The Log of the Jolly Polly Part 4

"Do you know him?" she demanded. I answered with caution that I had met him.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, "tell me about him!"

I was extremely embarra.s.sed. It was a bad place. About myself I could not say anything pleasant, and behind my back, as it were, I certainly was not going to say anything unpleasant. But Polly relieved me of the necessity of saying anything.

"I don't know any man," she exclaimed fervently, "I would so like to meet!"

It seemed to me that after that the less I said the better. So I told her something was wrong with the engine and by the time I had pretended to fix it, I had led the conversation away from Fletcher Farrell as a novelist to myself as a chauffeur.

The next morning at the hotel, temptation was again waiting for me. This time it came in the form of a letter from my prospective father-in-law.

It had been sent from Cape May to my address in New York, and by my servant forwarded in an envelope addressed to "Frederick Fitzgibbon."

It was what in the world of commerce is called a "follow-up" letter. It recalled the terms of his offer to me, and improved upon them. It made it clear that even after meeting me Mr. Farrell and his wife were still anxious to stand for me as a son. They were good enough to say they had found me a "perfect gentleman." They hoped that after considering their proposition I had come to look upon it with favor.

As his son, Mr. Farrell explained, my annual allowance would be the interest on one million dollars, and upon his death his entire fortune and property he would bequeath to me. He was willing, even anxious, to put this in writing. In a week he would return to Fairharbor when he hoped to receive a favorable answer. In the meantime he enclosed a letter to his housekeeper.

"Don't take anything for granted," he urged, "but go to Fairharbor and present this letter. See the place for yourself. Spend the week there and act like you were the owner. My housekeeper has orders to take her orders from you. Don't refuse something you have never seen!"

This part of the letter made me feel as mean and uncomfortable as a wet hen. The open, almost too open, methods of Mr. Farrell made my own methods appear contemptible. He was urging me to be his guest and I was playing the spy. But against myself my indignation did not last.

A letter, bearing a special delivery stamp which arrived later in the afternoon from Mrs. Farrell turned my indignation against her, and with bitterness. She also had been spying. Her letter read:

The Pinkerton I employed to report on you states that after losing you for a week he located you at New Bedford, that you are living under the name of Fitzgibbon, and that you have made yourself conspicuous by attentions to a young person employed in a shop. This is for me a great blow and disappointment, and I want you to clearly understand Mr.

Farrell's offer is made to you as an unmarried man. I cannot believe your attentions are serious, but whether they are serious or not, they must cease. The detective reports the pair of you are now the talk of Fairharbor. You are making me ridiculous. I do not want a shop-girl for a daughter-in-law and you will either give up her acquaintance or give up Harbor Castle!

I am no believer in ultimatums. In attaining one's end they seldom prove successful. I tore the note into tiny pieces, and defiantly, with Polly in the seat beside me, drove into the open country. At first we picked our way through New Bedford, from the sidewalks her friends waved to her, and my acquaintances smiled. The detective was right. We had indeed made ourselves the talk of the town, and I was determined the talk must cease.

We had reached Ruggles Point when the car developed an illness. I got out to investigate. On both sides of the road were tall hemlocks and through them to the west we could see the waters of Sippican Harbor in the last yellow rays of the sun as it sank behind Rochester. Overhead was the great harvest moon.

Polly had taken from the pocket of the car some maps and guide-books, and while I lifted the hood and was deep in the machinery she was turning them over.

"What," she asked, "is the number of this car? I forget."

As I have said, I was preoccupied and deep in the machinery; that is, with a pair of pliers I was wrestling with a recalcitrant wire.

Unsuspiciously I answered: "Eight-two-eight."

A moment later I heard a sharp cry, and raised my head. With eyes wide in terror Polly was staring at an open book. Without appreciating my danger I recognized it as "Who's Who in Automobiles." The voice of Polly rose in a cry of disbelief.

"Eight-two-eight," she read, "owned by Fletcher Farrell, Hudson Apartments, New York City." She raised her eyes to mine.

"Is that true?" she gasped. "Are you Fletcher Farrell?" I leaned into the car and got hold of her hand.

"That is not important," I stammered. "What is important is this: Will you be Mrs. Fletcher Farrell?"

