“Do you believe in dreams, Aunt Ella?”
“No, Alice, I do not.”
“Not if they come true?”
“Only a coincidence. If they don't come true are you willing to acknowledge that all are unreliable? Or, if some prove true do you consider them all reliable? You can have either horn of the dilemma.”
“What causes dreams, Aunt Ella?”
“Usually what's on your mind. Your brain doesn't wake up all at once and dreams flit through it until it gets full control.”
“What if a person dreams the same thing three nights in succession?”
“That proves nothing. When my first husband died I dreamed for a month or more that he was still alive and that I must wake him at a certain time because the morning he died he was to take a train at an early hour. You make your own dreams.”
“But supposing you see something in your dreams that you never saw before—that you never knew existed until you viewed it when asleep?”
“What have you been dreaming, Alice?”
“You won't laugh at me?”
“I promise not to laugh, but I won't promise to believe.”
“If my husband is dead,” said Alice, “he is dead and I shall never see him again in this world; if he is still living, he is somewhere in this world, and it's my duty to find him.”
“I will agree to that,” assented her hearer, “but you know that I have no faith that he is alive. Just think, twenty-three years have passed away and you have had no word from him. Out of deference to your feelings, Alice, I had put off making my will since Sir Stuart died until yesterday. It is now signed and in my lawyer's hands. It is no secret, I have left all I possess to your son Quincy.”
“Why did you do that?”
“I promised his father that he should have it, but as I think he will never come to claim it, I gave it to his son, as he or you would do if it was yours. Now, your dreams have put some idea into your head. Where do you think your husband is?”
“I don't know what country it is, but, in my dreams, thrice repeated, I have seen him standing in a grove of trees filled with fruit—lemons and oranges they appeared to be.”
“Did he speak to you or you to him?”
“He looked at me but gave no sign of recognition. I called his name, but he did not answer me.”
“That proves what I said. You are always thinking about him, and your mind made up your dream.”
“Where do lemons and oranges grow?”
“In so many countries that you would have to go round the world to visit them all.” She thought to herself, “they don't grow in the ocean.”
“You speak of twenty-three years having passed. That's not so long. I have read of sailors being away longer than that and finally returning home. Men have stayed in prison longer than that and have come out into the world again. Why, Quincy is only fifty-three now.”
“And I'm seventy—an old woman some think me, and others call me so, but if I were sure that by living I could see Quincy again, I'd manage some way to keep alive until he came.”
“You are just lovely, Aunt Ella, and I love you more than ever for those words. I believe that Quincy wants me to come to him—and I am going!”
“My dear Alice, I'm sure the only way you will ever see Quincy is by going to him, for he can never come to you.”
The next day Alice spent in studying the cyclopedias and maps. She estimated the cost of a six months' trip to the citron groves of Europe and America. For a week she pondered over the matter.
Then something occurred that led her to make up her mind definitely. She had the same dream for the fourth time. She awoke screaming, and shaking with terror. Her aunt was awakened and ran to her room.
“What is it, Alice? Dreaming again?”
“Yes, the same and yet different. I saw a big man raise a club and strike Quincy on the head. He fell and I awoke.”
Aunt Ella grew cynical. “Why didn't you wait long enough to see the effect of the blow?”
“Oh, Auntie,” and Alice burst into tears. “What shall I do?”
“I know what I'm going to do. I shall send for Dr. Parshefield and have him give you a sleeping potion.”
The next day Alice began making preparations for her journey. Aunt Ella's arguments and appeals were in vain.
“I must go,” said Alice. “Where, I do not know, but God will direct me.”
“God won't do anything of the kind,” exclaimed Aunt Ella.
Her patience was exhausted. Then her manner changed. She accepted the inevitable, and did all she could to help her niece. One thing she insisted upon, and that was that Alice should have a companion. One who could speak French and German was found and Alice started upon her quest into, to her, unknown lands.
