She studied Joseph with almost his own concentration, and her timid smile disappeared and her delicate face became beseeching and diffident. Joseph had never seen any woman so lovely, no, not even his mother, nor one so richly clad. A faint odor of violets floated from her, and his nostrils distended, and not with pleasure. She was as far removed from him as any point in space that he could think of, and as alien as another species. He hated her and the hatred was like acid in his throat. So, it was her money that could buy flesh and blood, was it, like some well-fed and brocaded Sassenagh who bargained for the hands and back of a starving Irishman for his mines and his armies and his manufactories, and left nothing but dead bones behind. The two young people regarded each other in silence, and Sister Elizabeth looked earnestly from one to the other and prayed inwardly. Then Joseph said: "And so you would buy my sister?" Sister Elizabeth caught her breath, and Mrs. Smith turned to her impulsively and with a kind of timorous fear that implored help and made her look like a young and frightened girl. Sister Elizabeth, responding, took her hand and held it encouragingly. "Joey," she said with quiet sternness, "that is most uncivil and wicked. There has been no talk of 'buying,' and that you know." She tried to meet Joseph's eyes to command and reprove him, but he did not look away from Mrs. Smith. It was as if he had not heard. He lifted himself from against the wall and folded his lean arms across his chest and they could see his red wrists and the scars upon them and upon his long thin hands. "Would you have my sister as a toy, a servant, for your own child?" Joseph asked. "A Topsy, as it was written in that book I have been reading about the slaves? Uncle Tom's Cabin, is it?" Sister Elizabeth was aghast. Her round full face deepened in color and her eyes were wide behind her glasses. But Mrs. Smith, to her amazement, pleadingly touched her arm and said, "Sister, I will answer Mr. Armagh," and the nun was more amazed than ever that this shy creature had suddenly become so bold. Mrs. Smith faced Joseph again and drew a long breath and her eyes met his widely. "Not as a toy, that dear child, but as my own loved little daughter, sister to my own little Bernadette, cherished, guarded, protected with tenderness and devotion. She will inherit as my daughter will inherit. I have seen her but once and I loved her immediately, and it seemed to me that she was my very own, Mr. Armagh, and my arms ached for her, and all my heart. Beyond that, I can say no more." Joseph's pale mouth opened to speak, and then he said nothing for several moments while the women waited. The falling and rising lamplight rippled over his tight features. A spasm distorted his face, as if he were in extreme pain. But his voice was quiet. "Then, you will give me a paper," he said, "written as I say, or there will be no more talk. My sister will keep her name, though you take her, for it is a great name in Ireland and proud I am of it, and my sister will be proud. She must always know that she has two brothers, and that one day we will claim her, and until that day I must see her as I see her now, and Scan must see her also. I will lend her, then, for the advantages you can give her now, as a companion to your own child, but only lend her." "But that is impossible!" exclaimed Sister Elizabeth. "An adopted child takes the name of the adoptive parents and her new sister, and she is of the family and has no other, and must know no other! It is a protection for the child, herself, so that her heart is not divided nor her thoughts troubled. You must understand that, Joey." Joseph turned to the nun with huge repudiation. "It is my flesh and blood we are speaking of, is it not, Sister? The flesh and blood of my own parents, the body of my sister Regina! It is you who cannot understand, I am thinking. A man does not give away what is of his flesh and blood and turn and never see it again, as if it was the family pig or goat going off to market! I swore to my sainted mother, on her deathbed, that I would mind the little ones and never leave them, and I will not break my word. Regina is mine, as Scan is mine, and we belong to each other and never shall we be parted from each other. That is my final say, Sister, and if Mrs. Smith refuses, then that is the end of it." Mrs. Smith spoke again in her timid and imploring voice. "You must not think me insensible, Mr. Armagh, or a female fool. I know how it will tear your soul to part with your sister. But consider what she will possess, which you cannot give her; consider what your own mother would desire. I was not always rich. My mother and father went to the Territories, for the lumber, and they lived in squalor, as my father told me, and when I was but a babe in arms my mother died of cold and homesickness and destitution. It was not until I was ten years old that my father made his money, and I was left with strangers when he was in the forests for a very long time, and I did not know him when he returned for me. So I know the sensibilities of a homeless child. Do you think, Mr. Armagh, that you are being just to Regina to condemn her to live in an orphanage with no hope for her future? Do you