Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  A little of this sort of general encouragement went a great way with such a facile and happy disposition. It was only a few moments before Mrs. Worboise felt a great deal better.

  “There,” she said, drying her eyes, “I’m only a baby, after all. It’s very good of you, dear, to comfort me up: I won’t feel bad any more, at least until you tell me I may. So now run away to your work.”

  Horace had an idea, it is true; one that he had considered a good many times; but if he had told Mrs. Worboise what it was, it would not have cheered her much, I fear. It does not sound like any thing very wonderful,-it was to see whether Jim Fellows couldn’t be of some use.

  But this was by no means so small a resource as you may think. A New York newspaper reporter, if he is smart and efficient, and what they call a rising man, and particularly if he is gifted with a small quantity of wickedness for extreme cases, can do a good deal. Horace and Jim walked down the street together, as they often did, and Horace opened the subject to him.

  “Why, my son,” responded Jim; “I’ve been honing up the sword of justice for that old pig’s throat this two months. Honor bright, is it, if I tell you?”

  “Honor bright,” said Horace.

  “Well, then; you know he owes the dame now, after what deuced little he has ever paid, pretty near a thousand dollars. I’ve worried about it some myself-you’ve noticed that I grew thin and didn’t eat any thing?”

  “No,” said Horace promptly.

  “All right” (with a grin); “well, I had a notion three months ago that the old villain could pay if he chose, and I’ve invested a little money to find out; and I’ve found out. I’ve had him shadowed from time to time ever since, but I’ve not got quite all the facts I want yet. Am to see my man this very day; will have the whole for you by tea-time. Meanwhile keep dark!”

  “I will. But, Jim, do you know what is it that the old fellow is inventing?”

  “No. Not my line.”

  “Well, I do. He’s been ordering a little job of iron work at our place, and he ordered some more of a fellow that I happen to know; and I’ve seen through that part of his tricks, anyhow. It’s a perpetual motion!”

  Jim, though no mechanic, had enough of general information and general incredulity together to let him laugh as easily as Horace himself at this idea.

  “Why,” resumed Jim, “I thought all those notions were dead.”

  “By no means; men are at work at such machines all the time. I knew one myself, down in North Greyford. But I wonder Judge De Forest should be such a fool. He’s a swindler, I don’t doubt; but I don’t see how he can swindle anybody very deeply with such a bold imposition as this.”

  “But I do, though!” said Jim. “Why, Horace, don’t you see? No, you can’t; you don’t know the man he’s swindling. Well, it’ll be safe enough now, so I’ll tell you a little more, and you can put that and that together. I didn’t know exactly what his machine was, but I knew he was getting up a machine. And he has been receiving money to pay for it,-and a good deal too,-a good deal more than is necessary, by the same token, and that’s just where the blessed old scamp means to salt down a little peculium for himself.”

  “Well, but how can you work him so as to do Mrs. Worboise any good?”

  “Oh! you just leave your grandfather all alone for that. I’ve got my little plans pretty near a focus now. I expected to touch him off soon; but as you say you promised to comfort the dame by this evening, I guess we can get the scenery ready in season. Well, here we are. Hi-i-i-i!” and he uttered an awful yell, just as they reached the corner of Broadway, at which two young ladies just before them jumped and squealed in a very delightful manner, and the omnibus driver, who was the person intended, turned round at once, though he was half a block away.

  “See there!” said Jim; “so much for a pig’s whisper: shot ’em flying, right and left. Well-au reservoir!” And he darted off, leaving Horace to go about his business.

  At the boarding-house the hours went on but heavily; for the cheerfulness which Horace had inspired did not very long avail Mrs. Worboise against the steady, incessant weight of her money troubles. In the afternoon she coaxed Rachel to come and sit with her in her room. Rachel, as relative, friend, and helper, had grown to be even closer to the lonesome and loving-hearted little widow than Horace; closer, that is, in those exchanges of emotional expression and sentiment which, for want of husbands, husbandless women must be fain to transact with each other, since they are disclosures that will have secrecy, and if conjugal honor cannot be their shield, the honor of the sex must serve.

