THE DECISION OF FATE
Pablo told them the heart-breaking news. But about eight o'clock Uncle
Jason returned. The fire was out, there were only heaps of smoking
ashes and smouldering brands. Jason Chadsey had been warmly
sympathized with, proffered assistance to rebuild, to recommence
business, and would have been deluged with whiskey if he had accepted.
That was still a panacea for all ills and troubles. But he refused,
and wandered about in dogged silence. No one knew the whole loss.
In the farther office desk he had slipped a box with a string of
pearls for his darling's birthday. Some one had said pearls were for
blondes, and in spite of much out-of-door living, she had kept her
beautiful complexion. Then crushed by the astounding news, he had
forgotten about it.
"Oh, Uncle Jason!" Grimed as he was with smoke and cinders, she flew
to his arms, and sobbed out her sorrow.
"There, there, dear." His voice had the stress of fatigue and great
emotion. "I am not fit to touch. And I can't talk now. I am tired to
death. Give me a cup of coffee."
"I don't believe I will go to school to-day," she said, with fine
disregard of rules. "And yet I ought. There are the translations to be
handed in."
"Yes, do go. I must get some rest."
"I'll come home at noon," kissing him fondly.
He nodded. He was a broken old man in what should have been the prime
of life. He drank his coffee, then took the whiskey he had refused
down on the dock, went to his room, and after a good cool wash, threw
himself on the bed.
The fire was on everybody's tongue. Not that fires were a rarity. But
this might have been much worse, yet it was bad enough for Jason
Chadsey. The air was still full of smoke, there was a dense fog and a
cloudy sky. Everywhere you heard the same talk.
The lessons at school went on well enough, though Laverne's nerves
were all of a tremble. Just after eleven as recess began she was
summoned to the reception room.
David Westbury had been out to the fire and come in again.
"Gad!" he exclaimed. "It's that Chadsey's place! And he had a
tremendous stock, a new shipload just in, some others waiting to be
loaded up. This is a queer town where every so often there's a big
fire. The only amends is that it is rebuilt better. Half of the old
rookeries ought to come down, they look so forlorn and ancient."
"Oh, David. Well, if he has lost everything he will be the more
willing to give up the girl."
"He will give her up, anyhow," in a determined tone. Some things
Chadsey had said still rankled in David Westbury's mind.
He went downtown again. Yes, it was ruin sure enough. Being prosperous
now, he could afford to pity the unfortunate ones. Chadsey had gone
home. The police were in charge, to keep off the roughs and the
thieves.
"We must have the matter settled to-day," he declared to his wife.
"I know where she is at school. Let us go there."
"Excellent. I should like to see her alone. It is right that she
should hear my story."
So to the school they went. Laverne came in a little flurried, and yet
bewitching in her simple girlhood. Her bodice was rather low about the
throat, with some edging around, and a band of black velvet encircled
her white neck. Her skirt was ankle length, and the man noted her
trim, slender feet, with the high arch of the instep.
Mrs. Westbury kissed her with warmth and tenderness. Her eyes were
luminous this morning, and the flushes showed above the delicately
tinted cheeks; her whole air was pleading, enchanting.
"You know I said there was a strange story for you to hear," she
exclaimed, when they had talked at length about the fire. "Mr.
Westbury will tell you."
He began to pace up and down, as was his habit, so slowly that it gave
him an air of thoughtfulness. Mrs. Westbury had her arm around
Laverne.
"Yes, a rather curious story, yet numbers of these instances crop out
along life. Friends, often relatives are reunited, tangled threads are
straightened, mysteries explained. In a little village in Maine lived
a girl and her two friends, they were a little too old for real
schoolmates. Her name was Laverne Dallas."
Why, that was her mother's name. And Maine. She began to listen
attentively, just as one pieces out a dream that has nearly escaped
from memory. And Westbury! Why, she had forgotten she ever had any
other name than Chadsey--it was her story as well, and now she looked
at the man, who certainly had nothing repellant about him, and the
story of those early years was pathetic as he lent it several
appealing embellishments. She really could not remember him with any
distinctness. The death of her grandmother, the pale, reserved mother,
coughing and holding on to her side, the coming of Uncle Jason, who it
seemed was no uncle at all, her mother's death, and all the rest was
school and play.
"Oh! Oh!" she cried, and hid her face on Mrs. Westbury's shoulder.
