University of Virginia Library

17. CHAPTER XVII.
MR. DON AND ANOTHER JOIN FORCES.

The reader will not expect that Mr. Don, who does
not live in Eastham, should give up all his time to St.
Bart's, or to his friends in our town. He is a snug
man of business at home, and quietly thriving in the
world; and this he would not be, if he did not look
after his own business, which is that of calico-printing,
on a good scale. It is because his business is in a safe
way, and that he conscientiously follows up his duties
in all other directions, that we find him so often treading
the soil of Eastham, and making himself seen and
felt at the School.

More than one thing here now took up his time.

We have seen that Miss Minette Wadham was not
disinclined to let her mother go forward and work out
her plan, if only she could be kept within certain
bounds of propriety. We have seen the plan formed
in their house to give harmless pleasure and to develop
a most interesting and attractive mystery. It is while
things are just in this state that our small but intelligent
and courteous friend made his way in; and, in
answer to the salutations of the ladies, said that “his
wife assured him that he was looking very well; that
he was not quite clear that she was right; but supposed
that it was a proper compliment to her to think
so.”

Having thus smilingly introduced himself as put
forward and sustained by his wife, and having next
complimented the ladies on looking well, and remarked
the beauty of their flowers, and the comfort of a wood-fire,
he diverged a little. “You find your residence in
Eastham still agreeable, I suppose, Mrs. Wadham?”
he asked. “Our boys — the boys of Saint Bartholomew's
School — don't disturb you?”

This he said like one who, though he felt responsible
for the conduct of the boys, yet was pretty well assured
that there was little misconduct to account for. The
lady answered: —

“I've got two boys there myself, you know, Mr.
Don; and my boys were always brought up to respect
their mother, — to respect their father and their
mother my boys were brought up; and, if boys
respect their mothers, they can't be very bad.”

This little sentence was uttered with so much decision
as to make it clear that she considered Mr. Don's
question met and answered. Mr. Don accepted it,
apparently, in that understanding.

“True, ma'am,” he said, “the parental principle —
the principle of parental respect — in my opinion
underlies (I think that's the phrase now), it's at the
root of every thing. You commonly observe” —

Mrs. Wadham plunged into speech: —

“As for the parental principle, I say, teach 'em to
know their mothers. I know it's said, `it's a wise child
that knows his father;' but I say let 'em know their
mothers, and then you keep 'em in connection with all
that's pure and holy.”

“It may be as you say, ma'am,” answered Mr.
Don. Then gathering up again the thread of discourse,

which had been brushed out of his hand, he
followed it: —

“I've seen young men left orphans who have been
brought up without that restraining influence. I have
one in particular in my mind now” —

“Yes: speaking of that, what do you think of the
mystery of St. Bartholomew's — I call it; there was a
`Massacre of St. Bartholomew's' once, you know.”

Mr. Don moved in his seat, and looked intelligently
at her; for, as our readers will believe, here was a
subject that he was ready for. He answered cordially:
—

“I think we're in a way to get nearer to it.”

The answer was so ready that Mrs. Wadham seemed
to doubt whether he could have understood her.

“About this young chap at the School, I mean, —
nobleman's son, or whatever he is.”

“That's the subject I had in my mind, ma'am,” said
Mr. Don.

“It's the subject a good many people have got in
their minds, I guess,” said the lady.

“But, excuse me, ma'am,” said Mr. Don. “You
spoke of a `Massacre.' Am I to understand that you
connect something of that sort with the history of the
young person we referred to?”

“That I can't say,” answered Mrs. Wadham, with
much meaning and authority in her look and voice.
“Mystery is what it is, now. I ask” (with a sort of
official tone) “what you think of it?”

“Oh!” said Mr. Don, seriously, “I'm convinced there's
something in it, ma'am. I think it altogether likely
he's a nobleman's son, — my own opinion is, a Russian
nobleman.”

Mrs. Wadham looked as if she carried in her pocket
a pass-key to the House of Things Unrevealed. “I
suppose it can be known,” she said, and sealed the sentence
with a single nod, as significant, if not as conclusive,
as that of Jove.

Mr. Don was not the man to shut the mouth of an
oracular cave, or to put brakes upon the wheels of advancing
discovery, nor was he the man to precipitate
things. “You think it could be discovered, ma'am,
do you?” he asked. “I remember a remark our Rector,
Dr. Nattom, once made, that `if we could encourage
the hidden thing to come out of its shell, without
rudely breaking it ourselves, we were following the
order of nature.'”

