CHAPTER 21

Mrs. Raleigh no sooner entered the car than her eyes fell upon me. For an instant she hesitated. Undoubtedly when she boarded the car she was unaware that I was on it. She quickly collected herself, and to my disgust, took the empty seat in front of me. There was no recognition. As a schoolyard bully clings to his victim and toys with him, or buffets him about, so, it seemed, this woman meant to do by me. I had broken up her amazing career in the Colorado city, and now, I was sure, she meant to demoralize me here. What if she should contrive to meet Marion and pour into her innocent head all those beautiful tales about me! Man must progress or die; his functioning must go on or stop, and where that functioning is of the mind, if that mind is not wholesome, it can then only be unwholesome and visualize only the unhappy side of life. Truth and beauty to such people are gems whose brilliancy blinds them.

To sit there and behold my nemesis calmly nursing her victory was too much. I took a seat farther back, and when the car was a few blocks away from my destination I quietly left. She should not follow me and learn of my dwelling place.

I went to bed that night feeling about as miserable as a young man in love can feel; and the misery of a disconcerted lover is the crown of all misery.

It wasn’t necessary that Mrs. Raleigh tell me what would happen if I exposed her here as I had done back East. She had the drop on me, and I kept my hands up. Yet I wasn’t at all sure that she wouldn’t fire, anyway.

Following on the heels of Mrs. Raleigh’s appearance came a letter from my bank back East informing me that in view of the bad business conditions and unfavorable outlook it would be necessary to curtail my allowance. It was to be cut in half! Clouds were gathering about me fast. If I did not get employment I should starve. I had been hearing the labor troubles of my fellow deaf as never before. Those out of work were taking to gambling, and the losers to borrowing, and borrowing would lead to trouble; hence, a spirit of unrest, and a deal of animosity was brewing among my fellows. Some of the boys had little shops of their own, printing offices, shoe repairing establishments, commercial photographic studios, and the like, and to these I would go and find other acquaintances gathered there discussing current affairs and the outlook for jobs. I found the boys helping one another where long friendships sealed them, but I was practically a newcomer, and little help or information came my way. And in the midst of all this loomed menacingly the figure of Mrs. Raleigh.

I needed a suit of clothes and some underwear, and I had barely enough to pay my scant room rent and buy a meal ticket at a cheap restaurant. It was five months before my twenty-first birthday, when I should come into my fortune. I could not see Marion again in such clothes as I was wearing. Brushing, cleaning and pressing wouldn’t do much good, either. I must get work.

I spent the entire week job hunting, but in vain. I had been a soldier of fortune with little aim other than trying to write, and now, when skilled labor alone had a chance, what could I, an unskilled man, expect?

I was humiliated and downhearted. In the face of this growing predicament I resolved to see Edsum, and if he had any of that Carrel money left, ask him to tide me over. I found him at Dermit’s studio. Both men were puffing away on their long pipes.

Standing before them I made a clean breast of it.

“ I’m all but dead broke, and this suit is all I’ve got. Will you help me out? I give you my word of honor to pay you back—every cent. ”

The artists looked at each other amusedly.

“ Why broke if you’ve got an income? ” asked Dermit.

“ It has been cut in half. Wall Street is a bit panicky, you know, and I’m getting some of the shock. ”

“ And when Wall Street is a bit panicky it’s a bit panicky here, too. ” Dermit’s face grew sober. I could feel my heart slow up. For the first time in my life I realized that I was facing a really serious situation. Marion could and would help me, if I sought her; but I would not think of that. In a few weeks, eighteen or twenty, I should come into my own. I must find a way to span the gap.

“ Sit down, ” motioned Dermit. I sat down. Edsum blew a cloud of smoke across the room, more clouds for me, I thought. “ Now, look here, Mickey, you are up against what every deaf fellow has to face about half the time—I mean those deaf who haven’t property or relatives to hold them upright and well shod. This being ‘ up against it ’ half the time is responsible for a lot of the ugly temper we find among the boys. They not only must fight the battle of life as it confronts the masses, but they must do it minus their hearing, and with many minus speech. I know, from my talks with my hearing friends, that this handicap is looked upon as insurmountable, yet the deaf do surmount it, and I do admire them, with all their faults, with all their deplorable quarreling. The fight is hard and bitter. The boys are discriminated against and their skill or their talent unrecognized. I’ve seen not a few of my friends take the pick or the hoe when they had the brains to do big things if given the chance. Those hated picks and hoes are the pokers that stir the embers of resentment and drive some to crime. The newspapers love to flaunt crime, and a crime perpetrated by a ‘ dummy ’ makes choice headlines. Such stuff is about all the public hears about the deaf, hence the damaging impression current. And I sometimes think the public doesn’t want to hear anything good about us; what doesn’t exactly profit one hardly interests him. Now, maybe your beautiful Mrs. Raleigh has been driven to crime, and has lost all sense of duty toward society. Edsum and I have been up against it, but we fought it out one way or another, and that’s what you’ll have to do, and for your own good and preparedness I’ll say, it’s a hard world we’re up against! ”

