Success, A Novel

“To accomplish a dessert as simple and inexpensive as it is tasty,” prescribes The Complete Manual of Cookery, p. 48, “take one cup of thick molasses—­” But why should I infringe a copyright when the culinary reader may acquire the whole range of kitchen lore by expending eighty-nine cents plus postage on 39 T 337?  Banneker had faithfully followed the prescribed instructions.  The result had certainly been simple and inexpensive; presumably it would have proven tasty.  He regretted and resented the rape of the pie.  What aroused greater concern, however, was the presence of thieves.  In the soft ground near the window he found some rather small footprints which suggested that it was the younger of the two hoboes who had committed the depredation.

Theorizing, however, was not the order of his day.  Routine and extra-routine claimed all his time.  There was his supplementary report to make out; the marooned travelers in Manzanita to be looked after and their bitter complaints to be listened to; consultations over the wire as to the condition and probabilities of the roadbed, for the floods had come again; and in and out of it all, the busy, weary, indefatigable Gardner, giving to the agent as much information as he asked from him.  When their final lists were compared, Banneker noticed that there was no name with the initials I.O.W. on Gardner’s.  He thought of mentioning the clue, but decided that it was of too little definiteness and importance.  The news value of mystery, enhanced by youth and beauty, which the veriest cub who had ever smelled printer’s ink would have appreciated, was a sealed book to him.

Not until late that afternoon did a rescue train limp cautiously along an improvised track to set the interrupted travelers on their way.  Gardner went on it, leaving an address and an invitation to “keep in touch.”  Mr. Vanney took his departure with a few benign and well-chosen words of farewell, accompanied by the assurance that he would “make it his special purpose to commend,” and so on.  His nephew, Herbert Cressey, the lily-clad messenger, stopped at the station to shake hands and grin rather vacantly, and adjure Banneker, whom he addressed as “old chap,” to be sure and look him up in the East; he’d be glad to see him any time.  Banneker believed that he meant it.  He promised to do so, though without particular interest.  With the others departed Miss Camilla Van Arsdale’s two emergency guests, one of them the rather splendid young woman who had helped with the wounded.  They invaded Banneker’s office with supplementary telegrams and talked about their hostess with that freedom which women of the world use before dogs or uniformed officials.

“What a woman!” said the amateur nurse.

“And what a house!” supplemented the other, a faded and lined middle-aged wife who had just sent a reassuring and very long wire to a husband in Pittsburgh.

“Very much the chatelaine; grande dame and that sort of thing,” pursued the other.  “One might almost think her English.”

“No.”  The other shook her head positively.  “Old American.  As old and as good as her name.  You wouldn’t flatter her by guessing her to be anything else.  I dare say she would consider the average British aristocrat a little shoddy and loud.”

“So they are when they come over here.  But what on earth is her type doing out here, buried with a one-eyed, half-breed manservant?”

“And a concert grand piano.  Don’t forget that.  She tunes it herself, too.  Did you notice the tools?  A possible romance.  You’ve quite a nose for such things, Sue.  Couldn’t you get anything out of her?”

“It’s much too good a nose to put in the crack of a door,” retorted the pretty woman.  “I shouldn’t care to lay myself open to being snubbed by her.  It might be painful.”

“It probably would.”  The Pittsburgher turned to Banneker with a change of tone, implying that he could not have taken any possible heed of what went before.  “Has Miss Van Arsdale lived here long, do you know?”

The agent looked at her intently for a moment before replying:  “Longer than I have.”  He transferred his gaze to the pretty woman.  “You two were her guests, weren’t you?” he asked.

The visitors glanced at each other, half amused, half aghast.  The tone and implication of the question had been too significant to be misunderstood.  “Well, of all extraordinary—­” began one of them under her breath; and the other said more loudly, “I really beg—­” and then she, too, broke off.

They went out.  “Chatelaine and knightly defender,” commented the younger one in the refuge of the outer office.  “Have we been dumped off a train into the midst of the Middle Ages?  Where do you get station-agents like that?”

“The one at our suburban station chews tobacco and says ‘Marm’ through his nose.”

Banneker emerged, seeking the conductor of the special with a message.

“He is rather a beautiful young thing, isn’t he?” she added.

Returning, he helped them on the train with their hand-luggage.  When the bustle and confusion of dispatching an extra were over, he sat down to think.  But not of Miss Camilla Van Arsdale.  That was an old story, though its chapters were few, and none of them as potentially eventful as this intrusion of Vanneys and female chatterers.

