CHAPTER XX
BERTHA MEETS MANHATTAN
It was a green land in which she woke. The leaves were just putting forth their feathery fronds of foliage, and the shorn lawns, the waving floods of growing wheat, and the smooth slopes of pastures presented pleasant pictures to the mountain-born girl. These thickly peopled farm-lands, the almost contiguous villages, the constant passing of trains roused in her a surprise and wonder which left her silent. Such weight of human life, such swarming populations, appalled her. How did they all live?
At breakfast Haney was in unusual flow of spirits. "'Twas here I rode the trucks of a freight-car," he said once and again. "In this town I slept all night on a bench in the depot… I know every tie from here to Syracuse. I wonder is the station agent living yet. 'Twould warm me heart to toss him out ten dollars for that night's lodging. Them was the great days! In Syracuse I worked for a livery-stableman as hostler, and I would have gone hungry but for the scullion Maggie. Cross-eyed was Maggie, but her heart beat warm for the lad in the loft, and many's the plates of beef and bowls of hot soup she handed to me – poor girl! I'd like to know where she is; had I the power of locomotion I'd look her up, too."
Again Bertha was brought face to face with the great sacrifice she was obscurely contemplating. The magic potency of money was brought before her eyes as she contrasted the ragged, homeless boy with the man who sat beside her. The fact that he had not earned the money only made its magic the more clearly inherent in the gold itself. It panoplied the thief's carriage. It made dwarfs admirable, and gave dignity and honor to the lowly. It made it possible for Marshall Haney to retrace in royal splendor the perilous and painful journey he had made into the West some thirty years ago – rewarding with regal generosity those who threw him a broken steak or a half-eaten roll – and she could imaginatively enter into the exquisite pleasure this largess gave the man.
"And there was Father McBreen," he resumed, with a chuckle – "'sure the mark of Satan is on the b'y,' he used to say every time my mother told him of one of my divilments. And he was right. All the same, I'd like to drop in on him and surprise him with a check" – at the moment he forgot that he was old and a cripple – "just to let him know the divil hadn't claimed me yet. I'd like to show him me wife." He put his hand on her arm and smiled. "Sure the old man would revise his prediction could he see you; he might say the divil had got you– but he couldn't pity me."
She turned him aside from this by saying: "I reckon New York is a great deal bigger than Chicago. Mr. Moss says it makes any other town seem like a county seat. I'm dead leery of it. I want to see it, but it just naturally locoes me to think of it."
"'Tis the only place to spend money – so the boys tell me. I've never been there but once, and then only for three days. I went on to get a man when I was sheriff in San Juan. I saw it then mostly as a wonderful fine swamp to lose a thief in."
"Did you get your man?" she asked, with formal interest.
"I did so – and nearly died for want of sleep on the way home; he was a desprit character, was black Hosay; but I linked him to me arm and tuck chances."
Once she had listened to these stories with eager interest; now they were but empty boasting – so deeply inwrought was her soul with matters that more nearly concerned her woman's need and woman's nature. The potency of gold! – could any magic be greater? They lived like folk in a flying palace (with books and papers, easy-chairs and card-tables), eating carefully cooked meals, served by attendants as considerate and as constant as those at their own fireside. The broad windows gave streaming panorama of town and country, hill and river, and the young wife accepted it all with the haughty air of one who is wearied with splendor, but inwardly the knowledge that it all came to Haney (as to her) unearned troubled her. Luck was his God, but she, while accepting from him these marvellous, shining gifts, had another God – one derived from her Saxon ancestors, one to whom luxury was akin to harlotry.
They left the train at Albany and went to the best hotel in the city to spend the night. "To-morrow I'll see if I can find anybody who knows where the old dad is," said Haney. "'Tis too late, and I'm too weary to do it to-night."
Bertha was tired, too – mentally wearied, and glad of a chance to be alone. She went at once to her room, leaving the Captain and Lucius busy with the Troy directory.
Haney set about his search next day with the eager zeal of a lad. He took an almost childish pleasure in displaying his good-fortune. Through Lucius he hired an auto-car as good as the one he had left in Chicago, and together he and Bertha rode into his native town, up into the bleak, brick-paved ward through which he had roamed when a cub. It had changed, of course, as all things American must, but it was so much the same, after all, that he could point out the alleys where he used to toss pennies and play cards and fight. Every corner was historic to him. "Phil O'Brien used to keep saloon here – and I've earned many a dime sweepin' out for his barkeeper. I was never a drunken lad," he gravely said; "I don't know why – I had all the chance there was. I've been moderate of drink all me life. No, I won't say that – I'll say I tuck it as it came, with no fear and no favor. When playin', I always let it alone – it spiled me nerve – I let the other felly do the drinkin'."