What she said may be guessed from the fact that before we returned to New Bedford we drove to Fairharbor and I showed her the cottage I liked best. It was the one with the oldest clapboard s.h.i.+ngles, the oldest box hedge, the most fragrant honeysuckles, and a lawn that wet its feet in the surf. Polly liked it the best, too.

By now the daylight had gone, and on the s.h.i.+ps the riding lights were s.h.i.+ning, but s.h.i.+ning sulkily, for the harvest moon filled the world with golden radiance. As we stood on the porch of the empty cottage, in the shadow of the honeysuckles, Polly asked an impossible question. It was:

"How MUCH do you love me?"

"You will never know," I told her, "but I can tell you this: I love you more than a two-thousand-ton yacht, the interest on one million dollars, and Harbor Castle!"

It was a wasteful remark, for Polly instantly drew away.

"What DO you mean?" she laughed.

"Fletcher Farrell of Harbor Castle," I explained, "offered me those things, minus you. But I wanted you."

"I see," cried Polly, "he wanted to adopt you. He always talks of that.

I am sorry for him. He wants a son so badly." She sighed softly, "Poor uncle!"

"Poor WHAT!" I yelled.

"Didn't you know," exclaimed Polly, "that Mrs. Farrell was a Briggs! She was my father's sister."

"Then YOU," I said, "are the relation who was 'too high and mighty'!"

Polly shook her head.

"No," she said, "I didn't want to be dependent."

"And you gave up all that," I exclaimed, "and worked at Hatchardson's, just because you didn't want to be dependent!"

"I like my uncle-in-law very much," explained Polly, "but not my aunt.

So, it was no temptation. No more," she cried, looking at me as though she were proud of me, "than it was to you."

In guilty haste I changed the subject. In other words, I kissed her. I knew some day I would have to confess. But until we were safely married that could wait. Before confessing I would make sure of her first. The next day we announced our engagement and Polly consented that it should be a short one. For, as I pointed out, already she had kept me waiting thirty years. The newspapers dug up the fact that I had once been a popular novelist, and the pictures they published of Polly proved her so beautiful that, in congratulation, I received hundreds of telegrams. The first one to arrive came from Cape May. It read:

My dear boy, your uncle elect sends his heartiest congratulations to you and love to Polly. Don't make any plans until you hear from me--am leaving to-night. FLETCHER FARRELL.

In terror Polly fled into my arms. Even when NOT in terror it was a practice I strongly encouraged.

"We are lost!" she cried. "They will adopt us in spite of ourselves.

They will lock us up for life in Harbor Castle! I don't WANT to be adopted. I want YOU! I want my little cottage!"

I a.s.sured her she should have her little cottage; I had already bought it. And during the two weeks before the wedding, when I was not sitting around Boston while Polly bought clothes, we refurnished it. Polly furnished the library, chiefly with my own books, and "The Log of the JOLLY POLLY." I furnished the kitchen. For a man cannot live on honeysuckles alone. My future uncle-in-law was gentle but firm.

"You can't get away from the fact," he said, "that you will be my nephew, whether you like it or not. So, be kind to an old man and let him give the bride away and let her be married from Harbor Castle."

In her white and green High Flier car and all of her diamonds, Mrs.

Farrell called on Polly and begged the same boon. We were too happy to see any one else dissatisfied; so though we had planned the quietest of weddings, we gave consent. Somehow we survived it. But now we recall it only as that terrible time when we were never alone. For once in the hands of our rich relations the quiet wedding we had arranged became a royal alliance, a Field of the Cloth of Gold, the chief point of attack for the moving-picture men.

The youths who came from New York to act as my ushers informed me that the Ushers' Dinner at Harbor Castle-from which, after the fish course, I had fled--was considered by them the most successful ushers' dinner in their career of crime. My uncle-in-Law also testifies to this. He ought to know. At four in the morning he was a.s.sisting the ushers in throwing the best man and the butler into the swimming-pool.

For our honeymoon he loaned us the yacht. "Take her as far as you like,"

he said. "After this she belongs to you and Polly. And find a better name for her than Harbor Lights. It sounds too much like a stay-at-home.

And I want you two to see the world." I thanked him, and suggested he might rechristen her the JOLLY POLLY.

"That was the name," I pointed out, "of the famous whaler owned by Captain Briggs, your wife's father, and it would be a compliment to Polly, too."

My uncle-in-law-elect agreed heartily; but made one condition: