CHAPTER XIX.
KIT FINDS HIS FATHER.
IT was a beautiful spring-like day in the latter part of September when Kit stepped ashore on the quay in the city of Wellington, New Zealand. Fresh new leaves were upon the trees, fresh green grass in the lawns, bright fresh flowers in the beds. Nature had recently awakened from her winter sleep, and the young city of the Antipodes was at its brightest and best.
During the long voyage he had had ample time to determine just what he must do on arrival. First, of course, he would go to the American consul’s and introduce himself; and how often he had hoped that the consul would not detain him long, for he would be so anxious to get to the hospital! And then he would hurry to the hospital, and in five minutes the great question would be decided.
But now that he was actually on the spot, things did not look, somehow, exactly as he had expected. No place ever does look just as we expect when we have long been thinking about it and then go to see it for the first time. He looked with curiosity at the big buildings, wondering which was the hospital, which the consulate. He could hardly grasp the idea that in all probability his father was in one of those buildings before him. But suppose that, after all, the man in the hospital should not prove to be his father; suppose he had made this long journey for nothing? He quickened his steps up the street to walk these useless fancies away.
“Will you be kind enough to tell me the way to the American consulate, sir?” he asked a gentleman whom he met.
“It is in that red brick building on the other side,” the gentleman answered. “You cannot very well miss it.”
In two minutes more he had made himself known to Mr. Wilkins, the vice-consul and acting consul.
“I rather thought we should see you here,” Mr. Wilkins said, “but hardly so soon. My second letter must have made good time over to America.”
“Your second letter!” Kit exclaimed; “we had not received a second letter from you, sir, when I left home. I started as soon as we got the photograph you sent.”
“Oh, yes; I see,” said Mr. Wilkins. “Then you recognized your father in the photograph, did you?”
“Not with certainty,” Kit replied; “but there was a resemblance. But was there any further news in your second letter, sir?”
“Well, I can hardly say any further news, except that there has been a great improvement in your father—at least in the man in the hospital. Even since the photograph was taken he has improved very much. Physically, I mean; he is a great deal stronger, and looks and acts much younger. And mentally he has improved somewhat, too. He is not able to give the least account of himself, to be sure; the past seems to be a perfect blank to him; but in affairs of the present he takes some intelligent interest. I am glad that you will see him in his improved condition rather than as he was some months ago. It was a hard matter for the consulate to deal with. A distressed American sailor we are allowed to send home at the public expense; but there was no evidence that this man is an American sailor—or indeed an American at all.”
“I think I can soon settle that question when I see him, sir,” Kit answered. “If he is my father, I shall know him, no matter how much he is changed. And naturally I am anxious to see him as soon as possible. If you will be kind enough to give me a line of introduction to the hospital authorities, I will go there at once.”
“Of course you are anxious!” the consul assented. “You have been kept in suspense a terribly long time; but you shall know the best or the worst without delay. I will go over to the hospital with you at once. It is only a few steps from here.”
In the hospital they were shown into the house surgeon’s office; and when the surgeon entered he was greatly interested to find that some one had come from the other side of the world in the hope of identifying the mysterious John Doe.
“It is a case that we have all taken much interest in,” he said. “If you could have seen him when he arrived here, you would be assured by his present appearance that we have taken good care of him. But you have made a long journey to find a father, and I will not keep you waiting. For some weeks this patient has been going in and out at his own pleasure, under the necessary restrictions; but his favorite place is the sunny courtyard. To avoid exciting him unduly, I think the best plan will be to induce him to walk in the courtyard; and we three will then walk quietly through. That will give the best opportunity to see whether you can identify him, or whether he will recognize you.”
“You know best about that, sir,” Kit answered.
The surgeon tapped his bell, and in a moment an attendant entered—the same one who had held the flags in front of the patient long before.
“I want you to get John Doe into the courtyard for a walk,” the surgeon said. “This gentleman hopes to identify him, and in a few minutes we will walk through the yard. But give the patient no hint that anything unusual is happening. Just ask him out for a walk; he is always ready for a walk in the sun.”
“I must caution you,” the surgeon said to Kit after the attendant had gone to execute his order, “that in these cases of suspended memory we have to be prepared for almost anything. Nothing is surprising. If the patient proves to be your father, he may recognize you at once, and the shock may restore his lost memory in an instant. On the other hand, he may not recognize you at all. Or if he does, he may treat you as if you had left him only a few minutes before—as if your being here was a perfectly natural thing. If he knows you at all, it is an extremely favorable indication. With one little beginning, his whole past will almost certainly come back to him.”
As they walked through the long corridor toward the door that was to admit them to the courtyard, Kit felt his heart beating against his ribs as though trying to break them. The consul said something, but it made no impression upon him. He heard footsteps on the stone pavement outside, and tried to recognize them, but could not. The surgeon threw open the door, and they stepped out.
At the farther end of the yard, where the sun shone brightest, “John Doe” was walking slowly up and down, with his hands clasped behind him.
“That is my father!” Kit said very quietly.
It surprised him that he could speak so coolly, for he felt anything but cool. The moisture in his eyes was beyond his control; but he had firmly made up his mind that he would make no scene, whatever happened. He had too often been disgusted at seeing bearded Frenchmen hug and kiss each other like school-girls; he would have none of that—at least not in public.
For a moment neither of his companions spoke. They appreciated his feelings and gave him time to collect himself. But the consul’s hand stole into his and gave him a warm grip. Then another hand; that was the surgeon’s.
After a short delay the surgeon put his arm through Kit’s, and the three walked across the yard toward the patient. It was a terribly trying moment for Kit. The impulse to rush forward and clasp his father’s hands was almost irresistible, but he restrained himself.
Before they were half way across the yard, “John Doe,” now John Doe no longer, but Christopher Silburn, hearing footsteps, turned and looked around. Recognizing the surgeon, he nodded to him, and was about to resume his walk, when something about their party attracted his attention. He looked again, and turned his steps toward them—not in his former aimless way, but as if he had an object in view. In a moment more Kit and his father were face to face.
“Now what’s kept you all this time, Kit?” Mr. Silburn asked, in an annoyed tone. “When I send you on an errand, I want you to do it and come straight home. I will not have this sort of thing.”
It was so utterly different from anything he had anticipated that Kit was completely taken off his guard. But as soon as he recovered himself he was filled with joy at being recognized at all. He must, he knew, humor his father’s mood, and lead him gradually along.
“I got here as soon as I could, father,” he answered, in a tone as tender as a girl’s. “There were some things I had to do for mother first.”
“Where is mother?” Mr. Silburn asked, looking around as if he expected to find her behind him.
“She’s in the house—at home,” Kit answered.
“And Vieve?” he asked.
“She’s at home, too.”
“Well, you must do your mother’s errands, of course,” Mr. Silburn went on. “But I don’t like to have you away so long, Kit. I’ve been wanting you to bring me my other clothes. I can’t find them anywhere, but they must be some place around the house. I’m tired of these gray ones.”
He held out one arm and looked at the sleeve, then down at the legs of the trousers, as if they were something new to him.
“Hadn’t we better go down to the tailor’s and get your new ones?” Kit asked. “They must be done by this time, and you will have to try them on.”
He looked at the surgeon as he spoke, and the surgeon gave him an approving nod, as if to say, “Yes, humor him as much as you can.”
“Yes, we will go and get the new ones,” Mr. Silburn answered. “I don’t like these gray ones at all.”
“In just a minute, father,” Kit said. “I want to run into the house a minute first.”
The surgeon took the hint and followed him in, for he saw that Kit desired to speak to him.
“Perhaps it will make him feel more like himself to have the kind of clothes he is accustomed to—a dark blue suit,” he suggested. “If you think best I will take him out to a tailor’s to buy some. And he would like to have his hair and beard trimmed in the old way, I am sure.”
“Yes, the more you can make him look like his old self, the better,” the surgeon assented. “He is doing famously. Don’t contradict him in anything. Just let him take his own way as he has been doing, and it will not be long before he will discover that there has been some change in his surroundings. Then he will begin to ask questions, and you can tell him what has happened.
“I advise you to bring him back here,” the surgeon continued, “at least for a few days. It would not be well to make everything too strange for him at first. We will give you a room here with two beds, so that you can stay with him. By the time you get back from your walk you may find a great improvement in him; I can see that having you with him makes him feel happier.”
