IV
When Charity awoke next morning the sun was shining cheerfully in upon the smooth yellow floor of her little room and its mats of braided rags. The sky was of the bluest and the earth of the whitest; a flock of sparrows were wishing each other Merry Christmas in the boughs of an old appletree near by; the cattle in the barn, contentedly ruminating over their morning allowance of hay, seemed rehearsing to each other the old story of the manger and the wonderful night in Palestine. As these pleasant sights and sounds stole in upon the girl’s senses, a happy smile broke upon her lips and she felt at peace with the whole world. Then came, like a flash of red lightning out of the sparkling blue sky, the memory of the preceding day. Her brain reeled under the shock of returning recollection, as, one by one, every kindly evasive word of her informants came back to her. But Charity was a girl of quick impulses and decided action. In five minutes she had made up her mind what to do. Half an hour later she was standing behind grandmother’s chair at Farmer Ralston’s with white face and set lips. The family, she found, were somewhat concerned about Tom’s absence, but they had not been in any real alarm, as he might have changed his plans and remained in the city, leaving Charity with her friends for the night. Now they crowded about her, all asking questions at once, and growing momently more frightened at her silence. She managed to tell them that Tom had not kept his appointment—that she could learn nothing definite about him—that she had guessed from what little information she had been able to obtain, that he had been taken sick and carried to the hospital—or somewhere; it was nothing serious, she was sure, and at any rate she was going up to the city that morning on the train to find out all about it. Tom’s father was too old and feeble to undertake the trip, and his sister had better not leave home that day—Christmas. She could do better alone, as she knew the streets pretty well (here her voice failed her a little), and besides, it would only worry Tom to see them all coming. So she went as she wished to, alone.
Arriving in the city, she examined a directory in the nearest drug store and copied off the numbers and localities of all the police stations in the city proper. Then she found her way without much trouble to the market and asked the tall, broad-shouldered policeman on duty there for directions to the nearest station. He looked down pityingly on the young girl, appealing to him with her white face and eyes that betrayed her suffering on that glad Christmas morning.
“Nothing serious, is it, miss? A fight, maybe, or something o’ that sort?”
“Oh, no, sir! I only want to see if—if—somebody”—
The kind-hearted officer guessed her trouble immediately.
“I see, I see,” said he, softening his voice still more. “He didn’t get home last night after he was paid off. Well, I guess you’ll find it all right; anyway, I hope you will. Take your first turn to the left, and two blocks further you’ll come to my station. Tell the sergeant you saw Brown, and that I sent you to him for information.”
Charity thanked him with a grateful look that was better than words, and moved with rapid steps along the icy sidewalk in the direction indicated. She was courteously received at the station, but no one knew anything about Tom. Nor did they in the next station she visited, nor in the third or fourth. It was now nearly noon, and people were beginning to sit down to their Christmas dinners. The table at Farmer Ralston’s was always a jolly place, and at Christmas time the fun was uproarious. Charity had been invited every year since she could remember, and she gave a little gulp as she thought of the row of bright, laughing faces that would have been gathered in the old kitchen, still sweet with the resinous odors of the evergreen that had lain there in piles in those last happy days that now seemed ages ago. Wearily she mounted the granite steps of Station Five and repeated her question. The lieutenant, a brisk, wiry man, with a heavy gray moustache and little, piercing eyes, cast a quick glance at her and consulted his book. Presently he gave a little nod, and raising his voice, called out, “Norcross, here a minute!”
A uniformed officer in an adjoining room opened himself like a kind of long jack-knife, rose from the bench where he had been reclining and stood at the walnut rail in front of his superior, awaiting orders. The lieutenant took a key from the rack at his side and handed it to Norcross.
“This lady wants to see No. 3. Show her down.”
The officer bowed respectfully and led the way down a flight of stone steps into what at first appeared to be a sort of cellar, with grated windows near the ceiling on one side and a row of iron-barred doors on the other.
“There,” said the officer, pointing.
