CHAPTER XII
The colonel's treatment of Harry at the club had cleared the air of any doubt that either the boy or St. George might have had concerning Rutter's frame of mind. Henceforth the boy and the man would conduct their lives as if the Lord of Moorlands did not exist.
So the boy unpacked the things which Alec had brought in, and with his mother's assistance—who came in once a week—hung up his hunting-clothes in the closet, racked up his guns and fishing-rods over the mantel, and suspended his favorite saddle by a stirrup on a hook in the hall. Then the two had set out his books and miniatures; one of his mother, which he kissed tenderly, with the remark that it wasn't half as pretty as the original, and then propped up in the place of honor in the middle of his desk, and another of his father, which he placed on an adjoining table—as well as his few belongings and knickknacks. And so the outcast settled down determined not only to adapt himself to the comforts—or want of them—to be found under St. George's roof, but to do it cheerfully, gratefully, and like a man and a gentleman.
To none of all this did his father offer a single objection. “Make a clean sweep of Mr. Harry Rutter's things,” he had said to Alec, “so that I may be relieved from the annoyance of a second delivery.”
Alec had repeated the order to Harry word for word, adding: “Don't you sass back, Marse Harry—let him blow hisse'f out—he don't mean nothin'. He's dat mad he's crazy—gits dat way sometimes—den purty soon he's fit to bust hisse'f wide open a-cryin'! I see him do dat once when you warn't mo'n so high, and de doctor said you was daid fo' sho'.”
Harry made no reply, but it did not ruffle his temper. His duty was no longer to be found at Moorlands; his Uncle George claimed him. All his hours would now be devoted to showing him how grateful he was for his protection and guidance. Time enough for his father, and time enough for Kate, for that matter, should the clouds ever lift—as lift they would—but his Uncle George first, last, and all the time.
And St. George appreciated it to the full. Never had he been so happy. Even the men at the club saw the change, and declared he looked ten years younger—fifteen really, when Harry was with him, which was almost always the case—for out of consideration for St. George and the peculiar circumstances surrounding the boy's condition, his birth and station, and the pride they took in his pluck, the committee had at last stretched the rule and had sent Mr. Henry Gilmor Rutter of Moorlands—with special reference to “Moorlands,” a perennial invitation entitling him to the club's privileges—a card which never expired because it was systematically renewed.
And it was not only at the club that the two men were inseparable. In their morning walks, the four dogs in full cry; at the races; in the hunts, when some one loaned both Harry and his uncle a mount—at night, when Todd passed silently out, leaving all the bottled comforts behind him—followed by—“Ah, Harry!—and you won't join me? That's right, my son—and I won't ask you,” the two passed almost every hour of the day and night together. It was host one minute and father the next.
And this life, if the truth be told, did not greatly vary from the one the boy had always led, except that there was more of town and less of country in it than he had heretofore been accustomed to. The freedom from all care—for the colonel had trained Harry to neither business nor profession—was the same, and so was the right to employ his time as he pleased. At Moorlands he was busy over his horses and dogs, his sporting outfits, riding to hounds, cock-fights—common in those days—and, of course, assisting his father and mother in dispensing the hospitality of the house. In Kennedy Square St. George was his chief occupation, and of the two he liked the last the best. What he had hungered for all his life was sympathy and companionship, and this his father had never given him; nor had he known what it was since his college days. Advice, money, horses, clothes, guns—anything and everything which might, could, or would redound to the glory of the Rutters had been his for the asking, but the touch of a warm hand, the thrill in the voice when he had done something to please and had waited for an acknowledgment—that had never come his way. Nothing of this kind was needed between men, his father would say to Harry's mother—and his son was a man now. Had their child been a daughter, it would have been quite another thing, but a son was to be handled differently—especially an only son who was sole heir to one's entire estate.
And yet it must not be thought that the outcast spent his time in sheer idleness. St. George would often find him tucked away in one of his big chairs devouring some book he had culled from the old general's library in the basement—a room adjoining the one occupied by a firm of young lawyers—Pawson & Pawson (only one brother was alive)—with an entrance on the side street, it being of “no use to me” St. George had said—“and the rent will come in handy.” Tales of the sea especially delighted the young fellow—the old admiral's blood being again in evidence—and so might have been the mother's fine imagination. It was Defoe and Mungo Park and Cooke who enchained the boy's attention, as well as many of the chronicles of the later navigators. But of the current literature of the day—Longfellow, Margaret Fuller, Hawthorne, and Emerson—no one appealed to him as did the man Poe. He and St. George had passed many an hour discussing him. Somehow the bond of sympathy between himself and the poet had become the stronger. Both had wept bitter tears over the calamities that had followed an unrequited love.
It was during one of these talks—and the poet was often under discussion—that St. George had suddenly risen from his chair, lighted a candle, and had betaken himself to the basement—a place he seldom visited—from which he brought back a thin, crudely bound, and badly printed, dust-covered volume bearing the title “Tamerlane:—by a Bostonian.” This, with a smile he handed to Harry. Some friend had given him the little book when it was first published and he had forgotten it was in the house until he noted Harry's interest in the author. Then again, he wanted to see whether it was the boy's literary taste, never much in evidence, or his romantic conception of the much-talked-of poet, which had prompted his intense interest in the man.
“Read these poems, Harry, and tell me who wrote them,” said St. George, dusting the book with a thrash of his handkerchief and tossing it to the young fellow.
The boy caught it, skimmed through the thin volume, lingered over one or two pages, absorbing each line, and replied in a decided and delighted voice: “The same man who wrote 'The Raven,' of course—there can't be any doubt of it. I can hear Mr. Horn's voice in every line. Why didn't you let me have it before?”
“Are you sure?” asked St. George, watching him closely.
“Am I sure?—of course I am! Listen to this:
“'We grew in age—and—love—together, Roaming the forest and the wild—'
“That's Kate and me, Uncle George,” and he smiled sadly. “And then this line:
“'I saw no heaven but in her eyes.'
