22 The Man With Two Left Feet

by Unknown

  Mr Murdoch welcomed Katie with joy.

  ‘I was wondering whenever you would come back, Katie. I’m afraid the old man’s a little upset.’

  ‘Not ill?’

  ‘Not ill. Upset. And it was my fault, too. Thinking he’d be interested, I read him a piece from the paper where I seen about these English Suffragettes, and he just went up in the air. I guess he’ll be all right now you’ve come back. I was a fool to read it, I reckon. I kind of forgot for the moment.’

  ‘Please don’t worry yourself about it, Mr Murdoch. He’ll be all right soon. I’ll go to him.’

  In the inner room the old man was sitting. His face was flushed, and he gesticulated from time to time.

  ‘I won’t have it,’ he cried as Katie entered. ‘I tell you I won’t have it. If Parliament can’t do anything, I’ll send Parliament about its business.’

  ‘Here I am, grandpapa,’ said Katie quickly. ‘I’ve had the greatest time. It was lovely up there. I—’

  ‘I tell you it’s got to stop. I’ve spoken about it before. I won’t have it.’

  ‘I expect they’re doing their best. It’s your being so far away that makes it hard for them. But I do think you might write them a very sharp letter.’

  ‘I will. I will. Get out the paper. Are you ready?’ He stopped, and looked piteously at Katie. ‘I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to begin.’

  Katie scribbled a few lines.

  ‘How would this do? “His Majesty informs his Government that he is greatly surprised and indignant that no notice has been taken of his previous communications. If this goes on, he will be reluctantly compelled to put the matter in other hands.”’

  She read it glibly as she had written it. The formula had been a favourite one of her late father, when roused to fall upon offending patrons of the bookshop.

  The old man beamed. His resentment was gone. He was soothed and happy.

  ‘That’ll wake ‘em up,’ he said. ‘I won’t have these goings on while I’m king, and if they don’t like it, they know what to do. You’re a good girl, Katie.’

  He chuckled.

  ‘I beat Lord Murdoch five games to nothing,’ he said.

  It was now nearly two years since the morning when old Matthew Bennett had announced to an audience consisting of Katie and a smoky blue cat, which had wandered in from Washington Square to take pot-luck, that he was the King of England.

  This was a long time for any one delusion of the old man’s to last. Usually they came and went with a rapidity which made it hard for Katie, for all her tact, to keep abreast of them. She was not likely to forget the time when he went to bed President Roosevelt and woke up the Prophet Elijah. It was the only occasion in all the years they had passed together when she had felt like giving way and indulging in the fit of hysterics which most girls of her age would have had as a matter of course.

  She had handled that crisis, and she handled the present one with equal smoothness. When her grandfather made his announcement, which he did rather as one stating a generally recognized fact than as if the information were in any way sensational, she neither screamed nor swooned, nor did she rush to the neighbours for advice. She merely gave the old man his breakfast, not forgetting to set aside a suitable portion for the smoky cat, and then went round to notify Mr Murdoch of what had happened.

  Mr Murdoch, excellent man, received the news without any fuss or excitement at all, and promised to look in on Schwartz, the stout saloon-keeper, who was Mr Bennett’s companion and antagonist at draughts on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and, as he expressed it, put him wise.

  Life ran comfortably in the new groove. Old Mr Bennett continued to play draughts and pore over his second-hand classics. Every morning he took his outing in Washington Square where, from his invalid’s chair, he surveyed somnolent Italians and roller-skating children with his old air of kindly approval. Katie, whom circumstances had taught to be thankful for small mercies, was perfectly happy in the shadow of the throne. She liked her work; she liked looking after her grandfather; and now that Ted Brady had come into her life, she really began to look on herself as an exceptionally lucky girl, a spoilt favourite of Fortune.

  For Ted Brady had called, as he said he would, and from the very first he had made plain in his grave, direct way the objects of his visits. There was no subtlety about Ted, no finesse. He was as frank as a music-hall love song.