Alice did not tell Aunt Ella where she was going. To have done so would have led her aunt to say that it was foolish to go there, for although she aided Alice in getting ready for her journey she was decidedly opposed to it. In fact, in her own mind she called it “a wild goose chase.” But she had learned that Alice had an indomitable will and she fully realized that further argument and opposition were useless.
Alice went on board the boat at Dover with some foreboding. She had read and had been told of the rigours of the Channel passage and her experience was equal to the descriptions. Had it not been for the presence of Babette, the maid so wisely provided by her aunt, her journey might have ended at Calais, or even before. She had a horror of the water and it was with a sense of great mental and physical satisfaction that her feet touched solid ground again.
They went to Paris, but spent no time in the gay city. Their objective point was the south of Italy, and then the island of Sicily. Did not the guide books say that Sicily was the home of the orange and the lemon?
They would stop a short time in each important town. Carriages were taken from day to day and inquiry was made at the principal groves in the near vicinity of the towns. Then trips were made into the country, but everywhere Alice's questions were answered in the negative. She was allowed to talk to the labourers, by the aid of an interpreter, but none had any remembrance or had heard of any such man as she described.
At only one grove, near Palermo, was she refused admittance. The proprietor, Silvio Matrosa, said he had no authority to admit strangers. Besides, two of the men had been fighting and one was so seriously injured by a blow upon his head by a club, that he had been sent to the hospital and it was thought he would die. Under the circumstances “Would the ladies excuse him?” and Alice was obliged to give up her search in that direction.
She had been so impressed with the reality of her dreams that she had thought she could easily recognize her husband's surroundings, but she confessed to Babette, who was sympathetic and engaged eagerly in the search, that she had seen no place that resembled the scene of her dreams.
More weary wandering without result followed, and so intent was she on the object of her search that the beauties of “Sunny Italy” were lost upon her. The weather was hot and enervating and Babette suggested that her mistress should go to Switzerland and rest before continuing her search. Alice consented, but when they reached Vienna she was too ill to proceed farther. Babette was at home in Vienna for she could speak German, and she soon learned that the Hospital of St. Stephen's would give her mistress the rest and medical treatment that her condition required—for she was on the verge of nervous prostration. The discomfort of travelling was not the cause of her physical break-down for Aunt Ella had told her “that nothing was too good for a traveller” and every comfort and convenience that money could supply had been hers. Her mental disquietude had produced the physical relapse. She had been so confident of the truth of her dreams, and that some power, she knew not what, but which she trusted implicitly, would lead her to her husband, that her disappointment was more than her strained nervous system could bear.
After a week's rest, although unable to rise, she called Babette to her bedside. “I wish to send word to my aunt in England but I do not feel able to sit up and write. I will dictate, you can write, and I will sign it.”
Then Babette wrote:
“MY DEAR AUNT ELLA: Confession, they say, is good for the soul. My body is weak to-day and so Babette is writing my confession. I have been to Sicily and all over the southern part of Italy, but no success has come to me. If Quincy had been in one of those orange or lemon groves he could not have lived there for so many years; the work is too hard, and he was never used to manual labour. So, as soon as I am able, I am coming home. I will never trouble you with any more dreams. I believe, as you do, that they are products of imagination. I am not sick, only tired out, and naturally, at first, very much disheartened. I shall be with you very soon, never more to leave you.” ALICE.
“P. S. As soon as I am able to take a drive I am going to view the attractions of this city—which Babette says is even more beautiful than Paris. I must see 'The Beautiful Blue Danube,' and I must hear Johann Strauss's orchestra. They will be the only happy memories of my fruitless journey.”
Nothing marred the pleasure of the trip on theGalliaand young Quincy and Tom could not have been happier than they were when the great steamer made its way up the Mersey towards its Liverpool pier.
A few hours only in the great bustling city and then they were off to find the house in which Tom's father was born and lived. It was near Chester, that modernized reminder of the old Roman days, and on their way to Fernborough Hall.
