The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories Part 9

The soup was removed and a lavish dinner laid on the table. Dr. Webster sacrificed his rigid economic tenets at the kitchen door, but there was no rejoicing in the hearts of the guests. They groaned in spirit as they contemplated the amount they should be forced to consume at one of the clock.

The doctor carved the turkeys into generous portions, ate his, then began to talk.

"Cleveland will be re-elected," he announced dictatorially. "Do you hear? Harrison has no show at all. What say?" His s.h.a.ggy brows rushed together. He had detected a faint murmur of dissent. "Did you say he wouldn't, John Holt?"

"No, no," disclaimed Mr. Holt, who was a scarlet Republican. "Cleveland will be re-elected beyond a doubt."

"Well, if I hear of any of you voting for Harrison! I suppose you think I can't find out what ticket you vote! But I'll find out, sirs. Mark my words, Holt, if you vote the Republican ticket--"

He stopped ominously and brought his teeth together with a vicious click. Holt raised his wine-gla.s.s nervously. The doctor held his note to a considerable amount.

"The Republican party is dead--dead as a door-nail," broke in an unctuous voice. A stout man with a shrewd time-serving face leaned forward. "Don't let it give you a thought, doctor. What do you think of the prospects for wheat?"

"Never better, never better. They say the Northern crops will fail, but it's a lie. They can't fail. You needn't worry, Meeker. Don't pull that long face, sir; I don't like it."

"The reports are not very encouraging," began a man of bile and nerves and melancholy mien. "And this early rain--"

"Don't contradict me, sir," cried Webster. "I say they can't fail. They haven't failed for eight years. Why should they fail now?"

"No reason at all, sir--no reason at all," replied the victim, hurriedly. "It does me good to hear your prognostications."

"I hear there is a slight rise in Con. Virginia," interposed Mrs. Holt, who had cultivated tact.

"Nonsense!" almost shouted the tyrant. The heavy silver fork of the Morenos fell to his plate with a crash. "The mine's as rotten as an old lung. There isn't a handful of decent ore left in her. No more clodhoppers 'll get rich out of that mine. You haven't been investing, have you?" His ferret eyes darted from one face to another. "If you have, don't you ever darken my doors again! I don't approve of stock-gambling, and you know it."

The guests, one and all, a.s.sured him that not one of their hard-earned dollars had gone to the stock-market.

"Great Scott!" murmured the youth to Miss Williams; "is this the way he always goes on? Have these people no self-respect?"

"They're used to him. This sort of thing has gone on ever since I came here. You see he has made this lake the most aristocratic part of the city, so that it gives one great social importance to live here; and as he won't sell the houses, they have to let him trample on their necks, and he loves to do that better than he loves his money. But that is not the only reason. They hope he will leave them those houses when he dies.

They certainly deserve that he should. For years, before they owned carriages, they would tramp through wind and rain every Sunday in winter to play billiards with him, to say nothing of the hot days of summer.

They have eaten this mid-day dinner that they hate time out of mind.

They have listened to his interminable yarns, oft repeated, about early California. In all these years they have never contradicted him, not once. They thought he'd die long ago, and now they're under his heel, and they couldn't get up and a.s.sert themselves if they tried. All they can do is to abuse him behind his back."

"It all seems disgusting to me."

His independent spirit was very attractive to the companion.

"I'd like to bluff him at his own game, the old slave-driver," he continued.

"Oh don't! don't!" she quavered.

She was, in truth, anxiously awaiting the moment when Dr. Webster should see fit to give his attention to the stranger.

He laughed outright.

"Why, what makes you so afraid of him? He doesn't beat you, does he?"

"It isn't that. It's the personality of the man, added to force of habit."

"Well, Mr. Strowbridge," cried Dr. Webster, suddenly addressing the youth, "what are you doing for this world? I hear you are just out of Harvard University. University men never amount to a row of pins."

Strowbridge flushed and bit his lip, but controlled himself.

"Never amount to a row of pins," roared the doctor, irritated by the haughty lifting of the young man's head. "Don't even get any more book-learning now, I understand. Nothing but football and boat-racing.

Think that would make a fortune in a new country? Got any money of your own?"