It was the molasses pie that stuck in his mind.  There was no time to make another.  Further, the thought of depredators hanging about disturbed him.  That shack of his was full of Aladdin treasures, delivered by the summoned genii of the Great Book.  Though it was secured by Little Guardian locks and fortified with the Scarem Buzz alarm, he did not feel sure of it.  He decided to sleep there that night with his .45-caliber Sure-shot revolver.  Let them come again; he’d give ’em a lesson!  On second thought, he rebaited the window-ledge with a can of Special Juicy Apricot Preserve.  At ten o’clock he turned in, determined to sleep lightly, and immediately plunged into fathomless depths of unconsciousness, lulled by a singing wind and the drone of the rain.

A light, flashing across his eyes, awakened him.  For a moment he lay, dazed, confused by the gentle and unfamiliar oscillations of his hammock.  Another flicker of light and a rumble of thunder brought him to his full senses.  The rain had degenerated into a casual drizzle and the wind had withdrawn into the higher areas.  He heard some one moving outside.

Very quietly he reached out to the stand at his elbow, got his revolver and his flashlight, and slipped to the floor.  The malefactor without was approaching the window.  Another flash of lightning would have revealed much to Banneker had he not been crouching close under the sill, on the inside, so that the radiance of his light, when he found the button, should not expose him to a straight shot.

A hand fumbled at the open window.  Finger on trigger, Banneker held up his flashlight in his left hand and irradiated the spot.  He saw the hand, groping, and on one of its fingers something which returned a more brilliant gleam than the electric ray.  In his crass amazement, the agent straightened up, a full mark for murder, staring at a diamond-and-ruby ring set upon a short, delicate finger.

No sound came from outside.  But the hand became instantly tense.  It fell upon the sill and clutched it so hard that the knuckles stood out, white, strained and garish.  Banneker’s own strong hand descended upon the wrist.  A voice said softly and tremulously: 

“Please!”

The appeal went straight to Banneker’s heart and quivered there, like a soft flame, like music heard in an unrealizable dream.

“Who are you?” he asked, and the voice said: 

“Don’t hurt me.”

“Why should I?” returned Banneker stupidly.

“Some one did,” said the voice.

“Who?” he demanded fiercely.

“Won’t you let me go?” pleaded the voice.

In the shock of his discovery he had released the flash-lever so that this colloquy passed in darkness.  Now he pressed it.  A girlish figure was revealed, one protective arm thrown across the eyes.

“Don’t strike me,” said the girl again, and again Banneker’s heart was shaken within him by such tremors as the crisis of some deadly fear might cause.

“You needn’t be afraid,” he stammered.

“I’ve never been afraid before,” she said, hanging her weight away from him.  “Won’t you let me go?”

His grip relaxed slightly, then tightened again.  “Where to?”

“I don’t know,” said the appealing voice mournfully.

An inspiration came to Banneker.  “Are you afraid of me?” he asked quietly.

“Of every thing.  Of the night.”

He pressed the flash into her hand, turning the light upon himself.  “Look,” he said.

It seemed to him that she could not fail to read in his face the profound and ardent wish to help her; to comfort and assure an uneasy and frightened spirit wandering in the night.

He heard a little, soft sigh.  “I don’t know you,” said the voice.  “Do I?”

“No,” he answered soothingly as if to a child.  “I’m the station-agent here.  You must come in out of the wet.”

“Very well.”

He tossed an overcoat on over his pajamas, ran to the door and swung it open.  The tiny ray of light advanced, hesitated, advanced again.  She walked into the shack, and immediately the rain burst again upon the outer world.  Banneker’s fleeting impression was of a vivid but dimmed beauty.  He pushed forward a chair, found a blanket for her feet, lighted the “Quick-heater” oil-stove on which he did his cooking.  She followed him with her eyes, deeply glowing but vague and troubled.

“This is not a station,” she said.

“No.  It’s my shack.  Are you cold?”

“Not very.”  She shivered a little.

“You say that some one hurt you?”

“Yes.  They struck me.  It made my head feel queer.”

A murderous fury surged into his brain.  His hand twitched toward his revolver.

“The hoboes,” he whispered under his breath.  “But they didn’t rob you,” he said aloud, looking at the jeweled hand.

“No.  I don’t think so.  I ran away.”

“Where was it?”

“On the train.”

Enlightenment burst upon him.  “You’re sure—­” he began.  Then, “Tell me all you can about it.”

“I don’t remember anything.  I was in my stateroom in the car.  The door was open.  Some one must have come in and struck me.  Here.”  She put her left hand tenderly to her head.

Banneker, leaning over her, only half suppressed a cry.  Back of the temple rose a great, puffed, leaden-blue wale.

