“Hush, Jack!” exclaimed Mrs. Ralston. “I don’t want you to find excuses for me. I was blind with anger, if that’s an excuse — but it’s not. And most of all — I don’t want you to imagine for one moment that I’m going to make this settlement of our affairs with the least idea that it is a reparation to you, or anything at all of that sort. Not that you’d ever misunderstand me to that extent. Would you?”
“No. Certainly not. You’re too much like me.”
“Yes. There’s no reparation about it, because that’s more possible. As it is, no particular result will follow unless you wish it. You’ll be free to go away, if you please, that’s all. And if you choose to marry Katharine, and if she is willing to marry you on six thousand a year, you’ll feel that you can, though it’s not much. And for the matter of that, Jack dear — you know, don’t you? If it would make you happy, and if she would — I don’t think I should be any worse than most mothers-in-law — and all I have is yours, Jack, besides your share. But those are your secrets — no, it’s quite natural.”
John had taken her hand gently and kissed it. “I don’t want any gratitude for that,” she continued. “It’s perfectly natural. Besides, there’s no question of gratitude between you and me. It’s always been share and share alike — of everything that was good. Now I’m going. You’ll be in for luncheon? Do take care of yourself to-day. See what weather we’re having! And — well — it’s not for me to lecture you about your health, dear. But what Doctor Routh said is true. You’ve grown thinner again, Jack — you grow thinner every year, though you are so strong.”
“Don’t worry about me, mother dear. I’m all right. And I shan’t go out to-day. But I have a dinner-party this evening, and I shall go to it. I think I told you — the Van De Waters’ — didn’t I? Yes. I shall go to that and show myself. I’m sure people have been talking about me, and it was probably in the papers this morning. Wasn’t it?”
“Dear — to tell you the truth, I wouldn’t look to see. It wasn’t very brave of me — but — you understand.”
“I certainly shan’t look for the report of my encounter with the prize-fighter. I’m sure he was one. I shall probably be stared at to-night, and some of them will be rather cold. But I’ll face it out — since I’m in the right for once.”
“Yes. I wouldn’t have you stay at home. People would say you were afraid and were waiting for it to blow over. Is it a big dinner?”
“I don’t know. I got the invitation a week ago, at least, so it isn’t an informal affair. It’s probably to announce Ruth Van De Water’s engagement to that foreigner — you know — I’ve forgotten his name. I know Bright’s going — because they said he wanted to marry her last year — it isn’t true. And there’ll probably be some of the Thirlwalls, and the young Trehearns, and Vanbrugh and his wife — you know, all the Van De Water young set. Katharine’s going, too. She told me when she got the invitation, some time last week. There’ll be sixteen or eighteen at table, and I suppose they’ll amuse themselves somehow or other afterwards. Nobody wants to dance to-night, I fancy — at least none of our set, after the Thirlwalls’, and the Assembly, and I don’t know how many others last week.”
“They’ll probably put you next to Katharine,” said Mrs. Ralston.
“Probably — especially there, for they always do — with Frank Miner on her other side to relieve my gloom. Second cousins don’t count as relations at a dinner-party, and can be put together. Half of the others are own cousins, too.”
“Well, if it’s a big dinner it won’t be so disagreeable for you. But if you’d take my advice, Jack — however—” She stopped.
“What is it, mother?” he asked. “Say it.”
“Well — I was going to say that if any one made any disagreeable remarks, or asked you why you weren’t at the Assembly last night, I should just tell the whole story as it happened. And you can end by saying that I was anxious about you and sent for Doctor Routh, and refer them to him. That ought to silence everybody.”
“Yes.” John paused a moment. “Yes,” he repeated. “I think you’re right. I wish old Routh were going to be there himself.”
“He’d go in a minute if he were asked,” said Mrs. Ralston.
“Would he? With all those young people?”
“Of course he would — only too delighted! Dear old man, it’s just the sort of thing he’d like. But I’m going, Jack, or I shall stay here chattering with you all the morning.”
