The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Part 180

And in a moment he added, "He never said anything to me about such a disposition of his property."

Two things were evident to Carmen from this reply. He saw her interests as she saw them, and it was pretty certain that the contents of the will were not made known to him when he witnessed it. She experienced an immense feeling of relief as she arose and unlocked the desk. They sat down before it together, and went over its contents. Mavick made a note of the fresh business memoranda that might be of service next day, since Mrs. Henderson had requested him to attend the proving of the will, and to continue for the present the business relations with her that he had held with Mr. Henderson.

It was late when he left the house, but he took with him a note to Mr.

Sage to drop into the box for morning delivery. The note said that she had searched the house, that no second will existed there, and that she had telegraphed to Mr. Mavick, who had much knowledge of Mr. Henderson's affairs, to meet him in the morning. And she read the note to Mavick before she sealed it.

Before the note could have been dropped into the box, Carmen was in her room, and the note was literally true. No second will existed.

The will was proved, and on the second day its contents were in all the newspapers. But with it went a very exciting story. This was the rumor of another will, and of Henderson's vast scheme of benevolence. Mr. Sage had been interviewed and Carmen had been interviewed. The memorandum (which was only rough and not wholly legible notes) had been found and sent to Carmen. There was no concealment about it. She gave the reporters all the details, and to every one she said that it was her intention to carry out her husband's wishes, so far as they could be ascertained from this memorandum, when his affairs had been settled.

The thirst of the reporters for information amused even Carmen, who had seen much of this industrious tribe. One of them, to whom she had partially explained the situation, ended by asking her, "Are you going to contest the will?"

"Contest the will?" cried Carmen. "There is nothing to contest."

"I didn't know," said the young man, whose usual occupation was reporting sports, and who had a dim idea that every big will must be contested.

Necessarily the affair made a great deal of talk. The newspapers discussed it for days, and turned over the scheme in every light, the most saying that it was a n.o.ble gift to the city that had been intended, while only one or two doubted if charity inst.i.tutions of this sort really helped the poor. Regret, of course, was expressed that the second will had never been executed, but with this regret was the confidence that the widow would carry out, eventually, Henderson's plans.

This revelation modified the opinion in regard to Henderson. He came to be regarded as a public benefactor, and his faithful wife shared the credit of his n.o.ble intention.

XXI

Waiting for something to turn up, Jack found a weary business. He had written to Mavick after the newspaper report that that government officer had been in the city on Henderson's affairs, and had received a very civil and unsatisfactory reply. In the note Mavick had asked him to come to Was.h.i.+ngton and spend a little time, if he had nothing better on hand, as his guest. Perhaps no offense was intended, but the reply enraged Jack. There was in the tone of the letter and in the manner of the invitation a note of patronage that was unendurable.

"Confound the fellow's impudence!" said Jack to himself; and he did not answer the invitation.

Personally his situation was desperate enough, but he was not inclined to face it. In a sort of stupor he let the law take its course. There was nothing left of his fortune, and his creditors were in possession of his house and all it contained. "Do not try to keep anything back that legally belongs to them," Edith had written when he informed her of this last humiliation. Of course decency was observed. Jack's and Edith's wardrobes, and some pieces of ancestral furniture that he pointed out as belonging to his wife, were removed before the auction flag was hung out.

When this was over he still temporized. Edith's affectionate entreaties to him to leave the dreadful city and come home were evaded on one plea or another. He had wild schemes of going off West or South --of disappearing. Perhaps he would have luck somewhere. He couldn't ask aid or seek occupation of his friends, but some place where he was not known he felt that he might do something to regain his position, get some situation, or make some money--lots of men had done it in a new country and reinstate himself in Edith's opinion.

But he did not go, and days and weeks went by in irresolution. No word came from Carmen, and this humiliated Jack more than anything else--not the loss of her friends.h.i.+p, but the remembrance that he had ever danced attendance on her and trusted her. He was getting a good many wholesome lessons in these days.

One afternoon he called upon Miss Tavish. There was no change in her.

She received him with her usual gay cordiality, and with no affectation.

"I didn't know what had become of you," she said.

"I've been busy," he replied, with a faint attempt at a smile.

"Yes, I know. It's been an awful time, what with Henderson's death and everything else. Almost everybody has been hit. But," and she looked at him cheerfully, "they will come up again; up and down; it is always so.

Why, even I got a little twist in that panic." The girl was doing what she could in her way to cheer him up.

"I think of going off somewhere to seek my fortune," said Jack, with a rueful smile.

"Oh, I hope not; your friends wouldn't like that. There is no place like New York, I'm sure." And there was a real note of friendliness and encouragement in her tone. "Only," and she gave him another bright smile, "I think of running away from it myself, for a time. It's a secret yet. Carmen wants me to go abroad with her."

"I have not seen Mrs. Henderson since her husband's death. How is she?"