“And then these lines in 'The Raven'—wait—I will read them.” He had the sheet of paper in his pocket which Richard Horn had read from at the club, and knew the poem now by heart:
“'Tell this soul with sorrow laden, if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels call Lenore'—
“That's me again. I wish I could read it like Mr. Horn. What a voice—so deep—so musical—like a great organ, or, rather, like one of the big strings on his violin.”
“And what a mind, too, Harry,” rejoined St. George. “Richard is a long way ahead of his time. His head is full of things that few around here understand. They hear him play the violin or read, and some go away calling him a genius, but when he talks to them about the way the railroads are opening up, and the new telegraph this man Morse is at work on, and what is going to come of it—or hear him discuss the development of the country along scientific lines, they shrug their shoulders and tap their foreheads. You want to talk to him every chance you get. That is one reason I am glad they let you permanently into the club, for he is too busy in his work-shop at home to speak to anybody. Nobody will do you so much good—and he likes you, Harry. He said to me only the other night when I was dining with him—the night you were at Mrs. Cheston's—that he felt sorry for you; that it was not your fault, or the fault of your father—but that you both had been caught in the ebb-tide of a period.”
Harry laughed: “What did he mean by that?”
“I'll be hanged if I know. You made so good a guess on the Tamerlane, that it's just occurred to me to try you on this,” and St. George laughed heartily. (St. George was adrift on the ebb-tide himself did he but know it.)
Harry thought earnestly for a moment, pondering upon what the inventor could have had in his mind. It couldn't have been politics that Mr. Horn meant; nor failure of the crops; nor the way the slaves were treated. None of these things affected him. Indeed none of them did he know anything of. Nor was he an expert on duelling. It must have been Kate. Yes—of course—it was Kate and her treatment of him. The “tide” was what had swept them apart.
“Oh, I know,” he cried in an animated tone. “He meant Kate. Tell me—what did he say about her?” He had searched his books for some parallel from which to draw a conclusion, but none of them had given him any relief. May be Mr. Horn had solved the problem.
“He said she was the first of the flood, though he was mighty sorry for you both; and he said, too, that, as she was the first to strike out for the shore, Kennedy Square ought to build a triumphal arch for her,” and St. George looked quizzically at Harry.
“Well, do you think there is any common sense in that?” blurted out the boy, twisting himself in his chair so he could get a better look at his uncle's face.
“No—it doesn't sound like it, but it may be profound wisdom all the same, if you can only see it from Richard's point of view. Try it. There's a heap of brains under his cranium.”
Harry fell to tapping the arm of his chair. Queer reasoning this of Mr. Horn's, he said to himself. He had always thought that he and his father were on the tip-top of any kind of tide, flood or ebb—and as for Kate, she was the white gull that skimmed its crest!
Again Harry dropped into deep thought, shifting his legs now and then in his restless, impatient way. If there was any comfort to be gotten out of this new doctrine he wanted to probe it to the bottom.
“And what does he say of Mr. Poe? Does he think he's a drunken lunatic, like some of the men at the club?”
“No, he thinks he is one of the greatest literary geniuses the country has yet produced. He has said so for years—ever since he began to write. Willis first became acquainted with Mr. Poe through a letter Richard gave him, and now that the papers are full of him, and everybody is talking about him, these backbiters like Bowdoin want to get into line and say they always thought so. But Richard has never wavered. Of course Poe loses his balance and topples backward once in a while—but he's getting over it. That is his mistake and it is unfortunate, but it isn't a crime. I can forgive him anything he does so he keeps to his ideals. If he had had a better bringing up and knew the difference between good rain-water Madeira and bad pump water and worse whiskey he would keep as straight as a church deacon. Too bad he doesn't.”
“Well,” Harry answered at last, rising from his chair and brushing the ashes of his pipe from his clothes—“I don't know anything about Mr. Horn's tides, but he's right about Mr. Poe—that is, I hope he is. We've both, got a 'Lost Lenore,'” and his voice quivered. All Harry's roads ended at Kate's door.
And so with these and other talks, heart-burnings, outings, sports, and long tramps in the country, the dogs scampering ahead, the summer days slipped by.
CHAPTER XIII
Such were the soft, balmy conditions in and around the Temple Mansion—conditions bringing only peace and comfort—(heart-aches were kept in check)—when one August morning there came so decided a change of weather that everybody began at once to get in out of the wet. The storm had been brewing for some days up Moorlands way, where all Harry's storms started, but up to the present moment there had been no indications in and about Kennedy Square of its near approach, or even of its existence.
It was quite early in the day when the big drops began to patter down on Todd's highly polished knocker. Breakfast had been served and the mail but half opened—containing among other missives a letter from Poe acknowledging one from St. George, in which he wrote that he might soon be in Kennedy Square on his way to Richmond—a piece of news which greatly delighted Harry—and another from Tom Coston, inviting them both to Wesley for the fall shooting, with a postscript to the effect that Willits was “still at the Red Sulphur with the Seymours”—(a piece of news which greatly depressed him)—when Todd answered a thunderous rat-a-tat and immediately thereafter recrossed the hall and opened the dining-room door just wide enough to thrust in first his scared face—then his head—shoulder—arm—and last his hand, on the palm of which lay a small, greasy card bearing the inscription:
John Gadgem, Agent.
The darky, evidently, was not in a normal condition, for after a moment's nervous hesitation, his eyes over his shoulder as if fearing he was being followed, he squeezed in the rest of his body, closed the door softly behind him, and said in a hoarse whisper to the room at large:
“Dat's de same man been here three times yisterday. He asked fust fer Marse Harry, an' when I done tol' him he warn't home—you was 'sleep upstairs, Marse Harry, but I warn't gwineter 'sturb ye—he say he come back dis mawnin'.”
