The Rose in the Ring

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

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"You don't mean to say Ruby's going to be married!" David's thoughts
ran to Dick Cronk, although he knew there was no possible chance for
him.

"Well, there's a chap mighty attentive to 'er these days. You never
can tell. She's a 'ansome girl and--but I daresay it's best not to
count chickens before they're 'atched. I don't mind saying, 'owever,"
he went on rather wistfully, "I'd like to see Ruby 'appily married and
retired from the stage. It's wuss than the circus, my lad. The
temptations are greater and there ain't so much honor among the people
you're thrown with. The stage is surrounded by a pack of wolves just
as vicious as Bob Grand ever was, and a girl's got to be mighty spry
to dodge 'em."

"Is--her best young man a desirable fellow?" asked David, feeling very
sorry for the outcast who had not so much as asked for a chance.

"Capital chap. He's a newspaper man, but I can't say that it's
anything very damaging against 'im. He seems a very sober chap and
thrifty. You wouldn't believe it, but it's quite true."

"I'm sure I wish her all the happiness in the world."

"She can't quite make up 'er mind to leave the stage," mused Joey.
"And he won't 'ave 'er unless she does, for good and all. So there you
are."

"If she loves him, she'll give it up."

"She loves 'im all right," said Joey. "I know it, because she never
talks about 'im. I don't see wot's keeping her. She could ha' gone to
market and back five times--Hello!" He was peering through the little
front window. A huge smile beamed in his face. With a chuckle, he
called his visitor to the window. "Sh! Don't let 'er see the curtain
move! She'd take our 'eads off. See that chap? _That_'s why she's
been so long to market."

Ruby was walking slowly down the opposite sidewalk, attended by a
tall, strong-featured young fellow whose very attitude toward her
bespoke infatuation. They crossed the street and stood for a long time
at the bottom of the steps, laughing and talking, utterly unconscious
of surveillance. Then she shook hands with her courtier, tapped his
cheek lightly with the grocer's book which she carried, and ran
lightly up the steps. The tall young man, his face aglow, stood
motionless where she left him, his straw hat in hand, until she
entered the house and closed the door behind her. David's last glimpse
of the suitor presented that person, with his chest out, his hands in
his pockets, striding off down the street, very much as if he owned
it. The young Virginian barely had time left to turn away from the
window before Ruby swept into the room.

He had noted, as she stood below, that her figure was a trifle fuller;
she was a bit more dashing, and a great deal handsomer than when he
had seen her last. Somehow, David, without intending to do so, found
himself mentally picturing her ten years hence: a stout, good-natured
matron with a double chin and a painful effort to disguise it.

He was not taken aback when she rushed over, with a little scream of
delight, and kissed him resoundingly. After which she shook hands with
him. It was what he expected. You could have heard the three of them
talking if you had been on the sidewalk, but you could not have made
head or tail of the conversation. Joey repeated a single remark four
times, without being heard by either of his companions. It referred to
a joyful reunion and a mug of ale.

At length Ruby gave over rhapsodizing on the tallness, the broadness
and the elegance of their visitor, and rushed to the hall door.
Raising her voice, she called out to some one down the hall:

"Millie!"

"Yes, Miss Ruby," came the instantaneous response, suggesting a
surprised propinquity.

"Goodness! I thought you were downstairs--But never mind! Don't forget
what I told you about the new radishes."

"No, Miss Ruby, they shall not be forgot," said the trim little maid,
bobbing in the doorway.

"Mr. Jenison likes his waffles crisp," added Miss Noakes. To David she
said: "I love waffles and honey for lunch, don't you?"

"I do," responded David. "But I didn't know I was to stop for lunch."

"Father, didn't you tell him?" demanded Ruby.

"I surely did," prevaricated Joey; "but you were both talking so 'ard
he didn't 'ear me."

During luncheon, which was blissfully served by Millie, David took
occasion to compliment Ruby on her good looks, her success and her
prospects.

"Don't guy me, David," she cried, turning quite red.

"If every girl I know could enjoy such improvement in five years, I'm
sure--" began David gallantly.

"I suppose you're thinking of Christine Braddock when you say that,"
said she shrewdly.

He had the grace to blush.

"Well, let me tell you, David, she's the prettiest thing on two legs--
I should say, on two continents. Goodness, a girl does pick up such
awful expressions on the stage! I'm just perfectly awful."

"She is beautiful?" asked David, his heart-beats quickening.

"She's what you might call ravishing," proclaimed Ruby. "And she's
very elegant, too."

