The Thief (Smedley)

by Constance Smedley

 

THE THIEF

By CONSTANCE SMEDLEY
Author of "An April Princess," "For Heart o' Gold," etc.

Illustrations by Franklin Booth

THE afternoon sunlight filtered between the tops of the opposite houses, and sent one or two wandering beams into a fourth story room in a dispirited attempt to brighten it. It was a typical London office; a drab-colored wall-paper on which sprawled pink flowers of an unknown genus was the only attempt at decoration. The mantel-piece supported a row of ledgers. Black tin boxes lined the recesses. Tables and desk were piled with files of papers, from which the desk-telephone rose like a miniature lighthouse.

Its occupant was as unattractive as the room. He had been sitting at the desk for some time, occupied and heavy. In spite of his achievements, Joshua Chubb was not an imposing person. His indeterminate mustache and scanty hair gave him a mild, inoffensive look that was completed by his washed-out coloring and the bowed shoulders, evidence of a sedentary life. The casual observer might miss the dogged force that showed in brow and jaw. One does not rise from retailing hardware goods to the proud position of a merchant prince, commanding factories, without that quality.

There was a compression of the pasty lips now that bespoke determination, as Joshua Chubb sat and brooded. He had the habit of achieving his ambitions, however impossibly remote they seemed. Yet there are some things that may be beyond the most determined man's power of capture; one of these is a girl's fancy.

Joshua Chubb had had no time for romance in his industrious youth. Perhaps that was why his surrender was so sudden and preposterous in middle age. A girl's face had come between him and his account books, and for its possession he had deliberately set on one side the duties of his provincial citizenship, had struck his tent, and carried his ardent self to London to begin at the bottom of the climbers' ladder. It was a long ladder that led from Councilor Joshua Chubb to the Honorable Phyllis Chisholm, as long as the distance between the Birmingham Council-House and the Covent Garden Opera foyer, where the pure child-face, surmounted by its coronal of golden hair, had first drifted across his bewildered vision. He discovered who she was before he left the opera-house; the discovery did not deter him from pursuit. Other men, as awkward and unversed in the ways of society as himself, had pushed into the rarefied air where Miss Phyllis Chisholm and her kind disported. With infinite resolution Joshua started to push, too.

A year's incessant toiling had brought him gradually nearer to the goal of his desire. After haunting Miss Chisholm's presence with a pertinacity that was unconscious of rebuff, he had tracked her down at the most expensive charity fête of the reason, and by dint of spending prodigally had won favor at the flower-stall at which Miss Chisholm was the prettiest feature. The smiles that the afternoon had gained for him emboldened him to approach her that night when they met at another equally imposing function. Infinite ingenuity had contrived a tête-à-tête with her. He had utilized it promptly by proposing. Miss Chisholm's emphatic refusal had been permeated with a contempt that even now set his sluggish blood tingling.

And yet Joshua Chubb was not deterred one iota from his purpose. Miss Chisholm was poor, as society counts "poor"; she was as yet the property of no other man. Wherefore Joshua Chubb sat before his desk, and spun vain imaginings. He had not done a stroke of work since lunch.

That he held his dreams important was shown by the start of irritation he gave when the door opened. He had turned, indeed, with sharp reproof upon his lips, reproof that died voiceless as he sat staring at the card that the clerk had placed upon his desk.

For he had neared his goal by another step—rather, a bewildering, mighty leap, the unexpectedness and magnitude of which almost overpowered him. Miss Chisholm's name looked up at him.

"I told her you saw people only by appointment, sir, but she said you would see her."

"Show her in."

The clerk withdrew. Chubb was left to collect his dizzied faculties. Chisholm would be with him in a moment. Not only would they be alone together—a fact of sufficient significance in itself—but she had sought him out. She had left the flower-filled parks and squares and had adventured into the sordid City with its never-ending roar and traffic. She had sought him, Joshua Chubb: she, the intangible will-o'-the-wisp whom he had pursued so hopelessly this weary year. He had controlled himself by the time the door reopened, and rose to meet her with a matter-of-fact stolidity. She came forward with a somewhat embarrassed air in spite of her natural self-possession.

