A Top-Floor Idyl Read online

  CHAPTER X

  THE WORK LOST

  However platitudinous it may sound, I am compelled to remark how thetime flies. From the calendar's standpoint there are but three weeks tocome before the advent of Spring, and I trust the sprite will be betterclad than she is in one of Frieda's pictures. In this particularlatitude March is not very apt to temper the wind to such a shorn lambas smiles out of that painting, clad with Cupid-like garments ofinfinite grace, but questionable warmth. She should have worn a heavysweater.

  Day by day I have watched the growth of Baby Paul, but it is only onSundays that I have been able to see much of his mother, who comes homerather weary, as a rule, and always has ever so much sewing to do afterher return. I have heard her discuss ways and means with Frieda, till Ifelt my small allowance of brains positively addling. Together they havebeen planning tiny garments for the babe and larger ones forthemselves, while I sat there conscious of my inferiority and looking atthem admiringly, but with something of the understanding of an averagelap-dog. I find them very indulgent, however.

  Dear me! What a time we had of it at Christmas. My midday meal tookplace at my sister's, in Weehawken, but the dinner was at Frieda's,where I was permitted to contribute the turkey. It could not be made topenetrate the exiguous oven of the little gas-stove, but we bribed thejanitress to cook it for us. I had been in grave consultation with mydear old friend in regard to the toys I might purchase for Baby Paul,being anxious that his first experience of the great day should be ahappy one, but Frieda frowned upon woolly lambs, teddy bears and Noah'sArks.

  "If you will insist, Dave," she told me, "you can go and buy him arubber elephant or some such thing, but he is altogether too young toplay games. I know you have a sneaking desire to teach him checkers. Ifyou will persist in wasting your money on presents, give me afive-dollar bill and I'll go around and buy him things he really needs.I'll put them in a box and send them with your best love."

  "What about Frances?" I asked.

  "A good pair of stout boots would be wisest," she informed me, "butperhaps you had better make it flowers, after all. More useful thingsmight remind her too much of present hardship and poverty. A fewAmerican Beauties will give her, with their blessed fragrance, sometemporary illusion of not being among the disinherited ones of theearth. I--I can give her the boots."

  And so we had that dinner, just the three of us together, with Baby Pauljust as good as gold and resting on Frieda's sofa. There was a box ofcandy sent by Kid Sullivan to his benefactress, and, although thecontents looked positively poisonous, they came from a grateful heart,and she appreciated them hugely. I had brought a little present offlowers in a tiny silver vase, and they graced the table. I wore aterrible necktie Frieda had presented me with. It was a splendidrefection.

  The little dining-room was a thing of delight. From the walls hung manypictures, mostly unframed. They were sketches and impressions that hadmet favor from their gifted maker and been deemed worthy of the place.The table was covered with a lovely white cloth, all filmy with lace,and there was no lack of pretty silver things holding bonbons and buds.It all gave me a feeling of womanly refinement, of taste mingled withthe freedom of an artistic temperament unrestrained by common metes andbounds.

  Frances had one of my roses pinned to her waist, and often bent down toinhale its fragrance. When will some profound writer give us an essay onthe Indispensability of the Superfluous?

  Again we had a feast on New Year's eve, in my room. Gordon, who wasgoing to a house-party at Lakewood, lent me his chafing-dish. I'll saylittle about the viands we concocted; at least they were flavored withaffection and mutual good wishes, with the heartiest hopes for goodthings to come. It was not very cold, that night, and on the stroke oftwelve I threw my window wide open. We listened to the orgy of soundfrom steam-whistles and tin horns. There floated to us, through the din,a pealing of faraway chiming bells. When I closed the window again,Frieda took the chafing-dish for a housewifely cleaning. Baby Paul hadbeen sleeping on my bed and Frances was kneeling beside him, looking atthe sleeping tot. For a moment she had forgotten us and the trivialitiesof the entertainment, and was breathing a prayer for her man-child.

  Thus passed the New Year's eve, and on the next morning Frances was upearly, as usual, and went off to work. I pottered idly about my roomtill Mrs. Milliken chased me out. On the afternoon of the first Sundayof the year Gordon came in again.