“That other thing, mother — about the money — don’t do it!” Jack held her a moment by the hand.
“Don’t try to hinder me, dear,” she answered. “It’s the only thing I can do — to please my own conscience a little. Good-bye. I’ll see you at luncheon.”
She left the room quickly, and John found himself alone with his own thoughts again.
“It’s just like her,” he said to himself, as he lighted a cigar and sat down to think over the situation. “She’s just like a man about those things.”
He had perhaps never admired and loved his mother as he did then; not for what she was going to do, but for the spirit in which she was doing it. He was honest in trying to hinder her, because he vaguely feared that the step might cause her some inconvenience hereafter — he did not exactly know how, and he was firmly resolved that he would not under any circumstances take advantage of the arrangement to change his mode of life. Everything was to go on just as before. As a matter of theory, he was to have a fixed, settled income of his own; but as a matter of fact, he would not regard it as his. What he liked about it, and what really appealed to him in it all, was his mother’s man-like respect for his honour, and her frank admission that nothing she could do could possibly wipe out the slight she had put upon him. Then, too, the fact and the theory were at variance and in direct opposition to one another. As a matter of theory, nothing could ever give him back the sensation he had always felt since he had been a boy — that his mother would believe him on his word in the face of any evidence whatsoever which there might be against him. But as a matter of fact, the evil was not only completely undone, but there was a stronger bond between them than there had ever been before.
That certainly was the first good thing which had come to him during the last four and twenty hours, and it had an effect upon his spirits.
He thought over what his mother had said about the evening, too, and was convinced that she was right in advising him to tell the story frankly as it had happened. But he was conscious all the time that his anxiety about Katharine’s silence was increasing. He had roused himself at dawn, in spite of his fatigue, and had sent a servant out to post the letter with the special delivery stamp on it. Katharine must have received it long ago, and her answer might have been in his hands before now. Nevertheless, he told himself that he should not be impatient, that she had doubtless slept late after the ball, and that she would send him an answer as soon as she could. By no process of reasoning or exaggeration of doubting could he have reached the conclusion that she had never received his letter. She had always got everything he sent her, and there had never been any difficulty about their correspondence in all the years during which they had exchanged little notes. He took up the magazine again, and turned over the pages idly. Suddenly Frank Miner’s name caught his eye. The little man had really got a story into one of the great magazines, a genuine novel, it seemed, for this was only a part, and there were the little words at the end of it, in italics and in parenthesis, ‘to be continued,’ which promised at least two more numbers, for as John reflected, when the succeeding number was to be the last, the words were ‘to be concluded.’ He was glad, for Miner’s sake, of this first sign of something like success, and began to read the story with interest.
It began well, in a dashing, amusing style, as fresh as Miner’s conversation, but with more in it, and John was beginning to congratulate himself upon having found something to distract his attention from his bodily ills and his mental embarrassments, when the door opened, and Mi
ner himself appeared.
“May I come in, Ralston?” he enquired, speaking softly, as though he believed that his friend had a headache.
“Oh — hello, Frank! Is that you? Come in! I’m reading your novel. I’d just found it.”
Little Frank Miner beamed with pleasure as he saw that the magazine was really open at his own story, for he recognized that this, at least, could not be a case of premeditated appreciation.
“Why — Jack—” he stammered a moment later, in evident surprise. “You don’t look badly at all!”
“Did they say I was dead?” enquired Ralston, with a grim smile. “Take a cigar. Sit down. Tell me all about my funeral.”
Miner laughed as he carefully cut off the end of the cigar and lit it — a sort of continuous little gurgling laugh, like the purling of a brook.
“My dear boy,” he said, blowing out a quantity of smoke, and curling himself up in the easy chair, “you’re the special edition of the day. The papers are full of you — they’re selling like hot cakes everywhere — your fight with Tom Shelton, the champion light weight — and your turning up in the arms of two policemen — talk of a ‘jag!’ Lord!”
CHAPTER XXVIII.
