Pharisees

Chapter I. Vanished Glories

In a small and dingy room on the seventh floor of a huge tenement house in Ridge Street, New York, a middle aged Englishman lay on a coarse, narrow pallet, calmly awaiting his moment of release. He had fought the battle of Use — fought it courageously and in the teeth of insuperable difficulties — and had been vanquished. The overwhelming despair that comes at last to so many for whom Fate has nothing but kicks and rebuffa had finally come to him, bringing with it resignation at the speedy approach of his end and a pacifying conviction that life " beyond the bar," be it what it may, could not fail to prove an amelioration of the earthly existence through which he had struggled and floundered. No fears of eternity vexed his soul, no dread of death filled his mind with horror, no mundane anxieties monopolised his atten tion.

He was quietly satisfied that the tragedy of his career had reached its termination. It is a far fall from the sumptuous luxury of a millionaire's palace in London to the squalid destitution of an East-side tenement in the " Empire City." That was the fall which Marion Harwood had accomplished. He had started life in a palatial residence in Park Lane, the only son of an immensely rich English gentleman, a member of an ancient and respected family, had passed B PHARISEES. 2 creditably through Eton and Oxford, and had sccd himself idolized and petted by the British matron with marriageable daughters, by whom he had been regarded as one of the most valuable catches of the day ; he was ending his days amid all the horrors of dire indigence, in the midst of a vast colony of alien paupers. At the age of twenty-two, Marion Harwood had been disowned and cast adrift by his father, a gentleman ot intense pride and inflexible will.

Straight from the lap of extravagant luxury, almost direct from the cloisters of Christ Church, the young man had been driven out into the world to battle for his daily bread, unaided by his father, but hampered by a pretty and delicate wife. What had he done to merit such treatment ? Nearly everyone in London knew at the time, though both the story and Marion were now forgotten. Seventeen years since his father, Harcourt Harwood, after remaining a widower for fifteen years, had suddenly resolved to re-enter the marital state, and had wooed and won a pretty but penniless girl of eighteen — forty years his junior. Unfortunately, Marion himself had also become enamoured of his parent's fiancee, and only a week prior to the date fixed for the nuptials had pleaded his cause so successfully that the young lady had been finally induced to change her mind, even at so late a day, and to elope with and wed the youth to whom she had promised to be a stepmother.

Upon this audacious action followed considerable gossip ancl scandal. People who had written gushing letters and sent handsome presents to the heroine and hero of the intended ill-assorted alliance now assured one another confidentially that they were delighted at the prevention of so unnatural a match, as they had long suspected that the old gentleman was "simply buying the poor girl" from her aunt. VANISHED GLORIES. 3 After the elopement., with a stern, unrelenting vindic tiveness, Mr. Harcourt Harwood had lost no time in balancing accounts with the son who had robbed him of his intended bride, and thus brought disgrace and ridicule upon his bald head. Neither settlements, entails, nor reversions stood in the way of a pitiless vengeance. Harcourt Harwood's vast possessions were absolutely his own, consisting chiefly of bonds and shares in English railways, banks, and insurance companies.

He was able, therefore, to say to his son: "Live by the sweat of thy brow, or perish." Now the sweat of the brow of a young man brought up as Marion had been is always a poor breadwinner ; it has scarcely a chance in the great competitive struggle for existence. He had seen no hope of earning a living in England, so rashly and unwisely emigrated to America, expending upon the journey all the money that he aud his bride could scrape together. Had he remained in England, he might have obtained, with the aid of friends, some employment not entirely distasteful to a man brought up and educated as an EngUsh gentleman ; but when he landed on the wharf in New York he became instantly only a friendless unskilled unit in the enormous multitude of unemployed. His efforts to get remune rative work had failed completely, and, after suffering numerous and painful vicissitudes, he had considered himself fortunate to obtain a situation as van-driver for a wholesale firm.