They found it uninhabited. The thatched roof was full of holes and the interior showed the devastation that wind and water had worked. Tall weeds filled the little garden and the general effect was dismal indeed.
“It won't do to take Dad a picture of this old shanty,” said Tom.
“Perhaps we can find a house that looks like it,” Quincy suggested.
They had no difficulty in doing that, for the same architectural plan, if the design be worthy the name, had plainly been followed in the construction of many cottages. They found one with the roof covered with moss and a garden full of old-fashioned flowers, and several views were taken with Quincy's camera.
“It's cheating in one way,” said Tom, “but it would break Dad's heart to see a picture of his old home as it really is—so we'll show him one as it ought to be.”
“And as it shall be,” said Quincy. “It won't cost much to fix it up, all but the moss, and that will come on it in time. You get a man, Tom, find out the cost of renovating the house, and I'll pay the bill. So will the sense of untruthfulness be removed from our sensitive feelings.” This was quickly arranged, for work, with the pay in advance, was a delectable possession in those parts.
When they reached Fernborough Hall, and Quincy was told of the search on which his mother had started out, he pretended to agree with his aunt that it was useless, and the height of folly, but from that moment hope sprang up within him, that, by some miracle, his father was still alive. He did not confide his hopes to Aunt Ella, and gave her no inkling of the real reason for his trip to Europe.
“It would make me very happy to know that my father was living,” he said, “but after so long a time it seems foolish to think it, does it not? When do you expect mother home, Aunt Ella?”
“The letter was written a month ago from Vienna, but, unfortunately, she did not give her address. If she were well, she should have been here before this. I have an idea that she may have gone to Switzerland on her way home, and charmed by its scenery, or forced by her weak condition, has remained there. Stay here for a week with your friend, and perhaps some word will come.”
“No, Auntie,” said Quincy, “Tom and I will run over to Vienna, and if we don't find her we will push on to William Tell's republic. We will write you often—Tom one day and I the next.”
“I have often wondered,” said Quincy to Tom two days later as they were on the cars speeding to Vienna—“I have often wondered,” he repeated, “how my mother could let me go away and stay away from her for fourteen long years. That she loves me, her letters show plainly. She says often that I am all she has in the world, but she never sent for me to come and see her nor did she ever come to see me. How do you explain it, Tom?”
“Very easily. That disaster at sea and the loss of your father has given her a horror of the ocean which she cannot overcome. She fears to trust herself or one she loves to its mercies again. Perhaps we can't understand her feelings, but you must respect them.”
“I do,” replied Quincy. “I have never doubted her love for me, and your theory, perhaps, explains her failure to manifest her love more forcibly.”
On the train they made a most agreeable acquaintance and regretted their inability to accept his invitation to visit him. His name was Louis Wallingford. He was an American, born in Missouri. He had been a reporter, then editor. His passion was music and he had forsaken a literary life for that of a musician. He had joined an orchestra much in demand at private parties given by the wealthy residents of St. Louis. At one of these, he had become infatuated with the daughter of a railroad magnate who counted his wealth by millions. A poor violinist, he knew it was useless to ask her father for his daughter's hand. The young lady's mother was dead. The father died suddenly of apoplexy, and Miss Edith Winser came into possession of the millions. Then he had spoken and been accepted. Conscious that her husband, talented as he was, would not be accepted, without a hard struggle, by the upper class, they decided to live in Europe.
He had found a deserted chateau on the borders of Lake Maggiore. Money bought it, and money had transformed it into an earthly Paradise. The building, of white marble, was adapted for classic treatment, and Greek and Roman art were symbolized therein.
The chateau contained a large music room and a miniature theatre in which Mr. Wallingford's musical compositions and operas were performed.
“I have just come from Paris,” said Mr. Wallingford, “where I have made arrangements for six concerts by my orchestra which will play many of my own pieces. Can you not be in Paris in a month and hear them?”
