I had a busy week of it in New York--copying out instructions, taking
notes of marriages and intermarriages in 1690, and writing each day a
long, pleading letter to Bessie. There was a double strain upon me:
all the arrangements for my client's claims, and in an undercurrent
the arguments to overcome Bessie's decision, went on in my brain side
by side.
I could not, I wrote to her, make the voyage without her. It would be
the shipwreck of all my new hopes. It was cruel in her to have raised
such hopes unless she was willing to fulfill them: it made the
separation all the harder. I could not and would not give up the plan.
"I have engaged our passage in the Wednesday's steamer: say yes, dear
child, and I will write to Dr. Wilder from here."
I could not leave for Lenox before Saturday morning, and I hoped to be
married on the evening of that day. But to all my pleading came "No,"
simply written across a sheet of note-paper in my darling's graceful
hand.
Well, I would go up on the Saturday, nevertheless. She would surely
yield when she saw me faithful to my word.
"I shall be a sorry-looking bridegroom," I thought as I surveyed
myself in the little mirror at the office. It was Friday night, and we
were shutting up. We had worked late by gaslight, all the clerks had
gone home long ago, and only the porter remained, half asleep on a
chair in the hall.
It was striking nine as I gathered up my bundle of papers and thrust
them into a bag. I was rid of them for three days at least. "Bill, you
may lock up now," I said, tapping the sleepy porter on the shoulder.
"Oh, Mr. Munro, shure here's a card for yees," handing me a lady's
card.
"Who left it, Bill?" I hurriedly asked, taking it to the flaring
gaslight on the stairway.
"Two ladies in a carriage--an old 'un and a pretty young lady, shure.
They charged me giv' it yees, and druv' off."
"And why didn't you bring it in, you blockhead?" I shouted, for it was
Bessie Stewart's card. On it was written in pencil: "Westminster
Hotel. On our way through New York. Leave on the 8 train for the South
to-night. Come up to dinner."
The eight-o'clock train, and it was now striking nine!
"Shure, Mr. Charles, you had said you was not to be disturbed on no
account, and that I was to bring in no messages."
"Did you tell those ladies that? What time were they here?"
"About five o'clock--just after you had shut the dure, and the clerks
was gone. Indeed, and they didn't wait for no reply, but hearin' you
were in there, they druv' off the minute they give me the card. The
pretty young lady didn't like the looks of our office, I reckon."
It was of no use to storm at Bill. He had simply obeyed orders like a
faithful machine. So, after a hot five minutes, I rushed up to the
Westminster. Perhaps they had not gone. Bessie would know there was a
mistake, and would wait for me.
But they were gone. On the books of the hotel were registered in a
clear hand, Bessie's hand, "Mrs. M. Antoinette Sloman and maid; Miss
Bessie Stewart." They had arrived that afternoon, must have driven
directly from the train to the office, and had dined, after waiting a
little time for some one who did not come.
"And where were they going?" I asked of the sympathetic clerk, who
seemed interested.
"Going South--I don't know where. The elder lady seemed delicate, and
the young lady quite anxious that she should stay here to-night and go
on in the morning. But no, she would go on to-night."
I took the midnight train for Philadelphia. They would surely not go
farther to-night if Mrs. Sloman seemed such an invalid.
I scanned every hotel-book in vain. I walked the streets of the city,
and all the long Sunday I haunted one or two churches that my memory
suggested to me were among the probabilities for that day. They were
either not in the city or most securely hid.
And all this time there was a letter in the New York post-office
waiting for me. I found it at my room when I went back to it on Monday
noon.
It ran as follows:
"WESTMINSTER HOTEL.
"Very sorry not to see you--Aunt Sloman especially sorry; but
she has set her heart on going to Philadelphia to-night. We
shall stay at a private house, a quiet boarding-house; for
aunt goes to consult Dr. R---- there, and wishes to be very
retired. I shall not give you our address: as you sail so
soon, it would not be worth while to come over. I will write
you on the other side. B.S."
Where's a Philadelphia directory? Where is this Dr. R----? I find him,
sure enough--such a number Walnut street. Time is precious--Monday
noon!
"I'll transfer my berth to the Saturday steamer: that will do as well.
Can't help it if they do scold at the office."
To drive to the Cunard company's office and make the transfer took
some little time, but was not this my wedding holiday? I sighed as I
again took my seat in the car at Jersey City. On this golden Monday
afternoon I should have been slowly coming down the Housatonic Valley,
with my dear little wife beside me. Instead, the unfamiliar train, and
the fat man at my side reading a campaign newspaper, and shaking his
huge sides over some broad burlesque.
The celebrated surgeon, Dr. R----, was not at home in answer to my
ring on Monday evening.
"How soon will he be in? I will wait."
"He can see no patients to-night sir," said the man; "and he may not
be home until midnight."