Some of the signs were unchanged, and he sent Lucius in to ask the proprietor of the "Hoosac Market" to step out; and when he appeared, a plump man with close-clipped gray hair and smoothly shaven face, he shouted, "'Tis old Otto – just the man I nade. Howdy, Otto Siegel?"
Siegel shaded his eyes and looked up at Haney. "You haff the edventege off me alretty."
"I'm Mart Haney – you remember Mart Haney."
Siegel grasped the situation. "Sure! Vy, how you vass dis dime, eh! Vell, vell – you gome pack in style, ain't it? Your daughter – yes?"
"My wife," said Haney.
Siegel raised a fat arm, which a dirty blue undershirt imperfectly draped, and Bertha shook hands with curt politeness. "Vell, vell, Mart, you must haff struck a cold-mine by now, hah?"
"That's what."
"Vell, vell! and I licked you fer hookin' apples off me vonce – aind dot right?"
Mart grinned. "I reckon that's so. I said I'd cut you in two when I grew up; all boys say such things, but I reckon your whalin' did me good. But what I want to know is this, can you tell me where to find the old man?"
"Your fader? He's in Brooklyn – so I heart. I don't know. My, my! he'll be clad to see you – "
"You don't know his address?"
"No, I heart he was livin' mit your sister Kate."
"Donahue's in a saloon, I reckon."
"Always. He tondt know nodding else. You can fint him in the directory – Chon Donahue, barkeep."
"All right. Much obleeged." Haney looked around. "I don't suppose any of the boys are livin' here now?"
"Von or two. Chake Schmidt iss a boliceman, Harry Sullivan iss in te vater-vorks department, ant a few oders. Mostly dey are scattered; some are teadt – many are teadt," he added, on second thought.
"Well, good-luck," and Haney reached down to shake hands again, and the machine began to whiz. "Tell all the boys 'How.'"
For half an hour they ran about the streets at his direction, while he talked on about his youthful joys and sorrows. "You wouldn't suppose a lad could have any fun in such a place as this," he said, musingly, "but I did. I was a careless, go-divil pup, and had a power of friends, and these alleys and bare brick walls were the only play-ground we had. You can't cheat a boy – he's goin' to have a good time if he has three grains of corn in his belly and a place to sleep when he's tired. I was all right till me old dad started to put me into the factory to work; then I broke loose. I could work for an hour or two as hard as anny one; but a whole long day – not for Mart! Right there I decided to emigrate and grow up with the Injuns."
Bertha listened to his musing comment with a new light upon his life. She had little cause for the feeling of disgust which came to her while studying the scenes of his boyhood – her own childhood had been almost as humble, almost as cheerless – and yet she could not prevent a sinking at the heart. The gambler, so picturesque in his wickedness, was becoming commonplace. He rose from such petty conditions, after all.
Thus far the question of his family relations had not troubled her very much, for, aside from the chance coming of Charles, she had had little opportunity of knowing anything about the Haneys, and they had seemed a very long way off; but now, as she was rushing down upon New York City, with the promise of not only finding the father, but of taking him back with them to live, she began to doubt. His character was of the greatest importance, in view of his taking a seat beside their fire.
It was singular, it was bewildering, this change in her estimate of Marshall Haney. The deeper he sank in reminiscent meditation the farther he withdrew from the bold and splendid freebooter he had once seemed to her. She was now unjust to him for he was still capable of what his kind call "standing pat." The rough-and-ready borderman was still housed under the same thatch of hair with the sentimental old Irishman, and yet it would have sorely puzzled the keenest observer to discover the relationship of that handsome, rather serious-browed, richly clothed young woman and her big, elderly, garrulous companion. Bertha was not easy to classify, in herself, for she gave out an air of reserve not readily accounted for. She looked to be the well-clothed, carefully reared American girl, but her gestures, the silent, unsmiling way in which she received what was said to her – something indefinably alert and self-masterful without being self-conscious – gave her a mysterious charm.
