The Fortune Hunter Part 37

"I congratulate you, sir."

"Thank you very much.... Now I'm interested in a rather singular case: that of a young woman--a girl, I should say--daughter of my partner. She's a good girl and wonderfully sweet and fine, sir. She comes of one of the best families in these parts--"

"On her mother's side," suggested the colonel drily.

"So I'm told, sir. But she's been neglected. Circ.u.mstances have been against her. She hasn't had a real chance in life, but she ought to have it, and I'm going to see that she gets it, one way or another."

"You haven't finished?" said the colonel coldly, as he paused for breath and thought.

"Not quite, sir," said Duncan. "Good sign!" he told himself: "he hasn't ordered me thrown out yet." And he hurried on, speaking quickly in the semi-humorous style he had, more arresting to the attention than absolute gravity would have been.

"To come down to cases, sir, she ought to be sent to a good boarding-school for a few years. It'll make a new woman of her--a woman to be proud of. She's got that in her--it only needs to be brought out."

"And before you leave, sir," said the colonel with significant precision, "will you be so kind as to inform me why you think this should interest me?"

"No," said Duncan candidly; "I haven't got the nerve to. But what I wanted to propose was this: that you lend me five hundred dollars to cover the expense of the first year, on condition that I represent the money as coming from the profits of the business and, in short, keep the transaction between ourselves absolutely quiet. If you'll inquire of Mr. Kellogg he'll tell you I can be trusted to keep my word.

Furthermore"--he galloped, suspecting that his time was perilously short and desiring to get it all out of his system--"I'll guarantee you repayment within a year, and that you shan't be annoyed this way a second time."

Bohun looked him over from head to foot, bowed in silence, and turning--both had stood throughout this pa.s.sage--grasped a bell-rope by the chimney, and pulled it violently.

Duncan turned to the door, hat in hand, realising that he had his answer and was lucky to get away with one so mild. Only the emergency could have spurred him to the point of so outrageous an impertinence.

In the desolate fastnesses of that dreary house somewhere a bell tinkled discordantly. A moment later the white-headed darky butler opened the door.

"Suh?" he said.

Colonel Bohun essayed to speak, cleared his throat angrily, and indicated Duncan with a courteous gesture.

"Scipio," said he, "this gentleman will have a gla.s.s of wine with me."

"Ya.s.suh!" stammered the negro, overcome with astonishment.

Bohun turned to his guest. "Won't you be seated, Mr. Duncan?" he said.

"You have interested me considerably, sir, and I should be glad to discuss the matter with you."

Speechless, Duncan gasped incoherently and moved toward a chair as the servant reappeared with a tray on which was a decanter of sherry and two old-fashioned, thin-stemmed crystal gla.s.ses. He placed this on the library table, filled the gla.s.ses, and at a sign from Bohun retired.

"Sir," said the colonel, indicating the tray, "to you."

"I--I thank you, sir." Duncan lifted one of the gla.s.ses. Bohun took up the one remaining, and held it toward his guest with the gracious gesture of a bygone day.

"I hold it a privilege, sir," he said, "to drink to the only gentleman of spirit it's been my good fortune to meet this many a year."

By way of an aside, it should be mentioned that this was the first and only drink Duncan took while he lived in Radville.

XVII

TRACEY'S TROUBLES

Probably nothing ever gave rise to more comment in Radville than Betty Graham's departure to spend the winter at a boarding-school near Philadelphia. Hardly anyone knew anything about it--in fact, the rumour of it was just being noised about and contemptuously discredited on all hands--when Tracey galloped down Main Street Monday morning with the news that she had left on the early train. He himself had remained in ignorance of the impending event until requested to carry Betty's bag down to the station....

She left under convoy of a certain Mrs. Hamilton, who lived in Philadelphia and had been visiting her cousin, Mrs. Will Bigelow.

Duncan had met this lady at a church sociable and, apparently, taken a liking to her; for he prevailed upon her, via Sam Graham and Will Bigelow, to see the girl safely to her school, after superintending the purchase of a suitable wardrobe in Philadelphia.

So Betty was gone--herself, I believe, no less surprised and incredulous than the rest of us.

Radville was at first stupefied, then clamorous; but there was little information to be got out of old Sam. I found him busy working on his new model and much preoccupied with that. When interrogated and given to understand that I would not be put off, he roused a bit, but beyond being unquestionably a very happy man, seemed himself slightly dazed by the amazing circ.u.mstances. I learned from him that Nat had evidently made all his plans in advance, but had withheld his announcement of them until the Sat.u.r.day prior to that Monday; and then he had fairly whirled Betty and her father off their feet and left them no time to think or to raise objections.

"There's no use at all arguing with that boy," Sam told me, with the fond smile that I was beginning to recognise as the invariable accompaniment of his thoughts about Nat; "when he says a thing must be, it must. When he first came here I told him he was a wonderful business man, and he laughed at me, but now I know he is. Why, he gave Betty a hundred dollars to buy clothes with in Philadelphia, and said he'd have more for her by Christmas, besides paying all the expenses of that school--which must be considerable. I don't see how the store's going to stand the strain--though it's doing splendidly since he came in, splendidly!--but he says it's all right, and so it must be...."