Dermit put his pipe to his lips; but it had gone out. As a thrilling drama holds an audience, so was I held by the sculptor’s revealing fingers and forceful signs. Dick was surpassed, and Stockton, back at college, faded out in comparison with Dermit’s oratory. But it gave me a good bracing, and Edsum, himself, enjoyed it.

The men filled their pipes again, and Dermit resumed.

“ Now, Mickey, you’ve got talent, a talent for writing, and I tell you, it’s a misfortune in your case. It will obsess you to your undoing, because you can’t make much headway—you are too limited. It’s the one line of high art that we deaf are least able to handle, and for reasons I have already told you. You may cultivate your talent to a high degree of perfection and turn out original, imaginative work in excellent fashion, but it’s a sure shot your subject will not appeal, and you won’t sell it. However, give us a capital story in some way bearing on the deaf or deafness, a subject within your limitations, and you will be likely to sell it—it will be novel. Hearing writers can’t treat the subject of deafness, nor handle a deaf character with authenticity and the skill of a deaf writer—so—there’s your cue. ”

He rose from his chair and went to his desk, rummaging through a drawer while Edsum, returning his pipe to his coat pocket, drew forth a cigar, then another, offering me one. I did not fancy another rebellion of my stomach, so the cigar was passed to Dermit when he reseated himself. Dermit held a newspaper clipping, some verses.

“ Here, ” he said, tapping the clipping with his finger, “ here is an illustration of my meaning. Whoever wrote these verses knew what he was doing—knew his subject, the deaf. ” I took the proffered clipping—“ Our Needs. ” My eyes only glanced over it, and as I looked up very much sooner than expected, Dermit growled, “ You’re not reading it—read it, every line! ” He lit his cigar. I broke out in a good laugh. “ I don’t have to read it, ” I said, “ I wrote it! ”

“ You wrote it? ” Dermit’s face was the picture of inexpressible surprise. He broke into a laugh and turned to Edsum. “ It’s Mickey’s doing, Edsum, the joke’s on me, and take it from me, the kid is in for success. ” He grasped my hand and wrung it good and hard. Poor Edsum, he couldn’t appreciate verse, and Dermit had never shown him the clipping taken from that long ago issue of The Deaf Man’s Times, so we had to explain it to him.

“ I hope it didn’t quite anger you, Dermit, ” I ventured, a little apologetic. “ Really, I didn’t ever expect to have the honor of meeting you. ”

“ Have you met any of the others you have lampooned? ”

“ Yes—at the convention back in Colorado; but they didn’t know me as the author of the verses. There isn’t any libel about it, is there? ”

“ Naw, not exactly; but here’s the undeniable truth about it—between the lines, and in law they say that truth is a stronger element than the implied meaning. It’s clever, Mickey; but the boys didn’t just like it. I heard from some of them. ”

“ What did they say? ”

“ One said, ‘ Who in the hell wrote it?’ ” Dermit replaced the clipping, and on reseating himself, took up the purpose of my call. As he spoke, Edsum put his hand in his pocket and drew forth his wallet.

“ If twenty-five dollars will help you, Mickey, here, take it. ” Whereupon Dermit quickly added another twenty-five. It was the first loan I had ever sought, save for the little mutual help that often passed between Dick and me, and I took it with trembling hands. I drew forth my pad and began to write an IOU, when the paper was torn from my pad and destroyed.

“ We men of Bohemia don’t do that, Mickey, ” laughed Edsum. “ If I had known this situation was coming to you, you should have had a slice of that lump you turned my way. It was the first big money I have had in over two years. Debts had accumulated in the meantime; so it went, as I have explained. ”

I looked a world of thanks, though I said nothing. The money would put me in good clothes and ease my mind for some weeks to come. I certainly expected to find work of some sort before that money ran out. I’d be a dishwasher, if nothing better turned.