JOHN LOOKED AT Miner quietly for a few seconds, without saying anything. The little man was evidently lost in admiration of the magnitude of his friend’s ‘jag,’ as he called it.
“I say, Frank,” said Ralston, at last, “it’s all a mistake, you know. It was a series of accidents from beginning to end.”
“Oh — yes — I suppose so. You managed to accumulate quite a number of accidents, as you say.”
Ralston was silent again. He was well aware of the weight of the evidence against him, and he wished to enter upon his explanation by degrees, in order that it might be quite clear to Miner.
“Look here,” he began, after a while. “I’m not the sort of man who tries to wriggle out of things, when he’s done them, am I? Heaven knows — I’ve been in scrapes enough! But you never knew me to deny it, nor to try and make out that I was steady when I wasn’t. Did you, Frank?”
“No,” answered Miner, thoughtfully. “I never did. That’s a fact. It’s quite true.”
The threefold assent seemed to satisfy Ralston.
“All right,” he said. “Now I want you to listen to me, because this is rather an extraordinary tale. I’ll tell it all, as nearly as I can, but there are one or two gaps, and there’s a matter connected with it about which I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Go ahead,” answered Miner. “I’ve got some perfectly new faith out — and I’m just waiting for you. Produce the mountain, and I’ll take its measure and remove it at a valuation.”
Ralston laughed a little and then began to tell his story. It was, of course, easy for him to omit all mention of Katharine, and he spoke of his interview with Robert Lauderdale as having taken place in connection with an idea he had of trying to get something to do in the West, which was quite true. He omitted also to mention the old gentleman’s amazing manifestation of eccentricity — or folly — in writing the cheque which John had destroyed. For the rest, he gave Miner every detail as well as he could remember it. Miner listened thoughtfully and never interrupted him once.
“This isn’t a joke, is it, Jack?” he asked, when John had finished with a description of Doctor Routh’s midnight visit.
“No,” answered Ralston, emphatically. “It’s the truth. I should be glad if you would tell any one who cares to know.”
“They wouldn’t believe me,” answered Miner, quietly.
“I say, Frank—” John’s quick temper was stirred already, but he checked himself.
“It’s all right, Jack,” answered Miner. “I believe every word you’ve told me, because I know you don’t invent — except about leaving cards on stray acquaintances at the Imperial, when you happen to be thirsty.”
He laughed good-naturedly.
“That’s another of your mistakes,” said Ralston. “I know — you mean last Monday. I did leave cards at the hotel. I also had a cocktail. I didn’t say I wasn’t going to, and I wasn’t obliged to say so, was I? It wasn’t your business, my dear boy, nor Ham Bright’s, either.”
“Well — I’m glad you did, then. I’m glad the cards were real, though it struck me as thin at the time. I apologize, and eat humble pie. You know you’re one of my illusions, Jack. There are two or three to which I cling. You’re a truthful beggar, somehow. You ought to have a little hatchet, like George Washington — but I daresay you’d rather have a little cocktail. It illustrates your nature just as well. Bury the hatchet and pour the cocktail over it as a libation — where was I? Oh — this is what I meant, Jack. Other people won’t believe the story, if I tell it, you know.”
“Well — but there’s old Routh, after all. People will believe him.”
“Yes — if he takes the trouble to write a letter to the papers, over his name, degrees and qualifications. Of course they’ll believe him. And the editors will do something handsome. They won’t apologize, but they’ll say that a zebra got loose in the office and upset the type while they were in Albany attending to the affairs of the Empire State — and that’s just the same as an apology, you know, which is all you care for. You can’t storm Park Row with the gallant Four Hundred at your back. In the first place, Park Row’s insured, and secondly, the Four Hundred would see you — further — before they’d lift one of their four thousand fingers to help you out of a scrape which doesn’t concern them. You’d have to be a parson or a pianist, before they’d do anything for you. It’s ‘meat, drink and pantaloons’ to be one of them, anyhow — and you needn’t expect anything more.”
“Where do you get your similes from, Frank!” laughed Ralston.
