Peter Part 49

But the boy had other ends in view. Being human, and still smarting under his uncle's ridicule and contempt, he wanted to clear his own name and character; being loyal to his friend's memory and feeling that Garry's reputation must be at least patched up--and here in Breen's place and before the man who had so bitterly denounced it; and being above all tender-hearted and gallant where a woman, and a sorrowing one, was concerned, he must give Corinne and the child a fair and square start in the house of Breen, with no overdue accounts to vex her except such petty ones as a small life insurance and a few uncollected commissions could liquidate.

These much-to-be-desired results could only be attained when the senior member of the firm was made acquainted with the fact that, after all, Garry's debts could be paid and his reputation saved. The money must, therefore, be borrowed of Arthur Breen & Co. His uncle would know then beyond doubt; his axiom being that the only thing that talked loud enough ever to make him listen was "money."

It was therefore with a sense of supreme satisfaction, interwoven with certain suppressed exuberance born of freedom and self-reliance, that Jack, in answer to Breen's "What's this?" when his eyes rested on the bundle of bonds, replied in an off-hand but entirely respectful manner:

"Ten United States Government bonds, sir; and will you please give me a check drawn to my order for this amount?" and he handed the astounded broker the slip of paper McGowan had given him, on which was scrawled the total of the overdue vouchers.

Breen slipped off the rubber band, spread out the securities as a lady opens a fan, noted the t.i.tle, date, and issue, and having a.s.sured himself of their genuineness, asked in a confused, almost apologetic way, as he touched a bell to summon the cashier:

"Where did you get these? Did MacFarlane give them to you?"

"No--a friend," answered Jack casually, and without betraying a trace of either excitement or impatience.

"On what?" snapped Breen, something of his old dictatorial manner a.s.serting itself.

"On my word," replied Jack, with a note of triumph, which he could not wholly conceal.

The door opened and the cashier entered. Breen handed him the bonds, gave instructions about the drawing of the check, and turned to Jack again. He was still suffering from amazement, the boy's imperturbable manner being responsible for most of it.

"And does this pay Minott's debts?" he asked in a more conciliatory tone.

"Every dollar," replied Jack.

Breen looked up. Where had the boy got this poise and confidence, he asked himself, as a flush of pride swept through him; after all, Jack was of his own blood, his brother's son.

"And I suppose now that it's you who will be doing the walking instead of Minott's creditors?" Breen inquired with a frown that softened into a smile as he gazed the longer into Jack's calm eyes.

"Yes, for a time," rejoined Jack in the same even, unhurried voice.

The clerk brought in the slip of paper, pa.s.sed it to his employer, who examined it closely, and who then affixed his signature.

"If you get any more of that kind of stuff and want help in the new work, let me know."

"Thank you, sir," said Jack, folding up the precious sc.r.a.p and slipping it into his pocket.

Breen waited until Jack had closed the door, pulled from a pigeon-hole a bundle of papers labelled Maryland Mining Company, touched another b.u.t.ton summoning his stenographer, and said in a low voice to himself:

"Yes, I have it! Something is going on in that ore property. I'll write and find out."

CHAPTER x.x.xII

The Board of Church Trustees met, as customary, on Monday night, but there was no business transacted except the pa.s.sing of a resolution expressing its deep regret over the loss of "our distinguished fellow-townsman, whose genius has added so much to the beautifying of our village, and whose uprightness of character will always be," etc., etc.

Neither Jack nor McGowan, nor any one representing their interests, was present. A hurried glance over Garry's check and bank-books showed that the money to pay McGowan's vouchers--the exact sum--had been drawn from the fund and deposited to Garry's personal credit in his own bank in New York. Former payments to McGowan had been made in this way. There was therefore no proof that this sum had been diverted into illegitimate channels.

McGowan was paid that same Monday afternoon, Jack bringing the papers to the contractor's office, where they were signed in the presence of Murphy and his clerk.

And so the matter was closed, each and every one concerned being rejoiced over the outcome.

"Mr. Minott (it was 'Mr.' now) had a big stack of money over at his stepfather's bank," was Murphy's statement to a group around a table in one of the bar-rooms of the village. "He was in a big deal, so Mac thinks, and didn't want to haul any of it out. So when he died Mr. Breen never squawked--just went over and told the old man that Mac wanted the money and to fork out; and he did, like a good one. I seen the check, I tell ye. Oh! they're all in together. Mr. Breen's kin to them New York folks, and so is Mrs. Minott. He's her father, I hear. I think Mac shot off his mouth too quick, and I told him so, but he was so het up he couldn't keep still. Why, them fellers has got more money than they can throw away. Mac sees his mistake now. Heard him tell Mr. Breen that Mr.

