Lo Michael! (19 page)

He still kept up his work in the little white room in the alley, evenings, though he divided his labors somewhat with Will French, Miss Semple and others who had heard of the work and had gradually offered their services. It had almost become a little settlement or mission in itself. The one room had become two and a bath; then the whole first floor with a small gymnasium. French was the enthusiastic leader in this, and Hester Semple had done many things for the little children and women. The next set of colonists for Michael's farm were always being got ready and were spoken of as “eligibles” by the workers.

Hester Semple had proved to be a most valuable assistant, ever ready with suggestions, tireless and as enthusiastic as Michael himself. Night after night the three toiled, and came home happily together. The association with the two was very sweet to Michael, whose heart was famished for friends and relations who “belonged,” But it never occurred to Michael to look on Miss Semple in any other light than friend and fellow worker.

Will French and Michael were coming home from the office one afternoon together, and talking eagerly of the progress at the farm.

“When you get married, Endicott,” said Will, “you must build a handsome bungalow or something for your summer home, down there on that knoll just overlooking the river where you can see the sea in the distance.”

Michael grew sober at once.

“I don't expect ever to be married, Will,” he said after a pause, with one of his far-away looks, and his chin up, showing that what he had said was an indisputable fact.

“The Dickens!” said Will stopping in his walk and holding up Michael. “She hasn't refused you, has she?”

“Refused me? Who? What do you mean?” asked Michael looking puzzled.

“Why, Hester—Miss Semple. She hasn't turned you down, old chap?”

“Miss Semple! Why, Will, you never thought—you don't think she ever thought—?”

“Well, I didn't know,” said Will embarrassedly, “it looked pretty much like it sometimes. There didn't seem much show for me. I've thought lately you had it all settled and were engaged sure.”

“Oh, Will,” said Michael in that tone that showed his soul was moved to its depth.

“I say, old chap!” said Will, “I'm fiercely sorry I've butted in to your affairs. I never dreamed you'd feel like this. But seeing I have, would you mind telling me if you'll give me a good send off with Hester? Sort of 'bless-you-my-son,' you know; and tell me you don't mind if I go ahead and try my luck.”

“With all my heart, Will. I never thought of it, but I believe it would be great for you both. You seem sort of made for each other.”

“It's awfully good of you to say so,” said Will, “but I'm afraid Hester doesn't think so. She's all taken up with you.”

“Not at all!” said Michael eagerly. “Not in the least. I've never noticed it. I'm sure she likes you best.”

And it was so from that night that Michael almost always had some excuse for staying later at the room, or for going somewhere else for a little while so that he would have to leave them half-way home; and Hester and Will from that time forth walked together more and more. Thus Michael took his lonely way, cut off from even this friendly group.

And the summer and the winter made the second year of the colony at Old Orchard.

Then, the following spring Starr Endicott and her mother came home and things began to happen.

CHAPTER XIX

Starr was eighteen when she returned, and very beautiful. Society was made at once aware of her presence.

Michael, whose heart was ever on the alert to know of her, and to find out where Mr. Endicott was, saw the first notice in the paper.

Three times had Endicott crossed the water to visit his wife and daughter during their stay abroad, and every time Michael had known and anxiously awaited some sign of his return. He had read the society columns now for two years solely for the purpose of seeing whether anything would be said about the Endicott family, and he was growing wondrously wise in the ways of the society world.

Also, he had come to know society a little in another way.

Shortly after his last interview with Endicott Miss Emily Holt, daughter of the senior member of the firm of Holt and Holt, had invited Michael to dine with her father and herself; and following this had come an invitation to a house party at the Holts' country seat. This came in the busy season of the farm work; but Michael, anxious to please his employers, took a couple of days off and went. And he certainly enjoyed the good times to the full. He had opportunity to renew his tennis in which he had been a master hand, and to row and ride, in both of which he excelled. Also, he met a number of pleasant people who accepted him for the splendid fellow he looked to be and asked not who he was. Men of his looks and bearing came not in their way every day and Michael was good company wherever he went.

However, when it came to the evenings, Michael was at a loss. He could not dance nor talk small talk. He was too intensely in earnest for society's ways, and they did not understand. He could talk about the books he had read, and the things he had thought, but they were great thoughts and not at all good form for a frivolous company to dwell upon. One did not want a problem in economics or a deep philosophical question thrust upon one at a dance. Michael became a delightful but difficult proposition for the girls present, each one undertaking to teach him how to talk in society, but each in turn making a miserable failure. At last Emily Holt herself set out to give him gentle hints on light conversation and found herself deep in a discussion of Wordsworth's poems about which she knew absolutely nothing, and in which Michael's weary soul had been steeping itself lately.

