The Rose in the Ring

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

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After they were gone and the lights were out Mary Braddock, wide-eyed
and tense, stole down to the stables and waited for the father of the
bride. She was there a long while ahead of the appointed time--hours,
it seemed to her.

He came at last, slinking up from the mouth of the alley where a
single street-light spread a dim glow in which he resolved himself for
a moment in transit, only to be blotted out again as if by some magic
process. With narrowed, anxious eyes and alert ears she waited,
standing there in the half-open door of the carriage-house. Suddenly
he grew up out of the darkness, almost at her side.

"Tom," she cried out softly.

He came straight to her. His eyes, used to the darkness and made keen
by the ever-present sense of danger, had seen the faintly white
splotch in the night that marked her face for him. He had seen and had
waited to make sure that it was she who stood there peering forth.

"Well, I'm here," he said in a hoarse, restrained whisper. "Have you
heard what's happened?"

"They are not pursuing you? What is it, Tom?"

"Grand has been murdered, Mary!"

For a full minute they stood as motionless as statues, he listening
for the footstep that had been in his ears for days, she stunned by
the appalling news. Her voice was shrill with agony when she finally
broke the silence--agony, despair, horror, all combined in one bitter
cry.

"_You promised me you wouldn't do that!_"

"Sh! Be careful," he whispered, coming close to her side. "I _didn't_
do it, Mary,--so help me, I _didn't!_ Wait! Listen to me! I'm telling
you the truth." She had fallen back against the wall of the building.
Her breathing was quick, as if horror was strangling her. "They caught
the murderers,--a couple of gamblers at Broadso's, I heard. I didn't
hear much about it. The newsboys were shouting it over in Broadway half
an hour ago. I bought a paper, but it gave no details,--except that he
is dead."

"He is dead? Oh, Tom, Tom, you _do_ swear to me that you had no hand in
it. I couldn't bear that now." Her arms were spread out against the
building, her hands clenched. In the darkness he could see her eyes,
wide and staring.

"I swear it, Mary. I was not within a mile of Broadso's. I am as
innocent of that murder as you are. You will know the truth to-morrow,
even if you don't believe me now. I'll never hear the true story. Oh,
I don't mind saying I would have given my very soul to have been the
one to do it. Maybe you think I'm pleased that he is dead. Well, I'm
not! I begrudge those fellows the pleasure they had in killing him.
But, this is not the time or place to talk. Let's say good-by here,
Mary. You go back to the house. Let me go and do it alone."

She swayed toward him. He caught her on his arm,--an arm of iron. She
put her hand to his face.

"Tom," she whispered, "God has taken a hand in our affairs--in yours.
You must believe in God! You must give yourself to Him to-night."

His voice broke a little. "I--I guess you'll have to do the prayin',
Mary. Go back to the house now and send up a little prayer for me.
That's all you've got to do. I can't stay here. It's dangerous. There
is the chance that the police may try to connect me with this murder.
It's known that I was after him. Don't you see? Good-by, Mary, I--"

"I am going with you, Tom."

She grasped his arm tightly. He breathed heavily once or twice; a
groan broke in his throat.

"All right," he said. She felt the great muscle in his arm swell and
relax again. "Do you know the way, Tom?" she asked.

"That next street below takes us to the docks. I walked down there
this morning. By heaven, Mary, I think you might spare yourself all
this. It's too horrible to even think of. Why--why, I just can't do it
with you looking on. What do you think I am?"

"You said you would do it, Tom," she insisted dully.

"Bob Grand is dead," he reminded her. "I said that he and I couldn't
live on the same earth. It's hard to think of going straight to hell
with him not more than two hours ahead of me."

"Come," she said, starting off resolutely. He caught up with her, and
they hurried through the alley side by side.

"_I'll_ do it, all right," he said, after they had traversed nearly two
blocks in silence. The words came as an epitome of the struggle that
was going on in his mind.

"Don't walk so fast, Tom. You are tiring me."

"Tiring you?" he exclaimed. He looked at her bent head and laughed,--a
short, mirthless chuckle. "You'll have to forgive me, Mary. You see
I've been thinking of something else. Men walk fast when they're in a
hurry."

"Is it much farther?" He could scarcely hear the words.

"Six or eight blocks, if I remember right."