She was profoundly absorbed in the great, historic river on her right, and yet she did not cry out as other girls of her age would have done. She read her folder and kept vigilant eyes upon all the passing points of interest – even as Haney rumbled on about Charles and his father and Kate – more than half distraught by the vague recollections she had of her school histories and geographies. How little she knew! "I must buckle down to some kind of study," she repeatedly said to herself, as if it helped her to a more inflexible resolution.
Soon the mighty city and its fabled sea-shore began to scare her soul with vague alarms and exultations. Manhattan was as remote to her as London, and as splendidly alien as Paris. It was, indeed, both London and Paris to her. Its millions of people appalled her. How could so many folk live in one place?
Again the magic power of money bucklered her. It was good to think that they were to go to the best hotels, and that she had no need to trouble herself about anything, for Lucius settled everything. He telegraphed for rooms, he assembled all their baggage and tipped their porters: and when they rushed into the long tunnel in Harlem he was free to take the Captain by the arm and help him to the forward end of the car ready to alight, leaving Bertha to follow without so much as a satchel to burden her arm. Haney had accepted Lucius' assurance that the Park Palace was the smart hostelry, and to this they drove as to some unknown inn in a foreign capital.
It was gorgeous enough to belong in the tale of Aladdin's lamp – a palace, in very truth, with entrance-hall in keeping with the glittering, roaring Avenue through which they drove, and which was to Bertha quite as strange as a boulevard in Berlin would have been. Lucius conducted them into the reception-room with an air of proprietorship, and soon had waiters, maids and bell-boys "jumping." His management was masterful. He knew just what time to give each man, and just how much to say concerning his master and mistress. He conveyed to the clerk that while Captain Haney didn't want any foolish display, he liked things comfortable round him, and the colored man's tone, as he spoke that word "comfortable," was far-reaching in effect. The best available places were put at his command.
Bertha accepted it all with cold impassivity; it was only a little higher gloss, a little more glitter than they had suffered in Chicago; and she was getting used to seeing men in braid and buttons "hustle" when she came near. The suite of rooms to which they were conducted looked out on Fifth Avenue, as Lucius proudly explained; and from their windows he designated some of the houses of the millionaires who receive the homage of the less rich (and of the very poor) which only nobility can command in Europe. Bertha betrayed no eager interest in these notables, but she was very deeply impressed by the far-famed Avenue, which was already thickening with the daily five-o'clock parade of carriages, auto-cars, and pedestrians.
Lucius explained this custom, and said: "If you'd like to go out I'll get a car."
"Let's do it!" she exclaimed to Haney.
"Sure! get one. These smell-wagons must have been invented for cripples like me."
Bertha took that ride in the spirit of one who never expects to do it again, and so deeply did the city print itself upon her memory that she was able to recall years afterwards a hundred of its glittering points, angles, and facets. She felt herself up-borne by money. Without Haney's bank-book she would have been merely one of those minute insects who timidly sought to cross the street, and yet philosophers marvel at the race men make for gold! So long as silken parasols and automobiles mad with pride are keenly enjoyed, so long will Americans – and all others who have them not – struggle for them; for they are not only the signs of distinction and luxury, they are delights. A private car is not merely display; it is comfort. To have a suite of rooms at the Park Palace is not all show; it makes for homely ease, cleanliness, repose. And these people riding imperiously to and fro in Fifth Avenue buy not merely diamonds, but well-cooked food, warm and shining raiment, and freedom from the scramble on the pave.
Some understanding of all this was beating home to Bertha's head and heart. She had as yet no keen desire for the glitter of wealth, but its grateful shelter, its power to defend and nurture, were qualities which had begun to make its lure almost irresistible. Haney liked the auto-car, not for its red and gold (which delighted Lucius), but for its handiness in taking him about the city. It saved him from climbing in and out of a high car door; it was swifter and safer than a carriage; therefore, he was ready to purchase its speed and convenience. He cared little for the sensation he would create in riding up to his sister's door in Brooklyn, though he chuckled mightily at the thought of what his old dad would say; and as they claimed a place among the millionaires he broke into a sly smile. "If ever a bog-trotter landed at Castle Garden, me father was wan o' them. I can remember the hat he wore. 'Twas a 'stovepipe,' sure enough. It had no rim at all at all! It was fuzzy as a cat. If he didn't have a green vest it was a wonder. He took me to see a play once just to show me how he did look. He was onto his own curves, was old dad. I hope he's livin' yet. I'd like to take him up the Avenue in this car and hear the speel he'd put up."
