Part 9

Olive smilingly declared that she could very well afford to wait until Luttridge should have three thousand a year, at which time she meant to take the matter into her own hands. Mr. Foljambe, egged on by his wife, had stipulated that the affair should not be called an engagement. And Olive had answered, laughing, that she did not care what they called it, provided no other girl got Stephen Luttridge.

Now a crash had come. Foljambe’s name, hitherto most familiar to a set of men who had confidence in his probity and were dazzled by his schemes, had been seen of late in every newspaper in connection with the story of his stupendous, over-confident, and rash speculations. And such a tremendous failure had not been chronicled in years! It was a curious fact that the men who commented on it said generally, in conclusion, “If he could only have gone on for one week longer, by George, he’d have been safe!”

Foljambe was not afraid to meet his creditors. He had chosen a trusty and capable friend to be his assignee for their benefit, and was sure he could more than pay his debts--though his remaining assets were not all of a kind to be immediately turned into cash, and he could hardly expect much of a surplus for himself. Indeed, nobody else expected his assignee to be even able to satisfy the creditors; and so his credit, even with his friends, was entirely gone. He had given to his sons good educations with which to fight the world on their own account--for most young Americans a more fatherly benefaction than a balance at a bank and leisure to haunt clubs. And they were manly young fellows. It was, in plain words, his womenkind of whom Martin Foljambe was afraid.

His wife, with whom he had begun life in the narrowest fashion--who had helped herself with both hands to the accretions of his successful business career--would never, he knew, be able to forgive the folly of his downfall. With women of her type, to have is to forget all previous deficiencies, to claim prosperity as a right, to resent reverses as a personal wrong. Sweet, beautiful Lilian, who was the poetry of his prosy existence, she would be gentle and forbearing with him. But Lilian, deprived of her luxuries, was an image he could not bear to contemplate. He knew her to be so utterly unfitted for the world of work-a-day. Olive, now, was in some way different. She, like her sister, had been an extravagant little puss. But Olive had a way of pulling herself together and facing contingencies that gave him more hope for her endurance of the change.

Those were sad days in the great stately house off the Park, and so well known to the world of fashion, following the Foljambe failure. The large staff of servants was prompt to desert the sinking ship. A buxom kitchen-maid officiated over the copper stew-pans of the departed chef. Mrs. Foljambe, in her bed with nervous prostration, in charge of a trained nurse, complained that she could not get a cup of bouillon fit to eat since Lenormand had left. Next the stables were depopulated. Then the pictures and curios and ceramics were sold at auction, and the house was offered for sale by the assignee, to whom everything had been surrendered. As there is always in the great metropolis some family stepping up to replace one that chances to step down, the agents effected a prompt “arrangement” by which the Foljambe mansion, furniture and all, passed into other ownership.

In less than two months after his misfortune Mr. Foljambe stepped out alone into the street, and looked back upon a dwelling in which he had no belongings save a couple of modest trunks and several portmanteaux to be called for by an expressman later on.

Who shall say that Martin Foljambe did not feel a lump of bitterness in his throat as he gave his final instructions to a care-taker and walked hurriedly away into the avenue whence he could no longer see his home? It had been at his wife’s instigation that he had built it; she had devised, superintended, ordered everything on a scale that outshone most of his predecessors in such constructions in their neighborhood. The only things she had not concerned herself about were the bills. Enormous as they were, he had paid them without a hint to her that she must have been cheated in various quarters. But it had been many a long year since Mrs. Foljambe had concerned herself about the sum total of a bill!

All--all--the fruits of his manhood’s work had been lavished at her feet, and here, when he was wounded to the quick by the jilt Fortune, his wife, where was she? Sailing eastward in the best rooms of a crack ocean liner, in company with her lovely Lilian, without whose society she had declared it would be impossible to recover the tone of her shattered nerves!