“Tell him your story,” whispered Tom to Quincy, and he did so.
Mr. Wallingford was deeply interested.
“If you find both your father and mother, they deserve another honeymoon. Bring them to Vertano and in the joys of the present we will make them forget the sorrows of the past.”
“I am afraid,” said Quincy, “that such good fortune would be more than miraculous.”
“Come with your mother and friend then,” said Mr. Wallingford as he left them to change cars.
They went to the Hotel Metropole in Vienna. Quincy consulted his guide book.
“Everybody lives in apartment houses in Vienna, so this book says. The question is, in which one shall we find my mother and her maid?”
“All we can do,” said Tom, “is to plug away every day. Keep a-going, keep asking questions, keep our eyes and ears open, and keep up our courage.”
“Your plan is certainly 'for keeps,' as we children used to say. Come along. Your plan is adopted. Have you written Lady Fernborough? 'Tis your turn.”
Many days of fruitless travel and the young men began to despair of success. Quincy was debating with himself whether it would not be better to give up the search for his mother, and follow up the clue about his father. He felt that every day was precious.
“I have an idea, Quincy,” Tom said one morning. “Perhaps your mother is quite sick and has gone to a public hospital or a private one of some kind.”
“That's a fine idea, Tom. We'll begin on them after breakfast.”
The sharp reports of gun shots and the softer cracking of pistols were heard.
“What's that?” cried Quincy.
“Some men are on a strike. They had trouble with the police last night and this morning's paper says the strikers have thrown up barricades. Probably the police and soldiers are trying to dislodge them.”
The firing continued, and from their windows the soldiers and people could be seen moving towards the scene of disturbance.
“Let's go out and see what is going on,” said Quincy.
“Let's stay in and keep out of trouble,” was Tom's reply. “It is the innocent bystander who always gets shot.”
“I'm going down to the office to find out about it,” and Quincy took his hat and left the room.
Tom was suspicious of his intentions and followed him. Quincy had left the hotel and was walking rapidly towards the scene of disturbance. Tom ran after him, and kept him in sight, but did not speak to him. At first he felt offended that Quincy had not asked him to go with him. Then he reflected: “I virtually told him in advance that I wouldn't go. He's his own master.”
They were nearing a street from which came the sounds of conflict—loud cries, curses, and the reports of firearms. Tom ram forward to prevent Quincy from turning into the street. He was too late—Quincy had turned the corner. Tom, regardless of danger, followed him. He started back with a cry of horror. Quincy had been shot and was lying upon the sidewalk, the blood streaming from a gun-shot wound in his right arm. Tom took him up in his arms, as though he had been a child, and returned to the safety of the unexposed street.
As he lay Quincy upon the sidewalk and took out his handkerchief to make a tourniquet with which to stanch the flow of blood, he cried: “Oh, Quincy, why did you walk right into danger?”
As he uttered the words, a man who was standing nearby, whose dress and swarthy face proclaimed him to be a foreigner, stepped forward and grasped Tom roughly by the arm.
“What did you call that young man,” asked the stranger, his voice trembling, perceptibly.
“I called him by his name—Quincy.”
“Quincy what? Pardon me, but I have a reason for asking.”
“His name is no secret,” said Tom, as he twisted the handkerchief tightly above the wound. “I can't understand your interest in him, but his name is Quincy Adams Sawyer.”
“Thank Heaven,” exclaimed the man. “And thank you,” he added, grasping Tom's hand—“Is he English?”
“No, we're both Yankees, from Fernborough, Massachusetts.”
The man knelt beside Quincy and gazed at him earnestly. He looked up at Tom.
“I could bless the man who fired that shot. My name is Quincy Adams Sawyer and this young man is my son!”
Tom's surmise had been correct. Alice did not improve and a long stay at the Hospital became necessary before the return to England would be possible.
“What's that noise, Babette?” asked Alice.
“There must be a riot somewhere,” was the reply. “The soldiers are marching past. They are fighting in a street nearby.”
