Rich Man, Poor Man

VI

The wayfarer familiar with the highways and byways of New York will recall that in one of the widest, the most select of the uptown side streets opening off Fifth Avenue there is a row of brownstone double dwellings of imposing grandeur and magnitude, and of the most incredible ugliness as well. Not even Mayfair in London can show worse; for that matter, neither can Unter den Linden or even Pittsburgh. A wide stairway with swollen stone balustrades guards the street front of each; and above these the houses themselves rise flatly, their façades chiefly notable for their look of smug, solid respectability – that and a wide acreage of plate-glass windows. Formerly a vast variety of rococo tutti-frutti decoration in the stonecutter's best art ornamented these fronts; but today the weather, as well as a sluggish uneasiness awakening in the tenants' minds, has got rid of the most of it; so that now the houses look merely commonplace, merely rich. But be that as it may, this particular Christmas Eve it was to the largest, the richest, and most formidable of these dwellings that the Beeston limousine brought Bab. For Bab had come home.

The ride, brief as it was, up the lighted, glittering Avenue, Bab felt she ever would remember with a vividness that not even time could mar. It was her first opportunity to get her mind in order. She a Beeston? She, the little boarding-house waif, heir to a goodly fortune? Bab felt she had only to say "Pouf!" to burst, to shatter into air the frail, evanescent fabric of that bubble!

So many things had happened! So many, too, had happened all at once! The excitement fading now, she began to feel herself languid and oppressed. And yet, as she knew, the night's ordeal had scarcely begun. In a few minutes now she was to see her father's own father, that grim and masterful figure, Peter Beeston. What would happen then?

In the newspapers that day Bab had read that the old man was at death's door. If this had been true, though, there was now a surprising change. Peter Beeston was not dead, neither was he dying; instead, the news having got to him that his son's child had been found, it had roused him like an elixir. "Bring her here!" he'd said. When they had protested, fearful of the effect on him, the man had turned in smoldering wrath. "Bring her, d'ye hear!" he'd rumbled fiercely. "You bring her, I say!" So Bab, as he'd ordered, was being brought.

It would be difficult to tell how much she dreaded it! If only Mr. Mapy could have come with her! To be sure, Miss Beeston had been kind, she had been gentle; but still Bab wished she could have with her in the coming ordeal someone she had always known. Curiously, however, Mr. Mapy had disappeared. Neither she nor anyone else for hours had laid eyes on him.

She vaguely wondered why. As she remembered now, on her way downstairs that night she had met him coming up; Mr. Mapy was running, helter-skelter too. Besides, she recalled how queer his face had looked – agitated, quite fearful, in fact. More than that, though she'd tried to speak to him he hadn't heeded her. He had rushed on up the stairs.

But then Mr. Mapy was not the only one that night who'd acted curiously. There was Varick too. The impression crept over her that for what had happened, her good fortune, Varick had seemed even sorry. That was it – sorry! Why?

It was when he came downstairs, dressed ready to go out, that he had said good-by.

They met on the stairs, and for a moment she had stood with him in the dim light on the landing. His face was grave, silent, grim. It looked to her, too, as if he'd had something he would have liked to say to her. But he didn't. Awkwardly he put out his hand.

"Good-by, Bab," he'd said.

"Good-by, Mr. Varick," she had answered, clumsily at a loss for anything else to say; and again he had smiled, a dry, dusty smile.

"Good-by; I won't see you again!"

It was not at all what she'd pictured – that parting.

Bab, however, had little time, little opportunity to mull over thoughts like these. She had no more than begun to reflect on Varick's curious attitude when the limousine, turning the corner, rolled up to the Beeston door.

"Ah, here we are!" the condescending voice of Mr. Lloyd announced; and the footman having thrown open the limousine door, Bab glanced past him at the house beyond. Dark, no light from its windows anywhere, it loomed like a cliff, a towering crag high above the pavement. She could have gasped at its magnitude.

Miss Elvira, who had sat during the drive sunk back in a corner of the car, arose briskly.

"Come!" she said, and the next instant, the street door opening from within, Bab stood gazing about her with breathless interest at the house which once had been her father's home.

If the place outside had seemed huge, within she felt engulfed by it. A drawing-room, now a vast vault of darkness, lay on one hand, while on the other was a reception room, itself cavernous in its immensity. Beyond, other rooms opened too. Bab glimpsed a library, then a dining-room, its sideboard and serving table glittering with silver. But of all this she had no more than a glance. A footman had opened the door for them, and in addition to him the butler stood in the hall. To him Miss Elvira turned abruptly.

"Well, Crabbe?" she demanded.

