The One-armed Man
The seven had hardly finished breakfast next morning when Mr. Wallis
arrived. Surely never had an elderly gentleman taken to sightseeing with
the avidity displayed by this one, and every one of the seven Plumsteads
voted him to be "a jolly decent sort".
His first move this morning was to take them across the harbour in a
steam ferry to a small jetty opposite the Circular Quay, where they
transhipped to a tiny tug which took them to Farm Cove, round Clark
Island, and past the other sights of that most wonderful harbour; and
all the time he told them thrilling stories of the early days of the
Colony. He told them of the voyage of Captain Phillips, who set out from
Portsmouth in May, 1787, and arrived, with eleven ships, in Botany Bay
in January, 1788, only to find that Botany Bay was by no means what it
had been represented, and, instead of the land being a series of
beautiful green meadows sloping gently up from the shore, there was
nothing but swamp and sand.
"What an awful voyage! I don't think that we will complain about our few
weeks on board after that!" cried Sylvia, who was sitting close to Mr.
Wallis on the deck of the tug, while Rupert sat on the deck at his feet
and Rumple hovered in the background, all of them intent on getting all
the information they could about the new and wonderful country to which
they had come.
"The voyage now is nothing but a pleasure trip compared with what it
used to be in the days of the old sailing vessels," said Mr. Wallis, who
was immensely flattered at the attention given to his stories. He had
always been very fond of telling people things, only the trouble was
that so few seemed to care for what he had to tell; but these children
simply hung on his words, and so he was inspired to do his very best to
satisfy their thirst for information.
"Botany Bay is south of Sydney Harbour, isn't it?" asked Rumple,
producing the dirty notebook and preparing to take notes on a liberal
scale.
"Yes, and because it is so open to the east there is no protection from
the Pacific swell. Captain Phillips saw that it would be impossible to
found a colony there, and so he set out with one of his ships to find a
better harbour farther along the coast," went on Mr. Wallis. "And it is
said that a sailor named Jackson discovered the entrance to what is now
known as Sydney Harbour, and it was named Port Jackson in honour of
him."
"I wish that I could discover something that could be named after me,"
said Rumple with a sigh. "Port Plumstead, or even Mount Plumstead, would
have an uncommonly nice sound, and I do want to be famous."
"There is fame of a sort within the reach of everyone," answered Mr.
Wallis quietly.
"What sort of fame?" asked Rupert quickly. He had been very silent
before, leaving it to the others to do most of the talking.
Mr. Wallis smiled, and his middle-aged countenance took on a look of
lofty nobility as he said slowly: "We can each impress ourselves on our
fellows in such a way that so long as life lasts they must remember us
because of some act or acts for the good of suffering humanity, and
that, after all, is the fame that lasts longest and is at the same time
most worth having. We can't all be explorers, you know, for there would
not be enough bays, mountains, and that sort of thing to go round; but
there are always people in need of help, pity, and comfort."
"I wanted to be a doctor," said Rupert in a voice that was more bitter
than he guessed. "But who ever heard of a lame doctor? Everyone would be
howling for the physician to heal himself."
"There is no reason why you should not be a doctor that I can see: not
if you do not mind hard work that is," said Mr. Wallis. "I have known
lame doctors and hump-backed doctors too; indeed one's own disability
would serve to make one all the more keen on doing one's best for other
people. In the Colony, too, there is not the money bar that exists in
the old country, because anyone can rise from the gutter here to any
position almost that he may choose to occupy, and you are not in the
gutter by any means."
"Not quite," replied Rupert with a laugh, and a lift of his head like
Nealie.
The tour of the harbour took so long that they did not get back to the
city until the afternoon, and then their kind host carried them off to
tea at the Botanical Gardens, which were one of the finest sights that
any of them had seen. Ducky fairly screamed with delight at the lovely
flowers, while Don and Billykins could hardly be induced to leave the
ornamental waters where the water fowl congregated looking for food.
Nealie and Mr. Wallis came in search of them when tea was ready, and
found them absorbed in watching a toucan from America and a rhinoceros
hornbill from Africa, which appeared to have struck up a friendship from
the fact that they were both aliens.
"Come to tea, boys; you can inspect those creatures later if you want
to," said Mr. Wallis.
"I say, Nealie, what does the toucan want to have such a long bill
for?" asked Billykins, slipping his arm through Nealie's as they walked
back to the tearooms together.
"Perhaps he did not want to have a long bill, but having it must needs
make the best of it," she answered, with a laugh, then suddenly grew
grave with pity and concern as a man with his right coat sleeve pinned
across his breast passed them at the place where the path grew narrow.
