CHAPTER XXXV.
The News Broken, Whereupon an Engagement is Broken
At seven Percival found Uncle Peter at his hotel, still in abysmal depths of woe. Together they went to break the awful news to the unsuspecting Mrs. Bines and Psyche.
"If you'd only learned something useful while you had the chance," began Uncle Peter, dismally, as they were driven to the Hightower, "how to do tricks with cards, or how to sing funny songs, like that little friend of yours from Baltimore you was tellin' me about. Look at him, now. He didn't have anything but his own ability. He could tell you every time what card you was thinkin' about, and do a skirt dance and give comic recitations and imitate a dog fight out in the back yard, and now he's married to one of the richest ladies in New York. Why couldn't you 'a' been learnin' some of them clever things, so you could 'a' married some good-hearted woman with lots of money—but no—" Uncle Peter's tones were bitter to excess—"you was a rich man's son and raised in idleness—and now, when the rainy day's come, you can't even take a white rabbit out of a stove-pipe hat!"
To these senile maunderings Percival paid no attention. When they came into the crowd and lights of the Hightower, he sent the old man up alone.
"You go, please, and break it to them, Uncle Peter. I'd rather not be there just at first. I'll come along in a little bit."
So Uncle Peter went, protesting that he was a broken old man and a cumberer of God's green earth.
Mrs. Bines and Psyche had that moment sat down to dinner. Uncle Peter's manner at once alarmed them.
"It's all over," he said, sinking into a chair.
"Why, what's the matter, Uncle Peter?"
"Percival has—"
Mrs. Bines arose quickly, trembling.
"There—I just knew it—it's all over?—he's been struck by one of those terrible automobiles—Oh, take me to where he is!"
"He ain't been run over—he's gone broke-lost all our money; every last cent."
"He hasn't been run over and killed?"
"He's ruined us, I tell you, Marthy,—lost every cent of our money in Wall Street."
"Hasn't he been hurt at all?—not even his leg broke or a big gash in his head and knocked senseless?"
"That boy never had any sense. I tell you he's lost all our money."
"And he ain't a bit hurt—nothing the matter with him?"
"Ain't any more hurt than you or me this minute."
"You're not fooling his mother, Uncle Peter?"
"I tell you he's alive and well, only he's lost your money and Pish's and mine and his own."
Mrs. Bines breathed a long, trembling sigh of relief, and sat down to the table again.
"Well, no need to scare a body out of their wits—scaring his mother to death won't bring his money back, will it? If it's gone it's gone."
"But ma, it is awful!" cried Psyche. "Listen to what Uncle Peter says. We're poor! Don't you understand? Perce has lost all our money."
Mrs. Bines was eating her soup defiantly.
"Long's he's got his health," she began.
"And me windin' up in the poorhouse," whined Uncle Peter.
"Think of it, ma! Oh, what shall we do?"
Percival entered. Uncle Peter did not raise his head. Psyche stared at him. His mother ran to him, satisfied herself that he was sound in wind and limb, that he had not treacherously donned his summer underwear, and that his feet were not wet. Then she led him to the table.
"Now you sit right down here and take some food. If you're all right, everything is all right."
With a weak attempt at his old gaiety he began: "Really, Mrs. Crackenthorpe—" but he caught Psyche's look and had to stop.
"I'm sorry, sis, clear into my bones. I made an ass of myself—a regular fool right from the factory."
"Never mind, my son; eat your soup," said his mother. And then, with honest intent to comfort him, "Remember that saying of your pa's, 'it takes all kinds of fools to make a world.'"
"But there ain't any fool like a damn fool!" said Uncle Peter, shortly. "I been a-tellin' him."
"Well, you just let him alone; you'll spoil his appetite, first thing you know. My son, eat your soup, now before it gets cold."
"If I only hadn't gone in so heavy," groaned Percival. "Or, if I'd only got tied up in some way for a few weeks—something I could tide over."
"Yes," said Uncle Peter, with a cheerful effort at sarcasm, "it's always easy to think up a lot of holes you could get out of—some different kind of a hole besides the one you're in. That's all some folks can do when they get in one hole, they say, 'Oh, if I was only in that other one, now, how slick I could climb out!' I ain't ever met a person yet was satisfied with the hole they was in. Always some complaint to make about 'em."
"And I had a chance to get out a week ago."
"Yes, and you wouldn't take it, of course—you knew too much—swellin' around here about bein' a Napoleon of finance—and a Shepler and a Wizard of Wall Street, and all that kind of guff—and you wouldn't take your chance, and old Mr. Chance went right off and left you, that's what. I tell you, what some folks need is a breed of chances that'll stand without hitchin'."
Percival braced himself and began on his soup.
