The Rose in the Ring Part 24

Mrs. Braddock and Christine waited for him at the lot until the men began to pull down the dressing-tent. David was with them. Not far away was Joey Noakes, the center of a group of performers, held together by his wonderful tale concerning the sensational bit of pocketpicking that had occurred early in the evening. A congressman had been "touched" for his purse and three hundred dollars while waiting for a train at the depot. The town was wild over the theft.

In the midst of the narrative, Artful d.i.c.k sauntered up to the group, coming, it seemed, from nowhere. The gossiper abruptly stopped his tale.

"They say it's going to rain before morning," said d.i.c.k airily. "You guys will get rust on your joints if you stay out in it. Ta-ta! I'm looking for my brother. Seen him?"

He strolled on, as if he owned the earth.

"That feller'll be as rich as the devil some day, if he keeps on," said one of the group.

That was the mild form of opprobrium that followed Artful d.i.c.k into the shadows. As he pa.s.sed by the Braddocks and David, he doffed his derby gallantly. To this knowing chap there was something significant in the dreary, half-hearted smile that the mother and daughter gave him. At any rate, he took a second look at them out of the corner of his eye.

"Brad's up to something," he thought.

The smile he bestowed upon Ruby Noakes, who stood near by with several of the women, was all-enveloping. Ruby's dark eyes looked after him until his long, jaunty figure disappeared in the darkness.

"Too bad he's a thie--what he is," ventured the Iron-jawed Woman pityingly. She addressed the reflection to Ruby, who started and then positively glared at the speaker.

David escorted Mrs. Braddock and Christine to the hotel, where he also was to "put up" under the new dispensation. They had but little to say to each other. A deep sense of restraint had fallen upon them. He understood and appreciated their lack of interest in anything but their own unexpressed thoughts. As for himself, he was sick at heart over the discovery he had made. Not for all the world would he have added to their unhappiness by voicing the thoughts that were uppermost in his mind, rioting there with an insistent clamor that almost deafened him.

Christine's father was a thief!

From time to time, as they walked down the dark, still street, he glanced at her face, half fearing that his thoughts might have reached her by means of some mysterious telepathic agency. Even in the shadows her face was adorable. He could not see her dark eyes, but he knew they were troubled and afraid. He would have given worlds to have taken her in his arms, then and there, to pour into her little sore heart all the comfort of his new-found adoration.

For days it had been growing upon him, this delicious realization of what she had come to stand for in his life. She had crept into his heart and he was glad. Innate gallantry and a sense of the fitness of things had kept him from uttering one word of love to this young, trusting, unconscious girl. He was very young--stupidly young, he felt--but he was old enough to know that she would not understand. He was content to wait, content to watch. The time would come when he could tell her of the love that was in his heart; but it was not to be thought of now.

He walked between them, carrying Mrs. Braddock's handbag. Christine refused to burden him with hers. As they neared the business section of the town--one of the Ohio River towns--they encountered drunken men and merry-makers. A particularly noisy but amiable group approached them from the opposite direction. Christine nervously clutched David's arm.

She came very close to him. He was thrilled by the contact. After the revelers had lurched by them, she gave an odd little laugh and would have removed her hand. He pressed his arm close to his side, imprisoning it. She looked up quickly, a sharp catch in her breath.

Then she allowed her hand to rest there pa.s.sively.

They were nearing the hotel when David impulsively gave utterance to the hungry cry that was struggling in his throat:

"Oh, Mrs. Braddock, if I were free to go back to Jenison Hall! I could ask you and Christine to come there and stay. You'd love it there. It's the finest old place in--"

"Why, David!" cried Mrs. Braddock in surprise.

"Forgive me!" he cried abjectly.

"Oh, I should love it--I should love it, David," cried Christine in a low, wistful voice. It seemed to him that there was a strange, mysterious wail at the back of the words.

Mrs. Braddock uttered a short, bitter laugh. "How good you are, David.

What would your friends think if you took circus people there to visit you?"

He replied with grave dignity. "My friends, Mrs. Braddock, include the circus people you mention. I am not likely to forget that you took me in and--"

"And made a clown of you," she interrupted. He was gratified to see a smile on her lips. The light from a window shone in her face. Her eyes were wet and glistening.

He held his tongue for a moment, wavering between impulse and delicacy.

His gaze went to Christine's half-averted face. He was moved by sudden apprehension. Was she beginning to suspect the real att.i.tude of Colonel Bob Grand toward her mother? Was it something more than mere antipathy that filled her heart?

