Part 4

“Ah, has Mr. Fettiplace been giving me away?”

“On the contrary; he is a stanch friend of yours.”

“Indeed he is, but it might require an exceedingly skilful friend to throw a favorable light on such a subject.”

“How delightfully modest! I assure you he gave you an excellent character.”

“Did you think it a wilful deception, or that he was simply mistaken?”

She turned and saw upon his face an amused smile, half triumphant yet good-humored. She lowered her eyes to the bronze ornament on the table that was slowly revolving between her fingers. “Am I so incapable of believing good of others?”

“Certainly not! But when I saw you last I suffered from an unpleasant belief that neither the Devil nor myself were objects of your adoration. So I took the liberty of putting one or two things together, and decided that the faithful Bennett might have honored me by a mention.”

“Why suspect Mr. Bennett of such a thing?”

“Well, partly because he is a vindictive and unscrupulous liar, and partly because he is the only enemy I saw there.”

This was said gently, in his usual low voice, with perfect calmness, and it was said amiably, as if sympathizing with an unfortunate friend.

“You seem able to meet him on his own ground.”

“Oh, no! There is all the difference in the world.”

She looked toward him interrogatively, but with an expression that plainly indicated a difference of opinion. He continued in the same tone, with no sign of animosity: “The difference is this, that he tells others what he never tells me. I tell others his mind is filthy and his spirit is mean; that he is without honor and that he is a liar, but I also tell _him_.”

“You have told him that?”

“Often: sometimes to himself alone, sometimes in the presence of others.”

She could not restrain a smile. “It must be a pleasant thing to tell a man!”

“A man? Oh, that would be a different matter!”

There was a barbaric simplicity in all this that she could not help respecting, particularly as she felt he was telling the truth: and she sympathized with him heartily in this opinion of Horace Bennett. While openly unforgiving and vindictive, he appeared to regard his enemy with the half-serious contempt of a gentle but experienced philosopher. But she remembered her resolution.

“Mr. Fettiplace has been telling us about that white jacket. What an interesting story!”

“Yes, everything he tells is interesting. He has a rare faculty in that direction.”

“But in this case he had an unusual subject. It is like a fairy story. I suppose you wore it some time or other?”

“I suppose so.”

“But you must remember.”

“Vaguely. I was only seven years old when I came to this country and I never wore it here.”

“Have you even forgotten how you spilled the currant jelly down the front?”

“Currant jelly?” he repeated, and looked inquiringly toward her. “I have not heard that theory.”

“You were the culprit and ought to know. But strawberry is just as bad, I suppose.”

After a slight hesitation he answered, “Those are blood-stains.”

Turning toward him for further information, she could not help thinking how much more he was in harmony with a tale of pearls and mystery and human blood than with jam or currant jelly. As he made no answer but sat gazing absently at the fire, she expressed a hope that his youthful nose had not collided with the stairs or with the fist of some larger boy.

“No, not that exactly,” he replied, with his eyes still upon the fire. “It is a long story and would not interest you.” Then looking up, he continued, with more animation, “I am glad there is a possibility of your coming to Daleford. It is an ideal place to be quiet in.”

“So Mr. Fettiplace tells us, but you are mistaken about the history of the jacket. It _would_ interest me, and I should like extremely to hear it; unless of course you prefer not to tell it.”

“If you wish to hear it that is reason enough for the telling, but--isn’t it rather cruel to force a man to talk only about himself?”

“No; not in this case. It gives an opportunity to prove, by the perfection of your boyhood, that you are less vile than you believe Horace Bennett to have painted you.”

“That would be impossible. No human record could wipe out an effect once laid in by such a hand. Besides, there is nothing in the jacket to repair a damaged reputation.”

“The fact of telling the story will count in your favor.”

