The Street of Seven Stars

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

  CHAPTER XIII

  Peter took the polished horns to the hospital the next morning andapproached Jimmy with his hands behind him and an atmosphere of mysterythat enshrouded him like a cloak. Jimmy, having had a good night andhaving taken the morning's medicine without argument, had been allowedup in a roller chair. It struck Peter with a pang that the boy lookedmore frail day by day, more transparent.

  "I have brought you," said Peter gravely, "the cod-liver oil."

  "I've had it!"

  "Then guess."

  "Dad's letter?"

  "You've just had one. Don't be a piggy."

  "Animal, vegetable, or mineral?"

  "Vegetable," said Peter shamelessly.

  "Soft or hard!"

  "Soft."

  This was plainly a disappointment. A pair of horns might be vegetable;they could hardly be soft.

  "A kitten?"

  "A kitten is not vegetable, James."

  "I know. A bowl of gelatin from Harry!" For by this time Harmony was hisvery good friend, admitted to the Jimmy club, which consisted of NurseElisabet, the Dozent with the red beard, Anna and Peter, and of coursethe sentry, who did not know that he belonged.

  "Gelatin, to be sure," replied Peter, and produced the horns.

  It was a joyous moment in the long low ward, with its triple row ofbeds, its barred windows, its clean, uneven old floor. As if to add atouch of completeness the sentry outside, peering in, saw the wheeledchair with its occupant, and celebrated this advance along the road torecovery by placing on the window-ledge a wooden replica of himself,bayonet and all, carved from a bit of cigar box.

  "Everybody is very nice to me," said Jimmy contentedly. "When my fathercomes back I shall tell him. He is very fond of people who are kind tome. There was a woman on the ship--What is bulging your pocket, Peter?"

  "My handkerchief."

  "That is not where you mostly carry your handkerchief."

  Peter was injured. He scowled ferociously at being doubted and stoodup before the wheeled chair to be searched. The ward watched joyously,while from pocket after pocket of Peter's old gray suit came Jimmy'ssalvage--two nuts, a packet of figs, a postcard that represented a stoutcolonel of hussars on his back on a frozen lake, with a private soldierwaiting to go through the various salutations due his rank beforeassisting him. A gala day, indeed, if one could forget the grave in thelittle mountain town with only a name on the cross at its head, and ifone did not notice that the boy was thinner than ever, that his handssoon tired of playing and lay in his lap, that Nurse Elisabet, who wasmuch inured to death and lived her days with tragedy, caught him to heralmost fiercely as she lifted him back from the chair into the smoothwhite bed.

  He fell asleep with Peter's arm under his head and the horns of the deerbeside him. On the bedside stand stood the wooden sentry, keepingguard. As Peter drew his arm away he became aware of the Nurse Elisabetbeckoning to him from a door at the end of the ward Peter left thesentinel on guard and tiptoed down the room. Just outside, round acorner, was the Dozent's laboratory, and beyond the tiny closet wherehe slept, where on a stand was the photograph of the lady he would marrywhen he had become a professor and required no one's consent.

  The Dozent was waiting for Peter. In the amiable conspiracy whichkept the boy happy he was arch-plotter. His familiarity with Austrianintrigue had made him invaluable. He it was who had originated the ideaof making Jimmy responsible for the order of the ward, so that a burlyTrager quarreling over his daily tobacco with the nurse in charge, orbrawling over his soup with another patient, was likely to be hailed ina thin soprano, and to stand, grinning sheepishly, while Jimmy, inmixed English and German, restored the decorum of the ward. They were aquarrelsome lot, the convalescents. Jimmy was so busy some days settlingdisputes and awarding decisions that he slept almost all night. This wasas it should be.

  The Dozent waited for Peter. His red beard twitched and his white coat,stained from the laboratory table, looked quite villainous. He held outa letter.

  "This has come for the child," he said in quite good English. He wasobliged to speak English. Day by day he taught in the clinics Americanswho scorned his native tongue, and who brought him the money withwhich some day he would marry. He liked the English language; he likedAmericans because they learned quickly. He held out an envelope with ablack border and Peter took it.

