CHAPTER XVIII.
EXPLANATIONS; AND MR. JENNISON SENDS A
REQUEST.
"WELL, it's ended, at any rate. A most astonishing business it certainly has been! And nobody to blame for part of it."
Mr. Marcy made this declaration for the five-and-twentieth time at least as they were sitting up-stairs an hour after supper on that eventful day. The four were talking almost as fast as ever, each one interrupting the other with a question or a statement, this explanation or problem jumping out of that one. The subject for their consideration was quite unlikely to be exhausted as soon as themselves. What a hubbub they kept up still!
"I can't hear myself think, Philip," Mr. Marcy protested. "Saxton, beg pardon! What's that you asked? No. Gerald, we didn't get worried. How could we when we didn't know there was any thing to worry over? What's that?" So it had gone on for the two hours they had sat in the summer-house. Then they had adjourned to have dinner by themselves in the boys' room. All the little hotel, and, for that matter, all the town, was in a buzz of curiosity and interest. As for Mr. Banger, it is proper to say here that he saw that their dinner was handsomely and bountifully served, and that when later he found opportunity for a brief interview with Mr. Marcy and Mr. Saxton he did not do much except apologize and call himself a fool. He did both with a much better grace than might have been expected. He expressed himself in just the same curt fashion to Philip as he shook his hand cordially. The latter could not resist a little revenge.
"O, no," he laughed, "I don't think you are a fool at all, Mr. Banger; but I think you had a chance to be one, and—you made something of it."
Mr. Banger in reply only smiled severely and nodded.
And now the laughter and the loud, earnest hum of conversation reached the mortified landlord as he passed their door.
Gerald sat by his father smiling, but saying less than any of the party. Philip remarked again and again the close likeness between the two. There was the same grace of figure and stature, the same shapely head and clear-cut, regular features. But the dashing, happy-go-lucky manner of the gay young broker and typical man-about-town was gone. Mr. Saxton laughed and talked as loud as Marcy or Philip. But the latter noticed how pale he was, and how deep were the circles of a great and unexpected grief under his fine eyes. He kept his arm along the back of his son's chair. From that time forth there existed a new understanding between them; and, as Gerald grows up, it has never been lessened.
What an explanation it all was, even at the best, and so far as outlines went! Need one give more than those here? Indeed, there would hardly be room. Storm-driven to a little village, without railroad or telegraph connections, and storm-and-sickness-stayed when once there, Mr. Marcy and his friend (or rather his patient nurse, for Mr. Saxton was in a dangerously morbid state of mind and body) had known literally nothing, suspected nothing, heard nothing, shut away from all the rest of the world as they were. The letters and duplicated telegrams were probably all safely lodged at this minute in the town they had expected to reach days earlier, whither they had ordered the mail to be sent from the Ossekosee. At first Mr. Marcy had hoped to go straight back to his hotel, taking the unnerved father. So he set that address. But Saxton languidly prolonged their journey southward, and his moodiness kept it variable and slow.
"I was tempted lots of times," said Mr. Marcy, "to telegraph to Knoxport and elsewhere, to alter the forwarding of our mail; but I was every day less certain of what route Saxton here would urge, and I knew business was done up for the season. So I said, 'Let it go as it is, for once.' I'll never be able again to think that such a shiftless thing will make no difference. Probably it wont again, though."
"And it was the newspaper, after all, that brought you the news?"
"The newspaper? I should say so. A peddler came up to the Fork with a fresh Boston paper in his pocket and I bought it. Do you know how Saxton here behaved when I read the paragraph to him? He did just what you did, Philip, this morning—fainted."
"And do you know what Mr. Marcy did, Touchtone?" asked Mr. Saxton, flushing. "He dropped the paper and sobbed like a boy—and never tried to bring me to!"
"Come, now, shut up, Saxton!" exclaimed Mr. Marcy, turning red, and giving Philip a slap on the shoulder. "These little retaliations aren't gentlemanly, really."
But he gave Philip a glance that was eloquent of the affection he had for him and of the grief which his loss would have brought to him, during all his busy life. They had had several moments by themselves during the day.
"Well, that rascal was right, you see, after all," resumed Marcy. "We were stuck fast in a most particularly out-of-the-way place. And Gerald's father, here, was any thing but a well man. His was a good guess, even with his having read the papers in which the steamer's sinking was written up."
Saxton laughed.
"I thought we should sink ourselves, in the rattle-trap we had to trust ourselves to, Gerald, to get to the railroad connection. The track was almost dangerous on account of the rain. You were on that island, you say, all through the storm?"
"With the Probascos? Yes; it was funny."
"Funny! They are angels who live in an atmosphere of humor, then. I propose to go over there to-morrow—we'll all go—and we'll thank them as never they were thanked before. Shall we, Marcy?"
"Obed must be in bed still, and pretty sick," Gerald said, "or we'd have heard from or seen them."
"But why—why didn't somebody send us word of some sort from the Ossokosee? There was the message to the hotel—"
"Which is shut, I tell you!"
"Mr. and Mrs. Wooden ought to have got theirs! If the house was shut, where was Mr. Fisher or whoever was about the place superintending the winding-up for you."
"Ah, well, that I can't altogether explain, I admit," replied Mr. Marcy. "Of course, there ought to have been people on hand, and I should suppose they would know enough to repeat the message or answer it. We shall find out soon."
