Gaslight Sonatas Part 37

"My old man--dead!"

She crept closer, encircling his neck, and her wet cheek close to his dry one.

"He's at peace now, darling--and all your sins are forgiven--like you forgive--his."

His lips were twisting.

"There was no love lost there, girl. G.o.d knows there wasn't. There was once nine months we didn't speak. Never could have been less between a father and son. You see he--he hated me from the start, because my mother died hating him--but--_dead_--that's another matter. Ain't it, girl--ain't it?"

She held her cheek to his so that her tears veered out of their course, zigzagging down to his waistcoat, stroked his hair, placing her rich, moist lips to his eyelids.

"My darling! My darling boy! My own poor darling!"

Sobs rumbled up through him, the terrific sobs that men weep.

"You--married a rotter, Loo--that couldn't even live decent with his--old man. He--died like a dog--alone."

"'Sh-h-h, Charley! Just because he's dead don't mean he was any better while he lived."

"I'll make it up to you, girl, for the rotter I am. I'm a rich man now, Loo."

"'Sh-h-h!"

"I'll show you, girl. I can make somebody's life worth living. I'm going to do something for somebody to prove I'm worth the room I occupy, and that somebody's going to be you, Loo. I'm going to build you a house that'll go down in the history of this town. I'm going to wind you around with pearls to match that skin of yours. I'm going to put the kind of clothes on you that you read of queens wearing. I've seen enough of the kind of meanness money can breed. I'm going to make those Romans back there look like pikers. I'm--"

She reached out, placing her hand pat across his mouth, and, in the languid air of the room, shuddering so that her lips trembled.

"Charley--for G.o.d's sake--it--it's a sin to talk that way!"

"O G.o.d, I know it, girl! I'm all muddled--muddled."

He let his forehead drop against her arm, and in the long silence that ensued she sat there, her hand on his hair.

The roar of traffic, seventeen stories below, came up through the open windows like the sound of high seas, and from where she sat, staring out between the pink-brocade curtains, it was as if the close July sky dipped down to meet that sea, and s.p.a.ce swam around them.

"O G.o.d!" he said, finally. "What does it all mean--this living and dying--"

"Right living, Charley, makes dying take care of itself."

"G.o.d! how he must have died, then! Like a dog--alone."

"'Sh-h-h, Charley; don't get to thinking."

Without raising his head, he reached up to stroke her arm.

"Honey, you're s.h.i.+vering."

"No-o."

"Everything's all right, girl. What's the use me trying to sham it's not.

I--I'm bowled over for the minute, that's all. If it had to come, after all, it--it came right for my girl. With that poor old man out there, honey, living alone like a dog all these years, it's just like putting him from one marble mausoleum out there on Kingsmoreland Place into one where maybe he'll rest easier. He's better off, Loo, and--we--are too. Hand me the paper, honey; I--want to see--just how my--poor old man--breathed out."

Then Mrs. c.o.x rose, her face distorted with holding back tears, her small high heels digging into and breaking the newspaper at his feet.

"Charley--Charley--"

"Why, girl, what?"

"You don't know it, but my sister, Charley--Ida Bell!"

"Why, Loo, I sent off the message to your mama. They know it by now."

"Charley--Charley--"

"Why, honey, you're full of nerves! You mustn't go to pieces like this.

Your sister's all right. I sent them a--"

"You--you don't know, Charley. My sister--I swore her an oath on my mother's prayer-book. I wouldn't tell, but, now that he's dead, that--lets me out. The will--Charley, he made it yesterday, like he always swore he would the next time you got your name on the front page."

"Made what, honey? Who?"

"Charley, can't you understand? My sister Ida Bell and Brookes--your father's lawyer. She's his private stenographer--Brookes's, honey. You know that. But she told me last night, honey, when I went home. You're cut off, Charley! Your old man sent for Brookes yesterday at noon. I swear to G.o.d, Charley! My sister Ida Bell she broke her confidence to tell me. He's give a million alone to the new college hospital. Half a million apiece to four or five old people's homes. He's give his house to the city with the art-gallery. He's even looked up relations to give to. He kept his word, honey, that all those years he kept threatening. He--he kept it the day before he died. He must have had a hunch--your poor old man. Charley darling, don't look like that! If your wife ain't the one to break it to you you're broke, who is? You're not 'Million Dollar Charley' no more, honey. You're just my own Charley, with his chance come to him--you hear, _my_ Charley, with the best thing that ever happened to him in his life happening right now."

He regarded her as if trying to peer through something opaque, his hands spread rather stupidly on his wide knees.

"Huh?"

"Charley, Charley, can't you understand? A dollar, that puts him within the law, is all he left you."

"He never did. He never did. He wouldn't. He couldn't. He never did. I saw--his will. I'm the only survivor. I saw his will."

"Charley, I swear to G.o.d! I swear as I'm standing here you're cut off.

My sister copied the new will on her typewriter three times and seen the sealed and stamped one. He kept his word. He wrote it with his faculties and witnesses. We're broke, Charley--thank G.o.d, we're flat broke!"

"He did it? He did it? My old man did it?"

"As sure as I'm standing here, Charley."

He fell to blinking rapidly, his face puckering to comprehend.

"I never thought it could happen. But I--I guess it could happen. I think you got me doped, honey."

"Charley, Charley!" she cried, falling down on her knees beside him, holding his face in the tight vise of her hands and reading with such closeness into his eyes that they seemed to merge into one. "Haven't you got your Loo? Haven't you got her?"

He sprang up at that, jerking her backward, and all the purple-red gushed up into his face again.

"Yes, by G.o.d, I've got you! I'll break the will. I'll--"

"Charley, no--no! He'd rise out of his grave at you. It's never been known where a will was broke where they didn't rise out of the grave to haunt."