VIII
This same afternoon, about two hours later, Claire was in New York. She had crossed thither, spurred by an idea born of her desperation. It was a forlorn hope; it was like the straw clutched by the sinking hand; and yet it formed a comforting preventive against complete despair. She had remembered her old friend at Mrs. Arcularius's school, the plump-cheeked and yellow-haired Sophia Bergemann. She had determined to seek her out and ask her aid in obtaining work. Years had elapsed since Claire and Sophia had met; but if the buxom young creature had preserved even half of her old amiable friendship, there was excellent chance of cordial welcome and kindly assistance.
'I only hope that she still lives in Hoboken,' Claire thought, while taking the journey across town. 'Suppose the family have left there. Suppose I cannot find Sophia. Suppose that she is married and has gone to live elsewhere – in Europe, perhaps. Suppose that she is dead.'
More than once, before she had reached the central part of the city, Claire felt herself grow weak with dread. Night would soon approach. She had money enough to get lodgment, but in her ignorance and her loneliness how could she secure it? Her mother's face, clothed with the old mocking smile, repeatedly rose before her fancy. She seemed to see the hard, bitter mouth frame certain sentences. "Oh, you'll come back," it seemed to say. "You've got to. You can't go gallivanting round New York after dark. I ain't afraid. Oh, you'll come back to Greenpoint, sure!"
'I will never go back,' Claire said to her own thoughts, answering this phantasmal sort of taunt. 'No, not if I walk the streets to-night and many another night. Not if I have to beg for food. Not if I die of hunger. I will never go back there! No, no, no!'
There was nothing theatrically fervid about this silent resolve. The girl was quite capable of confronting any sharp ill rather than remeet the woman who had so pitilessly outraged her most sacred instincts. She knew well enough that her mother confidently counted upon her return. She knew well enough that her mother would undergo wild alarm on finding herself permanently deserted. Yet Claire, with a grim desire of inflicting punishment for the insult flung at her beloved dead, silently exulted in what she could not help but deem a just and rightful vengeance. True, her own act may have dealt the vengeance; but did it not really spring from that departed soul whose corpse had met the lash of so undeserved an indignity? When Claire had reached the centre of the city she suddenly determined to seek Mrs. Arcularius's establishment. The school might either have changed its locality or else ceased to exist. Still, she would apply at the old quarters. There she would inquire for Sophia Bergemann. They might know nothing concerning the girl. But if this resulted, she would still have all Hoboken left, in which the dwelling-place of so prominent a resident – even though one of past time – would most probably be known on inquiry. A throng of memories beset her as she rang the bell of Mrs. Arcularius's abode. The name of that august lady gleamed on a large silver-plated square, affixed to the second door, beyond the marble-paved vestibule. A smartly-dressed maid answered her summons. Claire stated in brief, civil terms what information she desired to gain. The maid left her standing in the well-known hall for several minutes, and at length returned with the tidings, apparently fresh from the lips of Mrs. Arcularius herself, that Miss Bergemann was then living at No. – Fifth Avenue, only a slight distance away.
Claire felt a thrill of relief as she thanked the maid and resought the street. This intelligence seemed a most happy stroke of luck. It augured well for the success of her sad little enterprise.
The Fifth Avenue dwelling proved to be a mansion of imposing dimensions. It stood on a corner, and had a wide window at one side of its spacious entrance, and two at the other. From either panel of its polished walnut door jutted a griffon's head of bronze, holding a ring pendant from its tense lips. Beyond the glossy plate-glass of the casements gleamed misty folds of lace, and still further beyond these you caught a charming glimpse of large-leaved tropic plants in rich-hued vases. Claire pulled a bronze bell-handle that was wrought in the likeness of some close-folded flower. A dull yet distinct peal ensued, having in its sound a trim directness that suggested prompt and capable attendance from interior quarters. While Claire waited for admission she cast her look downward upon the middle street, and across at the line of opposite residences, all marked by a calm uniformity of elegance. The sight was very new to her after Greenpoint, but at the same time it stirred certain sources of youthful recollection. Many carriages were passing. One or two were shaped with fashionable oddity, having only a single pair of huge wheels and a booted and cockaded flunkey, who sat in cramped, oblique posture, with his back to the other occupants, a lady and a gentleman, and who seemed forever taking a resigned plunge off the vehicle, with stoically folded arms. Another was a heavy, sombre family coach, with two men on the box, both clad in dark, dignified livery. Still another was the so-called dog-cart, borne along by a team of responsible silver-trapped bays, and having on its second seat a footman graciously permitted, in this instance, to face the horses whose lustrous flanks his own hands had doubtless groomed into their present brilliance. The two parallel yet contrary streams of vehicles made an incessant subdued clatter; numerous pedestrians were also passing to and fro along either sidewalk; the weather had changed again from harsh to clement; the strip of clear, blue sky above the massive housetops wore a shining delicacy and airiness of tint; even Claire's new wound, that still bled unseen, could not distract her from a buoyant congeniality with the prosperous and festal tumult so amply manifest. She understood then, and perhaps with a qualm of shame as well, that no grief could quite repress, however transiently, her love for life, action, and refined social intercourse. The old desire to win a noted place among those of her own kind who were themselves notable, quickened within her, too, as she gazed upon the bright bustle and the palatial importance which were both so near at hand.