It was really the only thing for her to do, so had said Mrs. Foljambe to her doctor, reminding him of the tremendous help she had previously derived from certain baths in Germany. The doctor, wise in his generation and well aware of what was expected of him, had suavely acquiesced. Mr. Foljambe was informed by his wife that her sole chance of recovery lay in the jaunt in question--and as to expense, it was a real economy, he knew. The money she was to have at her disposal was a sum of a few thousand dollars which had been given to her years before by her husband--which he had invested for her in her own name--and which had chanced to have been never as yet spent by her. So the state-room on the ship had been taken within a day or two after she had announced to him her intention of going abroad.

Lilian, clinging to her father’s neck with tears and caresses, assured him that she did not want to go; that it would be dull as ditchwater for her, and that she should always be thinking of him left behind. But Lilian was overpowered, and in due time yielded to her mother’s decree that her first duty was to her.

Not so Olive. Without protestation, without gush over her father, she had calmly said she had no idea of going abroad that summer. With the help of her friend Luttridge she had picked out a little flat on the west side of the Park, where there were tree-tops for the trouble of going to the window and a delightful sense of being out-of-doors. The sale of her pearl necklace had paid for the furniture. She retained as cook the kitchen-maid who had been trained under M. Lenormand, and then, when all was done, announced to her father that they--he, she, and the brother recently come home from college--were going there to live, the other brother having resigned his place in New York and gone to the West to grow up with the country.

The evening of the day that found Martin Foljambe creeping dejectedly out of his former mansion, with a heart in his bosom heavy as the iron that had seared it, brought him uptown to see for the first time Miss Olive’s new arrangements for his comfort.

To Martin, past the age for picnics, the whole thing appeared but a mournful makeshift. But Olive and Luttridge, who came in to dine upon a grilled fowl and a can of mock-turtle soup, and Tom, the recent graduate, who was charged by Olive “to help to cheer papa,” laughed and chaffed and made merry with the glorious unconcern of youth. After dinner, when the two young men went out into the Park to smoke their pipes, Olive sat with her father upon a sofa pinched between two doorways of their narrow sitting-room.

“And now tell me, papa,” she said with alarming briskness, “just what I may expect as an allowance to keep house upon.”

He explained that for the present he would have nothing he could call his own except the sum the assignee was paying him weekly for his services in assisting to wind up the assigned estate to the best possible advantage, and that, even from that, certain amounts would have to be deducted for use for things other than mere housekeeping.

“Oh, well,” said she, “we shall be able to live. And do you know, I already love this. It is like a honeymoon without the bother of a husband. You will have an excellent draught of air through your bedroom. I forgot to tell you that I got a note to-day from Mrs. Louis Rushmore offering me the work on her husband’s notes of that expedition they made last year to Mexico. Mrs. Rushmore started in herself to put them in shape for publication, but seems to have got into a hole. You know, it is to be a sort of ‘In Memoriam’ for Mr. Rushmore, published on the most lavish scale, with illustrations and all that. She recalled that when we all met in Mexico Mr. Rushmore took rather a fancy to me principally because I was the only person of the party who could read his handwriting. You remember, he got me to copy out in his note-book certain of his own memoranda that he couldn’t decipher to save himself?”

“And how, pray,” said Mr. Foljambe, writhing upon the hard little sofa Olive and Luttridge had thought so artistic in design, “did Mrs. Rushmore come to suppose you were in need of employment?”

“Because, daddy dear, I’ve been foraging around for something to do, for a month past,” said the girl, frankly. “You know I am nothing if not up to date. I expected to be somebody’s secretary, thanks to my good, clear handwriting. But the blessing of Mrs. Rushmore’s work is that I can do most of it just here, and at the same time ‘boss’ the maid, who might get tired and bolt if she were left too much to herself.”

“Poor Rushmore died just while he was deciding to go into San Miguel with me,” remarked Mr. Foljambe. “He was one of the careful, conservative kind--while I--”

“Don’t be ashamed of your spirit of daring--don’t, papa; you share it liberally with me!” said Olive, gayly. “I haven’t the vaguest idea of what San Miguel was or is, but I’m perfectly sure I’d have gone into it and left Mr. Rushmore trembling on the brink.”

