will you not, listen to reason and be guided by someone with judgment?
You see Roberta does not answer my question! Oh, for the land sakes,
why do we talk about it as though she were a person to be listened to?
What has she to do with it, anyway? I tell you I have no patience. Go
over to that desk, and write that man you accept his offer, and I'll
post the letter before I go home."
"I didn't mean not to answer you, Aunt Azraella," said Rob, with new
dignity. "My plan is neither to refuse nor accept, but to write Mr.
Marston that we must have a few days in which to look into the matter.
If he's an honest man, he won't object; if the machine is worth four
thousand dollars to him, he will take it a week later as well as now,
and if--and I know it is--it is worth six times that, why, we save
ourselves from a trick, that's all."
Mrs. Winslow turned to Rob with a touch of respect in her manner. "That
has a little the ring of sense," she graciously remarked. "But you must
remember that he may have some reason for wanting that machine this
moment or never, and it may be worth four thousand to-day, and nothing
a week hence, unless he gets it now. That often happens in business
matters. Mary, write your note."
"I confess I'm strongly inclined to your view, Azraella," said Mrs.
Grey, "but I can't write to-night. Rob seems to me not like my young
daughter, but like her father's representative, and I cannot disregard
her, as I should Wythie, for instance."
"And what is Oswyth's opinion?" asked Aunt Azraella, turning to her
favorite niece.
"I'm a coward," said Wythie, with a faint smile. "I'm afraid to refuse
a certainty of even a small piece of good fortune."
"Sensible girl!" said her aunt, approvingly. "Then Roberta is the only
one that stands out against good luck?"
"Stands _for_ good luck, Aunt Azraella," said Rob, rising, as her aunt
arose, with the air which had come upon her, adding years and dignity
to her, since she had learned to suffer.
"You won't write, Mary?" insisted Mrs. Winslow, wrapping herself in her
barège defence from the cold wind.
"Not to-night; to-morrow will still be time," said Mrs. Grey, also
rising.
"Then I wash my hands of you, and if you come to grief, don't appeal
to me for sympathy nor help. I foresee the end; this girl is so
headstrong, and will so appeal to your desire to carry out your
husband's will, that she will get her way, and your one hope of peace
will be gone. You can't help confessing, Mary, no matter how you mourn
him, that Sylvester knew nothing of business, and for you to allow
sentimentality and a girl's ignorance to wreck you, is little short of
criminal." Having delivered this valedictory with crushing effect, Mrs.
Winslow stalked away.
Prue came back dissolved in tears from closing the door behind her
aunt; she found her mother, Wythie, and Rob sitting silent and sad
around the fire.
"Oh, Rob, dear Rob," cried Prue, hysterically, "you mean well, but how
can you be so obstinate? Don't listen to her, Mardy; we shall never be
happy again; we shall lose our home, too, if you do!" And Prue dropped,
sobbing, in the big chair Mrs. Winslow had vacated.
"Mardy, Mardy," cried Rob, starting up, pushing back her hair with her
old, impulsive gesture, and running over to fall on her knees beside
her mother's chair, "it makes me nearly crazy to feel I am taking
such a responsibility, but I must, for I know, I _know_ I'm right! I
wasn't going to tell Aunt Azraella my plans, and have her make a worse
fuss than ever, but I've laid them, and you must, you truly must, let
me have my way. Write this Marston scamp you must take a few days to
consider his offer, that you are not prepared to accept or refuse it
for a week. It can't possibly make any difference, unless he is a
scamp, and then we want it to. And to-morrow you let me go to New
York, and find out what the machine is really worth, and what can be
done with it."
"To New York! You, Rob, alone? And you find out what can be done with
the invention, you, a young, inexperienced girl? My darling, you are
crazy!" cried her mother, while Wythie and Prue sat up with gasps of
amazed horror.
"Mardy, I am not in the least crazy. If we had anyone else to do it, we
would let them, of course, but who is there? I will go straight to Mr.
John Lester Baldwin, the lawyer, Patergrey's college chum, whom he said
he would trust utterly. I took his name and address the day Mr. Marston
was here, you know; Patergrey wanted me to remind him to write him, but
there was no time--" Rob stopped short, and Wythie made a little moan.