“In that case I will make an effort.” He rested an elbow on the arm of his chair, slowly stroking the back of his head as if uncertain where to begin. “It is really a foolish thing to do,” he said at last, “but if you are relentless I suppose there is no escape. In the first place, to begin at the very beginning, there was a little court with arches all around it, with grass in the centre and a fountain at each corner. On the marble steps, at one end, we were all sitting, a dozen or more children, watching a man with a bear and two monkeys. These monkeys had sham fights. One was dressed like an English soldier with a red jacket, and he always got the worst of it. It was great fun and we all laughed.”

“Where was this?”

“In India. At the very beginning of the show, when the English monkey for a moment was on top, a servant rushed into the court and dragged me away. It was a barbarous deed, and I was ugly; as disagreeable probably as Horace Bennett could have wished. So I only lose ground, you see, by telling this story.”

“Never mind. Unless you tell it I shall believe the worst.”

“Well, looking back as I was dragged along, the last thing I saw was the red monkey being chased and beaten by the white one, and they scrambled right up the bear’s back. In the chamber where we went that white jacket was brought out and I made another row, for I knew it meant a long and tiresome performance in which I had to keep still and behave myself.”

“A performance on a stage?”

“No; in a large room, with lots of people standing about. As our procession started for the big hall, which was several rooms away on another side of the house, I noticed that my uncle and one or two others kept closer to me than usual. There was a tremendous haste and confusion, and everybody seemed excited.”

In telling his story Mr. Judd spoke in a low voice, pronouncing his words clearly and with a certain precision. His only gesture consisted in occasionally drawing a hand slowly up the back of his head, as if finding solace in rubbing the short thick hair in the wrong direction. Although his voice and manner suggested an indolent repose, she noticed that the brown hands, with their long fingers, were hard and muscular, and were the hands of a nervous temperament.

“When we entered the large hall there were lots of people, mostly soldiers, and in uniforms I had not seen before. The principal person seemed to be a short, thick-set man with a round face and big eyes, who stood in the centre of the room, and his wide sash and odd-looking turban with gold scales interested me tremendously. We all stood there a few minutes and there was a good deal of talk about something, when all of a sudden this man with the handsome turban seized me under the arms with both hands, lifted me up, and handed me to a big chap behind him.

“Then came a free fight, a general commotion, with shouting and rushing about, and sword-blades in the air. A friend tried to pull me away, but the big man who held me laid his head open with a blow. A second later the big man himself received a cut from my uncle at the base of his neck, where it joins the shoulder, that made him stagger and turn half about: then he tumbled to the floor and held me all the tighter as he fell. As we landed I came on top, but he rolled over and lay across me with his head on my stomach. He was so heavy that he held me down and the blood poured from his neck over my white clothes.”

Molly had stopped working. With her hands in her lap and her eyes fixed eagerly on his face, she uttered an exclamation of horror. He said, with a smile:

“Not a cheerful story, is it?”

“It is awful! But what happened then?”

“Well, as I struggled to get from under I saw my uncle turn upon the first man, the leader, but he was too late. Someone gave him a thrust, and he staggered and came down beside us. I remember he lay so near that I reached out and touched his cheek with my finger. I spoke to him, but he never answered.”

There was a silence, she watching him, waiting for the rest of the story, while he gazed silently into the fire.

“And what happened next?”

“Oh, excuse me! That is about all. During the hubbub and slaughter my people hauled me from beneath the big chap and I was hurried away. I remember, as we ran through the chambers near the little court, I heard my friends still laughing at the monkeys.”

He seemed to consider the story finished. “May I fool with that fire?” he asked.

“Certainly, but what was all the fighting about?”

As the fire was encouraged into a fresher life he answered: “I never knew distinctly. That night a few others and myself went down to the river, through the gardens, were rowed to a little steamer and taken aboard. We sailed down a long river, and afterward a big steamer brought three of us to America. And then to Daleford.”

“Why on earth to Daleford?”

“Because it was desirable to land me in some amusing metropolis, and I suppose the choice lay between Paris and Daleford. Daleford, of course, won.”

“I beg your pardon,” she hastened to say. “My curiosity seems to be running away with me.”