“Well, but what does he want?” asked Harry, dropping a lump of sugar in his cup. He had been accumstomed to be annoyed by agents of all kinds who wanted to sell him one thing or another—and so he never allowed any one to get at him unless his business was stated beforehand. He had learned this from his father.
“I dun'no, sah.”
“What does he look like, Todd?” cried St. George, breaking the seal of another letter.
“Wall, he ain't no gemman—he's jus' a pusson I reckon. I done tol' him you warn't out o' bed yit, but he said he'd wait. I got him shet outside, but I can't fool him no mo'. What'll I do now?”
“Well, what do you think he wants, then?” Harry burst out impatiently.
“Well,” said Todd—“ef I was to tell ye God's truf', I reckon he wants money. He says he's been to de big house—way out to de colonel's, and dey th'owed him out—and now he's gwineter sit down yere till somebody listens to him. It won't do to fool wid him, Marse Harry—I see dat de fus' time he come. He's a he-one—and he's got horns on him for sho'. What'll I do?”
Both Harry and St. George roared.
“Why bring him in, of course—a 'pusson' with horns on him will be worth seeing.”
A shabby, wizened-faced man; bent-in-the-back, gimlet-eyed, wearing a musty brown coat, soiled black stock, unspeakable linen, and skin-tight trousers held to his rusty shoes by wide straps—showing not only the knuckles of his knees but the streaked thinness of his upper shanks—(Cruikshank could have drawn him to the life)—sidled into the room, mopping his head with a red cotton handkerchief which he took from his hat.
“My name is GADgem, gentleman—Mr. John GADgem of GADgem & Combes.
“I am looking for Mr. Harry Rutter, whom I am informed—I would not say POSitively—but I am inFORMED is stopping with you, Mr. Temple. You forget me, Mr. Temple, but I do not forget you, sir. That little foreclosure matter of Bucks vs. Temple—you remember when—”
“Sit down,” said St. George curtly, laying down his knife and fork. “Todd, hand Mr. Gadgem a chair.”
The gimlet-eyed man—and it was very active—waved his hand deprecatingly.
“No, I don't think that is necessary. I can stand. I preFER to stand. I am acCUStomed to stand—I have been standing outside this gentleman's father's door now, off and on, for some weeks, and—”
“Will you tell me what you want?” interrupted Harry, curtly. References to Moorlands invariably roused his ire.
“I am coming to that, sir, slowly, but surely. Now that I have found somebody that will listen to me—that is, if you are Mr. Harry Rutter—” The deferential air with which he said this was admirable.
“Oh, yes—I'm the man,” answered Harry in a resigned voice.
“Yes, sir—so I supposed. And now I look at you, sir”—here the gimlet was in full twist—“I would make an affidavit to that effect before any notary.” He began loosening his coat with his skinny fingers, fumbling in his inside pocket, thrusting deep his hand, as if searching for an elusive insect in the vicinity of his arm-pit, his talk continuing: “Yes, sir, before any notary, you are so exactly like your father. Not that I've seen your father, sir, VERY MANY TIMES”—the elusive had evidently escaped, for his hand went deeper. “I've only seen him once—ONCE—and it was enough. It was not a pleasant visit, sir—in fact, it was a most UNpleasant visit. I came very near having cause for action—for assault, really. A very polite colored man was all that prevented it, and—Ah—here it is!” He had the minute pest now. “Permit me to separate the list from the exhibits.”
At this Gadgem's hand, clutching a bundle of papers, came out with a jerk—so much of a jerk that St. George, who was about to end the comedy by ordering the man from the room, stopped short in his protest, his curiosity getting the better of him to know what the fellow had found.
“There, sir.” Here he drew a long slip from the package, held it between his thumb and forefinger, and was about to continue, when St. George burst out with:
“Look here, Gadgem—if you have any business with Mr. Rutter you will please state it at once. We have hardly finished breakfast.”
“I beg, sir, that you will not lose your temper. It is unBUSinesslike to lose one's temper. Gadgem & Combes, sir, NEVER lose their temper. They are men of peace, sir—ALways men of peace. Mr. Combes sometimes resorts to extreme measures, but NEVER Mr. Gadgem. I am Mr. Gadgem, sir,” and he tapped his soiled shirt-front with his soiled finger-nail. “PEACE is my watchword, that is why this matter has been placed in my hands. Permit me, sir, to ask you to cast your eye over this.”
Harry, who was getting interested, scanned the long slip and handed it to St. George, who studied it for a moment and returned it to Harry.
“You will note, I beg of you, sir, the first item.” There was a tone of triumph now in Gadgem's voice. “One saddle horse sixteen hands high, bought of Hampson & Co. on the”—then he craned his neck so as to see the list over Harry's shoulder—“yes—on the SECOND of LAST September. Rather overdue, is it not, sir, if I may be permitted to remark?” This came with a lift of the eyebrows, as if Harry's oversight had been too naughty for words.
“But what the devil have I got to do with this?” The boy was thoroughly angry now. The lift of Gadgem's eyebrows did it.
“You rode the horse, sir.” This came with a certain air of “Oh! I have you now.”
“Yes, and he broke his leg and had to be shot,” burst out Harry in a tone that showed how worthless had been the bargain.
“EXactly, sir. So your father told me, sir. You don't remember having PAID Mr. Hampson for him beFORE he broke his leg, do you, sir?” He had him pinned fast now—all he had to do was to watch his victim's struggles.
“Me? No, of course not!” Harry exploded.
“EXactly so, sir—so your father told me. FORcibly, sir—and as if he was quite sure of it.”
Again he looked over Harry's shoulder, following the list with his skinny finger. At the same time he lowered his voice—became even humble. “Ah, there it is—the English racing saddle and the pair of blankets, and the—might I ask you, sir, whether you have among your papers any receipt for—?”
“But I don't pay these bills—I never pay any bills.” Harry's tone had now reached a higher pitch.
