CHAPTER NINE - THE DOWNFALL OF HOPE

It was on a Sat.u.r.day about the middle of May that Jack came to town, his mind well braced with love and arguments, and his main thoughts being that when he returned something would be settled.

It was a beautiful day, warm and sunny, and at five in the afternoon both of the drawing-room windows of Mrs. Rosscott's house were wide open, and the lace curtains were taking the breeze like little sails.

Just as Jack mounted the steps, the door opened, and a plainly dressed, unattractive-looking man was let out. The servant who did the letting out saw Jack and let him in without closing the door between the egress of the one and the ingress of the other. So he entered without ringing, and, as he was very well known and intensely popular with all of Mrs. Rosscott's servants, the man invited him to walk up unannounced, since he himself was just "bringing in the tea."

Jack went upstairs, and because the carpet was of thickly piled velvet and his boots were the boots of a well-shod gentleman, he made no noise whatever in the so doing.

There were double parlors above stairs in the domicile which Burnett's sister had taken until July, and they were furnished in the most correct and trying mode of Louis XIV. The chairs were gilt and very uncomfortable.

The ornaments were all straight up and down and made in such shapes that there was no place to flick off cigarette ashes anywhere. Nothing could be pulled up to anything else and there was not a single good place to rest one's elbows anywhere. The only saving grace in the situation was that after five minutes or so Mrs. Rosscott invariably suggested removal to the library which lay beyond-a very different species of apartment where no mode at all prevailed except the terrible _demode_ thing known as comfort.

To prevent her visitors, when seated (for the five minutes aforementioned) amid the correct carving of French art, from looking longingly through at the easy-chairs of American manufacture, Mrs. Rosscott had ordered that the blue velvet portieres which hung between should never be pushed aside, and it was owing to this order that Jack, entering the drawing-room, heard voices, but could not see into the library beyond. Also it was owing to this order that those in the library could not see or hear Jack.

The result was that the young man, finding the drawing-room unoccupied, was just crossing toward the blue velvet curtains, intending to wait in the library until the returning servant should advise him of the whereabouts of his mistress, when he was stopped by suddenly hearing a voice-her voice-crying (and laughing at the same time)-

"Kisses barred! Kisses barred!"

It may be understood that had Mrs. Rosscott known that anyone was within hearing she certainly would never have made any such speech, and it may be further understood that, had whoever was with her, also mistrusted the close propinquity of another man, he would never have replied (as he did reply):

"Certainly," the same being spoken in a most calm and careless tone.

Jack, the eavesdropper, stood transfixed at the voices and speeches, and forgot every other consideration in the overwhelming sickness of soul which overcame him that instant. All his other soul-sicknesses were trifles compared to this one, and the world-his world-their world-seemed to revolve and whirl and turn upside down, as he steadied himself against a spindle-legged cabinet and felt its spindle-legs trembling in sympathy with his own.

"Darling," said Holloway, a second or two later (and this time his voice was not calm and careless, but deep and impa.s.sioned), "the letter was very sweet, and if you knew how I longed to take the tired little girl to my bosom and comfort her troubles, and replace them by joys!"

"Will that day ever come, do you think?" Mrs. Rosscott answered, in low tones, which nevertheless were most painfully clear and distinct in the next room.

"It must," Holloway replied, "just as surely as that I hold this dear little hand-"

But Jack never knew more. He had heard enough-more than enough. Four thousand times too much. He turned and went out of the rooms, back down the stairs and out of the door, closed it noiselessly behind him, and found himself in a world which, although bright and sunny to all the rest of mankind, had turned dark, lonely, and cheerless to him.

At first he hardly knew what to do with himself, he was so altogether used up by the discovery just made. He drifted up and down some unknown streets for an hour or two-or stood still on corners-he never was very sure which.

And then at last he went downtown and took a drink in a half-dazed way; and because it was quite two months since his last indulgence, its suggestion was potent.

The pity-or rather, the apparent pity-of what followed!

Burnett was Sundaying at the ancestral castle; and Burnett wasn't the warning sort, anyhow. He was always tow and pitch for any species of flame. So his absence counted for nothing in the crisis.

And what ensued was a crisis-a crisis with a vengeance.