think your mother would wish that?" "My mother would wish her children to know each other and remain together," said Joseph, and he made a rude gesture of dismissal of the two women. "Wait. Please," said Mrs. Smith, and she put out her small gloved hand to him. "My husband and I-we are leaving Winfiekl, and it may be that we shall never return. We are going to-to a distant city-for my husband is a man of consequence and has many ambitions. Regina would have to go with us-" "No," said Joseph and his voice was rigorous and loud. "We have talked too much. I have nothing more to say. I am here to see my brother and my sister, and I will see them alone-if you please." Mrs. Smith bent her head, fumbled in her muff and brought forth a scented handkerchief which she put to her eyes. She burst into soft weeping. "Joey," said Sister Elizabeth, and she was very touched. "It's a proud lad you are, and of proud blood as you have said yourself. But be careful that it does not lead you astray. And now, you cannot dispose of Mary Regina's fate as lightly as this." The boy said with ridicule, "There is more than money, Sister, and is it I who should tell you that? There is a man's family, and he does not sell that family. I have nothing more to say." Sister Elizabeth put her arm about the sobbing young woman and led her away, murmuring consoling words. But Mrs. Smith would not be consoled, and Joseph heard her grieved cries and muffled protests in the hall, and he smiled darkly to himself. He sat down again on the stiff chair and gripped his raw hands on his knees, and waited. His exhaustion became deeper. His body shivered and trembled, and it was not fear again that he felt for himself but for Scan and Regina. The door opened and the two children came in, running, and calling his name, and he could not get up as yet to greet them, but held out his arms to them without a word and they ran to him. He lifted, with an enormous effort, the little girl to his knee and put an arm about Scan, Scan tall and very thin and fair and nine years old, and Regina but three. "They made us wait a long time to see you, Joey," said Scan, and leaned against his brother's shoulder. He had the beguiling and enchanting voice of his father, and his father's endearing smile and Daniel's dimpled cheek and large shining eyes, pale and blue, and his fair hair curled over his head and ears and nape. He wore the poor coarse garments of the orphaned children, clean and patched, and he wore them like a knight in silk and velvet. His tilted nose gave his face a gay expression even when he was wretched, which was not often, for he possessed his father's optimistic and hopeful character and was rarely in tears or sulks. Joseph, as usual, could not prevent himself from smiling, and remembering, and he hugged Sean closer to him, then pushed him off with gruff affection. "I had affairs to discuss with Sister," he said, and turned all his attention to Regina, and his deep-set dark-blue eyes softened. For Regina, as the Sisters all said, was "a little love," a delightful grave child who seldom smiled, and who was unusually beautiful, with her long mop of curling and glossy black hair, white skin and rosy cheeks and lips, and eyes as dark a blue as Joseph's, but larger and rounder. She seemed to understand almost everything that was said, and appeared to reflect on it, and so the nuns said "she is listening to the angels, that darling one, who is an angel, herself." They found it of portent that the child's lashes were a vivid gold, unlike her hair, and the unusual color gave her a shining regard. Her expression was not childlike, but was often somber, and she was usually ver
y quiet, though not retiring, and liked to play by herself. Her face was the face, not of a very young child, but of a girl approaching puberty, and very thoughtful, and at times sad and remote. She was, to Joseph, dear above all other things in the world, dearer even than Scan, and far dearer than his own life. Her small body was thin, as all the orphans' bodies were thin, and she wore a brown woolen frock much too large for her, a donation of some charitable mother to the orphanage. The material had chafed the silken whiteness of her little neck, and her stockings had been knitted of black wool by the nuns and her shoes were too big and she had to wiggle her toes constantly to keep them on her feet. As if she knew that Joseph had undergone some recent travail she looked up silently into his face, and then she touched his cheek lightly. Scan was moving restlessly up and down the room, and endlessly chattering and questioning, but Joseph held his sister to him and felt that he had rescued her from something direful, and the very thought made him shiver again. He took her little hand and felt its chapped roughness and he saw the small broken nails, but when he looked at her face again she smiled at him suddenly and it was like light to him and a blessed consolation. He pressed her almost violently to his own body, and though she must have felt considerable discomfort she did not protest, but nestled against him. My darling, my darling, said the boy to himself. And they would take you from me, would they? But never, until I die. So help me God, never until I die. Scan stopped