Duncan himself refused to be interviewed. He told everybody who had the impudence to mention the matter to him, that it was Mr. Graham's affair: Mr. Graham was a substantial business man, he said, and if he chose to send his daughter away to school he had a perfect right to do so. I don't believe even Josie Lockwood got more than that out of him, for if she had we would have heard of it; and Josie was unmistakably a little jealous, and undoubtedly questioned Nat.

One direct result of it all was to hasten Josie's own leave-taking. It would never do to let the Grahams eclipse the Lockwoods, you see. Josie had been talking of going to a school in Maryland, but Betty's move to a fashionable centre like Philadelphia made her change her mind; and arrangements were made by which Josie was able to go Betty one better: a young ladies' seminary in New York City itself received Josie. She left us bereaved about a week after Betty vanished from our ken, but promised to be back for the Christmas holidays--an announcement which Duncan received with expressions of chastened joy, as he did her promise to write to him regularly, in return for his covenant to respond promptly.... Betty, by the way, had made no such arrangement; but she wrote twice a week to old Sam, and I understand she never failed to include a message to Nat.

Betty was happy, she protested in every communication, and wholly content. She was getting along. The other girls liked her and she liked them (these statements being made in the order of their relative importance). Lots of them, of course, were frightfully swell (Betty annexed "frightfully" at school, by the by) and had all sorts of clothes; but Betty was perfectly content with her modest outfit, and none of the other girls seemed to mind how she dressed. They were all kind and nice, and she'd never had such a good time.... I quote these expressions from memory of Sam's digest of her letters.

Of Josie I heard less; I know that Graham and Duncan's mail seldom lacked a personal communication to Duncan, postmarked at New York; our postmaster told me so. But Duncan was reticent, and the Lockwoods said little. I gathered an impression that Josie was not altogether happy in her new surroundings.... One inferred there was a difference between New York and Philadelphia, that one was less friendly and sociable than the other.

Josie kept her promise and came home for Christmas. She was reticent as to her impressions of the New York seminary, but seemed extremely glad to be home, notwithstanding the fact that Nat had apparently contracted no disturbing alliances with the other belles of our village. And Roland remained true--a reliable second string to Josie's bow. Roland was working hard at the bank, with an application that earned Blinky Lockwood's regard and outspoken approbation; and his Christmas raiment proved the sensation of the season. But none of us believed he had any chance against Duncan: Josie's att.i.tude toward the latter was such that we confidently antic.i.p.ated the announcement of their engagement before she went away again. But it didn't come, for some reason. We bore up under the disappointment bravely, all things considered, sustained by a very secure feeling that the proclamation couldn't be long deferred.

In pa.s.sing, I should mention that Betty didn't come home once throughout the entire school term. The Christmas and Easter holidays she spent with a girl friend at her Philadelphia home.

Meanwhile, life in our town simmered gently. Things went on much as they might have been expected to. I don't recall much essential to this narrative, in the way of events; and part of the ground I've covered on earlier pages. Duncan continued to make progress: for one thing, I recall that he put in hot soda with whipped cream, which helped a lot to hold the trade regained in the summer from Sothern and Lee. And he bought a new soda fountain, a very magnificent affair, installing it in the early spring. Graham and Duncan's, in short, became a town inst.i.tution: to it Radville pointed with pride....

He remained reserved, retiring, inconspicuous, and puzzling to our understanding. In his effort (never very successful) to strike off the shackles of modern slang, he fell into a way of speech that bewildered those unable to realise what an abiding sense of humour underlay it--as water runs beneath ice--more, I think, a matter of intonation and significant silences, than a mere play upon words and phrases; which, coupled with an unshakable sobriety of demeanour, furnished us with wonder and some admiration, but no resentment. We liked him pretty well and mostly unanimously: he was a good fellow, if queer; ent.i.tled to his idiosyncrasy, if he chose to keep one....

There was a certain night, by way of ill.u.s.tration--a bitter night, along toward the first of January--when trade was dull, as it always is after Christmas, and there was n.o.body in the store save Nat and Tracey.

Each had their task, whatever it may have been, and each was busied with it, but of the two Tracey seemed the more restless. His ample, if low, forehead was decidedly corrugated; his always rosy face owned an added trace of scarlet--a flush of perturbation; his chubby hands were inexpert, clumsy. He stumbled, fumbled, forgot and (in our homely phrase) flummoxed generally; his mind was elsewhere, and his hands and feet went anywhere but where they should have gone: a condition which eventually excited Duncan's attention.

He broke a long silence in the store. "What's the trouble, Tracey?"

Tracey pulled up with a stare of confusion. "I--I dunno, Mr. Duncan; I was thinkin', I guess."

"Anything gone wrong?"

"Not yet." Niobe would have made the response with a greater show of cheer.

Duncan looked up curiously, struck by the boy's tone. "Somebody been demonstrating that your doll's stuffed with sawdust, Tracey?"

"No-o, but..."

"Well?"

"Say, Mr. Duncan--" Tracey's confusion became terrific.