The man, a white-haired, pink-cheeked old fellow who had been staring round-eyed at Bab, got himself hastily together.

"The doctor's still upstairs – the assistant, that is, madam. The master's stronger, 'e says."

Miss Elvira did not tarry. With a sign to Bab the energetic lady went bustling up the stairs, the others trooping after her. Not more than half a minute later Bab found herself standing at her grandfather's bedside.

What happened upon that was swift, inexpressibly confusing. The room in which old Peter Beeston lay was huge, like all the rest of that house. It was a crypt-like impressive chamber, and was furnished darkly in the same massive way. And like his surroundings, the room and its furniture – the big dressing table, the vast writing desk, the massive four-poster that held him – the man himself was huge, a bulk of a man whose fierce, brooding face glowered about him as threatening as a thunder-cloud.

Bab gazed at him in awe. He lay outstretched, his limbs crossed like a Crusader's beneath the sheets; and though both age and illness had ravaged him the impression he gave was still of giant force, of giant fierceness too. His face, framed among the pillows, gazed up at her with a quick, inquiring look; and then, as he seemed to comprehend, Bab felt his eye drill through and through her with piercing intensity. His lips moved, his mouth worked momentarily, and he seemed about to speak. But when he did speak it was not to Bab.

Lloyd as well as Miss Elvira had accompanied Bab into the room, and of this Beeston instantly was aware. One gnarled, knotted hand raised itself from the coverlid, and, turning his eyes from Bab, he spoke. The speech came fiercely rumbling.

"Get out!" he said.

Lloyd's air thus far had been singularly curious, and now Bab saw him start.

"Do you mean me, sir?" he asked awkwardly. His manner, Bab thought, was uncomfortable, strangely uncertain for one heretofore so cocksure, so condescending; and she looked at him surprised.

Again Beeston spoke. The hand he had raised struck the coverlid a sudden blow, and the room rumbled with the echo of his voice.

"Get out, I say!" he repeated; and Lloyd, after a quick look at Bab, a glance the resentment of which she did not miss, withdrew abruptly.

Then old Beeston raised his hand, his forefinger beckoning.

"Vira," he said. "Vira!" And when his sister bent over him old Beeston growled thickly, his voice, if rough, still friendly: "Vira, you go too, old girl!"

So Bab found herself left alone with that grim, dark figure lying there – her grandfather.

"Come closer!" rumbled Beeston. "I want to look at you!"

A pause followed. Her heart beating thickly, Bab drew nearer to the bed, and as she stood there gazing down at the swart, fierce face staring darkly up at hers, pity for an instant welled into her heart. This was her father's father, she told herself; and troubled, she began to see now that if this masterful, unconquerable man had ruined others' happiness in his life, he had ruined his own as well.

The knotted hand upon the counterpane reached out suddenly.

"They say you're my son's child," said Peter Beeston. "Well, are you?"

His voice carried in it a note of intimidation, of truculent disbelief, but now she felt no fear of him. The hand that held hers she could feel quiver too.

"Yes," she said.

Again a pause. He wet his lips, his tongue running on them dryly, eagerly; and then of a sudden his eyes left hers and went drifting toward the ceiling. His voice when again he spoke broke thickly.

"Tell me about him, about my son!" said Beeston.

Bab looked at him hesitantly. It was this that she had dreaded.

"What shall I tell you?" she asked.

Beeston's eyes still were on the ceiling.

"Dead, isn't he?" he demanded.

Yes, he was dead, as the man lying there long must have known; and her trouble growing, Bab stared silently at him. But the grim eyes gave no sign.

"You don't look like him!" said her grandfather suddenly, so abruptly that she started. "You must look like that woman, eh!"

Bab gazed at him steadily.

"You mean my mother, don't you?" she inquired. She had been prepared for this, and in her voice was a tone of quiet decisiveness she meant him clearly to see. "You mustn't speak like that," she said clearly. "My mother did you no wrong!"

She saw his eyes leap from the ceiling to her and back again. Then a smile, a grim effigy of merriment, dawned in his somber face. A growl followed it.

"So you're self-willed, eh?" he rumbled. "You're all Beeston, I see!" Then a grunt, a sneer escaped him. "I'd be careful, young woman! I'm all Beeston too, and I've seen what comes to us self-willed folk! Your own father, because of it, ruined himself. That's not all either. Because of it, too, my daughter is married to a fool! Oh, I've seen enough of it!" he rumbled.

Bab was startled. She knew, she thought, the fool he meant, but to that she gave but momentary heed. Struggling up, his face dark, convulsed, no doubt, with the thoughts rioting in his mind, Beeston turned and shook roughly into place the pillows that supported him. And this was the man they had thought dying! Grumbling, growling thickly, he lay back then, the growls subsiding presently like thunder muttering away among the depths of distant hills.

