Beloved Scoundrel (2 page)

The old hardware merchant showed pleasure and fished in his gray waistcoat for a card. He found one and gave it to David, saying, “Burns of Fifteenth Street! The number is there!”

They bade him goodbye after the handyman had come to take their things up to the third-floor bed-sitting room which was to be their new home in New York. The room was sparsely furnished with a plain iron bed and rather ugly wallpaper but it was meticulously clean.

After he’d tipped the handyman and they were alone in the room David took her in his arms and kissed her gently. He said, “Not the sort of luxury lodgings I would prefer but I did not wish to spend too much until we have made a start here.”

“You are wise and I fully agree,” she told him.

Still holding her in his arms, he said, “I can’t believe my good fortune! That I have you as my wife and a new country to conquer with our talents. It is all I have ever wished.”

She felt a moment’s pain for she sincerely wished she could honestly say she felt the same. But she knew that would be a lie. She had too long loved and hoped to be the wife of Lord George Palmer to be able to cast that dream completely aside. But, with that impossible, this was surely the next best thing. Like her father she had always been dedicated to the stage and she was terribly fond of the handsome actor whom she’d married.

She said quietly, “I am lucky in having you, David.”

He gazed down at her with serious eyes. “And yet I know I must forever take second place in your heart!”

“David, please!”

“No,” he said, “it should be mentioned and accepted. I know you risked your career and endured scandal for George Palmer. You and he could have been married had the resulting scandal not threatened to destroy you both. That was why Charles Palmer hoped you would marry him. You had to leave England.”

“I chose you,” she said.

His handsome face took on a brighter look. “That is what l cling to. I was your second choice. So now we both must forget all that happened back home. That is all another life. Our new existence will date from today. Our first day in America!”

She nodded happily. “That is how I feel. We shall have a wonderful life over here and great success. You are such a fine actor you deserve it.”

“And you were one of the most popular young women on the London stage,” he said proudly. “l have chosen my wife and leading lady well.”

Fanny went about unpacking and David helped her. While they were working there was a knock at the door and it was Mrs. Larkins with some towels over her arm. She said, “Fresh towels for you! And you must come down for the noon meal. It will be served very shortly.”

“Thank you,” Fanny said in friendly fashion. “We are strangers to America. Many of the customs here will be new to us.”

“Not all that different,” Mrs. Larkins assured her. “I have had English theatre people here before. And I like them. Their manners are better than most and they speak so nicely.”

David smiled. “Do you have many theatre people among your lodgers now?”

“Most of them are show folk though in different branches of the profession,” the pleasant landlady told them. “There will be only a few in the dining room for lunch since many of the regulars are rehearsing or having a lunch somewhere else.”

“It is like that in the lodging houses in London,” Fanny agreed.

“You’re a true beauty!” Mrs. Larkins said with admiration. “You’ve got the even sort of features that last! And your hair, a lovely shade of red! I can tell from the way you speak and conduct yourself you are a real lady!”

“She is that,” David said good-humoredly as he placed an arm about Fanny’s waist. “Hob-nobbed with the gentry, she has. But she’s an actor’s daughter and she’s never forgotten she is one of us.”

“I should hope not!” Fanny said.

“Well, good luck to you,” their landlady said. “It is not an easy life. I’ve found that out after catering to theatricals these last twenty years!” And she went on her way.

They went down the two flights of stairs and ventured rather timidly into the communal dining room. A maid moved about busily serving the various tables and there was the strong aroma of good beef stew in the air. Only a few of the places at the various tables were occupied. As they hesitated in the doorway a figure suddenly bobbed up from the nearest table.

“Do come join I us,” the man said. Fanny thought he was the tallest, most slender man she had ever met. He was balding and had a white chin-whisker.

“Thank you,” David said, leading her forward.

“I am Ernest Sherman and this is my wife, ‘Little Emmie,’ “ The thin man said with pleasure.

Fanny tried without too much success to hide her shock. For seated at the table with the incredibly thin man was one of the fattest human beings she had ever seen. ‘Little Emmie’ as her husband had termed her was enormous. She wore a cotton print dress with a round neck and her brass-colored hair was curly and arranged in an upsweep. She had a pretty face for all her fat and was much younger than her husband. Perhaps only in her twenties.

She smiled warmly at David and Fanny and in a shrill voice said, “A great pleasure! You will forgive my not rising. I have so much to move!” And then both she and her husband laughed.

David and Fanny seated themselves opposite the husband and wife so unalike in appearance. And David said, “I’m David Cornish and this is my wife Fanny. We’re here to open in a play.”

“Most interesting,” Ernest Sherman said. “May I ask under whose management you are appearing?”

“Desmond Dempsey,” David replied promptly as the maid served him and Fanny with ample dishes of the beef stew.

The thin man’s face shadowed. “Desmond Dempsey! The name has a familiar ring but I do not know him.”

Fanny smiled. “He seems a true gentleman. He is going to allow us to form our own company.”

“Unusual,” the thin man said. “The big names in New York at the moment are Forrest and Booth. That is Edwin Booth I mean, the father has been dead for several years.”

“l’m familiar with the work of Forrest and I have heard of Booth,” David said. “I would say New York theatre goers have sound fare.”

“Much of it is good,” Ernest Sherman said. “My wife and I are employed by the greatest of them all, P.T. Barnum!

“Well!” Fanny exclaimed. “May I ask what so famous a man is like when you know him?”

“His heart is as large as his body and he’s a big man,” Emest Sherman said. And he turned to his mammoth wife, “Isn’t that so, my dear?”

“Oh, it is!” Little Emmie agreed seriously. “He won’t let me overdo myself for fear my heart may suffer.”