"My father, since you ask me, is a rich man--as well as a gentleman,"

said Strowbridge, with the expression of half-frightened anger of the righteously indignant, who knows that he has not the advantages of cool wit and scathing repartee, and, in consequence, may lose his head. "He inherited his money, and was not forced to go to a new country and become a savage," he blurted out.

Mr. Holt extended himself beneath the table, and trod with terrified significance on Strowbridge's foot. Miss Williams fluttered with terror and admiration. The other guests gazed at the youth in dismay. For the first time in the history of Webster Hall the grizzly had been bearded in his lair.

"Sir! sir!" spluttered Webster. Then he broke into a roar. "Who asked this cub here, anyway? Who said you could write and ask permission to bring your friends to my house? How dare you--how dare you--how dare you, sir, speak to me like that? Do you know, sir--"

"Oh, I know all about you," exclaimed Strowbridge, whose young blood was now uncontrollable. "You are an ill-bred, purse-proud old tyrant, who wouldn't be allowed to sit at a table in California if it wasn't for your vulgar money." He pushed back his chair and stood up. "I wish you good-day, sir. I pity you. You haven't a friend on earth. I also apologize for my rudeness. My only excuse is that I couldn't help it."

And he went hurriedly from the room.

To Miss Williams the feeble light went with him. The appalled guests attacked their food with feverish energy. Dr. Webster stared stupidly at the door; then his food gave out the sound of ore in a crusher. He did not speak for some time. When he did he ignored the subject of young Strowbridge. His manner was appreciably milder--somewhat dazed--although he by no means gave evidence of being humbled to the dust. The long dinner dragged to its close. The women went up to the parlor to sip tea with Miss Webster and slide up and down the furniture. The men followed the doctor to the billiard-room. They were stupid and sleepy, but for three hours they were forced alternately to play and listen to the old man's anecdotes of the days when he fought and felled the grizzly. He seemed particularly anxious to impress his hearers with his ancient invincibility.

That night, in the big four-posted mahogany bed in which he had been born, surrounded by the ma.s.sive ugly furniture of his old New England home, Dr. Webster quietly pa.s.sed away.

II

Not only the lakeside people, but all of the city with claims to social importance attended the funeral. Never had there been such an imposing array of long faces and dark attire. Miss Webster being prostrated, the companion did the honors. The dwellers on the lake occupied the post of honor at the head of the room, just beyond the expensive casket. Their faces were studies. After Miss Williams had exchanged a word with each, Strowbridge stepped forward and bent to her ear.

"Oh, I say," he whispered, eagerly, "I have to tell some member of this family how sorry I am for losing my temper and my manners the other day.

It was awfully fresh of me. Poor old boy! Do say that you forgive me."

A smile crept between her red lids.

"He had a good heart," she said. "He would have forgiven you." And then the long and impressive ceremony began.

All the great company followed the dead autocrat to the cemetery, regardless of the damaging skies. Miss Williams, as chief mourner, rode in a hack, alone, directly behind the hea.r.s.e. During the dreary ride she labored conscientiously to stifle an unseemly hope. In the other carriages conversation flowed freely, and no attempt was made to discourage expectations.

Two evenings later, as the crowd of weary business men boarded the train that met the boat from the great city across the bay, it was greeted as usual by the cry of the local newsboys. This afternoon the youngsters had a rare bait, and they offered it at the top of their shrill worn voices:

"Will of Dr. Hiram Webster! Full account of Dr. Hiram Webster's lastwillundtestermint."

A moment later the long rows of seats looked as if buried beneath an electrified avalanche of newspapers. At the end of five minutes the papers were fluttering on the floor amid the peanut-sh.e.l.ls and orange-skins of the earlier travellers. There was an impressive silence, then an animated, terse, and shockingly expressive conversation. Only a dozen or more sat with drawn faces and white lips. They were the dwellers by the lake. Hiram Webster had left every cent of his large fortune to his sister.

For two weeks Webster Lake did not call on the heiress. It was too sore.

At the end of that period philosophy and decency came to the rescue.

Moreover, cupidity: Miss Webster too must make a will, and before long.

They called. Miss Webster received them amiably. Her eyes were red, but the visitors observed that her mourning was very rich; they had never seen richer. They also remarked that she held her gray old head with a loftiness that she must have acquired in the past two weeks; no one of them had ever seen it before. She did not exactly patronize them; but that she appreciated her four millions there could be no doubt.