The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton Part 9

_The Adventure of Miss Clarissa Dawson._

Miss Clarissa Dawson was a young lady who had charge of the cutlery counter in one of the great emporiums of State Street. She was reckoned of a pretty wit and not more cutting were the Sheffield razors that were piled before her than the remarks she sometimes made to those who, incited thereto by her reputation for readiness of retort, sought to engage her in a contest of repartee. It was seldom that she issued from these encounters other than triumphant, leaving her presumptuous opponents defeated and chagrined. But in the month of November of the last year, for once she owned to herself that she had been overcome,--overcome, it is true, because her adversary was plainly a person of stupidity, mailed by his doltishness against the keenest sarcasm she could launch against him, yet nevertheless overcome. To her choicest bit of irony, the individual replied, "Somebody left you on the grindstone and forgot to take you off," to which the most adroit in quips and quirks could find no fitting replication, unless it were to indulge in facial contortion or invective, and Miss Clarissa was too much of a lady to do either.

Forced into silence, she had no resource but to seek to transfix him with a protracted and contemptuous stare, which, though failing to disconcert the object, put her in possession of the facts that he had mild blue eyes, that the remnants of his hair were red, that he was slightly above middle height and below middle age, and that there was little about his face and still less his figure to distinguish him from a mult.i.tude of men of the average type. Indeed, one could not even conjecture his nationality, for his type was one to be seen in all branches of the Indo-European race. If from a package in his upper left-hand coat pocket, which, broken, disclosed some wieners, you concluded he was of the German nation, a short dudeen in an upper vest pocket would seem to indicate that he was an Irishman. His coat was of black cheviot, new, and of the current cut. His vest was of corduroy, of the kind in vogue in the past decade, while his pantaloons, black, with a faint green line in them, were a compromise, being of a non-commital cut that would never be badly out of style in any modern period.

Sustaining Miss Clarissa's stare with great composure, he purchased six German razors at thirty-five cents each, six English at fifty, twelve American at the same price, and a stray French razor at sixty-two.

"Don't you want some razorine?" asked Miss Clarissa. "It makes razors--and other things--sharper."

"Why don't you use it, then, instead of lobsterine?" replied the stranger, picking up his package and the change. Miss Clarissa deigning to give no reply but an angry frown, the stranger expressed his grat.i.tude for the amus.e.m.e.nt he intimated she had afforded him and he further said he hoped he would see her at the Charity Ball and he made bold to ask her to save the second two-step for him, and thereafter departed, having declined Miss Clarissa's offer to have his purchases sent to his address, an offer dictated not by a spirit of accommodation and kindliness, but by a desire to learn in what part of the city he had his residence.

On the morrow again came a man to purchase razors, of which there was a large number on Miss Clarissa's counter, traveling men's samples for sale at ridiculous prices. The man had purchased two dozen razors before Miss Clarissa, noting this similarity to the transactions of the odious person and thereby led to take a good look at him, observed with astonishment that this new man had on exactly the same suit that had been worn by the purchaser of the day before. She recognized the fabric, the color, everything down to a discoloration on the left coat lapel. Here the resemblance ended. The second individual was a young man. He had a heavy shock of abundant hair. He was not more than twenty-eight years old and so far from being commonplace, he was of a distinguished appearance. But as the eyes of Miss Clarissa continued to dwell upon him in some admiration, she told herself that the resemblance did not end with the clothes, after all. His eyes were of the same blue, his hair of the same auburn as those of the man of yesterday. Indeed, the man of yesterday might have been this man with twenty years added on him, with the light of hope and ambition dimmed by contact with the world, and his youthful alertness and dash succeeded by the resigned vacuity of one who has seen none of his early dreams realized. Again did Miss Clarissa ask if he would have his purchases sent to his address, but this time it was not entirely curiosity and the perfunctory performance of a duty, for she would gladly have been of service to one of such a pleasing presence.

Communing with himself for a moment, the young man said:

"On the whole, you may. But they must be delivered to me in person, into my own hands. I would take them, but I have a number of other things to take. Remember, they are to be delivered to me in person,"

and he handed her a card which announced that his name was Asbury Fuller and on which was written in lead pencil the address of a house in a quarter of the city which, once the most fashionable of all, had suffered from the encroachments of trade and where a few mansions yet occupied by the aristocracy were surrounded by the deserted homes of families which had fled to the newer haunts of fashion, leaving their former abodes to be occupied by boarding mistresses, dentists, doctors, clairvoyants, and a whole host of folk whose names would never be in the papers until their burial permits were issued.