"So you see you are my little daughter. Your own mother is not here to
care for you and make you happy, but here is a new mother, who has
learned to love you unaware. And now we are returning to London, and
will take you with us, and give you the life that rightly belongs to
you----"
"Oh, no, no," she interrupted with poignant pathos. "I cannot go. I
could not leave Uncle Jason in this sad loss and trouble. He has been
so good, so kind, so tender----"
"As if an own father could not be that! Laverne, my darling, my own
little girl!"
If he had been poor he would have thought any child a great burden. He
was not the sort of man to make sacrifices for any one. They would
have irked him terribly. But in prosperity he was very indulgent.
There are many such people. Jason Chadsey would have shared his last
dollar, his last crust, ungrudgingly.
They began to set the matter before her in a reasonable, practical
light. Henceforward she would be a burden on Mr. Chadsey, who had
already done so much for her. She would have in her parents' care
accomplishments, travel, society, a lovely home, pleasures of all
kinds, and now she was old enough to enjoy them. And they wanted her.
Her father had the lawful right, would have until she was of age.
"I must go home," she said at length. "It is so strange. I must think
it over. And if Uncle Jason wants me----"
"And we want you." Agnes Westbury gave her a tender embrace, as she
wiped the tears from her own eyes. They could not be allowed to run
riot down the cheeks as Laverne's were doing.
She rose unsteadily.
"Have you no word for me, your father?"
She went to the outstretched arms and hid her face on his breast. She
could not love all at once. She could not break Uncle Jason's heart.
"I know it must seem strange, but I think Mr. Chadsey will recognize
my right in you. We must see him----"
"To-morrow, then," she interrupted. "Let me have this afternoon to
consider, to talk."
Her voice trembled from exhaustion. She took a few unsteady steps. The
noon bells began to ring, and again she said she must go.
They importuned her to accompany them to the Folsom House to dinner,
but she would not consent. Then her father insisted that she should
have a hack, but she refused that strenuously. They walked together
some distance.
"Arrangements must be made to-morrow morning," her father said
authoritatively. She felt as if she had been metamorphosed into some
other person. Laverne Westbury! it made her shiver. She liked the old
personality so much better. Must she go away? This was all the real
home she had ever known, this strange, odd, ever-changing Old San
Francisco. Why, over here there was a row of tents when they first
came. And the queer little one-room and two-room adobe houses, and the
tangled-up streets that ended at some one's house. How plainly she
could see it all!
She began to climb the hill wearily. Then some one came to meet her,
helped her tenderly over the rough places. They did not pause at the
house, but took the winding path up to the pine tree that grew more
beautiful every year, with its shining needles and gray-green, fuzzy
buds, almost like little kittens rolling and tumbling in the wind.
Balder the beautiful was resting here. Here Victor had really said
good-by to her. Why, Victor was in London. And suddenly London seemed
to emerge from the gloom of the Tower, and the execution of King
Charles and a hundred other melancholy reminiscences.
"Laverne!" her uncle began.
"Oh, I know! I know! They both came to school. They told me
everything. But I shall not go. Do you think I could be so ungrateful,
so heartless now in all this trouble? And I love you. It is years of
love between us, and only a few weeks with them. Oh, no, no!"
There was a long silence. A vireo came and sang his merry lilt in the
tree overhead. The fog and a good deal of the smoke had cleared away,
and the sun was shining.
He was very glad of the love. It would comfort him all the rest of the
weary way.
"Listen, child," he said at length, and he went carefully over the
ground. The strongest point of all was that the law would give her to
her father the next four years. And now he would have to start in anew
and make another fortune. "I am not too old," he declared, with a
little pride.
A word had caught her, just as one catches a ball with a chain at
careless throw.
"Four years," she said. "Why, then when I am twenty-one I could come
back. Four years only! Will you be waiting for me? I shall surely
come."
She would be married before that. A pretty young girl with a fortune
was not likely to be left on the bush. He caught at it, too. It would
smooth the way since the parting had to be. He had nothing; Westbury
had it all.
"Oh," she cried impulsively, "I can think how you loved my mother. Was
she happy there at the last with you? But you two should have been
married, and I should have been your child. Why do things, wishes,
events go at cross-purposes?"
Alas! no one could tell. It was one of the great world's mysteries.
Miss Holmes summoned them to dinner presently. She had heard the
story, and though it was hard, they had to admit that the child
belonged to her father while she was under age.