"I hope you aren't very busy, Mr. Chubb. I won't keep you long. It—it was urgently important that I should see you."

Chubb returned to the desk, watching her with ever-fresh amazement at her subtle elegance. Every movement was a revelation: the poise of her well-tournured head, the slope of her hat, the indescribable froth of filmy frills that showed when she crossed one silk-clad foot over the other and held her parasol across her knee in an assumption of business-like composure.

And her face! Exquisite as a wild-rose petal, it tilted toward him with its proud curve from ear to chin, its fine small nose, and softly molded mouth.

There were many girls as pretty as Phyllis Chisholm, many prettier than she; thousands as carefully attired; but to Joshua Chubb the mere attributes of her clan were a distinguishing hall-mark, setting her apart from other women.

Though Miss Chisholm's business was so important, she did not seem in a hurry to state it. Her hands played uneasily with the parasol; her gaze wandered round the room as if in search of an object of distraction.

"How busy this room looks! You are sure you aren't too rushed to spare a little time?"

"The whole afternoon's at your disposal if you wish it."

"Oh, no, I shall have to go at once, almost at once." The words came feverishly; the girl's face was flushed. Her bosom rose and fell in patent agitation. A noise was humming through her ears, a dull, monotonous murmur that was in some way connected with the difficulty she experienced in breathing. She forced herself to look at the man fronting her. His unspeakably commonplace appearance made her task at once more easy—and more hateful. If she looked at him much longer, she could not do it.

She had conquered her pride and prejudices sufficiently to come to his office. Now she was here, it was absurd to hesitate. There came a hardening of the delicate features. When one is deliberately committing suicide, it is best to take the plunge with the loss of as little time as possible. She forced the words from her parched lips:

"You asked me to marry you, last week."

The words reverberated through the silence. She could not look at his dull face. Her eyes were nearly closed. Now that her intention stood revealed in all its glaring nakedness, her spirit failed her. Oh, lamentably it failed her. If only an earthquake would have sent a friendly shock and engulfed her, or a fire burst out and consumed her, there, that moment, before the dreaded provincial burr could answer!

Nature, however, is sparing with her cataclysms. Nothing happened. The answer for which she waited came.

If it were slow in coming, it must be remembered that great joy is as paralyzing as great horror. Now that Miss Chisholm was within his reach she seemed more unattainable than even on that first night when she had sat a thousand miles away from him—though only a few yards separated his seat in the balcony from her box. But there she was part of a social structure that might be surmounted. Here she was herself, of transcendental fairness, immeasurably aloof from earth's sordidity.

But the fact that she was here could mean only the one stupendous fact. She needed him in some way, needed him so desperately that she could not wait to summon him to her presence. She had come to offer—herself!

Was there ever such a perversion of all that was fit and natural!

"Yes, Miss Chisholm. The offer still stands."

Fortunately for himself, his voice gave no evidence of his emotion. Its composed accents helped the girl. He treated her errand as a matter of business. She must view it in the same light.

"I will accept it."

Miss Chisholm had not such a training in repression for her aid. In spite of herself her accents faltered, somewhat faintly. But she had spoken the words.

Illustration: HE STRUCK HIS TENT AND CARRIED HIS ARDENT SELF TO LONDON.

There was a terrible little silence. A gleam of fire had leaped into the man's eyes; an unbecoming flush suffused his face. He was an imaginative man for all his grayness, and he was realizing what her words meant. His instinct, however, was very sensitive; he knew he must not frighten her. He spoke with intuition;

"That's very good of you. You know how grateful I shall be."

The girl was standing. Her gown floated diaphanously about her. A plumy hat of feathery lightness shaded the spun-gold hair and rose-leaf face, now pale and tense. She threw her head back with a sudden jerk and blurted out what she had come for:

"If I were in trouble—you—you would help me, wouldn't you?"