Bertha was in growing uneasiness, and when alone at the close of her wonderful ride through this marvellous city, so clean, so vast, so packed with stores of all things rich and beautiful, she went to her room in a blur of doubt. Now that an unspoken, half-formed resolution to free herself was in her mind, she realized that every extravagance like this ride, these gorgeous rooms, sank her deeper into helpless indebtedness to Marshall Haney. And this knowledge now took away the keen edge of her delight, making her food bitter and her pillow hot.
In the midst of her troubled thinking, Lucius knocked at the door to ask: "Will you go down to dinner or shall I have it sent up?"
"Oh no, I'll go down."
"They dress for dinner, ma'am."
"Do they? What'll I wear?"
He considered a moment. "Any light silk – semi-dress will do. I'll send a maid in to help you."
"No, I don't need a maid. They're a nuisance," she quickly answered.
Lucius' attitude towards her was more than respectful – it was paternal; for she made no more secret of her early condition than Haney, and the colored man enjoyed serving them. He seemed perfectly happy in advising, cautioning, directing them, and was deeply impressed with their powers of adaptability – was, in truth, developing a genuine affection for them both. He was a lonely little man, Bertha had learned, with no near kin in the States, and the fact that he came from an Island in the sea made him less of a "nigger" to the Captain, who had the usual amount of prejudice against both black and red men.
The high-keyed, sumptuous dining-hall was filled with small tables exquisitely furnished, and the carpets underfoot, thick-piled and deep-toned, gave a singular solemnity to the function of eating. It was a temple raised to the glory of terrapin and "alligator pears"; and as the Captain moved slowly across the aisles, closely attended by a zealous waiter he smiled and said to his wife: "This is a long ways from Sibley and the Golden Eagle, Bertie, don't you think?"
"It sure is," she replied, and her laughing lips and big pansy-purple eyes made her seem very young and very gay again.
Around her men and women in evening dress were feeding subduedly, while bevies of hawklike waiters swooped and circled, bearing platters, tureens, and baskets of iced wine-bottles. It made the hotel at Chicago appear like a plain, old-fashioned tavern, so remote, so European, so lavish, and yet so exaggeratedly quiet, was this service. Some of the women at the tables were spangled like the queens of the stage; mainly they were not only gloriously gowned, but in harmony with the sumptuous beauty around them. Their adornments made Bertha feel very rural and very shy.
"I wish I was younger," the Captain said, "I'd take ye to the theatre to-night, but I'm too tired. I could go for a couple of hours, but – to miss me sleep – "
"Don't think of it," she hastened to command. "I don't want to go. I'm just about all in, myself."
"'Tis a shame, darlin', surely it is, to keep you from havin' a good time just because I am an old helpless side o' beef. 'Tis not in me heart to play dog in the manger, Bertie. If ye'd like to go, do so. Lucius will take ye."
"Nit," she curtly replied; "you rest up, and we'll go to-morrow night. We might take another turn and see the town by electric light; you could kind o' lean back in the car and take it easy."
This they did; and it was more moving, more appalling, to the girl than by day. The fury of traffic on Broadway, the crowds of people, the endless strings of brilliantly lighted street-cars, the floods of 'busses, auto-cars, cabs, and carriages poured in upon the girl's receptive brain a tide of perceptions of the city's wealth, power, and complexity of social life which amazed while it exalted her. The idea that she might share in all this dazzled her. "We could live here," she thought; "the Captain's income would keep us just anyway we wanted to live." But a vision of her own beautiful house under the shadow of the great peak came back to reproach her. Her horses and dogs awaited her. This tumultuous island was only a place to visit, after all.
"Do you suppose this goes on every night?" she said to Haney, as they turned off Broadway.
"I reckon it does," he said. "How is that, Lucius?" he asked. "Is this a special performance, or does the old town do this every night?"
"In the season, yes, sir. It's the last week of the Opera, and it'll be quieter now till November."
They returned to their hotel with a sense of having touched the ultimate in civic splendor, human pride, and social complexity. New York had met most of their ideals. They were glad it was on American soil and in the nation's metropolis; but, after all, it remained alien and mysterious, of a rank with Paris and London – the gateway city of the nation, where the Old World meets and mingles with the New.