Half the night Laverne thought she would defy them all and stay. Would
her father want to drag her away a prisoner? What was a father's love
like? Wasn't the playing at it better and holier; the sense of loss
somewhere else making it diviner, giving it a yearning that a full
right could never quite embody? She did not like the full right to be
taken, she would rather be coaxed a little and led along. And she
could not positively decide about Mrs. Westbury. Some girls she found
were quite extravagant in their protestations and then forgot. Olive
was one; there was another very sweet girl in school who wanted always
to be caressing the one she liked. Isola was not always demonstrative.
They did have some delightful quiet times. Were not women girls grown
larger and older?
It was strange, Laverne thought, how nearly every one was ranged on
Mr. Westbury's side. The Personettes admired him, Mrs. Folsom
considered him a gentleman, and at that time the term was a
compliment. The schoolgirls envied her the romance and the going
abroad. Even Miss Holmes thought it the right and proper thing to do.
Uncle Jason did not discuss the right, with him there was nothing else
to do.
Other matters troubled him. Property had been queerly held in the
city. There had been squatters, there had been old Mexican deeds,
claims coming up every now and then to be settled with difficulty.
Jason Chadsey had leased the ground and the waterfront when it had
not been very valuable. He had bought one building, erected others. In
a year more the lease would expire. Already large prices had been
offered for it. He could not rebuild, though generous friends had
proffered him any amount of money. He felt unable to take the stir and
struggle for no end, that he could not explain. Like a wounded animal,
he wanted to go off in quiet and seclusion and nurse his hurts. He had
been worsted everywhere, let him give up.
Mrs. Westbury had wisdom enough not to make her claim at all onerous.
There would be plenty of time on the long journey. Every day her old
friends seemed dearer to Laverne. At Oaklands they bewailed the
separation, but recognized its rightfulness, its necessity. To Isola
it was a joy that she would see Victor, and she sent no end of
messages.
Mrs. Savedra said to Miss Holmes, "If you desire to make a change, we
shall be more than glad to have you."
David Westbury drove his wife and pretty daughter about with a proud,
satisfied air. Agnes shopped for her, "just enough to make her
presentable," she said when Laverne protested. But, after all, the
parting was very hard.
"You must not come and see me off, Uncle Jason." She could not
renounce the dear, familiar name. "If you did, I should give one wild
leap and land on the wharf, and you would have to keep me. Four
years--it's a long, long while, and there will be room for a great
many heartaches in it, but one day they will be healed."
He obeyed her, and did not come. There were many friends who did. So
she went sailing out of the Golden Gate on as fair a day as she had
first entered it. Oh, how the sun shone and tipped the waves with
molten gold. Never were skies bluer. Even the rocks, and the clefts,
and the crannies brought out their indescribable colors, browns that
deepened through every shade into purple and black, grays that were
pink and mauve and dun, blues that ran into sapphire, and green and
chrysoprase. Telegraph Hill and the old, time-worn semaphore. Oh,
farewell, farewell, dear old San Francisco!
There was some trouble getting insurance matters straightened up and
paying debts. Jason Chadsey had lost the spring of ambition and life.
He would take a voyage up north with some of the explorers, then he
would think of the next thing. Four years. Oh, no, she would never
return. The bright, laughing, gay world would swallow her up.
Marian Holmes pitied the man profoundly through this time. They had
been excellent, sensible friends. There had been two or three
occasions when she would have married him if he had been really in
love with her. She knew now why his love-day had passed. She enjoyed
her own life, her own neat ways, her liberty. She and Miss Gaines were
still very warm friends, and the latter would have liked her to come
with her.
"I have a fancy to try it at Oaklands, and help Americanize these
charming people, perhaps spoil them. It will be very easy and
delightful. The daughter will be a rather curious study. If she were
poor, she would have a fortune in her voice. She has quite a gift of
poetry. I shall try to keep her from morbidness and a convent, now
that she has lost her friend. And her mother wants her fitted for
marriage. How these foreigners harp on that!" laughing a little.
Laverne Westbury cried herself to sleep many a night, though in the
daytime she took a warm interest in all about her, and tried to be
agreeable, tried to draw near to her father. He was proud of her
prettiness, of her refined ways, the delicacy that had come down to
her from the New England strain. It was English, and she would "take"
over there. Then he was glad to have Agnes so happy. It was like a
girl with her first doll. Often Laverne would rather have been left
alone, but she tried not to be ungracious.
They crossed the Isthmus, quite a new experience. They went up to
Washington, where David Westbury had an excellent scheme to exploit
that did get taken up afterward. Then to Liverpool. The little girl
never dreamed there would come a time when one could cross the
continent in a week, the ocean in another, and her father's
expectations seemed quite wild to her.
