The Rose in the Ring

G >> George Barr McCutcheon >> The Rose in the Ring

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"Sir, you've already begun!" cried David in a choking voice. "You may
do what you like with me, but you've just got to let _her_ alone.
You--"

Colonel Grand held up his hand. David seemed to be gasping for breath.

"That's the very thing I like about you, Jack," said his late host
derisively. "I can always depend upon you to look after the ladies.
They will be absolutely safe while you are with them. There is a
distinct advantage in having a real gentleman about. You see, I can't
always be on hand to--to protect them from such bullies as Thomas
Braddock."

His allusion to Braddock was strikingly impersonal.

"I am making you my first lieutenant--no, my aide-de-camp, Jack. All
you are required to do is to obey orders. Don't run the risk of a
court-martial, my lad. It occurs to me that an uncle of yours has had
an experience of that--but, never mind. Your first duty, sir, is to
convince the ladies that I shall expect them to be in better humor
when I return from the East."

The words came from his lips with biting emphasis; the smooth oily
tone was gone. There was no pretense now; he was showing his fangs.

David could only glare at him, white to the lips. He could not speak.
He could only look the hatred that welled in his heart. But down in
that heart he was telling himself that some day he would crush this
monster.

Colonel Grand studied the clean-cut, aristocratic face for a moment. A
conciliatory smile came to his lips.

"Don't forget that I am doing you a good turn," he said. "Christie is
a very pretty girl. She's fond of you. If you're smart, you'll make
the most of her. You ought to thank me instead of--ah, but I see you
do thank me." He willfully misjudged the expression on David's face."
I see no reason why you can't spend a most agreeable season with us.
Jack."

"Colonel Grand," said David very slowly, controlling himself
admirably, "if it were not that I now regard it as my sacred duty to
stay with this show, I would defy you, sir, and denounce you, let the
consequences be as disastrous to me as you like. I am not afraid of
you. I _can_ go back home--to jail--with my head up and my heart
clean, if you choose to send me there. I am not afraid of even that.
But I _am_ afraid of something else. That is why I am ready to
bear your insults, to humble myself, to submit to your--your commands.
Not for my own safety, but for the safety of others. Permit me, sir,
as a gentleman, to assure you that you can depend on me to carry out
at least a part of your instructions as faithfully as God will let me.
I mean by that, sir, your instructions to _protect the ladies!_"

He turned on his heel and left the Colonel standing there, a flush
mounting to his flabby cheek.

"Braddock," he said, a few minutes later," I'm going to break that
Jenison boy if it takes me a year--yes, ten years."

"What's up?" demanded Braddock, rolling his cigar over uneasily. "Been
sassing you?"

"People of his class do not sass, as you call it," said Colonel Grand
shortly.

"Well, shall I kick him out of the show?" asked the other, perplexed.
Remembering David's money, he supplemented quickly: "Say in a week or
two?"

"No. That is just what I don't want you to do. He stays, Braddock.
Understand?"

"All right," agreed the other hastily. "I like the kid. He's good
company for Christie, too. _Tony_ sort of a chap, ain't he? I can
tell 'em every pop. I said to my wife that first night--"

"Yes, yes, you you've told me that," interrupted Grand impatiently.
"You keep him here, that's all. When I'm through with him you may kick
him out. There won't be much left to kick."

For a long time after the departure of his new partner, Thomas
Braddock's attitude of extreme thoughtfulness puzzled those who took
the trouble to observe him. At last, when his cigar was chewed to a
pulp and the night's performance was half over, light broke in upon
him. He fancied that he had solved the Colonel's designs regarding
David Jenison. His face cleared, but again clouded ominously; he
conversed with himself, aloud.

"By thunder, if he thinks I'm going to let him gobble up that kid's
money, he's mistaken. Why didn't I think of this before? I might have
known. It's the long green he's after. I wonder who told him about the
two thousand." He scratched his head in sudden perplexity. "I wonder
what's got into Dick Cronk. He's too blamed good, all of a sudden.
That brother of his might try the job, but--no, he'd bungle it.
Besides, he'd probably stick a knife into Davy if the kid made a
motion." He began chewing a fresh cigar; his pop-eyes were leveled
with unseeing fierceness at a certain patch in the "main top"; his
brain was seeing nothing but that packet of banknotes. How to get it
into his possession: that was the question that produced the
undiverted stare and the lowering droop at the corners of his mouth.

