The Whirligig of Time Part 6

Headquarters appeared duly impressed; at least he seemed to have difficulty in finding words in which to continue. Aunt Agatha's crisp inquiry of what was it, please? at last moved him to admit there had been an accident. Yes, to Mr. Wimbourne. The automobile did it; ran into a telegraph pole down near Port Chester. Pretty bad smash-up; couldn't say just how bad.... Was Mr. Wimbourne badly hurt? Well, yes, pretty badly; the machine--Was Mr. Wimbourne killed? Well, yes, he was, if you put it that way. His body would arrive sometime next morning....

This was the sort of occasion on which Aunt Agatha shone as a perfect model of efficiency. She spent an hour or more telegraphing and telephoning, prayed extensively, returned to her bed and slept soundly till seven. Then she arose and gave directions to the servants. It was breakfast time before she remembered that she had yet to tell Harry.

Then, as he appeared so cheerfully and ignorantly at the breakfast table, Aunt Agatha's heart failed her. Her presence of mind also left her; she blurted out a few words to the effect that his father had had a bad accident, wished she had let him eat his breakfast in ignorance, hoped despairingly that he would guess the truth from her perturbation.

But even this was denied her; he asked a great many questions and refused to eat till she made him, but gave no sign of suspecting anything beyond what she told him.

She saw that the suspense of waiting for his father's return would tell on him more than the worst certainty, but still she could not bring herself to break the truth to him. When at last she nerved herself to do it, it was too late.

"Come here and sit down by me, Harry," she said gently, but Harry, who was standing at one of the front windows, listlessly replied:

"Wait, there's something coming up the street."

"Just a minute, dear, I want to talk to you," said Aunt Agatha, going over and trying to push him gently away from the window. But Harry's attention was caught and he refused to move.

"I thought it might be Father. Do you think it's Father, Aunt Agatha? It moves so slowly I can't see.... Yes, it's turning in at the gate. What sort of a thing is it, anyway?..."

The next moment his own eyes answered the question, and with a little cry he toppled backward into her arms.

James' reception of the news was characteristically different. His behavior was generally referred to by the family as "wonderful." He certainly was very calm throughout. He was informed of his father's death on the Sunday morning by the headmaster of his school, to whom Aunt Agatha had telegraphed the night before.

"I suppose I'd better go home," was his first comment.

"I suppose you had," replied the schoolmaster, and he was rather at a loss for what to say next. He had certainly expected more of a demonstration than this. "Somebody had better go with you. Whom would you like to have go?"

James hesitated and blushed. "Do you suppose Marston would come?" he said at last, in a low voice. Marston, a long-legged sixth former, was James' idol at present; to ask him to do something for one was like calling the very G.o.ds down from Olympus.

"I am sure he would," said the headmaster, who understood, perfectly. "I will send for him now and ask him."

So Marston accompanied James on his dreary homeward journey, though his presence was not in the least necessary, and James sat covertly gazing at him in mute adoration all the way. His thoughts were actually less on his father's death during this journey than on the wonderful, incredible fact that anything like a mere family death could throw him into intimate intercourse with Marston for a whole day.

But of course he gave no sign of this, and Marston, like a real G.o.d, seemed entirely unconscious of the immensity of the blessing he was conferring. He spent the night at the Wimbournes', behaving himself in his really rather trying position with the greatest ease and seemliness, and even submitted with a becoming grace to the kiss which Aunt Cecilia impulsively placed on his brow when she bade him farewell next morning.

"You're a dear good boy," she said softly, as she did it; "thank you, again and again, for what you've done."

James, who was a witness to this episode, nearly sank through the floor with shame. That a relative of his should kiss--actually, _kiss_ Marston--! He felt like throwing himself on the ground and imploring Marston's pardon, dedicating himself to his service for life as an expiation.

Yet Marston only blushed and laughed a little and said he had done nothing, and bade good-by to James with unimpaired cordiality.

Aunt Cecilia had been the first of the relatives to arrive on the spot after Hilary's death, and she remained commander-in-chief of the relief forces throughout. But her command was not a complete or unquestioned one. Among the relatives that a.s.sembled at the Wimbourne house on that Sunday and Monday for Hilary's funeral was one with whom the story has. .h.i.therto had no dealings, but who was a very important force in the family, for all that. This was Lady Fletcher, Hilary's younger sister, by all odds the handsomest and most naturally gifted of her generation.

