gentleman being established there for the winter and having urged them
to stay with him. Their idea was to sail for home almost immediately, as
soon as Sir Robert had seen his friend General Bludyer, with whom he had
some business and who was bringing out his two sons to establish them in
America. But an unexpected delay occurred. On the day after their
arrival, Mr. Heathcote ran up to his aunt's room to bid her good-by
before taking himself off to Baltimore,--he had made a full confession
to Sir Robert, and received much advice and counsel, together with a
qualified approval of his plans and hopes,--and he found Miss Noel still
in bed, although it was mid-day and she not the least punctual and
energetic of her sex. In reply to his playful reproaches she replied
that she was "feeling very, very queer," and he cheerfully assured her
that she "had best stop in bed a day or two and all would be well,"
after which he told her that he was not going back to England with the
party, and, with a further remark to the effect that she "was looking
awfully seedy," discovered that he was late for his train, was again
pleasantly sure that she would "be all right soon," and hurried off to
the station, well pleased to think that he should see Edith in a few
hours. It is not always possible, however, for a woman to fulfil the
optimistic predictions of her careless male relatives, and in a few
hours Miss Noel was feeling really ill. "Who is your doctor, my dear?"
she asked of Bijou, who had herself arranged and carried up a little
tray of delicacies with which to tempt her. "How very sweet of you to
trouble! Why did you not let Parsons do that? Do you know I am
making myself quite wretched lest I should be sickening with
something,--something serious? I must have a doctor at once. Would you
kindly send for one, or, rather, tell Parsons where to go? I can't rest
until I get the opinion of a medical man."
"Now, don't you worry about _that_," said Bijou, bestowing an embrace
upon her and then perching herself on the foot of the bed. "You are not
going to be ill; and if you are, why, you are with friends who will take
the best sort of care of you, that's all. I'll nurse you; and popper
says I am just a natural-born nurse, if there ever was one. You can see
the doctor if you want to, but most likely you will be a great deal
better to-morrow."
"But, my dear, suppose I should be worse? It would be too dreadful! I
can't be ill in your house, you know," said Miss Noel disconsolately.
"Why, why not?" queried Bijou, in surprise.
"Why not? Can you ask why? Think of all the trouble I should be putting
you to, the house upset, and the servants giving warning very likely,
and all that. Oh, no! I hope and trust it is nothing; but if it should
be serious I could not dream of putting you out like that," replied Miss
Noel, with emphasis.
"Why, do you mean to say that anybody would care for _that_, or think of
the _trouble_, with a friend lying sick in their house? I never heard of
such a thing," exclaimed Bijou, expressing the liveliest emotions of
astonishment and contempt in face and voice. "Of course we don't want
you to get sick, for your own sake; but if you do we'll do everything in
this world to make you comfortable and cure you. And the house won't be
upset at all; and we don't care a snap what the servants think. You must
put that perfectly ridiculous idea right out of your head, and turn over
and try to go to sleep."
When the doctor came he looked grave even for a doctor, and felt it his
duty to tell Miss Noel that she might have yellow fever. It was always
to be had for the catching in Cuba, and her symptoms were suspicious,
though he could not, of course, be positive. Here was a sensation. It
was curious to see the effect this declaration had on the different
members of the household. Sir Robert, after turning pale and saying "God
bless my soul! you don't mean it," to the doctor, rallied from the shock
as soon as he had left the house, and refused to believe anything of the
kind, talked about "the art conjectural," and did all he could to
impress this view on Miss Noel, who promptly gave herself up as lost,
told him that she had made her will "before leaving town for the North"
the year before, asked that her body might be "taken back to dear old
England," if this could be done without risk to others, and begged that
she might be "sent straight away to the hospital" and no one allowed to
come in contact with her meanwhile. Bijou, Ethel, and Parsons stoutly
refused to be hustled out of her room, declaring that they had already
been exposed to the danger, if danger there was, and protested that they
were ready to nurse her through anything. Mr. Brown, coming home to
dinner, was horrified as by some impiety to hear it proposed that Miss
Noel should go to a hospital. "Admitting, for the sake of argument,"
said this ever-judicial host, "that the doctor is right, what follows?