They all knew that for some reason it always made her sad to see a
one-armed man, although she took no especial notice of people who had
been so unfortunate as to lose a leg. Mindful of this fact, Billykins
was trying to divert her attention by talking very fast about what he
had seen; but twisting his head round to see if the maimed stranger was
leaving the gardens or taking the other path which led by a picturesque
bridge round to the other entrance to the tearooms, he was surprised to
see him stop and speak to Mr. Wallis, who was walking behind with Don.
"Did you see that man with one arm, who passed us just now and spoke to
me?" said Mr. Wallis, joining Nealie and walking by her side.
"Yes, I saw him," she replied, her voice rather fainter than usual,
while some of the fine colour died out of her cheeks.
"His is a most interesting and unusual case," went on Mr. Wallis. "He
is one of our very rich men now, and the funny part of it is that he
declares he owes all his prosperity to the loss of his limb, which, but
for a mistake of the doctor's, he need not have lost at all."
"What do you mean?" she asked, stopping short in the path and staring at
him with parted lips, her face so ghastly white that he asked her
anxiously if she felt ill.
"No, no, it is nothing, thank you, but I want to hear about that man. It
sounds most awfully interesting; and won't you tell me what his name
is?" she said, turning such a wistful gaze upon him, that it seemed to
him there must have been some sorrow in her life, although she laughed
in such a cheery, lighthearted way as a rule.
"Reginald Baxter. He is English, and came out to this country about six
or seven years ago. His people are very aristocratic, but poor as church
mice, and they were so terribly upset at his disaster they practically
cast him off; but he seems to have no false pride himself and no
unnecessary notions of his own importance; but he is a veritable king of
finance----"
"What is that?" demanded Don; but Billykins was watching Nealie with a
close scrutiny, and he had his fists clenched tightly as if he were
meditating some sort of revenge upon the innocent Mr. Wallis for the
pain he was giving her in talking about the one-armed man.
"A king of finance is a man who has a natural gift for managing money
and making it increase. I should not wonder if you develop a cleverness
in that way yourself when you are a little older," said Mr. Wallis, who
was a keen student of human nature and had already amused himself by
mentally forecasting the future of the seven.
"Perhaps I shall," answered Don stolidly. "Anyhow I don't mean to be
poor when I grow up, for I shall just go without things until I get a
lot of money saved, and Mr. Runciman used to say that money made money,
and if a man could save one hundred pounds the next hundred would save
itself."
"Well done, Mr. Runciman, that is sound philosophy!" said Mr. Wallis,
and was going to expound the art of money making still further when
there came a sudden interruption from Billykins.
"Can't you talk about something else, please? You have made Nealie cry
by going on so about that one-armed man. She never can bear to talk
about them, and you didn't see that she did not like it," he said in a
shrill and very aggrieved tone.
"Miss Plumstead, I am truly sorry. I had no idea that I was saying
anything to pain you. Please forgive me!" said Mr. Wallis in a shocked
tone, for Nealie's face was covered with her handkerchief, and by the
heave of her shoulders it was easy to see that she was crying bitterly.
"Oh, it is nothing, quite nothing, and I am very silly!" she said
nervously. "But somehow I never can bear to see men who have lost their
limbs. It is so sad and hopeless, because, of course, they can never be
the same again, and life must be so very sad."
Mr. Wallis laughed in a cheerful manner. "I don't think that you would
consider Reginald Baxter a very sad man if you knew him. As I said
before, he looks upon the loss of his arm as his entrance into freedom,
and it would be hard to find a happier man, I should think. But let us
go in and find some tea, and think no more about such matters."
Tea was such a merry function that no one had much time to notice that
there was something wrong with Nealie, although she was so very quiet
that Rupert asked her once if she did not feel well.
"Oh yes, I am quite well, thank you; only perhaps a little tired," she
replied, smiling at him in a rather wistful fashion; and then, as Sylvia
claimed his attention, he forgot about it, and there was so much to see
and to hear, with so many details of to-morrow's journey to discuss,
that it is not wonderful he did not even remember Nealie had said she
was tired.
Later in the evening, when they were back at the hotel, the younger
ones had gone to bed, and Mr. Wallis had gone away after bidding them a
most affectionate good night, Nealie said abruptly: "There is something
you ought to know, Rupert, that I have always hated to tell you."
"Then don't tell it," put in Sylvia lazily. "I think that half the
misery of the world comes through having to do unpleasant things, such
as going to bed when you want to sit up, and in having to get up by
candlelight on a dark morning in winter when you would far rather take
your breakfast in bed."
"What is it? A trouble of some sort?" asked Rupert, with a start, for he
was remembering Nealie's low spirits at teatime and wondering where the
trouble came in.
"Yes," said Nealie shortly, and then hesitated as if not sure where to
begin.
"Well, you can enjoy it together, if it must be told, but I am going to
bed, for it seems to me almost like a sacrilege to spoil such a
beautiful day as this has been with even a hint of anything unpleasant,"
said Sylvia, getting out of her easy chair in a great hurry. Then she
said in quite a pathetic tone, as she kissed Rupert: "I wonder when we
shall have easy chairs to sit in again; don't you?"