"She don't forget 'er old friends, though," said Joey hastily. "She
sent me that geranium over there larst month and she--"

"Never mind, dad. David isn't interested in her or what she does. Tell
me about Colonel Grand's daughter."

"How do you happen to know--"

"Oh, a little Dicky-bird told me," she said. "It was in the newspaper
I take that you and she were at the Springs at the same time. Oh, I
read the society news. Is she pretty?"

"She reminds me of her father."

"Then she looks like that African gazelle we had with Van Slye's! Poor
girl!"

"I don't like her," said David. Then he related his experience with
the young woman. His hearers were disgusted but not surprised.

"They're all alike," commented Joey. "They're bad, them Grands--
father, mother and daughter. First one, then the other tried to bribe
me and Ruby. I sometimes believe the wife's as bad as he is, only in a
different way."

They were still seated at the table, discussing the Grands, when a
heavy knock came at the front door.

"Who can that be?" said Joey, glancing at his daughter, who was
suddenly quiet. The knock was repeated before Millie was instructed to
go to the door.

She admitted some one, after a moment's parley. The husky, low-toned
voice of a man came to the ears of those in the dining-room. As Joey
arose to investigate, the maid came in.

"It's the same man who was 'ere yesterday, Mr. Noakes. He says as he's
'ungry."

"Braddock," said Joey in a half whisper.

The man was standing just inside the front door; his dim figure was
silhouetted red against the narrow, colored glass window in the
casement. Something told them he was fumbling his hat and that his
head was bent.

"Ask him to come in here, father," said Ruby promptly. "I can't bear
to see a man hungry. I don't care who or what he is."

Joey looked at David in doubt and perplexity. David, who had clutched
the back of his chair with tense fingers, nodded his head. The old
man, obeying the second but unvoiced entreaty of his daughter, strode
out into the hall. They heard the low mutter of masculine voices, one
in evident protest, the other cordially insistent.

"He's changed quite a bit," whispered Ruby,

David rose to his feet and stood staring blankly at the man who
followed Joey into the dining-room, the man who had struck the never-
to-be-forgotten blow. Could this gray, lean, shuffling creature be the
leonine, despotic Tom Braddock of other days?

The man stopped just inside the door and fixed his sullen gaze
steadily upon the face of the Virginian. Without glancing at Ruby, he
uttered a curt "Howdy do, Ruby."

"I guess we ain't expected to shake hands," said Braddock, a twisted
smile on his lips.

"I can't shake the hand that struck me as yours did when I could not
defend myself," said David coldly.

"'Ere, 'ere," remonstrated Joey nervously. "We can't 'ave any old
quarrels took up in my 'ouse."

"_I'm_ not quarreling, Joey," said Braddock, still watching David's
face. David had the feeling, quite suddenly, that he was looking into
eyes he had never seen before--intent, hard, steady eyes that were full
of purpose. They were no longer blood-shot and protruding: they seemed
to slink back under the pallid, bony brow, looking forth with a sort of
cunning that suggested a hiding animal, nothing less.

The change in Tom Braddock was astounding. David had always thought of
him as the bullying, bloated giant, purple-faced and blear-eyed. His
face was thin and gray--with the pallor of the prison still upon it;
his cheeks were sunken, and the heavy stubble of beard that filled the
hollows was a dirty white. One would have guessed this apparition of
Tom Braddock to be sixty years of age, at least. His hair, still
rather closely cropped, was no longer black, but a defiant, obtrusive
gray. The heavy neck was now thin and corded; the broad shoulders
drooped as if deprived of all their youthful power. His aggressive
mustache of the old days was gone, laying bare a broad, firmly set
lip. The cheap jeans clothing that fell to him when he left the
penitentiary hung loosely on his frame, for he had lost many pounds;
the coat was buttoned close about his throat, albeit the day was warm.
He wore no collar. His "hickory" shirt was soiled. He had slept in
these garments for many nights.

The contrast was appalling. That this cadaverous, prideless individual
could once have been the vain-glorious showman was almost
inconceivable. It is no wonder that David stared.

"Well, I guess you've changed about as much as I have," said Braddock,
reading the other's thoughts. He uttered a bitter laugh as he turned
to drag a chair up to the table, with something of the assurance of
old.

"I hope I've changed as much for the better as you have, Braddock,"
said David, and he meant it.

Braddock whirled to glare at him in wonder. He was silent for a
moment. Then he flung himself into the chair, his jaws setting
themselves firmly, no trace of the sarcastic smile remaining.