A year later Mrs. Marion Harwood had died in giving birth to her child — a little ' girl for whose sake Marion continued to toil and struggle until disease laid him hors de combat. During the sixteen years intervening between his wife's death and his own final illness, Harwood had never been able to rise above mere manual drudgery, but PHARISEES. with an ever-aching heart had watched his daughter grow up in uncultured and indelicate surroundings, assiduously devoting his leisure time to counteracting their effects, and to preparing her for that position in English Society which he fondly hoped, in spite of his own wretched plight, would some day be hers. His pet idea was to make the girl worthy of her ancient family and her future station in life — as he pictured it. His pride of her knew no limits.

As she began graduaUy to develop into young womanhood, he realised that she was going to become a very beautiful girl — tall, shapely, aristocratic-looking, with a profusion of glittering auburn hair, large limpid blue eyes, an exquisitely-curved mouth. How his heart had ached when he had w7atched her, over and over again, dressed in a shabby cotton gown, the sleeves rolled back to the elbow, displaying a pair of pretty white arms, bending her lissome figure over the washtub or the kitchen fire 1 She, the only grandchild of a millionaire, the only daughter of a gentleman educated at Eton and Christ Church, had to act as laundress and cook in their shabby little establishment. Sometimes the sight infuriated him, at others it filled his heart with despair, towards the end it helped him to welcome death, for he never doubted that once he was consigned to his last resting-place his father would instantly summon Nina to England and provide for her.

He did not think it possible that the old man, who was now well advanced into the seventies, could persist in visiting the offence of the parents upon the child — especially when that child was such a picture of girlish beauty as Nina Harwood. It was the last evening of Marion Harwood's earthly career— at least so declared the doctor attending him. The sick man lay still and silent upon the bed, while hia daughter sat near, waving a big palm-leaf fan to keep VANISHED GLORIES. 5 the flies away from hi3 face. A heavy, lurching tread sounded upon the stairs, a loud knock shook the fragile door that opened from an adjoining room to the passage, and a burly, bloated individual, coarse in feature and gruff in voice, stood on the threshold. " Got yer rint riddy, girl ? " he shouted, in a brogue that told of Hibernian nativity, tilting his hat far back on his head.

Nina dropped the fan on the bed and hastened into the next room — her own sleeping apartment — to confer with her visitor, the housekeeper. "No; I haven't," she replied, standing upright before the whisky-sodden Irishman, folding her arms, and looking defiantly into his face ; " and what is more I can't get it just now. Father can't live through the night, the doctor says, and I think you might leave him in peace. He seems quite unconscious. The furniture will more than pay what we owe. It is months since he earned a dollar." " So near, is it ? WeU, it was the boss who said the old man was passing in his checks and Oi had better try to git what Oi could. The boss is a glutton after rint, although he is an Oirishman, and always manifestoing our counthry men at home niver to pay a dollar to any of them damned landlords over there."

" And you — before you came to America, did you pay your rent ? " " Divil a penny ! — not for years. It was agenst me principles." " Yet you are a keen rent collector here ? " " Begad I ye don't think the American paplo would stand any sich nonsinse over here as goes on in Oireland. If ye can't pay rint here, out ye go; and the first to put ye out is me oun counthryman." " WeU ; as you yourself have often not paid when you PHARISEES. could pay, perhaps you will have pity on a forlorn girl who will pay as soon as she can." " Oi will ; though the boss hates giving toime. Why don't ye git yer dad to the horspittle ? " " I'll tell you," replied Nina, and in her voice sounded tho desperation of one hunted ; " because the doctor said that if an attempt w7ere made to move father, even to tho bottom of these seven flights of stairs, the result would be fatal."

" That's bad," returned the man ; " but Oi've seen a deal of life round here and a good deal in tho ould counthry, and Oi know that whin a man can't git along in the wurruld, can't pay rint, nor buy food or drink, it is rale kind of Nature to clar him out and let him try his luck in t'other wurrulds. Indade, thar's many a poor divil clars himself out, and don't wait for Nature. The boss will wait for the rint, Oi guess." " I guess so, too." " Ain't got a drink to spare ? " " Yes ; I pawned some clothes to get a bottle for father. He will never need a quarter of it. I'll give you a drink if you will promise not to bother about the rent again." " It is a bargain. Oi'U take me oath." Nina retired to the next room, returning a minute later with a bottle and a tumbler. After placing them on a table, she invited the janitor to help himself — an invitation which he accepted in a manner so liberal as to cause her to think that he had forgotten whence sho had procured the money to purchaso this spirit.