before his brother, jealously. "And where is that fine home you have been promising us, Joey?" he demanded. His tone was light and wheedling. "Soon," said Joseph, and he thought of the three years he had been in this country. Three years, and there was no home as he had promised his mother and then these children, but only an orphanage for Scan and Regina, and only a miserable tiny room for himself under the eaves of a widow's decaying house more than a mile from the orphanage. He was one of her three roomers, and he paid her a dollar a week for the bed in that room, clean but sagging with its old straw mattress on a web of rope, a chair and a commode which held all he possessed. It had no heat even in the winter, and no curtains at the one small window, and no rug on the cold floor, but it was all he could afford, and more. It took all his fortitude, now, thinking of that room, thinking of his brother and sister in this destitute orphanage, to keep from breaking down in despair. The old priest and the nuns always said, steadfastly, that honesty would be rewarded by God, and faith would never be disappointed, and a man of industry and integrity would rise to riches and to honor before his fellowmen. Sometimes, when he remembered those innocent aphorisms, Joseph would suddenly laugh aloud, his brief fierce laughter in which there was no merriment but only a bitterness. To Joseph Armagh the naive were not pathetic. They were contemptible. They made a parody of reality. At these times Joseph would remember his father, but not with love. He remembered that next Sunday he would receive four dollars for twelve hours of somewhat dangerous work, and he felt a sudden relief. He said to Scan again, "Soon. It will not be long, now. I will bring you a cake next Sunday, and a cake for Regina." He put his arm about Sean again and held him to his side, and he held Regina to him also, and the children were silent now, watching him with quiet curiosity for they felt the hard concentration in him and Sean, more volatile than his sister, became afraid as often he was afraid of Joseph. None heard the door open and none saw Sister Elizabeth for a moment or two, on the threshold, and she stood there and watched that pathetic tableau and her eyes burned with tears. Then she said briskly, "And it's still up, are you, Sean and Mary Regina, when you should be in bed? Off with you, and kiss your brother good night for he is tired, too." She bustled into the room keeping her mouth pressed tightly together for fear of its trembling, and she ruffled Scan's light hair with her plump hand, affectionately, and smoothed Regina's curls. She was not a woman to show sentimentality but suddenly she bent and kissed the two children, then as if annoyed with herself she hurried them out and closed the door smartly after them, grumbling. She had placed two parcels on one chair as she had entered. Joseph stood before her with cold and silent hostility, and she sighed. "Well, Joey, all's been said that could be said, and I pray that you will not be regretting it. And now, we are not going to be silly tonight, are we, and refuse the little dinner Sister Mary Margaret packed for you, saying you are not hungry when I know you are, and raising the pride up in you again. For it's very thin and sickly you are, with your cold, and if you fall ill who then will care for the little ones?" It was an artful plea and Joseph glanced at the parcel on the chair and tried to prevent himself from shivering. "And I have the usual books for you, too, Joey, left for you by a good man." Joseph went to the parcel and tried to ignore the thick bread and cheese and slice of fried pork fat, though his mouth watered for them instantly. He looked at the books in their separate parcel, wrapped in newspaper. There were four of them. There was always at least one every Sunday, and some he sold for a penny or two after he had read them and some he kept for rereading. Tonight the parcel contained a book of pious reading with a frontispiece of a group of asexual angels standing on a pillar of white fire, a volume of Shakespeare's sonnets, thin and worn, Charles Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle, almost new which he examined with sharp intentness, and the fourth was a volume of the philosophies of Descartes, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Hobbes. As always, he felt a deep thrill of anticipation and excitement at the sight of books and the feel of them in his hand and the rustle of paper. They were like food and drink to him. He put down the book of pious readings with a small gesture of scorn, and wrapped up the other three books in the newspaper. Then he hesitated. Finally, with real reluctance, he lifted the parcel of food also. He said, "Thank you, Sister." But his white cheekbones flushed with mortification. "I can afford my dinners, Sister, but I am hungry tonight, and so I thank you." He tucked the parcels under his arm and removed his cap from the table. "Joey," said Sister Elizabeth, "God go with you, my child." He was surprised at the emotion he saw on her face, for she was always so full of common sense and never uttered pious aphorisms and blessings. He was not sure that what he felt in response was contempt or