“EXactly so, sir—just what your father said, sir, and with such vehemence that I moved toward the door.” Out went the finger again, the insinuating voice keeping up. “And then the five hundred dollars from Mr. Slater—you see, sir, we had all these accounts placed in our hands with the expectation that your father would liquidate at one fell swoop—these were Mr. Combes's very words, sir: 'ONE FELL SWOOP.'” This came with an inward rake of his hand, his fingers grasping an imaginary sickle, Harry's accumulated debts being so many weeds in his way.
“And didn't he? He always has,” demanded the culprit.
“EXactly so, sir—exactly what your father said.”
“Exactly what?”
“That he had heretofore always paid them.”
“Well, then, take them to him!” roared Harry, breaking loose again. “I haven't got anything to do with them, and won't.”
“Your father's PREcise words, sir,” purred Gadgem. “And by the time he had uttered them, sir, I was out of the room. It was here, sir, that the very polite colored man, Alec by name, so I am informed, and of whom I made mention a few moments ago, became of inVALuable assistance—of very GREAT assistance, sir.”
“You mean to tell me that you have seen my father—handed him these bills, and that he has refused to pay them?” Harry roared on.
“I DO, sir.” Gadgem had straightened his withered body now and was boring into Harry's eyes with all his might.
“Will you tell me just what he said?” The boy was still roaring, but the indignant tone was missing.
“He said—you will not be offended, sir—you mean, of course, sir, that you would like me to state exACTly what your father said, proceeding as if I was under oath.” It is indescribable how soft and mellifluous his voice had now become.
Harry nodded.
“He said, sir, that he'd be DAMNED if he'd pay another cent for a hot-headed fool who had disgraced his family. He said, sir, that you were of AGE—and were of age when you contracted these bills. He said, sir, that he had already sent you these accounts two days after he had ordered you from his house. And FInally, sir—I say, finally, sir, because it appeared to me at the time to be conclusive—he said, sir, that he would set the dogs on me if I ever crossed his lot again. HENCE, sir, my appearing three times at your door yesterday. HENCE, sir, my breaking in upon you at this unseemly hour in the morning. I am particular myself, sir, about having my morning meal disturbed; cold coffee is never agreeable, gentlemen—but in this case you must admit that my intrusion is pardonable.”
The boy understood now.
“Come to think of it I have a bundle of papers upstairs tied with a red string which came with my boxes from Moorlands. I threw them in the drawer without opening them.” This last remark was addressed to St. George, who had listened at first with a broad smile on his face, which had deepened to one of intense seriousness as the interview continued, and which had now changed to one of ill-concealed rage.
“Mr. Gadgem,” gritted St. George between his teeth—he had risen from the table during the colloquy and was standing with his back to the mantel, the blood up to the roots of his hair.
“Yes, sir.”
“Lay the packages of bills with the memoranda on my desk, and I will look them over during the day.”
“But, Mr. Temple,” and his lip curled contemptuously—he had had that same trick played on him by dozens of men.
“Not another word, Mr. Gadgem. I said—I—would look—them—over—during—the—day. You've had some dealings with me and know exactly what kind of a man I am. When I want you I will send for you. If I don't send for you, come here to-morrow morning at ten o'clock and Mr. Rutter will give you his answer. Todd, show Mr. Gadgem out.”
“But, Mr. Temple—you forGET that my duty is to—”
“I forget nothing. Todd, show Mr. Gadgem out.”
With the closing of the door behind the agent, St. George turned to Harry. His eyes were snapping fire and his big frame tense with anger. This phase of the affair had not occurred to him—nothing in which money formed an important part ever did occur to him.
“A cowardly piece of business, Harry, and on a par with everything he has done since you left his house. Talbot must be crazy to act as he does. He can't break you down in any other way, so he insults you before his friends and now throws these in your face”—and he pointed to the package of bills where Gadgem had laid it—“a most extraordinary proceeding. Please hand me that list. Thank you.... Now this third item ... this five hundred dollars—did you get that money?”
“Yes—and another hundred the next day, which isn't down,” rejoined the young man, running his eye over the list.
“Borrowed it?”
“Yes, of course—for Gilbert. He got into a card scrape at the tavern and I helped him out. I told my father all about it and he said I had done just right; that I must always help a friend out in a case like that, and that he'd pay it. All he objected to was my borrowing it of a tradesman instead of my coming to him.” It was an age of borrowing and a bootmaker was often better than a banker.
“Well—but why didn't you go to him?” He wanted to get at all the facts.
“There wasn't time. Gilbert had to have the money in an hour, and it was the only place where I could get it.”
“Of course there wasn't time—never is when the stakes are running like that.” St. George folded up the memorandum. He knew something of Talbot's iron will, but he never supposed that he would lose his sense of what was right and wrong in exercising it. Again he opened the list—rather hurriedly this time, as if some new phase had struck him—studied it for a moment, and then asked with an increased interest in his tones:
“Did Gilbert give you back the money you loaned him?”
“Yes—certainly; about a month afterward.” Here at least was an asset.
St. George's face lighted up. “And what did you do with it?”
“Took it to my father and he told me to use it; that he would settle with Mr. Slater when he paid his account;—when, too, he would thank him for helping me out.”
“And when he didn't pay it back and these buzzards learned you had quit your father's house they employed Gadgem to pick your bones.”
“Yes—it seems so; but, Uncle George, it's due them!” exclaimed Harry—“they ought to have their money. I would never have taken a dollar—or bought a thing if I had not supposed my father would pay for them.” There was no question as to the boy's sense of justice—every intonation showed it.
“Of course it's due—due by you, too—not your father; that's the worst of it. And if he refuses to assume it—and he has—it is still to be paid—every cent of it. The question is how the devil is it to be paid—and paid quickly. I can't have you pointed out as a spendthrift and a dodger. No, this has got to be settled at once.”