There was a visit over to Paris. Eugénie was at the height of her
popularity, but now she had to take a little pains with her beauty.
Still she was the mother of a future Emperor, she was a favorite
daughter of the Church, she set the fashions and the manners of the
day and did it most admirably.
It was not possible for a girl to be unhappy or cry herself to sleep
amid such charming surroundings. Her French was very useful, she had
been so in the habit of using it at home that she did not take it up
awkwardly.
Then they must go to London and get settled. They would have a real
home, an attractive place where they could entertain. Mr. Westbury
would be away a good deal on flying trips, and now he would not mind
leaving his wife with her pleasant companion. He really grew fond of
Laverne in a proud sort of way. He liked women to have attractions. He
was not jealous, he had found his wife too useful to spoil it by any
petty captiousness.
Laverne was really amazed. A simple little home, Mrs. Westbury had
said, but it seemed to her quite grand. A pretty court, the house
standing back a little, a plot of flowers and some vines, a spacious
hall with rooms on both sides, a large drawing room, smaller
delightful apartments, sleeping and dressing rooms upstairs, a man and
several maids, and a carriage kept on livery.
On one side of the hall were an office and a smoking room devoted to
the gentlemen who called on business, and there were many of them, but
they did not disturb the ladies.
Some old friends came to welcome Mrs. Westbury back, and this was Miss
Westbury, who had been at school in the "States" while they were
travelling about, and now would remain permanently with them. Mrs.
Westbury sent out cards for a Sunday reception and presented her
daughter to the guests. She was something delightfully fresh and new,
a pretty, modest girl who might have been reared in any English
family, and who was not handsome enough to shine down the daughters of
other mammas.
It was her very naturalness that proved her greatest charm. And Mrs.
Westbury found she had not made any mistake in desiring her. Young men
sought her favor again. Older men lingered for a bit of bright talk.
Laverne felt at times as if she were in an enchanted world. How could
youth remain blind to the delight?
Then all the wonderful journeys about to famous places, art galleries,
concerts, drives in the parks. It seemed as if there was no end to the
money. Since prosperity had dawned upon David Westbury he had made it
a rule never to want twice for a thing be it indulgence of any
reasonable sort, once when he had, and once when he had not. His plans
were working admirably. A golden stream was pouring in and he was in
his element. A few years of this and he could retire on his
competency.
She wrote to Miss Holmes and heard from her the current news about
every one. Olive Personette was well married. Isola had a music
master, an enthusiastic German, who insisted such a voice should not
be hidden out of sight and hearing. Her father had been persuaded to
allow her to sing in St. Mary's Church, recently completed in a very
fine manner, on Ascension Sunday and there had been great enthusiasm
over the unknown singer. Elena was growing up into a bright, eager
girl who rode magnificently and danced to perfection, and was already
drawing crowds of admirers, much to her mother's satisfaction, and
would make amends for Isola's diffidence and distaste of society. Dick
Folsom was still flirting with pretty girls. Nothing had been heard
from Mr. Chadsey, except that he had gone up to the wild Russian
possessions. There was inclosed a letter from Mrs. Hudson, who was a
happy mother, and José was the best of husbands.
Laverne wondered at times how it was possible to hear anything of
Victor Savedra. Girls were so hedged about here, everything they did
inquired into. It would not be proper for her to write, and if she had
an answer Mrs. Westbury would know it. She kept an excellent watch
over her pretty daughter. She was really glad no one heard from Jason
Chadsey. In this round of pleasure Laverne would soon forget that
crude life, and not care to go back to it.
She did find many things to interest. But the Westbury society was not
of the intellectual type. Then there were no stirring questions about
one's own town. London seemed a great agglomeration of small places,
and was to a degree finished. There was no especial Steamer day, there
was no influx of miners, no great bay with its shipping at hand, and,
oh, no great ocean with its multitude of denizens to watch.
Yet, of course, there were other wonderful things, the galleries, with
their pictures and statues, only it seemed to her that people went
quite as much to see each other's fine clothes. There were the
churches, the palaces, the great piles of learning that had trained
Englishmen hundreds of years. Mr. Westbury took them to the House of
Commons to a debate that he was interested in, but she felt a little
disappointed. Somewhere at Oxford was Victor Savedra, but what was one
amid the great multitude?
They went over on the French coast for a summering and Laverne found
herself quite a favorite at once. She was so modest and unassuming.