  Until last Autumn he had invaded my premises perhaps once in a couple ofmonths, but, now, he is beginning to come as regularly as Friedaherself. He gives me the impression of being rather tired, and I explainthis by the fact that he leads too active a life and takes too much outof himself. I am sure few men ever painted harder than he does. When Iwatch him at his work, it looks very easy, of course, but I know better.His is powerful, creative work, such as no man can accomplish withoutputting all his energy into his toil. I am often exhausted after a fewhours of writing, and I am sure that Gordon also feels the drag and thetravail of giving birth to the children of his soul. Then, after a dayof this sort of thing, he goes out to the theatres or the Opera andprolongs the night at the club and delves into books, for he is a greatreader, especially of what he terms modern thought and philosophy. Thefirst rays of good working light find him again at his canvas, sometimespleased and sometimes frowning, giving me often the impression of alatter-day Sisyphus.

  "I'm getting there," he said to me, one morning, in his studio. "Lastyear I made thirty-five thousand and this year I'll do better than that.The time is coming soon when I won't have to go around as a sort ofdrummer for myself. They'll be coming to me and begging me to paintthem. I'll do it for six or seven months a year, and, during theremainder of the time, I'll take life easily. My plans are all cut anddried."

  "I am glad to hear it, Gordon. You deserve your success. But----"

  "Go on," he snapped at me, "I know that everything must be paid for."

  "I'm not so sure of that. I was merely about to say that I don't knowwhether you can be so very sure of being able to take life in such aleisurely way as you hope to."

  "Don't you worry, old man," he answered. "I know what's best for me andhow to go to work to obtain it."

  "I trust you do," I replied. "Well, I'll be going now. See you nextSunday."

  "Why next Sunday?" he asked sharply.

  "Simply because you've lately acquired the excellent habit of calling onthat day."

  "I'll not be there," he declared. "I have other fish to fry."

  I took my leave, somewhat surprised. But three days later, as we weretaking our habitual Sabbatical refection of tea and biscuits, heappeared again, bearing a box of what he calls the only chocolates inNew York fit to eat. But he came in a taxi, for he wouldn't be seencarrying anything but his cane and gloves. For a second, as I looked athim, he seemed slightly embarrassed, although I may have erred in sothinking.

  Frieda seized upon the chocolates, greedily. She is one of those dearstout people, who assure you that they hardly ever eat anything and whomone always finds endowed with a fine appetite.

  "It's too bad about Baby Paul," she said. "He is yet too young to bestuffed with sweets or amused with toys."

  "I presume that a nursling is the only really normal human being,"remarked Gordon. "He possesses but the most natural desires, has noambitions unconnected with feeding and sleeping, and expresses hisemotions without concealment. Affectation is foreign to him, and hisvirtues and vices are still in abeyance."

  "Paul," declared Frances, indignantly, "is extremely intelligent and hasno vices at all."

  "I stand corrected, Mrs. Dupont. He is the exception, of course, and Ionly spoke in general. Frieda, my dear, won't you be so obliging as toopen the piano and play something for us? I don't suppose it will awakenthe baby, will it?"

  "He just loves music," asserted his mother. "When I play, he often openshis eyes and listens quietly, ever so long. I know that it pleases him,ever so much. His--oh! He must have music in his soul! How--how could itbe other
wise?"

  Frieda hurried to the piano and opened it, after giving the stool acouple of turns. She began with some Mendelssohn. Frances was holdingher baby in her arms, her wonderful head bent towards the little one,with a curve of her neck so graceful that it fascinated me. Gordon wasalso looking at her with a queer, eager look upon his features. He knewas well as I that she had heard again some vibrant music of former days,had felt the sound-waves that trembled in her own soul, and that, toher, the child represented something issued from wondrous melodies, aswan's song uplifted to the heavens and bearing with it the plaint of alost happiness.

  "Oh! Frieda, some--something else," she cried. "I--I--Just play someChopin."

