Kennedy Square Part 48

He caught her again in his arms, kissed her for the hundredth time, and then suddenly relaxing his hold asked in a.s.sumed alarm: "And what about your father? What do you think he will say? He always thought me a madcap scapegrace--didn't he?" The memory brought up no regret. He didn't care a rap what the Honorable Prim thought of him.

"Yes--he thinks so now," she echoed, wondering how anybody could have formed any such ideas of her Harry.

"Well, he will get over it when I talk with him about his coffee people.

Some of his agents out there want looking after."

"Oh!--how lovely, my precious; talking coffee will be much pleasanter than talking me!--and yet we have got to do it somehow when he comes home."

And down went her head again, she nestling the closer as if terrified at the thought of the impending meeting; then another kiss followed--dozens of them--neither of them keeping count, and then--and then--...................................

And then--Ben tapped gently and announced that dinner was served, and Harry stared at the moon-faced dial and saw that it was long after two o'clock, and wondered what in the world had become of the four hours that had pa.s.sed since he had rushed down from his uncle's and into Kate's arms.

And so we will leave them--playing housekeeping--Harry pulling out her chair, she spreading her dainty skirts and saying "Thank you, Mr.

Rutter--" and Ben with his face in so broad a grin that it got set that way--Aunt Dinah, the cook, having to ask him three times "Was he gwineter hab a fit" before he could answer by reason of the chuckle which was suffocating him.

And now as we must close the door for a brief s.p.a.ce on the happy couple--never so happy in all their lives--it will be just as well for us to find out what the mischief is going on at the club--for there is something going on--and that of unusual importance.

Everybody is out on the front steps. Old Bowdoin is craning his short neck, and Judge Pancoast is saying that it is impossible and then instatly changing his mind, saying: "By jove it is!"--and Richard Horn and Warfield and Murdoch are leaning over the balcony rail still unconvinced and old Harding is pounding his fat thigh with his pudgy hand in ill-concealed delight.

Yes--there is no doubt of it--hasn't been any doubt of it since the judge shouted out the glad tidings which emptied every chair in the club: Across the park, beyond the rickety, vine-covered fence and close beside the Temple Mansion, stands a four-in-hand, the afternoon sun flas.h.i.+ng from the silver mountings of the harness and glinting on the polished body and wheels of the coach. Then a crack of the whip, a wind of the horn, and they are off--the leaders stretching the traces, two men on the box, two grooms in the rear. Hurrah! Well, by thunder, who would have believed it--that's Temple inside on the back seat! "There he is waving his hand and Todd is with him. And yes! Why of course it's Rutter! See him clear that curb! Not a man in this county can drive like that but Talbot."

Round they come--the colonel straight as a whip--dusty-brown overcoat, flowers in his b.u.t.tonhole--bell-crowned hat, brown driving gloves--perfectly appointed, even if he is a trifle pale and half blind.

More horn--a long joyous note now, as if they were heralding the peace of the world, the colonel bowing like a grand duke as he pa.s.ses the a.s.sembled crowd--a gathering of the reins together, a sudden pull-up at Seymours', everybody on the front porch--Kate peeping over Harry's shoulder--and last and best of all, St. George's cheery voice ringing out:

"Where are you two sweethearts!" Not a weak note anywhere; regular fog-horn of a voice blown to help s.h.i.+pwrecked mariners.

"All aboard for Moorlands, you turtle-doves--never mind your clothes, Kate--nor you either, Harry. Your father will send for them later. Up with you."

"All true, Harry," called back the colonel from the top of the coach (n.o.body alighted but the grooms--there wasn't time--) "Your mother wouldn't wait another hour and sent me for you, and Teackle said St.

George could go, and we bundled him up and brought him along and you are all going to stay a month. No, don't wait a minute, Kate; I want to get home before dark. One of my men will be in with the carryall and bring out your mammy and your clothes and whatever you want. Your father is away I hear, and so n.o.body will miss you. Get your heavy driving coat, my dear; I brought one of mine in for Harry--it will be cold before we get home. Matthew, your eyes are better than mine, get down and see what the devil is the matter with that horse. No, it's all right--the check-rein bothered him."

