The Alchemist's Secret

by Isabel Cecilia Williams

It was an ordinary tenement house of the poorest class, exactly like its neighbors, which lined both sides of the dingy street. The door was always open, more than half the time hanging by one hinge, the stairways were dark and crooked, the rooms small and dirty. In a back kitchen on the topmost floor, a man sat, or rather huddled, in a chair drawn close to the stove. His eyes were closed and his head drooped wearily against the back of the chair. That last spell of coughing had been unusually severe and had left him weak and breathless. A plague on the cough, anyway. Why was it he could not get rid of it? The doctor from the dispensary, the district nurse, even Maggie, had assured him that with the coming of summer this cold of his would be better. Summer was here, though you would not think so to-day with this raw east wind and drizzling rain, and instead of being better he was worse, decidedly worse. Could it be that they were all wrong and Nancy alone was in the right? Nancy, who, of all that approached him, was the only one who dared to tell him the truth. The truth? No, it was a lie, a lie; he was not dying, he was going to be well and strong again as soon as he could shake this cold that had settled upon him. Nancy was a meddlesome old woman. He had told her so not more than an hour ago and had sent her off about her business. He had been harsh to her and rude, and after all she was old and had probably meant to do him a kindness. But, then, he was not sorry; she'd not come bothering him any more now with her dismal croakings of death and eternity. Death? He defied it. Eternity? Time enough to think of that.

He opened his eyes and they rested upon the chair which Nancy had occupied one hour ago, which she had occupied so frequently during the past few months. She had been almost a daily visitor since he and Maggie had been living in these wretched lodgings in "Nancy's Alley," as it was called. Evidently, the old woman seemed to think the entire street was her personal property and that she was responsible for the welfare of all the dwellers thereon. Well, he guessed he had taught her not to come meddling in his affairs. He hoped he had anyway. Dying? The idea of such a thing; how dared she tell him he was dying when everyone else fed him with the hope that he would be better to-morrow, next week, next month. Ah! yes, but to-morrow never came; or rather, when it did come, it was no longer to-morrow with its promise of renewed health. It was to-day, with the same disappointment, the same pains, the same racking cough, which he had endured on so many other to-days that had come and gone before it.

Watching the chair she had so lately occupied, he could see once more the figure of Nancy, her bright eyes and cheery smile, and hear the nimble tongue which chattered so merrily or soothed so gently according to the needs of her listener. He could see the little, stooped figure in its ragged gown, the work-worn hands, the smooth, grey hair. He would miss her visits; yes, indeed, he would miss them sorely. But what right had she to go talking to him of death? Still, she was old, she had been kind to him, and he had driven her away in anger. He had called her a meddlesome busybody who went about poking and prying into other people's affairs and had ordered her to leave the house and never enter it again.

"Pokin' an' pryin' is it?" she had answered quietly as she made her way towards the door. He remembered now how difficult it had been for her to walk even on the level floor; what a task it must have been for her to climb those three long flights of stairs as she had been doing every day for these months past. "Pokin' an' pryin' is it? Maybe so, maybe so. But Nancy didn't mean it that way, no, lad, indeed she didn't. Nancy was thinkin' of her own boy lyin' at rest out yonder with the green grass growin' over him, her own boy that went the same way you're a goin' now. He'd be about the same age as you, too, an' there's the look on your face that I seen on his so often, the desperate, despairin' look that it breaks my heart to see. I figured that if you was my boy, I'd be glad for some one to tell you the truth an' try to bring you back to God before it's too late. I'd figured, too, that most likely you had a mother somewheres. She may be still on the earth prayin' for you an' longin' for you, same as I prayed an' longed for my Danny for so many years. She may be in heaven lookin' down on us now, but wherever she is she'll be glad to know that I tried to bring you back. It's for her sake that I'm doing this, for the sake of your poor mother wherever she may be."

His mother! What memories that name conjured up! His mother who had kissed and blessed him as she closed her eyes forever so many, many years ago. He was still looking at the chair which Nancy had occupied but he saw it not. He was a boy once more standing by his mother's bedside, her soft, white hand in his, and was promising her—ah! how many promises he had made holding that dear hand for the last time, and how readily he had broken those promises every one!

His mind wandered on and he saw himself a boy at school, a youth at college, a grown man filling a position of trust in a large business concern. In those days, wherever he might turn, there was one figure standing out before all others, one friend, tried and true. When boys at school this friend had saved his life; when young men at college, it was to this friend's continued help he owed any little success he may have attained. After leaving college, his position was secured through the kindly offices of this same friend whose desk was next his own in the office in which they were employed.

His gaze still rested on the vacant chair but he saw only a pretty little suburban cottage with flower garden and smooth green lawn and box-bordered gravel paths. Once upon a time that cottage was his, and the sweet-faced girl, who trod those paths so daintily, tripping to the gate to meet him on his return in the evening, was his wife. Upstairs in the nursery their children slept, two fair little girls with their mother's pretty eyes and dainty ways. All that had been his, once upon a time.

He still watched that vacant chair but he saw only the day they discovered the loss of that money which had disappeared so mysteriously from the firm's safe. Suspicion rested upon that one true friend of his, the friend to whom he owed all he was, all he had. There was not sufficient evidence to prove that he was the thief, but in the minds of his employers there was no doubt as to his guilt. The supposed delinquent was dismissed and the cloud of suspicion rested upon him wherever he went thereafter. Only two people had known the truth, the man now sitting by the stove in the tenement house kitchen and the friend who had suffered in silence rather than betray him. They had never met again, and not long after the robbery, the man now sitting by the stove had heard of his friend's death; the physicians said it was typhoid, but he knew better. Disappointment, anxiety, heartbreak, were the real causes of his friend's early taking off.

He still gazed at the empty chair but he saw only the series of misfortunes that had befallen him since the day his friend died. He had launched into business on his own account; the result was dire disaster. His home was burned in the dead of night; they barely escaped with their lives. Everything was gone; there was no insurance and ruin and despair confronted them. His children died suddenly of a malignant fever and the heartbroken mother had followed them to the grave within a few weeks. He was alone, all alone, and from that day to this had gone steadily downward until now he found himself in this dirty tenement depending for his daily bread upon the faded, ragged little woman who was now his wife. Poor Maggie, how she irritated him at times and yet she had been a good faithful wife to him. But for her, they would not have even this miserable apology for a home. Yes, even Maggie, with her watery eyes and thin, unkempt hair, Maggie, who scrubbed floors for a living and could not write so much as her own name nor read the simplest child's primer; even Maggie was far too good for the worn-out drunkard and gambler whom she tended so faithfully.

A light tap upon the door, but the man by the stove was too much occupied with those phantoms of the past to pay heed to it. The door opened quietly and a priest stepped into the room. The man's gaze shifted from the vacant chair to the black-robed figure standing by the door and looking at him in puzzled amazement. Phantoms of the past? Yes, indeed, and here was one more come to torment him and to mock at him. The two watched each other in silence for a moment. Then, the man crouching in his chair by the fire found voice at last: