CHAPTER TEN - THE WOES OF THE DISINHERITED.
It was some days later on in the world's history that Holloway was callingon Bertha Rosscott.
They were sitting in that comfortable library previously referred to andwere sweetly unaware that any untoward series of incidents had ever led toan invasion of their privacy.
Holloway lay well back in a sleepy-hollow chair and looked indolently,lazily handsome; his hostess was up on--well up on the divan, and he hadthe full benefit of her admirable bottines and their dainty heels andbuckles.
"Honestly," he said, looking her over with a gaze that was at once rovingand well content, "honestly, I think that every time I see you, you appearmore attractive than the time before."
"It's very nice of you to say so," she replied. "And, of course, I believeyou, for every time that I get a new gown I think that very same thingmyself. Still, I do regard it as strange if I look nicely to-day, for I'vebeen crying like a baby all the morning."
"You crying! And why?"
She raised her eyes to his.
"Such bad news!" she said simply.
"From where? Of whom?"
"From mamma, about Bob."
"Have his wounds proved serious?" Holloway looked slightly distressed aswas proper.
"It isn't that. It's papa. Papa has forbidden him the house. He's very,very angry."
Holloway looked relieved.
"Your father won't stay angry long, and you know it," he said. "Just thinkhow often he has lost his temper over the boys and how often he's found itagain."
"It isn't just Bob," said Mrs. Rosscott. "I've someone else on my mind,too."
"Who, pray?"
"His friend."
"Young Denham?"
"Yes."
With that she threw her head up and looked very straightly at her callerwhose visage shaded ever so slightly in spite of himself.
"Have _his_ wounds proved serious?" he asked, smiling, but unable toaltogether do away with a species of parenthetical inflection in hisvoice.
"It wasn't over his wounds that I cried."
"Did you really cry at all for him?"
"I cried more for him than I did for Bob," she admitted boldly.
"He is a fortunate boy! But why the tears in his case?"
"I felt so badly to be disappointed in him."
"Did you expect to work a miracle there, my dear? Did you think to reformsuch an inveterate young reprobate with a glance?"
"I'm not sure that I ever asked myself either of those questions," shereplied, slowly; "but he promised me something, and I expected him to keephis word."
"Men don't keep such promises, Bertha," the visitor said. "You shouldn'thave expected it."
"I don't know why not."
"Because a man who drinks will drink again."
"I didn't refer to drinking," she said quietly. "It was quite anotherthing."
"Ah!"
She looked down at her rings and seemed to consider how much of herconfidence she should give him, and the consideration led her to look uppresently and say:
"He promised me that if he could not call any week he would write me aline instead. He came to town last week, and he neither called nor wrote.That wasn't like the man I saw in him. That was a direct breaking of hisword. I can't understand, and I'm disappointed."
Holloway took out his cigarette case and turned it over and overthoughtfully in his hands.
"He's nothing but a boy," he said at last, with an effort.
"He's no boy," she said. "He's almost twenty-two years old. He's a man."
"Some are men at twenty-two, and some are boys," Holloway remarked. "I wasa man before I was eighteen--a man out in the world of men. But Denham's aboy."
He rose as he spoke, and she held out her hand for him to raise her, too.
"It's early to go," she remarked parenthetically.
"I know," he replied; "but I hear someone being shown into thedrawing-room. I don't feel formal to-day, and if I can't lounge in herealone with you I'd rather go."
"How egotistical!" she commented.
"I am egotistical," he admitted.
And went.
The footman passed him in the hall; he had a card upon his silver salver,and was seeking his mistress in the library. But when he entered there theroom was empty. Mrs. Rosscott had slipped through the blue velvetportieres, expecting to see a friend, and had stopped short on the otherside, amazed at finding herself face to face with an utter stranger.
"I gave the man my card," said the stranger, in a tone as faded as hismustache. He was a long, thin man, but what the Germans style "_sehrkorrect_."
"I didn't wait to get it," the hostess said. "I supposed that, of course,it was somebody that I knew."
"That was natural," he admitted.
There was a slight pause of awkwardness.
"Won't you sit down?" she asked.
"Certainly," said the caller, and sat down.
Then she sat down, too, and another awkward pause ensued.
"You didn't expect to see me, did you?" said the stranger, smiling.
"No, I didn't," said Mrs. Rosscott frankly. "I expected to see someoneelse--someone that I knew. Nearly all my visitors are people whom I know."
Her eyes rather demanded an observance of the conventionalities while herwords were putting the best face possible on the queer five minutes. Thestranger smiled.
"My name is Clover," he said then. "Of course, as you never saw me before,you want to know that first of all."
"I'd choose to know," she said. And then the uncompromising neutrality ofher expression deepened so plainly that he hastened to add:
"I'm H. Wyncoop Clover."
"Oh!" she said. And then smiled, too; having heard the name before.
"Why don't you ask me my business?" went on H. Wyncoop Clover. "I musthave come for some reason, you know."
"I didn't know it," said Mrs. Rosscott--"I don't know anything about youyet."
They both smiled--and then H. Wyncoop resumed his colorless sobriety atonce.
"It's about Jack," he said--"these terrible new developments--" he stoppedshort, seeing his _vis-a-vis_ turn deathly white, "it's nothing to befrightened over," he said reassuringly.
Mrs. Rosscott was furious with herself for having paled. She becameinstantly haughty.
"I was alarmed for my brother," she said. "I always think of them both astogether."
"Oh, in that case, I can reassure you instantly," said the caller."Burnett is doing finely."
Mrs. Rosscott was conscious of being suddenly and skillfullycountercharged. She blushed with vexation, bit her lip in perturbation,and cast upon the trying individual opposite a look of most appealinginterrogation.
"You see," said Clover pleasantly, "I was coming to town, so I came inhandy for the purpose of telling you."
She gave him a glance that prayed him to be decent and go on with hiserrand.
"Burnett is about recovered," he said.
She clasped her hands hard.
"I wouldn't be a man for anything!" she exclaimed with sudden fervor,"they are so awfully mean. Why _don't_ you go on and tell me _what_ you'vecome about?"
He raised his eyebrows.
"May I?" he asked.
She choked down some of her exasperation.
"Yes, you may."
"Oh, thank you so much. I'll begin at once then. Only premising that as Igo to school with your little brother, and as he is rather under a cloudjust at present, we clubbed together to bring you a letter about him andJack. He was going to dictate it, but in the end Mitchell wrote it all.Here it is."
With that he put his hand into his pocket, drew out an envelope and handedit to her.
"How awfully good of you," she said gratefully. "Do excuse my reading itat once, won't you? You see, I've been so anxious about--about my brother."
He nodded understandingly, and she hastily tore open the envelope and ranher eyes over the written sheets.
MY DEAR MRS. ROSSCOTT:--
Being the prize writer of the class, I am chosen to take down the ante mortem confessions of our shattered friends. It is in a sad hour for them that I do so, because I am naturally so truthful that I shall not force you to look for my meaning between the lines. On the contrary, I shall set the cold facts out as neatly as the pickets on the fence. And in evidence thereof, I open the ball by telling you frankly that they both look fierce. If they had looked less awful, and Burnett had had more lime in his bones, we might have escaped the Powers That Be by simply admitting a sprained ankle and carefully concealing everything else. But if one man cracks where you can't finish the deal, even by the most unlimited outlay of mucilage and persistence, and another blazes his whole surface-area in a manner that seems to make the underbrush dubious to count on forever henceforth; why, you then have a logarithm the square of which is probably as far beyond your depth as I am beyond my own just at this point of this sentence.
The long and short of my fresh start is, that your brother wants to write you, but he is so handicapped (forgive me, but you're the only one who hasn't had that joke sprung on them!) with bandages, that it's cruel to expect much of him. It is true that he has his bosom friend to fall back upon, but if you could see that friend as we see him these days you wouldn't be sure whether it was true or not. The old woman, who had the peddler-and-petticoat episode, was not in it the same day with your brother's friend! I do assure you. And anyhow--even if he still has brains--his writing apparatus is all done up in arnica, so there you are!