Miss Clarissa did a very peculiar thing. It was already four o'clock of a Sat.u.r.day afternoon. Instead of immediately giving the package into the hands of the delivery department, she retained it and, at closing time, going to the room where ready made uniforms for messenger boys were kept, she purloined one. Now it must be known that the princ.i.p.al reason for doing a thing so unusual, not to say indiscreet, was her desire to obey the young man's injunction to hand the razors into his own hands and no others. She had become possessed of the idea that some disaster would befall if the razors came into the possession of any one else. Moreover, the stranger had humbled her in the contest of repartee, which, as a true woman, had made her entertain an admiration for him, and this and his strange disguises and his unaccountable purchases had surrounded him with a mist of romantic mystery she fain would penetrate. Some little time before, it had been Miss Clarissa's misfortune, through sickness, to lose much of her hair. It had now begun to grow again and resume its former luxuriant abundance, but by removing several switches--of her own hair--and the bolster commonly called a rat, and sleeking her hair down hard with oil, she appeared as a boy might who was badly in need of a haircut. After a light supper, she set out alone for the residence of Asbury Fuller and at the end of her journey found herself at the gateway of a somber edifice, which was apparently the only one in the block that was inhabited. On either side and across the way were vacant houses, lonesome and forbidding. Indeed, the residence of Asbury Fuller was itself scarcely less lonesome and forbidding. The gra.s.s of the plot before it was long and unkempt and heavily covered with mats of autumn leaves. The bricks of the front walk were sunken and uneven and the steps leading to the high piazza were deeply warped, as by pools of water that had lain and dried on their unswept surface through many seasons. The blinds hung awry and the paint on the great front doors was scaling, and altogether it was a faded magnificence, this of Asbury Fuller. She pulled the handle of the front-door bell and in response to its jangling announcement came a maid.

"Asbury Fuller?" said the maid, omitting the "Mr." Miss Clarissa had affixed. "Go to the side door around to the right."

Wondering if this were a lodging house and Asbury Fuller had a private entrance, or if it being his own house he had left word that callers should be sent to the side door to prevent the delivery of the razors being seen by others, Clarissa followed the walk through an avenue of dead syringa bushes and came to the side door. The same maid who had met her before, ushered her in and presently she found herself in a small apartment, almost a closet, standing at the back of Asbury Fuller. But though small, she remarked that the apartment was one of some magnificence, for on all sides was a quant.i.ty of burnished copper, binding the edges of a row of shelves and covering the whole top of a broad counter-like projection running along one side of the wall. Before this, Asbury Fuller was standing, a.s.sorting a number of cut-gla.s.s goblets of various sizes and putting them upon silver salvers, bottles of various colored wines being placed upon each salver with the goblets. He turned at her entrance and the look of sad and gloomy abstraction sitting upon his countenance instantly changed to one of relief and joy.

"At last, at last," he exclaimed, in a deep tone which even more than his countenance betrayed his relief and joy. "It is almost too late and I thought the young woman had not attended to sending them, that she had failed me."

"She would not fail you, sir," said Clarissa, earnestly, allowing herself in the protection her a.s.sumed character gave her the pleasure of giving utterance to her feeling of regard for the young man. "She would not fail, sir, she could not fail you. Oh, you wrong her, if you think she could ever break her word to you."

Asbury Fuller bent an inscrutable look upon Clarissa and then bidding her remain until his return, hastily left the room. But though he was gone, Clarissa sat gloating upon the mental picture of his manly beauty. He seemed taller than before, for the stoop he had worn in the afternoon had now departed and he stood erect and muscular in the suit of full evening dress that set off his lithe, soldierly form to such advantage. His garb was of an elegance such as Clarissa had never before beheld, and it was plain that the aristocracy affected certain adornments in the privacy of their homes which they did not caparison themselves with in public. Clarissa had seen dress suits in restaurants and in theaters, but never before had she seen a bottle-green dress coat with gold b.u.t.tons and a velvet collar and a vest with broad longitudinal stripes of white and brown. In a brief s.p.a.ce, Asbury Fuller returned, and glancing at his watch, he said:

"There is some time before the dinner party begins and I would like to talk with you. I am impressed by your apparent honesty and particularly by the air of devotion to duty that characterizes you.

The latter I have more often remarked in women than in the more selfish s.e.x to which we belong. We need a boy here. Wages, twenty dollars a month and keep."

"Oh, sir, I should be pleased to come."

"Your duties will commence at once. Owing to the fact that this old house has been empty for some time and the work of rehabilitating and refurnishing it is far from completed, you cannot at present have a room to yourself. You will sleep with John Klussmann, the hostler----"

"Oh, sir, I cannot do that," exclaimed Clarissa, starting up in alarm.

"John is a good boy and kicks very little in his sleep. But doubtless you object to the smell of horses."

"Oh, sir, let me do what is needed this evening and go home and I will come back and work to-morrow and go home to-morrow night, and if by that time you find I can have a room by myself, perhaps I will come permanently."