The thin man said, “My wife and I are employed in Mr. Barnum’s Freak Museum. But every second day we have the lunch hour free. We are not due at the museum until this evening.”

Fanny gazed at the huge woman. “Of course! You are one of the attractions!”

Ernest Sherman spoke up at once, “My wife and I are both featured at the museum. Little Emmie weighs more than three hundred pounds and claims to be the fattest woman in the world, while I am a sword-swallower and fire eater!”

“How interesting!” Fanny exclaimed.

“And a bit dangerous?” David suggested politely.

The thin man looked at him happily. “You have an astute mind, sir. And you are right. I have quite ruined my digestive organs with my weird diet! I have very little appetite for ordinary food. But my dear wife makes up for us both!”

Little Emmie said shyly, “I’m continually in need of a snack.”

Fanny smiled, “Well, we mustn’t allow you to get thin. I was in a museum of novelties in London.” And she told them all about her experiences as a mermaid in Gilbert Tingley’s freak show.

Ernest Sherman was delighted by her account as was Little Emmie. “What luck!” the thin man said. “You are one of us! I must tell Mr. Barnum we have a mermaid at our table at home. He is one to enjoy a joke!”

“David and I will attend the museum as soon as we can,” she promised. “I do not want to miss it!”

Little Emmie’s broad face was wreathed in smiles and double chins. “Ernest and I will look forward to it. And I’m sure you’ll have a chance to meet Mr. Barnum. He spends much of his time right at the museum.”

David Cornish said, “As soon as I’ve settled our affairs with Mr. Desmond Dempsey we’ll take a look around the city.”

After they had lunch they consulted Mrs. Larkins as to the address which Desmond Dempsey had sent them. She studied the slip of paper with a brow wrinkled and told them, “That will be up Broadway a few blocks and on this side of the street.”

David thanked her. Then dressed in their best, he and Fanny walked to Broadway and up the several blocks which Mrs. Larkin had indicated. They finally reached an ugly, red brick building with a sign on it, “Godhunter & Godhunter, Theatrical Printing.” David consulted the paper again and found this was the address they wanted.

He glanced at her, “This must be the place. No doubt Mr. Dempsey has his office inside.”

Fanny said, “He may not consider it dignified to have a sign.”

“Still people have to be able to find him,” her handsome husband worried.

He led the way inside and they found themselves standing at a counter behind which were a number of printing presses, and ink-stained operators working at them or running about with proofs in their hands. There was no sign of an office of any sort.

She whispered, “He must be upstairs.”

“I don’t see any stairs,” David said, looking troubled.

At this moment a chubby, elderly man wearing a shade over his brow and chewing tobacco vigorously so that tiny dribbles steamed out of the corner of his lips, advanced to the counter to study them with grim interest.

His nose was flat, as if it had been broken in some fight, and his eyes were small and mean. He asked, “What do you want?”

David, tophat in hand, said politely, “We’re looking for Mr. Desmond Dempsey.”

The flat-nosed man gave him a look of utter disgust and then spat into a battered brass bowl a distance from him, finding his mark with amazing accuracy. He told David, “So am I looking for him!”

David continued to be polite though he was now also looking worried. He asked, “Is this not his office?”

The man behind the counter grinned nastily. “I used to let him use a desk in here and he had mail sent here. But I wouldn’t say he had an office.”

Fanny could keep quiet no longer. She asked the man, “Are you telling us that his Desmond Dempsey doesn’t have any office?”

“Not that I know of, ma’am,” the flat-nosed man drawled. “What do you folks want of him?”

Now upset, David said, “We are actors from England. We have come here at his request to form a theatre company under his banner.”

The man behind the counter stopped chewing and stared at them incredulously. “You mean to say you people came all the way from England to work for Dempsey?”

“Yes,” Fanny said. “We’re very anxious to find him.”

“So are a lot of other people,” the flat-nosed man said significantly.

“What are you hinting at?” David said somewhat angrily. “I do not like your manner and I want to know the truth about all this.”

The flat-nosed one grinned. “Getting real upset, ain’t you? Well, you got reason to be. Your friend Desmond Dempsey is a bankrupt! He left town owing everyone, including me!”

“Bankrupt!” Fanny gasped, seeing their dream about to become a nightmare.

“Yep,” the man said, chewing happily. “I gave him credit on his printing for “The American Fireman” and he paid me back part for that. Then he decided to do “The Road To Ruin” and that was ruin for everybody. No one came to see it and he went broke!”

“Bankrupt and vanished!” David said with consternation. “What about our contract?”

“Not worth the paper it’s written on,” the man behind the counter said. “Dempsey won’t dare come back here for a year or two. Not until he thinks all this is forgotten.”

Fanny felt physically ill. She told the man, “We came all the way across the Atlantic on his word.”

“More’s the pity,” the man said. “But that’s how it is. Maybe you’d like to form a company to take out. “The Road to Ruin.” If you want to, I can supply you with plenty of posters at less than half-price.”

“Thanks,” David said grimly. “I don’t think we are ready to set up for ourselves.”

“Mr. Cornish had his own company back in London.” Fanny said. “But over here it is rather different.”

“Well, don’t count on Dempsey,” was the printer’s final word. Then he left them to give his attention to his printers and the noisy presses. David was pale. He took her arm. “Let us get out of here,” he said tautly.

On the street they stood staring at each other and not knowing what move to make next. He said, “The fellow used good references to fool me. No doubt they were all faked. I can’t think why I didn’t guess.”

“You were anxious to leave London,” she said. “And you wanted to help me.”

“I have us both in a fine fix,” he said gloomily. “l can pay our expenses for a few weeks but after that I’ll be lucky to be able to scrape together enough money for our passage back to London.”