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The Faith Doctor: A Story of New York, a novel by Edward Eggleston |
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Chapter 29. Millard And Rudolph |
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_ CHAPTER XXIX. MILLARD AND RUDOLPH Rudolph, coming home from work early on the next Saturday afternoon, saw Millard approaching from the other direction. With that appetite for sympathy which the first dash of sorrow is pretty sure to bring, the young man felt an impulse to accost the person who had thought enough of his sister's sufferings to give her a wheel-chair. "Mr. Millard!" "Oh, yes; you are Wilhelmina Schulenberg's brother," scrutinizing the young man. "And how is your sister now?" Rudolph shook his head gloomily. "She can not live many days already; she will be dying purty soon." "What? Sick again? Then Miss Callender's cure did not last." "Ah, yes; her back it is all right. But you see maybe praying is not strong for such sickness as she has now. It is quick consumption." "Poor child!" said Millard. "She has been very unlucky," said Rudolph. "We are all very unlucky. My father he died when I was little, and my mother she had to work hard, and I soon had also to work. And then Whilhelmina she got sick, and it gave mother trouble." "Has Miss Callender seen your sister?" "Yes; she did not tell you already?" queried Rudolph. "I have not seen her for a long time," said Millard. "Oh!" exclaimed Rudolph, and went no farther. "Did she--did she not try to make your sister well?" "Yes; but believing is all good enough for the back, but it is no good when you're real sick insides. You see it is consumption." "Yes; I see," said Millard. A rush of feeling came over him. He remembered Mina Schulenberg as she sat that day about a year ago--the day of his engagement--near the bust of Beethoven in the park. She had been the beginning and in some sense she had been the ending of his engagement. Millard walked away from Rudolph in a preoccupied way. Suddenly he turned and called after him: "I say--Schulenberg!" The young man faced about and came back. Millard said to him in a low voice and with feeling: "Will you let me know if your sister dies? Come straight to me. Don't say anything about it, but maybe I can show myself a friend in some way. Here's my address at home, and between nine and three I'm at the Bank of Manhadoes." Rudolph said yes, and tried to thank him, but Millard strode away, his mind reverting to the poor girl whose now fast-withering life seemed to have some occult relation to his own, and thinking, too, of Phillida's unfaltering ministrations. What mistakes and delusions could not be forgiven to one so unwearyingly good? Why did he not share her reproach with her, and leave her to learn by time and hard experience? Such thoughts stung him sorely. And this death, under her very hand, of the Schulenberg girl must be a sore trial. Would she learn from failure? Or would she resolutely pursue her course? Millard was not a man to lament the inevitable. Once he and Phillida had broken, he had set out to be what he had been before. But who shall cause the shadow to go backward upon the dial of Ahaz? When was a human being ever the same after a capital passion that he had been before? Millard had endeavored to dissipate his thoughts in society and at places of amusement, only to discover that he could not revolve again in the orbit from which he had been diverted by the attraction of Phillida. Business, in so far as it engrossed his thoughts, had produced a temporary forgetfulness, and of business he now had a great deal. Farnsworth, who had contrived to give everybody connected with the Bank of Manhadoes more uneasiness than one could reasonably expect from a man whose vitality was so seriously impaired, died about this time, just when those who knew him best had concluded that he was to be exempted from the common lot. He died greatly regretted by all who had known him, and particularly by those who had been associated with him in the conduct of the bank from its foundation. So ran the words of the obituary resolutions drafted by Masters, adopted by the Board of Directors of the bank, printed in all the newspapers, and engrossed for the benefit of his widow and his posterity. Posterity indeed gets more out of such resolutions than contemporaries, for posterity is able to accept them in a more literal sense. Hilbrough's ascendency in the bank, and his appreciation of Millard, in spite of the latter's symmetrical way of parting his hair, the stylish cut he gave his beard, and the equipoise with which he bore his slender cane, procured the latter's promotion to the vacant cashiership without visible opposition. Meadows would have liked to oppose, but he found powerful motives to the contrary; for Meadows himself was more and more disliked by members of the board, and his remaining there depended now on the good-will of Hilbrough. He therefore affected to be the chief advocate, and indeed the original proposer, of Millard for the place. The advancement carried with it an increase of dignity, influence, and salary, which was rather gratifying to a man at Millard's time of life. It would have proved a great addition to his happiness if he could only have gone to Phillida and received her congratulations and based a settlement of his domestic affairs upon his new circumstances. He did plan to take a larger apartment next year and to live in a little better style, perhaps also to keep horses; but the prospect was not interesting. While he sat one evening debating such things the electric bell of his apartment was rung by the conductor of the freight-elevator, who came to say that there was a German man in the basement inquiring for Mr. Millard. His name was Schulenberg. Rudolph had come in by the main entrance, but the clerk, seeing that he was a workingman, had spoken to him with that princely severity which in a democratic country few but hotel and house clerks know how to affect, and had sent him packing down-stairs, out of sight, where he could have no chance to lower the respectability of a house in which dwelt scores of people whose names were printed in the Social Register, they subscribing for the same at a good round price. Rudolph had lost his way two or three times before he could find the entrance to the lift, but at the convenience of the elevator-man he was hoisted to Millard's floor. When he presented himself he looked frightened at being ushered into a place accessible only by means of so much ceremony and by ways so roundabout. "Mr. Millard, my sister has just died. You told me to tell you already," he said, standing there and grasping his cap firmly as though it were the only old friend he had to help him out of the labyrinth. "When did she die?" asked Millard, motioning the young fellow to a chair. "Just now. I came straight away." "Who is with your mother?" "Miss Callender and a woman what lifs in the next room." Millard mused a minute, his vagrant thoughts running far away from Rudolph. Then recovering himself he said: "Have you money enough for the funeral?" "I haf fifteen dollars, already, that I haf been puttin' in the Germania Spar Bank for such a trouble. I had more as that, but we haf had bad luck. My uncle he will maybe lend me some more." "What do you work at?" "Mostly odd jobs. I had a place in a lumber-yard, but the man he failed up already. I am hopin' that I shall get something more steady soon." "It will be pretty hard for you to go in debt." "Yes," with a rueful shrug. "But we're unlucky. Poor folks 'mos' always is unlucky already." "Well, now, you let me pay these expenses. Here's my card. Tell the undertaker to send his bill to me. He can come to the bank and inquire if he should think it not all right. But don't tell anybody about it." "I thank you very much, very, very much, Mr. Millard; it will make my mother feel a leetle better. And I will pay you wheneffer I haf the good luck to get some money." "Don't worry about that. Don't pay me till I ask you for it. Was Miss Callender with you when your sister died?" "Yes. Oh, yes; she is better as anybody I effer see." Millard said no more, and Rudolph thanked him again, put on his cap, and went out to try his luck at finding the door to the freight-elevator for a descent from this lofty height to the dark caves of the basement--vaulted caves with mazes of iron pipes of all sizes overhead, the narrow passages beset by busy porters bearing parcels and trunks, and by polyglot servants in dress-coats and white aprons running hither and thither with trays balanced on their finger-tips and mostly quite above replying to the questions of a bewildered intruder clad in trousers of well-worn brown denim. _ |
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