What's-His-Name Part 26

Mrs. Davis blandly proposed matrimony to him, now that he was free and she nearing the halfway stage of mourning.

He was somewhat dazed by these swift turns of the wheel of fate.

His first thought on coming into the fortune was of Phoebe, and the opportunities it laid open to him where she was concerned. His uncle had been dilatory in the matter of dying, but his nephew did not have it in his kindly heart to hold it up against the old gentleman.

Still, if he had pa.s.sed on a fortnight earlier, the decree might have been antic.i.p.ated by a few days and Phoebe at least saved for him.

Seeing that the poor old gentleman had to die anyway, it seemed rather inconsiderate of fate to put it off so long as it did. As it was, he would have to make the best of it and inst.i.tute some sort of proceedings to get possession of the child for half of the year at the shortest.

He went so far as to slyly consult an impecunious lawyer about the matter, with the result that a long letter was sent to Nellie setting out the facts and proposing an amicable arrangement in lieu of more sinister proceedings. Harvey added a postscript to the lawyer's diplomatic rigmarole, conveying a plain hint to Nellie that, inasmuch as he was now quite well-to-do, she might fare worse than to come back to him and begin all over again.

The letter was hardly on its way to Reno, with instructions to forward, when he began to experience a deep and growing sense of shame; it was a pusillanimous trick he was playing on his poor old woman-hating uncle. Contemplating a resumption of the conjugal state almost before the old gentleman was cold in his grave! It was contemptible. In no little dread he wondered if his uncle would come back to haunt him. There was, at any rate, no getting away from the gruesome conviction, ludicrous as it may seem, that he would be responsible for the brisk turning over of Uncle Peter, if nothing more.

On top of this spell of uneasiness came the surprising proposition of Mrs. Davis. Between the suspense of not hearing from Nellie and the dread of offending the dead he was already in a sharp state of nerves.

But when Mrs. Davis gently confided to him that she needed a live man to conduct her affairs without being actuated by a desire to earn a weekly salary he was completely stupefied.

"I'm afraid I don't understand, Mrs. Davis," he said, beginning to perspire very freely.

They were seated in the parlour of her house in Brown Street. She had sent for him.

"Of course, Harvey, it is most unseemly of me to suggest it at the present time, seeing as I have only been in mourning for three months, but I thought perhaps you'd feel more settled like if you knew just what to expect of me."

"Just what to expect?"

"Yes; so's you could rest easy in your mind. It would have to be quite a ways off yet, naturally, so's people wouldn't say mean things about us. They might, you know, considering the way you carried on with women in New York. Not for the world would I have 'em say or even think that anything had been going on between you and me prior to the time of Mr. Davis' death, but--but you know how people will talk if they get a chance. For that reason I think we'd better wait until the full period of mourning is over. That's only about a year longer, and it would stop----"

"Are--are you asking me to--to marry you, Mrs. Davis?" gasped Harvey, clutching the arms of the chair.

"Well, Harvey," said she, kindly, "I am making it easy for you to do it yourself."

"Holy----" began he, but strangled back the word "Mike," remembering that Mrs. Davis, a devout church member, abhorred anything that bordered on the profane.

"Holy what?" asked she, rather coyly for a lady who was not likely to see sixty again unless reincarnated.

"Matrimony," he completed, as if inspired.

"I know I am a few years older than you, Harvey, but you are so very much older than I in point of experience that I must seem a mere girl to you. We could----"

"Mrs. Davis, I--I can't do it," he blurted out, mopping his brow. "I suppose it means I'll lose my job in the store, but, honestly, I can't do it. I'm much obliged. It's awfully nice of you to----"

"Don't be too hasty," said she, composedly. "As I said in the beginning, I want some one to conduct the store in Mr. Davis' place.

But I want that person to be part owner of it. No hired man, you understand? Now, how would a new sign over the door look, with your name right after Davis? Davis &--er--er----Oh, dear me!"

"I'll--I'll buy half of the store," floundered he. "I want to buy a half interest."

"I won't sell," said she, flatly. "I'm determined that the store shall never go out of the family while I am alive. There's only one way for you to get around that, and that's by becoming a part of the family."

"Why--why, Mrs. Davis, I'm only thirty years old. You surely don't mean to say you'd--you'd marry a kid like me? Let's see. My mother, if she was alive, wouldn't be as old as----"

"Never mind!" interrupted she, with considerable asperity. "We won't discuss your mother, if you please. Now, Harvey, don't be cruel. I am very fond of you. I will overlook all those scandalous things you did in New York. I can and will close my eyes to the wicked life you led there. I won't even ask their names--and that's more than most women would promise! I won't----"

"I can't do it," he repeated two or three times in rapid succession.

"Think it over, Harvey dear," said she, impressively.

"I'll buy a half interest if you'll let me, but I'll be doggoned if I'll marry a stepmother for Phoebe, not for the whole shebang!"

"Stepmother!" she repeated, shrilly. "I don't intend to be a stepmother!"

"Maybe I meant grandmother," he stammered in confusion. "I'm so rattled."

"Nellie has got Phoebe. She's not yours any longer. How can I be her stepmother? Answer that."

"You can't," said he, much too promptly.

"Well, promise me one thing, Harvey dear," she pleaded; "promise me you'll take a month or two to think it over. We couldn't be married for a year, in any event, so what's the sense of being in such a hurry to settle the matter definitely?"

Harvey reflected. He found himself in a very peculiar predicament. He had gone to her house with the avowed intention of offering her three thousand dollars and the studio in exchange for a half interest in the drug store. Now his long cherished dream seemed to be turning into a nightmare.

"I will think it over," he said, at last, in secret desperation. "But can't you give me a year's option?"

"On me?"

"On the store."

"Well, am I not the store?"

"No ma'am," said he, hastily. "I can't look at you in that light. I can't think of you as a drug store."

"I am sure I would make you a good and loving wife, Harvey. If Davis were alive he could tell you how devoted I was to him in all the----"

"But that's just the trouble, he isn't alive!" cried poor Harvey, at his wits' end. "Give me eight months."

"In the meantime you will up and marry some one else. Half the girls in town are crazy--no, I won't say that," she made haste to interrupt herself, suddenly realising the tactlessness of the remark. "Come up to dinner next Sunday and we will talk it over again. It is the best drug store in Blakeville, Harvey; remember that."

"I will remember it," he said, blankly, and took his departure.

As he pa.s.sed Simpson's book store he dashed in and bought a New York dramatic paper. Hurriedly looking through the route list of companies, he found that the "Up in the Air" company was playing that week in Philadelphia. Without consulting his attorney he telegraphed to Nellie:--"Am in trouble. Uncle Peter is dead. Left me everything. Will you come back? Harvey."

The next day he had a wire from Nellie, charges collect:--"If he left you everything, why don't you pay for telegrams when you send them?

Nellie."

He replied:--"I was not sure you were with the company, that's why.

Shall I come to Philadelphia? Harvey."

Her answer:--"Not unless you are looking for more trouble. Nellie."

His next:--"There's a woman here who wants me to marry her. Won't you help me? Harvey."

Her last:--"There's a man here who is going to marry me. Why don't you marry her? Naughty! Naughty! Nellie."