When the two Christopher Silburns started down the street for the tailor’s, the consul went with them, for he was very much interested in the strange case; and it was not long before the patient was arrayed in a dark blue suit, with a new derby hat; and after his hair and beard had been trimmed to the way he was accustomed to wear them, he looked so much like the old Christopher Silburn that Kit could hardly help dancing around him for joy. But he held himself in, and made no demonstrations. It was evident that his father was very much pleased, too, with the change in his appearance; he admired himself in the mirror, drew himself up till the stoop was gone from his shoulders, and was very particular to have the new hat on straight. It was nothing but the truth when the consul said that he looked like a new man.
“I should like to go to the cable office for a minute or two,” Kit said, when they were done with the barber. “I don’t want to keep all this pleasure to myself.”
But writing a cable message home, when every word cost more than a day’s salary, was no easy matter. The first one he wrote contained sixteen words, and that was far too long. After many trials he got it reduced to nine, in this fashion:—
Silburn, Huntington, Conn.
Father much improved. Knows me.
Kit.
“That tells them that I have found him, and that we are both all right,” he reflected. It was just like Kit that the first real extravagance he ever committed was for his mother and Vieve, not for his own pleasure. The message cost him nearly thirty dollars.
“Who is that to?” his father asked, as he handed the telegram to the clerk.
“To mother,” Kit replied. “It’s just to let her know that we are all right.”
“And where is mother?” was the next question.
“Why, at home, in Huntington,” Kit answered, thinking that now were coming the questions that the doctor had said were sure to come sooner or later. But he was mistaken. His father looked perplexed, as though trying hard to think about something, but walked out of the office with them without saying more, stroking what the barber had left of his beard.
On the way up the street to the consul’s office, however, he stopped and seized Kit by the arm.
“Kit,” he said, “what place is this?”
“This is Wellington, New Zealand, father,” Kit replied.
His father merely nodded his head and went on stroking his beard, but asked no more. It worried Kit to see how very hard he was trying to remember something, without succeeding. But it was not till they were seated in the consul’s office that he spoke again.
“There is something I don’t understand,” he said then to Kit. “And I see you don’t want to tell me; but tell me this, is anything wrong at home?”
“Not a thing, father,” Kit answered.
“Nobody dead?”
“No, indeed; nor sick, either; and in an hour or two they’ll be the happiest couple in the world, when they get my message.”
“Well, then I can wait,” Mr. Silburn answered. “I don’t know what it all means, but it’s all right, since you’re here. You’re such a big fellow, Kit; I had no idea you were such a big boy. And you’re going home with me?”
“In the very first ship,” Kit answered.
“Then it’s all right,” he said; “you can tell me when you get ready. Things are all in a muddle, somehow.”
The consul had a great many questions to ask about Kit’s voyage, and his business, and how long he was going to stay; and after a little conversation, of which Mr. Silburn took no notice, he asked one in which the former patient took a sudden interest.
“Don’t you both feel as if you could eat something? There is an excellent restaurant across the street, and I should be glad to have you eat dinner with me.”
“Yes, I’m hungry,” Mr. Silburn answered. “I haven’t eaten anything since—no, I’m getting mixed again. The last thing I ate was a bit of raw lobster, but I can’t remember where it was.”
When they were seated at the table, the patient gave ample proof that his loss of memory did not affect his appetite.
“That lobster you spoke of,” the consul said, hoping to revive the subject, “was that on the island?”
“It seems to me it was on an island somewhere,” Mr. Silburn answered. “Not much of an island, as far as I can remember; just a little place, with only a few people on it. I’m glad you spoke of it; though it seems to put me in mind of something, though I can’t think what it is. Give me some more of the roast beef, please.”
When Kit and his father retired to their room in the hospital early that evening, a room evidently kept for some of the staff rather than for patients, Kit drew one of the big chairs up to the table, and seating his father in it, proceeded to open the small package that Vieve had entrusted to him.
“You see Vieve hasn’t forgotten you, father,” he said. “She thought you must miss your slippers, so she made me bring them over to you. And here’s something else. Do you remember this?”
He reached into one of the slippers and took out his father’s pocket knife that the sailor from the Flower City had given him.
“I’ve been looking everywhere for that knife,” Mr. Silburn said, taking it as coolly as if he had mislaid it somewhere the day before. “Where did you find it, Kit?”
“I got it from the man you handed it to, to cut away one of the Flower City’s boats with, sir,” Kit answered. “Do you remember that?”