"I've got to get that wad," he was saying to himself, over and over
again, with almost tearful insistence. Driven by the value of
propinquity, he finally made his way to the dressing-tent. The
performers were surprised to find him unnaturally sober and quite
jovial. A certain nervousness marked his manner. He chatted amiably
with the leading men and women in his company; the fact that he
removed the cigar from his lips while conversing with Ruby Noakes and
the Iron-jawed Woman, created no little amazement in them. He was
especially gentle with his wife, and superlatively so with his
daughter, both of whom were slow to show the slightest sense of
responsive warmth. He proudly, almost belligerently, proclaimed
Christine to be the loveliest creature that ever stepped into the
sawdust ring. In spite of that fact, however, it was his plan to have
her retire at the end of the season, when, if all went well, she was
to go to a splendid school for young ladies.

Mrs. Braddock eyed him narrowly. She was searching for the cause of
this sudden ebullience, this astounding surrender to her own views
regarding their daughter. As for Christine, she was more afraid of him
than she had been in all her life. This new mood suggested some vague,
undefinable trouble for her mother. The girl's rapidly developing
estimate of her father was taking away all the illusions she had been
innocently cherishing up to the last few weeks. To her horror, she was
beginning to look for something sinister in all that he undertook to
do or say.

Unable to face the speculative anxiety in the eyes of his wife and
child, Braddock edged off to the men's section of the tent. His
furtive, nervous glances about the small apartment escaped the notice
of the men who were changing their apparel. To his own disgust, a cold
perspiration began to ooze out all over his body--the moisture of
extreme nervousness and indecision. He took a stiff pull at his brandy
flask.

His shifting gaze ultimately rested on David Jenison's neatly
deposited clothing. The boy was in the ring. His "street-wear" lay on
a "keester" somewhat apart from the heterogeneous pile of men's
apparel on the adjacent boxes. David's "pile" was close to the outside
wall of the tent. Braddock marked its location in respect to a certain
side pole. He began to tremble; a weakness fell upon him; the
resolution partly formed in the big tent, and which had drawn him
resistlessly to this very spot, gained strength as his blinking eyes
swerved their gaze from time to time in the direction of the "pile."
All the while he was talking volubly and without a sentient purpose.

After fifteen minutes he sauntered from the section, cold with
apprehension but absolutely determined on the action which was to
follow. Leaving the tent, he strolled off toward the ticket wagon,
carefully noting the position of the men who were loading the
menagerie tent for the trip ahead. A cautious _detour_ brought
him back to the dressing-tent, and directly in front of the spot where
David's clothing was deposited.

The trembling increased. His mouth filled with saliva. He felt of his
hair. It was wet. As he stood there shivering and irresolute, the band
struck up the tune that signified much to his present venture,--the
tune heralding the approach of the entire company of male performers
in the "ground and lofty tumbling act." It meant that the men's
section would be entirely deserted for five or ten minutes.

Thomas Braddock was not a thief. He never had stolen anything in his
life. He did not intend to steal now. Before he entered the dressing-
tent, half an hour ago, he had justified himself unto himself: he was
not going to steal David's money. His purpose was an honest one, or so
his conscience had been resolutely convinced. He meant to
surreptitiously borrow the idle money, that was all. Toward the end of
the season, when he was vastly prosperous--as he was sure to be--he
would go to David and restore the money, with interest; whereupon the
grateful young man would fall upon his neck and rejoice. He needed the
money. David did not need it.

What would his wife say if she came to know of this? What would
Christine think of him? They were harsh questions and they troubled
him. But above these questions throbbed a still greater one--the one
that made his body damp with fear: was the money still in the boy's
pocket, or was he carrying it with him in the ring?

Of one thing he was sure: David trusted to the integrity of his fellow
performers. As for that, so did Thomas Braddock. In all his experience
with circus performers he had never known one of them to steal;
somewhat irrelevantly he reminded himself that circus women were
notably chaste. No; David's money was quite safe in that dressing-
tent.

Two full minutes passed before he could whip the conscience into
submission. It was, as it afterwards turned out to be, the last stand
of the thing called honor as it applied to whiskey-soaked Tom
Braddock. Then he shot forward across the black shadows to the side
pole he had been glaring at for a quarter of an hour. Through the
lacings in the sidewall he saw that the section was empty.

When David put his hand inside the lining of his waistcoat an hour
later, he turned pale and his eyes narrowed with suspicion. For an
instant he permitted them to sweep the laughing, unconscious group of
men surrounding him.

"Joey," he said a moment later, taking the clown aside, "my pocketbook
is gone."

