Beyond the City

Chapter 17

Day had broken before the several denizens of the

Wilderness had all returned to their homes, the police

finished their inquiries, and all come back to its normal

quiet. Mrs. Westmacott had been left sleeping peacefully

with a small chloral draught to steady her nerves and a

handkerchief soaked in arnica bound round her head. It

was with some surprise, therefore, that the Admiral

received a note from her about ten o'clock, asking him to

be good enough to step in to her. He hurried in, fearing

that she might have taken some turn for the worse, but he

was reassured to find her sitting up in her bed, with

Clara and Ida Walker in attendance upon her. She had

removed the handkerchief, and had put on a little cap

with pink ribbons, and a maroon dressing-jacket, daintily

fulled at the neck and sleeves.

"My dear friend," said she as he entered, "I wish to

make a last few remarks to you. No, no," she continued,

laughing, as she saw a look of dismay upon his face. "I

shall not dream of dying for at least another thirty

years. A woman should be ashamed to die before she is

seventy. I wish, Clara, that you would ask

your father to step up. And you, Ida, just pass me

my cigarettes, and open me a bottle of stout."

"Now then," she continued, as the doctor joined their

party. "I don't quite know what I ought to say to you,

Admiral. You want some very plain speaking to."

"'Pon my word, ma'am, I don't know what you are

talking about."

"The idea of you at your age talking of going to sea,

and leaving that dear, patient little wife of yours at

home, who has seen nothing of you all her life! It's all

very well for you. You have the life, and the change,

and the excitement, but you don't think of her eating her

heart out in a dreary London lodging. You men are all

the same."

"Well, ma'am, since you know so much, you probably

know also that I have sold my pension. How am I to live

if I do not turn my hand to work?"

Mrs. Westmacott produced a large registered envelope

from beneath the sheets and tossed it over to the old

seaman.

"That excuse won't do. There are your pension

papers. Just see if they are right."

He broke the seal, and out tumbled the very papers

which he had made over to McAdam two days before.

"But what am I to do with these now?" he cried in

bewilderment.

"You will put them in a safe place, or get a friend

to do so, and, if you do your duty, you will go to your

wife and beg her pardon for having even for an instant

thought of leaving her."

The Admiral passed his hand over his rugged forehead.

"This is very good of you, ma'am" said he, "very good and

kind, and I know that you are a staunch friend, but for

all that these papers mean money, and though we may have

been in broken water lately, we are not quite in such

straits as to have to signal to our friends. When we do,

ma'am, there's no one we would look to sooner than to

you."

"Don't be ridiculous!" said the widow. "You know

nothing whatever about it, and yet you stand there laying

down the law. I'll have my way in the matter, and you

shall take the papers, for it is no favor that I am doing

you, but simply a restoration of stolen property."

"How that, ma'am?"

"I am just going to explain, though you might take a

lady's word for it without asking any questions. Now,

what I am going to say is just between you four, and must

go no farther. I have my own reasons for wishing to keep

it from the police. Who do you think it was who struck

me last night, Admiral?"

"Some villain, ma'am. I don't know his name."

"But I do. It was the same man who ruined or tried

to ruin your son. It was my only brother, Jeremiah."

"Ah!"

"I will tell you about him--or a little about him,

for he has done much which I would not care to talk of,

nor you to listen to. He was always a villain,

smooth-spoken and plausible, but a dangerous, subtle

villain all the same. If I have some hard thoughts about

mankind I can trace them back to the childhood which I

spent with my brother. He is my only living relative,

for my other brother, Charles's father, was killed in the

Indian mutiny.

"Our father was rich, and when he died he made a good

provision both for Jeremiah and for me. He knew Jeremiah

and he mistrusted him, however; so instead of giving him

all that he meant him to have he handed me over a part of

it, telling me, with what was almost his dying breath, to

hold it in trust for my brother, and to use it in his

behalf when he should have squandered or lost all that he

had. This arrangement was meant to be a secret between

my father and myself, but unfortunately his words were

overheard by the nurse, and she repeated them afterwards

to my brother, so that he came to know that I held some

money in trust for him. I suppose tobacco will not harm

my head, Doctor? Thank you, then I shall trouble

you for the matches, Ida." She lit a cigarette, and

leaned back upon the pillow, with the blue wreaths

curling from her lips.

"I cannot tell you how often he has attempted to get

that money from me. He has bullied, cajoled, threatened,

coaxed, done all that a man could do. I still held it

with the presentiment that a need for it would come.

When I heard of this villainous business, his flight, and

his leaving his partner to face the storm, above all that

my old friend had been driven to surrender his income in

order to make up for my brother's defalcations, I felt

that now indeed I had a need for it. I sent in Charles

yesterday to Mr. McAdam, and his client, upon hearing the

facts of the case, very graciously consented to give back

the papers, and to take the money which he had advanced.