“I don’t know. But they’re good ones, anyway. Why don’t you get Routh to write a letter, before the thing cools down? It could be in the evening edition, you know. There have been horrid things this morning — allusions — that sort of thing.”
“Allusions to what?” asked Ralston, quickly and sharply.
“To you, of course — what did you suppose?”
“Oh — to me! As though I cared! All the same, if old Routh would write, it would be a good thing. I wish he were going to be at the Van De Waters’ dinner to-night.”
“Why? Are you going there? So am I.”
“It seems to be a sort of family tea-party,” said Ralston. “Bright’s going, and cousin Katharine, and you and I. It only needs the Crowdies and a few others to make it complete.”
“Well — you see, they’re cousins of mine, and so are you, and that sort of makes us all cousins,” observed Miner, absently. “I say, Jack — tell the story at table, just as you’ve told it to me. Will you? I’ll set you on by asking you questions. Stunning effect — especially if we can get Routh to write the letter. I’ll cut it out of a paper and bring it with me.”
“You know him, don’t you?” asked Ralston.
“Know him? I should think so. Ever since I was a baby. Why?”
“I wish you’d go to him this morning, Frank, and get him to write the letter. Then you could take it to one of the evening papers and get them to put it in. You know all those men in Park Row, don’t you?”
“Much better than some of them want to know me,” sighed the little man. “However,” he added, his bright smile coming back at once, “I ought not to complain. I’m getting on, now. Let me see. You want me to go to Routh and get him to write a formal letter over his name, denying all the statements made about you this morning. Isn’t that taking too much notice of the thing, after all, Jack?”
“It’s going to make a good deal of difference to me in the end,” answered Ralston. “It’s worth taking some trouble for.”
“I’m quite willing,” said Miner. “But — I say! What an extraordinary story it is!”
“Oh, no. It’s only real life. I told you — I only had one accident, which was quite an accident — when I tumbled down in that dark street. Everything el
se happened just as naturally as unnatural things always do. As for upsetting Ham Bright at the club, I was awfully sorry about that. It seemed such a low thing to do. But then — just remember that I’d been making a point of drinking nothing for several days, just by way of an experiment, and it was irritating, to say the least of it, to be grabbed by the arm and told that I was screwed. Wasn’t it, Frank? And just at that moment, uncle Robert had telephoned for me to come up, and I was in a tremendous hurry. Just look at in that way, and you’ll understand why I did it. It doesn’t excuse it — I shall tell Ham that I’m sorry — but it explains it. Doesn’t it?”
“Rather!” exclaimed Miner, heartily.
“By the bye,” said Ralston, “I wanted to ask you something. Did that fellow Crowdie hold his tongue? I suppose he was at the Assembly last night.”
“Well — since you ask me—” Miner hesitated. “No — he didn’t. Bright gave it to him, though, for telling cousin Emma.”
“Brute! How I hate that man! So he told cousin Emma, did he? And the rest of the family, too, I suppose.”
“I suppose so,” answered Miner, knowing that Ralston meant Katharine. “Everybody knew about the row at the club, before the evening was half over. Teddy Van De Water said he supposed you’d back out of the dinner to-night and keep quiet till this blew over. I told Teddy that perhaps he’d better come round and suggest that to you himself this morning, if he wanted to understand things quickly. He grinned — you know how he grins — like an organ pipe in a white tie. But he said he’d heard Bright leathering into Crowdie — that’s one of Teddy’s expressions — so he supposed that things weren’t as bad as people said — and that Crowdie was only a ‘painter chap,’ anyhow. I didn’t know what that meant, but feebly pointed out that Crowdie was a great man, and that his wife was a sort of cousin of mine, and that she, at least, had a good chance of having some of cousin Robert’s money one of these days. Not that I wanted to defend Crowdie, or that I don’t like Teddy much better — but then, you know what I mean! He’ll be calling me ‘one of those literary chaps,’ next, with just the same air. One’s bound to stand up for art and literature when one’s a professional, you know, Jack. Wasn’t I right?”
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 696