Why, that Miss Noel will require great care, and, humanly speaking, will
incur additional risk in leaving my house. I cannot dream of allowing
it. My married daughter has taken her children to see their grandmother;
there are only Bijou and myself to be considered, and neither of us has
any fear of the disease, or, indeed, any great belief in the reality of
the danger. I cannot think of letting a guest, and that guest a stranger
here, go to a public place of the kind and commit herself to hired
nurses. Oh, no! That is out of the question."
"I never heard of such a thing,--never. It would be perfectly shameful!"
protested Bijou afresh. And so Sir Robert was overruled, and, much
touched by this view of the matter, tried to express thanks on behalf of
Miss Noel, bungled out a few short phrases, very different from his
usually fluent utterances, shook Mr. Brown's hand heartily, sat down
with a very red face, and then started up and dismissed the carriage,
which, pending this decision, had been waiting at the door.
It chanced that Mrs. Sykes had been out for some hours that day, and had
then come back and gone into the library, where she spent some time in
writing to the friends who had entertained her in Central New York. She
had just finished putting up the morning paper for them containing a
full and carefully-marked account of the defalcation and disappearance
of a bank-president in Delaware in whom she recognized the brother of
her former hostess, when Ethel looked in at the door and said, "Oh, you
are here," and, coming forward, gave her the dreadful news. It was well
that this final mark of her gratitude and graceful interest was complete
down to the very postage-stamp, for after this Mrs. Sykes had no time
for delicate attentions.
"Stand off! good heavens! Don't come near me. Get away!" she shrieked,
and for once every particle of color left her face. The next moment she
rushed up-stairs to her room, put on her bonnet and cloak in a flash,
and, without farewells of any kind, or thought of so much as her darling
Bobo, left the house immediately. She went first, and that as fast as
her feet could carry her, to the nearest druggist's, where she invested
lavishly in disinfectants and hung innumerable camphor-bags about her
person. From there she went to the nearest hotel, from which she wrote
to the Browns, giving instructions about her luggage, which she said
must be packed by Parsons and sent over to England, to be unpacked at
Liverpool, for fear of infection, by "a person" whom she would engage.
She then took the first steamer leaving New York, and when she got on
board gave vent to a perfectly sincere and devout exclamation, "Thank
heaven, I have done with America!" From Liverpool she wrote back a
lively account of the passage, and expressed the deepest interest in
"dear Miss Noel," about whom she had been "quite wretched," but who she
"hoped was doing nicely by this time and would make a good recovery."
She also hoped, and even more earnestly, that "dearest Bobo was not
being neglected in the general hubbub, and given his biscuits without
their being properly soaked first, and his chicken in great pieces, not
carefully minced," and begged that every care should be taken of him,
imploring that everybody would remember that "_hot_ milk invariably made
the poor dear ill." She also sent Bijou a small and particularly hideous
pin-cushion, which she said had been made for the Ashantee Bazaar by the
Grand Duchess of Aufstadt.
The defection of Mrs. Sykes was not greatly deplored by anybody, but it
was deeply resented by Parsons, who it is to be feared was not as
devoted to Bobo as his mistress expected.
"I'm not one to run away,--not if it was lions and tigers,--like
_some_," she remarked; "but if hever I get back to the hold country I'll
go down on my bended knees, if it's in the very cab at Liverpool, and
thank 'eaven I'm at 'ome again; which I 'ope I may live to see it."
Happily, Miss Noel did not have yellow fever. Unhappily, she had _a_
fever, if not the dreaded one, and was ill for several weeks,--so ill
that it seemed at one time as though she had done with travelling-days.
Anxious weeks these for Ethel and Sir Robert and Mr. Heathcote, trying
ones for Bijou, who had at last found "a rational occupation." For it
was she who, with Parsons's help, nursed Miss Noel faithfully, tenderly,
efficiently, Ethel being a most willing coadjutress, but sadly out of
place in a sick-room. The skill, the self-reliance, and the
unselfishness that Bijou showed surprised even those who knew her best,
and quite endeared her to Sir Robert.
"That girl is one in a thousand," he said to Ethel more than once; "and
I was such a wiseacre that I thought her a useless, spoiled creature who
would never be anything but a domestic fetich. I shall ask her pardon,
when I get the chance, for having so shamefully underrated and
misjudged her. Could there be a kinder family? If Augusta had been a
near and dear relative they could scarcely have shown more solicitude.
