Captivating Mary Carstairs Part 12

_FERRIS STANHOPE_.

The popular author of "Rosamund," etc., who will reopen the old Stanhope cottage near Hunston, New York, and spend the autumn there upon a new novel.

Mr. Stanhope's health has not been good of late, and his physicians have recommended an extended stay in this quiet Hudson River country.

Here was that "Mr. Ferris," whom the young lady of the grocery had coyly saluted; the "Beany," whom the pale young editor had bluntly bidden to leave town; and the literary celebrity whom Miss Mary Carstairs so evidently and so warmly admired. Varney stared at the portrait with a kind of fascination. Now he saw many points of difference between the face of "the popular author" and his own. The resemblance was only general, after all. Still it was undoubtedly strong enough to warrant all kinds of mistakes.

What a very extraordinary sort of thing to have happen!

Suddenly his eye fell upon a penciled line in the white margin above the picture which had at first escaped him:

"On no account leave the yacht till I come back. Vitally important."

Varney pitched the magazine across the deck with an irritated laugh.

Peter--utterly ignorant of how matters stood--attempting to fire off long-distance orders and direct his movements. The splendid gall!

As it chanced, he had no occasion to leave the yacht, either before or after Peter got back. His work was done. He made himself comfortable with morning papers and a novel--not one of Mr. Stanhope's--and began to seek beguilement.

But his reading went forward rather fitfully. There were long intervals when his book, "eleventh printing" though it was, slipped forgotten to his knees, and he sat staring thoughtfully over the sunny water....

Peter failed to keep his promise about returning to the yacht at ten o'clock. In fact, it was four o'clock that afternoon when he arrived, and at that, the manner in which he sprang up the stair indicated him as a man who had but few moments to spare to yachts and that sort of thing.

Varney, at his ease upon the transom, watched his friend's approach with a quizzical eye.

"Greetings, old comrade! How did you leave them all in Hunston?"

Peter, who, truth to tell, had been looking forward to bitter personal denunciation, looked somewhat relieved, and laughed. However, his manner suggested little of hang-dog consciousness of guilt; it was far too absorbed and business-like for that. He dropped down into a chair by Varney and swabbed the back of his neck with a damp-looking handkerchief.

"Larry, who'd have dreamed last night that we were parting for all this time?"

"Well, not I for one."

"Awfully sorry about it all, and I know you'll think I'm acting like a funny kind of helper. I hadn't the faintest idea of bottling you up on the yacht all day like this, but--well, you might say, Larry, that a man couldn't help it to save his life. I certainly meant to be back by the time you had finished breakfast and explain the whole situation to you--there are a deuced lot of complications, you know--but one thing led right on to another and--good Lord! I couldn't find a minute with a fine-tooth comb."

"It's all right, statesman. You don't hear me making any complaints. All I ask is a little _resume_ of what you've been doing since you so cleverly lost me. In Reform to the ears, I suppose?"

Peter again looked rather surprised at his chief's easy indifference.

"You want that part of it first? Well," he said rapidly, "I've been trying to do four days' work for Reform in one, and a pinch it's been to make both ends meet, I can tell you. At it practically without a break since I left you last night. J. Pinkney took me right in and bared his soul. Said he was down and out and beaten to a fluid. A clever little devil fast enough, but no more idea of how to play the game than a baby baboon. When he caught on to what I wanted to do for him, he would have fallen on my neck except that he isn't that kind. That was this morning.

I worked out my idea in the still watches: couldn't sleep for thinking of it. It just means this: if my plans carry through Hare gets the biggest hearing to-night that this old town can give. And I think they'll carry all right. You wouldn't be interested in the details. Now this other thing--"

"Oh, but I would, though! Give me at least a peep behind the scenes before you dash on. What about these plans of yours?"

Peter laid down the newspaper with which he had been busily fanning himself. A sudden light came into his eyes.

"I'll tell you just how it all happened," he said in an eager voice.

"Only I'll have to hurry, as I'm due back in town right away--that is, of course, unless you should need me for anything. Well, I left Hare last night after only a couple of hours' talk, listening to the same old story of boss-rule, and giving him, if I do say it, some cracking good practical pointers. By the way, we were interrupted at that. Hadn't got started before Hare remembered that he'd promised to bring some girl home from somewhere, and dragged me off a mile down the road, only to find out afterwards that she'd gone home with somebody else. Made me tired. I left him about ten o'clock and started down Main Street for the river, meaning to come straight back here. But as I was footing it along, thinking over my talk with Hare and attending to my own business, who should brace me but that pale-faced rascal we saw playing dead in the rowboat. This time the _poseur_ was lying flat on some packing-cases in front of a store, and who do you suppose he turned out to be?"

"The brains of the machine," said Varney.

He told briefly of his own meeting with Coligny Smith at the same spot two hours earlier, and of the editor's stagey warnings.