A rush of pity struck at the man's heart. She was in sore need. It was written in her intensity. And she had come to him!

"Of course."

"I knew you would. I want one hundred pounds—now—this moment."

He had guessed she wanted money; but he could give it her. There lay his glory and his triumph. She had come to him in her despair; she would come to him again and again, certain always of his generosity. No other man should give as he would give.

Never in his life had Joshua Chubb felt such pride in his millions. They could purchase him his heart's desire. Spent recklessly, extravagantly, goldenly, they should in time win her gratitude and her absolute dependence on him.… Who knows! her love might come.

He drew his check-book toward him as a wizard might draw his talisman. She had come for money! That was the one thing he could give her—and in what abundance! A hundred! It was nothing. There was the pity of it. It was so small a sum.

"Made payable to yourself?"

"No! Not a check! There isn't time."

Her tone caught his ear; he held his pen arrested in midair. She felt the change of atmosphere. She spoke with feverish haste:

"The banks close at four. It's ten minutes to, now. I can't possibly get down in time to change it. I must have it in cash. Gold—silver—lots of silver—and some coppers—not many, but a few. And one or two five-pound notes. I think there were three."

She had put her hand to her forehead, pressing it in desperate pursuit of memory, so did not see suspicion creeping like a cold gray snake into the eyes of the man who watched her. This was a strange debt she wished pay!

"Why do you want it in cash?"

She was losing her self-control.

"That doesn't matter."

The caution that had helped in the winning of his millions showed itself; also the obstinacy his opponents had encountered.

"Excuse me. It matters so much that I don't send to the bank without knowing the reason!"

"It will be loo late!" The girl's eyes were fixed upon the clock. Its ticking mocked her. Every tick meant a second nearer to—discovery!

The man's phlegm increased proportionately to the girl's agitation. He sat still in his chair, his gray eyes fixed on her, his pale face heavy and judicial in expression. Something was wrong, very badly wrong. There was fear in Miss Chisolm's countenance.

"I have told you I will give it you if you will tell me your reason."

When it is a question of a bitter draft or immediate dissolution, one does not hesitate. Miss Chisholm was very white, but her enunciation was singularly distinct:

"The bazaar committee meets at five. I have to pay it back to them."

The receiver of the telephone was off, Mr. Chubb was giving directions. Miss Chisholm heard them as in a dream. She was conscious of a sense of infinite relief, which was yet overpressed with an insufferable horror. She had bought relief with a double price.

"It will be here in ten minutes."

She woke to the perception that Chubb was addressing her. It was necessary to say something: thanks, explanation.

Her voice had lost its confidence. "I don't know how I can thank you. I only know to-day that it was to come up at committee. No one's told me a word. It shows up one's friends, doesn't it? I overheard at my club, quite by accident; of course it's a woman who's doing it all. I don't know how I could have been so stupid! I simply can't think."

She clasped her hands together with an anguished little gesture. She looked more childish than ever, as she sat there in her fragile, expensive prettiness. She had to justify herself for the sake of her own pride; she could not bear to think of the common creature opposite judging her. Besides, it was a relief to speak. It stopped thought.

"I had lost a lot to her at bridge. I'm sure she cheats. No one could have the luck that she has! I could have paid, if she would have been determined enough to wait, but she's a perfect fiend. She's always been jealous of me because of Re—my cousin. She thought she could show me up before him. Oh, she is low. And she's on the bazaar committee. I've paid her, and she couldn't attack me any more about the bridge debt; so this is her revenge. Oh, how could I have done it; how could I! I must have been mad."

"You took a hundred?"

The girl winced.

"N—no, at least every one's awfully careless at bazaars. I didn't mean to take it. I'd stuffed a heap into that little bag I carried; it hung to my belt, and when I paid in I never thought of it. I found it when I got home. I suppose I ought to have sent it up to Mrs. Capper—I know I ought—but there was another letter waiting from that woman and the money was staring from the table; and I'd paid in—no one had said anything—why couldn't Mrs. Capper have said it was too little at the time? But she thanked me; no one would have suspected if I hadn't paid my debt straight off. Oh, I was a fool!"