"I don't see that it matters very much; I am not gone on that sort of
thing myself," he replied briefly; and then he turned to Nealie, asking
in a tone of grave concern, as Sylvia hurried away to bed: "Is it
anything about Father, Nealie?"
"Yes," she said faintly. "That is to say, it is about the trouble that
came before Ducky was born; you remember it?"
"I never knew more about it than that he made a mistake, some medical
blunder, for which he would have to live more or less under a cloud for
the remainder of his professional life. I thought it was all that any of
us knew, and Aunt Judith hated to have it mentioned." Rupert's tone was
fairly aggressive now, for he was quite abnormally sensitive on this
subject of his father's disgrace, which had indirectly cost his mother
her life and had plunged the family into poverty, and bereft them of
their father also.
"Mrs. Puffin told me all about it one day soon after Aunt Judith was
taken ill," said Nealie, her voice quivering now with emotion, for it
was terrible to her to have to talk of this thing which had thrown such
a shadow over their lives.
"How did she know?" demanded Rupert hotly, thinking how hateful it was
that a servant should know more about their private skeleton than they
knew themselves.
"Aunt Judith told her," replied Nealie; and then she burst out hotly:
"But indeed there is nothing to look so shocked about in the affair,
Rupert. If Father did make a mistake, it was not so serious as it might
have been; and I think that it was altogether wrong to hush it up as it
has been. There are some things which are all the better for being told,
and I am quite sure that this is one of them."
"What do you mean?" he asked hoarsely. "I should think that a mistake of
that kind should be buried as deep as possible, for who would be likely
to trust a doctor who might make blunders that might cost a man his
life?"
"It was not a life-or-death blunder in that sense, but only one of
maiming," said Nealie hastily. "Father wanted to take off a man's arm to
save his life; but the family, and I suppose the man himself, would not
hear of it, for the man was heir to someone's property, an awful pile it
was; and the someone--she was a woman--said that her money should never
go to a man who was maimed. So of course the man's family would not hear
of it, and they would not have another doctor called in either; and
things went on, the poor man getting worse and worse, until one day
Father declared that he would throw up the case, because he would not be
responsible for the man's life. Then the man said that it could be taken
off if Father liked, only it must be done without his people knowing
anything about it, which was easy enough, seeing that he was being
nursed at his lodgings. Father sent for another doctor to come and
administer the chloroform, and he performed the operation himself, as
the man was too bad to be moved eight miles to the nearest hospital.
There was a frightful week after that, when Father simply gave up
everything to pull the poor fellow through. He did it too, and the
relatives did not know until he was out of danger that the arm had been
amputated."
"Whew, what a story!" said Rupert, mopping his forehead, on which the
perspiration stood in great beads. "I think that Father was a hero,
because he acted up to his principle--the true doctor principle--of
saving life at no matter what cost to himself. But I don't mind
admitting, now that I know the truth, that I have always been afraid of
hearing that story, because I had got the impression that there was
something really disgraceful behind."
"Poor Father has had to suffer as bitterly as if he had made the most
ghastly blunder imaginable," said Nealie sadly. "The man's people had a
lot of influence, although they were not really wealthy, and when they
found out that the arm had been taken off they simply hounded Father
down as if he were a criminal. He was boycotted in every direction, and
in the end he had to get out of his practice in a hurry. Then Ducky was
born, and Mother died; and there would have been no home for us at all
if Aunt Judith had not opened her house to take us in."
"Poor Father!" murmured Rupert, and then he thrust his hands deep in his
pockets, and sat staring at the floor, frowning his blackest, until, a
sudden thought striking him, he sat up straight, and asked abruptly:
"What made you dig all that up to-day, after keeping it to yourself so
long?"
"Because I met the man whose arm Father cut off," replied Nealie
quietly.
"You did? Where?" demanded Rupert savagely, and looking as if he would
like to go and have it out with the man there and then.
"A one-armed man passed us in the Botanical Gardens, and Mr. Wallis told
me that a doctor had cut off his arm by mistake, and that the man's name
was Reginald Baxter; then I knew that it must be the man on whose
account Father had to suffer so badly."
"Did he--did he look very poor?" asked Rupert in a hesitating manner;
for if the man had to lose his inheritance as a penalty for losing his
arm, it did seem as if the poor fellow should be pitied.
"He looked as well off as other people, that is to say, he was dressed
in an ordinary way; but Mr. Wallis told me that he was one of the
richest men in the city--a king of finance, he said he was," replied
Nealie.
Rupert gave a long whistle, and then rose to his feet, yawning widely.
"So Father didn't balk the business so badly after all!" he said, and
then went to bed.