“It was one of my failures, dear--a mining speculation that promised everything, and flattened out in a year or two. If I had the money now that my holdings in that stock represent to me, it wouldn’t be long before I should be out of this pit, I tell you. Until I was failing, I hardly counted the cost of it. What it has cost me amounted to a fortune in itself; and I hold--or rather my assignee for the benefit of my creditors now holds--a strong majority of the whole capital stock. But within the last few years there has been no work done in the mine except what the sale of ore extracted would pay for--which has not been much--and the stock cannot now be sold for even a penny a share. Indeed I advised the assignee to-day to sell the shares to anybody who will offer anything whatever for them, and to do it quickly, before the chap can change his mind. Olive, my child, whether you succeed or not in your Rushmore business, I’m proud of you for taking up the first work that comes to hand. But there’s one thing I ought to ask--how long is Luttridge going to be satisfied to do without you?”

“Of course, papa, he was deadly foolish,” said Olive, crimsoning. “He wanted to be married right away, and come in here, the saucy fellow. But I’ve stuck to my ultimatum of last autumn. When he gets enough to keep us without my being a drag on him, I’ll say ‘yes.’ Just now I wouldn’t leave you for all the world. Every minute of this day I’ve been thinking of your getting home and finding everything so nice.”

Foljambe’s heart reproached him for his contempt of her poor devisings. He caught his brave little woman in his arms and kissed her as he had not done in years.

Olive’s interest in deciphering the Rushmore hieroglyphics grew with the continuance of her work, which daily opened out into new channels of discovery and information. Mrs. Rushmore, rejoiced to find she had not misplaced her confidence in the girl’s ability, went off to Europe, leaving the whole charge of the book in Miss Olive’s hands, together with a very liberal sum to be paid her in weekly installments in remuneration, and the promise of more to follow when the work should be finished. Foljambe himself, in better health and spirits for his daughter’s guardian care, found that, on the whole, his enjoyment of life was rather increased than diminished. His younger son rejoiced his family by finding employment as secretary to one of his father’s old friends, who was primarily to take him off for a summer of travel through the wonders of the far West. Letters from Mrs. Foljambe, while giving gratifying assurance of her physical improvement and of the usual impression made by Lilian’s beauty upon casual grandees, did not now touch a sore spot in Martin’s heart, for the simple reason that the wound was healing under Olive’s influence.

Summer came, and Olive, at her desk heaped with dictionaries, encyclopedias, and works of reference, transferred from Mrs. Rushmore’s library, had hardly time to wonder if she were herself. While all the other young women of her acquaintance were preparing gowns for their holiday campaign, going off to lovely country homes with keen zest for the outdoor life that had previously been her greatest joy, or taking wing for Europe, she in her trim cotton gown sat down by nine o’clock to spend all the morning hours in close devotion to her task in hand.

With her mental energies thus healthily astir, her faculties bent upon elucidating and compiling interesting facts, she was really happy and at her best. She could truly say that she envied no one in the world.

“After all, it’s no more than you, and Stephen Luttridge, and lots of nice, clever men who deserve just as much of the pleasure of life as I do, are doing every day,” she said one evening, when her father told her she was a chip off the old block as far as working was concerned. “And while you are endowing me with your attributes, daddy, give me your pluck and--something higher, please. Even if I weren’t getting paid for it at the best market rates, I’d never begrudge this summer, that’s brought me to know my own dear father as he is. Thank goodness, there comes Stephen to take me for a walk. All this bottled-up energy of mine is fearful if I get no physical outlet in the day. Daddy, I forgot to tell you, I’ve been brushing up my Spanish latterly. I’ve had two lessons a week from a cheap and solemn little don Stephen found for me. So many of my Mexican letters are in Spanish I found it almost necessary to know their language better. To-day my little professor made me his farewell, and we had a conversation in his own tongue that would have startled you--I really think I talked faster than he did--if not so grammatically.”