" Ye shall have the rooms till he is out of his trubble," the man declared, after swallowing half-a-tumbler of whisky. " Oi wudn't niver be a party to evicting a doying man. Where will ye go yerself ? " " God may know. I don't." There was a depth of despair in the girl's looks and VANISHED GLORIES. 7 i words that almost touched the callous heart of her visitor. " Ain't ye got no friends anywhere ? " he asked, " My grandfather is an English gentleman of immense wealth," Nina answered; "but he quarrelled with my father, his only son, and has done nothing to help him for nearly twenty years." " Oi knew ye didn't belong to the class that hoives in these dens. Oi kin tell good blood whin Oi meet it. Oime a discindant of a rare old family meself, and Oi know Oi wish Oi was back on me ancistor's possessions.

Me name's O'Brien, as ye know, but ye didn't know Oi was a direct discindant of old Brian Boru, the foinest gintleman and grandest king and gineral as iver was. Ye hear a thundering lot in this country about Gineral Grant and Gineral Sherman and Gineral Sheridan, but Oi tell ye they couldn't hold a candle to me ancistor, Brian Boru, who could have eaten them all up if he had lived in their day." The direct descendant of Brian Boru fixed a yearning gaze upon the half-empty bottle, and Nina, fearing that he might suggest a drink to the health of his long-deceased ancestor, picked up the bottle, bade her visitor good-night, and returned to her vigil at Marion Harwood's bedside.

Chapter II

A HUMAN PIGGERY. "Who was that talking?" asked the dying man, opening his eyes for a moment and looking at his daughter. " The janitor." " What does he want ? " " He came to ask how you were," fibbed the girl, resolved not to worry her father about the rent, " and he was telling me a rather difficult tale about his being a lineal descendant of Brian Boru." " Boru has a terrible lot to answer for. If all the disreputable Irish blackguards named O'Brien in this country who claim to be his descendants are really so, he has done America an irreparable injury." The effect of speaking brought on a violent cough, and when this had subsided, Marion Harwood lay back upon the bed in a state of complete exhaustion. A hot and sultry afternoon — it was the middle of July — gradually developed into a hot and sultry night.

The invalid paid no further attention to his surroundings, made no complaint of his sufferings, betrayed no anxiety in regard to himself or his child, inquired for neither priest nor doctor, but appeared totally obUvious to every thing. At nine o'clock the doctor came. Nina was then sitting in the dark, but she rose at once, and lit a lamp. "He is weakening very fast now," whispered the A HUMAN PIGGERY. 9 medical man, after having made a brief examination of his patient ; " he will die quite easily. The medicine wiU assure that. I doubt if he can live through the night." " Will you come again ? " " Not to-night. I am overworked. This weather has caused a boom in the death-rate. I will come in the morning. Have no fear ; he will pass away without any pain or struggle." The doctor, who was one of the physicians employed by the city to cope with the disease and death in the slums, bade the girl good-night, and cheerfully w-ended his way down the malodorous, dark, and rickety staircase, knowing nothing of the history of the luckless individual whose death certificate he expected to make out in the morning.

To him, Marion Harwood was only one of those dozens of destitute and ill human beings upon whom it was hia vocation to call daily ; only one of those hapless human imports for whom he was continually filling in the pre scribed formulas which authorise the undertakers to convey them to their final resting-places. His duties lay in those noisome, overcrowded streets east of the Bowery, where are collected the unclean and the diseased and the destitute that have swarmed over from Europe in years past, when the immigration laws were a dead letter, and where all the available land has been covered with tenement houses towering high up towards the sky and exclud ing light and air from the narrow thoroughfares they flank. In such a routine as his, where familiarity with every species of suffering, vice, degradation, brutality, and deception is a necessary concomitant, the sympathies are apt to become blunted.