Charity paused a moment and pressed her hand against her heart; for a moment she could not have spoken, it beat so fiercely. Then she advanced across the brick floor, and standing by the door of Cell No. 3, looked in through the bars.
At first she could see nothing, but, as her eyes became accustomed to the dim light, she could distinguish at one side a narrow iron bed, and lying motionless upon it, his head buried in his arms, a crumpled, stained, wretched figure—yes, Tom!
The rustle of the girl’s dress fell upon his ear. He raised his head slightly, recognized the sound, turned away again without looking her in the face, and shook with such a tempest of sobs that Charity trembled and could not speak the grave, deliberate words she had prepared on the way.
“Landlord, fill the flowing bowl!”
sang some poor creature shrilly, two or three doors away. How Charity remembered all these things afterward! While the officer stepped aside to quiet the noisy prisoner she forced herself at last to speak.
“Mr. Ralston”—Tom started, and she saw his grasp tighten on the iron rail of the bed, “I have come to take you away from this place. I shall send for the bail commissioner at once” (she had learned her lesson well, poor child!), “so that you can catch the two o’clock train. No!” she went on quickly, checking him with a gesture as he was about to speak, “you mustn’t stay here another night, nor another hour. It would kill your father if he knew it, and we couldn’t answer his questions to-night.”
The strong man bowed his head again, without a word. She hesitated an instant, then left him, and walked across the floor and up the stone stairway with a firm step. Tom looked after her wistfully, but she did not even glance toward his cell. Within half an hour he was sent for, and found Charity, with the commissioner and the sergeant, sitting behind the rail, in the room above. The bail was quickly arranged, the officer handed over a jack-knife and a few coppers he had taken from Tom’s pockets the night before, and told him he could go where he pleased until nine o’clock the next morning, when the court opened.
There was a constrained silence for a moment in the little office. At last Tom raised his eyes, with a look in them half questioning, half appealing, to the girl’s white face, at the same time involuntarily extending his hand toward her. For the first time in his life he found no response in the brown eyes, staring stonily out of the barred windows.
His hand slowly dropped to his side. With a dazed look he turned first to the officers, then to Charity, as if he did not understand. Still there was no response in the brown eyes, staring stonily out of the barred windows. Still Tom stood there helplessly, not quite understanding it all. Glancing at his stained and rumpled clothes he brushed them a little, mechanically, passed his hand over his forehead once or twice, then turned humbly toward the door, passed out bareheaded and was gone.
How Charity found her way home she never knew. When she entered her own little chamber at dusk and buried her aching head in her pillow, she had a vague recollection of wandering about the gay city streets for hours, of finally seeking the railroad station, of cooling her hot forehead against the frosty pane of the car, and watching the snowflakes that came faster and faster from the darkening sky. Tom had come home, the station-master had told her carelessly, and that was all she cared to know.
How he endured the ignominy of appearing and paying his fine in the municipal court the next day, she did not ask; nor did she even see him for a week. After the excitement of that gloomy Christmas came, with the reaction, a complete nervous exhaustion, which mercifully spared her the torture of questioning eyes and tongues until beyond New Year’s—that should have been her wedding-day.
Meanwhile she wavered irresolutely between one and another course of action. Now she felt she must cry out to him to forgive her own cruel hardness in his time of trouble; now the Puritan blood she had inherited asserted itself, and her face grew hard again as she thought of his weakness.
The meeting could be put off no longer. It came, and in the same dear old kitchen where they had worked together. The man looked straight into her eyes and said, quietly:
“Charity, I have done you and myself a great wrong. I shall try to do better. God knows how hard I shall try—am trying! Will you forgive me? Will you help me?”
After all, she was hardly prepared for this, and though she began bravely enough with, “Mr. Ralston,” she soon broke down altogether. “Of course,” she told him, “the wedding must be postponed indefinitely. Further than that—I can’t tell what—O Tom! how could”—she began afresh, but stopped at his look, and slowly walked out of the room and house.