A bad penny

WHEN James did not appear at seven o’clock breakfast the next morning, his aunt, after waiting some ten minutes for him, went to his chamber. Her repeated knocks at the door brought no response; and after some delay caused by the reserve of an old maid, she opened the door of the room. There was the bed undisturbed by any sleeper, and in the corner a portmanteau, and on the bureau toilet articles. James had not occupied the room and he was not in the house, although his baggage was. Surely, with his father lying ill in bed, he would be up to no evil prank,—even he, the wicked young collegian.

What could it all mean? The poor old lady returned to her breakfast, and sipped her tea, and munched a tiny bit of toast. The boy would be back soon, she said to herself, though all the time she felt within her that he would not.

All through his life she had worried over him so much; he had died a thousand deaths in her mind’s eye; but this time it was no cry of wolf; something was not well with the lad; and she loved him so much, and yet she had shown him little love. Her nature was not expansive, and she could not make others appreciate her real kindliness. This boy she had cared for since his mother’s death; he was her only brother’s only child, and his father lay ill up-stairs.

The evidence of the unused bed was strong that he had been out all the night before, and it was most strange that he should go away at a time when there was illness in the house, so that his presence might be required at any moment. He might have gone down the river, of course, but he could hardly think of doing that at such a time.

The poor old lady was almost choked by her dry toast, and her tea was no comfort to her; and when that cheering beverage failed Miss Woodbury, matters were becoming serious. How could she explain matters to her brother? He was fretful in his convalescence and he expected his son to be with him. All through his illness, his mind had dwelt upon the boy; and she had heard him praying for him in the still watches of the night, that his feet might be kept from straying and that he be delivered from temptation; and she had heard the sick man call out in his troubled sleep, “The miniature! How like! How like!”

And now the boy had disappeared. He had seemed preoccupied, she remembered, during the last few days; something was in his mind. What could he have done? It was not possible that he should do anything wrong—and yet something must have happened to him.

Her painful conjectures were interrupted by three sharp knocks at the front door; and the poor old lady sprang from her chair and faltered to the drawing-room. “News from James,” she whispered to herself, “news from James.” She sat bolt upright in her chair awaiting the maid’s entrance.

In a moment the Deacon came into the drawing-room. Miss Woodbury rose and curtsied primly, and as she did so noticed a black plaster cross on his forehead and a great welt on his nose. These unexpected marks of conflict were instantly connected in her mind, by some instinctive process of the brain, with James’ disappearance. She was to hear something; and it was important that she should have all her wits about her.

The Deacon had driven the uncle from town; could it be that the nephew was caught in his toils?

“Miss Woodbury,” said the Deacon, bowing, “how is your brother this morning?”

“Very weak, but out of danger for the present,” she replied. “Will you not be seated, sir?”

“I thank you, madam. I am pleased to hear that he is improving in health. Sixty-five, is he not? Just five years younger than I. We cannot be too careful at our age, Miss Woodbury.”

She was on pins and needles as to what she should say about the extraordinary plasters and swellings which disfigured his ordinarily smooth face. It was, of course, etiquette that she should inquire into the cause of such a blow as the Deacon had received, and yet she felt that in asking any question she would be treading upon delicate ground.

“You do not seem to have been as careful of yourself as usual, Deacon Fairbanks?” she finally said, her eyes twinkling a little; for we are all delighted by plasters on the faces of others, and even acquire a certain pride in those on our own visages.

He hurriedly put his hand to his forehead and frowned, but the last instinctive movement was painful.

“I have had a blow,” he remarked with a hard voice.—“Is your nephew James in the house?”

The question came like an arrow from the bow.

“No; he is not,” answered Miss Woodbury, without a moment’s hesitation.

“Where is he?”

“He has gone down the river in his boat, shooting,” replied the old lady, with calm deliberation. “He went yesterday afternoon.”

“How do you know that he went then?” asked the Deacon, still rubbing his forehead.

“Because I saw him sailing down the bay when I was down at the fish-monger’s on Lunt’s Wharf,” she replied.

“He must have returned before you knew it, then,” said Fairbanks, harshly; “for he broke into my house like a common burglar last night and I owe this blow to him.”

The old lady rose solemnly from her chair, and said slowly, “Deacon Fairbanks, you have no right to come into a gentleman’s house and make such an accusation against his son!”

“I know whereof I speak, woman,” insisted the Deacon. “I was waked by the noise of some one moving in the dining-room. I went down-stairs with a pistol, and when I entered the dining-room I saw James standing by my sideboard removing my silver. I fired—”

“Fired at my boy!” exclaimed the wretched old lady.

“Ah, you admit that it was he,” exclaimed the Deacon, triumphantly.

“Nothing of the kind, sir—nothing of the kind; did you hit the burglar?”

“I do not know, for the next moment I was struck a terrific blow, and fell senseless.”

“And what evidence have you that the boy was entering your house to steal your silver, I should like to know, Deacon Fairbanks? I know, he knows, and all Oldbury knows that you have had nothing better than Sheffield ware in your house since you were robbed in ’96.”

“Yes, robbed by the boy’s uncle; of the same old breed,” he interrupted.

“Why should the boy enter your house when he knows that there’s nothing there to steal?”

“He might have supposed there was money.”

“He never went there at all,” said Miss Woodbury, quietly. “You have always hated my brother, Elisha Fairbanks, because everybody respected and loved him, and it is needless to say in what esteem you are held in a community where you have devoured widows’ houses for forty years. I tell you that, bad and worthless as Tom Cheever was, whose foolish vices drew him to ruin, he is as an angel from heaven in comparison with you; and when you tell me that James Woodbury, my boy James, is a thief, you lie wickedly, you wretched old man.”

No living soul had ever seen the slender old lady aroused to such a frenzy. She was fighting out the battle for the two human beings who made up her world, for the sick man up-stairs and for her boy, and gain it she would.

“You have fallen and hurt yourself and have invented this to ruin my boy and to bring your neighbor’s gray hairs in sorrow to the grave.”

“I am very sorry to see you so angry,” he replied in his softest tones, “very sorry, indeed; and I pardon you for your violent language. I shall now bid you a very good morning, madam. When your nephew returns from his delightful excursion down the river, I hope that I shall have the pleasure of seeing him.”

Miss Woodbury did not reply. She looked at the man with absolute contempt, and his retreat from the room was far from dignified. She stood rigid until she heard the front door slam, and then slipped upon her poor old knees and buried her head in a sofa pillow and wept; she who could have faced an army but a minute before.

The Deacon stalked down the long passage between the great elms, revolving black thoughts in his heart. The bruises on his forehead and nose were very painful and the incident had thrown together all his old enmities against these his neighbors into a crystallized hate.