Every luxury, every kindness that the most thoughtful affection could
have suggested has been lavished on her. Everything has been
subordinated to the one object,--her recovery,--and all their ordinary
pursuits, amusements, occupations, cheerfully laid aside, apparently as
a mere matter of course. At least, they disclaim the idea of sacrifice;
and in all that they have done there has been nothing perfunctory. If
they have merely been performing what they considered a duty, I must say
that they have had the grace and innate good breeding to make it appear
that it was a pleasure. Just so."
Miss Noel had been down-stairs on the sofa for three days, having been
officially pronounced convalescent, when who should walk in upon her but
the Ketchums,--Mabel serene and smiling, and Job in a state of evident
satisfaction and radiant good humor.
"Well, now, this is something like. Up and dressed, and looking
first-rate for an invalid," he called out from the door, and then,
advancing, took one of her thin hands with much gentleness, and said,
"Getting well, ain't you? That's right. I am so glad. Creepin' through
mercy, eh? as Father Root used to say."
Mabel slipped into a seat near Miss Noel, and, after some inquiries
about Sir Robert, Ethel, and the Browns, told her what concern they had
felt about her illness. "Husband telegraphed constantly to know how you
were going on; but the replies were often most unsatisfactory; and it is
so very nice to see you up again. You will soon be about, and the
sea-voyage will set you up wonderfully. That puts me in mind of--Tell
her, husband; show her."
Thus stimulated, Mr. Ketchum drew out an enormous pocket-book, stuffed
full of papers, and attacked it rather than looked through it, drew out
a handful of letters, bills, memorandums, tore up several, crushed
others back into his case, walked swiftly into the hall, and came back
triumphantly with his over-coat on his arm and a sheet of foolscap in
his hand.
"Dear, dear, husband, you should not mess about like this," said Mabel,
"littering up the carpet."
She would have picked up the bits of paper, but he interfered. "Here!
I'll do that, Daisy; sit down. Daisy's occupation in the next world,
Miss Noel, is going to be sweeping all the dirty clouds out of the sky,
and polishing up the harps and crowns, and telling the small angels not
to leave the ivory gates ajar, for fear of draughts, and to be sure and
put their buckets and spades away tidily when they have done digging in
the golden sands, and not to get over-heated and fall ill, because they
can't die and have got nowhere to go. Now, look at this" (getting up
from his knees and holding up the foolscap, which was covered with
drawings of some mechanical contrivance): "I got thinking about you one
day and your illness, and that you ought to stay on deck all you could,
and to have the right kind of chair, and suddenly this idea hit me right
on the head, and I got out my pencil and started in on it. And here it
is. This is only the rough draught, you understand."
With growing enthusiasm he explained all the details, while Mabel looked
intently and respectfully at the paper he held, and interjected admiring
comments: "Isn't it a most wonderful thing? and wasn't it clever of
husband to think of it?--but, then, he is always thinking of things.
Husband has got such a surprising talent for invention, and grasps an
idea at once."
"Oh, no, I haven't. I think I could have found out the way to my mouth
as soon as any other baby, that's all. But this is a lucky hit. I am
going to have it patented. It's a first-rate thing. This is the way you
lash it to the mast when you want to; and when you want to move about
you let down the rollers and fasten them with this hook, and go where
you please. Twenty-seven changes of position. Why, you can read, eat,
sleep, ride, get married, run for Congress, die, and be buried in that
chair, if you want to!" he said, by way of final recommendation.
"Thank you, but I don't wish to die. I would rather live," said Miss
Noel, laughing cheerfully for the first time since her illness. "And did
you really design it for me? How very kind! I must really try to get it
worked out, if you think it will answer, as of course you do."
"Oh, don't you bother your head about that," he replied. "I worked it
all out one night, and set a smart carpenter at it the next morning
before breakfast. And it's a perfect success. And I've got it down at
the hotel, ready for you. I'm coming up here to put you in it and take
you down to the steamer myself."
