The day after Thanksgiving, when Westover was trying to feel well after
the turkey and cranberry and cider which a lady had given him at a
consciously old-fashioned Thanksgiving dinner, but not making it out
sufficiently to be able to work, he was astonished to receive a visit
from Whitwell.
“Well, sir,” said the philosopher, without giving himself pause for the
exchange of reflections upon his presence in Boston, which might have
been agreeable to him on a less momentous occasion. “It's all up with
Lion's Head.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Westover, with his mind upon the mountain,
which he electrically figured in an incredible destruction.
“She's burnt. Burnt down the day before yist'd'y aft'noon. A'n't hardly
a stick of her left. Ketehed Lord knows how, from the kitchen chimney,
and a high northwest wind blowin', that ca'd the sparks to the barn,
and set fire to that, too. Hasses gone; couldn't get round to 'em; only
three of us there, and mixed up so about the house till it was so late
the critters wouldn't come out. Folks from over Huddle way see the
blaze, and helped all they could; but it wa'n't no use. I guess all we
saved, about, was the flag-pole.”
“But you're all right yourselves? Cynthia.”
“Well, there was our misfortune,” said Whitwell, while Westover's heart
stopped in a mere wantonness of apprehension. “If she'd be'n there,
it might ha' be'n diff'ent. We might ha' had more sense; or she would,
anyway. But she was over to Lovewell stockin' up for Thanksgivin', and I
had to make out the best I could, with Frank and Jombateeste. Why,
that Canuck didn't seem to have no more head on him than a hen. I was
disgusted; but Cynthy wouldn't let me say anything to him, and I d' know
as 't 'ould done any good, myself. We've talked it all over in every
light, ever since; guess we've set up most the time talkin', and nothin'
would do her but I should come down and see you before I took a single
step about it.”
“How--step about what?” asked Westover, with a remote sense of hardship
at being brought in, tempered by the fact that it was Cynthia who had
brought him in.
“Why, that devil,” said Whitwell, and Westover knew that he meant Jeff,
“went and piled on all the insurance he could pile on, before he left;
and I don't know what to do about it.”
“I should think the best thing was to collect the insurance,” Westover
suggested, distractedly.
“It a'n't so easy as what that comes to,” said Whitwell. “I couldn't
collect the insurance; and here's the point, anyway. When a hotel's made
a bad season, and she's fully insured, she's pootty certain to burn
up some time in the winter. Everybody knows that comical devil wanted
lion's Head to burn up so 't he could build new, and I presume there
a'n't a man, woman, or child anywhere round but what believes I set her
on fire. Hired to do it. Now, see? Jeff off in Europe; daytime; no lives
lost; prop'ty total loss 's a clear case. Heigh? I tell you, I'm afraid
I've got trouble ahead.”
Westover tried to protest, to say something in derision or defiance;
but he was shaken himself, and he ended by getting his hat and coat;
Whitwell had kept his own on, in the excitement. “We'll go out and see
a lawyer. A friend of mine; it won't cost you anything.” He added this
assurance at a certain look of reluctance that came into Whitwell's
face, and that left it as soon as he had spoken. Whitwell glanced round
the studio even cheerily. “Who'd ha' thought,” he said, fastening upon
the study which Westover had made of Lion's head the winter before,
“that the old place would 'a' gone so soon?” He did not mean the
mountain which he was looking at, but the hotel that was present to his
mind's eye; and Westover perceived as he had not before that to Whitwell
the hotel and not the mountain was Lion's Head.
He remembered to ask now where Whitwell had left his family, and
Whitwell said that Frank and Cynthia were at home in his own house with
Jombateeste; but he presumed he could not get back to them now before
the next day. He refused to be interested in any of the aspects of
Boston which Westover casually pointed out, but when they had seen the
lawyer he came forth a new man, vividly interested in everything. The
lawyer had been able to tell them that though the insurance companies
would look sharply into the cause of the fire, there was no probability,
hardly a possibility, that they would inculpate him, and he need give
himself no anxiety about the affair.
“There's one thing, though,” Whitwell said to Westover when they got out
upon the street. “Hadn't I ought to let Jeff know?”
“Yes, at once. You'd better cable him. Have you got his address?”
Whitwell had it, and he tasted all the dramatic quality of sending
word to Jeff, which he would receive in Florence an hour after it left
Boston. “I did hope I could ha' cabled once to Jackson while he was
gone,” he said, regretfully, “but, unless we can fix up a wire with the
other world, I guess I shan't ever do it now. I suppose Jackson's still
hangin' round Mars, some'res.”
He had a sectarian pride in the beauty of the Spiritual Temple which
Westover walked him by on his way to see Trinity Church and the Fine
Arts Museum, and he sorrowed that he could not attend a service'
there. But he was consoled by the lunch which he had with Westover at
a restaurant where it was served in courses. “I presume this is what
Jeff's goin' to give 'em at Lion's Head when he gits it goin' again.”
“How is it he's in Florence?” it occurred to Westover to ask. “I thought
he was going to Nice for the winter.”
“I don't know. That's the address he give in his last letter,” said
Whitwell. “I'll be glad when I've done with him for good and all. He's
all kinds of a devil.”
It was in Westover's mind to say that he wished the Whitwells had never
had anything to do with Durgin after his mother's death. He had felt it
a want of delicacy in them that they had been willing to stay on in his
employ, and his ideal of Cynthia had suffered a kind of wound from
what must have been her decision in the matter. He would have expected
something altogether different from her pride, her self-respect. But
he now merely said: “Yes, I shall be glad, too. I'm afraid he's a bad
fellow.”
His words seemed to appeal to Whitwell's impartiality. “Well, I d' know
as I should say bad, exactly. He's a mixture.”