"I don't smell of horses myself," said Asbury Fuller, musingly, to which Clarissa making no response other than turning away her head to hide her blushes, he continued. "But two days will be enough. Indeed, to-night is the crucial point. I will not beat about the bush longer.

I wish to attach you to my interests. I wish you to serve me to-night in the crisis of my career."

"Oh, sir," said Clarissa, in the protection that her a.s.sumed character gave her, allowing herself the privilege of speaking her real sentiments, "I am attached to your interests. Let me serve you.

Command, and I will use my utmost endeavor to obey."

Asbury Fuller looked at her in surprise. Carried away by her feelings and in the state of mental exaltation which the romance and mystery of the adventure had induced, she had made a half movement to kneel as she thus almost swore her fealty in solemn tones.

"Why are you attached to my interests?" asked Asbury Fuller, somewhat dryly.

Alas, Clarissa could not take advantage of the protection her a.s.sumed character gave her to tell the real reason. Only as a woman could she do that, only as a woman could she say and be believed, "Because I love you."

"Why, some people are naturally leaders, naturally draw others to them----"

"You cannot be a spy upon me, since no one knows who I am."

"A spy!" cried Clarissa, in a voice whose sorrowful reproach gave convincing evidence of her ingenuousness.

"I wrong you, I wrong you," said Asbury Fuller. "I will trust you. I will tell you what you are to do----"

"Butler," said a maid, poking her head in at the door, "it is time to come and give the finishing touches to the table. It is almost time for the dinner to be served," and without ado, Asbury Fuller sprang out of the room.

A butler! A butler! Clarissa sat stunned. It was thus that her hero had turned out. Could she tell the other girls in the store with any degree of pride that she was keeping company with a butler? She had received a good literary education in the high school at Muncie, Indiana, and was a young woman of taste and refinement. Could she marry a butler? To be near her hero, she herself had just now been willing to undertake a menial position. But she had then imagined him to be a person of importance. This stage in her cogitations led her to the reflection that her feelings were unworthy of her. Had her regard for Asbury Fuller been all due to the belief that he was a person of importance, merely the worship of position, the selfish desire and hope--however faint--of rising to affluence and social dignity through him? Butler or no butler, Asbury Fuller was handsome, he was distinguished, his manner of speech was superior to that of any person she had ever known. Butler or no butler, she loved him. Just now she had hoped that he, rich and well placed, would overlook her poverty, and take her, friendless and obscure, for his bride. Could she give less than she had hoped he would give? And then as butler, her chances of winning him were so greatly increased.

In a short time, he returned. He told her she was to wait on the table and instructed her how to serve the courses.

"The master will look surprised when he sees you instead of me. If he asks who you are, say the new page. But he will be too much afraid of exciting the wonder of his guests to ask you any questions. I feel certain that he will accept your presence without question, being desirous his guests shall not think him a tyro in the management of an establishment like this. I feel certain that after dinner, his guests will ask to see his collection of arms. Indeed, Miss Bording told him in my hearing last Monday that she accepted his invitation here on condition that she be allowed to see the famous collection. You are to follow them into the drawing-room after dinner. The master will not know whether that is usual or not. If they do start to go to look at the arms, you are to say, 'The collection of your former weapons, sir, has been placed in the first room to the left at the head of the stairs. The paper-hangers and decorators have been busy.' Then you are to lead the way into that room, which you will find dimly lighted.

After that, I will attend to everything myself."

Although Clarissa could not but wonder at the strangeness of her instructions and to be somewhat alarmed at the evidences of a plot in which she was to be an agent, she agreed, for though her regard for Asbury Fuller would have been sufficient to cause such acquiescence, so great was her curiosity to have solved the mysteries which surrounded that individual, that this alone would have gained her consent.

There were but two guests at the table of Mr. William Leadbury--Judge Volney Bording, and his daughter, Eulalia Bording. Mr. Leadbury cast a look of surprise and displeasure as he saw Clarissa serving the first course, but he quickly concealed these emotions and proceeded to plunge into an animated conversation with his guests. Indeed, it a.s.sumed the character of a monologue in which he frequently adverted to the weather, to be off on a tangent the next moment on a discussion of finance, politics, sociology, on which subjects, however, he was far from showing the positiveness and fixed opinion that he did while descanting upon the weather. In all the subjects he touched upon, he exhibited a certain skill in so framing his remarks that they would not run counter to any prejudices or opposite opinions of his auditors, but the feelings of the auditors having been elicited, served as a preamble from which he could go on, warmly agreeing with their views in the further and more complete unfolding of his own. He was between twenty-seven and thirty years of age, of a somewhat spare figure, and in the well-proportioned features of his face there was no one that would attract attention beyond the others and easily remain fixed in memory. He was not without an appearance of intelligence and his chest was thrown out and the small of his back drawn in after the manner of the Prussian ex-sergeants who give instruction in athletics and the cultivation of a proper carriage to the elite of this city, and withal he had the appearance of a person of substance and of consequence in his community. In the midst of a pause where he was occupied in putting his soup-spoon into his mouth, Miss Bording remarked:

"Please do not talk about commonplace American subjects, Mr. Leadbury.

