The Brick Moon and Other Stories Part 13

He must show everything. Well, when the 'Copperhead'

first spoke of it--that was a fortnight ago--papa was really pleased. For he said it would be a good chance to bring out a piece of war history. He said that in our Bureau we had never had any credit for the Rio Grande successes, that they were all our thunder; because THEN he could laugh about this horrid thing. He said the Navy had taken all the b.o.n.e.rs, while we deserved them all. And he said if these horrid 'Copperhead' and 'Argus' and 'Scorpion' people would only publish the vouchers half as freely as they published the charges, we should get a little of the credit that was our due."

"Well, mamma, and what is the trouble now?"

"Why, papa was so sure that he would do nothing until an official call came. But on Monday it got into Congress. That hairy man from the Yellowstone brought in a resolution or something, and the Committee was ordered to inquire. And when the order came down, papa told Mr.

Waltsingham to bring him the papers, and, Matty, the papers were not there!"

"Stolen!" cried Matty, understanding the crisis for the first time.

"Yes--perhaps--or lost--hidden somewhere. You have no idea of the work of those days night work and all that. Many a time your father did not undress for a week."

"And now he must remember where he put a horrid pile of papers, eleven, twelve years ago. Mamma, that pile is stolen. That odious Greenhithe stole it. He lives in Philadelphia now, and he has put up these newspapers to this lie."

Mr. Greenhithe was an underclerk in the Internal Improvement Bureau, who had shown an amount of attention to Miss Matty, which she had disliked and had refused to receive. She had always said he was bad and would come to a bad end, and when he was detected in a low trick, selling stationery which he had stolen from the supply room, and was discharged in disgrace, Matty had said it was good enough for him.

These were her reasons for p.r.o.nouncing at once that he had stolen the vouchers and had started the rumors.

"I do not know. Papa does not know. He hardly tries to guess. He says either way it is bad. If the vouchers are stolen, he is in fault, for he is responsible for the archives; if he cannot produce the vouchers, then all the country is down on him for stealing. I only hope," said poor Mrs. Molyneux, "that they won't say our poor old wagon is a coach and six;" and this time she tried to smile.

And now she had told her story. All last night, while the children were asleep, Mr. Molyneux had been at the office, even till four o'clock in the morning, taking old dusty piles from their lairs and searching for those wretched vouchers. And mamma had been waiting--shall one not say, had been weeping?--here at home. That was the reason poor papa had looked so haggard at breakfast this morning.

This was all mamma had to tell. She had been to the office this morning, but papa would not let her stay. He must see all comers, just as if nothing had happened, was happening, or was going to happen.

Well! Matty did make her mother take off her jacket and her hat and her gloves. She even made her drink a gla.s.s of wine and lie down. And then the poor girl retired to her own room, with such appet.i.te as she might for taking the last st.i.tches in worsted work, for stippling in the lights into drawings, for writing the presentation lines in books, and for doing the thousand little niceties in the way of finis.h.i.+ng touches which she had promised the children to do for them.

Her dominant feeling--yes, it was a dominant pa.s.sion, as she knew--was simply rage against this miserable Greenhithe, this cowardly sneak who was thus taking his revenge upon her, because she had been so cold to him.

Or was it that he made up to her because he was already in trouble at the Office and hoped she would clear him with her father? Either way he was a snake and a scorpion, but he had worked out for himself a terrible revenge. Poor Matty! She tried to think what she could do, how she could help, for that was the habit of her life. But this was now hard indeed. Her mind would not now take that turn. All that it would turn to was to the wretched and worse than worthless question, what punishment might fall on him for such utter baseness and wickedness.

All the same the children must have their lunch, and they must not know that anything was the matter. Oh dear! this concealment was the worst of all!

So they had their lunch. And poor Matty counselled again, and helped again, and took the last st.i.tches, and mended the last breaks, and waited and wondered, and tried to hope, till at five o'clock an office messenger came up with this message.

4.45 P.M.

DEAR MATTY,--I shall not come up to dinner. There is pressing work here. Tell mamma not to sit up for me. I have my key.

I have no chance to get my things for the children.

Will you see to it? Here is twenty dollars, and if you need more let them send in the bill. I had only thought of that jig-saw--was it?--that Horace wants. See that the dear fellow has a good one.

Love to all and ever yours,

PAPA.

"Poor, dear papa," said Matty aloud, shedding tears in spite of herself. "To be thinking of jig-saws and children in all this horrid hunt! As if hunting for anything was not the worst trial of all, always." And at once the brave girl took down her wraps and put on her walking-shoes, that her father's commissions might be met before their six-o'clock dinner. And she determined that first of all she would meet Tom at the station.

At the station she met Tom; that was well. Matty had not been charged to secrecy; that was well. She told him all the story, not without adding her suspicions, and giving him some notion of her rage.

And Tom was angry enough,--there was a crumb of comfort there. But Tom went off on another track. Tom distrusted the Navy Department. He had been long enough at Annapolis to doubt the red tape of the bureaus with which his chiefs had to do. "If the navy had the money, the navy had the vouchers," that was Tom's theory.

He knew a chief clerk in the navy, and Tom was going at once round there.

But Matty held him in check at least for the moment.

Whatever else he did, he must come home first; he must see mamma and he must see the children, and he must have dinner. She had not told him yet how well he looked, and how handsome he was.

But after Tom had seen them he slipped off, pretended he had unfinished preparations to make, and went right to the Department, forced his way in because he was Mr.

Molyneux's son, and found his poor father with Zeigler, the chief clerk, still on this wretched and fruitless overhaul of the old files. Tom stated frankly, in his off-hand, business-like way, what his theory was.