He threw himself into a chair, his mind absorbed in the effort to find some way out of the difficulty. The state of his own bank account precluded all relief in that direction. To borrow a dollar from the Patapsco on any note of hand he could offer was out of the question, the money stringency having become still more acute. Yet help must be had, and at once. Again he unfolded the slip and ran his eyes over the items, his mind in deep thought, then he added in an anxious tone:
“Are you aware, Harry, that this list amounts to several thousand dollars?”
“Yes—I saw it did. I had no idea it was so much. I never thought anything about it in fact. My father always paid—paid for anything I wanted.” Neither did the young fellow ever concern himself about the supply of water in the old well at Moorlands. His experience had been altogether with the bucket and the gourd: all he had had to do was to dip in.
Again St. George ruminated. It had been many years since he had been so disturbed about any matter involving money.
“And have you any money left, Harry?”
“Not much. What I have is in my drawer upstairs.”
“Then I'll lend you the money.” This came with a certain spontaneity—quite as if he had said to a companion who had lost his umbrella—“Take mine!”
“But have you got it, Uncle George?” asked Harry in an anxious tone.
“No—not that I know of,” he replied simply, but with no weakening of his determination to see the boy through, no matter at what cost.
“Well—then—how will you lend it?” laughed Harry. Money crises had not formed part of his troubles.
“Egad, my boy, I don't know!—but somehow.”
He rang the bell and Todd put in his head. “Todd, go around outside,—see if young Mr. Pawson is in his office below us, present my compliments and say that it will give me great pleasure to call upon him regarding a matter of business.”
“Yes, sah—”
“—And, Todd—say also that if agreeable to him, I will be there in ten minutes.”
Punctually at ten o'clock on the following morning the shrivelled body and anxious face of the agent was ushered by Todd into St. George's presence—Dandy close behind sniffing at his thin knees, convinced that he was a suspicious person. This hour had been fixed by Temple in case he was not sent for earlier, and as no messenger had so far reached the bill collector he was naturally in doubt as to the nature of his reception. He had the same hat in his hand and the same handkerchief—a weekly, or probably a monthly comfort—its dingy red color defrauding the laundry.
“I have waited, sir,” Gadgem began in an unctuous tone, his eyes on the dog, who had now resumed his place on the hearth rug—“waited IMpatiently, relying upon the word and honor of—”
“There—that will do, Gadgem,” laughed St. George good-naturedly. Somehow he seemed more than usually happy this morning—bubbling over, indeed, ever since Todd had brought him a message from the young lawyer in the basement but half an hour before. “Keep that sort of talk for those who like it. No, Todd, you needn't bring Mr. Gadgem a chair, for he won't be here long enough to enjoy it. Now listen,” and he took the memorandum from his pocket. “These bills are correct. Mr. Rutter has had the money and the goods. Take this list which I have signed to my attorney in the office underneath and be prepared to give a receipt in full for each account at twelve o'clock to-morrow. I have arranged to have them paid in full. Good-morning.”
Gadgem stared. He did not believe a word about finding the money downstairs. He was accustomed to being put off that way and had already formulated his next tactical move. In fact he was about to name it with some positiveness, recounting the sort of papers which would follow and the celerity of their serving, when he suddenly became aware that St. George's eyes were fixed upon him and instantly stopped breathing.
“I said good-morning, Mr. Gadgem,” repeated St. George sententiously. There was no mistaking his meaning.
“I heard you, sir,” hesitated the collector—“I heard you diSTINCTly, but in cases of this kind there is—”
St. George swung back the door and stood waiting. No man living or dead had ever doubted the word of St. George Wilmot Temple, not even by a tone of the voice, and Gadgem's was certainly suggestive of a well-defined and most offensive doubt. Todd moved up closer; Dandy rose to his feet, thinking he might be of use. The little man looked from one to the other. He might add an action for assault and battery to the claim, but that would delay its collection.
“Then at TWELVE o'clock, to-morrow, Mr. Temple,” he purred blandly.
“At twelve o'clock!” repeated St. George coldly, wondering which end of the intruder he would grapple when he threw him through the front door and down the front steps.
“I will be here on the stroke of the clock, sir—on the STROKE,” and Gadgem slunk out.
For some minutes St. George continued to walk up and down the room, stooping once in a while to caress the setter; dry-washing his hands; tapping his well-cut waistcoat with his shapely fingers, his thumbs in the arm-holes; halting now and then to stretch himself to the full height of his body. He had outwitted the colonel—taught him a lesson—let him see that he was not the only “hound in the pack,” and, best of all, he had saved the boy from annoyance and possibly from disgrace.
He was still striding up and down the room, when Harry, who had overslept himself as usual, came down to breakfast. Had some friend of his uncle found a gold mine in the back yard—or, better still, had Todd just discovered a forgotten row of old “Brahmin Madeira” in some dark corner of his cellar—St. George could not have been more buoyant.
“Glad you didn't get up any earlier, you good-for-nothing sleepy-head!” he cried in welcoming, joyous tones. “You have just missed that ill-smelling buzzard.”
“What buzzard?” asked Harry, glancing over the letters on the mantel in the forlorn hope of finding one from Kate.
“Why, Gadgem—and that is the last you will ever see of him.”
“Why?—has father paid him?” he asked in a listless way, squeezing Dandy's nose thrust affectionately into his hand—his mind still on Kate. Now that Willits was with her, as every one said, she would never write him again. He was a fool to expect it, he thought, and he sighed heavily.
“Of course he hasn't paid him—but I have. That is, a friend of mine has—or will.”
“You have!” cried Harry with a start. He was interested now—not for himself, but for St. George: no penny of his uncle's should ever go to pay his debts. “Where did the money come from?”
“Never you mind where the money came from. You found it for Gilbert—did he ask you where you got it? Why should you ask me?”
“Well, I won't; but you are mighty good to me, Uncle George, and I am very grateful to you.” The relief was not overwhelming, for the burden of the debt had not been heavy. It was only the sting of his father's refusal that had hurt. He had always believed that the financial tangle would be straightened out somehow.
