It seemed written, foreordained, Gwynne Peters used to say, half in
amusement, half in distaste, that his grandfather's house should
forever be either completely retired from notice, or else figure
gaudily in the limelight of a publicity that would have caused its
dignified founder untold wrath and mortification. "All that newspaper
gabble about the Pallinders and the diamond necklace is to blame for
this!" said Gwynne, when he read in the _State Journal_ a week after
the Charity Ball, a circumstantial account under flaming headlines of
how "the mansion of the late Governor Gwynne, the historic landmark
in the suburbs of our city, on Richmond Avenue, not far from the
junction of the Lexington and Amherst car-lines, now occupied by
the well-known society leaders, Colonel and Mrs. William Pallinder,
was the objective-point of a burglarious attack last night about 12
P. M." It appeared that the burglarious attack had failed!
the diamonds were still safe--as, indeed, the thief whom "our vigilant
and efficient Chief of Police, Captain O'Brien, in spite of every
effort, had not yet been able to locate." Friends of the family would
be relieved to hear that Mrs. Pallinder's venerable mother, Mrs. Jacob
Botlisch, had experienced no ill effects from this exciting midnight
episode; Mrs. Pallinder herself, on the contrary, was quite prostrated,
and could not see one of the innumerable reporters who besieged the
house. "It's a perfect persecution," Gwynne announced with unwonted
heat, having called the next day to inquire, and been ushered into
a parlourful of these gentry. "Here were all those fellows roosting
about like vultures--and the greatest racket and confusion! Just as if
poor Mrs. Pallinder hadn't been lying upstairs sick with the fright
and worry. She--she's a very delicate, sensitive woman, you know,"
said the young man, with the easy flush that showed so over his thin,
fair-skinned face. He left his card, and not long after the florist's
boy came to the back door, having received express instructions not
to ring the bell and annoy Mrs. Pallinder, with one of those large
pasteboard boxes, wherein for all their prosaic look, so much romance
is carted about the world. Truly a red-faced lad with a cold in the
nose, and patches of alien materials applied to prominent parts of
his trousers, is an odd figure to be employed upon these sentimental
errands--yet such are all florists' boys. A reporter pounced on this
one as he strolled jauntily around the house, whistling in a high and
cheery fashion under his burden. "What you got there, Johnny?" said
this inquiring gentleman. "Vi'lets." "Who for?" "S'Pallinder." "Well,
who from then?" "Dunno. They're five dollars a hundred." The maid took
them in, and doubtless Mrs. Pallinder's delicate and sensitive nature
was greatly soothed by the tribute.
The colonel showed himself most genial and accessible. Interviews a
column in length and photographs of everything and everybody concerned
graced the front pages of the _Journal_, the _Record_, the _Evening
Despatch_. A complete history of the old Gwynne house up to date was
"featured." The reporters even approached Gwynne for a "few words."
Templeton saw himself in print to his huge gratification: "Mr. Virgil
H. Templeton, who has controlled the destinies of the Gwynne property
for many years, was seen at his office No. 16a Wayne Street, and
says----" Templeton bought an armful of copies of the paper and sent
them about with blue pencillings around the paragraph. "_His_ office!
Well, I like that!" said Judge Lewis, in mock indignation.
"Thank you, I thank you for your kind inquiries, gentlemen," said
Colonel Pallinder, as he received the newspaper cohorts. "Mrs.
Pallinder is resting easily, and will be recovered in a few days, I
think, from the nervous shock. It was what I may call a nerve-racking
adventure for a woman. My daughter, I am thankful to say, is in
Washington, visiting some relations of ours, the Lees and Randolphs.
I have telegraphed her not to worry when she sees the papers. She
left last night on the nine o'clock train; as it happened, two of our
young friends, Mr. J. B. Taylor and Mr. Johns, had driven down to the
depot with her to see her off, after dining here, and came back in
the carriage at my request to spend the night. We had all retired,
when about midnight my wife, who is a sufferer from severe neuralgic
headaches, got up, feeling one coming on, and went into our daughter's
room, in search of some bromide which generally gives her relief. She
did not light the gas, and was groping for the bottle in the dark when
she felt a strong draught of cold air from an open window. She says her
only thought was: 'How careless of Mazie to leave that window open!
