The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, 22 May 1913, Page 5

The Storyteller

ADVICE 'Yes, I know that I need it badly enough. And I know that you could throw a lot of business my way,' said Robert Creighton wearily. ' But what is the extra thousand for? You only paid your regular men five hundred for the search of each title in that plot. What's it for?' ' Why, for the magnificent prestige of your name, your reputation, of course.' - / ..(■_.■■ Creighton was on his feet: ' Mr. Bailey, you know where I stand, you know that I'm in difficulties. But these difficulties do not give you any right to sneer.' ' Hold tight, young man, hold tight, nobody's sneering, I meant just that.' And Bailey, a big, loose- . lipped, over-flowing sort of man, stretched out and pushed Creighton easily back into his seat. ' Here, it is,' he went on, ' you can take it or leave it. Those other titles were clear, do you see ? I paid for having them searched. This one isn't. Your business is not to search too close. Now do you see?' 'No, I don't,' said Creighton, 'your own lawyers could have been as blind asnecessary.' 'Well, then, that's not all of it,' the big man admitted. ' Old Peter McCarthy is putting up the money for this plot. He don't know titles, but he knows men— he saysand he won't take the word of my searchers or his own. But he knew your father, and he knows you, and he'll take your word. That's it is.' ■' Creighton sat for a time staring vacantly at Bailey -until the latter, becoming nervous, flowed over the other arm of his chair. Then Creighton shook himself and asked drearity: ' Mr. Bailey, do you suppose you could point out the thing that I've ever done that makes you believe that I'd sell out my father's good name for a thousand dollars?' * Oh, come !' the other protested, * it isn't like that, you're not doing McCarthy any harm. He can't lose.

The? other ; people, whoever they are, will never :be able to prove a title—if there are any of them alive. All you've got to tell McCarthy is that there 1 no flaw in our title. There. isn'tit'll never be questioned—it's the same thing. - - ■;■. - . ' Come on uptown and we'll talk .it over.> I'm going up to the Club.? What do you stick down here in this rat hole till this hour for? Come on up where it's light, and clear your head out. The big man was 1 almost boyish in overflowing, spirits, and he wanted to get Creighton away from sober thoughts into tho-lights and the crowd. There he could make him see things as other people saw them. ' lr But Creighton only turned back to his .desk, mumbling about things to be done. Bailey . hesitated a moment then, thinking better, he went away without another word. So far he had won! Creighton had not refused. Better leave it so than risk any more argument. "■' Creighton did not do any of the things he had mentioned. Instead, he sat, head on hands, looking, mentally, at himself. And the sight did not please him. How far, how very far he had gone since that night when he had held his young wife's hand and seen her die! Almost to the last she had gently pleaded with him to be firm always, to be true to his best at all times. How well Monica had known him. _ She, with the clear sight of those who are beginning to break through. the veil of the flesh, she had seen that it' would not be principles or understanding that he would need. Those latter came with the fineness of his mind. Rather he would need that certain stiffness of character, that everyday bluntness of right, which breaks through evasions,, and distinctions, to get at the open face of truth. She had supplied that to him. In the light of ' what she would say,' when she was here to say it,l there was no place for shadings of right and wrong. She saw them one or the other.. This was the first time that he had actually let people offer him money for a doubtful thing. But there had been other things, one after another: a little weakness here, a little lack of; plainness there. He was ashamed and afraid of them all. At first the memory of her had held him. But the things of life are very real, and they insist every day, and a memory is a memory. '"..'' J Now in his shame and weakness he was almost blaming her for leaving him, for having gone away from his need. He was very lonely, and he felt that things. crowded and insisted and choked him. Also he pitied. himself a little— is always weakening. In the end he put out the lights, roused the dozing elevator boy, and was let down and out into the cavernous, deserted darkness of William street. The mood of helplessness, of desertion, went with him all the way up the crowded subway until he let himself into his own dark home. Monica Vera had known for a long time that there' . was something wrong, but had not been able to say what. Now she knew that she was very lonely, and had no one to go to. Yes, there was Ellen, but she was always busy, hurrying to get the work done and get out as soon as Monica Vera was in bed. But this was not the real trouble. When one is not quite eight and is suddenly confronted by the fact that one is not fulfilling the duties of one's state in life, there is much to be thought of. Coming out of church yesterday Monica Vera had walked behind Mrs. Regan and Mrs. Bain, her neighborsone across the street, the other next door on the left. Mrs. Regan was talking about Monica Vera's father, and Monica Vera had choked, but listened. ' He is not at Mass to-day,' Mrs. Regan said, ' no, an' I see him missin'. often these last Sundays. He comes home that late at night, draggin' one foot ahint the other and lookin' all tired an' beat. An' my man hears that he's in money trouble.' ' There's not much to come home to at night'—Mrs Bain was willing to see excuse' with the house all dark as a pocket, and that blade of an Ellen out, and the child asleep. Not a soul to say as much as "come in" to him.