Neither Zeigler nor Tom's father believed in it in the least. Tom knew nothing, they said; the Navy paid the money, but the Navy was satisfied with our receipt, and should be.

Tom continued to say, "If the Navy paid the money the Navy must have the vouchers;" and at last, more to be rid of him than with any hope of the result, Mr. Molyneux let the eager fellow go round to his friend, Eben Ricketts, and see if Eben would not give an hour or two of his Christmas to looking up the thing. Mr. Molyneux even went so far as to write a frank line to Mr. Ricketts, and enclosed a letter which he had had that day from the chairman of the House Committee,--a letter which was smooth enough in the language, but horrible enough in the thing.

Ah me! Had not Ricketts read it all already in the evening "Argus"? He was willing, if he could, to serve.

So he with Tom went round and found the Navy Department messenger, and opened and lighted up the necessary rooms, and they spent three hours of their Christmas there.

Meanwhile Beverly had arrived from Norfolk. He had a frolic with the children, and then called his mother and Matty away from them.

"What in thunder is the matter?" said the poor boy.

And they told him. How could they help telling him?

And so soon as the story was finished, the boy had his coat on and was putting on his boots. He went right down to his father's office, he made old Stratton admit him, and told his father he too had reported for duty.

CHAPTER II

CHRISTMAS MORNING

And at last Christmas morning dawned,--gray enough and grim enough.

In that house the general presenting was reserved for evening after dinner,--when in olden days there had always been a large Christmas-tree lighted and dressed for the children and their little friends. As the children had grown older, and the trees at the Sunday-school and elsewhere had grown larger, the family tree had grown smaller, and on this day was to be simply atypical tree, a little suggestion of a tree, between the front windows; while most of the presents of every sort and kind were to be dispersed--where room could be made for them--in any part of the front parlors. All the grand ceremonial of present-giving was thus reserved to the afternoon of Christmas, because then it was certain papa would be at home, Tom and Beverly would both be ready, and, indeed, as the little people confessed, they themselves would have more chance to be quite prepared.

But none the less was the myth of Santa Claus and the stockings kept up, although that was a business of less account, and one in which the children themselves had no share, except to wonder, to enjoy, and to receive. You will observe that there is a duality in most of the enjoyments of life,--that if you have a long-expected letter from your brother who is in Yokohama, by the same mail or the next mail there comes a letter from your sister who is in Cawnpore. And so it was of Christmas at this Molyneux house. Besides the great wonders, like those wrought out by Aladdin's slave of the lamp, there were the wonders, less gigantic but not less exquisite, of the morning hours, wrought out by the slave of the ring. How this series of wonders came about, the youngest of the children did not know, and were still imaginative enough and truly wise enough not to inquire.

While, then, the two young men and their father were at one or the other Department, now on step-ladders, handing down dusty old pasteboard boxes, now under gaslights, running down long indexes with inquiring fingers and unwinking eyes, Matty and her mother watched and waited till eleven o'clock came, not saying much of what was on the hearts of both, but sometimes just recurring to it, as by some invisible influence,--an influence which would overcome both of them at the same moment. For the mother and daughter were as two sisters, not parted far, even in age, and not parted at all in sympathy. For occupation, they were wrapping up in thin paper a hundred barley dogs, cats, eagles, locomotives, suns, moons, and stars,--with little parcels of nuts, raisins, and figs, large red apples, and bright Florida oranges,--all of which were destined to be dragged out of different stockings at daybreak.

"And now, dear, dear mamma," said Matty, "you will go to bed,--please do, dear mamma." This was said as she compelled the last obstinate eagle to accept his fate and stay in his wrapping-paper, from which he had more than once struggled out, with the instincts of freedom.

"Please do, dear mamma; I will sort these all out, and will be quite sure that each has his own.

At least, let us come upstairs together. I will comb your hair for you; that is one of the little comforts.

And you shall get into bed and see me arrange them, and if I do it wrong you can tell me."

Poor mamma, she yielded to her--as who does not yield, and because it was easier to go upstairs than to stay. And the girl led her up and made herself a toilet woman indeed, and did put her worn-out mamma into bed, and then hurried to the laundry, where she was sure she could find what Diana had been bidden to reserve there--a pair of clean stockings belonging to each member of the family. The youngest children, alas, who would need the most room for their spread-eagles and sugar locomotives, had the smallest feet and legs. But nature compensates for all things, and Matty did not fail to provide an extra pair of her mother's longest stockings for each of "the three," as the youngest were called in the councils of their elders. So a name was printed by Santa Claus on a large red card and pinned upon each receptacle, FLOSSY or LAURA, while all were willing to accept of his bounties contained within, even if they did not recognize yarn or knitting as familiar. Matty hurried back with their treasures. She brought from her own room the large red tickets, already prepared, and then, on the floor by her mother's bedside, a.s.sorted the innumerable parcels, and filled each stocking full.

Dear girl! she had not wrongly guessed. There was just occupation enough, and just little enough, for the poor mother's anxious, tired thought. Matty was wise.

She asked fewer and fewer questions; fewer and fewer she made her journeys to the great high fender, where she pinned all these stiff models of gouty legs. And when the last hung there quietly, the girl had the exquisite satisfaction of seeing that her mother was fast asleep.

She would not leave the room. She turned the gas-light down to a tiny bead. She slipped off her own frock, put on her mother's heavy dressing-gown, lay down quietly by her side without rousing her, and in a little while--for with those so young this resource is well-nigh sure--she slept too.

It was five o'clock when she was wakened by her father's hand. He led her out into his own dressing- room, and before she spoke she kissed him!

She knew what his answer would be. She knew that from his heavy face. But all the same she tried to smile, and she said,

"Found?"