CHAPTER XXVI. — “CATESSA”
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 give Martha at 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, what do you 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 the Gallia which 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.