  On his first visit, having handed Katie a large bunch of roses with the stolidity of a messenger boy handing over a parcel, he had proceeded, by way of establishing his bona fides, to tell her all about himself. He supplied the facts in no settled order, just as they happened to occur to him in the long silences with which his speech was punctuated. Small facts jostled large facts. He spoke of his morals and his fox-terrier in the same breath.

  ‘I’m on the level. Ask anyone who knows me. They’ll tell you that. Say, I got the cutest little dog you ever seen. Do you like dogs? I’ve never been a fellow that’s got himself mixed up with girls. I don’t like ‘em as a general thing. A fellow’s got too much to do keeping himself in training, if his club expects him to do things. I belong to the Glencoe Athletic. I ran the hundred yards dash in evens last sports there was. They expect me to do it at the Glencoe, so I’ve never got myself mixed up with girls. Till I seen you that afternoon I reckon I’d hardly looked at a girl, honest. They didn’t seem to kind of make any hit with me. And then I seen you, and I says to myself, “That’s the one.” It sort of came over me in a flash. I fell for you directly I seen you. And I’m on the level. Don’t forget that.’

  And more in the same strain, leaning on the counter and looking into Katie’s eyes with a devotion that added emphasis to his measured speech.

  Next day he came again, and kissed her respectfully but firmly, making a sort of shuffling dive across the counter. Breaking away, he fumbled in his pocket and produced a ring, which he proceeded to place on her finger with the serious air which accompanied all his actions.

  ‘That looks pretty good to me,’ he said, as he stepped back and eyed it.

  It struck Katie, when he had gone, how differently different men did things. Genevieve had often related stories of men who had proposed to her, and according to Genevieve, they always got excited and emotional, and sometimes cried. Ted Brady had fitted her with the ring more like a glover’s assistant than anything else, and he had hardly spoken a word from beginning to end. He had seemed to take her acquiescence for granted. And yet there had been nothing flat or disappointing about the proceedings. She had been thrilled throughout. It is to be supposed that Mr Brady had the force of character which does not require the aid of speech.

  It was not till she took the news of her engagement to old Mr Bennett that it was borne in upon Katie that Fate did not intend to be so wholly benevolent to her as she supposed.

  That her grandfather could offer any opposition had not occurred to her as a possibility. She took his approval for granted. Never, as long as she could remember, had he been anything but kind to her. And the only possible objections to marriage from a grandfather’s point of view—badness of character, insufficient means, or inferiority of social position—were in this case gloriously absent.

  She could not see how anyone, however hypercritical, could find a flaw in Ted. His character was spotless. He was comfortably off. And so far from being in any way inferior socially, it was he who condescended. For Ted, she had discovered from conversation with Mr Murdoch, the glazier, was no ordinary young man. He was a celebrity. So much so that for a moment, when told the news of the engagement, Mr Murdoch, startled out of his usual tact, had exhibited frank surprise that the great Ted Brady should not have aimed higher.

  ‘You’re sure you’ve got the name right, Katie?’ he had said. ‘It’s really Ted Brady? No mistake about the first name? Well-built, good-looking young chap with brown eyes? Well, this beats me. Not,’ he went on hurriedly, ‘that any young fellow mightn’t think himself lucky to get a
wife like you, Katie, but Ted Brady! Why, there isn’t a girl in this part of the town, or in Harlem or the Bronx, for that matter, who wouldn’t give her eyes to be in your place. Why, Ted Brady is the big noise. He’s the star of the Glencoe.’

  ‘He told me he belonged to the Glencoe Athletic.’

  ‘Don’t you believe it. It belongs to him. Why, the way that boy runs and jumps is the real limit. There’s only Billy Burton, of the Irish-American, that can touch him. You’ve certainly got the pick of the bunch, Katie.’

  He stared at her admiringly, as if for the first time realizing her true worth. For Mr Murdoch was a great patron of sport.

  With these facts in her possession Katie had approached the interview with her grandfather with a good deal of confidence.

  The old man listened to her recital of Mr Brady’s qualities in silence. Then he shook his head.