She did not speak again until they were in the middle of the second
block beyond. From time to time he turned to look at her, his benumbed
soul trying to get in touch with the spirit that moved her to come
with him to the very brink of the grave. He was puzzled, he could not
understand it in her. If there was a hope of any kind lying buried
under the weight that was in his breast, he neither recognized nor
encouraged it. There was an awful, growing dread that she did not
intend to let him go in alone. He tried to put down the ghastly fear.
His glances at her became more frequent, less furtive. The thought of
this splendid, noble, beautiful creature going down into the black
waters after him was almost beyond his power of comprehension, and yet
he was slowly allowing it to take a hold on his senses.

He came to an abrupt stop, rigid with horror. His hand fell upon her
shoulder, roughly, regardless of the physical pain it was sure to
inflict.

"Mary, how can I be sure that you won't jump in after me? You act so
queerly. I don't understand you. For Heaven's sake, go back! Don't do
anything like that. I can't bear it--I can't bear the thought of you
down there in the water, under the hulls, covered with--Ah!" He
covered his eyes with his hand.

She listened for a tense moment to the labored breathing of the man.
He had thought of her at last! An odd, mysterious smile flickered on
her lips. With a sudden convulsive movement she drew the long shaker
cloak closer about her shoulders.

"Tom, there is a little park over there, with benches. Let us sit down
for a moment."

"You won't do it, Mary, will you?" he pleaded, now completely in the
grip of that terrible dread.

"I am not as brave as you are, Tom," she said. He caught a new,
vibrant note in her voice. He misconstrued it.

"I call it pretty brave to be able to go down and see a man jump into
the river. Not many men could do it, let alone women. It's like seeing
a man hung."

She led him, unresisting, to a bench in the corner of the dark little
triangle that was called a "square." People were passing by, but no
one had stopped there to rest, or to reflect, or to make love. They
had the green little park all to themselves.

"Christine was married to-night," she said after they had been seated
for a few minutes.

He remarked lifelessly: "Hurried it up on my account, eh? It's bad
luck to postpone a wedding, even for a death in the family. Well, I'm
glad. She's sure to be happy, God bless her!"

"Yes, she will be very happy."

"I suppose she--and you, too--had a notion that I'd turn up some day
to spoil the whole business. So you got it over with, eh?"

"I wanted everything to be settled, that's all."

He was silent for a while, breathing heavily.

"Did she ask about me?"

"Yes."

"You told her I was going away--that I'd probably never see her
again?"

"I told her you were gone."

"I suppose she was relieved."

"She cried because you were not there to see her married."

He was fully half a minute in grasping the full meaning of that
wonderful sentence.

"Did she?" he asked, lifting his head suddenly. "Honest, Mary? You're
not saying it just to--to make me feel--"

He stopped and waited for her to reply to his unuttered question. She
shook her head.

"Then she does care a little for me. She hasn't lost all the feeling
she used to have--"

"She cried because she was not given a chance to talk with you. She
thought she could comfort you, could help you. That was why she cried,
Tom."

He allowed his chin to rest in his hands, his elbows on his knees.

"I wonder if I could have--Oh, say, there's no use talking," he ended
bitterly.

"What were you about to say, Tom?"

"Nothing."

"Yes, you were. Tell me."

"Oh," he cried, with all the bitterness of a lost, hungry soul, "if I
had only known! She _could_ have comforted me. What a fool I was not to
see her. I've been cursing myself all day. Now I know why I cursed. It
was because I wanted to see her--" He struck himself a violent blow on
the mouth, as if that were all that was needed to crush the great
longing that was in his breast.

"Yes. Go on, Tom," she said quietly.

"I can't, Mary. I can't talk about it. I guess I'd better say good-by
now. I'll lose my nerve if I get to thinking and talking. I don't want
to think that I might still get some happiness out of life if--if I
went after it right."

She put her cold hand on his big, clenched fist. He looked at her. The
faint light from a near-by lamppost struck his face. It was heavy,
leaden with despair and misery.

"Almost the last thing she said to me before she went away was this,
Tom: 'Some day I shall go to him. He needs some one to love him. I am
sure he is not so wicked as--' She got no farther than that. I stopped
her."

"She said all--Mary, why did you stop her? Why didn't you want her to
say it? Why did you begrudge me a little thing like that?" He was
trembling violently. There was misery, not anger or resentment in his
voice.

"Tom, are you ready to go to the river?"

He shrank away from her, shuddering, appalled.

"It's hard to die, after all. I--I ought not to have let you tell me
all this. It's made it harder. I never thought of it before. Somehow,
Mary, I--I think I might have turned out a better man if--if I'd known
just how Christine felt." He got to his feet suddenly. "I said I'd do
it. You want me to do it. Well, I will!"