  I need not reproduce the details of their discourse; the same inexorable fate, the abhorred fury with the shears, the Atropos of the printing-press, cuts short the thread of a story as remorselessly as her infamous old namesake the threads of lives; and I am compressed by mere violence into a summary of results. For the first time, Mrs. Worboise confessed plainly the hopeless state of her business affairs. So confidential had their relations been, that this may seem surprising; yet there must always be some last thing to confess, and with Mrs. Worboise this was it.

  She admitted explicitly that she was absolutely incompetent to the horrid responsibilities of her post; but what was worse, she saw no prospect of any thing except losing all her furniture,-it represented a total of about two thousand five hundred dollars, less, of course, an important deduction for wear and tear,-and of being turned out of the only home she had, without a cent or a shelter.

  It was a sufficiently melancholy picture, indeed; and as usual, Mrs. Worboise cried as she drew it. There was pretty sure to be water in all her landscapes. Rachel proceeded to pretty nearly repeat Horace’s morning course of tonics. She ventured, indeed, a step farther than he had done; for she took the liberty of reproving her aunt, in a small feminine way, for not finding more comfort under her difficulties in her religion,-a sort of thing in reproofs very commonly to be observed in those youthful good folks who have not yet suffered any of the chronic and wearing afflictions which draw most heavily upon the religious constitution. After they have thus suffered, however, they find out what a labor it is to be happy by any means whatever, in circumstances which constitute unhappiness. But Mrs. Worboise had no disposition to answer in this sense. She was very meek, and confessed (with tears) that it was wrong; but that it was one of those times when every thing in the world seemed to be against her.

  However, after a reasonable allowance of such healthful moral exercises, the two women grew a little more cheerful together, and then they fell to comparing of personal experiences; for nothing is so certain to bring out confidences, as confiding something. Here there came to the light mighty secrets, whereof, however, we shall refer to only two.

  Mrs. Worboise hinted that she had expected Rachel would be at once Mark Hinsdale’s wife and her father’s housekeeper; in reply to which Rachel, in a quiet, serious way, intimated that perhaps it might have been so, but that Mark had greatly distressed her, and, she thought, done wrong, in pressing her as earnestly as he did to marry him while her grief was so fresh at her mother’s death; and that in consequence the currents of their feelings about each other had quite changed. Then Mrs. Worboise intimated further that perhaps Horace, &c. To which the demure Rachel only said,-hardly blushing, and with proper and accurate caution in utterance,-that he hadn’t asked her,-a very safe answer. Then Mrs. Worboise replied that he meant to,-she knew it, she said,-putting a thought too much emphasis on her verb; upon which Miss Rachel dexterously turned the conversation, and talked away famously about Uncle Worboise.

  But whether or not they did each other any other good, at any rate they got rid of nearly all the afternoon; insomuch that before they knew it, it was time to get ready for tea.

  CHAPTER IX.

  TEA came, and the boarders came to tea. Nothing has been said in this history, as nothing was needed,-and there was no room if any thing had been,-about the rank and file of this noble army. Suffice it to observe, that they filled a pretty l
ong table in the large basement dining-room, which had been carried through into the original kitchen of the house; that having, in its turn, been driven out into an addition built upon part of the back yard. Judge De Forest was present with his frill and his dignity; Miss Doddle and Mrs. Pogey were there with their serious and improving observations,-what a pity that it is out of the question to transfer a seasoning at least of their discourse into these comparatively frivolous pages!-Rachel was there, and Horace, and Mrs. Erling, and Jim Fellows, the scandalizing tease, who used to vex the righteous souls of those two saintly women, to startle Mrs. Worboise, and to amuse Rachel and Horace and himself, with deftly chosen observations, which seemed awfully irreverent at first; but which he always defended in such a manner as to confound, if not convince, his opponents, who at last came to treat him mostly with that peculiar sort of tender consideration which a puppy learns to display in nosing a chestnut-burr. Jim, by the way, according to the etiquette in such cases, briefly introduced this evening to Mrs. Worboise a quiet and respectable-looking man, whom he named as Mr. Crafts; a professional acquaintance, he observed, whom he had taken the liberty of inviting to sup with him. Mrs. Worboise accordingly received Mr. Crafts, and seated him next Jim, with her wonted kindly courtesy; though Horace and Rachel, if not the others, saw that she was still distraught with her troubles, no matter how bravely she strove to thrust them down out of the way of her official duties. And the viands of the meal were served, and there were chat and pleasantry and laughter as usual.