“I don’t doubt it,” replied her father, looking at her admiringly. If Olive had told him she had taken a prize for an essay in any branch of science after two months of study he would hardly have doubted her.

It was harder work when the heat of July struck the city. Olive, yielding to her father’s solicitation, went off then for a week to a friend in the country, but came back determined not to try the experiment again. She was out of all touch with the people she met at the Claverings’ house party. Kind as they meant to be to her, she had lost the shibboleth, the habit of thought and speech, that could make her one of their circle. And if, on her return to town, thoughts would intrude of wide, smooth-shaven emerald lawns, great forest trees parting to reveal vistas of hill and lake, flower-beds blazoning the turf, rides on horseback, days on the golf links, and long, delightful country walks, she had courage to put them aside. But all this happened to be at the time of Luttridge’s holiday; when, seeing how much he needed change from office work, Olive had, in her own bright, imperious way, insisted that her lover should go off to the Maine woods for a fortnight’s fishing, without regard to her. And Stephen, albeit reluctantly, had acquiesced. One morning, as she sat down to her desk, the ancient Aztecs seemed for a while to be more than ever distressingly remote and uninteresting; then the maid came in with a long chapter of complaints about the iniquities of the janitor and butcher boy. When that was over, Olive’s eye fell upon her calendar. It was the day when, the year before, the Foljambes had been giving their great ball at Newport, accounts of which were cabled over sea, and had filled the atmosphere of the Western Hemisphere. Of what consequence were the Foljambes now to the world that had courted them?

“Evidently,” thought Olive, dashing into her papers, with an heroic attempt to fix her mind upon them, “it does me no good to go a-junketing. Between me and my other life a gulf is fixed that I should be wiser not to attempt to bridge.”

A ring at the gong-bell of the flat! So sharp a ring as to make her start like a guilty creature. This interruption brought her to the discovery that, for the first time since her change of abode and habit, she had been crying over “things.” Katrina’s arrival with a dingy card revealed the name of a Mexican, an ex-journalist, employed by Mrs. Rushmore to make certain researches of which the result was to be reported to Olive herself. In her capacity of editor, the latter had already received several communications from this Mr. Ramirez.

“But there are two,” whispered Olive, who, from her little study divided by curtains from their only reception-room, could distinctly hear voices and footsteps.

“Yes, m’m; but one of the gentlemen didn’t give a card. He’s a--a person, m’m--not a caller, and he’s jabbering away for dear life in French or Eyetalian or Rooshan, or some o’ them desperate tongues, to the other one, m’m. Shall I say you’ll be out directly, Miss Foljambe?”

“Yes, Katrina, and bring me a glass of water,” said Olive, meekly. She was glad to remain alone for a little while, subduing her nervous fit, and swabbing the marks of tears around her eyes. In her present unwonted resentment against existing circumstances she was even inclined to eschew the ancient Aztecs and the whole splendid inheritance they have left to posterity in the New World.

“It is really the heat that has got the better of me,” she thought. “But how much worse for poor Katrina in that little burning-glass of a kitchen! I am ashamed of myself. I will, positively, never do so any more.”

The voices of her waiting visitors, at first subdued to the ordinary pitch of a stranger’s tones upon entering an unfamiliar place, here forced themselves upon her aural consciousness. The men were speaking in Spanish, and certainly not of the matters Olive was expected to hold in common interest with Ramirez.

“It is not the first time, Juan, that you have tempted me with ventures; and they have always come to nothing. I haven’t the money to spare, I tell you; and that’s flat.”

“There is no mistake this time, Ramirez. If I could only make you believe me! If you do not accept, I go to Señor Mores, who, when he knows the facts, will take me up quickly. Think of it! A beggarly sum in hand, we buy out the San Miguel stock from a man who does not know its value, and our fortunes are made forever.”

San Miguel stock! In a flash it came to Olive that her father was the chief owner of San Miguel stock.