That tear upon which Aunt Mary's nephew went was something lurid and awful. It lasted until Monday, and then its owner returned to college, as ill of body and as embittered of spirit as it was in him to be. The lightsome devil who had ruled him up to his meeting with Mrs. Rosscott resumed its sway with terrible force. The authorities showed a tendency to patience because young Denham had appeared to reform lately and had been working hard; but young Denham felt no thankful sentiments for their leniency, and proved his position shortly.

There was a man named Tweedwell whom circ.u.mstances threw directly in the path of destruction. Tweedwell was an inoffensive mortal who was studying for the ministry. He was progressive in his ideas, and believed that a clergyman, to hold a great influence, should know his world. He thought that knowledge of the world was to be gained by skirting the outside edge of every species of worldliness. The result of this course of action was not what it should have been, for Tweedwell was an easy mark for all who wanted fun, and the consciousness of his innocence so little accelerated the pace at which he got out of the way that he was always being called to account for what he hadn't done.

The Sat.u.r.day night after his Sat.u.r.day in town, Jack concocted a piece of deviltry which was as dangerous as it was foolish. The result was that an explosion took place, and the author of the gun-powder plot had all the skin on both hands blistered. Burnett, in escaping, fell and broke his collarbone and two ribs. The house in which the affair took place caught fire, and was badly damaged. And Tweedwell was arrested on the strongest kind of circ.u.mstantial evidence, and had to answer for the whole.

Naturally, in the investigation that followed, the two who were guilty had to confess or see the candidate for the ministry disgraced forever.

The result of their confession was that Burnett's father, a jovial, peppery old gentleman-we all know the kind-lost his patience and wrote his son that he'd better not come home again that year. But Aunt Mary lost her temper much more completely and the result, as affecting Jack, was awful.

She might not have acted as she did had the disastrous news arrived either a week later or a week earlier; but it came just in the middle of a discouraging ten days' downpour, which had caused a dam to break and a chain of valuable cranberry bogs to be drowned out for that year. The cranberry bogs were especially dear to their owner's heart.

"Why can't they drain 'em?" she had asked Lucinda, who was particularly nutcracker-like in appearance since her quarantine episode.

"'Pears like they're lower'n everywhere else," Lucinda answered, her words sounding as if she had sharpened them on a grindstone.

Aunt Mary bit her lip and frowned at the rain. She felt mad all the way through, and longed to take it out on someone.

Ten minutes after Joshua arrived with the mail and the mail bore one ominous letter. Joshua felt something was wrong before the fact was a.s.sured.

"She wants the mail," Lucinda said, coming to the door with her hand out as usual.

"She'll get the mail," said Joshua, and as he spoke he gave the seeker after tidings a blood-curdling wink.

"There isn't a telegram in one o' the letters, is there?" Lucinda asked, much appalled by the wink.

"No, there isn't no telegram in none o' the letters," said Joshua.

"Joshua Whittlesey, I do believe you was born to drive saints mad. What _is_ the matter?"

"Nothin' ain't the matter as I know of."

"Then what in Kingdom Come did you wink for?"

"I winked," said Joshua meaningly, "cause I expect it'll be a good while before we'll feel like winkin' again."

Lucinda gave him a look in which curiosity and aggravation fought catch-as-catch-can. Then she turned and went in with the letters.

Aunt Mary was sitting stonily staring at the rain.

"I thought you'd gone to take a drive with Joshua," she said coldly.

"Well, 's long 's you're back I'll be glad to have my mail. Most folks like to get their mail as soon as it comes an' I-Mercy on us!"

It was the letter from the authorities enclosed in one from Mr. Stebbins.

Lucinda stood bolt upright before her mistress.

"What's happened?" she yelled breathlessly, after a few seconds of the direst kind of silence had loaded the atmosphere while the letter was being carefully read.

Then:

"Happened!-" said Aunt Mary, transfixing the terrible typewritten communication with a yet more terrible look of determination.

"Happened!-Well, jus' what I expected 's happened an' jus' what n.o.body expects 'll happen now. Lucinda, you run like you was paid for it and tell Joshua not to unharness. Don't stop to open your mouth. You'll need your breath before you get to the barn. Scurry!"

Lucinda scurried. She splashed and spattered down through the lane that led to Joshua's kingdom with a vigor that was commendable in one of her age.

"She says 'don't unharness,'" she panted, bouncing in through the doorway just as Joshua was slowly and carefully folding the lap-robe in the crease to which it had become habituated.