Minott was the whitest man he ever knowed; and you bet yer life he's right."

Nor was Murphy's eulogium the only one heard in the village. Within a week after the funeral a committee was appointed to gather funds for the placing of a stained-gla.s.s window in the new church in memory of the young architect who had designed and erected it; with the result that Holker Morris headed the subscription list, an example which was followed by many of the townspeople, including McGowan and Murphy and several others of their cla.s.s, as well as various members of the Village Council, together with many of Garry's friends in New York, all of which was duly set forth in the county and New York papers; a fact which so impressed the head of the great banking firm of Arthur Breen & Co.

that he immediately sent his personal check for a considerable amount, desiring, as he stated at a club dinner that same night, to pay some slight tribute to that brilliant young fellow, Minott, who, you know, married Mrs. Breen's daughter--a lovely girl, brought up in my own house, and who has now come home again to live with us.

Peter listened attentively while Jack imparted these details, a peculiar smile playing about the corners of his eyes and mouth, his only comment at the strangeness of such posthumous honors to such a man, but he became positively hilarious when Jack reached that part in the narrative in which the head of the house of Breen figured as chief contributor.

"And you mean to tell me, Jack," he roared, "that Breen has pushed himself into poor Minott's stained-gla.s.s window, with the saints and the gold crowns, and--oh, Jack, you can't be serious!"

"That's what the Rector tells me, sir."

"But, Jack--forgive me, my boy, but I have never in all my life heard anything so delicious. Don't you think if Holker spoke to the artist that Mr. Iscariot, or perhaps the estimable Mr. Ananias, or Mr.

Pecksniff, or Uriah Heep might also be tucked away in the background?"

And with this the old fellow, in spite of his sympathy for Jack and the solemnity of the occasion, threw back his head and laughed so long and so heartily that Mrs. McGuffey made excuse to enter the room to find out what it was all about.

With the subletting of Garry's house and the shipping of his furniture--that which was not sold--to her step-father's house, Jack's efforts on behalf of his dead friend and his family came to a close.

Ruth helped Corinne pack her personal belongings, and Jack found a tenant who moved in the following week. Willing hands are oftenest called upon, and so it happened that the two lovers bore all the brunt of the domestic upheaval.

Their own packing had long since been completed; not a difficult matter in a furnished house; easy always to Ruth and her father, whose nomadic life was marked by constant changes. Indeed, the various boxes, cases, crates, and barrels containing much of the linen, china, and gla.s.s, to say nothing of the portieres, rugs and small tables, and the whole of Ruth's bedroom furniture, had already been loaded aboard a box car and sent on its way to Morfordsburg, there to await the arrival of the joyous young girl, whose clear brain and competent hands would bring order out of chaos, no matter how desolate the interior and the environment.

For these dainty white hands with their pink nails and soft palms, so wonderfully graceful over teapot or fan, could wield a broom or even a dust-pan did necessity require. Ruth in a ball gown, all frills and ruffles and lace, was a sight to charm the eye of any man, but Ruth in calico and white ap.r.o.n, her beautiful hair piled on top of her still more beautiful head; her skirts pinned up and her dear little feet pattering about, was a sight not only for men but for G.o.ds as well. Jack loved her in this costume, and so would you had you known her. I myself, old and wrinkled as I am, have never forgotten how I rapped at the wrong door one morning--the kitchen door--and found her in that same costume, with her arms bare to the elbows and covered with flour, where she had been making a "sally lunn" for daddy. Nor can I forget her ringing laugh as she saw the look of astonishment on my face, or my delight when she ordered me inside and made me open the oven door so that she could slide in the finished product without burning her fingers.

The packing up of their own household impedimenta complete, there came a few days of leisure--the first breathing spell that either MacFarlane or Jack, or Ruth, too, for that matter, had had for weeks. MacFarlane, in view of the coming winter--a long and arduous one, took advantage of the interim and went south, to his club, for a few days' shooting--a rare luxury for him of late years. Jack made up his mind to devote every one of his spare hours to getting better acquainted with Ruth, and that young woman, not wishing to be considered either neglectful or selfish, determined to sacrifice every hour of the day and as much of the night as was proper and possible to getting better acquainted with Jack; and the two had a royal time in the doing.

Jack, too, had another feeling about it all. It seemed to him that he had a debt of grat.i.tude--the rasping word had long since lost its edge--to discharge; and that he owed her every leisure hour he could steal from his work. He had spent days and nights in the service of his friends, and had, besides, laid the burden of their anxieties upon her.