"I guess you have, David," he said shortly. "You're not what you were
when you joined us five years ago." A sneer came to his lips. "What a
high and mighty chap you've come to be. No wonder you won't shake
hands with a jail-bird."

"Stop talking, Tom Braddock," said Ruby, a gleam of anxiety in her
eyes. "Here's what's left of the lamb and here's--"

"Wait a minute, Ruby," said he. With his elbows on the edge of the
table and his chin in his broad, sinewy hands he leaned forward and
spoke again to David. "I've been out three weeks. I was up there for
two years and a half. I'm just telling you this so's you'll know why
I've changed. The whiskey's all out of me. There never will be any
more inside of me, do you understand that? Ten years ago I was a man--
wasn't I, Joey? I was a dog when you knew me, Jenison. Now, I'm a man
again. See these hands? Well, they've been doing honest work, even if
it was in a convict barrel factory. I'm ten times stronger than I was
before. There isn't a soft muscle in my body. What you miss is the
fat--the whiskey fat. I'm gray-headed, but who wouldn't be? But that
is not what I'm trying to get at. I saw Dick Cronk this morning. I
don't know how he found me. He told me you were up here to take a hand
in my affairs. What I want to know, right here, Jenison, is this:
Where is your friend Bob Grand and where is _she?_"

He spoke quite calmly, but there was a deliberate menace in his tones.
David was startled. An angry retort leaped to his lips, but he choked
it back.

"You are very much mistaken, Braddock, if you consider me the friend
of Colonel Grand. I hate him quite as bitterly as you do. I--"

"Oh, no, you don't," snapped the other. "No one in all this world,
from its very beginning, has ever hated as I hate."

"He is no friend of mine," reiterated David. "I think you know me well
enough to believe that I do not lie. I have not seen him in five
years."

Braddock stared hard at him. Suddenly he leaned back with a deep
breath of relief. "I believe you," he said. "You don't know how to
lie. Well, what are you doing here, then, mixing in my affairs?"

"We'll talk about that later on," said David. "Here is food, man. Eat.
You are half-starved. Have you no money?"

"Money? Say, do you think they pay you up _there_? I _am_ hungry. Not a
mouthful since yesterday noon. Before I touch this grub, Joey, I want
to say to you that I don't deserve it of you. I sold you all out. I
wasn't square with you. But it was drink and--and that devil behind me
all the time. I took your pocket-book that night, David. I stole it. I
guess I was crazy most of the time in those days. I don't say I'll ever
pay it back. I'm not apologizing for it, either. I'm just telling you.
I meant to get all you had, but--well, I wasn't mean enough to crack
you over the head. It would have been the only way--"

"Don't speak of it, Braddock," interrupted Jenison painfully. "That's
all past and gone."

"I've paid for some of my sins--but not all of 'em," said Braddock.
"Not all of 'em."

He fell to eating ravenously. The others sat back, stiff and
uncomfortable, watching him. His sunken but powerful jaws crunched the
food with some of the ferocity of a beast. It came forcefully to the
minds of the two men that they were looking upon a man whose great
sinews were of steel, who could have crushed either of them in the
long, hard arms that stretched forth to seize the food Ruby had placed
before him. They were slowly coming to realize the bent of this man's
mind during its savage development in prison. He had slaved to a
purpose. The same thought grew in the mind of each observer: what
chance would Robert Grand have in the naked hands of his enemy?

Joey was the first to broach the subject.

"Brad," he said soothingly, "you want to think twice before you do
anything desperate."

Braddock gave an ugly laugh as he jabbed a fork into a piece of meat.

"Joey," he said, "I've already thought ten thousand times."

"What do you intend to do?" asked David.

"I'm going to get square with Bob Grand," said he very quietly. "I'm
not going to be rash about it. I'm going to take my time and be
_sure_."

"We'll have to do something to prevent--" began David.

"You can't do anything. I'm not saying what I'm going to do to him, so
don't get fidgety."

"You intend to kill him!"

"He sent me up, didn't he? Without cause, too. He swore me into the
pen. Said I tried to kill him. I never tried it. He owed me money. I
asked him for it." He suddenly sprang to his feet. "By Jove, I try not
to think that _she_ had anything to do with it. I don't want to
believe it of her."

"She didn't 'ave anything to do with it," cried Joey. "Get that idea
out of your 'ead. You treated 'er like a dog, Brad, but she never
turned on you like that. I can swear it."

Braddock went over to the window and stared out upon the little
garden. A long interval of silence ensued before he turned to face the
others.