Now my head will be worse than ever!' and was going toward the window
to close it, when, with a scuffle, up jumps this scoundrel directly in
front of her! She says it was as if the floor had opened and belched
him up at her feet. She screamed--I trust, gentlemen, I shall never
hear such another cry of terror as my wife gave!" said the colonel
fervently. "I sprang out of bed, and rushed to the spot just in time
to see the fellow scrambling through the window. Most unfortunately,
I had no weapon, or I think I may safely say that would have been the
last time he ever went hunting for diamond necklaces. The window is on
the south side of the house; as you observe there is a vine growing on
a frame directly in front of it all the way up to the roof, by which
he climbed up and down. We found his tracks all around in the damp
ground at the bottom, but lost them in the turf at a short distance
from the house. Nothing but the very strong sentiment I have for the
owners of the place, which, I need hardly remind you, belongs to one
of the finest old families in the State, and especially for my dear
young friend Mr. Peters, whose boyhood days were passed here--nothing
but that feeling prevents me from having the vine uprooted and the
trellis torn away. The family, as is natural, are very much attached
to everything about their old home. Well, as I was saying, in as short
time as we could manage, the young men and I got our clothes on, called
the cook and housemaid to look after my wife and her mother, and young
Taylor and I set out to explore the grounds, leaving Mr. Johns here
to protect the house. We searched high and low without success, and
down by the gate fell in with Doctor Vardaman and his man Huddesley
just starting out on a tour of exploration on their own hook. It seems
that the doctor's man had waked some little while before, thinking
he heard a noise in their hen-house; and as you know we are a little
uncomfortably near Bucktown[4] here--my own servants are coloured,
for that matter--Huddesley thought he'd better investigate. He told
us he got up and looked out of the window, and distinctly saw a man
walking rapidly away from the rear part of the doctor's lot where it
joins the Gwynne property, in the direction of this house--or, at any
rate, making for the park entrance, with something under his arm which
Huddesley is positive was a chicken, but which was much more likely,
I think, to have been a kit or bundle of burglars' tools. Well, then,
gentlemen," Colonel Pallinder continued, pulling at his goatee with a
sly smile, "Huddesley got himself partly dressed, and started out very
courageously with the kitchen poker; but, getting as far as the gate,
the park looking pretty gloomy and forbidding, and the night rather
dark, he concluded discretion was the better part of valour, and turned
back and aroused the doctor. We joined forces and fairly raked the
premises, but to no purpose--the rascal had made too good use of his
time, and we, of course, had had some unavoidable delays. I wrote a
note to the Chief of Police, and sent my coachman down with it, and we
all went to bed again. As you see, it's a very simple story, and hardly
deserves your trouble. My own theory is that the thief, probably some
well-known criminal whom they will have no trouble in catching, passing
through town, or perhaps, making a casual stay here--that sort of
gentry never have any home--read about Mrs. Pallinder's jewels in the
papers, and thought he might make a good haul.
"Now I consider that you gentlemen are partly to blame for that, and
I bear no malice, only I wish you'd be a little more particular. Now
if you'll just correct one report: Mrs. Pallinder's necklace did _not_
cost five thousand dollars. It cost--ah--well, gentlemen, it was a
present to my wife on our last wedding anniversary, and to let the
cat out of the bag, it was bought with the surplus of a little flyer
in Phosphate I took--now I beg you won't say anything about that in
the papers--you might say, with entire truth, that it did _not_ cost
five thousand dollars. The necklace and earrings together came to more
than that, and I believe I bought her some other trinket at the time, a
brooch or something--but the whole business was not more than eight or
nine thousand, and no one item was quite as much as five. Now if you'll
just revise that statement, I'd be obliged. Sam, bring the whisky."
J. B., reading the colonel's version slightly condensed, with the
truth about the diamonds carefully set forth, chuckled freely. "Well,"
he said. "That was about the way it happened. But you ought to have
heard old Mrs. Botlisch! She indulged in very meaty language, I never
heard meatier, not even from a darky roustabout on the levee at New
Orleans--you know somebody said she'd been cook on a canal-boat, and
I declare I shouldn't wonder if that were true. She was mad at being
waked up, mad at 'Mirandy,' mad at 'Bill,' mad at Teddy and me, and the
thief and the diamonds and everything else. But let me tell you about
Pallinder. We started out to ransack the park; you know how it was
last Tuesday, a cold, sleety January night, without any snow falling,
or we could have followed the fellow's tracks. As it was we just had
to go prowling around the walls, and into the shrubbery. I had an old
bird-gun of the colonel's, that hadn't been fired for years. It was a
muzzle-loader, with a kind of sawed-off barrel, and I'll bet it would
scatter like a charge of bribery in the State Legislature. Pallinder
hadn't anything but one of these little light rattan canes. When we
got down to the gate, somebody bounced out of hiding and ''Alt!' says
he, in a shrill voice. ''Alt!' That fellow Huddesley is English, you
know, and drops his _h_'s; he's an awfully funny little chap. Well, I
''alted.' I was taken by surprise, and I didn't want to let fly with
my blunderbuss without knowing what it was all about. But what do you
think Pallinder did? Walked right up to him, took him by the collar
and pulled him out--yes, sir, that's what the colonel did, without
hesitating one instant. Pretty cool, I call it, for a man of his age,
practically unarmed, with a lame leg. Of course, I wasn't frightened;
there was nothing to frighten anybody, and besides I had a gun; but I
wasn't sharp and ready like the colonel; I hesitated. But Pallinder
walked right up, collared him and pulled him forward. 'Come out o'
that!' says he. 'Who are you?' 'Oh, Lord, Colonel Pallinder, sir, is it
you?' says Huddesley, trembling all over. He was the worst scared man
you ever saw. 'Hi didn't know you. The doctor will be 'ere in two twos,
sir. 'E told me to 'alt hanybody Hi saw.' And then along came Doctor
Vardaman with a lantern. 'What on earth is all this?' he said. 'Is this
your chicken-thief, Huddesley?'