“The `order of nature' is all good,” she answered;
“but I take it we're meant to be lords of nature. I
should say this secret will be discovered!” and, having
nodded decisively, she looked steadily in his face.
“There's Eldridge!” she said, suddenly, showing that
she could attend to two men at once. Then, throwing
up the window, she called out, “Eldridge! I want you
to put Tommy directly into the light carriage, to drive
me.”

It is to be supposed that if Eldridge had received his
proportion of that domestic wisdom which, as we have
heard, had been applied to the sons of Wadham, he
would go straight to the execution of an order, or a
suggestion of Mrs. Wadham, with a readiness beyond
that of submission to authority, with a feeling as if he
were furthering the operation of one of the Elements
of Nature. This time he answered, not strongly, “I
haven't been to dinner yet, Miss Wadham.”

“Oh, yes!” she said; “but I want the horse and

light carriage, right away. — I sha'n't be gone long,”
she added, considerately, for his comfort.

“Now,” she said, “I'm goin' to St. Bartholomew's
School: I've got an end in view, — I've got a purpose,
— and a motive.”

Mrs. Wadham's way of speaking a sentence like this
was sententious: whether to choose the right words, or
to give them a chance to take their full effect upon her
hearers.

Mr. Don was a very good listener, — courteous and
grave, but not demonstrative. To what had just been
said, he answered, “Oh, yes, ma'am!”

Mrs. Wadham looked at him as if she were not sure
whether he had altogether understood her.

“I say,” said she, emphatically, “I've got a purpose
and a motive!”

This phrase had evidently been chosen with deliberation.

“Perhaps you'd like to go with me?” she asked,
and was assured that “he would certainly go, with
pleasure, if it wouldn't put her to any inconvenience.”

“No inconvenience about it!” she answered. “I
ain't a living skeleton, and I always have plenty of room
in my carriages. Now, Netta, you might go and set
and talk with Mrs. Warren, while I'm about business.
That'll be treating her with proper respect. — Yes.”

To many persons, if they had heard the whole of
Mrs. Wadham's plans, this proposition would seem like
that among thieves, by which the one is to draw off a
partner or a clerk, while the other robs the till. To
people like the author of it, it seems to provide for all
the demands of propriety and kindness, while it answers
the first object, which is to enable the contriver of it to
accomplish his own purpose.

“So we'll put on our things and get ready, if you'll
go.”

The daughter had more delicacy of perception, if
not more kindliness of feeling than the mother, and
she objected, while she nipped dead leaves from the
plants: —

“But, mother, I don't see why you can't see Mrs.
Warren and ask leave to visit the dormitory. I don't
think there would be any difficulty” —

“That would just spoil my plan: I can do that afterwards,”
said the mother. “That is all very proper, no
doubt, in general: I make no objection; but there are
other considerations that outweigh propriety, this time.
Well, Mr. Don, I'll go and get ready.”

“And I'll beg off from going,” said Miss Minette.
“You'll have Mr. Don.”

“Perhaps I can take your daughter's place with Mrs.
Warren,” said that mild gentleman. “I can't fill it, of
course, — I wouldn't undertake to fill it; but just to
make a call upon Mrs. Warren, and I could join you
immediately, in the alcoves.”

Mrs. Wadham was going, large and heavy, to make
herself ready, and answered, turning to Mr. Don, as
she went, “Yes.”

“I can understand your feeling, — if you'll allow me
to say so,” said the gentleman to Miss Minette, who
was still engaged in trimming her plants. “I should
have some scruple myself, if I thought that any liberty
was going to be taken; but, of course, that isn't the
intention.”

“Mrs. Warren may make no objection, and may not
feel hurt,” said Miss Minette (“No!” interposed Mr.
Don); “but I don't like to ransack her house, without
leave” —

oats.—Faith, very droll, indeed, ha, ha, ha! Yes, I
think I understand you now, sir. How silly I was to
have taken you seriously, in your droll conceits, too,
about having no confidence in nature. In reality you
have just as much as I have.”

“I have confidence in nature? I? I say again there
is nothing I am more suspicious of. I once lost ten
thousand dollars by nature. Nature embezzled that
amount from me; absconded with ten thousand dollars'
worth of my property; a plantation on this stream,
swept clean away by one of those sudden shiftings of
the banks in a freshet; ten thousand dollars' worth of
alluvion thrown broad off upon the waters.”

“But have you no confidence that by a reverse shifting
that soil will come back after many days?—ah, here
is my venerable friend,” observing the old miser, “not
in your berth yet? Pray, if you will keep afoot, don't
lean against that baluster; take my arm.”