'That's ? the truth, -an', it's the pettin'. they all speeds—every one in his own -way, of;''course. There's Regan, I'd get no good at all of him if I didn't give him a bit of talkin' to once in a while. He needs that. $ Others need ; f other -things, - accordin' to U the make of them. They're all that helpless together.' [\ 'A man/ agreed, Mrs. /Bain profoundly, 'a man without a woman in the house, he's—he's—l'm sorry for him.' , ; t*£k ~~?pA%9 -'''"---' £P3i~. Now when Monica Vera arrived home her father was in the dining-room munching gloomily at some toast. .: The absent-minded quality of the morning kiss struck Mona Vera for the first time. r Ohoe she had known kisses far different from this, but' that was a long, long time . ago, and she had almost : forgotten. She did not know what made, the difference.■;'-;But? shei knew that her father sometimes forgot whether he had • eaten his toast or not. Now she thought that -hei might s as easily forget whether%e had kissed her or not. Then her father went away for the day. : : : " : v v,-Catechism on Sunday-afternoon is not a joy to all girls. But to Monica Vera it came as a very welcome ; break in a 'long, long Sunday afternoon bounded entirely by the lonely empty house and the just as lonely and empty back yard. -In Sunday school Monica Vera attacked her problem, or rather, it attacked : her in a very " determined way. The lesson was on the matter of the duties of one's state in life. Monica Vera knew both the questions and the answers-r-she could : have conducted the recitation without a book, but neither the questions nor, the answer seemed to fit her difficulty. - ■ The long part of the afternoon at home after catechism went away somehow and still there was ho answer. She ate her dinner, Ellen serving, alone her father insisted on this—and finally went to bed with her question. When she heard Ellen go out she cried a little before falling asleep. But whether that was just on account of the dark or the loneliness, or because she could not find the answer, I am not sure. In the morning one thing only was plain. Mrs. Blain had said that the real need was of a woman in the house. Ellen of course did not count. Mrs. Regan had said that they all needed petting, of one kind or the other. Monica Vera had often felt the need of a little petting herself, though she had not known what it was. But she knew of no way of petting her father, when He- went away early in the morning and did not return till she had been long asleep. ~ - She could not pet him over the telephone, he was always busy and worried away when you talked over the 'phone.Her prayers that night were troubled. And Ellen worried her by coining twice to see if she were in bed. Ellen was in a hurry to go out. : Monica Vera did not know that the ' woman in the house' must be one to take her mother's place. She could not know how great was her father's need for just the unblinking courage of right that was her own heritage from her mother. You could see it already in the straight line across her brows, by the clear, steady way she looked into your eyes. But Monica Vera had been thinking very hard for two days— people would say that all that thinking was not good for her—it might make her imaginative. I do not know. She was sure that she was not asleep, and her mother whispered in her ear. . Mother, used to come often— after she went away, but she had not come much for a year or more now. The other times were dreams, Monica Vera knew. But this time she knew she was awake because she got up right away and • started down to see The Lady in the alcove. .. That was what mother said to do. - r-J : The. alcove was at the end of the hall on the second floor. Mother had curtained off a space, and within the curtain there was a tiny altar with a lamp on it and two large kneelers and a very little one, for a little girl of five. At eight it is a long time since one was five— things are forgotten. But Monica Vera had not entirely forgotten how father and mother used to kneel on the large kneelers and she on the very little one, for a baby of five. And after mother had gone away father used to bring Monica Vera to kneel with