  “Thank you for the toasted codfish,” observed Master Jim to his vis — vis, Mrs. Pogey. “Dreadful thing, if they only knew it, to be grilled so after they’re dead,-hay?”

  Mrs. Pogey groaned and shook her head, and answered,-

  “Mr. Fellows, if we sin against great light we shall no doubt find a dreadful fate awaiting us after death.”

  “Light?” replied Jim, as cheerfully as if the good lady had made the most humorous suggestion in the world-”light? Codfish ain’t much on optics. Hefty in acoustics, though,-all tongues and sounds inside. Ever listen to one of those sounds? Gung’l, the fiddler, was a Newfoundlander; did you know that, Mrs. Worboise? So fond of sounds that he always kept a keg of ’em by him to smell at for inspiration in composing. Named his very best set of waltzes after it-’Sounds from home,’ you know.”

  Then he looked across to the Judge, who was solemnly imbibing his Oolong, and continued, “By the way, Judge, how comes on the perp?”

  Judge De Forest started, set down his cup, and looked across with a most severe and deeply offended air.

  “-Etual,” insisted Jim, with a wink. “Oh, we know a thing or two, Judge! No hyphens between friends, Judge. But that wasn’t what I was going to say. Any sounds from your home recently, Judge?”

  The old fellow’s face grew quite purple with heavy wrath and dignity.

  “Mr. Fellows,” he remarked, in his most judicial manner, “I fail to apprehend either the significance or the propriety of your observations, sir. They are unseasonable, sir. I fear that you have been somewhat thoughtless in your use of stimulating liquors, sir. You are certainly violating the proprieties, sir!”

  Jim opened his mouth to reply, when a sharp, high, female voice broke in,-

  “Jedge, indeed! Not haaf so much as you’re a violatin’ on ’em this minnit, Ephraim Huggins!”

  “Oh!” cried Mrs. Worboise, “I forgot to introduce Mrs. Huggins!”

  Then she stopped short; in fact, it was a superfluous introduction. The silence that followed was, for a moment, perfect. Then a single snizzling giggle would squeeze out through Jim Fellow’s teeth, though he held in as hard as he could. Horace, seeming to understand, managed to laugh silently; and the stranger, Mr. Crafts, too, smiled; a kind of grim smile, that intimated amusement rather than surprise. But the blank, ineffable astoundment of all the rest can hardly be dreamed. As for the Judge, nothing can do justice to his bearing except, perhaps, a horrid picture that I once saw of a monstrous old bison being worried to death by a gang of prairie wolves; blinded, bleeding at a hundred wounds, helpless to reach or to escape his agile assailants, resisting, indeed, only in the vast mass of his slow enduring vitality. So the heavy old judge, thus beset, still maintained his pompous manner; though a very close observer might have noticed even a kind of tremor during the impromptu observations of the high-voiced lady; and there assuredly was a shade of uncertainty in his tones when he responded, and he would not look towards the lady aforesaid, who had jumped up when she began her apostrophe, and remained standing. All the rest could thus perceive that she was oldish, thin, and indeed skinny; pale and worried-looking, with thin lips, a cross expression, a peaked, red-tipped nose, scanty hair, and a shabby old dress. Perhaps if they had known her as well as the Judge, they would not have looked at her any more than he did. She certainly was not pretty to see, as she stood there quivering with nervous excitement, and her little, pale, watery eyes looking venomously at the august object of her ire. The Judge arose, and it was to Mrs. Worboise that he spoke:-

  “Madam, I have been grossly insulted at your table. I shall withdraw, madam. I am by no means accustomed to such treatment, and shall not put up with it, madam!”

  And, pushing back his chair, he left the room without attending to the embarrassed apology which Mrs. Worboise began to offer. Even before the door closed behind the burly frame of the Judge, however, Mr. Crafts arose with much nimbleness, and, without a word of apology or explanation tion, darted out after him. Jim and Horace followed, rather more deliberately. Mrs. Huggins sat down. All the rest of the boarders looked at each other in a stunned sort of way, and exchanged expressions of wonder in low tones.

  In a moment Jim looked in, and asked Mrs. Worboise to be good enough to step into the parlor a moment. She did so, and found the unhappy Judge again at bay.