'Near,' she mused, 'and yet so far! Shall I ever do what he bade me to do on that night long ago? Shall I ever climb the hill? Shall I not grow tired and sit down to rest? What chance have I now of ever reaching the top? Where is the hand to help me even ever so little? Will Sophia Bergemann do it? Yes; if the ways of the world haven't changed her since we met at school.'
A man-servant, in what is termed full-dress, soon opened the door, and Claire asked if Miss Sophia Bergemann was at home. The man appeared to be a very majestic person. Claire felt a good deal of secret awe in his presence. He had a superb development of the chest, a sort of senatorial nose, and two oblong tufts of sorrel whisker, growing with a mossy density close to either ear.
But he was very civil, notwithstanding his grandeur. He told Claire, in a rich voice that would have deepened her veneration if it had not been blent with a valiant North-of-Ireland brogue, that Miss Bergemann was at home but about to leave the house for a drive.
The hall in which this announcement was made glowed with sumptuous yet tasteful decorations. A dark curve of heavy-balustered staircase, which four or five persons might have ascended abreast, met the eye only a short space away. From the lofty ceiling depended a costly lamp of illumined glass. Soft, thick tapestries of Turkish design drooped from several near doorways. A fleet remembrance of the old school-room sarcasms about the Bergemanns' vulgar Hoboken home flashed through Claire's mind.
"Will you tell Miss Sophia, please," she said, in as firm and calm a tone as she could manage, "that Miss Twining, whom she knew some years ago, would like to speak with her?"
The butler was about to reply, when a loud feminine voice suddenly pealed from upper regions. In reality it was the voice of a lady who had already descended several steps of the broad, winding staircase; but the lady was still in obscurity, and therefore the liberal size of the house caused her tones to sound as if they had come from a still greater distance. "Michael," shrilled the voice, "I see the carriage isn't here yet. It's nearly a quarter of an hour behind time. Thomas has done this twice before in one week. Now, you just send Robert straight round to the stable, and let him say that we're very angry about it, and that Ma won't put up with such behavior if it ever happens again!"
The butler had left Claire before the end of the final belligerent sentence, and had moved, with a certain military briskness, toward the first wide step of the staircase.
"Yes, Miss Sophia," he said, employing his fine sonorous voice so that it somehow had the effect of not being unduly raised, though still strongly audible. The next moment he turned toward Claire, with a mien in which his natural official gravity gave sign of being cruelly fluttered.
"Miss Sophia is coming downstairs, Miss," he said.
Claire had a swift feeling of gratitude for that single word "Miss." She knew that she was dingily clothed; she had fancied that all her claims to the nicer grades of gentility lived solely within her mental wish and hope; but she failed to perceive that her face was filled with those tender and sweet charms which we term patrician, and that her least gesture carried with it a grace which previous conditions of culture alone have the art to bestow. It was indeed true, as Michael had said, that Miss Sophia was coming downstairs. Claire soon heard a decisive rustle of robes, and presently a descendent shape dawned upon her view, arrayed in very modish costume.
But the instant that Claire caught sight of Sophia she recognized the plump, rubicund face, grown only a trifle more womanly beneath its low-arranged floss of yellow hair. She went forward to meet her old friend. Just as Sophia left the last step of the staircase, Claire had so managed that they stood very near to each other.
She did not put forth a hand. Her pale, beautiful face had grown paler, through fear of some possibly haughty reception. But she spoke the moment that Sophia's round blue eyes had fairly met her own.
