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A Bicycle of Cathay: A Novel, a novel by Frank R Stockton |
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Chapter 13. A Man With A Letter |
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_ CHAPTER XIII. A MAN WITH A LETTER When my unfortunate bicycle had been started on its way to Waterton, I threw myself into the family life of the Larramies, determined not to let them see any perturbations of mind which had been caused by the extraordinary promptness of the younger son. If a man had gone with me instead of that boy, I would have had every opportunity of saying what I wanted to say to the mistress of the Holly Sprig. I may state that I frequently found myself trying to determine what it was I wanted to say. I did my best to suppress all thoughts relating to things outside of this most hospitable and friendly house. I went to see the bear with the younger members of the family. I played four games of tennis, and in the afternoon the whole family went to fish in a very pretty mill-pond about a mile from the house. A good many fish were caught, large and small, and not one of the female fishers, except Miss Willoughby, the nervous young lady, and little Clara, would allow me to take a fish from her hook. Even Mrs. Larramie said that if she fished at all she thought she ought to do everything for herself, and not depend upon other people. As much as possible I tried to be with Mr. Larramie and Walter. I had not the slightest distaste for the company of the ladies, but there was a consciousness upon me that there were pleasant things in which a man ought to restrict himself. There was nothing chronic about this consciousness. It was on duty for this occasion only. That night at the supper-table the conversation took a peculiar turn. Mr. Larramie was the chief speaker, and it pleased him to hold forth upon the merits of Mrs. Chester. He said, and his wife and others of the company agreed with him, that she was a lady of peculiarly estimable character; that she was out of place; that every one who knew her well felt that she was out of place; but that she so graced her position that she almost raised it to her level. Over and over again her friends had said to her that a lady such as she was--still young, of a good family, well educated, who had travelled, and moved in excellent society--should not continue to be the landlady of a country inn, but the advice of her friends had had no effect upon her. It was not known whether it was necessary for her to continue the inn-keeping business, but the general belief was that it was not necessary. It was supposed that she had had money when she married Godfrey Chester, and he was not a poor man. Then came a strange revelation, which Mr. Larramie dwelt upon with considerable earnestness. There was an idea, he said, that Mrs. Chester kept up the Holly Sprig because she thought it would be her husband's wish that she should do so. He had probably said something about its being a provision for her in case of his death. At any rate, she seemed desirous to maintain the establishment exactly as he had ordered it in his life, making no change whatever, very much as if she had expected him to come back, and wished him to find everything as he had left it. "Of course she doesn't expect him to come back," said Mr. Larramie, "because it must now be four years since the time of his supposed murder--" "Supposed!" I cried, with much more excited interest than I would have shown if I had taken proper thought before speaking. "Well," said Mr. Larramie, "that is a fine point. I said 'supposed' because the facts of the case are not definitely known. There can be no reasonable doubt, however, that he is dead, for even if this fact had not been conclusively proved by the police investigations, it might now be considered proved by his continued absence. It would have been impossible for Mr. Chester alive to keep away from his wife for four years--they were devoted to each other. Furthermore, the exact manner of his death is not known--although it must have been a murder--and for these reasons I used the word 'supposed.' But, really, so far as human judgment can go, the whole matter is a certainty. I have not the slightest doubt in the world that Mrs. Chester so considers it, and yet, as she does not positively know it--as she has not the actual proofs that her husband is no longer living--she refuses in certain ways, in certain ways only, to consider herself a widow." "And what ways are those?" I asked, in a voice which, I hope, exhibited no undue emotion. "She declines to marry again," said Mrs. Larramie, now taking up the conversation. "Of course, such a pretty woman--I may say, such a charming woman--would have admirers, and I know that she has had some most excellent offers, but she has always refused to consider any of them. There was one gentleman, a man of wealth and position, who had proposed to her before she married Mr. Chester, who came on here to offer himself again, but she cut off everything he had to say by telling him that as she did not positively know that her husband was not living, she could not allow a word of that sort to be said to her. I know this, because she told me so herself." There was a good deal more talk of the sort, and of course it interested me greatly, although I tried not to show it, but I could not help wondering why the subject had been brought forward in such an impressive manner upon the present occasion. It seemed to me that there was something personal in it--personal to me. Had that boy Percy been making reports? In the evening I found out all about it, and in a very straightforward and direct fashion. I discovered Miss Edith by herself, and asked her if all that talk about Mrs. Chester had been intended for my