  At once Frieda complied. Where on earth does the woman find the abilityto play as she does? She tells me that she hardly ever practises, and,in my many visits to her, I have never chanced to find her at the piano,though she possesses a very fair instrument. But I think I understand;what I mistake for technique must chiefly be her wonderful sentiment andthe appreciation of beauty that overshadows some faults of execution.Frieda's real dwelling place is in a heaven of her own making, that isall beauty and color and harmony. From there come her painting and hermusic, which evidently enter her being and flow out at the finger-tips.I have always thought that if her color-tubes had not possessed such anoverwhelming attraction for her, she might have become one of the mostwonderful musicians of the world.

  Gradually, Frances raised her head again, until it finally rested on theback of the armchair, with the eyes half-closed under the spell ofFrieda's playing. By this time she had perhaps forgotten the memoriesevoked by the "Songs Without Words," that had for a moment brought backto her the masterful bow that had made her heart vibrate, for the firsttime, with the tremulousness of a love being born. Chopin did not affecther in the same way, and she was calm again. Frieda came to the end ofthe "_Valse Brillante_" and took up the "_Berceuse_." Then the youngmother closed her eyes altogether. The melody brought rest to her, andsweetness with a blessed peace of soul.

  When I looked at Gordon, he was still staring, and by this time Ithought I knew the reason of his visits. Beyond a peradventure Franceswas the lodestone that attracted him. Did her wonderful features suggestto him a new and greater picture? Was he ruminating over the plan ofsome masterpiece and seeking inspiration from her? It seemed probableindeed. When the idea comes to me for a novel, I am apt to moon about,searching the recesses of my mind, digging in the depths of myexperience, staring into a vacancy peopled only by faint shadows thatbegin to gather form and strength and, finally, I hope, some attributesof humanity. At such times I often fail to recognize friends on thestreet or, even, I may attempt to read books upside down. Is it possiblethat Gordon suffers from similar limitations and needs to muse and toiland delve before he can bring out the art that is in him?

  Only yesterday I saw in the paper that he led a cotillon at the VanRossums. Moreover, at the Winter Exhibition I had the shock of my life.I hurried there to see again the "Mother and Child," instead of which Ifound his signature on the portrait of a railroad president. The papersspoke of it as a wonderful painting, and one of them reproduced it. Ifreely acknowledge that it deserves all the encomiums lavished upon it,for it is a bold and earnest piece of work. But he has never doneanything like the picture of Frances.

  I met him there and looked at him, questioningly. He understood me atonce.

  "I'll get half the financial big guns now," he told me coolly, and leftme to greet a millionaire's bride.

  I am not so foolish as to think he can be in love with Frances, and Idoubt very much whether he is in love with any one else, in spite of thegossip that has reached me. No, he must simply be thinking of some greatcomposition with which he expects, in his own good time, to take theworld by storm. And yet, what if I should be mistaken? The mere ideamakes me feel very cold and uncomfortable, for no reason that I know of.

  When he finally took his leave, he thanked Frieda for playing to us, andsaid good-by to Frances as perfunctorily as he does everything else. Webegan to clean up the teacups, and Frieda folded the frivolous littletablecloth she has contributed to my outfit and put it away, whileFrances and I quarreled.

  "I am not going," she said firmly.

  "You are utterly mistaken," I insisted, "and you're a bold, mad,rebellious creature. You will go at once and put on your best hat, andyour cloak, and dab powder on your nose, if it will make you happy, andcome along like a good child."

  "But what is the use of my paying board to Mrs. Milliken and then havingyou spend money for dinners at restaurants?" she objected.

  "The use is obvious. It affords us the joy of permitting ourselves, oncein a blue moon, to behave like spendthrifts; it allows us to indulge inthe company of the young and ambitious, as well as of the old andfoolish. Moreover, an occasional change of diet was recommended byHippocrates. Who are you to rebel against the most ancient andrespectable medical authority, pray?"

  "It is utterly wrong," she persisted. "I am always accepting yourkindnesses, and Frieda's, and there is nothing I can do in return,and--and----"

  She seemed to choke a little. Her voice came hoarse and muffled as ever,and I fear that Dr. Porter's ministrations are doing her little, if any,good.