“No!—damn it!—you are not grateful. You sha'n't be grateful!” cried St. George with a boyish laugh, seating himself that he might fill his pipe the better from a saucer of tobacco on the table. “If you were grateful it would spoil it all. What you can do, however, is to thank your lucky stars that that greasy red pocket-handkerchief will never be aired in your presence again. And there's another thing you can be thankful for now that you are in a thankful mood, and that is that Mr. Poe will be at Guy's to-morrow, and wants to see me.” He had finished filling the pipe bowl, and had struck a match.
The boy's eyes danced. Gadgem, his father, his debts, everything—was forgotten.
“Oh, I'm so glad! How do you know?”
“Here's a letter from him.” (Puff-puff.)
“And can I see him?”
“Of course you can see him! We will have him to dinner, my boy! Here comes Todd with your coffee. Take my seat so I can talk to you while I smoke.”
CHAPTER XIV
Although St. George dispensed his hospitality without form or pretence, never referring to his intended functions except in a casual way, the news of so unusual a dinner to so notorious a man as Edgar Allan Poe could not long be kept quiet.
While a few habitues occupying the arm-chairs on the sidewalk of the club were disappointed at not being invited,—although they knew that ten guests had always been St. George's limit,—others expressed their disapproval of the entire performance with more than a shrug of the shoulders. Captain Warfleld was most outspoken. “Temple,” he said, “like his father, is a law unto himself, and always entertains the queerest kind of people; and if he wants to do honor to a man of that stamp, why that, of course, is his business, not mine.” At which old Tom Purviance had blurted out—“And a shiftless vagabond too, Warfield, if what I hear is true. Fine subject for St. George to waste his Madeira on!” Purviance had never read a dozen lines of anybody's poetry in his life, and looked upon all literary men as no better than play actors.
It was then that Richard Horn, his eyes flashing, had retorted:
“If I did not know how kind-hearted you were, Purviance, and how thoughtless you can sometimes be in your criticisms, I might ask you to apologize to both Mr. Poe and myself. Would it surprise you to know that there is no more truth in what you say than there is in the reports of that gentleman's habitual drunkenness? It was but a year ago that I met him at his cousin's house and I shall never forget him. Would it also surprise you to learn that he has the appearance of a man of very great distinction?—that he was faultlessly attired in a full suit of black and had the finest pair of eyes in his head I have ever looked into? Mr. Poe is not of your world, or of mine—he is above it. There is too much of this sort of ill-considered judgment abroad in the land. No—my dear Purviance—I don't want to be rude and I am sure you will not think I am personal. I am only trying to be just to one of the master spirits of our time so that I won't be humiliated when his real worth becomes a household word.”
The women took a different view.
“I can't understand what Mr. Temple is thinking of,” said the wife of the archdeacon to Mrs. Cheston. “This Mr. Poe is something dreadful—never sober, I hear. Mr. Temple is invariably polite to everybody, but when he goes out of his way to do honor to a man like this he only makes it harder for those of us who are trying to help our sons and brothers—” to which Mrs. Cheston had replied with a twinkle in her mouse eyes and a toss of her gray head:—“So was Byron, my dear woman—a very dreadful and most disreputable person, but I can't spare him from my Library, nor should you.”
None of these criticisms would have affected St. George had he heard them, and we may be sure no one dared tell him. He was too busy, in fact—and so was Harry, helping him for that matter—setting his house in order for the coming function.
That the table itself might be made the more worthy of the great man, orders were given that the big silver loving-cup—the one presented to his father by no less a person than the Marquis de Castellux himself—should be brought out to be filled later on with Cloth of Gold roses so placed that their rich color and fragrance would reach both the eyes and the nostrils of his guests, while the rest of the family silver, brightened to a mirror finish by Todd, was either sent down to Aunt Jemima to be ready for the special dishes for which the house was famous, or disposed on the side-board and serving-table for instant use when required. Easy-chairs were next brought from upstairs—tobacco and pipes, with wax candles, were arranged on teak-wood trays, and an extra dozen or so of bubble-blown glasses banked on a convenient shelf. The banquet room too, for it was late summer, was kept as cool as the season permitted, the green shutters being closed, thus barring out the heat of early September—and the same precaution was taken in the dressing-room, which was to serve as a receptacle for hats and canes.
And Todd as usual was his able assistant. All the darky's training came into play when his master was giving a dinner: what Madeira to decant, and what to leave in its jacket of dust, with its waistcoat of a label unlaundered for half a century; the temperature of the claret; the exact angle at which the Burgundy must be tilted and when it was to be opened—and how—especially the “how”—the disturbing of a single grain of sediment being a capital offence; the final brandies, particularly that old Peach Brandy hidden in Tom Coston's father's cellar during the war of 1812, and sent to that gentleman as an especial “mark of my appreciation to my dear friend and kinsman, St. George Wilmot Temple,” etc., etc.—all this Todd knew to his finger ends.
For with St. George to dine meant something more than the mere satisfying of one's hunger. To dine meant to get your elbows next to your dearest friend—half a dozen or more of your dearest friends, if possible—to look into their faces, hear them talk, regale them with the best your purse afforded, and last and best of all to open for them your rarest wines—wines bred in the open, amid tender, clustering leaves; wines mellowed by a thousand sunbeams; nurtured, cared for, and put tenderly to sleep, only to awake years thereafter to warm the hearts and cheer the souls of those who honored them with their respect and never degraded them with their debauchery.
As for the dishes themselves—here St. George with Jemima's help was pastmaster: dishes sizzling hot; dishes warm, and dishes stone cold. And their several arrivals and departures, accompanied by their several staffs: the soup as an advance guard—of gumbo or clams—or both if you chose; then a sheepshead caught off Cobb's Island the day before, just arrived by the day boat, with potatoes that would melt in your mouth—in gray jackets these; then soft-shell crabs—big, crisp fellows, with fixed bayonets of legs, and orderlies of cucumber—the first served on a huge silver platter with the coat-of-arms of the Temples cut in the centre of the rim and the last on an old English cut-glass dish. Then the woodcock and green peas—and green corn—their teeth in a broad grin; then an olio of pineapple, and a wonderful Cheshire cheese, just arrived in a late invoice—and marvellous crackers—and coffee—and fruit (cantaloupes and peaches that would make your mouth water), then nuts, and last a few crusts of dry bread! And here everything came to a halt and all the troops were sent back to the barracks—(Aunt Jemima will do for the barracks).