"As we went back to the house, I said to the colonel: 'That was rather
startling, wasn't it, being shouted at to halt that way?' He laughed
and said yes, it reminded him of a time he rode head foremost into the
Yankee pickets one night--'when both armies were manoeuvring around the
Potomac basin--not very long before Chancellorsville, you know. I was
carrying despatches,' he said. I asked him what he did. 'Well, I guess
I did about two-forty, and it wasn't over a very good track either!'
he said and laughed again. 'I lit right out. They shot my horse. I
wasn't lame then, though.' And I couldn't get another word out of him.
I wish he'd talk simply like that all the time," the young man added,
thoughtfully. "Instead of gassing around so much."
J. B. himself declined to be interviewed--amiably enough, but still
he declined. And Doctor Vardaman was another to whom the reporters
appealed in vain. "The circumstances are exactly as Colonel Pallinder
related them," he said to the only one whom he would consent to see.
"And there is really nothing for me to say. I had gone to bed when my
man Huddesley pounded on the door and called me. I got up and found him
breathless, and very much excited; he was half-dressed, had been out
of doors, and as I could see, was badly frightened. One cannot expect
heroic behaviour in a man of his calibre, and on the whole I think he
showed a very good spirit. As soon as I understood what he had seen, I
ordered him to go outside and wait until I got my clothes on, and to
challenge anyone he might see about the park gate, for I immediately
suspected that my chicken-house would not offer much inducement to a
thief alongside of Mrs. Pallinder's diamonds. The man has been quite
sick since from exposure and excitement. I wish you a very good-day,
sir."
And with this the _Journal_ man and others had to be content. Huddesley
himself would doubtless have been more expansive, but the honest
fellow went to bed with a serious sore throat and cold the day after
the attempted robbery, and could not leave his room for a week. Mrs.
Maginnis held sway in the doctor's kitchen, dispensing unlimited tea
and gossip to the grocers' men, milkmen, postmen, even the baffled
reporters and "plain-clothes," or uniformed detectives that called in
shoals for days. "The docthor won't see yez," she told the latter, "so
it's no use askin'. An' as for Misther Huddesley, he's on th' flat of
his back, an' can't raise his voice above a whisper. Annyway, he says
he couldn't swear to th' man, if it was to save his immorrtal sowl. It
was too dark, an' he only saw 'twas a man gallivantin' around where
he'd no business. It's a foine-spurted bye he was to go afther that
thievin', murderin' divil with th' poker, an' I'm glad th' docthor's
got him instid of that drunken spalpeen he had befure; him that got on
a tear, I mane, an' wint up to th' big house with a knife yellin' an'
swearin' he'd cut th' hearrt out of iverybody--bad scran to him! It's
turrible lot of men th' docthor's had intoirely."
She was right; it _was_ a terrible lot of men the doctor had had.
The picturesque ruffian of whom she spoke had been dismissed by the
old gentleman a fortnight before at the close of a spree in which he
had taken it into his drunken head to invade the Pallinder kitchen,
menacing the panic-struck maids with a cleaver and demanding more
liquor. To him succeeded Huddesley; I never saw the latter except
on one occasion, but he became a familiar figure to most of us, and
Doctor Vardaman was rather fond of telling how he acquired the only
good servant he ever had. The doctor (according to his own narrative)
after having at great expense of time and trouble and some personal
risk, got rid of the highly emotional person with the cleaver who was
haled off screeching and shackled in a patrol-wagon; and after having
gone downtown and seen the wretch cared for in Saint Francis' Hospital,
inserted his usual advertisement in the _State Journal_, "Wanted--by
a physician (retired) living in the suburbs, an unmarried man to take
entire charge of his house and garden. Must be experienced in cooking
and indoor-work. References required. Dr. John Vardaman, 201 Richmond
Avenue. Take Lexington and Amherst Street cars."
The clerk in the _Journal_ office who took it in grinned at sight of
him. "Guess we'll have to give you a rebate on your subscription,
Doctor," he said cheerfully. "This is the third time this has gone in
since last July. So long! Happy New Year!"