  "From Paris!" he said. "Who in the world--I suppose I'd better open it."

  "So I thought. It appears a letter of--how you say it? Ah, yes,condolence."

  Peter opened the letter and read it. Then without a word he gave it opento the Dozent. There was silence in the laboratory while the Dozentread it, silence except for his canary, which was chipping at a lump ofsugar. Peter's face was very sober.

  "So. A mother! You knew nothing of a mother?"

  "Something from the papers I found. She left when the boy was ababy--went on the stage, I think. He has no recollection of her, whichis a good thing. She seems to have been a bad lot."

  "She comes to take him away. That is impossible."

  "Of course it is impossible," said Peter savagely. "She's not goingto see the child if I can help it. She left because--she's the boy'smother, but that's the best you can say of her. This letter--Well,you've read it."

  "She is as a stranger to him?"

  "Absolutely. She will come in mourning--look at that black border--andtell him his father is dead, and kill him. I know the type."

  The canary chipped at his sugar; the red beard of the Dozent twitched,as does the beard of one who plots. Peter re-read the gushing letter inhis hand and thought fiercely.

  "She is on her way here," said the Dozent. "That is bad. Paris to Wienis two days and a night. She may hourly arrive."

  "We might send him away--to another hospital."

  The Dozent shrugged his shoulders.

  "Had I a home--" he said, and glanced through the door to the portraiton the stand. "It would be possible to hide the boy, at least for atime. In the interval the mother might be watched, and if she proved afit person the boy could be given to her. It is, of course, an affair ofpolice."

  This gave Peter pause. He had no money for fines, no time forimprisonment, and he shared the common horror of the great jail. He readthe letter again, and tried to read into the lines Jimmy's mother,and failed. He glanced into the ward. Still Jimmy slept. A burlyconvalescent, with a saber cut from temple to ear and the generalappearance of an assassin, had stopped beside the bed and was drawing upthe blanket round the small shoulders.

  "I can give orders that the woman be not admitted to-day," said theDozent. "That gives us a few hours. She will go to the police, andto-morrow she will be admitted. In the mean time--"

  "In the mean time," Peter replied, "I'll try to think of something. If Ithought she could be warned and would leave him here--"

  "She will not. She will buy him garments and she will travel with himthrough the Riviera and to Nice. She says Nice. She wishes to be therefor carnival, and the boy will die."

  Peter took the letter and went home. He rode, that he might read itagain in the bus. But no scrap of comfort could he get from it. It spokeof the dead father coldly, and the father had been the boy's idol. Nogood woman could have been so heartless. It offered the boy a seat inone of the least reputable of the Paris theaters to hear his mothersing. And in the envelope, overlooked before, Peter found a cuttingfrom a French newspaper, a picture of the music-hall type that made himgroan. It was indorsed "Mamma."

  Harmony had had a busy morning. First she had put her house in order,working deftly, her pretty hair pinned up in a towel--all in order butPeter's room. That was to have a special cleaning later. Next, stillwith her hair tied up, she had spent two hours with her violin, standingvery close to the stove to save fuel and keep her fingers warm. Sheplayed well that morning: even her own critical ears were satisfied,and the Portier, repairing a window lock in an empty room below, wasentranced. He sat on the window sill in the biting cold and listened.Many music student
s had lived in the apartment with the great salon;there had been much music of one sort and another, but none like this.

  "She tears my heart from my bosom," muttered the Portier, sighing, andalmost swallowed a screw that he held in his teeth.

  After the practicing Harmony cleaned Peter's room. She felt very tendertoward Peter that day. The hurt left by Mrs. Boyer's visit had diedaway, but there remained a clear vision of Peter standing behind thechair and offering himself humbly in marriage, so that a bad situationmight be made better. And as with a man tenderness expresses itself inthe giving of gifts, so with a woman it means giving of service. Harmonycleaned Peter's room.

  It was really rather tidy. Peter's few belongings did not spread to anyextent and years of bachelorhood had taught him the rudiments of order.Harmony took the covers from washstand and dressing table and washed andironed them. She cleaned Peter's worn brushes and brought a pincushionof her own for his one extra scarfpin. Finally she brought her ownsteamer rug and folded it across the foot of the bed. There was no stovein the room; it had been Harmony's room once, and she knew to the fullhow cold it could be.