With this there was to follow a change of base—a most important change. Everything eatable and drinkable and all the glasses and dishes were to be lifted from the table—one half at a time—the cloth rolled back and whisked away and the polished mahogany laid bare; the silver coasters posted in advantageous positions, and in was to rattle the light artillery:—Black Warrior of 1810—Port of 1815—a Royal Brown Sherry that nobody knew anything about, and had no desire to, so fragrant was it. Last of all the notched finger-bowls in which to cool the delicate, pipe-stem glasses; and then, and only then, did the real dinner begin.
All this Todd had done dozens and dozens of times before, and all this (with Malachi's assistance—Richard Horn consenting—for there was nothing too good for the great poet) would Todd do again on this eventful night.
As to the guests, this particular feast being given to the most distinguished literary genius the country had yet produced,—certainly the most talked of—those who were bidden were, of course, selected with more than usual care: Mr. John P. Kennedy, the widely known author and statesman, and Mr. John H. B. Latrobe, equally noteworthy as counsellor, mathematician, and patron of the fine arts, both of whom had been Poe's friends for years, and who had first recognized his genius; Richard Horn, who never lost an opportunity to praise him, together with Judge Pancoast, Major Clayton, the richest aristocrat about Kennedy Square and whose cellar was famous the county over—and last, the Honorable Prim. Not because old Seymour possessed any especial fitness one way or the other for a dinner of this kind, but because his presence would afford an underground communication by which Kate could learn how fine and splendid Harry was—(sly old diplomat St. George!)—and how well he had appeared at a table about which were seated the best Kennedy Square could produce.
“I'll put you right opposite Mr. Poe, Harry—so you can study him at your leisure,” St. George had said when discussing the placing of the guests, “and be sure you look at his hands, they are just like a girl's, they are so soft and white. And his eyes—you will never forget them. And there is an air about him too—an air of—well, a sort of haughty distraction—something I can't quite explain—as if he had a contempt for small things—things that you and I, and your father and all of us about here, believe in. Blood or no blood, he's a gentleman, even if he does come of very plain people;—and they were players I hear. It seems natural, when you think it over, that Latrobe and Kennedy and Horn should be men of genius, because their blood entitles them to it, but how a man raised as Mr. Poe has been should—well—all I can say is that he upsets all our theories.”
“But I think you are wrong, Uncle George, about his birth. I've been looking him up and his grandfather was a general in the Revolution.”
“Well, I'm glad of it—and I hope he was a very good general, and very much of a gentleman—but there is no question of his descendant being a wonder. But that is neither here nor there—you'll be right opposite and can study him in your own way.”
Mr. Kennedy arrived first. Although his family name is the same as that which dignifies the scene of these chronicles, none of his ancestors, so far as I know, were responsible for its title. Nor did his own domicile front on its confines. In fact, at this period of his varied and distinguished life, he was seldom seen in Kennedy Square, his duties at Washington occupying all his time, and it was by the merest chance that he could be present.
“Ah, St. George!” he exclaimed, as he handed his hat to Todd and grasped his host's hand. “So very good of you to let me come. How cool and delicious it is in here—and the superb roses—Ah yes!—the old Castellux cup. I remember it perfectly; your father once gave me a sip from its rim when I was a young fellow. And now tell me—how is our genius? What a master-stroke is his last—the whole country is ringing with it. How did you get hold of him?”
“Very easily. He wrote me he was passing through on his way to Richmond, and you naturally popped into my head as the proper man to sit next him,” replied St. George in his hearty manner.
“And you were on top of him, I suppose, before he got out of bed. Safer, sometimes,” and he smiled significantly.
“Yes, found him at Guy's. Sit here, Kennedy, where the air is cooler.”
“And quite himself?” continued the author, settling himself in a chair that St. George had just drawn out for him.
“Perhaps a little thinner, and a little worn. It was only when I told him you were coming, that I got a smile out of him. He never forgets you and he never should.”
Again Todd answered the knocker and Major Clayton, Richard Horn, and Mr. Latrobe joined the group. The major, who was rather stout, apologized for his light seersucker coat, due, as he explained, to the heat, although his other garments were above criticism. Richard, however, looked as if he had just stepped out of an old portrait in his dull-blue coat and white silk scarf, St. George's eyes lighting up as he took in the combination—nothing pleased St. George so much as a well-dressed man, and Richard never disappointed him, while Latrobe, both in his dress and dignified bearing, easily held first place as the most distinguished looking man in the room.
The Honorable Prim now stalked in and shook hands gravely and with much dignity, especially with Mr. Kennedy, whose career as a statesman he had always greatly admired. St. George often said, in speaking of this manner of the Scotchman's, that Prim's precise pomposity was entirely due to the fact that he had swallowed himself and couldn't digest the meal; that if he would once in a while let out a big, hearty laugh it might split his skin wide enough for him to get a natural breath.
St. George kept his eyes on Harry when the boy stepped forward and shook Prim by the hand, but he had no need for anxiety. The face of the young prince lighted up and his manner was as gracious as if nothing had ever occurred to mar the harmony between the Seymour clan and himself.
Everybody had seated themselves now—Malachi having passed around a course of palm-leaf fans—Clayton, Latrobe, and Horn at one open window overlooking the tired trees—it was in the dog days—Seymour and the judge at the other, while St. George took a position so that he could catch the first glimpse of the famous poet as he crossed the Square—(it was still light), the dinner hour having arrived and Todd already getting nervous.