"I hope you know me," she said. "I hope you have not forgotten me."
A blank, dismayed look possessed Sophia for a few seconds, and then she put forth two hands which were sheathed half-way up to the elbow in dull-brown gloves, seizing both of Claire's hands the next instant.
"Forgotten you!" she cried. "Why, you're Claire Twining! Of course you are! And as pretty as a picture, just as you always were! Why, you dear old thing! Give me a kiss!"
Claire felt the lips of the speaker forcibly touch each of her cheeks. Sophia still held her hands. The welcome had been too abruptly cordial. A mist slipped before her sight and clouded her brain. She staggered backward…
Perhaps she would have fallen, if the magnificent Michael had not been near enough to place a muscular arm between herself and the floor. But she rallied almost at once. And while clearness was returning to her mind, she heard Sophia say, in imperious yet hearty tones, —
"Michael, take her into the reception-room! Now, don't look so stupid! Do as I say!"
Claire's attack, though more than partly past, still left her weak. She allowed herself to be led, and indeed half supported, by Michael. A little later she was seated on a big, yielding lounge, with the sense of a big, yielding pillow at her back. And presently, close beside her, she saw the ruddy, broad-blown face of Sophia, surmounted by a Parisian bonnet of the most deft and dainty millinery.
"Sophia," she said, breaking into a tremulous, pathetic little laugh, "please don't —please don't think I've lost my senses! But it – it was so good of you to – remember me, after we hadn't met for such a long time, that – that I" —
Here Claire burst into an actual tempest of tears and sobs, and immediately afterward felt Sophia's hands again clasp both her own.
"Michael!" cried her new hostess at the same moment, in tones of imperative command, "for Heaven's sake, don't stand staring there, but do leave the room!"
"Yes, Miss," came the nicely decorous reply. Faultless servant as he was, it must still be set to the credit of Michael that he closed a sliding door of solid rosewood, which worked on easy grooves between the double portière of the apartment, just after crossing its threshold. His act was wholly unnecessary, considering the nature of the command his young mistress had given; and when we note the obstructing force of the door itself, it implies a sublime abstinence from the fascinations of eavesdropping.
"Now, don't cry so!" exclaimed Sophia, with great sympathy and a strong suspicion of active emotion as well. "I suppose something dreadful has happened to you, dear old Claire. What is it? Just tell me, and I'll see what I can do. You're not dressed as if you were very well off. Is it poverty? Oh, pshaw! I'll soon fix things all right if you want help that way. I'll" —
Here Sophia abruptly paused, and withdrew her hands. She stood facing Claire, who still struggled to master the sobs that shook her. Sophia seemed sternly troubled: her full cheeks had reddened; this was her one invariable way of showing agitation; she never turned pale, like other people. "Claire!" she broke forth, in solemn undertone. "I do hope it isn't one thing! I do hope you haven't been … been going wrong! You know what I mean. I wouldn't mind anything but that, and that I couldn't forgive – or even excuse!"
Claire sprang to her feet as the last word passed Sophia's lips. Wrath had calmed her, and with a wondrous speed. The tears were still glittering on her cheeks, however, as she spoke, with eyes that flashed and a lip that curled.
"Sophia!" she said; "how dare you insult me like this!"
The distressed frown on Sophia's face instantly vanished. "Oh, Claire," she cried, "I'm so glad it isn't true! Don't be angry. You see, my dear, we hadn't met for so long, and you looked as if – as if something horrible had happened, and it's such a funny, topsy-turvy world. So many queer things do happen in it. Don't be angry, please!"
"I am angry," said Claire. In her shabby dress she gave, notwithstanding, a noble portrayal of disdain. She had taken several steps toward the door, though Sophia, having caught her arm, endeavored, with a mien contrite and even supplicating, to detain her within the chamber. "Why should I not be angry?" Claire went on, her voice dry and bitter. "Allow that I do look as if I were miserable. Is misery another name for sin?.. No, Sophia, let me go, please… Perhaps you may learn, some day, as I've learned already, that the unhappy people in life are not always the bad ones!"
But Sophia, whose impulsive and explosive nature had not altered very markedly since we last heard of her childish escapades, now replied by a most excited outburst of appeal. Her exuberant figure, which no dexterity of dressmaking and no splendor of combined satins and velvets could turn less unwieldy and cumbrous, bowed and swayed till you almost heard the seams of its rich garb crack their stitches under the fleshly disturbance to which she subjected them.