“ I’ll repay every cent of this, ” I said, convincingly; “ but I cannot say just when. ” I placed the money in my bill book.

“ One thing more, Mickey: don’t get mixed in the local quarrels—keep out. The more reasonable you are, the better your judgment, the worse you get. Keep out. ”

Dermit was right. The writing itch was all over me; and it was true that I had been trying to handle subjects beyond me. His tip to try something along lines I was familiar with was good—I would write a story of my own people, of the silent world. I could handle such a subject, I was sure; and I had yet to hear of a story of that kind.

But my condition just then forestalled an immediate attempt at carrying out Dermit’s idea. I must have more money before I could idle away more time with my pen. I set out again to find a job, and again failed. I looked over the newspaper “ Help Wanted, Male ” columns, and followed up every call that offered me a chance—work I could do, despite my deafness. And this job hunting experience taught me how little is known of people in my condition. Of the scores of prospective employers I approached not one gave me credit for being able to engage in anything. That I was well-educated, could think of myself, could learn and be of value never occurred to them. That I was worthy of trust and deserving of a chance seemed not to enter their heads. Further to accentuate the unfairness of all this, the common prejudice I met with, I found those employed for work such as I sought inferiors—persons of little education, lacking in a genuine sense of duty, ambitious only so far as getting their pay check—and spending it foolishly.

I had gone job-hunting in my old clothes. Their shabbiness might press a point in my favor. However, it didn’t work. What I needed was influence, or a friend to speak for me, and I had none. Edsum and Dermit were not in the commercial world; my new acquaintances among the deaf were either hunting jobs themselves, or trying to help an old friend. I could expect nothing from them.

Came a cold, foggy day, and I remained in my room, reading and trying to plan a mode of living on my curtailed allowance. That day the postman brought me two letters. One contained a check for two dollars. I had sold a poem! The other envelope disclosed a letter from Mr. Carrel. He wanted to see me.

Glad of an opportunity to get away from the dingy room and clear my mind of fruitless endeavors, I put on my new suit and started for the home of luxury.

I found Mr. Carrel and Marion out in the yard, wraps on, busy over the potted plants, removing those whose tenderness necessitated their transfer to the hot house. I was greeted warmly, and soon joined in the work of carrying the pots. When all were removed, we entered the great house where once more I was led to the familiar office.

Carrel closed the office door, and thus secreted, we two sat down. He turned to his desk and drew out a drawer from which he took a letter and handed it to me. It was written in a plain, feminine hand, on good paper, but the English was awful. It was the work of a foreigner or a deaf-mute, one of those who had found language baffling. I could hardly make head or tail of it until I had studied it closely and rearranged the words. The letter was nothing else but a solemn warning to “ The Master of the House ” as to one Michael Dunmore. Briefly speaking, it was a repetition of Mrs. Raleigh’s attack on me back in Colorado! How my blood boiled and surged. What a blow she had dealt me in return for the snubbing I had given her a few nights before! And now I was summoned to explain the charges.

When I finished deciphering the thing I looked up and into a half resentful, half sympathetic face.

“ Do you know this Mrs. Raleigh? ” He was now visibly agitated.

“ Yes, Mr. Carrel, I know her; and I wish that you, too, knew her. ” I paused, then, “ That letter is ‘ dummy ’ English as well educated as she is. It is faked writing. She is well educated. ”

“ Please tell me about her, and how you think this came about. ” He looked at me with an air of keen disapproval and unforgivable reproach.

I could read his very soul and understand the anguish it bore. I felt it necessary to go back over a year and tell him the story of the impostor gang, and how we had found this woman at work, how we had exposed the crooks, and how a minister had intervened in behalf of this Mrs. Raleigh; also how she had taken revenge on me for exposing her before the club, and this, it now appeared, was further effort on her part to injure me. He listened attentively, seemingly greatly interested and impressed.