"Never you mind, Uncle Peter. You remember what I told you."
"That takes a different man from what you are. If your pa was alive now—"
"But what are we going to do?" cried Psyche.
"First thing you'll do," said Uncle Peter, promptly, "you go write a letter to that beau of your'n, tellin' him it's all off. You don't want to let him be the one to break it because you lost your money, do you? You go sign his release right this minute."
"Yes—you're right, Uncle Peter—I suppose it must be done—but the poor fellow really cares for me."
"Oh, of course," answered the old man, "it'll fairly break his heart. You do it just the same!"
She withdrew, and presently came back with a note which she despatched to Mauburn.
Percival and his mother had continued their dinner, the former shaking his head between the intervals of the old man's lashings, and appearing to hold silent converse with himself.
This was an encouraging sign. It is a curious fact that people never talk to themselves except triumphantly. In moments of real despair we are inwardly dumb. But observe the holders of imaginary conversations. They are conquerors to the last one. They administer stinging rebukes that leave the adversary writhing. They rise to Alpine heights of pure wisdom and power, leaving him to flounder ignobly in the mire of his own fatuity.
They achieve repartee the brilliance of which dazzles him to contemptible silence. If statistics were at hand we should doubtless learn that no man has ever talked to himself save by way of demonstrating his own godlike superiority, and the tawdry impotence of all obstacles and opponents. Percival talked to himself and mentally lived the next five years in a style that reduced Uncle Peter to grudging but imperative awe for his superb gifts of administration. He bathed in this imaginary future as in the waters of omnipotence. As time went on he foresaw the shafts of Uncle Peter being turned back upon him with such deadliness that, by the time the roast came, his breast was swelling with pity for that senile scoffer.
Uncle Peter had first declared that the thought of food sickened him. Prevailed upon at last by Mrs. Bines to taste the soup, he was soon eating as those present had of late rarely seen him eat.
"'Tain't a natural appetite, though," he warned them. "It's a kind of a mania before I go all to pieces, I s'pose."
"Nonsense! We'll have you all right in a week," said Percival. "Just remember that I'm going to take care of you."
"My son can do anything he makes up his mind to," declared Mrs. Bines—"just anything he lays out to do."
They talked until late into the night of what he should "lay out" to do.
Meantime the stronghold of Mauburn's optimism was being desperately stormed.
In an evening paper he had read of Percival's losses. The afternoon press of New York is not apt to understate the facts of a given case. The account Mauburn read stated that the young Western millionaire had beggared his family.
Mauburn had gone to his room to be alone with this bitter news. He had begun to face it when Psyche's note of release came. While he was adjusting this development, another knock came on his door. It was the same maid who had brought Psyche's note. This time she brought what he saw to be a cablegram.
"Excuse me, Mr. Mauburn,—now this came early to-day and you wasn't in your room, and when you came in Mrs. Ferguson forgot it till just now."
He tore open the envelope and read:
"Male twins born to Lady Casselthorpe. Mother and sons doing finely.
"HINKIE."
Mauburn felt the rock foundations of Manhattan Island to be crumbling to dust. For an hour he sat staring at the message. He did not talk to himself once.
Then he hurriedly dressed, took the note and the cablegram, and sought Mrs. Drelmer.
He found that capable lady gowned for the opera. She received his bits of news with the aplomb of a resourceful commander.
"Now, don't go seedy all at once—you've a chance."
"Hang it all, Mrs. Drelmer, I've not. Life isn't worth living—"
"Tut, tut! Death isn't, either!"
"But we'd have been so nicely set up, even without the title, and now Bines, the clumsy ass, has come this infernal cropper, and knocked everything on the head. I say, you know, it's beastly!"
"Hush, and let me think!"
He paced the floor while his matrimonial adviser tapped a white kidded foot on the floor, and appeared to read plans of new battle in a mother-of-pearl paper-knife which she held between the tips of her fingers.
"I have it—and we'll do it quickly!—Mrs. Wybert!"
Mauburn's eyes opened widely.
"That absurd old Peter Bines has spoken to me of her three times lately. She's made a lot more money than she had in this same copper deal, and she'd a lot to begin with. I wondered why he spoke so enthusiastically of her, and I don't see now, but—"
"Well?"
"She'll take you, and you'll be as well set up as you were before. Listen. I met her last week at the Critchleys. She spoke of having seen you. I could see she was dead set to make a good marriage. You know she wanted to marry Fred Milbrey, but Horace and his mother wouldn't hear of it after Avice became engaged to Rulon Shepler. I'm in the Critchleys' box to-night and I understand she's to be there. Leave it to me. Now it's after nine, so run along."