"You say the bazaar committee meets to-day? To consider the matter?"

"No. It's a meeting to receive the accounts, but this woman was going to bring the question up. Now I shall spike her guns; I'll send down the bag to Mrs. Capper, and say my maid's just found it. Thank God! Oh, I'm so grateful. If you hadn't given it——"

She closed her eyes, and swayed slightly, shuddering. "But you have! You have! No one will ever know. I am grateful, I am grateful: I will keep my word. I'll tell people I'm engaged to you. You can send it to all the papers. I'll live with you—in Birmingham. You won't find—that I sha'n't keep my word."

Illustration: WHERE THE PURE CHILD-FACE HAD FIRST DRIFTED ACROSS HIS BEWILDERED VISION.

And yet the horror of the prospect was so apparent that the most insensitive man could not have heard her promises with satisfaction. Chubb was keenly sensitive.

Feeling seldom penetrated the outside crust of clumsiness with which nature had surrounded a strong and honorable soul. Even now, in his surpassing bitterness, his voice was blunt and flectionless:

"There's one thing I can't understand. You show pretty plainly what you think of me—or rather what you feel toward me. I've nothing to do with you. I know you've heaps of friends—moneyed friends—to whom a hundred would be a mere fleabite. There's the aunt you live with——"

"She'd—talk!"

Again Miss Chisholm's face had blanched with terror at the thought. Her words came with difficulty:

"I couldn't trust her."

Suspicion reared its head, uglily. There was some reason lurking behind her appeal to him. The more he looked upon her loveliness, the more bitterly he realized that there must be a hundred men of her own class—her friends and intimates—who would have been only too glad to lend her the paltry sum required. Why had she chosen so to immolate herself—to come and beg from him, a man whom she despised and shuddered from? The glory of the triumph was departing. Somehow he did not feel it was a triumph now. Only an ugly mystery that he must unravel.

"But there are others—other men."

"They all know Rex."

Miss Chisholm was only twenty, and was not yet versed in the arts of concealment. The shame of her downfall swept over her in waves, submerging prudence. There was only one thought dominating her whole heart: Rex must not know! For that reason she had come for help to this queer stray from a far-off world. He would carry her away and bury her in the morass of his dull provincial city, away from all the gleam and radiance of life, away from all the warmth and love and joy in which for two short seasons she had radiantly disported. But better that than——

Anger seized her at the man's stupidity that could not realize how inevitable her step had been. Did he not understand his remoteness from her world? The sureness of burial—burial of her and all her sins—with him? We have said that Miss Chisholm was not practised in diplomacy. She was young; and youth seldom realizes that other people can feel, too. Its own emotions are so poignant; its egotism is so all-embracing.

The girl was eaten up with shame; the whole held nothing but her tragedy. And this man who must play a part in it sat still in stupid incomprehension of the inevitableness of the climax.

"Oh, can't yuu understand!" She thumped a small, clenched hand upon the desk-top, unconscious in her misery. "You're not in our world. You don't know us; you come from Birmingham! Of course I've friends who'd lend it me, but they all know the woman; they'd guess at once. And if I confessed and made them promise—well, they wouldn't mean to tell, but temptation would surround them. Things like that get out so easily. I couldn't be sure."

"But you say people are talking?"

"Yes. But it's only gossip now. Rex wouldn't believe gossip. He loves me—loves me—loves me! He'll be furious with the scandalmongers. He'll be furious with the woman. And oh, he'll still believe me. That's all I care about. He would have lent it me—why, we were to have been married in the autumn—but he would have known. I couldn't bear that. I'd rather lose him than his belief. Oh, it's worth marrying—even you!"

"Was there no one else?"

The cynicism in the man's voice did not strike her. She was too tragically in earnest.

