Sevenoaks Part 25

The proprietor, who had been in the habit of exacting any service from any man or woman in his employ that he desired, was angry. He would have turned every one of them out of the house, if it had not been so inconvenient for him to lose them then. Curses trembled upon his lips, but he curbed them, inwardly determining to have his revenge when the opportunity should arise. The servants saw his eyes, and went back to their work somewhat doubtful as to whether they had made a judicious beginning. They were sure they had not, when, two days afterward, every one of them was turned out of the house, and a new set installed in their places.

He called for Phipps, and Phipps was at the stable. Putting on his hat, he went to bring his faithful servitor of Sevenoaks, and bidding him find a porter in the streets and remove the trunks at Mrs. Belcher's direction, he sat down at the window to watch for a pa.s.sing newsboy. The children came down, cross and half sick with their long ride and their late dinner. Then it came on to rain in a most dismal fas.h.i.+on, and he saw before him a day of confinement and ennui. Without mental resource--unable to find any satisfaction except in action and intrigue--the prospect was anything but pleasant. The house was large, and, on a dark day, gloomy. His humor was not sweetened by noticing evidences of tears on Mrs. Belcher's face. The breakfast was badly cooked, and he rose from it exasperated. There was no remedy but to go out and call upon Mrs. Dillingham. He took an umbrella, and, telling his wife that he was going out on business, he slammed the door behind him and went down the steps.

As he reached the street, he saw a boy scudding along under an umbrella, with a package under his arm. Taking him for a newsboy, he called; "Here, boy! Give me some papers." The lad had so s.h.i.+elded his face from the rain and the house that he had not seen Mr. Belcher; and when he looked up he turned pale, and simply said: "I'm not a newsboy;" and then he ran away as if he were frightened.

There was something in the look that arrested Mr. Belcher's attention.

He was sure he had seen the lad before, but where, he could not remember. The face haunted him--haunted him for hours, even when in the cheerful presence of Mrs. Dillingham, with whom he spent a long and delightful hour. She was rosy, and sweet, and sympathetic in her morning wrapper--more charming, indeed, than he had ever seen her in evening dress. She inquired for Mrs. Belcher and the children, and heard with great good humor his account of his first collision with his New York servants. When he went out from her inspiring and gracious presence he found his self-complacency restored. He had simply been hungry for her; so his breakfast was complete. He went back to his house with a mingled feeling of jollity and guilt, but the moment he was with his family the face of the boy returned. Where had he seen him? Why did the face give him uneasiness? Why did he permit himself to be puzzled by it? No reasoning, no diversion could drive it from his mind. Wherever he turned during the long day and evening that white, scared face obtruded itself upon him. He had noticed, as the lad lifted his umbrella, that he carried a package of books under his arm, and naturally concluded that, belated by the rain, he was on his way to school. He determined, therefore, to watch him on the following morning, his own eyes reinforced by those of his oldest boy.

The dark day pa.s.sed away at last, and things were brought into more homelike order by the wife of the house, so that the evening was cozy and comfortable; and when the street lamps were lighted again and the stars came out, and the north wind sounded its trumpet along the avenue, the spirits of the family rose to the influence.

On the following morning, as soon as he had eaten his breakfast, he, with his boy, took a position at one of the windows, to watch for the lad whose face had so impressed and puzzled him. On the other side of the avenue a tall man came out, with a green bag under his arm, stepped into a pa.s.sing stage, and rolled away. Ten minutes later two lads emerged with their books slung over their shoulders, and crossed toward them.

"That's the boy--the one on the left," said Mr. Belcher. At the same moment the lad looked up, and apparently saw the two faces watching him, for he quickened his pace.

"That's Harry Benedict," exclaimed Mr. Belcher's son and heir. The words were hardly out of his mouth when Mr. Belcher started from his chair, ran down-stairs with all the speed possible within the range of safety, and intercepted the lads at a side door, which opened upon the street along which they were running.

"Stop, Harry, I want to speak to you," said the proprietor, sharply.

Harry stopped, as if frozen to the spot in mortal terror.

