When the Hon. Wipplinger Towle beheld the inhospitable shores of Staten
Island fade into a dim haze of distance, which he accomplished from the
depths of a comfortable steamer chair, placed in just the proper
position on the deck of the newest Cunarder, it was without any rancor
of soul or bitterness of spirit. He loved Jane Blythe as much (or more)
than ever; but he was not disposed on that account to humiliate himself
to the point of seeking stolen interviews with the object of his
affection upon American back stoops. No; Jane must somehow be led to
return to her native land, and once more in her proper environment, Mr.
Towle could not find it in his heart to despair of finally winning her.
He was a man of wide and varied experience, and he was not unaware that
a period of discreet neglect upon his part might tend to enhance his
apparent value.
It should be explained that during the course of that long and dusty
tramp over the highways of Staten Island, whereon he had encountered
clouds of bloodthirsty mosquitoes, the evidence of whose fierce attacks
was even yet to be discerned upon his patrician countenance, the
sagacious Mr. Towle had laid out a course of action from which he had
not deviated an iota thus far, and in which his early return to England
figured as a necessary step. In brief, he had taken the pains to satisfy
himself that Jane Blythe's humiliating position was not in any sense an
unsafe one, and that her sojourn under the roof of Mr. and Mrs. James
Livingstone Belknap would result in little beyond what Mr. Towle was
philosophically inclined to look upon as a needful though unpleasant
experience. The only factor in the problem which really perplexed him
was the presence of Mr. John Everett in the home of Mrs. Belknap. That
arrogantly youthful figure suggested a possible painful finale to his
own hopes, which Mr. Towle nevertheless found himself able to
contemplate with resignation. He had arrived, in short, at that
enviable stage of his experience when he had ceased to avidly desire
what did not essentially belong to himself. "A man does not really want
that which is another's," he was accustomed to say to the few intimates
who were admitted to his confidence. "He only thinks or supposes that he
does. The possession of it would make him as wretched as did the fabled
black pudding which the unfortunate old woman acquired with the first of
her three elfin-bestowed wishes. Made irrevocably fast to the end of her
nose by her angry husband by means of the second wish, she was finally
forced to rid herself of it by the sacrifice of the last and final
wish."
Not that Jane Blythe ever appeared to Mr. Towle in the guise of a
potential black pudding. He thought of her continually and sincerely as
altogether good, lovely, and desirable; but as quite possibly too good,
too lovely, and too desirable a possession for his lonely heart to
selfishly appropriate. Something of this really chivalrous and
exquisitely altruistic devotion was apparent even to the obtuse
perceptions of Mr. Robert Aubrey-Blythe, whom Mr. Towle sought out
immediately upon reaching London.
"I have found her, Robert," began Mr. Towle, without preamble.
"You have found----?"
"Jane," said Mr. Towle. The honorable gentleman did not appear at all
excited, consequently Mr. Aubrey-Blythe, as in duty bound, sprang up
from his chair, where he had been absorbed in a matter antipodally
remote from the fortunes of his niece.
"Well, well, well!" cried Mr. Aubrey-Blythe excitedly, and "Upon my
soul, Towle!" he said. "I _am_ surprised!"
He was quite sincere in this statement, for beyond a few perfunctory
efforts to trace the missing girl the Aubrey-Blythes had appeared
piously resigned to the decree of a discerning Providence which had seen
fit to remove so disturbing an element from their midst. Still it was
annoying, not to say intolerable, to have one's acquaintances at the
club and elsewhere preface their ordinary remarks with the query "Found
your niece yet, Blythe?" or "Hear you've a deuced unhappy mystery to
unravel at your house," with an occasional dubious reference to the
morgue and the workhouse. So it was with genuine relief and pleasure
that Mr. Aubrey-Blythe learned of the speedy and successful _dénouement_
of Mr. Towle's foreign adventures.
"I am shocked and--er--grieved at what you tell me of the girl's present
position," he added, with genuine mortification depicted upon his rotund
countenance. "An _Aubrey-Blythe_ in a _kitchen_--actually _working_ with
her _hands_! Preposterous, Towle, preposterous! I shall at once take
steps to remove her."
"Hum--ah," murmured Mr. Towle; "better leave her where she is for a
while longer."
"What is that you are saying?" inquired the other fussily. "No, no; that
would never do, Towle--never in the world! Bless my soul; what will my
wife, Lady Agatha Aubrey-Blythe, say to all this! Really, Towle, I
dislike to disturb her ladyship with the shocking intelligence."
"I beg that you will not inform her of it," Mr. Towle said, rather
sharply. "There is nothing to be gained by doing so, and much to be
lost."
"The girl has never been a favorite with Lady Agatha," observed Mr.
Aubrey-Blythe. "They seem to be--er--totally uncongenial."
"I can quite believe that," said the other dryly. He stared hard at his
friend in silence for some minutes before he spoke again. "I believe
you--er--informed me that your niece, Miss Jane Aubrey-Blythe, was--
That is to say, you gave me to understand that she was entirely without
fortune. Am I correct in this--er--particular?"
"And I," burst out Mr. Aubrey-Blythe, "understood you to say that the
fact made no difference in your--ah-- But, I beg your pardon, Towle; of
course this--er--unfortunate escapade of the girl's ends all that--of
course, of course! I shouldn't have spoken as I did."
"You misunderstand me, Robert," said Mr. Towle patiently. "My sentiments
toward Miss Blythe are entirely unchanged; quite so, in fact. What I
wished to say is this: I should like to settle some money on Miss
Blythe, and--er--I don't know how to go about it. You must advise me,
Robert."