"No. There was no other way. I'd thought of making an end to myself. But it would have made the scandal so much worse; more definite. I think Rex would have minded that much more than this. It's quite respectable to marry you. He'll just think me faithless. Heaps of women are that. He'll be angry, but it won't hurt him—you don't think it will hurt him as much? I can't think. My brain's tired. I've cried so."

Her pride had vanished, swept away in the desolation that consumed her. The pasty-faced man who sat and stared at her was only a puppet, something that belonged to the mise en scène around her. Tears were streaming down her cheeks; she wept with utter abandon, oblivious of everything but her grief.

She had to renounce all she loved; to immolate herself; to step from paradise into ugliness and horror; to give herself to Joshua Chubb.

Pasty-faced nonentities have feelings, too, however; feelings that ravage their dull bodies fiercely. A fire of jealousy rushed over Chubb, lit by his pride and his love alike. For all his insignificant appearance he was a man, and a man of force and power. The poorest weakling cannot help but wince at the scorn of the woman he has set his puny heart upon; when a man of Joshua Chubb's caliber is made light of, woe be to the woman who shows she holds him of so small account.

His manhood rose up in revolt. It was stronger than his passion. How could such worship as his had been satisfy itself with the mere gratification of desire? He had built a temple of his every ideal, to shelter and do honor to the object of his passion; and behold, his idol had proved false, and the ideals had collapsed and crumbled in her presence. Yet from their ruin she still dared to mock at him and scorn his worship, she who had proved false!

The brute instinct that lies in all men who are men leaped up within the heart of Joshua Chubb, the instinct that cried to him to prove his might and turn and rend the prey that flouted him.

Something rose up in his throat, making his accents husky. His hand was trembling on the desk.

"One moment. You're doing all the talking. I've something to say. It may be worth your while to marry—even me; but what about me? Suppose I've a prejudice in favor of an honest woman for my wife? Suppose I jib—as any of your fine friends would—as your cousin would—at a thief?"

"A thief!"

The girl was standing staring at him. He had forced himself upon her plane of vision. She stared at him as at some monstrous object that and suddenly obtruded itself to the obscuring of all else.

"A thief! A woman who takes the thanks of the public and its charity, and pinches her friends' money to pay her gambling debts. My five-pound note wasn't so dirty for your dainty fingers. And you come and offer yourself to me as if you still conferred an honor! Oh, it's all right, I'll pay the money; but I pay it as the price of my escape."

Hard words; but they were dealing with hard facts. There are certain bare, elemental situations in which society's refinements slip away and polished cruelty meets its match in the coarse outburst of an anguished brute.

"You won't—take—me?"

"Take you! You——"

The door had opened. The word stopped—fortunately stopped—on the man's lips. There are certain things no woman could forget. Joshua Chubb was spared the bitterness of remembrance that might have been his portion had his clerk not entered at that moment.

He bore the money sent up from the bank and laid it on Chubb's desk; then withdrew, closing the door behind him.

The moment's interval gave the man a chance to recover his self-control. He picked up the bag of money and half threw it across the table toward the girl.

"There you are. Take it and go."

"I can't—now——!"

The girl stared motionless, still staring at him wide-eyed, white-lipped, helpless.

"What d'yer mean?"

He spoke with savage roughness. The sight of her struck to his heart.

"Why, just that. That I can't take it. You say you don't want me. So I've nothing—to give you in exchange!"

"But the scandal?"

"I must face it."

Phyllis Chisholm's father had died in action. She looked oddly like him as she fumbled rather falteringly for her parasol. The childish eyes were wide with a sick fear, and yet unalterable resignation lit them. She must face the fire.

"Wait. Wait. Your cousin will know!"

"Yes."

"There's the money. I promised it to you."

"Yes; when you thought me fit to be your wife. What do you call it? False pretenses. I've stolen once, but I'm not a thief. I should be stealing your promise if I did not give it back to you. It was only that I didn't think—I didn't understand."