“Oh, please do not apologize. There is no secret about Daleford. I only answered in that way as I suddenly realized how refreshing it must be to hear a stranger tell pathetic stories about himself. It is I who apologize. They brought me to Daleford through Mr. Judd’s brother, who was a good friend and was with us at that row.”

He stood before the fire with the poker in his hand, and looked down with a smile as he continued: “I believe you have never been to Daleford, but if you were a field-mouse that could sleep all winter, and didn’t care to be disturbed in summer, you would find it an ideal spot. If you were a field-mouse of average social instincts you would never pull through.”

“And yet Mr. Fettiplace advises us to go there.”

“Oh, that’s for a summer only, and is quite different.”

From Daleford they went to other subjects, but to her his own career proved of far greater interest, and the usual topics seemed commonplace and uneventful by comparison. Delicately and with subtle tact, she made one or two efforts to get further information regarding his childhood and the fabulous jewels, but her endeavors were vain. Of himself he talked no more. In a sense, however, she was rewarded by a somewhat surprising discovery in relation to his mental furniture. When the conversation turned incidentally upon literature she found him in the enjoyment of an ignorance so vast and so comprehensive that it caused her, at first, to doubt the sincerity of his own self-conviction. Of her favorite books he had not read one. To him the standard novelists were but names. Of their works he knew nothing. This ignorance he confessed cheerfully and without shame.

“But what do you do with yourself?” she demanded. “Do you never read anything?”

“Oh, yes; I have not forgotten my letters. For modern facts I read the papers, and for the other side of life I take poetry. But the modern novel is too severe a punishment. It is neither poetry nor wisdom.”

Until the two other men came down from the library she had no idea of the lateness of the hour. Mr. Fettiplace laid a hand on the young man’s shoulder and, with a roseate smile, explained the situation.

“This fellow is from the country, Miss Molly, and you must excuse him for expecting, when invited out to dinner, that he is to remain to breakfast.”

A moment or two later, as the three men were standing before the fire, she was astonished by a bit of unexpected wisdom. He was regarding with apparent interest a little etching that hung near the mantel, when Mr. Cabot explained that it was a very old one he had purchased in Germany, and represented the battle of Hennersdorf. Mr. Judd thought it must be the battle of Mollwitz, and gave as reasons for his belief the position of the Prussians in relation to a certain hill and the retreat of the Austrian cavalry at that stage of the fight. Mr. Cabot, obviously surprised at these details, replied, jokingly, that he was not in a position to contradict a soldier who was present at the battle.

This afforded great amusement to the rubicund guest, who exclaimed:

“You might as well back right down, Jim! Amos is simply a walking cyclopædia of military facts; and not a condensed one either! He can give you more reliable details of that battle than Frederick himself, and of every other battle that has ever been fought, from Rameses to U. S. Grant. He remembers everything; why the victors were victorious and how the defeated might have won. I believe he sleeps and eats with the great conquerors. You ought to see his library. It is a gallery of slaughter, containing nothing but records of carnage--and poetry. Nothing interests him like blood and verses. Just think,” he continued, turning to Molly, “just think of wasting your life in the nineteenth century when you feel that you possess a magnificent genius for wholesale murder that can never have a show!”

There was more bantering, especially between the older men, a promise to visit Daleford, and the two guests departed.

IV

In April the Cabots took their trip to Daleford and found it even more inviting than Mr. Fettiplace had promised. The spacious house among the elms, with its quaint old flower-garden, the air, the hills, the restful beauty of the country, were temptations not to be resisted, and within another month they were comfortably adjusted and felt at home.

The house, which had formerly belonged to Mr. Morton Judd, stood several hundred feet from the road at the end of an avenue of wide-spreading maples. This avenue was the continuation of another and a similar avenue extending to the house of Josiah Judd, directly opposite, and the same distance from the highway. As you stood at either end it was an unbroken arch from one residence to the other. When Mr. Morton Judd was married, some fifty years ago, his father had erected this abode for him, but the young man soon after went to India, where as a merchant and a financier he achieved success, and where both he and his wife now lay at rest. Although covering as much ground, the house was less imposing than the more venerable mansion at the other end of the avenue.