“Why shouldn’t I remember it?” Mr. Silburn asked, a little petulantly. “I handed it to Blinkey, and they got away from the schooner all right. Has anything been heard from them yet?”
“Blinkey is safe in England,” Kit replied, as he took off his father’s shoes and put on his slippers. “But you and he are the only ones who have been heard of.”
“Oh, well, they’ll be all right,” Mr. Silburn exclaimed; “they were good tight boats, and—no, our boat went to pieces, though. I get these things so mixed. My head’s all in a muddle with trying to remember, and it tires me. I think you’d better help me get to bed, Kit. I’ll be rested by morning.”
“Kit!” he called, as Kit was tucking the bedclothes snugly about him; “you still here, Kit?”
“Yes; here I am, father.”
“And you’ve come all the way to New Zealand to take me home?”
“Yes; we’re going home just as fast as we can.”
“And you won’t go without me, Kit?”
“Do you think I’d be likely to do such a thing, father?” Kit asked.
“No, you wouldn’t, Kit; you always were a good boy. And I’ll be rested by morning.” And with Kit’s hand firmly clutched in his he closed his eyes and gave up trying to remember.
Kit stood by the bedside for some minutes, till he was sure that his father was asleep; then he sat down at the table and wrote a long letter home, knowing that the mails would reach America weeks earlier than the slow Brindisi could arrive. And a letter to Mr. Clark too, and another to Captain Griffith. It was nearly midnight before he got to bed, but the fatigue and excitement of the day insured a good night’s sleep.
“Kit, my boy, wake up. I want you to tell me something.”
When Kit opened his eyes, the sun was streaming in the windows, and his father, already dressed, was standing by his bed. He sprang up and began to put on his clothes.
“I want you to tell me, Kit,” he repeated, seating himself in one of the big chairs, “how long I have been away from home.”
“Nearly two years, sir,” Kit answered.
“Two years!” Mr. Silburn exclaimed, springing from his chair. “You’re not making game of me, Kit? You wouldn’t do that, my boy!”
“No, sir,” Kit answered; “it is true. After the wreck of the Flower City you disappeared, and we almost gave you up. Then after a long time we heard of an American sailor in the hospital here in New Zealand, and got them to send us a photograph. We were not sure even then; but I came on, and found you. So that trouble is all over, and you mustn’t worry yourself about it.”
“No, I’ll not worry about it,” his father replied. “But I want to know; it makes a man feel so foolish not to know where he has been. How did you get here, my boy?”
That made a long story; for Kit had to tell how he had been a cabin boy and a supercargo; how he had become an assistant purser; and how his good friends on the two ships had paved the way for him to New Zealand. As he got on with the recital, his father seized his hand and fondled it; and before he finished, great tears of love and gratitude were rolling down the old sailor’s cheeks.
While he was still in this position, the house surgeon called to learn how his former patient had passed the night.
“That’s what I want to see,” he said, as he took in the situation. “You shed no tears while you remembered nothing, Mr. Silburn. This is one of the best symptoms, to have your emotions aroused. Don’t try to push your memory now; it will all come back to you; give it time.”
In the four days that Kit could spend in New Zealand, he saw improvement every day. Gradually it came back to his father that after the Flower City’s boat went to pieces, he was a long time in the water. That when he was about to give up, he was rescued by some ship, he could not remember her name, that carried him around Cape Horn. That that ship was also wrecked and abandoned. Then there was a hazy picture in his mind of a desert island, and terrible suffering from hunger and thirst. All beyond that was still a blank.
Kit was so jealous of anything that took him away from his father, that it was a relief to hear that the Bishop of New Zealand had gone to Australia on business; so it would be useless for him to present his letter from the cardinal. That would have been valuable in case of trouble, but all had been smooth sailing.
Throughout the long voyage home, in which Mr. Silburn was a passenger on the Brindisi, he continued to improve. There was hardly anything now about his adventures that he could not remember, except his long stay in the Wellington Hospital. Every little incident had been discussed over and over. But it was not till the vessel had passed Sandy Hook, and was steaming slowly up New York Bay, that he let Kit know of something that had been worrying him.
“There was a payment due on the house about the time I ought to have been home,” he said. “I’m afraid we are going to have trouble about that.”
It was worth all the hard work to Kit, all the hard saving, to be able to tell his father that the indebtedness had been paid to the last penny.