“ I am alone in the world, Mr. Carrel, and I am not the low-down culprit this woman has pictured me. There are but two persons living who can testify to my birth and character—that is, I think they are still living. They are an old sailor, Danny Merlin, one time mate of my father’s lost ship, Seamew, and a former Miss Walton, now married, with whom, and her deceased mother, I used to live with—back in New York State. ”

“ New York—where were you born? ”

“ In New York City. My parents were English of the Dunmore line, my mother died when I was born. I was taken back to England and raised by a relative while my father was on the sea. ” I then related the story of the shipwreck. Carrel listened with increasing interest, his face gradually losing that mark of concern it had borne, his eyes lighting with a new sense of pleasure; yet I could not help but feel that the damaging letter still kept alive in him a burning doubt.

At length he said, “ I want to tell you, my boy, that this letter made me feel very bad. I don’t yet know just what to do, but certainly I cannot allow Marion to associate with people among whom moves this Mrs. Raleigh. I have of late felt very kindly disposed toward you—I have taken a far deeper interest in you than you imagine. Your friend, Mr. Edsum, has filled me with wonder, and I was becoming interested in your people—I watched them with interest that night when I stood at your club room door; but now, with this awful letter before me, what am I to think? ” His head moved negatively from side to side, his eyes dropping, and his lips compressing.

“ What would you expect your friends to do, if someone wrote about you a letter like this? ” I placed my finger upon the sheet, and looked earnestly into Carrel’s face, the answer, however, already in my mind.

For a moment Carrel remained silent. I interposed, “ I think you would expect them to ignore it, wouldn’t you? ” He looked up with a start, rose and paced the floor, then suddenly facing me, asked, “ Did you ever hear of this woman before the Colorado incident? ” He picked up the letter and seemingly studied the handwriting.

“ No—never. Her’s is a very unusual and distressing case. ”

“ It must be. Well, now, I am going to ignore the letter, so far as it reflects against you, but— ” his hand passed slowly over his forehead, as if he would wipe away some unhappy memory, “ tell me, what does this Mrs. Raleigh look like? ”

Good God! There flashed over me that moment when, at the club, I had caught a similarity between Marion’s face and Mrs. Raleigh’s! Banish it!—a mere coincidence, a mental illusion that must not be told.

“ She is good looking, handsome, a blonde; but her mouth seems to be drawn a little by the grief muscles, as the French would say. I don’t wonder. She has something to grieve over, or should grieve over. She is a markedly capable and clever woman, Mr. Carrel, devilishly clever, but uses her talent the wrong way. Under a fine disguise she leads the deaf to believe in her and her good intentions, but ends up with evolving a pretty mess; and she seems to find a great delight in it. She puzzles me. ”

“ How old do you think she is? ” This unexpected interest in my enemy surprised me.

“ I don’t know, ” I smiled. “ Doesn’t appear to be past forty. ”

“ Do you think there is any makeup about her—does she paint? ”

I laughed. “ Yes, some; but most women do a little of that you know, ” and he smiled in return, then dropped into a meditative mood. This gave me the time to do a little thinking of my own, and I found myself wondering how this woman could so interest Mr. Carrel, this man who had been so careful to keep clear of my people. I wasn’t quite sure which puzzled me more, Mr. Carrel or my dear Mrs. Raleigh, alias Blanche Moore.

The next moment I was being led about that great mansion, the old gentleman showing me the place from attic to basement, passing only one door, that of Marion’s room. We ended our little journey through this wonder palace and came to a halt in the great reception hall—Edsum’s heaven.

“ It is all so wonderful and beautiful, Mr. Carrel, I hardly know what to say; but aren’t you lonesome here? ” I was not prepared for his staggering reply.

“ What you have seen here, Michael, exists for me little better than a dream. I can’t say that I own it! I have loved the great place so, have clung to it so desperately, yet tenderly, that I have sunk into fearful debt satisfying my cravings for luxury—to drown my cares—and in a mad desire to make Marion happy and to leave her something to keep me fresh in her memory. But I have been losing it in the very getting, and now I am almost gone—ruined! ”

I could see his face twitch and his hand tremble. “ Michael, you are no more alone in this world than I, but I am old, and that makes it harder. Let me tell you something. This place is the scene of a great gem robbery. It fell to me to uphold family traditions, to keep the gems, or heirlooms, and this place. But all have slipped away—I am a failure. If I had the gems back their value would save this place—if it were a choice between the two. But I was charged with keeping both. ”

His head sank, his chin resting upon his bosom. My heart reached out for this sorrow-ridden old man. At last I could understand, or thought I did. Strange, though, that Carrel would thus unbosom himself, and that after the damaging letter. But I was now sure that he did mean to ignore that letter, and was trustful of me. As he sat there, his head still bowed, his breast heaving with emotion, I was conscious of a filial affection rising in my own bosom.