Had this doctor heard Marion's story, he would probably have discredited it — classed it as one of those fables of high or noble descent and lost possessions so often related by the English-speaking immigrants reaching Columbia's PHARISEES. 10 shores ; had he heard and credited it, he might have been prompted to repeat it to those who, if they could do nothing for the man, would see to the welfare of the daughter. Unfortunately, he never heard the story; he was far too busy at this season of the year to be able to listen to the individual histories of the inhabitants of this pauper alien district. He had seen at a glance, on his first visit to Marion Harwood, that the case was beyond the aid of medical skill; and, according to his kindly custom, he physicked the patient with a view only to making his last days as easy and painless as possible.

The night wore on. No friends dropped in to see the lonely girl sitting mute and sorrowful by her parent's bed ; no anxious inquirers, with muffled tread, crept softly into the room. Parent and child were left absolutely to them selves. All the other tenants in the building were of non-English-speaking nationalities, and paid little or no attention to the two inoffensive Britons who had come to dwell among them. At eleven o'clock Nina withdrew into the adjoining room — her own apartment — and, leaning out of the open window, looked down into the street below. There was not a stir in the sultry atmosphere ; not a breath of air came to cool her heated brow ; a horribly offensive odour, arising from foul gutters, un-emptied ash-cans, and the loathsome personalities herding there, permeated every where, impregnated everything, and made her almost ill with disgust.

Upon the footwalks, on tho steps of the huge tenements, on trucks and pedlars' carts lining the roadway, on the iron cages attached to the perpendicular fire escapes, were sitting and lying crowds of sweltering humanity. It was evident that any perch out-of-doors was considered preferable to a bed or couch within. Beneath Nina's A HUMAN PIGGERY. 11 window sat a group of semi-nude young women, fanning themselves with battered hats or delapidated palm leaves, jabbering in Polish, and caring nothing for the half-clad men lying or squatting around on every side. Upon a truck drawn up in the gutter crouched two dingy daughters of sunny Italy, each suckling a tiny infant, while around them, on the same vehicle, reclined half-a dozen small children, every one as unclothed as at the hour of its birth.

On a narrow pedlar's hand-cart was curled up a thin, pale girl of not more than fifteen, clutching her first-born to her heart, while her husband, an itinerant vendor of fruit, stood by, polishing with his tongue and a greasy rag the pears and plums that he had failed to dispose of during the day, but for wThich he doubtless hoped to find an early sale in the morning. With their limbs stretched out on the pavement and their backs propped against a water hydrant, a Hungarian husband and wife had retired to rest, having first removed their boots and placed them on the kerb. A rag-picker, with a filthy bag on his back and an iron hook in his hand, came skulking among the recumbent forms, scratching eagerly in the ash-cans and keeping a watchful eye on the gutters. And while Nina stiU looked down at this pitiful scene, the moon, full and gloriously bright, emerged boldly from behind the housetops and shed her glittering rays upon all those squahd beings, upon their dirty skins and scanty rags, their sullen faces and immodest postures.

Then a fuU reaUzation of the repulsive hideousness of such a spectacle forced itself into her mind, and she shrunk back with horror. She had never mingled with those people below. The very sight of them repelled her. Familiarity with their uncleanly habits had never brought resignation. From the day when her father, iU and weak, yet stiU doing daily work as a street-sweeper in this PHARISEES. vicinity, had counselled the occupation of these rooms, her soul had rebelled against the Fate that condemned her to such an environment. To what purpose were all this wretchedness and suffering, this degeneration of mankind, this unlimited multiplication of the diseased, the deformed, and the irresponsible ? Even at her youthful age, when her mind should have been occupied with brighter subjects, she had often asked herself this question, wondering, more over, why it was that this huge pest-hole had apparently been boycotted by both the Christian and the charitable.