It was taken; and the two stood together; the old
miser leaning against the herb-doctor with something of
that air of trustful fraternity with which, when standing,
the less strong of the Siamese twins habitually leans
against the other.

The Missourian eyed them in silence, which was
broken by the herb-doctor.

“You look surprised, sir. Is it because I publicly
take under my protection a figure like this? But I am
never ashamed of honesty, whatever his coat.”

“Look you,” said the Missourian, after a scrutinizing
pause, “you are a queer sort of chap. Don't know

to the side of the house, where, from the top of a natural
rock which was as level and smooth as if made for
the purpose, Mrs. Wadham and her guest stepped
down through the doorway of the vehicle, and after
she had given her daughter a parting direction to
“keep Mr. Greenwood, if he should come, for she might
have some use for him, — and tell him, `Not a word!'”
they were driven off. “Mr. Greenwood's been away,”
she explained, “and I want to have my party.”

No prettier road has its flowers gathered in summer
by children's fingers, and its stones piled by them into
walls and causeways, and bridges and houses, and few
smoother country roads have their dust raised by flashing
wheels, than that over which they went. In the first
place, there was a hill, and there were windings; and
then the varied grouping and size and shape of trees
gave change and beauty, even now, when their chief
grace and glory was no longer hanging upon them, and
made a shelter from the chilly winds; while, through the
openings, the lake was seen, and the town, afar.

At St. Bart's, the cunningly devised programme was
carried out, with one chief exception. Before leaving
the carriage, Mr. Don had mildly expressed his purpose
of going with Mrs. Wadham first, and reserving his
visit to the Rector's family until afterwards. The
flowers were left lying on the seat.

“Just as you please,” said Mrs. Wadham, who would
gain by the change a witness to her own cleverness, and
an adviser, — and, moreover, a sharer in the questionable
proceeding in which she was engaged. “Now I
lead, and you follow. Eldridge, you'll walk the horse
along the road, up there, and mind and be here in
twenty minutes, — from fifteen to twenty minutes.”

So saying, she led the way rapidly, and with her face
set gravely and resolutely forward, not to the front
door, but round to that storm-house with which the
reader is sufficiently acquainted. Mr. Don followed,
without trying exactly to overtake her. As she got
her hand upon the latch of the door, it was suddenly
pushed open with a force that, coming unexpectedly,
and striking her not well planted on the ground, nearly
thre her over backwards. Mr. Don supported her by
one arm, and she successfully withstood the shock.

“A mite more,” she said, gasping, “and my boys
would have been motherless, and I shouldn't have been
here to tell the tale!” She made the tragic character
of the unhappened incident complete, by adding: “And
it would have been their own school-house door that
did it!”

The three boys who had made the unintentional
assault stopped very politely to apologize, and Mrs.
Wadham received the atonement graciously: —

“Only,” she said, “I wouldn't come out of a door as
if I was fired out, for you may hit somebody.”

Mr. Don, for his part, addressed two of the boys as acquaintances,
“Brade” and “Remsen;” and Mrs. Wadham
promptly turned to one of them, whom the reader
knows as Nicholas Remsen, and expressed great interest
in him, as being in her son Edmund's Form. “Oh,
yes! I know it's Albert is in your Form,” she said, correcting
herself, as the boy corrected her; and then,
with great dignity, took leave of him, and said, —

“Now, Mr. Don!” and — the door having been
opened more deliberately than the last time — passed
through, into the house.

“You know Remsen, then?” Mr. Don asked.

“Remsen? No! I know Brade, — I spoke to him
just now. I've looked at him, many's the time, in
church. Now, this is our way!” and she went straight
on upstairs, remarking, as she mounted stair after stair,
that “if people could go up a slope, as they used to have
it, up to the cupalo, in the State House” (Mrs. Wadham
very seldom miscalls a word, but that crowning
glory of the capitol is one that she names like most
people), “it would be ever so much more comfortable.”

“How d'y'do, Therese?” she said affably to a nice
person, with a bunch of keys at her girdle and a pile
of white clothing on her arm. “I'm come to look at
your rooms, you see, to see if you've got 'em all right.
— Mr. Don, you know,” she added, partly withdrawing,
so as to let a portion of the Trustee be seen. “I sha'n't
need any help, Therese. I know my way. Who's
next to my Edmund, now? Remsen? or Brade?”

Being informed that Thompson Walters was on one
side, and Blake on the other, she said adroitly, —

“Brade's the one they call `my lord.' I suppose his
room is very splendid. This is it, I believe?” and she
drew aside a curtain.