Once more the talk dwelt on the guest of honor—Mr. Kennedy, who, of all men of his time, could best appreciate Poe's genius, and who, with Mr. Latrobe, had kept it alive, telling for the hundredth time the old story of his first meeting with the poet, turning now and then to Latrobe for confirmation.
“Oh, some ten or more years ago, wasn't it, Latrobe? We happened to be on the committee for awarding a prize story, and Poe had sent in his 'Manuscript in a Bottle' among others. It would have broken your hearts, gentlemen, to have seen him. His black coat was buttoned up close to his chin—seedy, badly worn—he himself shabby and down at the heels, but erect and extremely courteous—a most pitiable object. My servant wasn't going to let him in at first, he looked so much the vagrant.”
“And you know, of course, Kennedy, that he had no shirt on under that coat, don't you?” rejoined Latrobe, rising from his seat as he spoke and joining St. George at the window.
“Do you think so?” echoed Mr. Kennedy.
“I am positive of it. He came to see me next day and wanted me to let him know whether he had been successful. He said if the committee only knew how much the prize would mean to him they would stretch a point in his favor. I am quite sure I told you about it at the time, St. George,” and he laid his hand on his host's shoulder.
“There was no need of stretching it, Latrobe,” remarked Richard Horn in his low, incisive voice, his eyes on Kennedy's face, although he was speaking to the counsellor. “You and Kennedy did the world a great service at the right moment. Many a man of brains—one with something new to say—has gone to the wall and left his fellow men that much poorer because no one helped him into the Pool of Healing at the right moment.” (Dear Richard!—he was already beginning to understand something of this in his own experience.)
Todd's entrance interrupted the talk for a moment. His face was screwed up into knots, both eyes lost in the deepest crease. “Fo' Gawd, Marse George,” he whispered in his master's ear—“dem woodcock'll be sp'iled if dat gemman don't come!”
St. George shook his head: “We will wait a few minutes more, Todd. Tell Aunt Jemima what I say.”
Clayton, who despite the thinness of his seersucker coat, had kept his palm-leaf fan busy since he had taken his seat, and who had waited until his host's ear was again free, now broke in cheerily:
“Same old story of course, St. George. Another genius gone astray. Bad business, this bee of literature, once it gets to buzzing.” Then with a quizzical glance at the author: “Kennedy is a lamentable example of what it has done for him. He started out as a soldier, dropped into law, and now is trying to break into Congress again—and all the time writes—writes—writes. It has spoiled everything he has tried to do in life—and it will spoil everything he touches from this on—and now comes along this man Poe, who—”
“—No, he doesn't come along,” chimed in Pancoast, who so far had kept silence, his palm-leaf fan having done all the talking. “I wish he would.”
“You are right, judge,” chuckled Clayton, “and that is just my point. Here I say, comes along this man Poe and spoils my dinner. Something, I tell you, has got to be done or I shall collapse. By the way, Kennedy—didn't you send Poe a suit of clothes once in which to come to your house?”
The distinguished statesman, who had been smiling at the major's good-natured badinage, made no reply: that was a matter between the poet and himself.
“And didn't he keep everybody waiting?” persisted Clayton, “until your man found him and brought him back in your own outfit—only the shirt was four sizes too big for his bean-pole of a body. Am I right?” he laughed.
“He has often dined with me, Clayton,” replied Kennedy in his most courteous and kindly tone, ignoring the question as well as all allusion to his charity—“and never in all my experience have I ever met a more dazzling conversationalist. Start him on one of his weird tales and let him see that you are interested and in sympathy with him, and you will never forget it. He gave us parts of an unfinished story one night at my house, so tremendous in its power that every one was frozen stiff in his seat.”
Again Clayton cut in, this time to St. George. He was getting horribly hungry, as were the others. It was now twenty minutes past the dinner hour and there were still no signs of Poe, nor had any word come from him. “For mercy's sake, St. George, try the suit-of-clothes method—any suit of clothes—here—he can have mine! I'll be twice as comfortable without them.”
“He couldn't get into them,” returned St. George with a smile—“nor could he into mine, although he is half our weight; and as for our hats—they wouldn't get further down on his head than the top of his crown.”
“But I insist on the experiment,” bubbled Clayton good-naturedly. “Here we are, hungry as wolves and everything being burned up. Try the suit-of-clothes trick—Kennedy did it—and it won't take your Todd ten minutes to go to Guy's and bring him back inside of them.”
“Those days are over for Poe,” Kennedy remarked with a slight frown. The major's continued allusions to a brother writer's poverty, though pure badinage, had begun to jar on the author.
For the second time Todd's face was thrust in at the door. It now looked like a martyr's being slowly roasted at the stake.
“Yes, Todd—serve dinner!” called St. George in a tone that showed how great was his disappointment. “We won't wait any longer, gentlemen. Geniuses must be allowed some leeway. Something has detained our guest.”
“He's got an idea in his head and has stopped in somewhere to write it down,” continued Clayton in his habitual good-natured tone: it was the overdone woodcock—(he had heard Todd's warning)—that still filled his mind.
“I could forgive him for that,” exclaimed the judge—“some of his best work, I hear, has been done on the spur of the moment—and you should forgive him too, Clayton—unbeliever and iconoclast as you are—and you WOULD forgive him if you knew as much about new poetry as you do about old port.”
Clayton's stout body shook with laughter. “My dear Pancoast,” he cried, “you do not know what you are talking about. No man living or dead should be forgiven who keeps a woodcock on the spit five minutes over time. Forgive him! Why, my dear sir, your poet ought to be drawn and quartered, and what is left of him boiled in oil. Where shall I sit, St. George?”
“Alongside of Latrobe. Kennedy, I shall put you next to Poe's vacant chair—he knows and loves you best. Seymour, will you and Richard take your places alongside of Pancoast, and Harry, will you please sit opposite Mr. Kennedy?”
And so the dinner began.