Miss Holt retired in laughing defeat, at last, and advised her protégé to take a course of modern novels. Michael, always serious, took her at her word, and with grave earnestness proceeded to do so; but his course ended after two or three weeks. He found them far from his taste, the most of them too vividly portraying the sins of his alley in a setting of high life. Michael had enough of that sort of thing in real life, and felt he could not stand the strain of modern fiction, so turned back to his Wordsworth again and found soothing and mental stimulus.

But there followed other invitations, some of which he accepted and some of which he declined. Still, the handsome, independent young Adonis was in great demand in spite of his peculiar habit of always being in earnest about everything. Perhaps they liked him and ran after him but the more because of his inaccessibility, and the fact that he was really doing something in the world. For it began to be whispered about among those who knew—and perhaps Emily Holt was the originator—that Michael was going to be something brilliant in the world of worth-while-things one of these days.

The tickets that Endicott promised him had arrived in due time, and anxious to please his benefactor, even in his alienation, Michael faithfully attended concerts and lectures, and enjoyed them to the full, borrowing from his hours of sleep to make up what he had thus spent, rather than from his work or his study. And thus he grew in knowledge of the arts, and in love of all things great, whether music, or pictures, or great minds.

Matters stood thus when Starr appeared on the scene.

The young girl made her debut that winter, and the papers were full of her pictures and the entertainments given in her honor. She was dined and danced and recepted day after day and night after night, and no debutante had ever received higher praise of the critics for beauty, grace, and charm of manner.

Michael read them all, carefully cut out and preserved a few pleasant things that were written about her, looked at the pictures, and turned from the pomp and pride of her triumph to the little snapshot of herself on horseback in the Park with her groom, which she had sent to him when she was a little girl. That was his, and his alone, but these others belonged to the world, the world in which he had no part.

For from all this gaiety of society Michael now held aloof. Invitations he received, not a few, for he was growing more popular every day, but he declined them all. A fine sense of honor kept him from going anywhere that Starr was sure to be. He had a right, of course, and it would have been pleasant in a way to have her see that he was welcome in her world; but always there was before his mental vision the memory of her mother's biting words as she put him down from the glorified presence of her world, into an existence of shame and sin and sorrow. He felt that Starr was so far above him that he must not hurt her by coming too near. And so, in deference to the vow that he had taken when the knowledge of his unworthiness had first been presented to him, he stayed away.

Starr, as she heard more and more of his conquests in her world, wondered and was piqued that he came not near her. And one day meeting him by chance on Fifth Avenue, she greeted him graciously and invited him to call.

Michael thanked her with his quiet manner, while his heart was in a tumult over her beauty, and her dimpled smiles that blossomed out in the old childish ways, only still more beautifully, it seemed to him. He went in the strength of that smile many days: but he did not go to call upon her.

The days passed into weeks and months, and still he did not appear, and Starr, hearing more of his growing inaccessibility, determined to show the others that she could draw him out of his shell. She humbled her Endicott pride and wrote him a charming little note asking him to call on one of the “afternoons” when she and her mother held court. But Michael, though he treasured the note, wrote a graceful, but decided refusal.

This angered the young woman, exceedingly, and she decided to cut him out of her good graces entirely. And indeed the whirl of gaiety in which she was involved scarcely gave her time for remembering old friends. In occasional odd moments when she thought of him at all, it was with a vague kind of disappointment, that he too, with all the other things of her childhood, had turned out to be not what she had thought.

But she met him face to face one bright Sunday afternoon as she walked on the avenue with one of the many courtiers who eagerly attended her every step. He was a slender, handsome young fellow, with dark eyes and hair and reckless mouth. There were jaded lines already around his youthful eyes and lips. His name was Stuyvesant Carter. Michael recognized him at once. His picture had been in the papers but the week before as leader with Starr of the cotillion. His presence with her in the bright sunny afternoon was to Michael like a great cloud of trouble looming out of a perfect day. He looked and looked again, his expressive eyes searching the man before him to the depths, and then going to the other face, beautiful, innocent, happy.

Michael was walking with Hester Semple.

Now Hester, in her broadcloth tailored suit, and big black hat with plumes, was a pretty sight, and she looked quite distinguished walking beside Michael, whose garments seemed somehow always to set him off as if they had been especially designed for him; and after whom many eyes were turned as he passed by.

Had it been but the moment later, or even three minutes before, Will French would have been with them and Michael would have been obviously a third member of the party, for he was most careful in these days to let them both know that he considered they belonged together. But Will had stopped a moment to speak to a business acquaintance, and Hester and Michael were walking slowly ahead until he should rejoin them.

“Look!” said Hester excitedly. “Isn't that the pretty Miss Endicott whose picture is in the papers so much? I'm sure it must be, though she's ten times prettier than any of her pictures.”

But Michael needed not his attention called. He was already looking with all his soul in his eyes.