Alice said no more. What had she to do with fighting and bloodshed? Her suffering was greater than any bullet could inflict. She fell into a doze from which she was awakened by a loud cry from Babette.
“Oh, Madame, a carriage has just stopped here, and they are bringing a wounded man into the Hospital. There are two men with him—one looks like an Englishman or American.”
“Go down, Babette, and see if you can find out who they are. I should be glad if I could be of help to one of my own countrymen.”
It seemed a very long time before the maid returned. When she did, the usually self-confident Babette seemed dazed. She did not speak until her mistress asked:
“Did you find out anything?”
“Yes, Madame.”
“What?”
“They are all Americans, Madame. A young man and his friend; the older man is the father.”
“The companion's?”
“No, the young man's.”
“Did you learn their names or where they are from?”
Babette sank upon her knees by the bedside.
“Oh, Madame, I am so happy.”
Alice regarded her with astonishment.
“Happy! Happy because a young man has been shot. You must have a bloodthirsty nature, Babette.”
“It isn't the shooting, Madame. It's the name.”
“The name? What name? You are nervous, Babette. You must lie down and rest. I keep you up too late nights reading and writing.”
“Oh, Madame, how can I say it? Can you bear it?”
“I have borne suspense for twenty-three years. I can bear much. What is it you would tell me?”
“You know, Madame, I said the older man was the young man's father. They both have the same name.”
“That's not uncommon, especially in America. The young man is called Junior. Sometimes when they are very proud of a family name they number them. Supposing my husband were living, and my son had a son, named after himself, the little boy would be Quincy Adams Sawyer 3rd.”
“Madame, I must tell you. The father and the son bear the name of Quincy Adams Sawyer!”
Alice regarded her as if affrighted. Then she leaped from the bed and cried: “Bring me my clothes, Babette. My husband and son! We three, brought together by the hand of God once more.”
The revulsion was too great. The pent-up agony of twenty-three years dissolved in a moment. Alice fainted and fell into Babette's arms.
It took hours for the overjoyed wife and mother and the long-lost husband and father to tell their stories. Alice's was told first, and was followed by young Quincy's recital of his life at Fernborough, his four years at Harvard, and the story of the returned bill of exchange leading him to Europe, and his search for his mother in Vienna which ended with such happiness for all. Finally, the father began:
“On the night of the collision, after seeing you safely started in the life-boat with the last of the passengers, Captain Hawkins thought of a small boat on the upper deck which had been overlooked in the general scramble to get away from the doomedAltonia. Shouting to me to follow him, the Captain rushed up the ladder to the railing, and together we started to lower the boat. It was raised about three feet above the deck, being held in position by two supports shaped like a letter X. I had already loosened the ropes on my side, and then tried to kick out the support nearest me. It stuck, and finally I got down on my hands and knees thinking I could force it out better in that position. The water was steadily pouring in at the ship's side, and it was only a question of a few minutes before theAltoniawould founder. Finally I gave one mighty push, the support gave away, the boat came down upon me like a ton weight,—and that was the last I knew until I awoke in a large room full of single beds, and a kindly faced old priest told me I was in the Hospital of San Marco, Palermo, Sicily.
“My God, the shock when I found that my sleep,—for such it was to me,—had lasted over twenty-three years! What thoughts went through my mind! Had you, Alice, been saved or lost? If saved, were you still living, and my son, whom I had never seen, was he living? Were Aunt Ella and my father and mother and my sisters still alive? I was roused from my revery by the good Father Paolo.
“He told me that the week before he had been summoned to the death-bed of an old seaman, Captain Vando, who had confessed that over twenty years before, while sailing from Boston to Palermo, two days after a very bad fog, he had picked up at sea a small open boat in which were two men, both of whom at first seemed dead. One, it was Captain Hawkins, was beyond all help; he was frozen to death,—frozen to death, Alice, in an effort to save my life, for, besides my own coat, his was found tucked around me.