They did, but not until later. Afterward came the story of the complete stoppage of telegraphing in the county (brought about by the wide-spread tempest which had broken wires far and wide in their devious mountain courses); of a new operator, who was a sadly easy-going, inefficient, and unacquainted employee; of a most confused garbling of the messages themselves, in course of their slow progress. When they learned these matters, they all declared it was a wonder that dispatches could endure such persecution and keep their syntax even at the expense of swiftness. Two of these precious communications finally returned from a Knoxport in a western State. But the next morning a reply came in from Mr. Fisher, still at the Ossokosee House, and just after that another from jolly, kind-hearted Mr. Hilliard, dated from a mining-camp in Montana, and its sender direfully distressed at what he inferred must be some bad predicament of Philip and Gerald.
"Of course," Mr. Marcy observed, "your awkward fix could not have lasted long. But for the life of me, under all the circumstances, I cannot make up my mind on the amount of time it would probably have endured. Certainly we should have learned the news and come flying to you apace. But your trouble was becoming serious, with a vengeance! You were threatened with arrest on false suspicion, or at least with finding yourselves homeless and wronged! We can't try to determine what length or end affairs might have attained."
"It's not pleasant," Philip said.
"In any case, it showed the stuff in you, Touchtone," added Mr. Marcy, quietly. "I guess we understand what that is now. We might—well—we might have had to guess at it, otherwise." He laughed. His "guessing" would have been perceptive. He was proud of such an experience for the boy.
"Now as to that villain Jennison, or Belmont, or whatever his name is," began Mr. Saxton, "I don't know what is best to do. I remember him perfectly. I did some business for him on the Street. He lost largely before he was through with the stock. It went all to pieces. I was as much sold by it as were the other brokers. Jennison acted like a madman in my office."
"How long ago was that, sir?" asked Philip.
"As much as ten years, I fancy," returned the broker, reflectively. "It must have cleaned him out at the time. I knew nothing of him, of course."
"Then it was revenge that started him on this scheme about Gerald?"
"Certainly—and blackmail. I'd have had to come down roundly for you, Gerald," he added, laughing, taking his son's hand. "Perhaps I'd have had to sell that new black team you're so jealous of. You needn't be any longer, I think."
"He's a smart one for putting two and two together, that fellow."
"Of course. Each man possesses a talent of its kind."
"But what risks he ran! Even at the last, when he must have known there was a sharp possibility of his being overtaken that minute by the detectives, on account of the Wheelwright forgery, he wanted to carry Gerald off with him."
Mr. Marcy came into the topic. "Yes; and the plan nearly proved successful. If you will think, you will see how much he had in his favor. Audacious criminals of his type are close calculators."
"Where could he have meant to go, with Gerald, too?" inquired Saxton.
"He knew what he was about. I fancy he expected to rejoin those fellows first, at the mill they tell us of. Beyond that I can't judge. He believed he had enough time, and that all was going right."
"O, he's a wonder, and no mistake!" exclaimed Philip.
"Not at all," returned Mr. Saxton. "He is just exactly his sort of rascal, as Hilliard told you. But his race is run, I fancy, especially since Knoxport and Chantico are no longer resorts for him. Let us hope another scamp is to be shut away from New York and elsewhere for some years of his life, at least, by what I heard of this Wheelwright affair." He was silent a moment, reflecting on Jennison and Gerald. Then looking up at Philip, with an expression in his eyes and voice that is not easily described, he said, "Touchtone, I can't say now—any more than I have been able to say it before—what I feel about you—how I thank you! Gerald's coming back has saved my happiness, and you have saved Gerald—from I know not what. In every thing and every moment I can see—not by what you say about yourself—you have been a sort of a hero. You don't like praise to your face? I sha'n't bore you with it. But if I can only keep you with Gerald here for the rest of your life and his, and find him growing up just like such a friend as you, that is all I want now. I'll talk of that with you, though, later."
They kept on sitting there together, in the light of the new rising moon and the gentle glow of the wood fire until there came a knock at the door. Philip went out into the hall.
"If you please, sir," asked the man standing there, "are you young Mr. Touchtone?"
"I am."
"You don't recognize me. I am one of the officers in charge of that man Jennison down at the court-house."
"Yes; what of it?"
"He wants to see you very much, sir. We must take him off by the morning train, and there's really not much time, unless you care to come down with me to-night."
"He wants to see me? To-night?" repeated Philip in astonishment, but with a sudden guess at the possible relationships of such an interview. Those strange hints the man had once or twice thrown out, and which he had not mentioned to Mr. Marcy! "Very well. I'll go with you. Wait a moment."
He called Mr. Marcy aside. "Most extraordinary!" exclaimed the latter. "You really think it worth while to go?"
"Yes, I do. I want to go, decidedly."
"What for? He'll try to wheedle or harm you. Let me step down with you, if you wish to go."
"He wont do either, I think; and the man says he particularly wishes me to come without any of you. Some one will be in the room, though, all the time."
Mr. Marcy hesitated. At last, "Very well, my dear fellow, do as you please. I'll say nothing about your errand till you return and give me an account."
Philip excused himself from Mr. Saxton and Gerald, and left the Kossuth House with the officer.