She was still gazing at him, absorbed, startled, when she saw a change steal upon the man's distorted face. It was as if that instant's rage, flaming hotly, must have lighted in the dim recesses of his mind some forgotten cell; for of a sudden the smoldering anger of his eyes passed and he sat staring at the wall.

"Well, won't you tell me?" he asked heavily. "I want to know about my son."

But Bab knew nothing to tell. That was why the ordeal she had faced that night had filled her so with dread. The little she knew of either of her parents was what they had told her at Mrs. Tilney's. Vaguely they'd had the impression that the mother had come from somewhere upstate; where, they did not know. But scant as this information was and shadowy, what they'd learned of the father was even less. Of his history they had gathered nothing, not even an impression. As for herself, she remembered nothing of him. Nor did she know when he had died or how. She could not, in fact, even tell where her father's grave was; and, sunken among the pillows, Beeston lay staring at the ceiling. Then suddenly he stirred.

"You mean you can't tell me anything? Answer me!" he said, his voice breaking thickly. "He was my son; I drove him from me! Don't you understand? I want to know! I've got to; he was my boy!"

Bab strove to free her hand from his.

"You're hurting me," she said, and at that he abruptly recovered himself.

"Eh?" he said, as if awakening.

He dropped her hand then, and, his eyes closing, he lay back among the pillows, his breast heaving with the tumult of emotions that had tortured him. But now that the struggle had passed the man's face changed anew with one of those astonishing transformations that so often marked his character. He smiled wanly. The fierceness waned from his face. And as Bab, pitying anew, sat gazing down at him, Beeston's hand again crept out and softly closed on hers. Drawing her toward him, he laid his cheek to hers.

"Don't be afraid," whispered Peter Beeston. "Don't be afraid! You're my boy's girl – his! You need never be afraid of me!"

Ten minutes later, when Miss Elvira and the nurse looked into the room, they found Bab perched on the bed talking to Beeston as if she had always known him. A smile played about the corners of the man's grim mouth. He held her hand in his.

VII

As Mr. Mapleson, bubbling with anticipation, had foreseen, the city the following morning awoke to a good, old-fashioned white Christmas. At midnight the snow began to fall and, the storm thickening hour after hour, by dawn the streets were deep with it.

Her room had been darkened, the hangings at the windows tightly drawn, so that Bab, worn by the strain of the night before, slumbered on long past her usual hour for awakening. But presently a peal of chimes clanging a stave from a near-by church-steeple broke in on her, and with a start she sat upright. Dazed, drowsy-eyed, her perceptions still misty, she gazed about her in momentary wonder. Brunnehilde awakening could not more have been at a loss. Then with a throb she remembered.

Outside the chimes still pealed; the snow crept whispering on the window panes; and at the end of the street, murmuring like a sea, the muffled roar of the Avenue arose. Within the house, though, all was silent; and, her breath coming swiftly, Bab gazed about her open-eyed.

The surroundings, in contrast with her own little room at Mrs. Tilney's, were quite enough to make her stare. At the boarding house chintz of a cheap but pretty design was the fabric most in evidence. The curtains were made of it and so was the valance on Bab's little bed – that and the drapery on her dressing table. But here brocade thick and board-like formed the window hangings; the bureau cover was linen edged with Irish lace; and the bed was a vast thing of mahogany, its four posts crowned by a canopy, its coverlid of costly embroidered silk.

The other appointments were as rich. Her eyes, roaming about the room, glanced from one side of it to the other in wondering appreciation. Ivory and heavy, finely chased silver filled the dressing table; a great tilting pier glass stood beside it, and there were ornaments of porcelain and chased crystal on the mantel; while at each side of the four-poster, on the carpet's yielding pile, was spread a white fur rug, the skin of a great Polar bear. The more Bab's glances roved about, the more she marveled at the many costly evidences of wealth, of luxury that surrounded her.

And to think that this room, once her father's, was with all its wealth, the riches it conveyed, now hers! Propped up among the pillows, her diminutive figure lost in the midst of the great four-poster, Bab sat absorbed in profound reflection. It was the strangeness of it all that for the moment weighed on her spirits. The big, dim room, too, so vast and solemn, sent a shadow of loneliness creeping into her heart; and just then, on the mantel over the fireplace, the clock ticking busily there softly struck the hour. That was the finishing touch! Each stroke she counted separately. There were nine of them! With a catch in her breath, a stifled gulp, she remembered that at Mrs. Tilney's they would just be sitting down to breakfast!