"Claire! Claire!" she ejaculated; "I have insulted you… But you'll forgive me – I know you will. I've never forgotten you. You stood up against that horrid Ada Gerrard and her set so finely, years ago! You were good then – yes, just as good as gold, – and I'm sure you're just exactly as good still. Now, Claire, don't look that way! I was talking to Ma about you only a few days since. Pa's dead, you know – but I suppose you don't. Yes, I said to Ma that I'd give anything to find out what had become of you. Ma and I are dreadfully rich – I mean well off. Poor Pa left ever so much money. He's been dead nearly three years. There's nobody but Ma and I left. I hate Hoboken. I made her buy this house. Now, Claire, just stop! You shan't go. You're going to tell me all about your troubles. Yes, you shall! I'll be your friend. There, let me kiss you… Do, Claire!.. You know I was always awfully fond of you. I never knew any girl I was half so fond of as you. I've asked your pardon. You were always a lady. I remember about that dreadful dress you came to school in, first. But that didn't matter. You were a lady born, and you showed it afterward. Every girl thought so, too. Even those hateful snobs had to own it – I'm sure they did. I see some of them quite often. Ada Gerrard's a great swell, as they say, now. She gives me a little nod when I meet her, driving in the Park or on the Avenue. But you're twice the lady she is. Yes, Claire, I mean it. Kiss me, now, won't you? Kiss me, and be friends!"
Claire had succumbed several minutes before this eager tirade was ended. Her anger had fled. She let Sophia put both arms about her. She returned Sophia's kiss. Then she leaned her head upon the shoulder of her companion, and gave way to another access of tears. But they were quiet tears, this time. The hysteric impulse had wholly passed. A little later she told Sophia, with as much placid directness as she could manage, every important detail of the hard, dreary life lived since they two had last met.
While she thus spoke, the extraordinary charm of her manner and the distinct loveliness of her delicate yet notable beauty more than once thrilled her listener. Sophia's old worship, if the term be not too strong, returned in full force. She had sworn by Claire, as the phrase goes, in earlier days. She was prepared to swear by her still. The story of Mr. Twining's death and the disloyal deportment of his wife roused her vehement contempt. By the time that Claire had finished her gloomy recital, the two girls were seated close together. Sophia's large fat hand, in its fashionable glove, was fervidly clasping Claire's.
"You did perfectly right!" Sophia at length exclaimed, after the pause had come, and while her visitor sat with drooped head and pale, compressed lips. "Your poor father! To bury him that way! It was frightful! And you told her you'd do anything on earth for her if she only wouldn't! And I know how you loved your father. Don't you recollect telling me about him, one recess, when I gave you half my sardine-sandwich? You said he was a gentleman by birth, and had come of a fine family in England. That's where you get your swell looks from, Claire. Yes, you are a swell, even though you've got on a frock that didn't cost, altogether, as much as one yard of mine… Why, just look at me! I'm awkward and clumsy, exactly as I was at Mrs. Arcularius's. I'll never be any different. And yet I spend loads and loads of money on my things. I do, really! But gracious goodness! there you sit, with your sweet, pure face, shaped like a heart, and your hair that's got the same bright sparkle through its brown that it used to have, and those long eyelashes over those black-blue kind of eyes, and that cunning little dimple in your chin, and those long, slender, ladylike hands" —
Here Claire stopped her, with a sad smile and a shake of the head. She spread open one hand, holding it up for scrutiny at the same moment.
"Don't talk of my hands, Sophia," she said. "They've been doing hard work since you saw them last."
Sophia gazed down at the inner portion of her friend's hand, for a moment, and then suddenly exclaimed, —
"Work! Why, they're not hard a bit. Oh, Claire, you've worn gloves all the time you worked. Come, own up, now!"
Claire smiled in a furtive way. But she spoke with simple frankness the next instant. "Well, yes, Sophia," she said, "I have worn gloves as often as I could. I wanted to save my hands. Some of the girls at Mrs. Arcularius's used to call them pretty. I wanted them to stay pretty – if I could manage it. I don't mind telling you so. But I thought they must have lost every trace of nice looks by this time."
Sophia bent over the hand that she still held, and whose palm was turned upward to the light, so that all its inner details, from wrist to finger-tips, could not possibly escape notice.