I stepped over to him.

“ Mr. Carrel, I am very sorry for you—it is all very sad. But you have Marion. ”

He smiled into my face, then, rising, stepped across the room and pressed a button. Quong responded, and on receiving an order, bowed himself out. Carrel reseated himself, and continued his story.

“ I used to be a young man, Michael, like you, as all old people will repeat, and I loved a girl as I think you love Marion, and I know she loves you. I know, too, that you have feared me. Now, I want you to know that Marion’s coming was a tragedy in my life—she is to me both thorn and flower. In pursuit of her happiness, and to carry on a hobby of mine, and of my father, I have raised Marion apart from the world, and purposely kept her away from the deaf. My attitude toward your people has been changed by you and the artist, and my situation is such that ere long I cannot provide for Marion as I have done. ” He paused, then, taking me completely by surprise, said, “ I want you to marry Marion! ”

I leaped to my feet. Surely, I never expected him to utter such a thing. I fully expected a long fight to win Marion from him. Mr. Carrel was eccentric. He went on, “ If you marry her you will get Marion and what little is left. ”

“ She is all in the world I want! ” I exclaimed.

“ But you could not live, considering your present condition. ”

“ I have a fair-sized fortune coming to me very soon, ” and then I explained the matter of the trust back East.

“ Very good; but you, I want to know more about you. ”

He seemed to have forgotten what I had told him half an hour ago.

“ I am the son of the late Henry Dunmore, of Warwickshire, England, one time owner and captain of the lost merchantman, Seamew. I have background and fortune—I am not what Mrs. Raleigh has pictured me, ” I repeated, with earnestness and a show of injured pride. “ The English Dunmores are a long established line. ”

“ How can you prove all this? ”

The question stunned me.

“ It might be necessary for me to go to England to get you proof, ” I returned, slowly, the idea, while offering some degree of satisfaction, not striking me as a pleasant one.

“ That would be a lot of trouble and a long way to go, ” he laughed. “ What are you doing now—what have you been doing? ”

“ Writing—or trying to. ” Surprise lit his face.

“ Writing what? ” His eyes twinkled. “ Any success? ”

“ Not exactly. ” It was my turn to smile.

“ I used to do a bit of literary work myself, ” he said, reminiscently.

“ Any luck? ” I humored.

“ Not exactly—I wrote for fun. ” He rose and excused himself for a moment, returning with a small package in his hand. “ Here are some experiences of mine long ago. I thought it would grow into a capable story and make a book. I am going to turn it over to you. Your Mrs. Raleigh is so strikingly like a character of my own story you will wonder yourself at the similarity. Now, or when you read the sketches, these fragments, you will understand my interest in your ‘ dear ’ friend. ” We examined the papers momentarily.

“ Really, if you have any talent for storytelling, you should have no trouble building one out of this material. Go to it, and if you succeed, there’s a career for you—and Marion. But I want you to go away a year, work on the story and be getting me information about yourself and your family—Marion will wait for you. ”

My head was a-whirl. What more had this man in store for me? Was he in his right mind or had his misfortunes slightly unbalanced him?

“ And I must not see Marion for a whole year? ” I was crestfallen.

“ A whole year—that is my wish. You are both young, and you have to make good. I must be sure you can support her. ” He turned as he heard, I think, footsteps on the stairway. In came Marion.

How beautiful she was! I had never beheld her so exquisitely lovely and charmingly gowned. She came as a fairy.

We rose to our feet, stepping to meet his child.

“ My beloved little girl, ” he said, spelling the words and kissing her. Then, turning to me, “ Behold my Marion, the most perfectly developed and most beautiful girl in the world—the last of the Carrels. ” Taking Marion by the hand he led her to me and placed her hand in mine. She understood. Her head fell upon my shoulder. My lips pressed her burning cheek. And thus, for the space of a fleeting half minute our love burst from our hearts and suffused each other.

When we broke away Carrel was gone.

“ Marion, ” I said, “ it is the wish of your ‘ Daddy ’ that I again absent myself, and this time for a year. Because I love you so I am going to obey him, but God knows what it will mean to me. ”

“ It will mean, Michael, that I will wait for you. ”