As they came opposite he lifted his hat with, such marked, deference to Starr that young Stuyvesant Carter turned and looked at him insolently, with a careless motion of his own hand toward his hat. But Starr, with brilliant cheeks, and eyes that looked straight at Michael, continued her conversation with her companion and never so much as by the flicker of an eyelash recognized her former friend.

It was but an instant in the passing, and Hester was so taken up with looking at the beauty of the idol of society that she never noticed Michael's lifted hat until they were passed. Then Will French joined them breezily.

“Gee whiz, but she's a peach, isn't she?” he breathed as he took his place beside Hester, and Michael dropped behind, “but I suppose it'll all rub off. They say most of those swells aren't real.”

“I think she's real!” declared Hester. “Her eyes are sweet and her smile is charming. The color on her cheeks wasn't put on like paint. I just love her. I believe I'd like to know her. She certainly is beautiful, and she doesn't look a bit spoiled. Did you ever see such eyes?”

“They aren't half as nice as a pair of gray ones I know,” said Will looking meaningfully at them as they were lifted smiling to his.

“Will, you mustn't say such things—on the street—anyway—and Michael just behind— Why, where is Michael? See! He has dropped away behind and is walking slowly. Will, does Michael know Miss Endicott? I never thought before about their names being the same. But he lifted his hat to her—and she simply stared blankly at him as if she had never seen him before.”

“The little snob!” said Will indignantly. “I told you they were all artificial. I believe they are some kind of relation or other. Come to think of it I believe old Endicott introduced Michael into our office. Maybe she hasn't seen him in a long time and has forgotten him.”

“No one who had once known Michael could ever forget him,” said Hester with conviction.

“No, I suppose that's so,” sighed Will, looking at her a trifle wistfully.

After the incident of this meeting Michael kept more and more aloof from even small entrances into society; and more and more he gave his time to study and to work among the poor.

So the winter passed in a round of gaieties, transplanted for a few weeks to Palm Beach, then back again to New York, then to Tuxedo for the summer, and Michael knew of it all, yet had no part any more in it, for now she had cut him out of her life herself, and he might not even cherish her bright smiles and words of the past. She did not wish to know him. It was right, it was just; it was best; but it was agony!

Michael's fresh color grew white that year, and he looked more like the man-angel than ever as he came and went in the alley; old Sally from her doorstep, drawing nearer and nearer to her own end, saw it first, and called daily attention to the spirit-look of Michael as he passed.

One evening early in spring, Michael was starting home weary and unusually discouraged. Sam had gone down to the farm with Jim to get ready for the spring work, and find out just how things were going and what was needed from the city. Jim was developing into a tolerably dependable fellow save for his hot temper, and Michael missed them from the alley work, for the rooms were crowded now every night. True Hester and Will were faithful, but they were so much taken up with one another in these days that he did not like to trouble them with unusual cases, and he had no one with whom to counsel. Several things had been going awry and he was sad.

Hester and Will were ahead walking slowly as usual. Michael locked the door with a sigh and turned to follow them, when he saw in the heavy shadows on the other side of the court two figures steal from one of the openings between the houses and move along toward the end of the alley. Something in their demeanor made Michael watch them instinctively. As they neared the end of the alley toward the street they paused a moment and one of the figures stole back lingeringly. He thought he recognized her as a girl cursed with more than the usual amount of beauty. She disappeared into the darkness of the tenement, but the other after looking back a moment kept on toward the street. Michael quickened his steps and came to the corner at about the same time, crossing over as the other man passed the light and looking full in his face.

To his surprise he saw that the man was Stuyvesant Carter!

With an exclamation of disgust and horror Michael stepped full in the pathway of the man and blocked, his further passage.

“What are you doing here?” He asked in tones that would have made a brave man tremble.

Stuyvesant Carter glared at the vision that had suddenly stopped his way, drew his hat down over his evil eyes and snarled: “Get out of my way or you'll be sorry! I'm probably doing the same thing that you're doing here!”

“Probably not!” said Michael with meaning tone. “You know you can mean no good to a girl like that one you were just with. Come down here again at your peril! And if I hear of your having anything to do with that girl I'll take means to have the whole thing made public.”

“Indeed!” said young Carter insolently. “Is she your girl? I think not! And who are you anyway?”

“You'll find out if you come down here again!” said Michael his fingers fairly aching to grip the gentlemanly villain before him. “Now get out of here at once or you may not be able to walk out.”

“I'll get out when I like!” sneered the other, nevertheless backing rapidly away through the opening given him. When he had reached a safe distance, he added, tantalizingly: “And I'll come back when I like, too.”

“Very well, I shall be ready for you, Mr. Carter!”

Michael's tones were clear and distinct and could be heard two blocks away in the comparative stillness of the city night. At sound of his real name spoken fearlessly in such environment, the leader of society slid away into the night as if he had suddenly been erased from the perspective; nor did sound of footsteps linger from his going.