"Oh, she bears up wonderfully. But then she has so much to do, poor thing. And then the letters she gets, the begging letters. You've no idea. I don't wonder she wants to go abroad. Don't stay away so long again," she said as Jack rose to go. "And, oh, can't you come in to dinner tomorrow night--just Carmen--I think I can persuade her--and n.o.body else?"

"I'm sorry that I have an engagement," Jack answered.

"Well, some other time. Only soon."

This call did Jack temporarily a world of good. It helped his self-esteem. But it was only temporary. The black fact stared him in the face every morning that he was ruined. And it came over him gradually that he was a useless member of society. He never had done anything; he was not trained or fitted to do anything. And this was impressed upon him in the occasional attempts he made to get employment. He avoided as much as possible contact with those who knew him. Shame prevented him from applying to them for occupation, and besides he very well knew that to those who knew him his idle career was no recommendation. Yet he formed a habit of going down-town every day and looking for work. His appearance commanded civility, but everywhere he met with refusal, and he began to feel like a well-bred tramp. There had been in his mind before no excuse for tramps. He could see now how they were made.

It was not that he lacked capacity. He knew a great deal, in an amateurish way, about pictures, books, bric-a-brac, and about society.

Why shouldn't he write? He visited the Loan Exhibition, and wrote a careful criticism on the pictures and sent it to a well-known journal.

It was returned with thanks: the journal had its own art critic. He prepared other articles about curious books, and one about porcelain and pottery. They were all returned, except one which gave the history of a rare bit of majolica, which had been picked up forty cents and then sold for five hundred dollars, and was now owned by a collector who had paid four thousand dollars for it. For that the newspaper sent him five dollars. That was not encouraging, and his next effort for the same journal was returned. Either he hadn't the newspaper knack, or the compet.i.tion was too great.

He had ceased going to his club. It was too painful to meet his acquaintances in his altered circ.u.mstances, and it was too expensive.

It even annoyed him to meet Major Fairfax. That philosopher had not changed towards him any more than Miss Tavish had, but it was a melancholy business to talk of his affairs, and to listen to the repeated advice to go down to the country to Edith, and wait for some good opening. That was just what he could not do. His whole frivolous life he began now to see as she must have seen it. And it seemed to him that he could only retain a remnant of his self-respect by doing something that would reinstate him in her opinion.

"Very well," said the Major, at the close of the last of their talks at the club; "what are you going to do?"

"I'm going into some business," said Jack, stiffly.

"Have you spoken to any of your friends?"

"No. It's no use," he said, bitterly; "they are all like me, or they know me."

"And hasn't your wife some relations who are in business?"

"The last people I should apply to. No. I'm going to look around.

Major, do you happen to know a cheap lodging-house that is respectable?"

"I don't know any that is not respectable," the Major replied, in a huffy manner.

"I beg your pardon," said Jack. "I want to reduce expenses."

The Major did know of a place in the neighborhood where he lived.

He gave Jack the address, and thereafter the club and his usual resorts knew him no more.

As the days went by and nothing happened to break the monotony of his waiting and his fruitless search, he became despondent. Day after day he tramped about the city, among the business portions, and often on the East Side, to see misery worse than his own. He had saved out of the wreck his ample wardrobe, his watch, and some jewelry, and upon these he raised money for his cheap lodgings and his cheap food. He grew careless of his personal appearance. Every morning he rose and went about the city, always with less hope, and every night he returned to his lodging, but not always sober.

One day he read the announcement that Mrs. Rodney Henderson and Miss Tavish had sailed for Europe. That ended that chapter. What exactly he had expected he could not say. Help from Carmen? Certainly not. But there had never been a sign from her, nor any word from Mavick lately.

There evidently was nothing. He had been thrown over. Carmen evidently had no more use for him. She had other plans. The thought that he had been used and duped was almost more bitter than his loss.

In after-days Jack looked back upon this time with a feeling akin to thankfulness for Carmen's utter heartlessness in regard to his affairs.

He trembled to think what might have happened to him if she had sent for him and consulted him and drawn him again into the fatal embrace of her schemes and her fascinations. Now he was simply enraged when he thought of her, and irritated with himself.

These were dark days, days to which he looked back with a shudder.

He wrote to Edith frequently--a brief note. He was straightening out his affairs; he was busy. But he did not give her his address, and he only got her letters when the Major forwarded them from the club, which was irregularly. A stranger, who met him at his lodgings or elsewhere, would have said that he was an idle and rather dissipated-looking man. He was idle, except in his feeble efforts to get work; he was worn and discouraged, but he was not doing anything very bad. In his way of looking at it, he was carrying out his notion of honor. He was only breaking a woman's heart.

He was conscious of little except his own misfortunes and misery. He did not yet apprehend his own selfishness nor her n.o.bility. He did not yet comprehend the unselfishness of a good woman's love.

On the East Side one day, as he was sauntering along Grand Street, he encountered Dr. Leigh, his wife's friend, whom he had seen once at his house. She did not at first recognize him until he stopped and spoke his name.