A STORM BREWING AT MISS SIBBY’S
“Now, tell the truth, and shame the devil, Roland Bayard! Where have you been for the last twenty-four hours?” inquired Miss Sibby, on the afternoon of the same day that witnessed the rector’s visit to Mondreer.
“To tell you the truth, then, Aunt Sibby, I have been to Port Tobacco, waiting for a telegram.”
“A telegram!”
“Yes, a telegram. After the wedding circus yesterday, the nobs decided to cuss the cost and send several miles of telegram to California, to find out the truth about that alleged marriage.”
“Yes, I heard that.”
“Well, the squire couldn’t take the message, and so he asked the rector to do it. And the rector promised everything the squire wanted, and then, when it was too late to go back from his word, he remembered that he had to make a sick call on a man that was given over by the doctors, and might have to stay with him all night. And I was there, and heard him bewailing his dilemma, and—what could a gentleman do? I offered to take the message to Port Tobacco, and wait there for the answer.”
“Well, and to make a long story short, you went there and took the opportunity to stay all night and go on a lark among them low-life tavern people—you, the only adopted nephew and namesake of a lady descended from the Duke of England! I’m ashamed of you!” said Miss Bayard, wrathfully.
“I went there, and gave the message at the telegraph office, and waited for an answer until the office closed for the night. Then I went to the quietest hotel I could find——”
“Oh, yes, I know you did!” ironically interpolated the old lady.
“And I just took a chop and a cup of coffee, and went to bed,” continued the youth, without noticing the interruption. “And the first thing the next morning I went to the office, and waited until it was opened. And the first telegram that came clicking over the wires was the one I waited for. And, as soon as ever I got it, I only waited to swallow a cup of coffee and a roll, mounted my horse, and hurried back to the rectory. And as soon as I gave his reverence the telegram I set off here!”
“And I have been that anxious about you!” whimpered the old lady. “And now, tell me, did you know anything about that woman a being of that furriner’s wife when you fetched her here to my house?”
“Yes, aunty, I knew it.”
“And why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I was sworn to secrecy! And, if I had not been sworn, still, I could never have betrayed a woman’s confidence. The adopted nephew of the Duke of England’s descendant could never do that, you know!” said the boy, with a sly twinkle in his blue eyes.
“No, to be sure,” gravely replied Miss Sibby, quite unconscious that she was laughed at.
“There! There’s Le! Hello, old fellow! Come in!” cried Roland, starting up and tearing open the front door as he saw young Force ride up and fling himself from the saddle.
“Why, what in the—deuce is the matter with you, old boy?” demanded the young sailor, on seeing the grave aspect of his friend’s countenance.
“I want you to do a favor for me, Bayard,” said Le, pausing on the outside of the door, and speaking in a whisper.
“It is done!” exclaimed Roland, seizing his friend’s hand and slapping his own into it.
“I want you to take a challenge for me.”
“A—what?”
“A challenge!”
“Heaven, earth and—t’other place! Whom are you about to challenge?”
“That miscreant Anglesea.”
“You are not going to fight a duel, Le?”
“I shall fight a duel or do a murder! That’s the alternative!”
“Perhaps you may do both.”
“So much the better! But, if you do not want to take my challenge, say so, and you need not do it. I will get some one else.”
“Of course I will, Le! And I will be your second, and will stand by you, through thick and thin! Jove, if ever a man had a just cause, you have! He supplanted you in the affections of your betrothed, and tried to betray her to ruin!”
“Don’t talk about it, or I shall go mad! It was bad enough when I came home expecting to marry my little girl immediately, and to take her right home to our pleasant farmhouse, to find that I had lost her forever! Still, for her dear sake, I bore that. But now, to know that the man who won her from me had a living wife, and deliberately planned her ruin——Oh-h-h! I shall go mad!”
“What has excited you so, Le?”
“The telegram! I have heard the telegram from the Rev. Dr. Minitree read, confirming all that woman told us!”
“But, dear Le, you had heard her story!”
“I never believed it. Heaven knows, I never believed it! It seemed too unlikely, too preposterous, that the man should have married that woman!”