  "My dear Frances," said Frieda, "we both understand you, perfectly. Itis the most splendid thing for a woman to keep her self-respect andrefuse to be a drag upon her friends. But when she can give themgenuine pleasure by accepting a trifling thing like this, now and then,she ought to be loath to deprive them. David says that the companydownstairs rather stifles his imagination, and he further alleges thatdining alone at Camus is a funereal pleasure. Now go and get ready.There is plenty of time, and I'll come in and hook up your waist, if youwant me to."

  So Frances ran away to her room, with Baby Paul on her arm. She oftenrebels like this, yet generally succumbs to our wiles. The pair of us,fortunately, is more than she can successfully contend against.

  Frieda followed her to her room, and I rummaged among the Sunday papers,finding the French daily. Frances likes to look at it and I have orderedthe newsman at the corner to deliver me the Sunday number regularly. Butto-day she has been busy with a lot of mending so that it remainedunopened. My first glance revealed a column giving a list of unclaimedletters in the hands of the French Consul. There was one for Madame PaulDupont, it appeared.

  I seized the paper and ran with it to the door of her room. My hand wasalready lifted to knock, when I bethought myself that a delay of a fewminutes would be unimportant, and that it was best to run no chances ofinterfering with Baby Paul's entertainment. I returned to my room andpaced up and down the worn Brussels. She had often told me how sorry shewas that she had never heard from her late husband's parents. Thisletter, in all probabilities, was from them. If I told Frances about itimmediately, she would worry over it until next day. Why not wait atleast until our return from Camus, or even until the morning? If sheknew about it, she would probably not have a wink of sleep. I determinedto postpone the announcement.

  Poor child! She will be harrowed by that letter. It will give her suchdetails as the old people have been able to obtain and bring the tragedyback to her. She will read the lines breathlessly. The months that havegone by have assuaged her pain a little, I think, but, now, it willreturn in full force, as poignant as ever. I am sorry that I looked atthat paper. If I had put it aside as I often do, without even looking atit, I should never have known anything about that letter and it mighthave been better for her peace of mind. Now, of course, I feel bound tolet her know, but, at least, I will let her have a tranquil night!

  How keen and shrewd women are! No sooner did they return to my room, allprimped up and ready to go, with Baby Paul clad in his best, than Friedainnocently asked what was the matter with me. Frances also asked if Iwere angry. Had she made me wait too long?

  I was compelled to declare that my feelings were in apple-pie order,that happiness reigned in my bosom and that I enjoyed waiting, beforethey were satisf
ied. I wish my emotions did not show so plainly on myface. It is for this reason, I suppose, that Gordon once adjured menever to learn the ancient game of draw-poker. He said that fleecing mewould be child's play for the merest beginner.

  We went down and directed our steps towards Madame Felicie Smith's shop.One can get in, even on Sundays, since the good woman lives there. Sheis always delighted to mind Paul for a couple of hours, and thisarrangement is far superior to the old one, which entailed a longwesterly jaunt to the home of the washerlady, besides the climbing ofmany stairs.

  The folding baby carriage was left at home, for the walk is but a shortone and Frances loves to carry her little one. My offer to assume thecharge was at once rejected, Frieda complaining that even she wasconsidered somewhat unreliable as a beast of burden. Frances laughed,cheerfully, but held on to her treasure. She is no longer nervous andfretful when leaving Baby Paul for a couple of hours, knowing that, ifhe happens to awaken, there will be soothing words of affection for him.We had to ring a tinkling bell for admittance and Felicie, buxom and ofhigh color, welcomed us all. Certainly she would care for the angel;most evidently she would look after the precious lamb; with not theslightest doubt she would love and cherish the little cabbage. While Iremained in the penumbra of the half darkened shop, it took the three ofthem to see the baby properly installed on the bed in the back room.Frances and Frieda heard the solemn promise made to them, to the effectthat there would be no adventitious aid to happiness such as a lump ofsugar tied in a rag, and presently we sallied forth.