Sir Robert and Mr. Heathcote now came in (the latter having returned
from Baltimore an affianced man), and Ethel and Bijou followed, and
everybody was delighted to see everybody else; and they had so much to
talk about that Sir Robert almost forgot that he was engaged to preside
over a children's dinner-party at the house of an intimate friend of the
De Witts. He hurried off, though; and never had he "looked into" ten
more charming little faces than brightened on his arrival. The way in
which he radiated good humor, intelligence, benevolence, told stories
and jokes that kept the little company shouting with laughter, and
finally rose and got off an impromptu piece of doggerel with exactly ten
verses, and each child's name and some peculiarity brought out in a way
to convulse even mammas and the maids, was as indescribable as
delightful. I am not sure that he did not enjoy it more than any of the
grand entertainments that he had been asked to; and as for the children,
they remember it to this day, although they are on the verge of
young-ladyhood and at college now and have very serious demands made on
their memories.
After a pleasant little interval of reunion and various diversions, the
day came at last for our English people to leave the country. What they
felt about this necessity was well expressed for them by Sir Robert in
the last letter that he wrote before going on the steamer.
"I am glad to turn my face toward the old land, which must always seem
to me the best of all lands," he said; "but I take with me the
pleasantest memories of the new. It has been a constant surprise and
pleasure to me to find how like they are to each other in all
essentials, greatly as they often seem to differ on the surface. I have
had a most interesting and delightful tour. Such opportunities of
observation as have come in my way, and such authentic information as I
have been able to lay hold of, I have tried to make the most of; but in
so short a time I could not do more than glean in a field that offers a
rich harvest to more fortunate travellers. From the moment of landing
until now I have been made the recipient of a hospitality too generous
and too flattering to be appropriated to myself in my individual
capacity. I must either set it down to the good will which Americans
feel toward England when not irritated and repelled by the insolent and
overbearing among us,--who have done more to make a breach between the
two peoples than you would fancy, and inflicted wounds that all the
ambassadors and public-dinner fine speeches cannot heal,--or to that
true politeness which Americans observe in the most casual relations,
and the immense, apparently inexhaustible kindness which it is their
habit to show to strangers. I find in them a certain spontaneity and
affectionateness that has quite won my heart."
To the credit of Mr. Ketchum be it said that if Miss Noel had been made
of cobwebs she could have been safely transported in his invention to
the steamer. This feat was comfortably achieved, at all events, and Mr.
Ketchum, having superintended it, left Miss Noel in the chair on deck;
and there were kisses and embraces between the ladies, a hurried rush to
the wharf, and the steamer moved out, with Miss Noel crying softly, and
saying, "Dear, dear Bijou! Dear America! How good they have been to me!"
and Ethel and Sir Robert hanging over the side; and ashore the Browns,
the doctor, Mr. Heathcote, the De Witts, and Mr. Ketchum and Mabel
looking earnestly at them and waving their adieux.
"You'll find a couple of barrels of pecans at your place. I forgot to
tell you. Good-by! good-by! Call again!" shouted Mr. Ketchum. And then,
turning to his wife, he said, "Don't you wish you were going home, too?"
Mabel stopped to straighten little Jared Ponsonby's hat and settle his
curls, somewhat disordered by the wind from the river. Then she turned a
face full of sweet content toward her husband; her simple and serious
look met his twinkling, bantering one for a moment. "No, dearest," she
said, as she took his arm and walked away. "You know that I don't. You
are my home."
* * * * *
The Ketchums went back to Fairfield, and spent the two years that
followed very happily and quite uneventfully in that simple round of
duties and pleasures which the foolish find so dull and the wise would
not exchange for any other. And not the least agreeable feature of this
life was what was known as "the English letters," although this really
included books, music, photographs, sketches, and a great variety of
things, from the J. pens that came for Mrs. Vane and the larding-needles
that housewifely Mabel had coveted that she might "set a proper fowl
before husband," up to packages of a disgraceful size and bulk addressed
to Mr. Ketchum in Sir Robert's hand. Sir Robert was a regular and
delightful correspondent; Miss Noel and Ethel were equally kind about
writing; Mrs. Sykes sent a very characteristic epistle or two to the
family after her return, and then let "silence like a poultice" come to
heal the blows she had inflicted.
"What do you hear from that idiotic young Ramsay?" "How is Ramsay
opening the American oyster?" "What of poor Mr. Ramsay?" "Is Mr. Ramsay
coming back to England?" were questions often asked by these
correspondents; and Mr. Ketchum was able to give some account of that
fascinating fortune-seeker.