She clung to his hand. He turned upon her with an oath on his lips.
The light now struck her face. What he saw there caused him to catch
his breath and to choke back the imprecation.

"I am convinced that you would do it, Tom, for her sake and mine. You
would do it, not because you are weak, but because you are strong. I
am satisfied now."

"Satisfied?" he murmured, wonder-struck.

She arose. "Tom, I am not going to say that I love you. You cannot
expect that. There is a feeling within me, however, that may develop
into something like the old love I once had for you, if you give it
the right kind of encouragement--and care."

"What are you saying to me, Mary?" he cried hoarsely.

"You would have given up your life so that Christine might be happy. I
am willing to do as much, Tom, toward the same end. I will give up the
life I am leading. You want another chance, Tom. Well, you shall have
it. I will go where you go, live where you live."

"Mary!" he gasped.

"Christine said you needed help. Well, I will try to give it to you.
You have her love. You didn't quite kill that, as you did mine." She
took his limp hand in hers and looked up into his eyes. "Perhaps, if
both of us try hard, you and I together, Tom, we may be able to make
her forget the ugliest part of her life."

"Together? I don't understand."

"I am still your wife," she said, a shrill note creeping into her
voice despite the effort she made to be calm.

"You--you mean I won't have to go--to go to the river?" he cried,
unable to think beyond that awful alternative.

"I never meant you to do that."

He suddenly took a long, deep breath and lifted his face, to stare
about as if trying to convince himself that he was really there, alive
and awake.

"I guess I don't quite get your meaning, Mary," he muttered, but his
fingers were beginning to tighten on hers. "Of course, I understand
you are still my wife, and--You don't mean you--you are going to take
me back!"

"No. I am asking you to take _me_ back."

He could not speak for a full minute or more.

"You'll give me another chance? That's what you mean--that's what
you're really saying, isn't it?" He was fairly gasping out the words.

"Yes, Tom."

"Oh!" He turned and flung himself on the bench, bursting into tears.
"I don't deserve it--I don't deserve it! It's too much to hope for."
These and other sentences fell in broken disorder from his lips.

She did not speak, but sat down beside him, laying her hand on his
shoulder. After a time, he grew quieter,--then almost deathly still.
She shook him gently.

"Will you come home with me now, Tom?" she asked. She too had been
crying softly.

He looked up. They were so close together that she could detect the
humble, wistful look in his face. His lips moved, but the words did
not come at once.

"Home with you?"

"Yes. We have our plans to discuss, Tom."

"To your father's house?" he persisted.

"Yes. He understands. I talked it all over with him this afternoon. It
was hard to do, Tom,--it was very hard to hurt that poor old man all
over again. But I had it to do, and he understands. He asked me to
bring you back with me. I told him I would. He wants to talk with you
in the morning."

"Mary," he began, fingering his hat in the extremity of an emotion
that almost benumbed him, "I don't know whether you want to hear me
say it, but I've never stopped caring for you. It isn't all Christine
with me. I just want to tell you that."

"I understand, Tom," she said, still more gently.

"I can't take any help from your father," he managed to say after
another long period of silence.

"He will offer nothing but his hand and his well-wishes."

"This is all so unexpected. I'm trying to get too many things through
my head at once. Let me think for a minute or two."

She was silent, looking off into the gloomy little street below. A man
was whistling gayly near by. From afar came the sound of rumbling
street cars. She had not noticed these or any other sounds before. A
policeman came up to the corner, stopped and looked at the huddled
twain for a minute or two, and then moved off. The sight of that
uniform created a sudden chill in her heart. Tom Braddock began
speaking again, in low, steady tones in which there was not only a
sort of bitter determination but something like defiance.

"What's more, Mary, I won't accept anything from you. Whatever you've
got, put it aside for Christine or against the time when you may need
it yourself. I'm not going to live off you. I'm not what I was back in
those rotten days. I believe I'm going to be I happy again--I think
life's going to be sweet to me after all. Half an hour ago I had but a
few minutes to live, as I believed. I don't know just how to take this
new grip on life. Maybe I'll be able some time to tell you all that I
can't say now. I'm all befuddled. The main point is: I'm going to have
a chance to be a man again, a real man; to be your husband and to make
Christine forget she was ashamed of me. That's it. That's what I'm
trying to say. So, you see, I can't afford to be ashamed of myself. Do
you get what I mean?"

"You would be ashamed of yourself if you accepted money or help from
me? Is that it?"