“He's a bad mixture,” said Westover.
“Well, I guess you're partly right there,” Whitwell admitted, with a
laugh. After a dreamy moment he asked: “Ever hear anything more about
that girl here in Boston?”
Westover knew that he meant Bessie Lynde. “She's abroad somewhere, with
her aunt.”
Whitwell had not taken any wine; apparently he was afraid of forming
instantly the habit of drink if he touched it; but he tolerated
Westover's pint of Zinfandel, and he seemed to warm sympathetically to a
greater confidence as the painter made away with it. “There's one thing
I never told Cynthy yet; well, Jombateeste didn't tell me himself till
after Jeff was gone; and then, thinks I, what's the use? But I guess you
had better know.”
He leaned forward across the table, and gave Jombateeste's story of the
encounter between Jeff and Alan Lynde in the clearing. “Now what do you
suppose was the reason Jeff let up on the feller? Of course, he meant
to choke the life out of him, and his just ketchin' sight of
Jombateeste--do you believe that was enough to stop him, when he'd
started in for a thing like that? Or what was it done it?”
Westover listened with less thought of the fact itself than of another
fact that it threw light upon. It was clear to him now that the
Class-Day scrapping which had left its marks upon Jeff's face was with
Lynde, and that when Jeff got him in his power he was in such a fury for
revenge that no mere motive of prudence could have arrested him. In both
events, it must have been Bessie Lynde that was the moving cause; but
what was it that stayed Jeff in his vengeance?
“Let him up, and let him walk away, you say?” he demanded of Whitwell.
Whitwell nodded. “That's what Jombateeste said. Said Jeff said if he let
the feller look back he'd shoot him. But he didn't haf to.”
“I can't make it out,” Westover sighed.
“It's been too much for me,” Whitwell said. “I told Jombateeste he'd
better keep it to himself, and I guess he done so. S'pose Jeff still had
a sneakin' fondness for the girl?”
“I don't know; perhaps,” Westover asserted.
Whitwell threw his head back in a sudden laugh that showed all the work
of his dentist. “Well, wouldn't it be a joke if he was there in Florence
after her? Be just like Jeff.”
“It would be like Jeff; I don't know whether it would be a joke or not.
I hope he won't find it a joke, if it's so,” said Westover, gloomily.
A fantastic apprehension seized him, which made him wish for the moment
that it might be so, and which then passed, leaving him simply sorry for
any chance that might bring Bessie Lynde into the fellow's way again.
For the evening Whitwell's preference would have been a lecture of
some sort, but there was none advertised, and he consented to go with
Westover to the theatre. He came back to the painter at dinner-time,
after a wary exploration of the city, which had resulted not only in
a personal acquaintance with its monuments, but an immunity from its
dangers and temptations which he prided himself hardly less upon. He had
seen Faneuil Hall, the old State House, Bunker Hill, the Public Library,
and the Old South Church, and he had not been sandbagged or buncoed
or led astray from the paths of propriety. In the comfortable sense
of escape, he was disposed, to moralize upon the civilization of great
cities, which he now witnessed at first hand for the first time; and
throughout the evening, between the acts of the “Old Homestead,”
which he found a play of some merit, but of not so much novelty in its
characters as he had somehow led himself to expect, he recurred to the
difficulties and dangers that must beset a young man in coming to a
place like Boston. Westover found him less amusing than he had on his
own ground at Lion's Head, and tasted a quality of commonplace in his
deliverances which made him question whether he had not, perhaps, always
owed more to this environment than he had suspected. But they parted
upon terms of mutual respect and in the common hope of meeting again.
Whitwell promised to let Westover know what he heard of Jeff, but, when
the painter had walked the philosopher home to his hotel, he found a
message awaiting him at his studio from Jeff direct:
Whitwell's despatch received. Wait letter.
“DURGIN.”
Westover raged at the intelligent thrift of this telegram, and at the
implication that he not only knew all about the business of Whitwell's
despatch, but that he was in communication with him, and would be
sufficiently interested to convey Jeff's message to him. Of course,
Durgin had at once divined that Whitwell must have come to him for
advice, and that he would hear from him, whether he was still in Boston
or not. By cabling to Westover, Jeff saved the cost of an elaborate
address to Whitwell at Lion's Head, and had brought the painter in for
further consultation and assistance in his affairs. What vexed him still
more was his own consciousness that he could not defeat this impudent
expectation. He had, indeed, some difficulty with himself to keep from
going to Whitwell's hotel with the despatch at once, and he slept badly,
in his fear that he might not get it to him in the morning before he
left town.
The sum of Jeff's letter when it came, and it came to Westover and not
to Whitwell, was to request the painter to see a lawyer in his behalf,
and put his insurance policies in his hands, with full authority to
guard his interests in the matter. He told Westover where his policies
would be found, and enclosed the key of his box in the Safety Vaults,
with a due demand for Westover's admission to it. He registered his
letter, and he jocosely promised Westover to do as much for him some
day, in pleading that there was really no one else he could turn to. He
put the whole business upon him, and Westover discharged himself of it
as briefly as he could by delivering the papers to the lawyer he had
already consulted for Whitwell.
“Is this another charity patient?” asked his friend, with a grin.
“No,” replied Westover. “You can charge this fellow along the whole
line.”
Before he parted with the lawyer he had his misgivings, and he said: “I
shouldn't want the blackguard to think I had got a friend a fat job out
of him.”
The lawyer laughed intelligently. “I shall only make the usual charge.
Then he is a blackguard.”
“There ought to be a more blistering word.”
“One that would imply that he was capable of setting fire to his
property?”
“I don't say that. But I'm glad he was away when it took fire,” said
Westover.
“You give him the benefit of the doubt.”
“Yes, of every kind of doubt.”