  ‘It can’t be, Katie. I couldn’t have it.’

  ‘Grandpapa!’

  ‘You’re forgetting, my dear.’

  ‘Forgetting?’

  ‘Who ever heard of such a thing? The grand-daughter of the King of England marrying a commoner! It wouldn’t do at all.’

  Consternation, surprise, and misery kept Katie dumb. She had learned in a hard school to be prepared for sudden blows from the hand of fate, but this one was so entirely unforeseen that it found her unprepared, and she was crushed by it. She knew her grandfather’s obstinacy too well to argue against the decision.

  ‘Oh, no, not at all,’ he repeated. ‘Oh, no, it wouldn’t do.’

  Katie said nothing; she was beyond speech. She stood there wide-eyed and silent among the ruins of her little air-castle. The old man patted her hand affectionately. He was pleased at her docility. It was the right attitude, becoming in one of her high rank.

  ‘I am very sorry, my dear, but—oh, no! oh, no! oh, no—’ His voice trailed away into an unintelligible mutter. He was a very old man, and he was not always able to concentrate his thoughts on a subject for any length of time.

  So little did Ted Brady realize at first the true complexity of the situation that he was inclined, when he heard of the news, to treat the crisis in the jaunty, dashing, love-laughs-at-locksmith fashion so popular with young men of spirit when thwarted in their loves by the interference of parents and guardians.

  It took Katie some time to convince him that, just because he had the licence in his pocket, he could not snatch her up on his saddle-bow and carry her off to the nearest clergyman after the manner of young Lochinvar.

  In the first flush of his resentment at restraint he saw no reason why he should differentiate between old Mr Bennett and the conventional banns-forbidding father of the novelettes with which he was accustomed to sweeten his hours of idleness. To him, till Katie explained the intricacies of the position, Mr Bennett was simply the proud millionaire who would not hear of his daughter marrying the artist.

  ‘But, Ted, dear, you don’t understand,’ Katie said. ‘We simply couldn’t do that. There’s no one but me to look after him, poor old man. How could I run away like that and get married? What would become of him?’

  ‘You wouldn’t be away long,’ urged Mr Brady, a man of many parts, but not a rapid thinker. ‘The minister would have us fixed up inside of half an hour. Then we’d look in at Mouquin’s for a steak and fried, just to make a sort of wedding breakfast. And then back we’d come, hand-in-hand, and say, “Well, here we are. Now what?”’

  ‘He would never forgive me.’

  ‘That,’ said Ted judicially, ‘would be up to him.’

  ‘It would kill him. Don’t you see, we know that it’s all nonsense, this idea of his; but he really thinks he is the king, and he’s so old that the shock of my disobeying him would be too much. Honest, Ted, dear, I couldn’t.’

  Gloom unutterable darkened Ted Brady’s always serious countenance. The difficulties of the situation were beginning to come home to him.

  ‘Maybe if I went and saw him—’ he suggested at last.

  ‘You could,’ said Katie doubtfully.

  Ted tightened his belt with an air of determination, and bit resolutely on the chewing-gum which was his inseparable companion.

  ‘I will,’ he said.

  ‘You’ll be nice to him, Ted?’

  He nodded. He was the man of action, not words.

  It was perhaps ten minutes before he came out of the inner room in which Mr Bennett passed his days. When he did, there was no light of jubilation on his face. His brow was darker than ever.

  Katie looked at him anxiously. He returned the look with a sombre shake of the head.

  ‘Nothing doing,’ he said shortly. He paused. ‘Unless,’ he added, ‘you count it anything that he’s made me an earl.’

  In the next two weeks several brains busied themselves with the situation. Genevieve, reconciled to Katie after a decent interval of wounded dignity, said she supposed there was a way out, if one could only think of it, but it certainly got past her. The only approach to a plan of action was suggested by the broken-nosed individual who had been Ted’s companion that day at Palisades Park, a gentleman of some eminence in the boxing world, who rejoiced in the name of the Tennessee Bear-Cat.