embarrassment, but he ducked his head and passed her with a final "thank you." She watched him go, not moving for a few moments. As he went by her secluded "parlor" he heard Mrs. Smith's soft mourning and now the voice of a man comforting her. He left the convent-orphanage, and the fine coach was still waiting. Joseph hesitated. All at once he felt the power of wealth as he had never felt it before, and he was suddenly choked with alarm. A man who had money could take what he wanted and the devil take the rest. It was possible that that rich man and woman in Sister Elizabeth's parlor could seize, law or no law, the sister of Joseph Armagh and spirit her away, and there would be naught he could do. A thin cold sweat broke out on his forehead and between his shoulders. He walked slowly towards the carriage, smiling as pleasantly as he could, and the coachman watched him come with sharp alertness and clutched his whip. Joseph stopped near him -and stood back on his heels, and laughed. "A noble carriage for Winficld," he jeered. "Does the gentleman keep it for his lady-love, perhaps, but not to be seen on the streets in the day?" "It's a foul tongue you have in your head, boyeen!" shouted the coachman, and glared down at the haggard face below him and raised his whip. This is the carriage of himself, the Mayor of Winfield, and his lady, Mrs. Tom Hennessey, and it's not in Winfield they live," and he spat, "but in Green Hills where the likes of you would skulk at the back door begging for bread! And be kicked off, down the road!" Now Joseph's alarm reached icy terror, but he merely stood there and grinned up at the coachman. Then he finally shrugged, gave the carriage a last sneering glance and walked off. The Mayor of Winfield, and his lady, and they coveted Regina and would steal her if they could, like a pickaninny in the hands of a blackbirder! Joseph hurried through the streets, panting, clutching his parcels, senseless fright snapping at his heels. It was not until 'he was near his rooming house, in the darkest and most poverty-stricken part of Winfield, that he was able to control himself. So long as he could afford to pay for
his brother and sister at the orphanage they could not "give them away," like puppies or kittens. It was true that Sister Elizabeth had never once hinted such a thing, but Joseph distrusted all people without exception, and the fear he had felt on the ship was with him always. No one knew now where his uncle, Jack Armagh, was, so he, Joseph, was Scan's and Regina's true guardian, but he was only sixteen. One never knew what horrors and perfidies and crimes could be invoked against the helpless, even from such as Father Barton and Sister Elizabeth. He needed more money. Money was the answer to all things. Had he not read that somewhere, probably in the Bible his father had cherished at home, and which had gone with all the other Armagh treasures? Sure, and there it was that he had read it: "A rich man's wealth is his strong city." He had been determined from the beginning to be rich some day, but now his determination was complete, confirmed. He thought of his mother, given to the sea after the ship had left New York, and his father in a pauper's grave, without stone or remembrance, and Joseph's mouth became a slit of pain in his stark face. He must have money. It was the only protection, the only God, the only fortress, a man had in this world. Before this, Joseph had believed that very soon he would find a way to earn a comfortable wage and give his brother and sister a home and shelter and warm fires and good food and clothing. After all, there still lingered in him the belief that this was a land of opportunity, and he knew there were rich men in Winfield even if they did conceal their riches. Now he no longer cared how he would obtain, not a comfortable wage, but money in profusion. It was a matter from this night on of discovering the secret, and he would find it. He would surely find it. He thought of Mr. Tom Hennessey, the Irishman who had made his fortune, it was said with truth and knowledge, in blackbirding, and so had his father before him, and he had many interests in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and all of them, it was hinted, equally nefarious. It was his money which had made him mayor of this town, and which had given him a luxurious home in Green Hills, he the son of an Irish immigrant like Joseph Armagh, himself. The townsmen spoke in awe of him, while they sneered at his origins-but with a sort of indulgent fawning. Even an Irishman with money was to be respected and honored, and caps lifted at his passing. What was it his lady had said? They would be going to another city, far away. Joseph could not afford the penny for a newspaper but he had heard the men at the sawmill discussing that "Papist" who had just been appointed by the State Legislature as one of the two senators to go to Washington. They pretended to despise him, but they were proud that a senator-something like a member of the House of Lords, Joseph had thought-would be from their town and so add polish and pride to it. Besides, he had been born here, and he had been a less venal mayor than most, and had often expressed his "fraternal interest" in the poor workingman "and