"Don't look so scared, Ruby," he said, noting the girl's expression.
"I'm not going to hurt _her_. I guess I've hurt her enough already.
She's living as she'd ought to live, and so is--so is Christine. I'm
not going to begrudge _them_ anything. But I'm going to have a talk
with her." His manner was ugly.

"I'm going to ask her two questions. She'll tell me the truth, I know.
That's all I ask."

"She has always hated Bob Grand," cried Ruby, "if that's what you
mean."

"That's what I mean. But I'm going to ask her just how much he has
pestered her since--well, since that time with the show. I'm going to
ask her if she knows what I did to her in the sale of my interest. I'm
going to find out if he told her. Oh, you needn't worry! I won't do
anything to hurt her or Christine. If she don't know already what I
did to her, I'm going to tell her myself. If I get a chance to see my
girl, I'm going to tell her just what I did to her mother."

"Braddock, you must listen to reason!" cried David. "No good can come
of this. They are happy and contented. Don't spoil it all for them. Go
away, man. Try to forget your grievance against Colonel Grand. God
will punish him and--"

"I'll tell you what I came here for to-day, Jenison," said Braddock
levelly. "Dick says you're still crazy about my--about Christine. He
swears you haven't seen her in five years--some kind of a promise my
wife made, he says. I came to ask you this question: will it make any
difference in your intentions regarding her if I--if her father should
happen to end his life on the scaffold? I don't say feelings, mind
you,--I said intentions."

"I mean it. Would you still want her if--if it turned out that way?"

David looked helplessly from Joey to Ruby and then at the set,
emotionless face of the questioner.

"Braddock, I can tell you this from my soul: nothing you may do will
alter my feelings or my intentions. Christine is in no way responsible
for your transgressions. I am only sorry that she has such a father.
If she still cares for me, I shall ask her to be my wife, even though
you are strung up a hundred times. But this is beside the question.
_You_ should think of her happiness, her peace of mind. All her life
she will have to think of you as a--a--well, I won't say it. You--"

"I'll say it for you," interrupted the gray-faced listener: "as a
gallows bird--as scaffold fruit."

"Please don't, Tom," cried Ruby.

"You would better a thousand times shoot yourself than to bring that
black shadow into her life," said David. "Suicide is bad enough but--
ugh!" He shuddered.

"Look here, Jenison, I might have been a good man if it hadn't been
for Bob Grand. I always would have been a showman, I reckon, but I'd
have been fairly self-respecting. Today, instead of being what I am,
I'd still have the love of my wife, the respect of my girl, and--oh,
well, you can't understand. You all are against me--and have been for
years. I don't blame you--not a bit of it. I deserve it. Grand
deliberately set out to ruin me--to pull me down. You know why. We
won't go into that. I happen to know he afterwards paid her a lot of
money for her interest in the business. When she tells me it was a
square transaction I'll believe it, but not before."

He paced the floor, his hands in his coat pockets, his brows drawn
down in a thoughtful scowl.

"You can stop me, I suppose, by having me locked up--but you can't
keep me there forever. I'll get out some time. I don't say I'm going
to shoot Bob Grand. I want you all to bear witness to this statement:
whatever I do to him will be with these two hands. See 'em? Don't they
look competent? He didn't use weapons on me, and I'm not going to use
'em on him. It's just a case of who has the best hands in this little
game."

"Why, man, it would be cowardly in you to put your strength against
his. You could crush him," groaned David.

Braddock smiled, almost joyously. "Won't it be a pretty sight? My
hands on that fat neck of his! Ha!"

"And the 'angman's rope on that neck of yours," put in Joey, wiping
his moist forehead.

"That's not the point," said Thomas Braddock.

He picked up his hat, which he had cast upon a chair, and, without
another word to either of them--no word of thanks to Ruby, no word of
appreciation to David, no word of gratitude to Joey--he strode out
into the hall, through the door and down the steps.

They sat still looking at each other for a long time.

"He can't do it to-day," said Joey in hushed tones. "The man's still
out o' town."

CHAPTER IV

THE DELIVERY OF A TELEGRAM

On David's return to the hotel he found a hastily scrawled note from
Artful Dick Cronk. He had remained at the Noakes' until mid-afternoon,
discussing the sinister attitude of Thomas Braddock. Joey stubbornly
maintained that it was worse than useless to have the man locked up;
it would merely delay the consummation of his purpose, and it would
add fuel to the fierce flames that already were consuming his brain.
He was for temporizing methods, attended by shrewd efforts to keep the
enemies apart. It was his opinion that Braddock would listen to reason
before many days. Certainly there could be no immediate danger with
Grand out of the city. Jenison at last came to his way of thinking,
although not without a twinge of misgiving. He had no respect, no
sympathy for Braddock. It was his firm opinion that the man had in no
way reformed; that he was as bad, if not worse, than ever, for now he
was himself and not crazed by drink.