“Why do you think I came to New York?” went on the eager speaker. “For the pleasure of that long, bone-breaking journey across the continent, eh? Or to pass a month in this city, where a poor man is ruined by charges if he demands to eat or drink? Why did I fasten myself to you to-day, and follow you here, when you showed no desire for my company? Because I wanted to get ahead of another man who will arrive to-morrow morning. Am I to fail because you, my oldest friend, will not help me to raise the money? It is not a ‘fake,’ as you call it in English. I swear to you that I speak the truth. San Miguel is up, up--on the top of the wave. In two days the newspapers will have the news of their rich find. Here is a telegram I received on arrival at my hotel, a few hours since. The secret was to be kept only till Latimer, the clever man of their syndicate, should have had time to reach New York and visit Mr. Foljambe.”

“Foljambe! Caramba! Hold your tongue!” hissed Ramirez.

There was a sudden hush. The conversation passed into whispers. Olive, trembling with excitement, slipped back into her bedroom, put on her hat, seized gloves and parasol, and darted out to the rear of the flat to interview Katrina.

“I cannot receive those men now, Katrina,” said the young lady, breathlessly. “Give me full time to get out of their way, and then--but not until they call you--tell them I am not at home.”

“It’s not sneak-thieves they’d be, Miss Foljambe, and you goin’ to call up the police?” the maid asked with natural emotion.

“No, no, Katrina. They will do no harm. But I cannot stop to see them. It is a matter of important business for me to attend to. Something I have found out that I must see my father about, without delay. Mind, you are on no account to give these men, if they ask for it, Mr. Foljambe’s address downtown.”

“Trust me, miss,” said the woman, importantly. “They’d never be gettin’ me to let on where they’d find the master, poor gentleman, after all the troubles he’s had already.”

Olive, considering every moment’s delay of the men a clear gain, and reckless of the evident belief of her honest handmaiden that she was going to warn her father to flee from the myrmidons of justice, hurried out of the front door.

Katrina, anxious to fulfill the trust imposed in her, tarried inconceivably long; when Ramirez, his patience exhausted, rang her up for the fourth or fifth time, the woman sauntered into the room wearing an air of defiance blended with cunning. Between Ramirez’s scant supply of colloquial English and Katrina’s voluble mystifications the two men were fairly routed. The Mexican, putting his papers upon the table, finally beat a retreat.

But he reckoned without his enemy.

“Maybe it’s me you think would be serving yer dirty summonses upon the master!” cried she, as, exploding with wrath, she picked up the envelope and thrust it back on him.

“Come away, Ramirez; the creature is certainly mad,” said the other, nervously. To his mind this delay about trivialities, when he had a fortune in his grasp, was insanity on Ramirez’s part as well.

* * * * *

Fleet of foot and full of courage, Olive sped upon her way. Reaching the nearest station of the elevated railway she boarded a car and fell into a seat, looking back in actual fear of finding herself overtaken by the two Mexicans whom she had eluded. After all, was it not a will-o’-the-wisp she was pursuing? As it often happened to her in acting upon impulse, the first cool moment--though that did not come until the train was well on the way downtown--brought its pangs of self-distrust.

But nothing could go wrong about visiting her own dear father and confiding in him her--A sudden jarring of the wheels upon the rails, a shock--what was it? Olive, together with the other passengers in her end of the car, was shot forward violently, all falling in a heap. Then came a crash, a sound of shivered glass, some screams from frightened women, and at last a full stop--after which people picked themselves up and wondered whether or not they were badly hurt.

Coming around a curve they had run into the rear end of a train stopped unexpectedly ahead of them because of a breakdown of its engine. There were no serious bodily injuries, but there was much agitation and every prospect of a long delay before the track could be cleared and the train could proceed. Olive, the worse only for a badly battered hat, a broken sunshade, some damage to her clothes, and a scratch across her brow, had her hands full for a time with pacifying other more nervous women and crying children, who could not be persuaded they were not doomed to fall into the street below.