The journey beneath the maples proved such a pleasant one and was so easily made as to invite a certain familiarity of intercourse that the Cabots saw no good reason to discourage. Mrs. Judd, a strong-framed woman with a heavy chin, whose failing memory seemed her only weakness, was now about eighty years of age, and generally sat by a sunny window in the big dining-room, where she rocked and knitted from morning till night, paying little attention to what went on about her. If Amos had been her own son she could not have loved him more, and this affection was returned in full with an unceasing thoughtfulness and care. Both Molly and her father were gratified at finding in this young man a neighbor whose society it seemed safe to encourage. He proved a sensible, unpretending person, fond of fun and pleasure, but with plenty of convictions; these convictions, however, while a source of amusement to Mr. Cabot, were not always accepted by the daughter. They were often startling departures from his education and environment, and showed little respect for conventionalities. He never attended church, but owned a pew in each of the five temples at Daleford, and to each of these societies he was a constant and liberal contributor. For three of them he had given parsonages that were ornaments to the village, and as the sectarian spirit in that locality was alive and hot these generous gifts had produced alternating outbursts of thankfulness and rage, all of which apparently caused neither surprise nor annoyance to the young philosopher. When Molly Cabot told him, after learning this, that it would indicate a more serious Christian spirit if he paid for but a single pew and sat in it, he answered:

“But that spirit is just the evil I try to escape, for your good Christian is a hot sectarian. It is the one thing in his religion he will fight and die for, and it seems to me the one thing he ought to be ashamed of. If any one sect is right and the others wrong it is all a hideous joke on the majority, and a proper respect for the Creator prevents my believing in any such favoritism.”

Occasionally the memory of his offensive title obtruded itself as a bar to that confidence which is the foundation of friendship, but as she knew him better it became more difficult to believe that he could ever have been, in its coarser sense, what that title signified. As regarded herself, there was never on his part the faintest suggestion of anything that could be interpreted as love-making, or even as the mildest attempt at a flirtation. She found him under all conditions simple and unassuming, and, she was forced to admit, with no visible tokens of that personal vanity with which she had so lavishly endowed him. His serious business in life was the management of the Judd farm, and although the care and development of his animals was more of a recreation than a rigid necessity he wasted little money in unsuccessful experiments. Mr. Cabot soon discovered that he was far more practical and business-like than his leisurely manners seemed to indicate. The fondness for animals that seemed one of his strongest characteristics was more an innate affection than a breeder’s fancy. Every animal on his place, from the thoroughbred horses to the last litter of pups, he regarded more as personal friends than as objects of commercial value.

When Mr. Cabot and Molly made their first visit to the farm, they noticed in the corner of a field a number of dejected horses huddled solemnly together. Most of them were well beyond middle age and bore the clearest indications of a future that was devoid of promise. They gazed at the visitors with listless eyes, and as a congregation seemed burdened with most of the physical imperfections of extreme antiquity.

“What on earth are those?” asked Mr. Cabot. “Revolutionary relics? They are too fat for invalids.”

“A few friends of my youth.”

“I should think from the number you have here that you never disposed of your old friends,” said Mr. Cabot.

“Only when life is a burden.”

“Well, I am glad to see them,” said Molly, as she patted one or two of the noses that were thrust toward her. “It does you credit. I think it is horrid to sell a horse that has used himself up in your service.”

As the father and daughter walked homeward along the avenue of maples, Mr. Cabot spoke of the pleasure the young man derived from his animals, and the good sense he displayed in the management of his farm.

“Yes,” said Molly, “and he seems too boyish and full of fun for anything very weird or uncanny. But Mr. Fettiplace certainly believed in something of that kind, didn’t he?”