"Wot!" gasped Joey. "'Ave you lost it?"

"It has been stolen."

Joey's face grew very sober. "Don't say that, Jacky. It was in your
ves'cut--as usual?"

"Yes. The lining is slashed with a knife."

"Jacky, are you sure?" almost groaned the clown. "Why--why, there
ain't nobody 'ere as would steal a pin. No, sir, not one of--"

"I know that, Joey," said David. He was very white and his eyes were
heavy with pain. "I know who stole it."

Grinaldi looked up sharply. Something darted into his mind like a
flash of lightning.

"You--you don't mean--"

"I won't say the name. And you mustn't say it either, Joey. But I am
as sure of it as I am sure my heart beats. Casey said he--the man came
in here for half an hour--I can't believe he is a thief! Joey, _they_
must never know. We must not mention this thing to any one. I don't
mind the money. It is nothing--"

Joey wiped the perspiration from his forehead.

"Right-o! Not a blooming word. I see your meaning. By Gripes, he's
sinking pretty low. But," hopefully," mebby he didn't do it."

"I hope he didn't, but--" The boy shuddered. "Joey, I passed him as I
came from the ring awhile ago. He was leaning against a quarter pole.
The look he gave me was so queer, so ferocious, that I turned away; I
couldn't understand it. But I do now, Joey. It's as clear as day to
me. He had discovered that instead of twenty-five hundred dollars,
there were but six ten-dollar notes in that pocketbook. Do you
understand? He was black with rage and disappointment--"

"I see! Well, blow me, I--I--" Here Joey began to chuckle. "He's
wondering where the balance of it is. He was trying to look through
your shirt, Jacky. He--"

"Do you remember that he followed us in here and watched us change
clothes? Well, I noticed that he never took his eyes off me. He was
watching to see if I had anything hidden about me--a belt, a package,
or--anything. Joey, it's as plain as day."

"And he did kick that little property boy a minute ago. I remember
that. He is mad! He's crazy mad, Jacky, we've got to keep our eyes
peeled, you and me--and another pusson, too. We got to stand by
tonight to protect 'er. He probably thinks that pusson can tell 'im
where it is."

But Thomas Braddock was not thinking of his wife in connection with
the disappointment that had come to him in that last hour of
degradation. He was thinking of Colonel Bob Grand and wondering what
magic influence he had exercised over the boy to compel him to deliver
so much money into his hands. Down in the darkest corner of his soul
he was cursing Bob Grand for a scheming thief, and David Jenison for a
hopeless imbecile.

Before the wagons were well under way for the next stand he was dead
drunk in the alley back of the hotel bar, having first thrashed a
porter who undertook to eject him from the place.

Mrs. Braddock and Christine waited for him at the lot until the men
began to pull down the dressing-tent. David was with them. Not far
away was Joey Noakes, the center of a group of performers, held
together by his wonderful tale concerning the sensational bit of
pocketpicking that had occurred early in the evening. A congressman
had been "touched" for his purse and three hundred dollars while
waiting for a train at the depot. The town was wild over the theft.

In the midst of the narrative, Artful Dick sauntered up to the group,
coming, it seemed, from nowhere. The gossiper abruptly stopped his
tale.

"They say it's going to rain before morning," said Dick airily. "You
guys will get rust on your joints if you stay out in it. Ta-ta! I'm
looking for my brother. Seen him?"

He strolled on, as if he owned the earth.

"That feller'll be as rich as the devil some day, if he keeps on,"
said one of the group.

That was the mild form of opprobrium that followed Artful Dick into
the shadows. As he passed by the Braddocks and David, he doffed his
derby gallantly. To this knowing chap there was something significant
in the dreary, half-hearted smile that the mother and daughter gave
him. At any rate, he took a second look at them out of the corner of
his eye.

"Brad's up to something," he thought.

The smile he bestowed upon Ruby Noakes, who stood near by with several
of the women, was all-enveloping. Ruby's dark eyes looked after him
until his long, jaunty figure disappeared in the darkness.

"Too bad he's a thie--what he is," ventured the Iron-jawed Woman
pityingly. She addressed the reflection to Ruby, who started and then
positively glared at the speaker.

David escorted Mrs. Braddock and Christine to the hotel, where he also
was to "put up" under the new dispensation. They had but little to say
to each other. A deep sense of restraint had fallen upon them. He
understood and appreciated their lack of interest in anything but
their own unexpressed thoughts. As for himself, he was sick at heart
over the discovery he had made. Not for all the world would he have
added to their unhappiness by voicing the thoughts that were uppermost
in his mind, rioting there with an insistent clamor that almost
deafened him.