"See here, Mrs. Braddock," he began hastily, "I'm right young to be saying this to you, but I want you to know that I am terribly distressed by what has taken place in--in your life. I know you hate Colonel Grand. I know he is a bad man. His new interest in this show is the outgrowth of an old one."

She started. Her eyes were full upon his face.

"You are not likely to know any more peace or happiness here. Why don't you give it up? Why don't you leave the show? Why--"

"David," she said, laying her hand on his arm, "you don't know what you are saying."

"You could go back to your father," he went on ruthlessly. "I know it would be all right. He would not--"

She interrupted him quickly.

"Who has been talking to you of my affairs?"

He bit his lip. "Why, I--well, Joey Grinaldi. He is your best, truest friend. He told me all--"

Christine was leaning forward, peering past him at her mother's averted face. The girl's clutch on his arm tightened perceptibly.

"Mother," she said wonderingly, "what does he mean? Isn't--isn't your father dead? What is it that Joey Noakes has told you, David?"

David realized and was dumb with a sort of consternation. Mrs. Braddock hesitated for a moment, and then said to him, drear despair in her voice:

"Poor David! You don't know what you have done. No, Christine, my father is not dead. Be patient, my darling; I will tell you all there is to tell."

"To-night?" half whispered Christine, dropping David's arm, moved by the horrid fear that there was some dark secret in her life which was to put a barrier between him and her forever.

"Yes, my dear."

CHAPTER X

LOVE WINGS A TIMID DART

The circus encountered vile weather from that time on. Day after day, night after night, during the last two weeks in June, there was rain, with raw winds that chilled and depressed the strollers. The route of the show ran through the Ohio River valley, ordinarily a profitable territory at that time of the year. July would see the show well started for the northern circuit, where the floods were less troublesome and the weather bade fair to turn favorable. So bad were the floods in one particular region that the concern was obliged to cancel dates in three towns, lying idle in a G.o.d-forsaken river-place for two wretched days and traveling as if pursued by devils on the third. The horses, overworked and half starved, obtained a much-needed rest.

Performers and employees alike grew taciturn and absorbed in speculation as to the immediate future. No one believed that the show could continue against such distressing odds. At no performance were the receipts half adequate to the requirements; each clay saw the enterprise sink deeper into a mire of debt from which there was no apparent prospect of escape. The characteristically ebullient spirits of the performers surrendered at last to the superst.i.tions that persistently obtruded themselves upon the notice of individuals. All manner of "bad luck" signs cropped out to sustain this mult.i.tude of beliefs. Every one was resorting to his luck stone or an amulet. Even David Jenison, sensible lad that he was, fell under the spell of superst.i.tion. He carried a "luck piece" given him by Ruby Noakes, and not once but many times was he guilty of calling upon it for relief from the general misfortune.

A b.l.o.o.d.y fight on the circus grounds between the showmen and an organized band of town ruffians came near to bringing the concern to a disastrous end. The riot happened in one of the hill towns along the river, and was due to the ugly humor of the unpaid canvasmen and the roustabouts who went searching for trouble as an outlet for their feelings. Guy ropes were cut by an attacking force of half-drunken rowdies; the canvases were slashed and wagons overturned. The oldtime yell of "Hey, Rube!" marshaled the circus forces. There was a battle royal, in which the local contingent was badly used up, more than one man being seriously injured.

David Jenison fought beside his fellow performers, who rallied to protect the dressing-tent and the terrified women. In the darkness and rain, after the night performance, the opposing forces mingled and fought like wild beasts. The young Virginian, vigorous as a colt, was a hero among his comrades. For days afterwards, every one talked of the stubborn stand he made at the rear of the dressing-tent, where he swung a stake with savage effectiveness in combat with half a dozen rioters who had cut the ropes, allowing the sidewalls to drop while many of the women were dressing.

He was fighting for Christine Braddock, who was waiting in the tent for him, instead of going to the hotel with her mother earlier in the evening. He glorified himself forever in the eyes of the terrified girl; he was never to forget the soft, tremulous words of loving anxiety she used, quite unconsciously, while she went about the task of bandaging the cuts on his face half an hour later in her mother's room, where many of their intimates had gathered for attention.

"We must find d.i.c.k Cronk and attend to his wounds," protested David, addressing the others who were there. "He came to my a.s.sistance before any one else arrived. I think he dropped from the sky."

Ruby Noakes closed her eyes suddenly to hide the telltale gleam that had leaped into them. She knew that d.i.c.k Cronk was fighting for her, and her alone.

"I saw him just now," she said after a moment. "He didn't have a scratch and he is perfectly mad with joy over the whole thing."