While her mind was still ruminating over this great social puzzle, a movement in the other room attracted her attention, and, returning quickly to the bedside, she found her father struggling to sit up, and muttering to himself. In a few moments he was dead, his head pillowed on his daughter's bosom. At almost the last moment he had found sufficient strength to whisper to his child : " Go home to your grandfather. Tell him that you have been a noble daughter, that his vengeance is achieved on me. Ask him to have mercy upon you. Now that I am gone he will have you at home." Realising that her parent's sufferings were ended at last, Nina straightened his lifeless form on the bed, covered it with a coarse, clean sheet, and then returned to the window in the next room to think and mourn. The only companion of her babyhood, childhood, and early girlhood had gone for ever, leaving her absolutely friendless and penniless in this vast city.

Then, indeed, the girl found that even those unkempt, unwashed, semi-barbarous human beings, herding to gether as cattle herd, were company in her terrible solitude ; she was glad that they were there, thankful at being able to discern their movements and hear their groanings and growlings.

Chapter III. Alone

! Soon after midnight feelings of dread and awe began to creep over Nina Harwood. She felt that her parent and protector had departed, never to return, leaving behind him in that dingy little chamber, lighted only by a smaU cheap lamp, some dreadful, unnatural thing to frighten and appal her. Several times with horrified mien and staring eyes she looked back over her shoulder to regard the narrow doorway of the adjoining chamber. Her overwrought nerves were giving way ; abject fear was taking complete possession of her mind. She fancied she could hear weird noises and see strange spectres. The lamp had exhausted its oil ; the light was growing more dim and uncertain every minute. Nina dared not to go into that room for a fresh supply. At the window where she stood, the rays of the moon shone steadily in to comfort her, and she had no courage to leave their welcome briUiancy.

She turned again. The lamp was out. Her father's apartment was a dark, black hole. She was now in agony. All her self-possession had fled, and when she essayed to call for help to those below, her tongue remained speechless, only a faint gurgling sound escaping her lips. After several minutes spent in silent stupefaction and terror the girl pulled herself together, walked quickly to the door opening into the passage, and fled precipitately down the seven flights of stairs. PHARISEES. 14 Across the street was a small store kept by a portly Dutchwoman who traded in oil, candles, tobacco, bacon, and nearly every article eaten or utilised by her humble neighbours. Nina had been a frequent customer at this emporium, and was on friendly terms with its proprietress. No sooner had sho reached the pavement than the idea of taking refuge at tho little shop entered her head, and without a moment's hesitation she picked her way among the crowd of recumbent forms, traversed the street, and stumbled over the expansive proportions of the store keeper who was resting on the floor across her open doorway.

" Oh ! Mrs. Opheim," cried Nina, dropping on her knees beside the big woman who, like all her neighbours, was very much en deshabille, " my father is dead, and I am afraid to stay up there by myself. May I stay with you ? " " Yaas, yaas," answered Mrs. Opheim, sitting up and resting a ponderous hand on the girl's shoulder ; " stay so long you like. So ze pore man ish gone at last. Zere is so many die zis wedder. Even ze horses, which are better off zan ze peoples round here, die to-day from ze heat. Oh ! it is awful, zis heat and zis street and zese poro p.eples." Then tho woman's business instincts prevailed, the stern necessity of never losing an opportunity to earn a dollar chasing away her more sympathetic instincts. " When you bury him — to-morrow ? " she asked eagerly. " To-morrow?" re-echoed the girl, in surprise.

" Yaas ; you must put him away to-morrow. Ze Board of Health will not allow him to remain longer. It ish not good for ze people who remain alive. I am ze agent for an oondertaker. I can bury him cheaper zan any one. ShaU I order ze funeral ? " " I have no money to pay for it." ALONE! 15 For a couple of minutes Mrs. Opheim was silent, apparently absorbed in devising a plan whereby she could provide the funeral and make her usual commission on the order. A novel idea then entered her fertile brain. The miscellaneous character of her business offered means of overcoming the difficulty. " What furnisher has you ? " she asked. Nina quickly catalogued the goods and chattels that yet remained in her sordid little dwelling. "I vill bring in ze morning a man who vill buy it," said Mrs. Opheim. " All ze furnisher and all ze pore man's clothes will bring enough to bury him, so we vill try and sleep now.