"Now, Mardy, this is no wild scheme, you see; it is plain, practical
common-sense," Rob continued. "Mr. Baldwin will put me somewhere to
board where I shall be safe, and he will do all he can for me when I
tell him who I am, and what has happened, if he is the man Patergrey
thought him. If he says take the four thousand, I am satisfied, but if
he says not to, don't you see how well it will be that I went? And I
have my own money, enough still, for my expenses."
"Rob, Rob, you glorious girl!" cried Wythie, starting up in a rapture.
"Let her go, Mardy; she is inspired, like Joan of Arc."
"My Rob, my dear Rob, my brave, reliable daughter," said Mrs. Grey,
fondly, "what can I say to you? I am not willing to let you go alone,
but if I were, the objections we made to putting off Mr. Marston still
hold good. Suppose you fail, and we lose not only the offer, but the
expenses of your journey and your stay in the city?"
"Mardy, I shall not fail," cried Rob. "Do you not remember that
Patergrey said: 'It must not be less than fifty thousand dollars to
be accepted?' That was the last time he spoke of it, you know. He
understood its value. I don't like to bother you, but you see it's
chiefly for your sake, and, besides, I worked with Patergrey all the
time and I feel as though I could not desert the dear invention now,
if I wanted to--let it be stolen from us, the work of all that dear
life, and its only legacy to us, except the little grey house, with
its mortgage. You must say yes, Mardy, my darling; I was Patergrey's
'son Rob,' you know, and I must defend his invention, and be the man
of the family, his son Rob still." Rob's beautiful head dropped on her
mother's knee, and the steady, clear, young voice broke pitifully.
Mrs. Grey leaned over and laid her wet cheek on Rob's bright rings of
hair, with the red shining through them in the firelight.
"Go, then, my Robert of the lion-heart, go, you dear knight-errant, and
have your way. And whatever comes of it we shall never regret it, for
we shall remember that you loyally played your part in defence of us
all--all, here and beyond," whispered Rob's mother.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ITS BRAVE DAUGHTER
There was but one really fast train between Fayre and New York, and
that left Fayre at quarter to eight in the morning. Not too early,
however, for Rob, acting rapidly on her hardly won permission to go
to the rescue of her family, to be ready to take her place among its
passengers.
There had been wild excitement in the little grey house on the previous
night, after that permission had been won, getting together Rob's
few requirements for her unwonted journey, and discussing in all its
aspects the great feat she was to perform.
But now her pretty face, pale under the black hat surmounting the
wayward hair, and big-eyed from sorrow and excitement, looked with
brave smiles out of the car-window at Wythie and Prue and the
Rutherford boys on the platform as they waved Rob on her way, and the
train started. Rob had never felt more childish and dependent in her
life than now, when, for the first time, she was acting like a woman,
and going down to the great city to try to arrange a most important
business matter.
When Fayre station was left behind, and Wythie and Prue could no
longer see her, Rob allowed herself a good cry--the world seemed so
big and hollow, and she felt so little and helpless! But in half an
hour she was drying her eyes, and beginning to lay her plans, and to
wonder, with quickened heart-beats, which were rather stimulating than
depressing, how she was to find Mr. Baldwin, or even Broadway, since
she did not know one street from another in the maelstrom that is the
second city of the world.
It was almost the bright-faced Rob whom her father had known that drew
her breath long and hard after the tedious tunnel was passed, and began
setting herself right and pulling herself together as irregular and
ugly buildings slipped by her in crowds, and the train entered the
Grand Central Station.
She took her place in the line, edging her suit-case--hastily borrowed
from the Rutherfords late the preceding night--between the wedged
passengers, and crawled along toward the door, too confused to feel
much beyond a strong wish that the person in front of her was shorter
and leaned back less, since he entirely prevented her hat from keeping
straight.
Out on the platform Rob still held her place in the crowd, and found
herself at last standing bewildered near the Forty-second Street exits,
wondering what she was to do next, and which way to turn to do it.
People jostled her without her knowing it, until a vicious shove of
her case, and a muttered remark that reminded her of Farmer Flinders's
addresses to his horse, aroused Rob to the fact that she was, in her
small degree, impeding the course of progress, and she stepped out on
the sidewalk and into the babel of "Cayb? Want a cayb, miss?" while the
cab-drivers threatened her face with their whips.
Rob espied a tall policeman and steered her course for him through the
maddening bedlam around her.
"Please tell me how to go to Broadway?" she said, looking up
appealingly under her over-shadowing hat.