Tell us of your foreign life. Tell us of Algeria. What sort of a country is Algeria?"

Turning his eyes toward the chandelier about him and with an elegance of enunciation that did much to relieve the undeniably monotonous evenness of his discourse, he began:

"Algeria, the largest and most important of the French colonial possessions, is a country of northern Africa, bounded on the north by the Mediterranean, west by Morocco, south by the desert of Sahara, and east by Tunis. It extends for about five hundred and fifty miles along the coast and inland from three hundred to four hundred miles.

Physiographically it may be roughly divided into three zones," and so on for a considerable length until by an accident which Clarissa could attribute to nothing but inconceivable awkwardness, Judge Bording dropped a gla.s.s of water, crash! Having ceased his disquisition at this accident, so disconcerting to the judge, Miss Bording very prettily and promptly thanked him for his information and saying that she now had a clear understanding of the princ.i.p.al facts pertaining to Algeria, abruptly changed the subject by asking him if he had heard anything more concerning his second cousin, the barber.

"There is nothing more to be heard. He is dead. You know he came here about a week before I did. By the terms of my uncle's will, the five years to be allowed to elapse before I was to be considered dead or disappeared would have come to an end in a week after the time of my arrival, and the property have pa.s.sed to him, my uncle's cousin. By the greatest luck in the world, I had become homesick and throwing up my commission in the Foreign Legion, or Battalion D'Etranger, as we have it in French, which is, as you may know, a corps of foreigners serving under the French flag, mainly in Algeria, but occasionally in other French possessions--throwing up my commission, I came home, bringing with me my famous collection of weapons and the fauteuil of Ab del Kader, the armchair, you understand, of the great Arab prince who led the last revolt against France. It was not all homesickness, either. Among the men of all nationalities serving in the Foreign Legion, are many adventurous Americans, and a young Chicagoan, remarking my name, apprised me of the fact that perhaps I was heir to a fortune in Chicago. I came," continued Leadbury, looking down toward his lap, where Clarissa saw he held a clipping from a newspaper, "and took apartments at the Bennington Hotel, where, when seen by the representatives of the 'Commercial Advertiser,' the following interesting facts were brought out in the interview: 'William Leadbury'--your humble servant--" he interjected, "'is the only son of the late Charles Leadbury, only brother of the late millionaire iron merchant, James Leadbury. Upon his death, James Leadbury left his entire property'--but," said Leadbury, looking up, "I have previously covered that point."

"But tell us of your weapons," interposed Miss Bording.

"Oh, yes, that seems to interest you," and deftly sliding the clipping along in his fingers, he resumed: "'The collection of weapons is one of the most interesting and remarkable collections in the United States, for, though not large, its owner can say, with pardonable pride, "every bit of steel in that collection has been used by me in my trade."'"

"Ah, how proud you must be," mused Miss Bording. "I read something like that in the papers, myself. Just to think of it! Every bit of steel in that collection has been used by you in your trade. What a strange affectation you military men have in calling your profession a trade! But, Captain Leadbury, tell me of your cousin, who disappeared two days after your arrival, and why you shaved your moustache which the papers described you as having."

"A moustache is a bother," said Leadbury. "As to my cousin, why, overcome by disappointment, he took to drink. He disappeared from his lodgings on Rush Street two days after my arrival, at the close of a twenty-four hours' debauch. It was found he had shipped as a sailor on the Ingar Gulbrandson, lumber hooker for Marinette, and the Gulbrandson was found sunk up by Death's Door, at the entrance to Green Bay, her masts sticking above water. Her crew had utterly disappeared. That was three months ago and neither hide nor hair of any of them has been seen since. Poor Anderson Walkley is dead! Were he alive, I would be glad to a.s.sist him. But he was a rover, never long in one place--a few months here, a few months there--and now he is at rest and I believe he is glad, I believe he is glad."

The second course consisted of turkey, and Clarissa was astounded, as she deposited the dishes of the course, to see Asbury Fuller swiftly enter the door upon all-fours and with extreme celerity and cat-like lightness, flit across the room and esconce himself behind a huge armchair upholstered in velvet, and her astonishment increased and was tinged with no small degree of terror, as she observed the chair, noiselessly and almost imperceptibly, progress across the floor, propelled by some hidden force, until it reached a station behind the master of the house. Captain Leadbury began to carve the turkey and Clarissa was astonished more than ever to hear, in the Captain's voice, though she was sure his lips were shut,

"Would you like a close shave, Miss Bording?"