Not a word of thanks to me, Admiral. I tell you that it

was very cheap benevolence, for it was all done with his

own money, and how could I use it better?

"I thought that I should probably hear from him soon,

and I did. Last evening there was handed in a note of

the usual whining, cringing tone. He had come back from

abroad at the risk of his life and liberty, just in order

that he might say good-bye to the only sister he ever

had, and to entreat my forgiveness for any pain

which he had caused me. He would never trouble me again,

and he begged only that I would hand over to him the sum

which I held in trust for him. That, with what he had

already, would be enough to start him as an honest man in

the new world, when he would ever remember and pray for

the dear sister who had been his savior. That was the

style of the letter, and it ended by imploring me to

leave the window-latch open, and to be in the front room

at three in the morning, when he would come to receive my

last kiss and to bid me farewell.

"Bad as he was, I could not, when he trusted me,

betray him. I said nothing, but I was there at the hour.

He entered through the window, and implored me to give

him the money. He was terribly changed; gaunt, wolfish,

and spoke like a madman. I told him that I had spent the

money. He gnashed his teeth at me, and swore it was his

money. I told him that I had spent it on him. He asked

me how. I said in trying to make him an honest man, and

in repairing the results of his villainy. He shrieked

out a curse, and pulling something out of the breast of

his coat--a loaded stick, I think--he struck me with it,

and I remembered nothing more."

"The blackguard!" cried the Doctor, "but the police

must be hot upon his track."

"I fancy not," Mrs. Westmacott answered calmly. "As

my brother is a particularly tall, thin man, and as the

police are looking for a short, fat one, I do not think

that it is very probable that they will catch him. It is

best, I think, that these little family matters should be

adjusted in private."

"My dear ma'am," said the Admiral, "if it is indeed

this man's money that has bought back my pension, then I

can have no scruples about taking it. You have brought

sunshine upon us, ma'am, when the clouds were at their

darkest, for here is my boy who insists upon returning

the money which I got. He can keep it now to pay his

debts. For what you have done I can only ask God to

bless you, ma'am, and as to thanking you I can't even----"

"Then pray don't try," said the widow. "Now run

away, Admiral, and make your peace with Mrs. Denver. I

am sure if I were she it would be a long time before I

should forgive you. As for me, I am going to America

when Charles goes. You'll take me so far, won't you,

Ida? There is a college being built in Denver which is

to equip the woman of the future for the struggle of

life, and especially for her battle against man. Some

months ago the committee offered me a responsible

situation upon the staff, and I have decided now to

accept it, for Charles's marriage removes the last tie

which binds me to England. You will write to me

sometimes, my friends, and you will address your letters

to Professor Westmacott, Emancipation College, Denver.

From there I shall watch how the glorious struggle goes

in conservative old England, and if I am needed you will

find me here again fighting in the forefront of the fray.

Good-bye--but not you, girls; I have still a word I wish

to say to you.

"Give me your hand, Ida, and yours, Clara," said she

when they were alone. "Oh, you naughty little pusses,

aren't you ashamed to look me in the face? Did you

think--did you really think that I was so very blind, and

could not see your little plot? You did it very well, I

must say that, and really I think that I like you better

as you are. But you had all your pains for nothing, you

little conspirators, for I give you my word that I had

quite made up my mind not to have him."

And so within a few weeks our little ladies from

their observatory saw a mighty bustle in the Wilderness,

when two-horse carriages came, and coachmen with favors,

to bear away the twos who were destined to come back one.

And they themselves in their crackling silk dresses went

across, as invited, to the big double wedding breakfast

which was held in the house of Doctor Walker. Then there

was health-drinking, and laughter, and changing of

dresses, and rice-throwing when the carriages drove

up again, and two more couples started on that journey

which ends only with life itself.

Charles Westmacott is now a flourishing ranchman in

the western part of Texas, where he and his sweet little

wife are the two most popular persons in all that county.

Of their aunt they see little, but from time to time they

see notices in the papers that there is a focus of light

in Denver, where mighty thunderbolts are being forged

which will one day bring the dominant s*x upon their

knees. The Admiral and his wife still live at number

one, while Harold and Clara have taken number two, where

Doctor Walker continues to reside. As to the business,

it had been reconstructed, and the energy and ability of

the junior partner had soon made up for all the ill that

had been done by his senior. Yet with his sweet and

refined home atmosphere he is able to realize his wish,

and to keep himself free from the sordid aims and base

ambitions which drag down the man whose business lies too

exclusively in the money market of the vast Babylon. As

he goes back every evening from the crowds of Throgmorton

Street to the tree-lined peaceful avenues of Norwood, so

he has found it possible in spirit also to do one's

duties amidst the babel of the City, and yet to live

beyond it.