She was the wife of an English army officer, Sir Giles Fletcher, who, having won his major-generalship and a K.C.B. by distinguished service with Kitchener in the Soudan, and being physically incapacitated by that campaign for further service in the tropics, was now, with the able a.s.sistance of his wife, devoting his declining years to politics. Lady Fletcher, by the discreet exercise of her social qualities, had succeeded in making herself in the five years since her husband had entered Parliament, one of the most important political hostesses in London. At the time of Hilary's death she was paying one of her flying autumn visits to the country of her birth, in which her headquarters was always her brother James' house in New York.

She and James had gone up to New Haven on the Sunday afternoon in a leisurely fashion several hours in the wake of Aunt Cecilia, who had rushed off, without so much as packing a bag, the moment she received Miss Fraile's telegram that morning. Miriam--that was her Christian name--always felt that she and her brother James understood one another better than any other members of the family, and it was her private opinion that they between them possessed more of the rare gift of common sense than all the other Wimbournes put together, with their wives and husbands thrown in. During the short two-hour journey from New York to New Haven neither she nor her brother appeared so overcome by sorrow over their recent loss that they were not able to discuss the newly created situation pretty satisfactorily, or, to "be practical" as Lady Fletcher was fond of putting it.

"You aren't going to smoke, James?" she asked, as her brother, shortly after the train had started, exhibited preparatory signs of a restlessness which she knew would culminate in an apologetic exit to the smoking car. "Please don't; I can't, on the train, and the thought of your doing it would make me miserable." She stopped for a moment, reflecting that there was perhaps that in the air which ought to make her miserable anyway; then went on, with a significantly lowered voice.

"Beside, I want to talk to you; we may not get another chance...."

"Well?" said James at length.

"Don't be irritating, James; you know what I mean, perfectly. Can't you turn your chair around a little nearer? I don't want to shout.... Tell me, first, who are to be the guardians? Now don't say you don't know, because you do."

"I do, as a matter of fact. You and I, jointly. That's the one thing I do know, for sure."

"I felt sure it would be that, somehow.... Why me, I wonder? and if me at all, why you? However, it might have been worse, of course."

"Yes, I think he was right, on the whole." So perfect was the unspoken understanding between these two that, if a third person had interrupted at this moment and asked, point blank, what they were talking about, both would have replied, without a moment's hesitation, "Selina," though her name had not pa.s.sed their lips.

"Well, what's to be done?" Lady Fletcher exhibited, to James' trained eye, preliminary symptoms of a "practical" seizure.

"Can't tell anything for certain, till we see the will. I shall see Raynham in the morning."

"Yes, but haven't you any idea ..."

"Oh, none! You were not a witness, were you?... if that's any comfort to you."

"Thanks, I have no expectations." This was uttered in Lady Fletcher's best snubbing tone, impossible to describe. "Please be practical, James.

What is going to become of those two boys?"

"Well, there are several possibilities. First, there's their aunt...."

"Oh, the Fraile woman? I've never met her. Isn't she ... well, a trifle...."

"Oh, quite. She's a leading candidate for the position of first American saint. But there'd be no point in keeping on with her, with James away at school and Harry ready to go."

"Oh, really? I didn't realize."

"No," continued James, raising his eyes to his sister's and smiling slightly, "what it will come to will be that I shall have six children instead of four. Or rather, seven instead of five."

"Oh, really?" This in a changed tone from the lady.

"Yes, hasn't she told you? April."

"No." The practical mood seemed to have undergone a setback; there was something new in that monosyllable, irritation, a twinge of pain, perhaps. An outside observer might have thought this was due to Miriam's having been left out of her sister-in-law's confidence, but James knew better. He felt sorry for his sister; he knew that her childlessness was the one blight on her career.

"I don't see why you should do it, James." This after a long interval of silent thought on the part of Miriam, and pa.s.sive observation of the rushing autumn landscape on the part of James. "I don't see why, when I'm equally responsible. It isn't a question of money, so much--I suppose that will be left all right?"

"Oh, undoubtedly. Though I don't know just how."

"It's more than that; it's the responsibility, the bother. There's no use in saying that one more, or two more, don't matter, for they do; and there's no use in saying that they would both be away at school, for, though that would make a difference, of course, you never can tell what is going to turn up. No matter what did happen, it would always fall on you--and Cecilia."

"That's all very true, perhaps, but--"

"And remember this; it's not as if you didn't have four--five already, and I none."

"What _are_ you driving at, Miriam?"

"Don't you see? I want to take one, or both of them, myself."

"Whee-ew." This was not, strictly speaking, an observation, but rather a sort of vocalized whistle, the larynx helping out the lips. "You do rush things so, Miriam! Aside from the consideration of whether it would be advisable or not, do you realize what opposition there'd be?"