Down in his heart he hoped that Nellie would come out for Christmas, but he knew there was no chance of it. She would have two performances on that day. He refrained from telling Phoebe until the very last minute that her mother would not be out for the holiday. He hadn"t the heart to do it.
He broke the news then by telling the child that her mother was s...o...b..und and couldn"t get there. An opportune fall of snow the day before Christmas gave him the inspiration.
He set up the little Christmas tree in the back parlour, a.s.sisted by Bridget and Annie, after Phoebe had gone to bed on Christmas Eve. She had urged him to read to her about Tiny Tim, but he put her off with the announcement that Santa was likely to be around early on account of the fine sleighing, and if he saw that she wasn"t asleep in bed he might skip the house entirely.
The expressman, in delivering several boxes from town that afternoon, had said to his helper:--
"That little fellow that came to the door was Nellie Duluth"s husband, Mr.--Mr.----Say, look on the last page there and see what his name is.
He"s a cheap skate. A dime! Wot do you think of that?" He held up the dime Harvey had given him and squinted at it as if it were almost too small to be seen with the naked eye.
Nellie sent "loads" of presents to Phoebe--toys, books, candies, fruits, pretty dresses, a velvet coat, a tiny pair of opera gla.s.ses, strings of beads, bracelets, rings--dozens of things calculated to set a child mad with delight. There were pocketbooks, handkerchiefs, squirrel stoles and m.u.f.fs for each of the servants, a box of cigars for the postman, another for the milkman, and a five-dollar bill for the janitor.
There was nothing for Harvey.
He looked for a long time at the envelope containing the five-dollar bill, an odd little smile creeping into his eyes. He was the janitor, he remembered. After a moment of indecision he slipped the bill into another envelope, which he marked "Charity" and laid aside until morning brought the mendicant who, with bare fingers and frosted lips, always came to play his mournful clarionet in front of the house.
Surrept.i.tiously he searched the two big boxes carefully, inwardly hoping that she had not forgotten--nay, ignored--him. But there was nothing there, not even a Christmas card! It was the first Christmas she had....
The postman brought a small box addressed to Phoebe. The handwriting was strange, but he thought nothing of it. He thought it was nice of Butler to remember his little one and lamented the fact that he had not bought something for the little Butlers, of whom there were seven.
He tied a red ribbon around the sealed package and hung it on the tree.
After it was all over he went upstairs and tried to read "Dombey & Son." But a mist came over his blue eyes and his vision carried him far beyond the printed page. He was not thinking of Nellie, but of his old mother, who had never forgotten to send him a Christmas present.
Ah, if she were alive he would not be wondering to-night why Santa Claus had pa.s.sed him by.
He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, closed "Dombey & Son" for the night, and went to bed, turning his thoughts to the row of tiny stockings that hung from the mantelpiece downstairs--for Phoebe had put to use all that she could find--and then let them drift on through s.p.a.ce to an apartment near Central Park, where Kris Kringle had delivered during the day a little packet containing the brooch he had purchased for his wife out of the money he had preserved from the sale of his watch some weeks before.
He was glad he had sent Nellie a present.
Bright and early the next morning he was up to have a final look at the tree before Phoebe came down. A blizzard was blowing furiously; the windows were frosted; the house was cheerless. He built the fires in the grates and sat about with his shoulders hunched up till the merry crackle of the coals put warmth into his veins. The furnace! He thought of it in time, and hurried to the bas.e.m.e.nt to replenish the fires. They were out. He had forgotten them the night before. Bridget found him there later on, trying to start the kindling in the two furnaces.
"I clean forgot "em last night," he said, sheepishly.
"I don"t wonder, sor," said Bridget, quite genially for a cold morning. "Do you be after going upstairs this minute, sor. I"ll have them roaring in two shakes av a lamb"s tail. Mebby there"s good news for yez up there. Annie"s at the front door this minute, taking a telegram from the messenger bye, sor. Merry Christmas to ye, sor."
"Merry Christmas, Bridget!" cried he, gaily. His heart had leaped at the news she brought. A telegram from Nellie! Hurrah! He rushed upstairs without brushing the coal dust from his hands.
The boy was waiting for his tip. Harvey gave him a quarter and wished him a merry Christmas.
"A miserable day to be out," said he, undecided whether to ask the half-frozen lad to stay and have a bite of breakfast or to let him go out into the weather.
"It"s nothin" when you gets used to it," said the blue-capped philosopher, and took his departure.