He would pay her in return twice as many days of gladness to make up for the pain she had so cheerfully borne. What could he do to thank her?--how discharge the obligation? Every hour he would tell her, and in different ways--by his tenderness, by his obedience to her slightest wish, antic.i.p.ating her every want--how much he appreciated her unselfishness, and how much better, if that were possible, he loved her for her sacrifice. Nor was there, when the day came, any limit to his devotion or to her enjoyment. There were rides over the hills in the soft September mornings--Indian summer in its most dreamy and summery state; there were theatre parties of two and no more; when they sat in the third row in the balcony, where it was cheaper, and where, too, they wouldn't have to speak to anybody else. There were teas in Washington Square, where n.o.body but themselves and their hostess were present, as well as other unexpected outings, in which all the rest of the world was forgotten.

The house, too, was all their own. n.o.body upstairs; n.o.body downstairs but the servants; even the emptiness of daddy's room, so grewsome in the old days, brought a certain feeling of delight. "Just you and me," as they said a dozen times a day to each other. And then the long talks on that blessed old sofa with its cushions--(what a wonderful old sofa it was, and how much it had heard); talks about when she was a girl--as if she had ever pa.s.sed the age; and when he was a boy; and of what they both thought and did in that blissful state of innocence and inexperience. Talks about the bungalow they would build some day--that bungalow which Garry had toppled over--and how it would be furnished; and whether they could not persuade the landlord to sell them the dear sofa and move it out there bodily; talks about their life during the coming winter, and whether she should visit Aunt Felicia's--and if so, whether Jack would come too; and if she didn't, wouldn't it be just as well for Jack to have some place in Morfordsburg where he could find a bed in case he got storm-bound and couldn't get back to the cabin that same night. All kinds and conditions and sorts of talks that only two lovers enjoy, and for which only two lovers can find the material.

Sometimes she thought he might be too lonely and neglected at the log-cabin. Then she would make believe she was going to ask daddy to let them be married right away, insisting that two rooms were enough for them, and that she herself would do the washing and ironing and the cooking, at which Jack would laugh over the joy of it all, conjuring up in his mind the pattern of ap.r.o.n she would wear and how pretty her bare arms would be bending over the tub, knowing all the time that he would no more have allowed her to do any one of these things than he would have permitted her to chop the winter's wood.

Most of these day dreams, plots, and imaginings were duly reported by letter to Miss Felicia to see what she thought of them all. For the dear lady's opposition had long since broken down. In these letters Ruth poured out her heart as she did to no one except Jack; each missive interspersed with asides as to how dear Jack was, and how considerate, and how it would not be a very long time before she would soon get the other half of the dear lady's laces, now that daddy and Jack (the boy had been given an interest in the business) were going to make lots of money on the new work--to all of which Miss Felicia replied that love in a garret was what might be expected of fools, but that love in a log-cabin could only be practised by lunatics.

It was toward the close of this pre-honey-moon--it lasted only ten days, but it was full moon every hour and no clouds--when, early one morning--before nine o'clock, really--a night message was handed to Jack. It had been sent to the brick office, but the telegraph boy, finding that building closed and abandoned, had delivered it to Mrs.

Hicks, who, discovering it to be sealed, forwarded it at once, and by the same hand, to the MacFarlane house, known now to everybody as the temporary headquarters, especially in the day time, of the young superintendent who was going to marry the daughter--"and there ain't a nicer, nor a better, nor a prettier."

On this morning, then, the two had planned a day in the woods back of the hills; Ruth's mare was to be hooked up to a hired buggy, and such comforts as a bucket of ice, lettuce sandwiches thin as wafers, a cold chicken, a spirit lamp, teapot, and cups and saucers, not to mention a big shawl for my sweetheart to sit on, and another smaller one for her lovely shoulders when the cool of the evening came on, were to be stowed away under the seat.

"That telegram is from Aunt Felicia, I know," said Ruth. "She has set her heart on my coming up to Geneseo, but I cannot go, Jack. I don't want to be a minute away from you."

Jack had now broken the seal and was scanning the contents. Instantly his face grew grave.

"No--it's not from Aunt Felicia," he said in a thoughtful tone, his eyes studying the despatch. "I don't know whom it's from; it is signed T.

Ballantree; I never heard of him before. He wants me to meet him at the Astor House to-day at eleven o'clock. Some business of your father's, I expect--see, it's dated Morfordsburg. Too bad, isn't it, blessed--but I must go. Here, boy"--this to the messenger, who was moving out of the door--"stop at the livery stable as you go by and tell them I won't want the horse and wagon, that I'm going to New York. All in a life-time, my blessed--but I'm dreadfully sorry."