benefit, and, if so, why. She laughed. "I expected you to come and ask me about that," she said, "for of course you could see through a good deal of it. It is all father's kindness and goodness. Percy was a little out of temper when he came back, and he spun a yarn about your being sweet on Mrs. Chester, and how he could hardly get you away from her, and all that. He had an idea that you wanted to go there and live, at least for the summer. Something a boy said to him made him think that. So father thought that if you had any notions about Mrs. Chester you ought to have the matter placed properly before you without any delay, and I expect his reason for mentioning it at the supper-table was that it might then seem like a general subject of conversation, whereas it would have been very pointed indeed if he had taken you apart and talked to you about it." "Indeed it would," said I. "And if you will allow me, I will say that boys are unmitigated nuisances! If they are not hearing what they ought not to hear, they are imagining what they ought not to imagine--" "And telling things that they ought not to tell," she added, with a laugh. "Which is an extremely bad thing," said I, "when there is nothing to tell." For the rest of that evening I was more lively than is my wont, for it was a very easy thing to be lively in that family. I do not think I gave any one reason to suppose that I was a man whose attention had been called to a notice not to trespass. As usual, I communed with myself before going to bed. Wherefore this feeling of disappointment? What did it mean? Would I have said anything of importance, of moment, to Mrs. Chester, if the boy Percy had given me an opportunity? What would I have said? What could I have said? I could see that she did not wish that I should say anything, and now I knew the reason for it. It was all plain enough on her side. Even if she had allowed herself any sort of emotion regarding me, she did not wish me to indulge in anything of the land. But as for myself. I could decide nothing about myself. I smiled grimly as my eyes fell upon the little box of capsules. My first thought was that I should take two of them, but then I shook my head. "It would be utterly useless," I said; "they would do me no good." In the course of the next morning I found myself alone. I put on my cap, lighted a pipe, and started down the flag walk to the gate. In a few moments I heard running steps behind me, and, turning, I saw Miss Edith. "Don't look cross," she said. "Were you going for a walk?" I scouted the idea of crossness, and said that I had thought of taking a stroll. "That seems funny," said she, "for nobody in this house ever goes out for a lonely walk. But you cannot go just yet. There's a man at the back of the house with a letter for you." "A letter!" I exclaimed. "Who in the world could have sent a letter to me here?" "The only way to find out," she answered, "is to go and see." Under a tree at the back of the house I found a young negro man, very warm and dusty, who handed me a letter, which, to my surprise, bore no address. "How do you know this is for me?" said I. He was a good-natured looking fellow. "Oh, I know it's for you, sir," said he. "They told me at the little tavern--the Holly something--that I'd find you here. You're the gentleman that had a bicycle tire eat up by a bear, ain't you?" I admitted that I was, and still, without opening the letter, I asked him, where it came from. "That was given to me in New York, sir," said he, "by a Dago, one of these I-talians. He gave me the money to go to Blackburn Station in the cars, and then I walked over to the tavern. He said he thought I'd find you there, sir. He told me just what sort of a lookin' man you was, sir, and that letter is for you, and no mistake. He didn't know your name, or he'd put it on." "Oh, it is from the owner of the bear," said I. "Yes, sir," said the man, "that's him. He did own a bear--he told me--that eat up your tire." I now tore open the blank envelope, and found it contained a letter on a single sheet, and in this was a folded paper, very dirty. The letter was apparently written in Italian, and had no signature. I ran my eye along the opening lines, and soon found that it would be a very difficult piece of business for me to read it. I was a fair French and German scholar, but my knowledge of Italian was due entirely to its relationship with Latin. I told the man to rest himself somewhere, and went to the house, and, finding Miss Edith, I informed her that I had a letter from the bear man, and asked her if she could read Italian. "I studied the language at school," she said, "but I have not practised much. However, let us go into the library--there is a dictionary there--and perhaps we can spell it out." We spread the open sheet upon the library-table, and laid the folded paper near by, and, sitting side by side, with a dictionary before us, we went to work. It was very hard work. "I think," said my companion, after ten minutes' application, "that the man who sent you this letter writes Italian about as badly as we read it. I think I could decipher the meaning of his words if I knew what letters those funny scratches were intended to represent. But let us stick to it. After a while we may get a little used to the writing, and I must admit that I have a curiosity to know what the man has to say about his bear." After a time the work became easier. Miss Edith possessed an acuteness of perception which enabled her to decipher almost illegible words by comparing them with others which were better written. We were at last enabled to translate the letter. The substance of it was as follows: The writer came to New York on a ship. There was a man on the ship, an Italian man, who was very wicked. He did very wicked things to the writer. When he got