Christine's father was a thief!

From time to time, as they walked down the dark, still street, he
glanced at her face, half fearing that his thoughts might have reached
her by means of some mysterious telepathic agency. Even in the shadows
her face was adorable. He could not see her dark eyes, but he knew
they were troubled and afraid. He would have given worlds to have
taken her in his arms, then and there, to pour into her little sore
heart all the comfort of his new-found adoration.

For days it had been growing upon him, this delicious realization of
what she had come to stand for in his life. She had crept into his
heart and he was glad. Innate gallantry and a sense of the fitness of
things had kept him from uttering one word of love to this young,
trusting, unconscious girl. He was very young--stupidly young, he
felt--but he was old enough to know that she would not understand. He
was content to wait, content to watch. The time would come when he
could tell her of the love that was in his heart; but it was not to be
thought of now.

He walked between them, carrying Mrs. Braddock's handbag. Christine
refused to burden him with hers. As they neared the business section
of the town--one of the Ohio River towns--they encountered drunken men
and merry-makers. A particularly noisy but amiable group approached
them from the opposite direction. Christine nervously clutched David's
arm. She came very close to him. He was thrilled by the contact. After
the revelers had lurched by them, she gave an odd little laugh and
would have removed her hand. He pressed his arm close to his side,
imprisoning it. She looked up quickly, a sharp catch in her breath.
Then she allowed her hand to rest there passively.

They were nearing the hotel when David impulsively gave utterance to
the hungry cry that was struggling in his throat:

"Oh, Mrs. Braddock, if I were free to go back to Jenison Hall! I could
ask you and Christine to come there and stay. You'd love it there.
It's the finest old place in--"

"Why, David!" cried Mrs. Braddock in surprise.

"Forgive me!" he cried abjectly.

"Oh, I should love it--I should love it, David," cried Christine in a
low, wistful voice. It seemed to him that there was a strange,
mysterious wail at the back of the words.

Mrs. Braddock uttered a short, bitter laugh. "How good you are, David.
What would your friends think if you took circus people there to visit
you?"

He replied with grave dignity. "My friends, Mrs. Braddock, include the
circus people you mention. I am not likely to forget that you took me
in and--"

"And made a clown of you," she interrupted. He was gratified to see a
smile on her lips. The light from a window shone in her face. Her eyes
were wet and glistening.

He held his tongue for a moment, wavering between impulse and
delicacy. His gaze went to Christine's half-averted face. He was moved
by sudden apprehension. Was she beginning to suspect the real attitude
of Colonel Bob Grand toward her mother? Was it something more than
mere antipathy that filled her heart?

"See here, Mrs. Braddock," he began hastily, "I'm right young to be
saying this to you, but I want you to know that I am terribly
distressed by what has taken place in--in your life. I know you hate
Colonel Grand. I know he is a bad man. His new interest in this show
is the outgrowth of an old one."

She started. Her eyes were full upon his face.

"You are not likely to know any more peace or happiness here. Why
don't you give it up? Why don't you leave the show? Why--"

"David," she said, laying her hand on his arm, "you don't know what
you are saying."

"You could go back to your father," he went on ruthlessly. "I know it
would be all right. He would not--"

She interrupted him quickly.

"Who has been talking to you of my affairs?"

He bit his lip. "Why, I--well, Joey Grinaldi. He is your best, truest
friend. He told me all--"

Christine was leaning forward, peering past him at her mother's
averted face. The girl's clutch on his arm tightened perceptibly.

"Mother," she said wonderingly, "what does he mean? Isn't--isn't your
father dead? What is it that Joey Noakes has told you, David?"

David realized and was dumb with a sort of consternation. Mrs.
Braddock hesitated for a moment, and then said to him, drear despair
in her voice:

"Poor David! You don't know what you have done. No, Christine, my
father is not dead. Be patient, my darling; I will tell you all there
is to tell."

"To-night?" half whispered Christine, dropping David's arm, moved by
the horrid fear that there was some dark secret in her life which was
to put a barrier between him and her forever.

"Yes, my dear."

