AFTER MANY DAYS.
The basement of the Knoxport court-house, a small, smart affair, was
used as the county bridewell. The room in which Jennison sat, with an
official writing in a farther corner, was a good-sized, half-furnished
place.
Jennison did not rise as Touchtone came in, followed by his guide.
The latter stepped away to his companion’s side and seemed to pay no
attention to them.
“Good-evening; I’m obliged to you for coming down,” Jennison began. He
looked a trifle disheveled and haggard, and had that peculiar air of a
criminal expecting the now inevitable course of justice. “Take a seat.”
“The officer told me you wished to see me, and, particularly, alone,”
answered Philip, in mingled curiosity and disgust, as he found himself
once more in the presence of so bold and adroit a foe. There came
vividly back to him the scene of the attack on board the steamer; the
recognition of the handsome face, with its lurking treachery, in the
portrait Mrs. Probasco had handed him on the island, and that last leap
into the Knoxport arbor to re-enforce Gerald, at this man’s mercy.
“What do you want of me?”
Jennison smiled. “I don’t suppose you can guess,” he replied, shifting
his position. “Not to talk over the occurrences of the past fortnight
or so with you, nor this end of them. You can be sure of that. You’ve
won the game, Touchtone, as I told you; won it pluckily and fairly.
You are a remarkable young fellow! A good rogue was spoiled in you,
perhaps.”
“I think not; and I do not wish to talk of that or of affairs that are
over with, any more than you do. If you have any thing particular to
say I should like to hear it, and go back to the hotel.”
“All happy and serene up there, I suppose?” inquired the other, coolly.
“Nice youngster that Master Gerald is! Not extraordinary that strangers
should take a fancy to him, eh? Pretty boy!” he laughed, ironically.
Philip made no reply except another word about the expediency of soon
hearing what he was brought down for. He did not propose to go away
without asking some very particular questions, if necessary. Jennison
saved him the trouble. He lowered his voice and began hurriedly:
“Enough of that. What I want to say to you――you alone――is about――your
father. You have heard me say I knew him.”
“Yes.”
“I did; though he didn’t know me, since he supposed me to be an honest
man and in business down-town. I was pretty well acquainted with all
the circumstances of that robbery of the bank which cost him his
character. I was making my living even then, you see, in what seemed
the easiest way. He died of a broken heart, I heard.”
“He did,” Touchtone responded, inwardly more and more agitated. “What
is that to you?”
“Nothing; but I might be something to it, or to his name, to-day.
Stop! Don’t interrupt. I knew Dan Laverack and his crowd well; and
as I hadn’t lost my own position in the upper world yet, and was a
gentleman by education (as the other men knew), I was useful to them
and I made a good thing out of them myself.”
“Yes,” Philip said, staring hard at the man in the flickering light and
curbing his impatience.
“I sounded your father as agent for them, Touchtone――for Laverack and
the others. We thought we could bribe your father. I lived in the place
months――for it. But I found before I’d gone far enough to make him
suspect my game that he couldn’t be bought in. So I gave it up. Do you
know I’ve seen you plenty of times, when you were a little fellow? I’d
never have recognized you, of course. I remember your mother pretty
well, too.”
“Don’t talk of her,” said Philip, sharply; “my time is short, and
yours, too, if you leave here to-night.”
“Quite true,” replied Jennison, coolly. “I must get along in what I
have to say. Touchtone, your father was innocent as a child of any
share in that bank business――”
“Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think any body who really knew
him could believe any thing else?”
“O, plenty of people――all the world, pretty much! You know that. Even
your mother’s old friend, Mr. Marcy, never liked to talk much about the
question, eh?” The blood rose in Philip’s face. “But no matter. All the
world who _do_ think he had a hand in it have been wrong; and now you
and I will just set them right forever――if you say so.”
“What do you mean? How can you or I? Tell me what you are keeping back.”
The lad forgot his aversion in a passionate curiosity. He leaned
forward eagerly.
“Touchtone, your father had an enemy in the bank. I dare say he knew it
afterward; possibly he told you so. His name was Sixmith.”
“Sixmith, the janitor. Yes; go on.”
“Sixmith kept his feelings to himself. He was a sly creature,
Touchtone, and he had what some people will tell you I have――a black
heart. Only I haven’t, according to some black hearts I’ve met. Well,
he was bent on revenge and on doing your father a bad turn. I forget
what ’twas all for; I believe your father had interfered in his family
to protect his wife. He drank. Well, Sixmith came in with Laverack.
I managed it, and, in fact, I was so much in with that whole job,
Touchtone, that if it hadn’t been that the man who turned State’s
evidence was really a sworn friend to me I’d have had to stand out
with the rest and suffer. Sixmith gave them the times and hours, and
so on; it was all arranged. I did some work at imitating your father’s
handwriting as to a letter or two we needed. Sixmith insisted on the
plan. He was to be paid besides, as you know――”
“You forged my father’s hand, to help to ruin him,” interrupted Philip,
in loathing and anguish.