“After hours of work, I was brought back to life,—but a life worse than death. The Captain told Father Paolo that my mind was a blank, I could remember nothing of my past, I did not know my name. Then temptation came to Captain Vando. He took from me my belt, in which I had some English gold, a few English bank-notes, and the five bills of exchange, each for a thousand pounds. The latter he did not dare to dispose of, but the money he appropriated to his own use. He soon found I could be of no use to him on ship-board, so, on his arrival at Palermo, he sold me to a rich planter, for a hundred lire, and I was put to work in the orange groves.
“Captain Vando in his confession told Father Paolo that he still had my belt containing the bills of exchange, and before his death he delivered these over to the priest. After the Captain's death, Father Paolo went to Signor Matrosa, who, when confronted with the facts, admitted I had been sold to him, and that I was known under the name of Alessandro Nondra, but he told him that I had been mixed up in a fight, and had received such a bad wound that I had been sent to the hospital. One of his managers, an Italian, had married an English girl, and they had a daughter with light hair, and blue eyes. It seems I had been sent to his house one day with a message, and when I saw his daughter, I cried out, 'Alice, Alice,' and caught the girl in my arms. Her father was so enraged that he picked up a gun lying near at hand, and gave me such a terrific blow on the head that I was knocked senseless. I remember nothing of it, but mistaking Anita for you was, undoubtedly, my first approach to my former consciousness. That scene was probably the one which you saw in your dream, Alice, and to think that afterwards you should be so near me in Palermo, and neither of us know it!
“At the hospital the doctors found that the blow on my head had caused but a comparatively unimportant scalp wound, but, in dressing it, they found that at some earlier time my skull had been crushed. They performed the delicate operation of trepanning the skull, and when I came out from the effects of the ether, my mind was in the same state as it had been twenty-three years before.
“After that my recovery was rapid. Father Paolo made Signor Matrosa pay me thirty-three hundred lire as my wages for the many years I had worked for him, and I gave a thousand of it to the manager's daughter, to whom, in a way, I owed my return to my natural self. The rest I gave to Father Paolo for the use of his church.
“Luckily, in my belt that Captain Vando had appropriated was my passport. I went to the United States consul at Palermo, Mr. Drake, had the passport viséd, and got him to cash one of the bills of exchange for me. Suddenly, one day, the thought came into my mind, had you, Alice, thinking me dead, married again? I decided to find out before the announcement of my return to the land of the living could be spread broadcast, and I persuaded Mr. Drake to keep back the information from his official report for a while, at least. This he was able to do easily, as he was on the point of going away for a vacation of a few months, and the other members of the consulate knew very little of my case.
“I decided to continue bearing the name of Alessandro Nondra for a while, at least, and I knew I could make a living in some way when my present funds were exhausted. How I regretted the cashing of that bill of exchange, because I knew it would eventually lead to my discovery; but I was so changed, with my iron-gray hair, and Van Dyke beard, that I felt I could escape detection until I knew whether my wife still waited for me or not.
“I decided to make my way north to Ostend, and would cross from there to England, where I felt sure I could find some news of you, or Aunt Ella. I stopped off here in Vienna for a day or two. When I heard my son called by name this morning I could not resist, and instead of finding my son alone, I have also found his mother, my wife.”
Quincy gloried in his wife's faith and constancy. Alice, while she rejoiced in her husband's return bewailed his lost opportunities.
“Think what you have lost, Quincy. You might have been President.”
“If I have escaped that I shall not regret my long imprisonment.”
“Why, Quincy, would you have refused a nomination?”
“Many are called, but few are chosen. I have never cherished any such ambition. I am not in love with politics and I detest the average politician. Our country produces few statesmen and it never will until the civil service law is made applicable to legislators and to high officials. We have much to learn from China in this respect.”
Telegrams had been sent to Aunt Ella and Mr. Wallingford apprising them of the happy reunion. From the latter came a message extending a hearty invitation to come to Vertano.