CHAPTER X

LOVE WINGS A TIMID DART

The circus encountered vile weather from that time on. Day after day,
night after night, during the last two weeks in June, there was rain,
with raw winds that chilled and depressed the strollers. The route of
the show ran through the Ohio River valley, ordinarily a profitable
territory at that time of the year. July would see the show well
started for the northern circuit, where the floods were less
troublesome and the weather bade fair to turn favorable. So bad were
the floods in one particular region that the concern was obliged to
cancel dates in three towns, lying idle in a God-forsaken river-place
for two wretched days and traveling as if pursued by devils on the
third. The horses, overworked and half starved, obtained a much-needed
rest.

Performers and employees alike grew taciturn and absorbed in
speculation as to the immediate future. No one believed that the show
could continue against such distressing odds. At no performance were
the receipts half adequate to the requirements; each clay saw the
enterprise sink deeper into a mire of debt from which there was no
apparent prospect of escape. The characteristically ebullient spirits
of the performers surrendered at last to the superstitions that
persistently obtruded themselves upon the notice of individuals. All
manner of "bad luck" signs cropped out to sustain this multitude of
beliefs. Every one was resorting to his luck stone or an amulet. Even
David Jenison, sensible lad that he was, fell under the spell of
superstition. He carried a "luck piece" given him by Ruby Noakes, and
not once but many times was he guilty of calling upon it for relief
from the general misfortune.

A bloody fight on the circus grounds between the showmen and an
organized band of town ruffians came near to bringing the concern to a
disastrous end. The riot happened in one of the hill towns along the
river, and was due to the ugly humor of the unpaid canvasmen and the
roustabouts who went searching for trouble as an outlet for their
feelings. Guy ropes were cut by an attacking force of half-drunken
rowdies; the canvases were slashed and wagons overturned. The oldtime
yell of "Hey, Rube!" marshaled the circus forces. There was a battle
royal, in which the local contingent was badly used up, more than one
man being seriously injured.

David Jenison fought beside his fellow performers, who rallied to
protect the dressing-tent and the terrified women. In the darkness and
rain, after the night performance, the opposing forces mingled and
fought like wild beasts. The young Virginian, vigorous as a colt, was
a hero among his comrades. For days afterwards, every one talked of
the stubborn stand he made at the rear of the dressing-tent, where he
swung a stake with savage effectiveness in combat with half a dozen
rioters who had cut the ropes, allowing the sidewalls to drop while
many of the women were dressing.

He was fighting for Christine Braddock, who was waiting in the tent
for him, instead of going to the hotel with her mother earlier in the
evening. He glorified himself forever in the eyes of the terrified
girl; he was never to forget the soft, tremulous words of loving
anxiety she used, quite unconsciously, while she went about the task
of bandaging the cuts on his face half an hour later in her mother's
room, where many of their intimates had gathered for attention.

"We must find Dick Cronk and attend to his wounds," protested David,
addressing the others who were there. "He came to my assistance before
any one else arrived. I think he dropped from the sky."

Ruby Noakes closed her eyes suddenly to hide the telltale gleam that
had leaped into them. She knew that Dick Cronk was fighting for her,
and her alone.

"I saw him just now," she said after a moment. "He didn't have a
scratch and he is perfectly mad with joy over the whole thing."

"He could fall out of a balloon and not even get a lump on his head,
that feller could," grumbled the contortionist, who had two very black
eyes and several "lumps."

Braddock, partially sobered by the serious consequences likely to
arise from the riot, spent an uncomfortable day in the town. The
circus manager succeeded in half-way convincing the authorities that
his people had been set upon and were in no way responsible for the
affray. Threats of suit against the town for damages had the desired
effect: the authorities were eager to let the aggregation depart.

But in that sanguinary conflict David Jenison had won more than his
spurs; these volatile, impressionable people, in disdain for their own
positions in life, were saying, "Blood will tell." Down to the
lowliest menial the sentiment regarding him underwent a subtle but
noticeable change. He was no longer the guileless outsider: he was
exalted even among those who once had scoffed.

Anxiety, worry and a mighty craving for exoneration, with a glorious
return to the land of his people, triumphant in his innocence, were
telling on the proud, high-spirited youth. A gauntness settled in his
face; there was a hungry, wistful look in his eyes; his ever-winning
smile responded less readily than before; sharp lines began to reveal
themselves, flanking his nostrils. His heart was bitter. The weeks had
brought him to a fuller realization of the horrid blight upon his fair
name; he had come to see the wreck in all its cold, brutal aspects.
The realization that he was a hunted, branded thing, with a price on
his head, sank deeper and deeper into his soul. Hunted! Chased as a
criminal! He, a Jenison of Virginia!

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