  What they ought to do, in the Bear-Cat’s opinion, was to get the old man out into Washington Square one morning. He of Tennessee would then sasshay up in a flip manner and make a break. Ted, waiting close by, would resent his insolence. There would be words, followed by blows.

  ‘See what I mean?’ pursued the Bear-Cat. ‘There’s you and me mixing it. I’ll square the cop on the beat to leave us be; he’s a friend of mine. Pretty soon you land me one on the plexus, and I take th’ count. Then there’s you hauling me up by th’ collar to the old gentleman, and me saying I quits and apologizing. See what I mean?’

  The whole, presumably, to conclude with warm expressions of gratitude and esteem from Mr Bennett, and an instant withdrawal of the veto.

  Ted himself approved of the scheme. He said it was a cracker-jaw, and he wondered how one so notoriously ivory-skulled as the other could have had such an idea. The Bear-Cat said modestly that he had ‘em sometimes. And it is probable that all would have been well, had it not been necessary to tell the plan to Katie, who was horrified at the very idea, spoke warmly of the danger to her grandfather’s nervous system, and said she did not think the Bear-Cat could be a nice friend for Ted. And matters relapsed into their old state of hopelessness.

  And then, one day, Katie forced herself to tell Ted that she thought it would be better if they did not see each other for a time. She said that these meetings were only a source of pain to both of them. It would really be better if he did not come round for—well, quite some time.

  It had not been easy for her to say it. The decision was the outcome of many wakeful nights. She had asked herself the question whether it was fair for her to keep Ted chained to her in this hopeless fashion, when, left to himself and away from her, he might so easily find some other girl to make him happy.

  So Ted went, reluctantly, and the little shop on Sixth Avenue knew him no more. And Katie spent her time looking after old Mr Bennett (who had completely forgotten the affair by now, and sometimes wondered why Katie was not so cheerful as she had been), and—for, though unselfish, she was human—hating those unknown girls whom in her mind’s eye she could see clustering round Ted, smiling at him, making much of him, and driving the bare recollection of her out of his mind.

  The summer passed. July came and went, making New York an oven. August followed, and one wondered why one had complained of July’s tepid advances.

  It was on the evening of September the eleventh that Katie, having closed the little shop, sat in the dusk on the steps, as many thousands of her fellow-townsmen and townswomen were doing, turning her face to the first breeze which New York had known for two months. The hot spell had broken abruptly that afternoon, and the city was drinking in the coolness as a flower drinks water.

  From round the corner, where t
he yellow cross of the Judson Hotel shone down on Washington Square, came the shouts of children, and the strains, mellowed by distance, of the indefatigable barrel-organ which had played the same tunes in the same place since the spring.

  Katie closed her eyes, and listened. It was very peaceful this evening, so peaceful that for an instant she forgot even to think of Ted. And it was just during this instant that she heard his voice.

  ‘That you, kid?’

  He was standing before her, his hands in his pockets, one foot on the pavement, the other in the road; and if he was agitated, his voice did not show it.

  ‘Ted!’

  ‘That’s me. Can I see the old man for a minute, Katie?’

  This time it did seem to her that she could detect a slight ring of excitement.

  ‘It’s no use, Ted. Honest.’

  ‘No harm in going in and passing the time of day, is there? I’ve got something I want to say to him.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tell you later, maybe. Is he in his room?’

  He stepped past her, and went in. As he went, he caught her arm and pressed it, but he did not stop. She saw him go into the inner room and heard through the door as he closed it behind him, the murmur of voices. And almost immediately, it seemed to her, her name was called. It was her grandfather’s voice which called, high and excited. The door opened, and Ted appeared.

  ‘Come here a minute, Katie, will you?’ he said. ‘You’re wanted.’

  The old man was leaning forward in his chair. He was in a state of extraordinary excitement. He quivered and jumped. Ted, standing by the wall, looked as stolid as ever; but his eyes glittered.

  ‘Katie,’ cried the old man, ‘this is a most remarkable piece of news. This gentleman has just been telling me—extraordinary. He—’