"But it"s the getting used to it," said Harvey to Annie as she handed him the message. He tore open the envelope. She saw the light die out of his eyes.
The message was from Ripton, the manager, and read:--
"Please send Phoebe in with the nurse to see the matinee to-day."
The invitation was explicit enough. He was not wanted.
If he had a secret inclination to ignore the command altogether, it was frustrated by his own short-sightedness. He gulped, and then read the despatch aloud for the benefit of the maid. When it was too late he wished he had not done so.
Annie beamed. "Oh, sir, I"ve always wanted to see Miss Duluth act. I will take good care of Phoebe."
He considered it beneath his dignity to invite her into a conspiracy against the child, so he gloomily announced that he would go in with them on the one-o"clock train and stay to bring them out.
The Christmas tree was a great success. Phoebe was in raptures. He quite forgot his own disappointment in watching her joyous antics. As the distributor of the presents that hung on the gaily trimmed and dazzling cedar, he came at last to the little package from Butler. It contained a beautiful gold chain, at the end of which hung suspended a small diamond-studded slipper--blue enamel, fairly covered with rose diamonds.
Phoebe screamed with delight. Her father"s face was a study.
"Why, they are diamonds!" he murmured. "Surely Butler wouldn"t be giving presents like this." A card fluttered to the floor. He picked it up and read:--"A slipper for my little Cinderella. Keep it and it will bring good luck."
There was no name, but he knew who had sent it. With a cry of rage he s.n.a.t.c.hed the dainty trinket from her hand and threw it on the floor, raising his foot to stamp it out of shape with his heel. His first vicious attempt missed the slipper altogether, and before he could repeat it the child was on the floor clutching it in her fingers, whimpering strangely. The servants looked on in astonishment.
He drew back, mumbling something under his breath. In a moment he regained control of himself.
"It--it isn"t meant for you, darling," he said, hoa.r.s.ely. "Santy left it here by mistake. We will send it back to him. It belongs to some other poor little girl."
"But I am Cinderella!" she cried. "Mr. Fairy-fax said so. He told Santy to bring it to me. Please, daddy--please!"
He removed it gently from her fingers and dropped it into his pocket.
His face was very white.
"Santy isn"t that kind of a man," he said, without rhyme or reason.
"Now, don"t cry, dearie. Here"s another present from mamma. See!"
Later in the morning, after she had quite forgotten the slipper, he put it back in the box, wrapped it carefully, and addressed the package to L. Z. Fairfax, in New York City, without explanation or comment.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright, 1911, by Dodd, Mead & Company Phoebe]
Before the morning was half over he was playing with Phoebe and her toys quite as childishly and gleefully as she, his heart in the fun she was having, his mind almost wholly cleared of the bitterness and rancour that so recently had filled it to overflowing.
The three of them floundered through the snowdrifts to the station, laughing and shouting with a merriment that proved infectious. The long-obscured sun came out and caught the disease, for he smiled broadly, and the wind gave over snarling and smirked with an amiability that must have surprised the shivering horses standing desolate in front of certain places wherein their owners partook of Christmas cheer that was warm.
Harvey took Phoebe and the nurse to the theatre in a cab. He went up to the box-office window and asked for the two tickets. The seller was most agreeable. He handed out the little envelope with the words:--
"A packed house to-day, Mr.--Mr.--er--ah, and--sold out for to-night.
Here you are, with Miss Duluth"s compliments--the best seats in the house. And here is a note for--er--yes, for the nurse."
Annie read the note. It was from Nellie, instructing her to bring Phoebe to her dressing-room after the performance, where they would have supper later on.
Harvey saw them pa.s.s in to the warm theatre and then slowly wandered out to the bleak, wind-swept street. There was nothing for him to do; nowhere that he could go to seek cheerful companions. For an hour or more he wandered up and down Broadway, his shoulders hunched up, his mittened hands to his ears, water running from his nose and eyes, his face the colour of the setting sun. Half-frozen, he at last ventured into a certain cafe, a place where he had lunched no fewer than half-a-dozen times, and where he thought his ident.i.ty might have remained with the clerk at the cigar stand.
There were men at the tables, smoking and chatting hilariously. At one of them sat three men, two of whom were actors he had met. Summoning his courage, he approached them with a well-a.s.sumed air of nonchalance.
"Merry Christmas," was his greeting. The trio looked at him with no sign of recognition. "How are you. Mr. Brackley? How are you, Joe?"
The two actors shook hands with him without much enthusiasm, certainly without interest.
Light dawned on one of them. "Oh," said he, cheerlessly, "how are you?