But do not allow me to alarm you unduly! When all's said and done, they're not so badly off physically. Hair and ribs are mere vanities, anyhow, and we're here to-day and gone to-morrow!
Something much worse than disfigurements and broken bones has sprung forth from chaos, and has almost stared them out of countenance since. It is the wolf that is at the door, and the howling and prowling of their particular wolf is not to be sneezed at, let me tell you. To put a modern political face upon an ancient Greek fable, the wolf in their case symbolizes the bitter question of whose roof is going to roof them when they get out of the plaster casts that are bed and board to them just at present. Where are they to go? All those which used to be open to them are suddenly shut tight. They've both been expelled, and both been disinherited. If I was inclined to look on the blue side of the blanket, I should certainly feel that they were playing in very tough luck. Burnett, of course, can come to you, and his soul is full of the wish to bring his fellow-fright along with him. Which wish of his is the gist of my epistle. _Can_ he bring him? He wants to know before he broaches the proposition. I'm to be skinned alive if Jack ever learns that such a plea was made, so I beg you whatever other rash acts you see fit to commit during your meteoric flight across my plane of existence, don't ever give me away. Firstly, because if I ever get a chance to do so, I'm positive that I should want to cling to you as the mistletoe does to the oak, and could not bear to be given away; and secondly, because I'm so attached to my own skin that I should really suffer pain if it was taken from me by force. Bob wants you to think it over, and let him know as to the whats and whens by return mail.
You are so inspiring that I could write you all day, but those relics of what once was, but alas! will never be again, need to be rolled up afresh in absorbent cotton, and so I must nail my Red Cross on to my left arm, and get down to business. If you saw how useful I am to your brother, you'd thank his lucky stars that I came through myself with nothing worse than getting my ear stepped on. I was hugging the ladder (being canny and careful), and the man above me toed in. Isn't it curious to think that if he'd worn braces in early youth _my_ ear would be all right now.
Behold me at your feet.
Respectfully yours,
Herbert Kendrick Mitchell.
When Mrs. Rosscott had finished the letter she looked across at hercaller, and said:
"You've read this, haven't you?"
"No," said he. "I tried to unstick it two or three times coming on thetrain, but it was too much for me."
"Don't you really know what it says?" she asked more earnestly.
"Yes, I do," Clover answered, "but Denham must never know that I do."
"I won't tell him," she said smiling faintly. "But surely he can't be asbadly off as this says. Has he really lost all his hair?"
"Not all--only in spots," Clover reassured her; but then his recollectionsovercame him, and he added, with a grin: "But he's a fearful lookingspecimen, all right, though."
"About my brother," she went on, turning the letter thoughtfully in herfingers; "when can he get out, do they think?"
"Any time next week."
"I'll write him," she said. "I'll write him and tell him that everythingwill be arranged for--for--for them both."
Clover sprang to his feet.
"Oh, thank you," he exclaimed. "That's most awfully good in you!"
"Not at all," she answered. "I'm very glad to be able to welcome them. Youmust impress that upon them--particularly--particularly on my brother."
Clover smiled.
"I will," he said, rising to go.
"I'd ask you to stay longer," she said, holding out her hand, "but I'm dueat a charity entertainment to-night, and I have to go very early."
"I know," he said; "I've come up on purpose to go to it."
"Then I shall see you there?" she asked him.
"It will be what I shall be looking forward to most of all," he said.
"It's been a great pleasure to meet you," she said, holding out her hand,"you're--well, you're 'unlike,' as they say in literary criticisms."
"Thank you," he replied; "but may I ask if you intend that as acompliment?"
"Dear me," she laughed, "let me think how I did intend it.--Yes, it wasmeant for a compliment."
"Thank you," he said, shaking her hand warmly, "it's so nice to know, youknow. Good-by."
"Good-by."
Then he went away.