"But I am an _im_patient," I might have urged, when a carriage dashed
up to the door. A slight little man descended, and came slowly up the
steps.
"Dr. R----?" I said inquiringly.
"Yes, sir."
"Just one minute, doctor, if you please. I only want to get an address
from you."
He scanned me from head to foot: "Walk into my office, young man."
I might have wondered at the brusqueness of his manner had I not
caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror over the mantelshelf. Dusty
and worn, and with a keen look of anxiety showing out of every
feature, I should scarcely have recognized myself.
I explained as collectedly as possible that I wanted the address of
one of his patients, a dear old friend of mine, whom I had missed as
she passed through New York, and that, as I was about to sail for
Europe in a few days, I had rushed over to bid her good-bye. "Mrs.
Antoinette Sloman, it is, doctor."
The doctor eyed me keenly: he put out his hand to the little silver
bell that stood on the table and tapped it sharply. The servant
appeared at the door: "Let the carriage wait, James."
Again the watchful, keen expression. Did he think me an escaped
lunatic, or that I had an intent to rob the old lady? Apparently the
scrutiny was satisfactory, for he took out a little black book from
his pocket, and turning over the leaves, said, "Certainly, here it
is--No. 30 Elm street, West Philadelphia."
Over the river, then, again: no wonder I had not seen them in the
Sunday's search.
"I will take you over," said Dr. R----, replacing the book in his
pocket again. "Mrs. Sloman is on my list. Wait till I eat a biscuit,
and I'll drive you over in my carriage."
Shrewd little man! thought I: if I am a convict or a lunatic with
designs on Mrs. Sloman, he is going to be there to see.
"Till he ate a biscuit?" I should think so. To his invitation, most
courteously urged, that I should come and share his supper--"You've
just come from the train, and you won't get back to your hotel for two
hours, at least"--I yielded a ready acceptance, for I was really very
hungry: I forget whether I had eaten anything all day.
But the biscuit proved to be an elegant little supper served in
glittering plate, and the doctor lounged over the tempting bivalves
until I could scarce conceal my impatience.
"Do you chance to know," he said carelessly, as at last we rose from
the table and he flung his napkin down, "Mrs. Sloman's niece, Miss
Stewart?"
"Excellently well," I said smiling: "in fact, I believe I am engaged
to be married to her."
"My dear fellow," said the doctor, bursting out laughing, "I am
delighted to hear it! Take my carriage and go. I saw you were a
lawyer, and you looked anxious and hurried; and I made up my mind that
you had come over to badger the old lady into making her will. I
congratulate you with all my soul--and myself, too," he added, shaking
my hand. "Only think! Had it not been for your frankness, I should
have taken a five-mile ride to watch you and keep you from doing my
patient an injury."
The good doctor quite hurried me into the carriage in the effusion of
his discovery; and I was soon rolling away in that luxurious vehicle
over the bridge, and toward Bessie at last.
I cannot record that interview in words, nor can I now set down any
but the mere outline of our talk. My darling came down to meet me with
a quick flush of joy that she did not try to conceal. She was natural,
was herself, and only too glad, after the _contretemps_ in New York,
to see me again. She pitied me as though I had been a tired child when
I told her pathetically of my two journeys to Philadelphia, and
laughed outright at my interview with Dr. R----.
I was so sure of my ground. When I came to speak of the journey--_our_
journey--I knew I should prevail. It was a deep wound, and she shrank
from any talk about it. I had to be very gentle and tender before she
would listen to me at all.
But there was something else at work against me--what was
it?--something that I could neither see nor divine. And it was not
altogether made up of Aunt Sloman, I was sure.
"I cannot leave her now, Charlie. Dr. R---- wishes her to remain in
Philadelphia, so that he can watch her case. That settles it, Charlie:
I must stay with her."
What was there to be said? "Is there no one else, no one to take your
place?"
"Nobody; and I would not leave her even if there were."
Still, I was unsatisfied. A feeling of uneasiness took possession of
me. I seemed to read in Bessie's eyes that there was a thought between
us hidden out of sight. There is no clairvoyant like a lover. I could
see the shadow clearly enough, but whence, in her outer life, had the
shadow come? _Between_ us, surely, it could not be. Even her anxiety
for her aunt could not explain it: it was something concealed.
When at last I had to leave her, "So to-morrow is your last day?" she
said.
"No, not the last. I have changed my passage to the Saturday steamer."
The strange look came into her face again. Never before did blue eyes
wear such a look of scrutiny.
"Well, what is it?" I asked laughingly as I looked straight into her
eyes.
"The Saturday steamer," she said musingly--"the Algeria, isn't it? I
thought you were in a hurry?"
"It was my only chance to have you," I explained, and apparently the
argument was satisfactory enough.
With the saucy little upward toss with which she always dismissed a
subject, "Then it isn't good-bye to-night?" she said.
"Yes, for two days. I shall run over again on Thursday."