. "If my son Nick was here he'd take the buckle-end o' one o' those straps an' spank the life out o' yeh! Yeh wax-face! Yeh—" For once stooping to Italian she shot forth the word, "Ricondoterro!"
It was his calling and he should not have objected to it. None the less, pursing his soft lips he spat a fine spray over her face. She jumped at him in such a fury that Maria threw protecting arms about her playfellow; then they were all parted by the tall Sicilian, Mr. Gumama.
This imposing person had, with dramatic quiet, brought up the wine; and now, holding Beppo by one wrist, he listened to Mrs. Pascoe's angry cluckings. Then he seemed merely to put out one fist. The boy fell on his back without even a cry and lay as he fell. "Why, you beast, you!" cried Mrs. Pascoe. "Mebbe you've killed him!"
"No. But no matter," said Mr. Gumama. "Go and make your guard. Come not up again till I call you. Take the child."
She went, holding Maria's hand and looking back, with her old mingling of curiosity and reluctance at the prone figure of the pretty ricondoterro, from whose nostrils blood had begun copiously to gush on her clean floor. The tall Mr. Gumama was evidently not one to be defied.
It was half-past four and those who were expected began to come. First a couple of laborers, warm from their work; the next had the proud bearing of a chauffeur; after him came a respectable professional man, probably a dentist, wearing a black suit, a full beard and glasses; then a plump and coquettish little beau, the owner of a fruit-and-candy stand, who bore a flower in his light, ornamental coat and the scar of a knife across his rosy left cheek. He was followed by his cousin, who had only a fruit cart and sold for him on commission. One and all were obliged to halt before Mrs. Pascoe, who sat on a stool at the foot of the stairs, playing solitaire on a couple of orange boxes.
She bent her tongue Italianwards and asked of each the same question.
"What do you want here?"
"Justice!"
"How can you get it?"
"By the Arm of God."
"Who is your enemy and mine and your children's children's?"
"A traitor!"
"Y' can g'won up."
As they emerged into the loft they were each greeted by Mr. Gumama and then dropped themselves awkwardly about on stools and window-sills, with the whispering stiffness of people in their best clothes. Beppo, moaning, now lay huddled on his side and, as occasion arose, they stepped about and over him without the slightest interest or even malign amusement in his plight. By-and-by he got to his hands and knees and crawled into a corner, where, with the now fatally ruined blue scarf held to his nose, he shivered himself slowly quiet. But his pomatum came into play with the laborers, who sat seriously down by the still bright rear window and beautified their heads with it, cheerfully assisting each other's toilet as amiable monkeys often do and even smearing themselves a little from the communal mercies of the water-pitcher. "Enough!" Mr. Gumama sternly rebuked them. "Business alone!"
They looked meekly at him, stricken, and he called one of them by name—"Take the stairs!"
The man crossed to the opening in the floor and seated himself a little back from where it gave into the room; the knife which he drew from inside his clothes seemed a trifle clouded and he sat idly polishing it. Mr. Gumama looked at his large silver watch and, stepping to the front window, glanced out. A certain anxiety in him began to make itself felt.
More and more men arrived, but evidently not the looked-for men. A strapping youth began unconcernedly to converse with Beppo about a duel they were to fight. "I cannot remain forever a picciotto. If I do not fight the next duel how shall I ever get to be a member?"
"Me they will not yet let fight again." Beppo stopped sniffling and displayed, a bit above his knee, a wound that might have been made with a knife like that in his belt or a short dagger. "In two duels have I lost, and if I lose the third I lose my entry."
The strapping youth began to get excited. "With whom, then, can I fight? How long do they intend to keep me waiting? See, now, I want my rights—I want to be promoted—"
A man with turned-up red mustaches, sporting a carnation and a pair of highly polished boots, interrupted his complaint that the bootblack under the Elevated had overcharged him and reproved Beppo for kicking his chair. The fruit-vendors also stopped quarreling over the accusation of the huckster that the merchant had supplied him with decayed fruit; the merchant allying himself with the strapping youth and declaring that his wife's brother was right and ought to be promoted. Then, with the one word, "Peace!" Mr. Gumama struck them into abject silence.
"Peace! Ludovisi, your wife's brother may win all three duels and yet endure years of probation. Beppo, let your squeal rise once more and you are suspended for a month.—Have you, then, no wits at all? Let the result of this meeting go a little wrong and promotion it will be no more! At least for us, fellow members of the old-days Arm of Justice, for we shall be no more!"
A number of men cast glances of horror. But after a few lightning-shot growls even this number returned to its knitting, being accustomed to obey and not to ask questions. Again Mr. Gumama looked at his watch.
More and more men arrived till the loft was crowded. The unknown persons who had so long so strangely shadowed the pathway of Christina Hope were beginning to mass for action and to detach themselves from the background. And still as the loft darkened with the passage of each train and relightened less and less when that was gone, another presence seemed to enter and abide; the growing, shadowy presence of suspense. It was in the air, for the ignorant many as well as for the few who understood. There were brief silences so deep that the little vine, spying in at the window, could be heard tapping on the upper pane. Then a cab stopped outside and a startled thrill passed through the assembly. The man who had been told to take the stairs rose with a soft, business-like precision and drew his knife. He stood, waiting. Something in his attitude defined his duty as preventative not of an entrance, but an exit. Any unwelcome comer who got past Mrs. Pascoe's guard would get farther; he would enter the loft, but he would never leave it. He would not even turn round. Mr. Gumama, watching the cab avidly, opened his fateful mouth. But the men disgorged from its disreputable depths were friends to that house.
The first two tumbled into the garage, glanced round, saluted Mrs. Pascoe, and returned to the assistance of those on the sidewalk. These manœuvered between them a man with his hat pulled down over his eyes and an overcoat hanging about his shoulders whom they supported like a drunkard. A fascinated crowd stopped to wink and advise. As soon as the two men were inside they threw their burden flat on the floor and returned to the cab for another. The man on the floor was gagged, his arms were tied behind him and even his thighs were bound.
Swarthy as was the man's face Mrs. Pascoe was still observing with annoyance these signs of roughness when a second human bundle was brought in from the cab and the cavalcade somehow hoisted itself upstairs. In the loft the human bundles were propped against the wall and the meeting came to attention.