With a little sob she turned toward the door, groping for the handle.

Suddenly her way was barred. Joshua Chubb stood against the door.

"Steady on!"

His voice was husky still, but he was not ridiculous. Thank God, there are moments when humanity breaks forth alive and palpitating, and man-made conventions shrivel up and show themselves for the poor ashes that they are. In those moments, God gives all men dignity.

"You'll take that money. You owe it me to take it. You owe it me."

I can't."

Illustration: "SUPPOSE I JIB—AS ANY OF YOUR FINE FRIENDS WOULD—AT A THIEF?"

"Yes, you can. Look here. You and your set think pf me as an aspiring bounder, if you ever think at all. I am not that. I'm only a man—in love. I fell in love with you on sight. I saw you at the opera, the first time I ever went there. I'd come up to London on a business trip and I thought I'd see what it was like; and I saw you. There's nothing to say except that I fell in love—as any young fool might have done—as lots have, I make no doubt! Only I'm used to going for what I want, and getting it. There I was, a rich man, a councilor, a governor of the General Hospital, one of Birmingham's leading men; and as far removed from you and your world as if I'd been a crossing-sweeper. But I'd money. Money had helped other people to get near such as you. It helped me. I worked hard. Charities—politics—grease for titled palms—there was nothing I didn't stoop to. But I got in! Within speaking distance of you. Taking it all in all, I reckon the last year's cost me something like fifty thousand pounds—oh, more than that—a good deal more; and what have I got for it? I've climbed from your indifference to your contempt. That's all. Now—in return for all I've spent to get near you—in return for all I've given up—you take this paltry hundred pounds, and let me feel I've been of service to you. I don't want anything else——"

"I will marry you, if you want me."

"Oh, Lord, Lord! If I want you? Want you! But I want you to be happy first. Take it. Stop their chattering tongues. Don't stop to argue!"

"Yes, but what of you?"

Youth had realized at last; the woman in her realized. With a little anguished cry. she turned to him, clasping her hands in pity of his love.

"Me? Why, you're pitying me! That's something to go back with. I didn't tell you for that. I didn't hope for that. I only wanted to make it possible for you to let me help you. I thought you'd despise me more. Now … you're pitying me. Go, while I can remember that look in your eyes. Don't stop—to realize again how far I am from you."

The man went a step forward, past her, as if he would remove his ungainly body from her sight. He was recalled by the touch of a hot little hand, clasping his.

"I will take it. I'll be grateful to you all my life. How can you forgive me for being so small and blind? Oh, please let me say thank you."

Chubb took up the lag and placed it in her hands. His emotion was under control, but his new dignity was still around him.

"Take it, my dear," said he, "or you'll be late! And be happy!"

"A thief—happy?"

"You aren't a thief. You're only a child who was driven into a corner and stretched a hand out blindly in self-defense—as you said—not realizing. When you realized, you acted straight enough. You came to buy the money with yourself. I. was a brute to you. I can't forgive myself——"

He broke off suddenly. The tear-washed little face would have softened a harder heart than Joshua Chubb's.

"I was a brute," he repeated hoarsely. "But when one's underneath the lash one strikes out, not knowing, nor caring … There … You came to bury yourself. Bury your mistake. Leave it with me. You can trust it to me, can't you? Leave it and go free, back to your world and the cousin who loves you—loves you—loves you. Don't tell him yet; he's only a boy. Wait till you've lived together and he knows you. Promise me that to show that you've forgiven me!"

"I have nothing to forgive. I deserved everything you said. Only you do understand I didn't mean to steal?" she asked.

Joshua Chubb nodded. He could not trust himself to speak.

Soon—very soon—the door had closed and she was gone.

He stood for a little space in the room from which the sunlight had long since departed; then he returned to his old seat and drew his neglected letters to him.

It was difficult to bring his thoughts to bear on them. His desire had been within his grasp. Yet sometimes one gains more in losing than in keeping.