“I did, certainly,” replied Jennison, calmly. “I am sorry. I didn’t
expect to be, I confess; but I am. Well, the bank was broken into, in
such a way, as you know, that your father was considered to have a
hand in it, even if the bank officers could not bring on him what they
thought full justice; and that would have been harder injustice than he
had to endure for the rest of his life. He escaped that. Sixmith was
disappointed. But he had become rather afraid, after all, of what we
had undertaken to help him with. We partly knew, partly suspected, that
revenge was nearest his heart at the beginning. He weakened, and was
pretty glad to find that he had not brought worse on your father than
he did.”
“Worse than he did? How could he? Did he not cost him his honest
reputation and shorten his life? Did he not break my mother’s heart?
Did he not make me grow up with a stain on my name because I was――my
father’s son?”
“Perhaps you are right. But, any rate, the thing ended as it did. And
Sixmith――well, he thought more and more about his job, I suppose, when
he was shut up, and as time went on, Touchtone, he grew more and more
ashamed of it. At last, about seven years ago, he died――down in New
York. Laverack died before that. I’d met Sixmith again, and I was with
him when he died. It was one of my winters in New York. He told me
every thing. We talked the bank affair all over. At last he said he
wanted me to write down a kind of confession, or at least a statement,
in which he gave his own account of what he had managed to do for your
father, swearing in it, up and down, to your father’s innocence.”
He paused. Touchtone sat facing him statue-like. He was beyond words.
Would Jennison ever finish?
“Your father was dead, but I was to use it as I thought best as soon as
I liked. I meant to do as he asked; but, upon my word, I have waited
to get on the track of your mother or you. The bank officials had an
idea you were both dead. I didn’t care much to press the matter, but I
should have done what I promised, and used this before”――and he took
from the table a paper lying there――“if the very day that brought me to
you on that train hadn’t brought Saxton’s little boy with you. Seeing
him started me on a scheme to get square with Saxton, on account of an
old grudge I’d got against him, and to make something, perhaps, at the
same time――professionally.”
He gave his malicious, slow smile with the last word.
Touchtone mechanically took the paper Sixmith had signed, and, half
in a stupor, ran over it. The donor eyed him keenly. Then, as its
significance came home to Philip’s heart, he realized that a seemingly
vain dream was fulfilled; that what was meant to be a great purpose
of his life was all at once, through this strange agent, accomplished;
that a wrong was righted, and that his dead father and he, his son,
were set free from an odious if nearly forgotten injustice. He had hard
work to master his strong exultation and joy; but he did. This was no
place for it. The officials were standing regarding them both, as in
duty bound, attentive, if discreet, listeners.
“Thank you,” he said; “I――I thank you for this, with all my heart.”
He could not find more words except in the way of questions. Jennison
seemed not to expect more from him, and did most of the talking
himself. He must also have realized that this act of simple justice he
had done was one thing, the hand aiding in it another. His frankness
was appreciated; himself, its instrumentality, was despised. They
exchanged a few more sentences, however, and Philip managed to repeat
his thanks for his rights, and for a rascal’s not being more a knave
than he was! Jennison bowed coldly.
The officers accosted them: “Our time is up. Please get ready for the
train, sir.”
Touchtone turned to go.
“Look here,” said Jennison, buttoning his light overcoat and polishing
his hat with his arm, “I――I don’t know how I shall get through
with this business in Boston that I am going (with these excellent
gentlemen) to transact. You will probably know as soon as I do. Mr.
Clagg, my lawyer, will follow me to assist me. By the bye, I am glad
to infer that you have met my old friends, the Probascos, of Chantico
Island. My regards to them, please, when you see them next; and any
thing else you may think it best to say to them. And,” he continued,
buttoning his gloves nervously, “I wish you and your friend, Mr.
Marcy, and Mr. Saxton and his son to understand that, no matter what
may be my circumstances in the future, it is the last time they or you
will ever――have any trouble with me. I promise you that. I say――would
you――will you shake hands? You’re a plucky fellow, Touchtone. I’d a
little rather not think of you as going through life with a grudge
against me. Haven’t I wiped it out? Live and let live, eh?”
The strange request made Philip blush. He hesitated, stammered, was
half inclined to take the outstretched gloved hand. But no――not――that!
He kept back his honest palm, from the one that had forged his father’s
name, to the blasting of his honor, all these years――from the hand that
had seized Gerald’s arm in a brutal scheme worthy of a Greek bandit! He
did not raise his own hand――not feeling quite sure whether he was doing
what was really the right thing, but unable to extend it.
“Good-night, Mr. Jennison,” he said, bowing gravely. “I――I――shall not
forget you.”
“That is precisely the thing I should urge you most to do,” answered
Jennison, laughing. Without the least resentment at the slight, he bent
his head to finish buttoning his glove, and he did not look up until
Philip had left the building.
Jennison kept his word. He managed to slip away from his captors that
night on the train; but our friends never heard of him again.
When Philip reached the Kossuth House Mr. Saxton and Gerald had gone to
bed. He had a long interview with Mr. Marcy; Samuel Sixmith’s statement
and exoneration (it was practically ready for publication, in any way)
lying between them.
“I’ve done your father and you a great wrong, Philip,” said Mr. Marcy.
“It’s always been a sore spot between us, hasn’t it? And it might have
become more than that as you grew older. I don’t know exactly how far
I’ve carried my doubts. I never liked to define them. I’m a creature
of prejudices――too much so. But,” he continued, solemnly, “I ask your
father’s pardon, and yours.” Philip shook his hand heartily for reply.