"Yes. I can work, Mary. I can support you, if you'll come with me. I
know where to go. But you'd better think it over carefully. I can go
alone, Mary dear,--I can go alone, if you feel you can't stand being
with me."

She hesitated, weighing her words. "I have a plan, Tom, that I want to
talk over with you. I'll tell you about it when we get home. I want to
know what you think of it. Perhaps you will consider it a good one. It
occurred to me this afternoon while I was making preparations to leave
the city with you to-morrow."

"You--you had it all thought out before you--"

"I had it all thought out. In fact, Tom, I have the railroad tickets
at home in my desk,--two tickets, one way."

"You are the most wonderful woman in all this world, Mary, I'd die for
you a thousand times," he cried. It was almost a sob.

She smiled. "I wouldn't allow you to do it even once for me. Come! We
will go back the way we came, only we will go in by the front door."

As they turned onto the sidewalk he cast a swift, involuntary glance,
as of terror, in the direction of North River. She distinctly heard
the quick intake of his breath and the involuntary chatter of his
teeth.

"You will sleep in a good, clean bed to-night," she said, reading his
thoughts.

He reached forth and touched her arm, timidly at first, as if he were
afraid that ever so slight a sign of affection would be repulsed.
Finding that she did not shrink or draw away, he ventured to draw her
arm through his. His figure was still bent, but the slouching, furtive
movement was gone. Mechanically she fell into his stride and they
moved swiftly up the street. A clock in a house across the way banged
out the hour. Far away, in the neighborhood of Broadway, a raucous-
voiced newsboy was crying his "extra." They knew that he was shouting:

"All about the murder!" in that unintelligible jargon of the night.

"We will get it all in the morning papers," she said.

"I hope they don't try to connect me with it--Mary, I'm afraid of
that! You'd better let me get out of town to-night."

She shook her head.

He walked with his eyes set straight ahead, trying to understand,
trying to get control of his new emotions. Always there was the sharp,
ugly little notion that she still despised him, that she was
sacrificing herself that he might be drawn as far away as possible
from the child she was so anxious to shield.

"I'm going to try my best to make you care for me again," he said, a
vast hunger for sympathy and love taking possession of him.

"I hope you may, Tom," she said drearily.

"You're doing this for Christine," he said resentfully. "Just to get
me away, so's I can't trouble her. That's it, isn't it? Tell the
truth, Mary."

"I would not expect you to do anything for her sake if I were not
willing to do a great deal myself," was her enigmatic rejoinder.

"Don't hate me, Mary," he burst out.

She pressed his arm. "I am giving you a chance," she reminded him.
There was still a dreariness in her voice, but he did not detect it.
He returned the pressure, half hopeful that the beginning already had
been made.

Brooks let them in. He had been waiting up for them.

"Mr. Braddock will be here over the night, Brooks."

"Yes, Mrs. Braddock." He opened the door into the library for them,
and then silently hastened upstairs.

"You must have been pretty sure of yourself," commented Braddock, in
no little wonder. She threw off the shaker cloak.

"There is a cold supper for you in the dining-room, Tom--and a piece
of a last-minute wedding cake. You must be hungry. While you are
eating we will talk over my plan."

He went about it as if in a dream. For an hour they discussed her plan
for the future. In the end he fell in with it.

"I'd be a dog if I didn't give in to you in a matter like this," he
said. "You're doing everything for me."

"Our room is at the head of the stairs, the first door to the left,
Tom," she said, rising. Her face was very pale; she looked old. "The
bath adjoins it. If you don't mind I'll stay downstairs awhile. I have
many papers to look over and some letters to write."

He went upstairs to the wide, high bed-chamber with its azure walls.
For a long time he stood in the middle of the room, looking around in
dull amazement and doubt. Was it really true that he was there, in the
midst of all this elegance and comfort? He glanced at his big hands
and started with shame. They were not very clean. The soiled cuffs of
an ill-fitting "hickory" shirt came down over his wrists.
Involuntarily he pushed them up. The greenish-gray of the coarse jeans
garments he wore, clumsy and crumpled, was sadly out of harmony with
the delicate, refined colors that surrounded him. It seemed to him all
at once that he _jarred on himself_.

Suddenly his gaze fell upon a neatly folded suit of clothes lying
across the foot of the bed. The garments were dark blue, with a thin
stripe running through the cloth, and they were new. On the center
table there was a straw hat. Shoes stood beside the chair at the head
of the bed. An immaculate white shirt hung over the back of the chair,
while on the seat were undergarments. He rubbed his eyes. Then he sat
down on the chaise longue and stared, with growing comprehension. The
coverlet on the bed was neatly turned down; a night-gown was there,
clean and white. Beside it was another, soft and filmy.