  Lest my readers be already weary of Camus, I can only say that I am oneof those individuals who stick to old friends, either through an inbornsense of faithfulness or, more probably, because of a tendency toslothfulness, which makes me consider it exceedingly troublesome towander afield and search for pastures new. We had our dinner in quietenjoyment and felt, as we came out again, that the world was a very fairsort of a dwelling-place. We had enjoyed the food and I fancy that,under the table, my foot had beaten time to the melody eked out by theorchestra. The fiddler, I am glad to say, is looking somewhat stouter.The good meals provided by the widow may be responsible for this. At anyrate, I rejoice to think so, since it would go to show that a dinner atCamus is not only a pleasant, but also a hygienic, pursuit.

  For an instant our enjoyment of the music was interrupted by the clangand clatter of passing fire engines. We looked about us, perfunctorily,and decided that the conflagration was neither under our chairs norabove our rafters and continued to sip our coffee with the contempt dueto a New Yorker's familiarity with steam-pumps and water towers. Acouple of minutes later we left and, reaching Sixth Avenue, found itsomewhat crowded. A block further we came to a panting engine andhurried on. Cars were blocked by a line of hose stretched across thestreet. Frances caught my arm, nervously, and a look of terror came overher. Then we ran, Frieda puffing behind. The fire was in the middle ofthe block and streams of water crashed through windows. Ladders weregoing up and the firemen, conscious that it was but a moderate blaze,from their standpoint, worked calmly and effectively.

  "You stay there!" I shouted to my two companions and elbowed my waythrough the crowd, which was being pushed back by policemen. One of themseized me and threatened to use his locust on my cranium if I advancedany farther. I drew back and dashed through another opening till Ireached Felicie's door, entering the place and nearly falling over alarge osier basket in which were piled up a lot of tangled garments.

  "Take de handle!" commanded the good woman.

  "The baby! Little Paul!" I shouted.

  "Under the silk dress. Take de handle," she repeated.

  We issued from the place, meeting with a policeman who suspected us ofunworthy motives. We had to exhibit the infant and establish ouridentity before he would let us proceed with the huge basket. It wasabout time! Firemen bearing a length of pipe dashed by us and enteredthe cleaning establishment. The fire, it appeared, was in the restaurantnext door and threatened to invade Felicie's premises.

  My two friends were wringing their hands as they dashed towards us, andupon their heads their hats were awry.

  "Paul is all right!" I assured them. "But they took us for robbers."

  Frances picked her infant out of the basket, hysterically. She had triedto follow me and had wrestled with a sinewy policeman, who had defeatedher. We reached Mrs. Milliken's, where Paul was deposited on hismother's bed, soundly sleeping, and the basket, which it had taxed thegood woman's strength and mine to carry upstairs, was placed on thefloor. After this, Frieda threw her fat arms around my neck and calledme a hero. Frances would have followed suit but, being forestalled, hadto content herself with embracing the cleaning lady who, puffing, soondisengaged herself and fanned herself with a newspaper.

  "The brigands," she declared, "will soak everything with water, but Ihave saved most of my customers' things."

  She finally went off to spend the night at Eulalie's sister's, leavingthe plunder in our care. On the next morning, when Frances went off towork, she found that the fire had invaded a part of the shop, that theplate-glass window was broken and chaos reigned. Felicie was there anddeplored the fact that, until insurance matters were adjusted andrepairs made, all business would have to be suspended.

  The poor girl came home to throw herself on her knees beside littlePaul. Then, she bethought herself of me and knocked at my door,hurriedly. I opened it. My face, unfortunately, was covered with lather.

  "I--I'm out of work. It--it will be several weeks before Felicie canopen the shop again. Oh! What shall I do?"

  "My dear child," I said, "you will, for the time being, return to littlePaul and let me finish scraping my face. You will also please rememberthat you have some good friends. As soon as I am shaved, we will hold asession and form ourselves into a Committee of Ways and Means. In themeanwhile remember about the little sparrow falling to the ground."

  "I--I'm afraid a cat often gets him," she said sadly, and went back toher room.