him. But'one evening when'Monica Vera was sleepy "and wanted mother she had "spoken right out loud to The Lady in the alcove and had asked for ' muvver 'and' when she was coming back. Father had risen "and . shivered, just as you do when you are cold, and gone away, and they had never come to the alcove again, v- Ellen, for her own reasons, -having to do with -thunder storms, kept oil in the lamp and matches at hand. ' ::, ■_--'_- ~ - ■/;i : /-..;'";>/■ ; ;;-/ •-..-■.,;. Monica Vera did not take the very little kneeler, but f the one that was mother ~ ' /■';,.< s As the little deep-red lamp, glowed up it showed a very wonderful Lady in the alcove. She wag looking down into the eyes of the Babe and adoring. But if- ■- you /looked/long, into the' eyes of this Mother of Consolation you could see that they also looked into the ; eyes of/ every troubled child on earth, and . understood. t Monica Vera did not say all this to herself, but she was •sure that The Lady understood her trouble and would help her to be the 'woman in the house and to fulfil the duties ..of; her state in life. Arid when '; she had finished all., her prayers she did not think of going to bed. Instead she knelt looking into the understanding eyes of Tke Lady in the alcove. ' . Robert Creighton dragged ; j himself Slowly up the dark stairs of his house—to the hall on the second floor. /. His spirit was" numb with weariness, but £ his heart ached dully in the- desolation* and desertion of the house. - His soul moaned for the presence of her -who had made this house a home. ' . '.. :~ ' As he mounted the last step he stopped 1 and" gripped the bannister desperately. , A little robin of soft light ran down the middle of the curtains at the end of the hall. His heart leaped back to the many nights he had come slipping into the house and up the- stairs to see that light, just so, and to find his girl wife kneeling there within the. curtain saying her night rosary before The Lady... ;'■"-. '. J A'--.Vf : ■ ' >'-- '-'■'-, - Then his desolation settled around him again as he thought: Of course, Ellen had lighted the little lamp and forgotten it. , - As he pulled aside the curtain the -vague soft light on Monica Vera, kneeling there in the other Monica's place, had brought out a little trick of the curve of the neck, a little turn of the wrist as it lay on the kneeler. The resemblance was so painfully true that for an instant he had thought ! .| .- . , / He lifted Monica Vera very tenderly and turned her face to the light. He was looking-for the long, straight line across the top of the eyebrows—the 'truth line-' he used to call it in theJace of the other Monica. It was here so clear and so wonderful in the minature that he kissed it in wondering reverence. ,-." Monica Vera stirred at the kiss and began to awaken. But her .first' words came out of a dream. Or some long forgotten words that she had once heard turned up to the surface of her mind, for? as she opened the big, unblinking, fearless eyes that seemed to Creighton to look unto his very soul, she said: 'You are very late to-night, " Rob.' Creighton almost dropped the little bundle from his arm. Then he held her . very close. * The words, caught back from some time when she had heard them, the curve of the little lips, the wonderful, mother eyes of her struck him dumb with a mysterious bewildering joy- \ t ;... ;t .-. .'. . _ ' ; In his misery he had almost asked her to come back. And she had answered, in this little body and soul, that she had never left him. . "* Then Monica Vera became fully awake and found that she was very happy. She did not know how truly she had become in the moment .the ' woman in the house,' but she was being petted exceedingly, and that was very good. Even when she was back in bed she did not wish to go back to sleep because it was so nice to feel her father's arm stretched under the pillow. Finally, when she slept soundly, her father stole away very content. Then it occurred to him that he had forgotten something. Oh, yes, two things. ; He Went down to the telephone and called Bailey's club. In the 'truth line' and in those eyes he had found his anchor again, and his soul : was lightly unafraid. •*. '-'■■:; '---- -s- ■"--'-. '•i-::---:< ; i^ : ='■. .--■{"'■■i'

2 'l guess, Mr. Bailey,' he said, when he recognised ~f the voice "oh the wire, ■■".' you'll have to use your own lawyers on that title matter.. I cannot do it for you.' ■' Can't came back in mumbling petulance. Can't ? What's the reason you can't?' ' • • ;. :^: ' 'Well, then, to put it clearly, I've had, well—advice,' he said,; half laughing to himself; 'on ,the matter, and I will not do it.' x , ; I - " ■:•'.■■■■■"■ He hung up the receiver and went up to the alcove matters of his own. Exchange. . -