This time she had hit rightly, as “Therese,” who
kept close at hand, assured her, and disclosed a pretty
little place, — not, at the moment, absolutely neat, for
some shavings, with a piece or two of paper, lay upon
the floor, and a roughish bit of wood, with a knife
sticking in it, lay on the little table.

A good engraving, from one of Raphael's well-known
paintings of the Mother and the Child, hung over the
bed, and there were several pretty photographs upon
the walls.

Mrs. Wadham seemed to see every thing at a glance,
and she dropped the curtain.

“Very pooty!” she said, — “plain, but very pooty.
Nothing very foreign-looking but the watch. Oh! perhaps
you didn't see that watch?” and she drew the
curtain again.

Mr. Don had entered into more general subjects of
conversation with “Therese,” whom he called “Mrs.
Latham.” He had started that of heating, and was on
his way, doubtless, to that of ventilation and the rest,
when this appeal was made to him. We may suppose
that, whatever he was talking about, his eyes and ears
were ready for discovery. The watch he set out for with
all the alacrity that was in him.

“Indeed, ma'am,” he said, as he surveyed it with his
glasses, “it's a very curious specimen!” for under their
eyes lay a large — as compared with watches of our
day, we might say a huge — machine of silver, with a
high and broadly-overarching dome of crystal; and
from this body came a great stalwart ticking, as unlike
the sound of modern time-pieces as was the accent of
our fathers of two or three centuries ago unlike our own.

“Two angels,” said Mr. Don. “Foreign!” Then,
looking closely, he read: “Diependorper, Haarlaem.”

“That ain't Russian, though!” said Mrs. Wadham,
thoughtfully. Soon she added, in a cheery tone: “But
we've got English watches and Swiss watches. — How
do you suppose they ever carried such a thing as
that?” asked the lady, having relieved her own
anxiety. “Had a servant, I suppose, to lug it in his
pocket, and take it out when his master wanted to
know what the time was. Silver, you see: couldn't
trust 'em with gold. That's the reason they did it,”
she continued, finding confirmations for her theory
multiplying as she went on.

“Not very far out of the way,” said Mr. Don, comparing
the notes of time upon its face with those of a
very good-looking gold watch which he took out of his
pocket, and speaking a good deal as if the old horologe
had brought down with it a current of time from centuries
far off, and as if it were as marvellous that this
should hit that of to-day as that the eastern and western
shafts of the great tunnel should come so wonderfully
together.

“Ah!” he exclaimed, putting his forefinger to the
crystal. Mrs. Wadham's head went instantly down to
see.

“That's some sort of lingo that's too much for me,”
she said, leaving Mr. Don at work, with pencil and
paper, copying.

“Well, now for my boys!” said the lady, and she
started off. “Have they got bedclothes enough?” she
asked, feeling between the sheets. “Dear me! what's
the child got here? A turtle, I do believe!” and she
drew her hand hastily out again.

Mrs. Wadham was not a woman to take counsel
with her fears, when any thing was to be done; so she
assailed the work again, and flung the clothes down
over the bed's foot; and there, uncovered, on the middle
of the lower sheet, stood something more congenial
to boys than “turtles,” and perhaps less foreign to their
beds, something between two plates of crockery, and
looking like rich pastry. She lifted the upper plate,
and showed a delicate, flaky pie.

“What things boys are!” said the mother. “Now,
he's been home and got that, without letting anybody
know. That's my china. Well, we won't leave it
there,” she added, taking it and looking round the little

room. “'Twon't do to put it where it'll get him into
trouble. (If a tootor should see it, he'd take possession
of it.) What's in here, I wonder?” and she opened
a small standing cupboard. “There! we'll put it in
here,” removing some of the rubbish of newspapers
which nearly filled it. “Ah! what's this?” and she
laid open another plate of pie, much like the former.
“Well done!” she said, and then proceeded to explain:
“That child has a very delicate stomach. He always
liked to have something a little nice, between his meals,
if he felt hungry: I was so before him. Entirely different
from his brother. He'll hardly take any thing,
if you'll give it to him, away from table.”

A human sound, evidently coming from some hidden
overhearers, not far off, showed that there were other
occupants of the dormitory, beside those in sight.

She shut the door of the cupboard, and then called
Mr. Don's attention to the furniture of the little room,
among which a pair of boxing-gloves was conspicuous,
with portraits of pointers and setters and some highly-colored
lady on horseback.