"Why, there's a pink flush all round the edge, inside there," commented Sophia. "It's funny, Claire. I never saw it in any other girl's hand before. It's just like the rose-color at the edge of a shell. Upon my word it is! I don't care a straw what work you've been doing; you've got hands like – well, I was going to say like a queen. But I don't doubt a good many queens have awful hands, so I'll say like a lady… There, kiss me again… Here's Ma. Don't mind Ma. She'll be nice. She always is nice when I want her to be. Isn't that so, Ma?"
A lady had just entered the small, brilliantly-appointed room in which Claire and Sophia had thus far held their rather noteworthy converse. The lady was Mrs. Bergemann.
She was exceedingly stout; both in visage and form she looked like a matured and intensified Sophia. As far as features went, she wonderfully resembled her daughter. Every undue trait of plumpness in Sophia's countenance was reproduced by Mrs. Bergemann with a sort of facial compound interest. Flesh seemed to have besieged her, like a comic malady. Her good-natured eyes sparkled between two creases of it; her loose, full chin revealed more than one fold of it. She was by no means attired like a widow of recent bereavement. She wore a bonnet in which there was no violence of coloring; it was purple and brown, but at the same time so severely à la mode that if any symbol lurked behind its decorative fantasies this must have signified the soothing influences of resignation and consolation.
She had heard her daughter's last words. She was devoted to Sophia; it was an allegiance wed with pride. She had been a poor German girl, years ago, and had drifted, through the chance of matrimony, into her present opulent place. She was by nature meek and conciliatory; all Sophia's temper and temerity had come from her father, who had combined large superficial good-humor with a notorious intolerance of the least fancied wrong. Sophia's last words had embarrassed her. She had no idea who Claire was, but the evident cordiality of her daughter's deportment produced the effect of a gentle mandate.
"I shan't go driving, Ma!" Sophia exclaimed, after she had made Claire and her mother acquainted. "I'll stay at home and talk of old times with Claire Twining. Poor Claire's in trouble, Ma. I won't tell you about it yet. You go off in the carriage – that is, if it ever comes; but I'm afraid we'll have to discharge Thomas; he's always behind time."
"The carriage is here, Sophia," said Mrs. Bergemann. She spoke without the slightest German accent; this had perished long ago. She was looking at Claire with the manner of one who has been deeply attracted. "I've often heard you mention Miss Twining," she went on. "You was talking of her only the other day, wasn't you, Sophia?"
"Yes," said Sophia, rising. She went to her mother, and spoke a few low words, which Claire quite failed to hear. The prompt result of this intercourse was Mrs. Bergemann's exit from the room. Sophia followed her to the door, with one hand laid upon her shoulder.
"All right, Ma," she said, pausing a moment on the threshold. "You go and take your drive. I'll stay and chat with Claire."
A little while afterward Sophia had reseated herself at Claire's side. "Ma likes you," she at once began, in her voluble, oddly frank way. "She told me she did. She's very funny about liking and disliking people. She takes fancies – or she doesn't. Ma isn't a swell. She's what they call vulgar. But she's ever so nice. She never had much education, but she has a large, warm heart. I wouldn't have her one bit different from what she is. I wouldn't give Ma for Queen Victoria. She and I are the dearest friends in the world. I know you'll like her, Claire. She likes you, as I said. And Claire, look here, now; I want to say something. It may surprise you. I hope, though, that it will please you, too. You're going to stay here in this house. You're going to live here as my friend. Yes, you are. You were always as smart as a steel trap. We'll read together, every morning. Yes, we will. You know what a perfect fool I used to be at Mrs. Arcularius's. Well, I'm the same fool still. But you know a lot; you always did. And you shall help me to be less of an ignoramus than I am. We've got a library upstairs. Oh, there are a crowd of books. I got Mr. Thurston to buy them for me. He's a gentleman friend of ours, and he knows a tremendous amount. He just filled all the book-shelves for us. I'm sure he bought the right kind of books, too; he knows pretty much everything in that line. Now, Claire, if you'll do as I say, we'll get along splendidly together. And as for … well, as for salary, you know, I'll" —
Here Claire rose, placing a hand on Sophia's arm. "No," she said, "I couldn't accept such a place as that. I'm not able to fill it. I have been living a life of hard work for three or four years past. I've scarcely looked into a book, Sophia, in all that time. I came here to ask you if you would get me work. I can sew very well; I was always clever with my needle. If you will give me something of that sort to do, I will gladly and thankfully remain. But otherwise, I can't."