  “O Mr. Fellows! pray tell me what does it all mean?” she cried out, in a terrible state of flutter.

  “Just what I asked you in here for,” observed he. “But take a seat. We’ll finish our negotiations in a moment. What is the whole amount due you from Huggins?”

  “You mean Judge De Forest?” asked Mrs. Worboise timidly.

  “No more a judge than yourself, madam,” broke in Crafts sententiously. “Ephraim Huggins of Saint Louis, State of Mizzoorah, spekilater.”

  With a good deal of difficulty the good lady, at Jim’s reiterated demand, and with wide, scared eyes, managed to get enough of her wits together to fix on the correct sum total,-a little short of nine hundred dollars. Fellows summarily said, “We’ll call it the round sum; little enough for interest;” and he scribbled a receipt in full, and laid it before Mrs. Worboise, saying,-

  “Sign that, please.”

  “But”-she began, naturally enough-

  “All right, marm,” said Crafts.

  “Yes,” assented Horace, “it’s right; do, Mrs. Worboise.” And she signed, like one in a dream.

  “There,” said Jim: “check for that amount, Huggins, if you please.”

  “Suppose I won’t, what then?” said Huggins surlily.

  “Take him, Crafts,” said Jim; “we won’t have a particle of nonsense.”

  Crafts now showed and read an order of arrest on a charge of swindling, and sued out in behalf of one Marcus Wendall.

  Huggins, at hearing this name, muttered a pretty large oath, and without a word took out a big fat pocket-book, drew from it a blank check, filled and signed it, and pushed it over the table.

  “No go,” said Jim, who read it carefully. “T’other bank, Huggins!”

  Evidently with the very bitterest reluctance, the detected swindler substituted another check.

  “There, Mrs. Worboise,” said Jim, “there’s your money. But do you be sure and cash the check the moment the bank’s open to-morrow. If Crafts had let the old villain get out of the front door he was pointing for when he left the table, you wouldn’t have got it. I reckon we’ve got to keep him here all night as ’tis, and Craft
s along with him, to make it a sure thing-that is, unless he wants to sleep in the station-house, and also, unless Mrs. Worboise orders him into the street.”

  “Oh, no!” she cried out. “Oh, not in the least!”

  “Or,” suggested Crafts, in his grimmest manner, “unless the old gentleman’d like the society of his lawful wife.”

  Even Huggins appeared to see that this was not a serious suggestion. It was therefore agreed that Mr. Crafts should be intrusted with the pleasing task of watching over the slumbers of Mr. Huggins, in place of that fairer companion whom he seemed to scorn.

  “Well,” said Huggins, “if you’re through with me, I am with you; I’ll go upstairs.”

  “Wait a moment,” said Horace,-”Here, Jim.” They conferred a moment in a corner. “Good! first-rate!” exclaimed Jim. “Call ’em in.”

  Horace stepped out, and brought in Rachel and Mrs. Huggins. Rachel sat down close to Mrs. Worboise, and Mrs. Huggins opposite her lord.

  “Mrs. H.,” said Jim, “we’ve been thinking that perhaps it would do nicely all round if our friend there should just hand you half his cash balance now in bank, and then you leave him alone again! That’ll give you-let’s see”-he took out a memorandum-”about thirteen hundred dollars.”

  Mrs. Huggins considered a moment, and consented.

  “That is,” suggested the practical Crafts, “until you find out that he’s got another amount to levy on.”

  Wincing, if any thing, more than before, the victim drew another check, and was then allowed to depart under the charge of the vigilant Crafts to his own room. Jim renewed to Mrs. Huggins, who was also going upstairs, the caution he had given to Mrs. Worboise about the check; and then Mrs. Worboise insisted that Jim Fellows should tell her what she had been about, and what he had been about: “For, mercy me!” exclaimed the puzzled landlady, “I feel as if I had been whirled round in a coffee-roaster!”

  Jim explained. He told the landlady how he had been watching Huggins for a long time; how he had only this very day found out about two bank-accounts, the sham and the true; how the vengeful Mrs. Huggins had a few days ago come to New York in search of her recreant lord, and going to the detective head-quarters, had fallen in with Crafts, who had forthwith notified Jim, and thereupon the tea-table tableau had been blocked out.