Young Quincy's wound though painful, and particularly uncomfortable, was not serious. Tom was his constant companion and attendant while Quincy passed nearly all his time with his wife. She improved rapidly and their departure was delayed only until young Quincy's wound was healed.
“You now have a longer name than ever,” his mother said to him one day.
“How's that? It's too long now. What must be added?”
“Why, now that your father is alive, you are Quincy Adams Sawyer, Junior.”
“I am more than willing to make the addition, mother, and hope it will be many years before I am obliged to shorten it.”
When they reached Vertano but three days remained before the departure of Mr. Wallingford and his orchestra for Paris, but during that time there were drives through the beautiful country, boat rides upon the lake, rehearsals by the orchestra and the performance of an operetta written by Mr. Wallingford in which he, his wife, and seven children took part.
“Shall we go to Paris?” asked Alice.
“Certainly,” said Quincy. “We owe Mr. Wallingford the return courtesy of our attendance at his six concerts.”
The trip across the channel did not possess so many terrors for Alice with her husband and son for company, but she was glad when they stepped upon land at Dover.
“I shall never love the water,” she said.
They reached London in the afternoon too late to take the train for Heathfield in which town Fernborough Hall was situated. A telegram was sent to Aunt Ella informing her of their safe arrival in London, and that they would be with her the next day.
“What can I do to amuse you this evening, Alice?”
“Sit down and let me look at you, I have so much time to make up.”
“They giveMarthaat the opera to-night—it is my favourite—full of the sweetest melodies in which I substitute Alice for Martha. Quincy and Tom would like to go, and I have another reason which I will tell you after the first act.”
Alice's curiosity was aroused and she expressed her desire to go. After the first act, Alice turned an inquisitive face to her husband.
“What was your other reason for coming here to-night?”
“Don't you think Catessa is a fine tenor?”
“He has the most beautiful voice I ever heard,” Alice replied.
“I know him. He is an old friend of mine. I'm going behind the scenes to congratulate him personally.”
“Did you meet him in Italy?”
“No—in Fernborough, Massachusetts.”
“Why, Quincy, whatdoyou mean? There were no Italians in Fernborough.”
“He is not an Italian. He's a Yankee. Look at his name.”
“That's Italian surely.”
“It's only his Yankee name transposed. Aren't you good on anagrams?”
“Certainly, I'm not. Please tell me.”
“Do you remember a young man in Fernborough with consumption whom I sent to a sanatorium in New York?”
“Yes, Mr. Scates.”
“You've hit it. Mr. Arthur Scates, or A. Scates for short. Now look at that Italian name again.”
“I am doing so, and it looks just as foreign as ever.”
“Agreed, but Catessa contains just the same letters as A. Scates, only they are arranged differently.”
After the second act, Quincy visited Mr. Scates in his dressing room. The tenor insisted on Quincy and his party taking supper with him at his hotel after the opera. He offered to repay the cost of his treatment with interest.
“No,” said Quincy, “I do not need it, and will not take it. Use it to help some poor artist.”
It was one o'clock when Quincy and his party reached their hotel.
“Did you enjoy yourself, Alice?”
“I had a delightful evening. But how happy you must feel to know that your money saved such a precious life.”
“I do,” said he. “Good deeds always bring their reward. See what I got—twenty-three years hard labour in an orange grove.”
“Hush, Quincy. There is no possible connection between the two events.”
“I disagree with you. I think I am the connection, but I don't really think one caused the other.”
“I should say not. You are not often cynical.”
“I am not, dear. Only when one does a good deed he must not expect to be repaid in exactly his own coin.”
“Did Mr. Scates offer to repay you?”
“He did, and I told him to give it to some poor fellow who needed it.”
“Quincy, I don't know which to admire most. Your good heartedness, or your ability to make one sum of money perform many good actions.”