A day or so later the doctor was sitting in the homely disorder of his
library, reading a new book, when the washerwoman who came in by the
day during these periods of storm and stress, stuck her towelled head
around the door. "Doc'thor, yer honour!"
Doctor Vardaman did not answer, did not even hear; he was in an
enchantment, his lips moving unconsciously as he read. The beauty of
the lines stirred him with an almost painful sense of enjoyment.
"Ah, thin, Docthor, asthore!"
"'When you and I behind the Veil are passed,
Oh, but the long, long while the World shall last!'"
read the doctor aloud. He looked up vaguely, still under the spell.
"What is it, Mrs. Maginnis?"
"Here's a man to see yez about th' pla-ace."
Doctor Vardaman clapped Omar shut briskly. In the phrase of a poet as
yet unknown to the world, he turned a keen, untroubled face, Home to
the instant need of things. "Send him in." The man came in, closed the
door quietly, and stood at attention while the doctor examined him. It
was evident that he was a little nervous, yet respectfully anxious to
conceal it.
"What is your name?"
"James Huddesley, sir."
"You have a reference?"
Huddesley produced a worn letter and handed it over. The doctor read
it through carefully. It certified that the bearer of this, James
Huddesley, was honest, sober and capable; he had lived with the writer
four years as butler, and fifteen months as valet and general man.
"This is dated two years back," said the doctor, as he returned it.
"Was that your last place?"
"For steady work--yes, sir."
"Why did you leave it? And what have you been doing in the meantime?"
"If you please, sir," said Huddesley, looking down. "Hi've 'ad
misfortunes. Hi left 'is lordship, thinkin' to better myself by settin'
hup in a small way--in a pub., sir. It was no go, sir, Hi 'adn't 'ad
the experience, and Hi didn't like the life. Hi lost my money, hall
Hi'd saved hup, and--and----" He hesitated, fingering his hat. "And 'a
little that was my wife's, if you'll hexcuse me mentioning my haffairs,
sir. Then she went back to 'er people, and--Hi just come away, Hi
couldn't stand it."
"I didn't want a married man," said the doctor reluctantly.
"It's just the same as bein' single, sir, beggin' yer parding," said
Huddesley, staring out of the window. "She won't never come back to me
no more--she said so. And there wasn't any children--'e died, the baby
did."
The doctor was touched oddly by this sordid little romance of the
kitchen and backstairs. Perhaps certain long, long dead and buried
hopes, dreams, disappointments of his own stirred, faintly responsive
beneath their graves; oh, that grim, arid little cemetery walled off
in some corner of every heart! Ghosts walk about it, and we call them
Regrets.
"What have you been doing since?" the old man asked gently.
"Nothing much, sir--hodd jobs, waitin' in heating-'ouses, and
such-like," Huddesley answered openly. "'Tain't what Hi've been used
to, but Hi can turn my 'and to most anything. Hi saw the paper, and Hi
thought Hi'd like to get with a gentleman again; there was hanother
hadvertisement in from the big 'ous hup there with the pillars, that Hi
hinquired habout--but Hi found they don't 'ave nobody but coloured."
Mrs. Pallinder recalled this circumstance afterwards, with some regret.
"He was here quite a while," she said. "The cook told me making
inquiries in the kitchen--but I didn't see him. Such a pity--the
coloured servants wouldn't have minded, but you can't expect a white
man to sit down with them, you know. Well," she would conclude with her
charming smile, "if I couldn't have him, I don't know of anybody I'd
rather see him with than Doctor Vardaman." The doctor put a few more
questions for form's sake, and ended by engaging Huddesley on the spot.
"As to his references," he said, "I never troubled to look them up. A
man like that is his own reference. Lord What's-his-Name of Berkeley
Square, London, and What's-his-Name's Hall, Yorks, was a trifle too
far off for me to bombard him with letters about a servant whom he had
probably entirely forgotten. I'll risk Huddesley."
The event justified him; never had the doctor lived in such
comfort--never, that is, since the death of his spinster sister,
some years before. His boots and broadcloth showed the ex-valet's
ministrations; the old gentleman gave choice little dinners; it was
his turn to send dainties about amongst his friends. The only fault
he ever found in Huddesley was a certain sour aversion to society for
which, as Doctor Vardaman remarked, the man could hardly be blamed. "He
never takes a day out, and won't look at a woman," said the doctor.
"Most men of his class, after such an experience, take for a while at
least to drink, or other reprehensible courses. And indeed I suspect
that Huddesley didn't put in all of that dismal two years in the chaste
occupations of waiting in heating-'ouses, and hother hodd jobs. But I
don't want to push the inquiry. After all, he's had a pretty hard time
for a young man--he's not over thirty, I think--what would you have?
We're none of us saints."