"Straight along that way--you can't miss it," said the policeman. "No,
wait a bit. What part of Broadway do ye be wantin'?"
"It's near Liberty Street, if you know where that is," said Rob.
"Oh, well, that's different. Stand one side here a minute an' I'll tell
ye. Ye don't know N'Yawk?" asked the policeman, taking kindly interest
in Rob's case.
She shook her head, and the mammoth guardian of the peace considered,
at the same time raising his hand warningly to two encroaching
truckmen, and giving the time of day to a frantic woman who carried a
bird-cage in her hand and a spaniel under her arm.
"You might take the T'ird Avner L, but ye'd niver find your way over,
I'm thinkin'--get out at Fulton Street--no, 'twouldn't do!" the
policeman meditated aloud. "An' takin' these Fourt' Avner trolleys
is as bad. Ye take this crosstown, and get out at Broadway--tell the
conducther to let ye out on the downtown side. There ye'll take a
downtown Broadway car--see? Ask, if ye're not sure--an' keep on it till
ye get to your number. You can't miss it thin. Not at all, miss; it's
wan of our juties to help people. Wait, till I put ye on the car--it's
confusin' here, wid the subway an' all. Good luck to ye, miss."
Poor Rob, feeling like a maiden of legend surrounded by dragons, with
the yawning, yet unfinished, subway threatening her on one side, and
insanely rushing crowds mercilessly assaulting her on all sides, gladly
let the big policeman's strong arm clear a way for her to the car,
which came westward through Forty-second Street.
"Broadway!" called the conductor, to whom she had confided her desire
to know when that point was reached, and Rob was surprised to see six
people, beside herself, rise to their feet, plunge off the car, and the
men run as for their lives to swing themselves on another car, going in
a different direction, just ahead of them.
"There can't be many Broadway cars," thought Rob, but looked up and
down to see an interminable line of them coming both ways, and decided
that this was the New York unreasonable rush, of which she had heard so
much.
A woman with a gentle face, whom Rob timidly approached, put her in the
way of getting the car she desired, and she perched herself sideways
on the edge of the seat, watching feverishly the numbers, until she
realized that she was twelve hundred numbers above the one which her
father had given her as that of Mr. Baldwin's office, and subsided for
a time to watch the whirl of life around her, with a dizzy interest
that precluded all possibility of thought.
Keenly alive as she was in every sense, Rob could not help enjoying
the ride, though it did seem interminable. Beautiful shops, displaying
everything a girl cares for, were left behind, great buildings began
to tower on either hand; truckmen swore at their horses, small boys
tried to see how near they could come to the fender of the car in which
Rob rode, yet escape unscathed; timid women ran--very like Farmer
Flinders's chickens--head down and arms swinging, before the car,
having waited until it was almost upon them; Broadway narrowed, yet
increased in interest at every block.
An open square, set on three sides with picturesque old buildings--one
really beautiful among them--and a statue which Rob immediately
recognized as a figure of Nathan Hale, turned her thoughts to the
revolutionary New York into which the car had brought her, but seeing,
too, that the street numbers had decreased to the second hundred a few
blocks lower down, her mind swung with renewed concentration to her own
affairs, and her heart fluttered nervously.
Poised on the seat, ready for flight, she kept anxious watch, and at
Cortlandt Street signalled the conductor to stop. Threading her way
with difficulty through the narrow way, crowded at an hour so near
noon, her suit-case proving a menace to others and a trial to Herself,
Rob found at last the number she sought. Without giving herself time
to be more afraid, she plunged in at the wide doorway, and joined the
group waiting for an elevator to descend.
"Mr. Baldwin's office?" Rob said, low, to the man whose touch on the
lever had caused the elevator to shoot upward, and all Rob's powers
to seem to sink downward to her feet. The elevator was packed with
passengers, all men, some of whom removed their hats, but most of
whom kept them on, and stared at the young girl in mourning, with the
wonderful hair, and the big, frightened eyes.
"Ninth floor," said the man, and continued his rising career.
On the ninth floor Rob, at a forcible reminder from the elevator
man, stepped out, dizzy and confused, clutching her unwieldy case,
her sole link with the life she had known. It seemed to her, as she
stood staring at the door on which the too plain letters, black on the
ground-glass, told her she had found John Lester Baldwin, that there
was not left of the old, venturesome Roberta Grey even a voice to
announce that person.