“Every thing's very neat, Therese, — very proper,”
she said to the respectable person whom Mr. Don and
she called by different names, and who, though she
had in some way disposed of her pile of clothes, was
still busy very near them. “Now we'll see the other,”
Mrs. Wadham said, and went across to the opposite side
of the dormitory.

“This boy ain't like his brother: this boy's all for
reading,” in confirmation of which assertion copies of
the “Youth's Magazine” and some closely-printed
newspapers might be seen upon his table.

Mrs. Wadham was not, like many persons, satisfied

to have the character she had given her son rest upon
her own statement only, but was entirely willing to put
it to a test; either not observing or not regarding her
companion's looking at his watch, as if he were becoming
a little impatient, and felt the importance of time.
The lady walked straight up to this son's little private
lock-up, and, finding it fastened, went at once across, and
borrowed the other's key. The inside of the cupboard,
when opened, certainly showed a different set of contents
from that of his brother with the delicate stomach;
for here was an open box of “devilled” ham, and a
large bottle of mixed pickles, in which was a fork of
silver or plated ware. “He seems to be doing pretty
well, too,” said the mother, after a short pause. “But
this isn't business, you may say” (turning to Mr. Don).
“I ain't forgetting. Therese, I'm going to take home
this fork,” and shutting the cupboard-door, without any
further remark upon the different characters of her two
boys, she returned the key to its own lock, and, holding
the fork, said, “Now we'll go! I saw a scrap of
paper on the floor in a room we were examining: I don't
believe but what I could wrap this fork in it, without
hurting anybody;” and, going to Brade's sleeping-room,
she picked up a piece of paper, calling Therese's attention
to it, as she did so, and promising to return it,
“if it was of any consequence.”

“Let's see before we start,” she said. “We can tell
pooty well if it amounts to any thing,” and she looked
with some significance to Mr. Don, who was, or seemed,
entirely calm and unintelligent. “It's a boy's writing,”
she said, having spread it open. “`itwen gatrapin' she
read aloud, with growing animation, which seemed to
infect Mr. Don also, for he certainly listened, without

pretending to be unconcerned. “Well,” she said, folding
her fork in the paper, “I can't make any thing out
of it, any how. Remember, Therese, I'm answerable.
— If you're ready,” she said, addressing her companion.
Then, in a low voice, “This 'll come in very
good at our tableau.”

Mr. Don turned and bade “good afternoon” to “Mrs.
Latham,” and then followed the large lady out, and
down the stairs. As they went, sounds of steps and
quick voices (among these some quieter tones of a
woman) could be heard in the dormitory which they
had just left.

She took her way this time through the front hall.
As they went, she said: “I've been put back a little
with my party. I depend upon Mr. Greenwood; and
he went off, just as I was giving out my invitations, to
his sister. It's a complimentary party to Brade, — dejooney,
in the afternoon, because Mr. Warren won't
let 'em come in the evening. I had to write to the
Russian Ambassador myself, and I did, — autograph.
I told him about his young countryman, of exalted
family. I said his interest in him would bring him;
but I wouldn't ask him to take that step. I'd bear all
expenses, both ways, here and back, gladly, gladly. I
wrote a second time, because I hadn't got any answer,
and set the day, and said my offer would hold good, if
he come without any warning. I hope you'll meet
him.”

Mr. Don expressed his pleasure at the prospect of
meeting so distinguished a personage, and they found
themselves near the door.

People are apt if their thoughts are sufficiently collected
in the moment of victory, to tax themselves

with any excesses or short-comings which they can see
in their own conduct, in the pursuit of that glittering
prize. Mrs. Wadham said, as she went downstairs:
“There! I don't know as I've hurt anybody.”

“You haven't disturbed the arrangements of the
house, I think,” said Mr. Don.

“I think not!” she said. “Now,” — as she looked
about her, outside of the front door, which she had
chosen this time. “Oh! here! won't you take some
flowers for me, with a message, to Mrs. Warren?” she
asked of an abstracted-looking boy, so far off that he
was obliged to come near, and she to repeat the message,
before he could accept or decline it.

“A message,” she repeated, “and a bouquet to Mrs.
Warren, with my compliments, — Mrs. Wadham's compliments,
— and say that I didn't see any of the family
about. Eldridge! those flowers!” and having committed
them to her messenger, who, without her recognizing
him, was no other than our friend Alonzo Peters,
and having taken in Mr. Don, and having settled herself
thoroughly in her seat, she was driven away, at a
very good rate, by the undined (if he was still the
undined) Eldridge.