“Of course, or he wouldn’t be Fettiplace. That sort of thing is always interesting, and the world is full of people who can believe anything if they once put their minds on it. Who is that in our yard?”

“Deacon White, I think. He has come to train up some plants for me.” A moment later she took her father’s arm and asked, with affected humility: “Jimsey, will you do something?”

“No, for it’s sure to be foolish.”

“Well, you are right, but you can do it so much better than I. Deacon White has probably known Mr. Judd ever since he was a little boy, and he would be glad of an opportunity to tell what he knows and give us all the town talk besides. I do wish you would just start him off.”

“Start him off! On what? Judd’s private history? On the delicate matters he doesn’t wish advertised?”

“No, no! Of course not, papa! How unpleasant you are! I only want him to throw some light on the mysterious things Mr. Fettiplace alluded to.”

“I shall do nothing of the kind. If you really have a thirst for that sort of knowledge, get a copy of Hans Andersen. He has a better style than Deacon White.”

A few moments later, when Molly and the Deacon were alone in the old garden, her desire for information was gratified to an unhoped-for extent, and the information was of a more detailed and astonishing character than she would have presumed to ask for. The Deacon, a little, round-shouldered, narrow-chested man of seventy, with a sun-dried face, an enormous nose, and a long receding chin with a white beard beneath, possessed a pair of wide-awake eyes that seemed many years younger than himself.

“I never have anything to do with roses without thinkin’ of Amos. Did you ever notice his?”

“Yes; they are splendid ones.”

“Ain’t they! Well, one mornin’, when he was a little boy, I was helpin’ him set out roses along the side of the house where the big trellis is, and he said he wanted red ones, not yellow ones. I said: ‘These are red ones. They are cut from the same slip as the others, and they’ve got to be red whether they want to or not.’ Pretty soon Josiah came out, and Amos said to him that he could see ’em next spring and they would all be yellow. And what took me all aback was that Josiah believed it, and tried to persuade him that he might like yellow ones for a change. And I tell you,” said the Deacon, as he fixed his little young eyes on her face to watch his effect, “I just stood with my mouth open one mornin’, a year after, when I saw those roses, that oughter been red, just come out into a yeller. Of course it was a mistake in the bushes, but how did he know?”

“It might have been a coincidence.”

“Yes, it might have been a coincidence. But when a boy’s life is made up of just those things you begin to suspect after a while that perhaps they are too everlastingly reliable for coincidences. You can’t always bet on coincidences, but you can bet every time on Amos. My daughter Phœbe kept school down in the village for a spell when Amos was about ten years old. There was another boy, Billy Hines, who never missed a lesson. Phœbe knew he was a dull boy and that he always tried to give larnin’ the whole road whenever he saw it comin’, and it kinder surprised her to have him stand at the head of his class all the time and make better recitations than smarter boys who worked hard. But he always knew everything and never missed a question. He and Amos were great friends, more because Amos felt sorry for him, I guess, than anything else. Billy used to stand up and shine every day, when she knew mighty well he was the slowest chap in the whole school and hadn’t studied his lessons neither. Well, one day Amos got hove about twenty feet by a colt he was tryin’ to ride and he stayed in bed a few weeks. Durin’ that time Billy Hines couldn’t answer a question. Not a question. He and arithmetic were strangers. Also geography, history, and everything else that he’d been intimate with. He jest stopped shinin’, like a candle with a stopper on it. The amount of it was she found that Amos had always told him ahead the questions he was goin’ to be asked, and Billy learned the answers just before he stood up to recite.”

“Why, how did Amos--how did Mr. Judd know what questions would be asked?”

“I guess ’twas just a series of coincidences that happened to last all winter.”

Molly laughed. “How unforgiving you are, Mr. White! But did Amos Judd explain it?”

“He didn’t. He was too young then to do it to anybody’s satisfaction, and now that he’s older he won’t.”

“Why not?”

“Well, he’s kind of sensitive about it. Never talks of those things, and don’t like to have other folks.”