"Don't be a goose, Rob," she said, giving herself a vigorous mental
shake. "The idea of insisting on coming, only to cave before the door!"
She turned the handle softly and entered.
A tall man, with a close-cropped, full beard, and keen yet kind eyes,
sat at a desk dictating to his typewriter; he looked up as Roberta
entered, and seemed surprised--which was not strange--at the sight of a
young girl armed with a suit-case, as if she had come to stay.
"Mr. Baldwin?" inquired Rob, faintly, setting down the case, and thus
giving herself even more an air of permanency.
"My name is Baldwin, yes," said the lawyer, rising politely. "This
is----?"
"Roberta Grey. My father--I am Sylvester Grey's daughter; do you
remember him?" said poor Rob.
"Sylvester Grey, my old college mate? Well, rather! My child, I am
truly glad to see you, though you make me feel older, finding you so
tall, than my own girl does--perhaps because I am used to her," said
Mr. Baldwin, coming over to take both of Rob's hands so heartily, that,
to her annoyance, she could not keep back the tears. "I have heard
nothing of Grey for some time. Come into my private office," he added,
seeing the brimming eyes, and noting, with a quick change in his own,
the black garments his young visitor wore.
Mr. Baldwin led the way to an inner, much smaller room, and put Rob
into a chair.
"What has happened, my dear?" he asked, gently. "I am afraid you have
nothing to tell me that I shall want to hear. You have come to me
because your father told you that if you needed counsel, his old chum
would gladly give it you? He was right, but I fear you need it because
Sylvester can counsel you no longer--is this so?"
Rob made a brave struggle to control her voice, helped by the low, even
tones, and the little pats on her black sleeve which this good man was
giving her--as if, she thought, she were a little child in need of
comfort.
"My father had been working hard on a patent for years, Mr. Baldwin,"
said Rob. "He had angina pectoris, and the doctor warned him of the
danger if he did not rest, but he could not rest, because we are poor,
and he wanted to make us comfortable. He worked harder than ever, in
fact, and now the machine is done. But the very day after a man came
from here to see it, and told him it was a success, my dear father----"
Rob stopped short, and Mr. Baldwin patted her hand without speaking for
a few moments.
"He had a sweet and beautiful nature, dear, and lived a life that was
ideal, in many ways, and that end is mercifully quick. He must have
been most happy to know that he had succeeded in providing for you,"
Mr. Baldwin said at last.
"The last words he said to Mardy and me were full of that thought, Mr.
Baldwin. We left him to sleep, and when we came back he had gone," said
Rob, trying to smile in the kind face smiling at her, though there were
tears in the eyes of Sylvester Grey's old chum. "This was eleven days
ago. I don't want to bother you, Mr. Baldwin, but it was to ask advice
that I came. The invention Patergrey made was a bricquette machine.
Nobody else understood it--not even Mardy--but I did, because I helped
him on it for a long time--read his papers and worked the model, and
handed him things, and all that, you know. Patergrey called me his 'son
Rob'; we were especially much to each other. What I want is to ask you
how much that invention is really worth? This Mr. Marston, the man who,
as I told you, came to see it, asked Patergrey to let his firm have
the option--don't you call it?--on the invention, and after he was gone
Patergrey gave me your name and address, and said he intended writing
you to ask you what its value was--I was to remind him to do it. But
the next day he died, so suddenly, and we were left to dispose of the
machine. We had a letter from Mr. Marston three days ago, offering us
four thousand dollars for the invention, and telling us we must take it
at once if we wanted it, or it would be withdrawn. All the rest want
to accept it, but I begged hard to be allowed to come to see you, and
for Mardy to write this man, telling him we must have a little time
to think about it. For you see, Mr. Baldwin, Patergrey said he would
not accept less than fifty thousand dollars, and I can't forget that.
Besides, I think there must be something wrong about a man who offers
so little, and wants us to take it that minute."
"What do you know about business, child?" asked Mr. Baldwin. "I wish
witnesses on the stand stated matters so clearly."
"I only know what I tell you, Mr. Baldwin," said Rob, feeling cheered.
"I suppose Mardy wouldn't have listened to me at all, but that I had
been Patergrey's right-hand man all this time, and she felt as though
he had given me a right in the case; as it was, I had an awful time
getting her to let me come here and make Mr. Marston wait, and you can
see that I must be frightened to take such responsibility, because if
we did lose this offer, and got no other, it would be awful, and I
should be to blame--no one else."