The home coming to Fernborough Hall was a sad contrast to the pleasure of the evening before. They found Aunt Ella in bed with two doctors in attendance. Though weak, and failing fast there was no diminution of her mental powers. She expressed a wish to see Quincy alone.
“Quincy, your wife's faith has made a new woman of me. I have always wished to live for ever, I had such a fear of death and uncertainty as to the future. My fears are all gone.
“The same Power that put me in this world and has given me so many blessings, with some sorrows, so that I would properly appreciate the blessings, will take care of me in the next. I have never been a wicked woman, but often a foolish one. The most foolish thing I have ever done was to doubt the faith your wife had that you were still alive. She's an angel.
“Give me a sup of that wine, Quincy,” she continued, “I haven't smoked a cigarette since I promised Alice I wouldn't. Wasn't that self-denial? Now, there's a very important matter that needs attention. I told you when you married Alice that when I died you should have everything. Don't interrupt me. Believing you were dead I made a new will and left everything to your son.”
She drew a paper from under the bedclothes.
“Here it is. Burn it up. The other one is in the hands of my solicitor in London.”
Quincy laid the will upon the bed.
“Aunt Ella, I shall not burn the will nor destroy it. I am satisfied with the disposition of your fortune. I should have been equally well satisfied if you had possessed other heirs. But, did you leave your property to Quincy Adams Sawyer Junior?”
Aunt Ella's eyes snapped with some of their old fire.
“I've got it right. I have described my heir so carefully that there can be no mistake. Don't you imagine that there is a chance for you to break my will.”
There was a smile on her face as she spoke, and Quincy smiled to show that he did not misunderstand her pleasantry. As he turned to go, Aunt Ella called:
“Quincy!”
He approached the bed again.
“Another sip of that wine. I always liked wine—but not too much of it.”
She beckoned to him to come nearer. “Quincy, I want you, before you go away to have the fish cleared out of the lake. Stuart wouldn't let me do it, and since he died I have kept them as a tribute to his memory. He said to me, when the name dies out, let the fish die too. The name is near death, and the fish must go. Now, send Alice to me.”
When she came, she bent over and kissed her aunt tenderly.
“Alice, I wish you were going with me. You know what I mean, dear. I hope you will have long life and great happiness to make up for what you've gone through. You have your husband back again. I am going to mine, Robert and Stuart. There is no marriage or giving in marriage there—only love. Quincy is going to look after the fish in the lake.”
Aunt Ella lingered for a week, then passed quietly away while asleep. She was laid beside Sir Stuart in the family vault, and the name Fernborough lived only as that of a little country town in New England.
At the funeral Quincy met his sister Florence who looked upon him as one raised from the dead.
“I did not forget you, Quincy, for my first-born bears your name.”
Linda, Countess of Sussex, came with her husband the Earl, and her daughter, the Lady Alice Hastings, a tall, statuesque blonde, in her twenty-eighth year.
“I've something wonderful to tell you,” said the Countess to Quincy and his wife. “My daughter is soon to be married, but not to one of our set. Her choice has fallen upon Mr. John Langdon, an American. He's very wealthy, and is coming to England to live. Isn't that romantic—so out of the usual.”
“America loses every time,” said Quincy. “First our girls and their father's money, and now our men and their money. In time, England will form part of the great American nation.”
“You mean,” said the Countess, “the great English-speaking nation,” and Quincy bowed in acceptance of the amendment.
The probating of the will, making arrangement for the sale of Fernborough Hall, and providing for the payment of the proceeds and annual income to Quincy Jr. caused a long delay, for English law moves but little faster than it did when Jarndyce brought suit against Jarndyce.
Quincy Jr. and Tom were thrown on their own resources during the long wait. London was their resort, and, to them, Scotland Yard and its detectives, the most interesting part of the city.
When the party finally embarked, by a coincidence, it was on theGalliawhich had brought young Quincy and his companion to England seven months before.
No storms or heavy fogs were met upon the way, and the party was landed safely in New York.