Dick's note bore the disturbing news that Colonel Grand had returned
to town, and that Mrs. Braddock was expected the following day. Ernie
had obtained this information through the friendly Portman servant,
who (to quote Dick) affected the hunchback's society because he
believed that the "touching of a hump would bring good luck!" Old Mr.
Portman, it was given out, was on his way to his summer place in the
Adirondacks, Naturally he would be accompanied by his daughter and
Christine. They were due to arrive at four o'clock, and expected to
remain in town for ten days before going up to the cool hills. The
closing sentences of the pickpocket's note were quaintly satirical:
"Brad says he can't afford to be seen in my company. You know how
politely he would say it, don't you? He says he can't take chances
now. But I staked him to a bed for to-night and I told him I'd give
him grub money. It seemed to tender him up a bit. He's hanging round
with Ernie to-day and I'm going to see him to-night. Did I tell you
that Ernie has a little apartment all to himself over on Fourth
Avenue? He's some elegant. Of course, it won't do for me to be seen
around his shack much. I might accidentally give the place a bad name,
see? Well, I'll close, but will write again to-morrow. DICK. P. S.
They come in on the Pennsylvania."

David spent a miserable night. He was obsessed by the fear that
Braddock would seek out Grand that very night, and that it would all
be over in the morning. At breakfast he scanned the newspapers
closely, half expecting to find the dreaded head-lines. As the morning
wore away his spirits lifted. He had made up his mind to go to the
railway station. From an obscure corner he would see her without being
seen. It was his whim to see her first in this manner, to stare to his
soul's content, to compare her in the flesh to the glorious picture
his brain had painted. He made no doubt that she would far surpass the
portrait in his mind: did not Ruby say she was ravishingly beautiful?
His heart leaped fiercely to the project in hand; more than once he
found himself growing faint with the intensity of yearning and
impatience.

He took Joey and Ruby to luncheon at Delmonico's. All through the meal
he was busy picturing to himself the girl who was whirling northward,
nearer and nearer to him with each minute of time. She would be tall
and slender and shapely. His mind's eye traveled backward. Her hair
would be brown--But, even as he constructed her to please his eager
imagination, he quailed before the spectre of doubt: was the heart of
the girl of fifteen unchanged in the woman of twenty?

Ruby was glibly telling him of the young men who paid court to the
granddaughter of old Mr. Portman. Both she and Joey found rich
enjoyment in the fact that these sprigs of gentility knew nothing of
the circus-riding epoch in Christine's life; they wondered what the
effect would be when the truth came out. Joey ventured the opinion
that "the devil would be to pay," and Ruby added the prophecy that
"they would drop her like a hot poker." Strange to say, David found
considerable satisfaction in these dolorous predictions.

He caught the ferry soon after luncheon, and was in the station on the
other side of the river long before the train was due.

Buying a newspaper, he took a seat in a far corner of the concourse.
He read but little and that without understanding. His mind was quite
fully occupied in peering over the top of the sheet in the direction
of the sheds. Finally he became convinced, by certain psychic
processes of the mind, that some one was staring at him. He looked
about in all directions. At last his eyes rested on a squat, misshapen
figure far over by the ferry entrance.

He had no difficulty in recognizing Ernie Cronk. His presence there
was disquieting in more than one sense. Dick had said that Braddock
was "hanging 'round" with his brother. This, of itself, was sufficient
to create alarm in David's mind. He searched the scurrying throng for
a glimpse of the drab, sinister figure of Christine's father, all the
while conscious that Ernie Cronk's baleful gaze was upon him. The
beady eyes seemed to penetrate shifting obstructions, never changing,
never wavering.

David considered briefly, and then decided to consult the cripple. As
he made his way over to him he noted that Ernie was flashily dressed,
almost to the point of grotesqueness. One might have forgiven the
vivid checked suit on the person of a buoyant barber, but it was
grewsome in its present occupation. Its gaudy, insistent cheapness
leaped out at the observer with much the same appeal for favor that
one imputes to the garments of a clown. One might have read the envy
in Ernie's soul as his eyes swept the tall, straight, simply clad
Southerner who approached. He stood his ground defiantly, however;
there was no smile of friendliness on his thin lips.

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