“Sit still,” he said.  “I’ll fix it.”

While he busied himself heating water, getting out clean bandages and gauze, she leaned back with half-closed eyes in which there was neither fear nor wonder nor curiosity:  only a still content.  Banneker washed the wound very carefully.

“Does it hurt?” he asked.

“My head feels queer.  Inside.”

“I think the hair ought to be cut away around the place.  Right here.  It’s quite raw.”

It was glorious hair.  Not black, as Cressey had described it in his hasty sketch of the unknown I.O.W.; too alive with gleams and glints of luster for that.  Nor were her eyes black, but rather of a deep-hued, clouded hazel, showing troubled shadows between their dark-lashed, heavy lids.  Yet Banneker made no doubt but that this was the missing girl of Cressey’s inquiry.

“May I?” he said.

“Cut my hair?” she asked.  “Oh, no!”

“Just a little, in one place.  I think I can do it so that it won’t show.  There’s so much of it.”

“Please,” she answered, yielding.

He was deft.  She sat quiet and soothed under his ministerings.  Completed, the bandage looked not too unworkmanlike, and was cool and comforting to the hot throb of the wound.

“Our doctor went back on the train, worse luck!” he said.

“I don’t want any other doctor,” she murmured.  “I’d rather have you.”

“But I’m not a doctor.”

“No,” she acquiesced.  “Who are you?  Did you tell me?  You are one of the passengers, aren’t you?”

“I’m the station-agent at Manzanita.”

For a moment she looked at him wonderingly.  “Are you?  I don’t seem to understand.  My head is very queer.”

“Don’t try to.  Here’s some tea and crackers.”

“I’m starved,” she said.

With subtle stirrings of delight, he watched her eat the bit that he had prepared for her while heating the water.  But he was wise enough to know that she must not have much while the extent of her injury was still undetermined.

“Are you wet?” he inquired.

She nodded.  “I haven’t been dry since the flood.”

“I have a room with a real stove in it over the station.  I’ll build a fire, and you must take off your wet things and go to bed and sleep.  If you need anything you can hammer on the floor.”

“But you—­”

“I’ll be in my office, below.  I’m on night duty to-night,” said he, tactfully fabricating.

“Very well.  You’re awfully kind.”

He adjusted the oil-stove, threw a warmed blanket over her feet, and hurried to his room to build the promised fire.  When he came back she smiled.

“You are good to me!  It’s stupid of me—­my head is so queer—­did you say you were—­”

“The station-agent.  My name is Banneker.  I’m responsible to the company for your safety and comfort.  You’re not to worry about it, nor think about it, nor ask any questions.”

“No,” she agreed, and rose.

He threw the blanket around her shoulders.  At the protective touch she slipped her hand through his arm.  So they went out into the night.

Mounting the stairs, she stumbled, and for a moment he felt the firm, warm pressure of her body against him.  It shook him strangely.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured.  And, a moment later, “Good-night, and thank you.”

Taking the hand which she held out, he returned her good-night.  The door closed.  He turned away and was halfway down the flight when a sudden thought recalled him.  He tapped on the door.

“What is it?” asked the serene music of the voice.

“I don’t want to bother you, but there’s just one thing I forgot.  Please give me your name.”

“What for?” returned the voice doubtfully.

“I must report it to the company.”

“Must you?” The voice seemed to be vaguely troubled.  “To-night?”

“Don’t give a thought to it,” he said.  “To-morrow will do just as well.  I’m sorry to have troubled you.”

“Good-night,” she said again.

“Can’t remember her own name!” thought Banneker, moved and pitiful.

Darkness and quiet were grateful to him as he entered the office.  By sense of direction he found his chair, and sank into it.  Overhead he could hear the soft sound of her feet moving about the room, his room.  Quiet succeeded.  Banneker, leagues removed from sleep, or the hope of it, despite his bodily weariness, followed the spirit of wonder through starlit and sunlit realms of dream.

The telegraph-receiver clicked.  Not his call.  But it brought him back to actualities.  He lighted his lamp and brought down the letter-file from which had been extracted the description of the wreck for Gardner of the Angelica City Herald.

Drawing out the special paper, he looked at the heading and smiled.  “Letters to Nobody.”  He took a fresh sheet and began to write.  Through the night he wrote and dreamed and dozed and wrote again.  When a sound of song, faint and sweet and imminent, roused him to lift his sleep-bowed head from the desk upon which it had sunk, the gray, soiled light of a stormy morning was in his eyes.  The last words he had written were: 

“The breast of the world rises and falls with your breathing.”

Banneker was twenty-four years old, and had the untainted soul of a boy of sixteen.