to New York he kept on being wicked. He was so wicked that the writer made up his mind to kill him. He waited for him one night for two hours. [Illustration: DECIPHERING THE DAGO'S LETTERS] At last the moment came. It was very dark, and the victim came, walking fast. The avenger sprang from a door-way and plunged his knife into the back of the victim. The man fell, and the moment he fell the writer of the letter knew that he was not the man he had intended to kill. The wicked man would not have been killed so easily. He turned over the man. He was dead. His eyes were used to the darkness, and he could see that he was the wrong man. The coat of the murdered man had fallen open, and a paper showed itself in an inside pocket. The Italian waited only long enough to snatch this paper. He wanted to have something which had belonged to that poor, wrongly murdered man. After that he heard no more about the great mistake he had committed. He could not read the newspapers, and he asked nobody any questions. He put the paper away and kept it. He often thought he ought to burn the paper, but he did not do it. He was afraid. The paper had a name on it, and he was sure it was the name of the man he had killed. He thought as long as he kept the paper there was a chance for his forgiveness. This was all four years ago. He worked hard, and after a while he bought a bear. When his bear ate up the India-rubber on my bicycle he was very much frightened, for he was afraid he might be sent to prison. But that was not the fright that made him run away. When he talked to the boy and asked him the name of the keeper of the inn, and the boy told him what it was, the earth seemed to open and he saw hell. The name was the name that was on the paper he had taken from the man he had killed by mistake, and this was his wife whose house he was staying at. He was seized with such a horror and such a fear that everything might be found out, and that he would be arrested, that he ran away to the railroad and took a train for New York. He did not want his bear. He did not want to be known as the man who had been going about with a bear. One thing he wanted, and that was to get back to Italy, where he would be safe. He was going back very soon in a ship. He had changed his name. He could not be found any more. But he knew his soul would never have any peace if he did not send the paper to the wife of the man he had made a mistake about. But he could not write a letter to her, so he sent it to me, for me to give her the paper and to tell her what he had written in the letter. He left America forever. Nobody in this country would ever see him again. He was gone. He was lost to all people in this country, but his soul felt better now that he had done that which would make the lady whose husband he had killed know how it had happened. The bear he would give to her. That was all that he could do for her. There was no formal close to the letter; the writer had said what he had to say and stopped. Miss Edith and I looked at each other. Her eyes had grown large and bright. "Now, shall we examine the paper?" "I do not know that we have a right to do so," I said. I know my voice was trembling, for I was very much agitated. "That belongs to--to her!" "I think," said Miss Edith, "that we ought to look at it. It is merely a folded paper. I do not think we ought to thrust information upon Mrs. Chester without knowing what it is. Perhaps the man made a mistake in the name. We may do a great deal of mischief if we do not know exactly what we are about." And so saying she took the paper and opened it. It was nothing but a grocery bill, but it was made out to--Godfrey Chester, Dr. Evidently it was for goods supplied to the inn. It was receipted. For a few moments I said nothing, and then I exclaimed, in tones which made my companion gaze very earnestly at me: "I must go to her immediately! I must take these papers! She must know everything!" "Excuse me," said Miss Edith, "but don't you think that something ought to be done about apprehending this man--this Italian? Let us go and question his messenger." We went out together, she carrying, tightly clasped, both the letter and the bill. The black man could tell us very little. An Italian he had never seen before had given him the letter to take to Holly Sprig Inn, and give to the gentleman who had had his tire eaten by a bear. If the gentleman was not there, he was to ask to have it sent to him. That was everything he knew. "Did the Italian give you money to go back with?" asked Miss Edith, and the man rather reluctantly admitted that he did. "Well, you can keep that for yourself," said she, "and we'll pay your passage back. But we would like you to wait here for a while. There may be some sort of an answer." The man laughed. "'Taint no use sendin' no answer," said he; "I couldn't find that Dago again. They're all so much alike. He said he was goin' away on a ship. You see it was yesterday he gave me that letter. I 'spect he'll be a long way out to sea before I get back, even if I did know who he was and what ship he was goin' on. But if you want me to wait, I don't mind waitin'." "Very good," said Miss Edith; "you can go into the kitchen and have something to eat." And, calling a maid, she gave orders for the man's entertainment. "Now," said she, turning to me, "let us take a walk through the orchard. I want to talk to you." "No," said I, "I can't talk at present. I must go immediately to the inn with those papers. It is right that not a moment should be lost in delivering this most momentous message which has been intrusted to me." "But I must speak to you first," said she, and she walked rapidly towards the orchard. As she still held the papers in her hand, I was obliged to follow her. _ |
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