Mr. Ramsay wrote to him occasionally, which was the more flattering
because he repeatedly said in these productions that he "hated doing a
letter most tremendously," and very truly remarked that "the worst of it
is that you've got to be thinking what to say, which is an awful bore,
and ten to one the pen is bad, and spelling takes a lot out of you if
you are not used to looking up the words." Whether, "not being a
literary chap," he would have written to Mr. Ketchum at all had not the
Ketchum and Brown properties marched and the two families been good
friends is one of those nice questions which it is hard to decide. His
letters were headed "Out in the Bush" at first, and were full of the
adventures and amusements that his novel surroundings afforded him. Then
came more sober epistles from "The Ranch," with a good deal in them
about "these dirty brutes of Mexicans and ignorant cowboys," the long,
dull days, the doubts that had begun to agitate him as to the
possibility of getting the millions that had seemed almost within his
grasp in London out of "old Brown's farm." Finally, after a long
silence, Job got a letter one day, written in pencil, that betrayed the
deepest depression and most utter disgust. He had "come an awful cropper
from a mustang," and been laid up for three months; his money was all
gone; he could get nothing to do. "I tried to get a clerkship in a
'country store' before I got my fall," he explained, "though if I have
got to that I had better go back to England, where those fellows get a
half-holiday on Saturdays and lots of bank holidays, and are in
civilization at least. Perhaps if the governor saw me with a quill
behind my ear, or riding down to the city on top of a 'bus, smoking a
pipe, he'd do something for me for the honor of the family. But he's in
a beastly humor now, and wouldn't send me a fiver to save my life. He
says that I'm not worth my salt anywhere, and that he washes his hands
of me. And Bill has taken to patronizing me so tremendously that I'd
starve rather than ask his help. So I must just stick it out here, I
suppose, unless you meant what you said when we parted, and will help me
to get back home, where I have friends, a brother-in-law especially, an
awfully good sort of fellow, that would stick to a fellow through thick
and thin, no matter what other fellows said of him. There's a lot of
'fellows' in this last sentence, but I never was a clever fellow--I had
better stop. I am getting worse mixed up than ever."
Mr. Ketchum's reply to this was a short, cordial, hearty note, enclosing
a check for five hundred dollars, telling Mr. Ramsay to draw upon him
for more if he needed it, bidding him keep "a stiff upper lip," and
advising him to stop at Fairfield _en route_ to England and see if there
wasn't some better way out of his difficulties. About two weeks after
this Mr. Ramsay walked into Mr. Ketchum's office and almost wrung his
hand off, "Awfully kind of you," "awfully glad to see you," "awfully
good news to tell you," was poured out as in one breath by the bronzed,
thin, but still beautiful Englishman, whose illness had given a last and
quite irresistible charm of spirituality to his handsome face.
"Sit down, man, and tell us all about it," said Mr. Ketchum, when he had
given him an embrace half real, half theatrical. "Delighted to see
_you_, if it comes to that."
"Here's that check you sent me," said Mr. Ramsay, going straight to his
point, as usual. "I never got it cashed, because I got by the very same
post good news from England. My great-aunt Maxwell is dead at Bath and
has left me all her money, twenty thousand pounds. Isn't it the luckiest
fluke that ever was? But all the same it is a kindness that I shan't
forget. You are an awfully good sort to have done it. Most fellows would
have seen me in Halifax first, you know. And if ever you want a friend
you'll know where to find him, that's all. Only fancy all this money
falling in when I hadn't a penny and was in perfect despair! Such luck!
And such a fluke, as I have said. You see, it was all to have been
Bill's. He has always been my aunt's favorite, though at first it was to
have been divided between us; only when I was a little chap I blew off
the tail of her parrot with a bunch of fire-crackers. Haw! haw! haw! I
was never allowed there afterward, and she hated the very name of me.
She and Bill have hit it off together so well that he never had the
least fear of me stepping in. But on last Valentine's Day it seems that
she got an awfully cocky, cheeky valentine of an old maid putting on a
wig and painting her face, and it had the Stoke-Pogis post-mark, and she
took it into her head that Bill had sent it, flew into a most awful
rage, and sent for her solicitor and changed her will. And then, most
fortunate thing, she died that night, and couldn't make another."
"Well, you are a doting nephew, upon my word," said Job.