"Come along," said Thede Balfour, tugging at his hand, "you'll be late at school."

Poor Harry could no more have walked than he could have flown. Mr.

Belcher saw the impression he had made upon him, and became soft and insinuating in his manner.

"I'm glad to see you, my boy," said Mr. Belcher. "Come into the house, and see the children. They all remember you, and they are all homesick.

They'll be glad to look at anything from Sevenoaks."

Harry was not rea.s.sured: he was only more intensely frightened. A giant, endeavoring to entice him into his cave in the woods, would not have terrified him more. At length he found his tongue sufficiently to say that he was going to school, and could not go in.

It was easy for Mr. Belcher to take his hand, limp and trembling with fear, and under the guise of friendliness to lead him up the steps, and take him to his room. Thede watched them until they disappeared, and then ran back to his home, and reported what had taken place. Mrs.

Balfour was alone, and could do nothing. She did not believe that Mr.

Belcher would dare to treat the lad foully, with the consciousness that his disappearance within his house had been observed, and wisely determined to do nothing but sit down at her window and watch the house.

Placing Harry in a chair, Mr. Belcher sat down opposite to him, and said:

"My boy, I'm very glad to see you. I've wanted to know about you more than any boy in the world. I suppose you've been told that I am a very bad man, but I'll prove to you that I'm not. There, put that ten-dollar gold piece in your pocket. That's what they call an eagle, and I hope you'll have a great many like it when you grow up."

The lad hid his hands behind his back, and shook his head.

"You don't mean to say that you won't take it!" said the proprietor in a wheedling tone.

The boy kept his hands behind him, and shook his head.

"Well, I suppose you are not to blame for disliking me; and now I want you to tell me all about your getting away from the poor-house, and who helped you out, and where your poor, dear father is, and all about it.

Come, now, you don't know how much we looked for you, and how we all gave you up for lost. You don't know what a comfort it is to see you again, and to know that you didn't die in the woods."

The boy simply shook his head.

"Do you know who Mr. Belcher is? Do you know he is used to having people mind him? Do you know that you're here in my house, and that you _must_ mind me? Do you know what I do to little boys when they disobey me? Now, I want you to answer my questions, and do it straight. Lying won't go down with me. Who helped you and your father to get out of the poor-house?"

Matters had proceeded to a desperate pa.s.s with the lad. He had thought very fast, and he had determined that no bribe and no threat should extort a word of information from him. His cheeks grew hot and flushed, his eyes burned, and he straightened himself in his chair as if he expected death or torture, and was prepared to meet either, as he replied:

"I won't tell you."

"Is your father alive? Tell me, you dirty little whelp? Don't say that you won't do what I bid you to do again. I have a great mind to choke you. Tell me--is your father alive?"

"I won't tell you, if you kill me."

The wheedling had failed; the threatening had failed. Then Mr. Belcher a.s.sumed the manner of a man whose motives had been misconstrued, and who wished for information that he might do a kind act to the lad's father.

"I should really like to help your father, and if he is poor, money would do him a great deal of good. And here is the little boy who does not love his father well enough to get money for him, when he can have it and welcome! The little boy is taken care of. He has plenty to eat, and good clothes to wear, and lives in a fine house, but his poor father can take care of himself. I think such a boy as that ought to be ashamed of himself. I think he ought to kneel down and say his prayers. If I had a boy who could do that, I should be sorry that he'd ever been born."

Harry was proof against this mode of approach also, and was relieved, because he saw that Mr. Belcher was baffled. His instincts were quick, and they told him that he was the victor. In the meantime Mr. Belcher was getting hot. He had closed the door of his room, while a huge coal fire was burning in the grate. He rose and opened the door. Harry watched the movement, and descried the grand staircase beyond his persecutor, as the door swung back. He had looked into the house while pa.s.sing, during the previous week, and knew the relations of the staircase to the entrance on the avenue. His determination was instantaneously made, and Mr. Belcher was conscious of a swift figure that pa.s.sed under his arm, and was half down the staircase before he could move or say a word. Before he cried "stop him!" Harry's hand was on the fastening of the door, and when he reached the door, the boy was half across the street.