"I think you needn't be alarmed, Roberta--you said Roberta, didn't you?
You are quite right in your reasoning; a genuine offer for a valuable
thing would probably be open for a few days, and its owners should be
allowed to investigate. Do you think he knows your father has gone,
this Marston of yours?" asked Mr. Baldwin.
"Oh, yes; he spoke of it when he wrote," said Rob.
"Then you are more than ever right. Let me tell you, my child, that I
admire your courage and strength of purpose very greatly. I'll send
my clerk with a note to a friend of mine--a patent lawyer--and ask
on general principles what such an invention might be worth, if it
were worth anything--we see this is worth at least the sum offered.
You lay off your hat while I write, and then you will sit here and
talk to me while we wait the answer; I want to hear all about you,
and my messenger won't be long." Mr. Baldwin drew up to the desk and
wrote a note, rang a bell, and dispatched it, and then helped Rob
divest herself of her coat and hat, and put her comfortably in the
window while he won from her the story of the simple life lived in the
little grey house, and learned to know the wife and children of his
dead friend, whose family he had never met. Rob talked freely, drawn
out of herself by the kindly charm which went far toward making Mr.
Baldwin the successful lawyer that he was. He read between the lines,
understanding much that Rob did not realize she was betraying, and he
saw how fine had been the courage that had sustained his friend's wife
while Sylvester had been accounted a failure, and how great had been
the love for one another that had made life so sweet in the little grey
house, while it lacked so much that less wise people consider more
essential.
At last the clerk returned, and handed Mr. Baldwin the answer to his
note. The lawyer read it and gave it to Rob without comment. In it
Mr. Baldwin's friend stated concisely that, although it was obviously
impossible to give an opinion as to the value of something of which
he knew practically nothing, he could say that it was worth a good
deal, if it were worth anything, and that in either case four thousand
dollars was a preposterous offer--it was worth nothing, or it was worth
decidedly a great deal more than that.
"That's what I thought!" cried Rob, starting to her feet, joyously.
"Oh, Mr. Baldwin, I am so relieved--I was so frightened!"
"As frightened as your namesake, General Roberts, at the head of his
troops," smiled her new friend. "Braving an unknown city and a grim,
unknown lawyer for the cause of right!"
"Why, they call me 'Bobs' after General Roberts at home when I'm
unusually daring," cried Rob, delighted.
"Most fittingly," commented Mr. Baldwin. "And now, 'Bobs bahadur,'
I'm going to wire your mother not to act until she hears from me,
and add that you're all right; she must be troubled about you. This
warrants our holding off on this first offer." And Mr. Baldwin held
up his friend's note in one hand, while with the other he drew a
telegraph-blank toward him.
The telegram dispatched, Rob reached for her hat, and began to adjust
it as she vainly tried to smooth her turbulent locks.
"What shall I do? Go back to Fayre to-night, or will you tell me which
hotel to go to--am I needed here longer?" she asked, thrusting a hatpin
through her braid.
"You are needed here, Roberta," said Mr. Baldwin. "My intention is to
see certain people who may be interested in your father's invention,
and if you really do understand it and can describe it, we can interest
them sufficiently to get them to see the models. Can you do this?"
"Patergrey said one day that I could exhibit his invention as well as
he could," said Rob, quietly. "That was with the models; describing it
might be harder."
"If you can do one, you can do the other sufficiently well to give an
idea of what there is to be seen," smiled Mr. Baldwin. "As to a hotel,
my little girl, I strongly recommend one kept by a host called Baldwin.
It is up in Seventy-third Street, and is fairly comfortable, and quite
commodious enough for one person of sixteen. In it there is a landlady
who loves such guests, and a girl--the daughter of the landlord and
landlady--called Hester Baldwin, who is not rich in sisters as
you are--has none, in fact, and who will welcome you as a traveller
in the desert welcomes water. So I think there is no doubt that the
Baldwin Inn is the best place for you, my dear; but of one thing I am
sure--Sylvester Grey's little girl cannot go anywhere else, so make the
best of it."
"How good you are, Mr. Baldwin!" cried Rob, gratefully. "How can I ever
thank you?"
"By telling my girl all you have told me, and as much more as you can
remember, of the little grey house, my dear," replied Mr. Baldwin,
helping Rob into her coat.