Braddock put his hands to his face and sobbed dry, choking sobs that
were not of anguish, but of bewilderment.

At last he pulled himself together and arose to make a tour of the
room. On the dressing-table there were collars and neckties and cuffs.
His own old-fashioned silver watch lay there before him, with its
heavy gold chain attached. He remembered with a pang that he had given
it to her for preservation long ago, because it had once belonged to
his grandfather and he was sentimental about it.

He looked again at the clothes he wore, the clothes the state had
placed on him when he left the penitentiary; he looked at his soiled
hands; in the glass he caught a glimpse of his haggard, unshaven face
and the dirt streaks that the tears had made. With a cry of disgust he
began tearing off the hated garments.

She had done all this for him! She had known all along that he was to
come home with her.

Half an hour later he came from the bath, scrubbed until his skin was
red. He was clean! He was shaved! His hands were amazingly white.

Like a boy, he tried on the fresh, new, clean-smelling clothes. Even
to the shoes the fit in all cases was perfect. She remembered
everything--the size of his collars, the size of his shoes, the length
of his sleeves: the measurements of Tom Braddock as she had known him
when they were young together. He picked up the filmy night-dress and
kissed it a dozen times. Then he looked at the other one. A grim smile
touched his lips. How long had it been since he had slept in a thing
like that? It seemed like centuries.

He sat down on the side of the bed and dropped his chin to his hands,
suddenly a prey to widely varying thoughts, desires and emotions. For
many minutes he drooped there, thinking, wondering, doubting.

Over in a corner stood a small new leather-bound trunk. He did not get
up to look at it, or into it. He knew without looking.

"It's like a fairy story," he murmured over and over again. "I'll do
anything in the world for her, as long as I live!"

Suddenly he started up. He would go down to her. He would renew his
pledges, his promises. As he opened the door to pass out to the stairs
he heard her moving in the hall below. She tried the front door. Then
the lower light went out. He heard her mounting the stairs slowly. She
was coming up to him!

When she got to a point where she could see the streak of light from
the partially open door she came to a stop. A slight shudder went over
her body. Her steps were slower after that, dragging, dejected, with
one or two complete pauses. Braddock understood. He had been listening
to that pitiful approach of the woman who was his wife. He could
almost see the expression in her face.

A sudden wave of pity swept over him. He gently closed the door and
locked it on the inside.

She came on and turned the knob, feebly, timorously.

"Good-night," he called out from the most distant corner of the room.

Fully ten seconds passed before she responded. He felt somehow that
she held her breath during that time.

"Good-night," she cried, a vibrant note in her voice. He heard her as
she went down the hall. She was running.

CHAPTER X

THE BLACK HEADLINES

Christine had been mistress of Jenison Hall for three days when the
expected and anxiously looked-for letter came from her mother.

A sensation of dread, of uncertainty, had been present during those
three wonderful days, lurking behind the happiness that filled the
foreground so completely. She could not divest herself of the vague,
insistent fear that disaster hung over the head of the mother she
idolized. David, supremely happy, used every device that his brain and
a loving heart could present to set her mind at rest, to drive away
the unvoiced anxiety that revealed itself only in the occasional
mirror of her telltale eyes.

When no word came on the morning of the third day, she timidly
suggested that they run up to New York for a short visit. He laughed
at her and playfully accused her of being tired of him, of being
homesick. Nevertheless, he was troubled. He had seen the newspaper
accounts of the murder of Colonel Grand, and he had been horrified,
immeasurably shocked, to find that Dick Cronk was the self-confessed
assassin.

There was no mention of Braddock's name in the dispatches, yet he
could not banish the fear that ultimately the man would be implicated.

Dick Cronk's story of the crime, as presented by the newspapers, was
clear and unwavering. He said that he had shot the man in the heat of
a quarrel over money matters. The newspapers professed to be unable to
secure a statement of any kind from the brother, Ernest Cronk, who was
in jail as an accomplice, despite the vigorous protests of the
principal figure in the case. The newspapers went into the history of
the Cronk boys, from childhood up, devoting considerable space to the
excellent reputation of the cripple and the unsavory record of the
noted pickpocket. In summing up the case, there seemed to be no
question of the innocence of the cripple, although it was stated that
the district attorney intended to put him on trial for complicity in
the crime. The men, held without bail, were to be given a hearing in
the trial court at an early day.

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