“But, dear Le, I gave you a hint of how the case stood when we first met, and I saw how cut up you were about losing the girl. I gave you as strong a hint as I could give without breaking faith with the woman, that no marriage could take place between Col. Anglesea and Miss Force.”
“Oh, you told me, in a mysterious, oracular sort of way, that something would be sure to happen to prevent the marriage; and, when I doubted, you pledged your honor that there would be an arrest of the proceedings. And then I almost believed you without further explanation; but, when that woman claimed the bridegroom as her husband, I thought you might have been deceived by an adventuress with forged marriage certificates, and I doubted the whole story, until it was confirmed by the telegram. Now the villain shall answer to me for his outrageous crimes against me and mine!”
“Come in, Le, and sit down, and calm yourself. Aunt Sibby will be glad to see you.”
“No, no, I cannot. I must go back to Greenbushes. My overseer needs me. You said you would take my challenge and be my second?”
“Yes, indeed, I will, with all my heart and soul!”
“Then here is the missive. Take it at once to that scoundrel. You will find him at the Calvert Hotel. Make all the arrangements, and then come and report to me at Greenbushes. Will you do so?”
“Indeed, I will. You may rely upon me, old fellow.”
“Thank you, thank you!” said Le, warmly, as he handed an enveloped note to Roland, remounted his horse and rode off.
Roland Bayard turned and opened the door, to go into the house, and almost stumbled over Miss Sibby in his progress.
“Why, aunty, I beg your pardon. I didn’t know you were there. I almost knocked you over. Were you going out?”
“No, I wasn’t going out,” replied the old lady, in some confusion, as she turned away.
“Aunty, I shall have to go out myself this evening, so, if I am not home by sunset, don’t wait up for me.”
“Why, where are you going?”
“I am going to the Calvert Hotel on some business.”
“What business?”
“Well, it is business connected with the broken-off wedding.”
“Seems to me you are a good deal mixed up with this rumpus. What kind of business is it?”
“It is of a confidential nature, auntie, else I could explain it to you.”
“Humph! humph! humph!” sniffed the old lady.
The young man laid the enveloped note he had received from Le on the mantelpiece, and went upstairs to put on his best clothes, in which to execute his important mission.
Miss Sibby went and took the note in her hand, looked at it wistfully, then laid it down, and took her spectacles out of her pocket, wiped them, and put them on her nose. Then she took the note up again and read the address.
“To Col. A. Anglesea, Calvert Hotel.”
Then she turned it over and examined it. The gummed edges of the envelope had but lightly adhered. She saw that a slight touch would open them.
She sat down in her low chair, with the note in her hand, and considered. She could hear Roland moving about overhead, and knew that he was safe to be there for ten or fifteen minutes.
She was tempted, but not so much by curiosity as by interest and anxiety in and on account of the boys.
“Them lads is up to somethink!” she said to herself. “I knowed they was up to somethink as soon as I heard ’em talking together! I couldn’t hear half they said, because the wind was a-blowin’ the wrong way, but I knowed they was up to somethink! They always is! Them boys is!
“When two or three of them is gathered together, it ain’t the Lord, but the devil, as is in the midst of them. Now, I’m gwine to see what’s in this note.”
She opened the envelope, and read words that made her hair fairly stand on end.
“The Lord have mercy upon me, a miserable sinner! What is the boys a-coming to in these times, anyhow? This mustn’t go, noways!”
And then she did a very sly thing.
The challenge was written on a sheet of very thick, white note paper. It filled only the first page. Miss Sibby tore off the written page, folded it in its own folds, and put it in her pocket. Then she took the blank half of the sheet, folded it, also, and put it back into the envelope. Lastly, she wet the gummed edges of the envelope, and stuck them down, fastening the note much more securely than she had found it.
“Now, then, Roland will make a fool of hisself carrying of a blank note. And I will take myself off to Mondreer, soon as ever I can go, and I will show this here challenge to Mr. Force. And he, being a justice of the peace, will be bound to send out a warrant to ’rest up that bloody-minded young rip of a cousin of hizzen! Lor’! what a time there’ll be!”