American tourists had not invaded every corner of Europe. And a young
American who knew French and Spanish people at home, where no one
supposed they could be found, where they looked only for wild Indians,
was indeed an unusual personage.
Mrs. Westbury was proud of her stepdaughter. She was so tractable, it
was so easy to keep her out of the reach of undesirable admirers.
Indeed, she thought she should be jealous when Laverne came to have
lovers.
Then back to London again, visiting at country houses where there were
hunts and much fine riding, pretty evening balls, queer old women,
titled and bejewelled, to whom every one seemed to bow.
And it was while they were at Thorley that Lord Wrexford came home
from the Continent, where he had been trying to live cheaply for a
while. He was five and thirty, very well looking and agreeable, and
though he had taken on some flesh he was not too stout for dancing, so
he was invited out considerably, though he was not esteemed a catch in
the matrimonial market. For it was well known that Wrexford Grange was
nearly covered with mortgages. The old lord was helpless from
paralysis, not able to sign his name, and too infirm in mind to
consent lawfully to any measures looking to the disposal of the old
place. Indeed, his death was looked for almost any time.
He came with a purpose beside dancing. A friend had said: "See if
Westbury can't do something for you, or put you in a way to help
yourself. He has some companies under way that are simply coining
money."
"Why, I thought he went to America."
"He did and has been back a year perhaps. Lord Elsden is in one
company. It has something to do with quicksilver, and there's a gold
mine. You used to be quite cronies."
"Yes, he was a good fellow. He helped me out of one difficulty."
So he went to Thorley Wold not only to dance, but the day after the
ball he took David Westbury over to Wrexford Grange and they went
through papers and debts, some to the Jews that had been ruinous and
were now pressing.
"You see," the younger man said, "if I stood alone I should let the
place go. You must know of chances to make money out there in the new
countries. I'd start off to-morrow if I could, and hunt up a gold
mine."
"They are not always to be found," smiling with a touch of shrewdness.
"And mining isn't just the thing for----"
"A scion of nobility. What did I read the other day?--some lucky
fellow unearthed a nugget worth thousands."
"Yes--that does happen," nodding rather incredulously. "Well, if you
want me to, I will take these papers to London with me and see what I
can do for you. It's a fine old estate."
"And nothing to keep it on. Oh, I shall get out of it fast enough when
the poor old Governor is gone. It's a good thing he's past worrying
over it, or knowing it, for that matter."
So they returned to Thorley in time for dinner, and in the small dance
that evening among the house guests, he took Laverne Westbury out
twice, and heard part of her story.
Mrs. Westbury did not think particularly of the matter until Lord
Wrexford had been at the house several times and paid her some marked
attention, invited her and her daughter to visit Grosvenor Gallery and
see an especially handsome portrait, the work of a friend of his who
was coming rapidly up to fame.
"The fur on her wrap is so beautifully done that it seems as if you
might blow it about with a breath. And she is an extremely handsome
woman, was one of the court beauties a few years ago."
Mrs. Westbury was very much pleased with her escort. A title did go
some distance in her favor, though she never made any vulgar snatch at
it.
"What about that Lord Wrexford?" she asked of her husband one of the
evenings they happened to be alone.
He looked up from the stock list he was going over.
"The man or the estate?" with a short, rather brusque laugh.
"Well--both." Her smile might have been that of an arch conspirator. A
sudden thought occurred to him. There were many business proffers made
to him in these days.
"He's trying to stave off some business until his father has gone. He
was willing to cut off the entail, but the question arose as to
whether his father was capable, and the lawyers declare he is not.
Some parties are to bring suit unless certain claims are met. The
indebtedness is enough to swallow up the whole thing. A fine old
estate, too."
"It is a pity the title cannot go with it," she remarked longingly,
with a meaning look.
"The young man can," and he laughed.
"I wonder some one hasn't----" and she made a suggestive pause.
"He might marry the daughter of a rich tradesman, I suppose. He is
really a better class fellow, and would shrink from a lot of vulgar
relations. Most of these Commoners have such large families, and the
other class seldom have fortunes for their daughters. The Jews will
get the estate in the end, I think, and I am really sorry for him."
"And he wants some help from you?"
"To tide over the present, he imagines. But it will be for all time.
Now, if you want a handsome estate right in among good old families.
You know we heard about it at Thorley. It wouldn't be a bad
speculation if one wanted to live there. It's not such a great
distance from London."
"If one could buy the title," and she sighed.
He gave a short laugh and then returned to his list.
She leaned back in her luxurious chair and dreamed. They really had
something wherewith to purchase the title.