And so ended the day that had been so happily begun, and the night was no less joyful with the mother's arms about her beloved boy and Kate on a stool beside her and Talbot and St. George deep in certain vintages--or perhaps certain vintages deep in Talbot and St.

George--especially that particular and peculiar old Madeira of 1800, which his friend Mr. Jefferson had sent him from Monticello, and which was never served except to some such distinguished guest as his highly esteemed and well-beloved friend of many years, St. George Wilmot Temple of Kennedy Square.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

It would be delightful to describe the happy days at Moorlands during St. George's convalescence, when the love-life of Harry and Kate was one long, uninterrupted, joyous dream. When mother, father, and son were again united--what a meeting was that, once she got her arms around her son's neck and held him close and wept her heart out in thankfulness!--and the life of the old-time past was revived--a life softened and made restful and kept glad by the lessons all had learned.

And it would be more delightful still to carry the record of these charming hours far into the summer had not St. George, eager to be under his own roof in Kennedy Square, declared he could stay no longer.

Not that his welcome had grown less warm. He and his host had long since unravelled all their difficulties, the last knot having been cut the afternoon the colonel, urged on by Harry's mother--his disappointment over his sons's coldness set at rest by her pleadings--had driven into town for Harry in his coach, as has been said, and swept the whole party, including St. George, out to Moorlands.

Various unrelated causes had brought about this much-to-be-desired result, the most important being the news of the bank's revival, which Harry, in his mad haste to overtake Kate, had forgotten to tell his uncle, and which St. George learned half an hour later from Pawson, together with a full account of what the colonel had done to bring about the happy result--a bit of information which so affected Temple that, when the coach with the colonel on the box had whirled up, he, weak as he was, had struggled to the front door, both hands held out, in welcome.

"Talbot--old fellow," he had said with a tear in his voice, "I have misunderstood you and I beg your pardon. You've behaved like a man, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart!"

At which the stern old aristocrat had replied, as he took St. George's two hands in his: "Let us forget all about it, St. George. I made a d.a.m.ned fool of myself. We all get too c.o.c.ky sometimes."

Then there had followed--the colonel listening with bated breath--St.

George's account of Kate's confession and Harry's sudden exit, Rutter's face brightening as it had not done for years when he learned that Harry had not yet returned from the Seymours', the day's joy being capped by the arrival of Dr. Teackle, who had given his permission with an "All right--the afternoon is fine and the air will do Mr. Temple a world of good," and so St. George was bundled up and the reader knows the rest.

Later on--at Moorlands of course--the colonel, whose eyes were getting better by the day and Gorsuch whose face was now one round continuous smile, got to work, and had a heart-to-heart--or rather a pocket-to-pocket talk--which was quite different in those days from what it would be now--after which both Kate and Harry threw to the winds all thoughts of Rio and the country contiguous thereto, and determined instead to settle down at Moorlands. And then a great big iron door sunk in a brick vault was swung wide and certain leather-bound books were brought out--and particularly a sum of money which Harry duly handed over to Pawson the next time he drove to town--(twice a week now)--and which, when recounted, balanced to a cent the total of the bills which Pawson had paid three years before, with interest added, a list of which the attorney still kept in his private drawer with certain other valuable papers tied with red tape, marked "St. G. W. T." And still later on--within a week--there had come the news of the final settlement of the long-disputed lawsuit with St. George as princ.i.p.al residuary legatee--and so our long-suffering hero was once more placed upon his financial legs: the only way he could have been placed upon them or would have been placed upon them--a fact very well known to every one who had tried to help him, his philosophy being that one dollar borrowed is two dollars owed--the difference being a man's self-respect.

And it is truly marvellous what this change in his fortunes accomplished. His slack body rounded out; his sunken cheeks plumped up until every crease and crack were gone, his color regained its freshness, his eyes their brilliancy; his legs took on their old-time spring and lightness--and a wonderful pair of stand-bys, or stand-ups, or stand-arounds they were as legs go--that is legs of a man of fifty-five.

And they were never idle, these legs: there was no sitting cross-legged in a chair for St. George: he was not constructed along those lines.

Hardly a week had pa.s.sed before he had them across Spitfire's mate; had ridden to hounds; danced a minuet with Harry and Kate; walked half-way to Kennedy Square and back--they thought he was going to walk all the way and headed him off just in time; and best of all--(and this is worthy of special mention)--had slipped them into the lower section of a suit of clothes--and these his own, although he had not yet paid for them--the colonel having liquidated their cost. These trousers, it is just as well to state, had arrived months before from Poole, along with a suit of Rutter's and the colonel had forwarded a draft for the whole amount without examining the contents, until Alec had called his attention to the absurd width of the legs--and the ridiculous spread of the seat. My Lord of Moorlands, after the scene in the Temple Mansion, dared not send them in to St. George, and they had accordingly lain ever since on top of his wardrobe with Alec as chief of the Moth Department.

St. George, on his arrival, found them folded carefully and placed on a chair--Todd chief valet. Whereupon there had been a good-natured row when our man of fas.h.i.+on appeared at breakfast rigged out in all his finery, everybody clapping their hands and saying how handsome he looked--St. George in reply denouncing Talbot as a brigand of a Brummel who had stolen his clothes, tried to wear them, and then when out of fas.h.i.+on thrown them back on his hands.

All these, and a thousand other delightful things, it would, I say, be eminently worth while to dilate upon--(including a series of whoops and hand-springs which Todd threw against the rear wall of the big kitchen five seconds after Alec had told him of the discomfiture of "dat red-haided gemman," and of Ma.r.s.e Harry's good fortune)--were it not that certain mysterious happenings are taking place inside and out of the Temple house in Kennedy Square--happenings exciting universal comment, and of such transcendent importance that the Scribe is compelled, much against his will--for the present installment is entirely too short--to confine their telling to a special chapter.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

For some time back, then be it said, various strollers unfamiliar with the neighbors or the neighborhood of Kennedy Square, poor benighted folk who knew nothing of the events set down in the preceding chapters, had nodded knowingly to each other or shaken their pates deprecatingly over the pa.s.sing of "another old landmark."

Some of these had gone so far as to say that the cause could be found in the fact that Lawyer Temple had run through what little money his father and grandmother had left him; additional wise-acres were of the opinion that some out-of-town folks had bought the place and were trying to prop it up so it wouldn't tumble into the street, while one, more facetious than the others, had claimed that it was no wonder it was falling down, since the only new thing Temple had put upon it was a heavy mortgage.

The immediate neighbors, however,--the friends of the house--had smiled and pa.s.sed on. They had no such forebodings. On the contrary nothing so diverting--nothing so enchanting--had happened around Kennedy Square in years. In fact, when one of these humorists began speaking about it, every listener heard the story in a broad grin. Some of the more hilarious even nudged each other in the waist-coats and ordered another round of toddies--for two or three, or even five, if there were that number of enthusiasts about the club tables. When they were asked what it was all about they invariably shook their heads, winked, and kept still--that is, if the question were put by some one outside the magic circle of Kennedy Square.

All the general public knew was that men with bricks in hods had been seen staggering up the old staircase with its spindle banisters and mahogany rail; that additional operatives had been discovered clinging to the slanting roof long enough to pa.s.s up to further experts grouped about the chimneys small rolls of tin and big bundles of s.h.i.+ngles; that plasterers in white caps and ap.r.o.ns, with mortar-boards in one hand and trowels in the other, had been seen c.h.i.n.king up cracks; while any number of painters, carpenters, and locksmiths were working away for dear life all over the place from Aunt Jemima's kitchen to Todd's bunk under the roof.

In addition to all this curious wagons had been seen to back up to the curb, from which had been taken various odd-looking bundles; these were laid on the dining-room floor, a collection of paint pots, brushes, and wads of putty being pushed aside to give them room--and with some haste too, for every one seemed to be working overtime.

As to what went on inside the mansion itself not the most inquisitive could fathom: no one being permitted to peer even into Pawson's office, where so large a collection of household goods and G.o.ds were sprawled, heaped, and hung, that it looked as if there had been a fire in the neighborhood, and this room the only shelter for miles around. Even Pawson's law books were completely hidden by the overflow and so were the tables, chairs, and shelves, together with the two wide window-sills.

Nor did it seem to matter very much to the young attorney as to how or at what hours of the day or night these several articles arrived. Often quite late in the evening--and this happened more than once--an old fellow, pinched and wheezy, would sneak in, uncover a mysterious object wrapped in a square of stringy calico, fumble in his pocket for a sc.r.a.p of paper, put his name at the bottom of it, and sneak out again five, ten, or twenty dollars better off. Once, as late as eleven o'clock, a fattish gentleman with a hooked nose and a positive dialect, a.s.sisted another stout member of his race to slide a very large object from out the tail of a cart. Whereupon there had been an interchange of wisps of paper between Pawson and the fatter of the two men, the late visitors bowing and smiling until they reached a street lantern where they divided a roll of bank-notes between them.

And the delight that Pawson and Gadgem took in it all!--a.s.sorting, verifying, checking off--slapping each other's backs in glee when some doubtful find was made certain, and growing even more excited on the days when Harry and Kate would drive or ride in from Moorlands--almost every day of late--tie the horse and carry-all, or both saddle-horses, to St. George's tree-boxes, and at once buckle on their armor.

This, rendered into common prose, meant that Harry, after a prolonged consultation with Pawson and Gadgem, would shed his outer coat, the spring being now far advanced, blossoms out and the weather warm--and that Kate would tuck her petticoats clear of her dear little feet and go pattering round, her sleeves rolled up as far as they would go, her beautiful arms bare almost to her shoulders--her hair smothered in a brown barege veil to keep out the dust--the most bewitching parlor-maid you or anybody else ever laid eyes on. Then would follow such a carrying up of full baskets and carrying down of empty ones; such a spreading of carpets and rugs; such an arranging of china and gla.s.s; such a placing of andirons, fenders, shovels, tongs, and bellows; hanging of pictures, curtains, and mirrors--old and new; moving in of sofas, chairs, and rockers; making up of beds with fluted frills on the pillows--a silk patchwork quilt on St. George's bed and cotton counterpanes for Jemima and Todd!

And the secrecy maintained by everybody! Pawson might have been stone deaf and entirely blind for all the information you could twist out of him--and a lot of people tried. And as to Gadgem--the dumbest oyster in Cherrystone Creek was a veritable magpie when it came to his giving the precise reason why the Temple Mansion was being restored from top to bottom and why all its old furniture, fittings, and trappings--(brand-new ones when they couldn't be found in the p.a.w.n shops or elsewhere)--were being gathered together within its four walls. When anybody asked Kate--and plenty of people did--she would throw her head back and laugh so loud and so merrily and so musically, that you would have thought all the birds in Kennedy Square park were still welcoming the spring. When you asked Harry he would smile and wink and perhaps keep on whispering to Pawson or Gadgem whose eyes were glued to a list which had its abiding place in Pawson's top drawer.

Outside of these four conspirators--yes, six--for both Todd and Jemima were in it, only a very few were aware of what was really being done.

The colonel of course knew, and so did Harry's mother--and so did old Alec who had to clap his hand over his mouth to keep from snickering out loud at the breakfast table when he accidentally overheard what was going on--an unpardonable offence--(not the listening, but the laughing). In fact everybody in the big house at Moorlands knew, for Alec spread it broadcast in the kitchen and cabins--everybody EXCEPT ST.

GEORGE.

Not a word reached St. George--not a syllable. No one of the house servants would have spoiled the fun, and certainly no one of the great folks. It was only when his visit to Moorlands was over and he had driven into town and had walked up his own front steps, that the true situation in all its glory and brilliancy dawned upon him.