"Exactly the way he did me!" cried Peter. "Saved the announcement of who he was for the grand _finale_ in Act V. I got mad as a wet hen, told him what I thought of him in simple language, and then when the grafter twitted me to go and do something about it, I broke loose and swore that I'd make Hare Mayor of Hunston if I had to buy the little two-by-twice town to do it. Told him to pack his trunk, for all the crooks would soon be traveling toward the timber. So then I turned right around, hiked back to Hare's, told him what I'd done, gave him my hand on it, and pulled out the old family check-book. This morning I went to him and laid before him the greatest scheme that ever was. You know Hare can't get a hall to speak in for love or money--n.o.body dares rent him one; he can't buy an inch of s.p.a.ce in the _Gazette_; he can't put spreads on the billboards without having 'em pasted out in the night. To-night the whole thing's been done for him--Ryan's big town-meeting. Well, we're going to try to _swipe that meeting_--do you see? I'm getting in some husky fellows from New York to see fair play, and so on. Oh, it's a bully chance--you can see! I've spent a nice bunch of father's money working the scheme up, and, by George! I believe we are going to get by with it. If we do--well, we give this town the biggest shock it's had in years, and that's the way reform begins, Larry. _Shock_!"

Something of his contagious enthusiasm spread to and fired Varney. Fate had thrown in their way a plucky and honest man engaged in an apparently hopeless fight against overwhelming powers of darkness. He deserved help. And what possible risk was there now when the _Cypriani's_ work was practically done?

"I can't say," continued Peter dutifully, "that this is exactly playing the quiet onlooker, as my orders read. As I said last night, I consider that this excursion into politics will help our little business, not interfere with it. It will divert attention. It will seem to explain why we are here. But if you don't agree with me, if you want me to drop it--"

"No," said Varney, slowly. "I don't."

"Good for you, old sport!" cried Peter, evidently relieved. "Needless to say, I'm right on the job whenever you need me. And nothing's going to happen. Trust me. Now as to this other matter. You got that magazine I sent this morning?"

"Yes. Thanks for the picture of my twin brother. But why couldn't I leave the yacht till you got back?"

Peter stared. "Why, just that, of course. Deuced unfortunate coincidence, isn't it? Everybody in town is going to think that you are this fellow Stanhope."

"Well?"

"_Well_? Oh, I forgot--you haven't heard. Well, from the stories that are floating round town to-day, Stanhope is a cad of the original brand.

He was born here--lived here until he was twenty-one or two. Women were his trouble. The climax came about twelve years ago. The girl was named Orrick--Mamie Orrick, I believe. n.o.body knows exactly what became of her, but they practically ran Stanhope out of the town then. Well--there it is."

He paused long enough to light one of his Herculean cigars, employing his hat as a wind-s.h.i.+eld, and rapidly continued: "It's very curious and strange, and all that, but there it is. A month or so ago the _Gazette_ announced that Stanhope was coming back to Hunston. Last night you were seen on the square, and now the news has spread like wildfire that the author has arrived. Hare heard a lot of gossip on the street to-day.

He's lived here only a few years and doesn't know anything personally; but he says the old feeling against Stanhope seems to have revived as though it had all happened yesterday. Orrick, the girl's father, a half-witted old dotard, was heard to say that he would shoot on sight.

There are three or four others besides Orrick who've got personal grudges too. If any of these meet you, there is almost sure to be trouble. How is that for a little complication?"

"And this was the reason you sent me word to lock myself up on the _Cypriani_? You're a bird, Peter. Not that it made any difference, but I ventured to suppose that my leaving before you got back would interfere with some plans you had been making for me, and--"

"It would interfere with some plans I have been making for you, in a general way, to have you a.s.sa.s.sinated."

"Stuff. Ten to one all these stories that somebody has been so careful to have get back to you are right out of the whole cloth--"

"What's the use of setting up your cranky opinions against the hard facts? The plain truth is that everybody who ever heard of Stanhope is going to give you the cold shoulder for a dog; we can depend absolutely on that."

But Varney had his own reasons for depending on nothing of the sort.

"You've been imposed upon, Peter. In fact, one of the population mistook me for the author last night, and instead of giving me the cold shoulder, as you say, she seemed to think that being Stanhope was the best credentials that a man could have."

"She? Who're you talking about?"

"I'm talking about Uncle Elbert's daughter, Miss Mary Carstairs. I had the pleasure of meeting her last night."

"The devil you did!" cried Peter, laughing with astonishment. "You certainly walk off with the prize for prompt results. How in the world did you manage it?"

Varney told him succinctly how he had managed it.

"Fine! Fine! Honestly, I was getting afraid that you never could do it at all, with the rotten reputation they've pinned on you here. Good enough! Still it's absurd to cite the opinion of a little child in a matter like this."