“Oh,” he snarled, “if it wasn’t for the disgrace! If things weren’t as they are, I’d—”
“S-s-s-h! I know; but they are. Maybe I wish they wa’n’t ’most as much as you do, but they are. I don’t blame you for feelin’ mad now; but I’m right and I know it. And some day you’ll know it, and thank me.”
“When I do, I’ll be insane.”
“No, you’ll be older, that’s all. Now pack your trunk—or get the Commodore to pack it for you.”
News from the Moriarty sick room continued favorable for a time. Then, with alarming suddenness, a change came. The broken hip was mending slowly, but poor Pat’s age was against him, and the shock and long illness were too much for his system to fight. Dr. Henry shook his head dubiously when the captain asked questions. And, one morning at breakfast, Edwards informed him that the old man was dead. Annie had been summoned by telephone at midnight and had gone home.
Captain Elisha, though not greatly surprised, was shocked and grieved. It seemed such a needless tragedy, almost like murder, although there was no malice in it. And the thought of the fatherless children and the poverty of the stricken family made him shudder. Death at any time, amid any surroundings, is terrible; when the dead hands have earned the bread for many mouths it is appalling.
The captain dreaded visiting the flat, but because he felt it to be a duty he went immediately. And the misery and wailing and dismay he found there were worse than his anticipations. He did his best to comfort and cheer. Mrs. Moriarty alternately called upon the saints to bless him and begged to know what she would do now that they were all sure to starve. Luckily, the family priest, a kind-hearted, quiet man who faced similar scenes almost every day of his life, was there, and Captain Elisha had a long talk with him. With Dennis, the oldest son, and Annie, the maid at the Warrens’, he also consulted. Money for their immediate needs, he told them, he would provide. And the funeral expenses must not worry them. Afterward—well, plans for the future could be discussed at another time. But upon Dennis and Annie he tried to impress a sense of their responsibility.
“It’s up to you, Boy,” he said to the former. “Annie’s job’s sure, I guess, as long as she wants it, and she can give her mother somethin’ every month. But you’re the man of the house now, and you’ve got to steer the ship and keep it afloat. That means work, and hard work, lots of it, too. You can do it, if you’ve got the grit. If I can find a better place and more pay for you, I will, but you mustn’t depend on that. It’s up to you, I tell you, and you’ve got to show what’s in you. If you get stuck and need advice, come to me.”
He handed the priest a sum of money to cover immediate contingencies, and departed. His letter to Abbie that afternoon was so blue that the housekeeper felt sure he was “coming down” with some disease or other. He had been riding in that awful subway, where the air—so the papers said—was not fit to breathe, and just as like as not he’d caught consumption. His great-uncle on his mother’s side died of it, so it “run in the family.” Either he must come home or she should come to him, one or the other.