"You would like to settle some money! Yes, I see; but this is no time to
talk of marriage settlements, my dear fellow, with the girl in America,
and----"
"I am not talking of marriage settlements," said Mr. Towle calmly.
"There may never be a marriage between us; in fact I have scarcely any
hope of it. I am too old, and"--with a slight bitterness of
manner--"unluckily I look even older than I am. No; what I want is to
give to Jane a comfortable sum of money outright, and leave her to be
happy in her own way. If I can win her later on, I mean to do it fairly
and squarely; but, as I have already said, I have very little hope of
it."
"Gad, man! if you give the girl a fortune, she's bound to marry you;
common gratitude, common decency, would demand it."
"Exactly so," quoth Mr. Towle. "But I'll have no common gratitude and
common decency as you call it--and deuced common it is--mixing up in her
feelings for me. Neither do I want her driven into a marriage with me as
a _dernier ressort_. If she could--er--love me I-- But never mind,
Robert. We'll cut this short, if you please. And I don't intend, mark
you, to give her a fortune; nothing that would attract a crowd of
worthless fellows, you understand, but enough so that she may feel free
and independent of--er--other people, including yourself, and be able to
buy her own frocks and the feathers and frills that women love; a matter
of ten or twelve thousand pounds, say."
"Very handsome of you, Towle, to have thought of it, I'm sure;
uncommonly generous, by gad! but I doubt if it will be becoming in me to
allow it. I fear that Lady Agatha----"
"You'll not tell her," interrupted Mr. Towle eagerly. Then he leaned
forward and rested his hand upon the other's broad knee. "I'm not one to
refer over often to the past, Robert, as you know; but I believe you've
told me more than once that you--er--that I-- No; I can't say it. It
sticks in my throat."
"I know what you mean, Towle," growled Mr. Aubrey-Blythe. "There's no
need for you to remind me that I'm under a tremendous obligation to you.
But do you mean to tell me----"
"I declare to you that if you will help me to do what I wish in this one
thing, I shall know the obligation to be on the other side. And, mind,
it is to be kept a secret between you and me--forever."
Mr. Robert Aubrey-Blythe appeared plunged into profound meditation. At
last he raised his head. "She wouldn't touch a penny of it, if she
knew," he said at last. "Jane is deucedly independent and all that."
"She'd be obliged to take it if it came from a relative," suggested Mr.
Towle; "couldn't you----"
The other shook his head. "Bless my soul, Towle," he murmured, with
something very like a twinkle of humor in his eyes; "if I should
attempt to settle a shilling piece on Jane there'd be the deuce and all
to pay. I should think you'd know better than to suggest it."
"It's going to be done somehow, Robert," said Mr. Towle firmly, "if
I--er--have to hang myself to bring it about. She couldn't refuse a
legacy."
"Oh, I say; that would never do, Towle! You mustn't think of such a
thing," protested Mr. Aubrey-Blythe, fidgeting in his chair. "But,
speaking of a legacy, I wonder, now----"
He left his sentence suspended in midair, while he rummaged in his desk
for a paper. "Hum--yes, yes. Now, I wonder-- I--er--had a brother once,
a younger brother, a sad rascal of a fellow, quite as improvident as
poor Oliver--Jane's father, you know--and dissolute to boot. We don't
often mention Foxhall Aubrey-Blythe, poor fellow; sad case, very. He's
dead, in short. Died in South Africa a couple of months ago, without a
sixpence to his name, as might have been expected. Now, I wonder-- Of
course, it would be very irregular and all that; but I fancy it could
be arranged, with the help of a discreet attorney--eh? That is to say,
if you won't think better of it, Towle."
"I should think it might be done," agreed the Hon. Wipplinger Towle
seriously. "There can be no possible harm in it, certainly, to the dead
man, or to anyone else. And it's got to be arranged, Robert. I'm quite
set upon it."
After which the arch conspirators put their heads together over the
details of a plot which, for the present at least, does not vitally
concern the fortunes of Miss Jane Evelyn Aubrey-Blythe, who at that
moment was industriously engaged in brushing the rugs, which she had
carried out from Mrs. Belknap's little parlor to the untidy grass plot
bristling with spent dandelion stalks, situated at the rear of the
Belknap house.
Mary MacGrotty was clattering about the range inside the small kitchen,
pausing to cast an occasional malevolent glance through the open window.
Master Belknap was engaged in calmly propelling his tricycle up and down
the sidewalk under the watchful eye of Mrs. Belknap, seated on the
front porch with her sewing. It was an eminently peaceful domestic
scene, which gave no sign of the volcanic possibilities lurking
underneath the deceitful calm of its surface.
The seventh individual who was in process of being inextricably bound in
the fast-spinning threads of a watchful Fate was Mr. John Everett, who
sat in a certain Broadway office, ostensibly occupied with a very dry
legal paper, whose intricacies he supposed himself to be diligently
mastering. In reality this young gentleman was uncounted leagues away
from the Broadway office, wandering in lands of faerie with Jane. Jane's
eyes were bright and Jane's lips were red and tempting; Jane's little
hands were clasped upon his arm as they two walked slowly (all in the
land of faerie) across a velvet lawn, wherein neither plantain nor
dandelion had ever encroached, toward a house--a little house, with
balconies, perhaps, and dormer windows, certainly--Jack Everett couldn't
be altogether sure of its outlines, since houses (in the land of faerie)
have a way of changing while one looks, like dissolving lantern views.
All of which was very much in the air and exceedingly foolish, as this
worthy young man told himself sternly, when he found, at the expiration
of half of a delightful hour, where he had really been spending his
time.