Make yoursolf as comfortable as you like." Nina quickly found a resting place upon the floor, pillowing her shapely head, with its brilliant though dishevelled tresses, upon a half-empty sack of flour, and in a few minutes all her woes and troubles were forgotten in a profound sleep. It was nearly a week since she had slept more than an hour at a time. The sun was already heating the air which had cooled but little during the hours of darkness and dawn, when Mrs. Opheim awakened her young guest and suggested that they go and look at the furniture which was to defray the cost of the funeral. Nina's slumbers had been so profound that she could not instantly collect her thoughts, but when, after rubbing her eyes and staring around, she fully realized the actual state of affairs — the bereavement that had be fallen hor, the loneliness of her condition — she lay back upon the floor and sobbed, burying her face in the sack of flour that had served as a pillow.

The Dutchwoman made no attempt either to soothe or to hurry this unhappy orphan. She merely waddled to a corner behind the counter, where she lighted a tiny gas stoye and commenced preparations for breakfast. PHARISEES. Presently Nina became more composed, and, after wash ing her face and hands in a pail of water, was able to join Mrs. Opheim at an extremely frugal breakfast. A careful inspection of the late Marion Harwood's per sonal property forced Mrs. Opheim to the conclusion that its value would not defray the cost of a respectable funeral. " It ish very poor stuff," she declared. " Ze man I know would not care much to take it. I fear you vill have to bury your father very cheap— very cheap ; no brass handles, no french polish on ze coffin, no lovely black horses with ze long silky manes and tails."

"I care nothing for those things," answered the girl; " brass handles and french polish can't avail my father much now. I don't want any pomp or ceremony. I only wish to bury him decently." " Zat is very sensible. I think I might say that my man vould pay for a very plain coffin, a hearse with von horse, and a coupay vith von horse for yoursolf. Zat is all he could do." " Perhaps, if he paid me the money, I could arrange myself. I have to pay the rent as well." " He vould not do that. He is a furnisher dealer and auctioneer as veil as a oondertaker. He vill speculate in zis furnisher and seU it by auction. Maybe he vill lose, may be not." " But the rent ? " " Ze rent ? Gott im Himmel ! Let ze rent go to Hell. Ish not ze landlord von brute Irishman who does not vish peeples to pay rent except to himself ?

He vill never miss it. Every veek he come round all de buildings taking rent, and if any von ish not ready vid ze money, out zat von goes. I vill take avay ze furnisher as soon as I has seen ze man." And this was the arrangement that Nina made in order to bury her father— all the furniture in her shabby little ALONE! 17 home went in payment for the funeral. The janitor did not attempt to interfere ; he asked if Nina had a drink to spare, and, having been given a liberal one, informed her that the landlord would not trouble about the arrears, if possession of the rooms were quietly given up to him that afternoon. About nine o'clock the doctor arrived, and after a careful glance at his late patient, handed Nina the necessary certificate of death, intimating at the same time that there must be no delay before the burial.

" The undertakers are very busy this weather," he said, mopping his forehead with a handkerchief ; " you had better try and arrange with one at once." " It has been arranged," answered the girl ; " my father will be buried at eleven o'clock." "A terribly hot hour; and the cemetery a perfect furnace." " The heat can't affect my father now," Nina retorted aggressively, feeling irritated at the mention of such a trivial matter on so painful an occasion. "No; it can't," returned the doctor, now looking with some curiosity at the girl, whom up to the present time he had merely regarded as another of those destitute aliens who are so great a burden upon the country unfortunate enough to attract their fancy. He had a deep-seated aversion to pauper foreigners, no matter what their nationality, but something about Nina arrested his attention and aroused his interest.