  Having made all comfortable for the outer man she prepared for theinner. She was in the kitchen, still with her hair tied up, when Annacame home.

  Anna was preoccupied. Instead of her cheery greeting she came somberlyback to the kitchen, a letter in her hand. History was making fast thatday.

  "Hello, Harry," she said. "I'm going to take a bite and hurry off. Don'tbother, I'll attend to myself." She stuffed the letter in her belt andgot a plate from a shelf. "How pretty you look with your head tied up!If stupid Peter saw you now he would fall in love with you."

  "Then I shall take it off. Peter must be saved!"

  Anna sat down at the tiny table and drank her tea. She felt ratherbetter after the tea. Harmony, having taken the towel off, was busy overthe brick stove. There was nothing said for a moment. Then:--

  "I am out of patience with Peter," said Anna.

  "Why?"

  "Because he hasn't fallen in love with you. Where are his eyes?"

  "Please, Anna!"

  "It's better as it is, no doubt, for both of you. But it's superhuman ofPeter. I wonder--"

  "Yes?"

  "I think I'll not tell you what I wonder."

  And Harmony, rather afraid of Anna's frank speech, did not insist.

  As she drank her tea and made a pretense at eating, Anna's thoughtswandered from Peter to Harmony to the letter in her belt and back againto Peter and Harmony. For some time she had been suspicious of Peter.From her dozen years of advantage in age and experience she looked downon Peter's thirty years of youth, and thought she knew something thatPeter himself did not suspect. Peter being unintrospective, Anna did hisheart-searching for him. She believed he was madly in love with Harmonyand did not himself suspect it. As she watched the girl over her teacup,revealing herself in a thousand unposed gestures of youth and grace, athousand lovelinesses, something of the responsibility she and Peter hadassumed came over her. She sighed and felt for her letter.

  "I've had rather bad news," she said at last.

  "From home?"

  "Yes. My father--did you know I have a father?"

  "You hadn't spoken of him."

  "I never do. As a father he hasn't amounted to much. But he's very ill,and--I 've a conscience."

  Harmony turned a startled face to her.

  "You are not going back to America?"

  "Oh, no, not now, anyhow. If I become hag ridden with remorse and do goI'll find some one to take my place. Don't worry."

  The lunch was a silent meal. Anna was hurrying off as Peter came in, andthere was no time to discuss Peter's new complication with her. Harmonyand Peter ate together, Harmony rather silent. Anna's unfortunatecomment about Peter had made her constrained. After the meal Peter, pipein mouth, carried the dishes to the kitchen, and there it was that hegave her the letter. What Peter's slower mind had been a perceptibletime in grasping Harmony comprehended at once--and not only thesituation, but its solution.

  "Don't let her have him!" she said, putting down the letter. "Bring himhere. Oh, Peter, how good we must be to him!"

  And that after all was how the thing was settled. So simple, so obviouswas it that these three expatriates, these waifs and estrays, bandedtogether against a common poverty, a common loneliness, should sharewithout question whatever was theirs to divide. Peter and Anna gavecheerfully of their substance, Harmony of her labor, that a small boyshould be saved a tragic knowledge until he was well enough to bear it,or until, if God so willed, he might learn it himself without pain.

  The friendly sentry on duty again that night proved singularly blind.Thus it happened that, although the night was clear when the twin dialsof the Votivkirche showed nine o'clock, he did not notice a cab thathalted across the street from the hospital.

  Still more strange that, although Peter passed within a dozen feet ofhim, carrying a wriggling and excited figure wrapped in a blanket andinsisting on uncovering its feet, the sentry was able the next day tosay that he had observed such a person carrying a bundle, but thatit was a short stocky person, quite lame, and that the bundle wasundoubtedly clothing going to the laundry.

  Perhaps--it is just possible--the sentry had his suspicions. It isundeniable that as Jimmy in the cab on Peter's knee, with Peter's armclose about him, looked back at the hospital, the sentry was goingthrough the manual of arms very solemnly under the stars and facingtoward the carriage.