He had calculated on smoothing over the rough places of the interview, and preparing a better report of the visit of the lad's friends on the other side of the avenue, but the matter had literally slipped through his fingers. He closed the door after the retreating boy, and went back to his room without deigning to answer the inquiries that were excited by his loud command to "stop him."

Sitting down, and taking to himself his usual solace, and smoking furiously for a while, he said: "D---n!" Into this one favorite and familiar expletive he poured his anger, his vexation, and his fear. He believed at the moment that the inventor was alive. He believed that if he had been dead his boy would, in some way, have revealed the fact.

Was he still insane? Had he powerful friends? It certainly appeared so.

Otherwise, how could the lad be where he had discovered him? Was it rational to suppose that he was far from his father? Was it rational to suppose that the lad's friends were not equally the friends of the inventor? How could he know that Robert Belcher himself had not unwittingly come to the precise locality where he would be under constant surveillance? How could he know that a deeply laid plot was not already at work to undermine and circ.u.mvent him? The lad's reticence, determined and desperate, showed that he knew the relations that existed between his father and the proprietor, and seemed to show that he had acted under orders.

Something must be done to ascertain the residence of Paul Benedict, if still alive, or to a.s.sure him of his death, if it had occurred.

Something must be done to secure the property which he was rapidly acc.u.mulating. Already foreign Governments were considering the advantages of the Belcher rifle, as an arm for the military service, and negotiations were pending with more than one of them. Already his own Government, then in the first years of its great civil war, had experimented with it, with the most favorable results. The business was never so promising as it then appeared, yet it never had appeared so insecure.

In the midst of his reflections, none of which were pleasant, and in a sort of undefined dread of the consequences of his indiscretions in connection with Harry Benedict, the bell rang, and Mr. and Mrs. Talbot were announced. The factor and his gracious lady were in fine spirits, and full of their congratulations over the safe removal of the family to their splendid mansion. Mrs. Talbot was sure that Mrs. Belcher must feel that all the wishes of her heart were gratified. There was really nothing like the magnificence of the mansion. Mrs. Belcher could only say that it was all very fine, but Mr. Belcher, finding himself an object of envy, took great pride in showing his visitors about the house.

Mrs. Talbot, who in some way had ascertained that Mrs. Dillingham had superintended the arrangement of the house, said, in an aside to Mrs.

Belcher: "It must have been a little lonely to come here and find no one to receive you--no friend, I mean."

"Mrs. Dillingham was here," remarked Mrs. Belcher, quietly.

"But she was no friend of yours."

"No; Mr. Belcher had met her."

"How strange! How very strange!"

"Do you know her well?"

"I'm afraid I do; but now, really, I hope you won't permit yourself to be prejudiced against her. I suppose she means well, but she certainly does the most unheard-of things. She's a restless creature--not quite right, you know, but she has been immensely flattered. She's an old friend of mine, and I don't join the hue and cry against her at all, but she does such imprudent things! What did she say to you?"

Mrs. Belcher detected the spice of pique and jealousy in this charitable speech, and said very little in response--nothing that a mischief-maker could torture into an offense.

Having worked her private pump until the well whose waters she sought refused to give up its treasures, Mrs. Talbot declared she would no longer embarra.s.s the new house-keeping by her presence. She had only called to bid Mrs. Belcher welcome, and to a.s.sure her that if she had no friends in the city, there were hundreds of hospitable hearts that were ready to greet her. Then she and her husband went out, waved their adieus from their snug little coupe, and drove away.

The call had diverted Mr. Belcher from his somber thoughts, and he summoned his carriage, and drove down town, where he spent his day in securing the revolution in his domestic service, already alluded to, in talking business with his factor, and in making acquaintances on 'Change.

"I'm going to be in the middle of this thing, one of those days," said he to Talbot as they strolled back to the counting-room of the latter, after a long walk among the brokers and bankers of Wall street. "If anybody supposes that I've come here to lie still, they don't know me.

They'll wake up some fine morning and find a new hand at the bellows."