the conditions of his work." The fact that he had done nothing to help either was not held against him, and in spite of the general loathing and fear of "Popery" Tom Hennessey was not suspected of secret unspeakable crimes except the ones less appalling, which were at least understandable and even to be admired as "cuteness," and obsequiously envied. To deal in flesh and blood, even if it were "black," had always seemed to Joseph to be the vilest and most unpardonable of crimes. Oppressed, himself, from birth, his rare cold sympathies had been with the fleeing slaves, who could now be captured and returned to their owners in the South. There had been times when he had sickened over the thought, and had hoped that at some near time he would be able to help a desperate slave to reach Canada, and safety from the viciousness which was universal man. But tonight he envied Tom Hennessey whose fortune, and his father's, had begun in blackbirding. The mayor was far cleverer than Joseph Armagh, and his father certainly more intelligent than Daniel Armagh, who would have been stunned to learn that in the world there lived men so detestable and degraded. "An honorable man, lifted above sin and meanness, who had never raised his hand against the helpless but had given them all he could, was greater in the sight of God and man than a lord of Norman blood, and the Royal Family, itself," Daniel had said once, long ago. Joseph had not really believed that nonsense. But it was Daniel Armagh, thought Joseph on this ashen and raining night, who had innocently betrayed his family with his silliness of thought and word and deed and had never told them the truth. In these tormented minutes Joseph felt his first hatred for his father-and was not ashamed and was not aghast. He crossed the mean town square with its slipper)' cobbles and its black storefronts. A statue of William Penn, badly executed in bronze, stood in the center, the latrine of birds. No one was abroad on such a gloomy night of drizzle and chill, and Joseph's pounding footsteps echoed throughout the square. A street, among others, led off it, named Philadelphia Terrace, and here was the gritty and forlorn rooming house in which Joseph Armagh lived, and where he had had his determined and hopeful dreams for nearly three years. It was a little woeful house, more decayed than its neighbors, and sagging and dilapidated, its clapboards pulling from the walls, its door splintered. One streetlamp, belching the odor of gas, lighted it feebly, which was an advantage for there was not a light in the house. It was past eight o'clock and all decent folk were in bed for the work tomorrow. Joseph pushed open the unlocked door and by the light of the streetlamp he made his way to the table on which his own lamp stood, filled and cleaned and ready to be carried up the creaking stairs which reeked of mold and dust and rodents and cabbage. He fumbled for the lucifers which were deposited in an open-nailed-tin box on the table, and lighted his lamp, and the yellow light smoked for a moment or two. He closed the door and lifted the lamp and made his way upstairs, every step snapping under his feet. The still cold inside the house was more penetrating even than that outside, and Joseph's shivering returned. His room was hardly more than a closet and smelled of sifting dust and damp. He put the lamp on the commode. He looked about the hopeless dreariness of his "home," and at the pile of books neatly stacked in one corner. Sudden heavy sleet began to hiss and rattle against the little window. Joseph took off his coat and covered the one blanket on his sagging bed with it, for extra warmth. Autumnal thunder, one loud and explosive clap, followed on a brilliant flare of lightning, and the wind rose and the glass in the window shook and one loose shutter banged somewhere. Joseph was conscious of a nauseating ravenousness, and he sat on the edge of his bed and unwrapped the parcel of food. He stuffed the stale bread and sour cheese and cold pork into his mouth rapidly, hardly chewing, so great was his hunger. It had been a generous parcel, and it had been a sacrifice from the kind nuns, but it was not quite enough to satisfy him. However, it was more filling than the dinners he ate in this house seven nights a week, for seventy-five cents a week, and he had not spent his fifty cents. He licked the crumbs of bread and cheese and fat from his fingers, voraciously, and was immediately strengthened. The oily newspaper lay on his bed. An item caught his quick attention. He read it over and over. Then he lay back with his arms under his head, and he thought and thought and continued to think for at least an hour more. He thought only of money, and he had found the first step towards it. It was a matter, now, only of a little more patience, a little more knowledge, and much planning. Even when he blew out his lamp he continued to think, for once unaware of the sick smell of his flat pillow and the hammock-sag of his bed and the thinness of the blanket and coat which covered him. Out of terror and despair and hatred-he had found the way. If it was not the one extolled in theology, it held, for Joseph Francis Xavier Armagh, far more truth and practicality.
Captains and the Kings Page 7