"But, Mrs. Drelmer, there's that poor girl—she cares for me, and I like her immensely, you know—truly I do—and she's a trump—see where she says here she couldn't possibly leave her people now they've come down—even if matters were not otherwise impossible."
"Well, you see they're not only otherwise impossible, but every wise impossible. What could you do? Go to Montana with them and learn to be an Indian? Don't for heaven's sake sentimentalise! Go home and sleep like a rational creature. Come in by eleven to-morrow. Even without the title you'll be a splendid match for Mrs. Wybert, and she must have a tidy lot of millions after this deal."
Sorely distressed, he walked back to his lodgings in Thirty-second Street. Wild, Quixotic notions of sacrifice flooded his mood of dejection. If the worst came, he could go West with the family and learn how to do something. And yet—Mrs. Wybert. Of course it must be that. The other idea was absurd—too wild for serious consideration. He was thirty years old, and there was only one way for an English gentleman to live—even if it must break the heart of a poor girl who had loved him devotedly, and for whom he had felt a steady and genuine affection. He passed a troubled night.
Down at the hotel of Peter Bines was an intimation from Mrs. Wybert herself, bearing upon this same fortuity. When Uncle Peter reached there at 2 A.M., he found in his box a small scented envelope which he opened with wonder.
Two enclosures fell out. One was a clipping from an evening paper, announcing the birth of twin sons to Lord Casselthorpe. The other was the card he had left with Mrs. Wybert on the day of his call; his name on one side, announcing him; on the other the words he had written:
"Sell Consolidated Copper all you can until it goes down to 65. Do this up to the limit of your capital and I will make good anything you lose.
"PETER BINES."
He read the note:
"ARLINGHAM HOTEL—7.30.
"MR. PETER BINES:
"Dear Sir:—You funny old man, you. I don't pretend to understand your game, but you may rely on my secrecy. I am more grateful to you than words can utter—and I will always be glad to do anything for you.
"Yours very truly,
"BLANCHE CATHERTON WYBERT.
"P. S. About that other matter—him you know—you will see from this notice I cut from the paper that the party won't get any title at all now, so a dead swell New York man is in every way more eligible. In fact the other party is not to be thought of for one moment, as I am positive you would agree with me."
He tore the note and the card to fine bits.
"It does beat all," he complained later to Billy Brue. "Put a beggar on horseback and they begin right away to fuss around because the bridle ain't set with diamonds—give 'em a little, and they want the whole ball of wax!"
"That's right," said Billy Brue, with the quick sympathy of the experienced. "That guy that doped me, he wa'n't satisfied with my good thirty-dollar wad. Not by no means! He had to go take my breast-pin nugget from the Early Bird."
At eleven o'clock the next morning Mauburn waited in Mrs. Drelmer's drawing-room for the news she might have.
When that competent person sailed in, he saw temporary defeat written on her brow. His heart sank to its low level of the night before.
"Well, I saw the creature," she began, "and it required no time at all to reach a very definite understanding with her. I had feared it might be rather a delicate matter, talking to her at once, you know—and we needed to hurry—but she's a woman one can talk to. She's made heaps of money, and the poor thing is society-mad—so afraid the modish world won't take her at her true value—but she talked very frankly about marriage—really she's cool-headed for all the fire she seems to have—and the short of it is that she's determined to marry some one of the smart men here in New York. The creature's fascinated by the very idea."
"Did you mention me?"
"You may be sure I did, but she'd read the papers, and, like so many of these people, she has no use at all for an Englishman without a title. Of course I couldn't be too definite with her, but she understood perfectly, and she let me see she wouldn't hear of it at all. So she's off the list. But don't give up. Now, there's—"
But Mauburn was determinedly downcast.
"It's uncommon handsome of you, Mrs. Drelmer, really, but we'll have to leave off that, you know. If a chap isn't heir to a peerage or a city fortune there's no getting on that way."
"Why, the man is actually discouraged. Now you need some American pluck, old chap. An American of your age wouldn't give up."
"But, hang it all! an American knows how to do things, you know, and like as not he'd nothing to begin with, by Jove! Now I'd a lot to begin with, and here it's all taken away."
"Look at young Bines. He's had a lot taken away, but I'll wager he makes it all back again and more too before he's forty."
"He might in this country; he'd never do it at home, you know."
"This country is for you as much as for him. Now, there's Augusta Hartong—those mixed-pickle millionaires, you know. I was chatting with Augusta's mother only the other day, and if I'd only suspected this—"
"Awfully kind of you, Mrs. Drelmer, but it's no use. I'm fairly played out. I shall go to see Miss Bines, and have a chat with her people, you know."
"Now, for heaven's sake, don't make a silly of yourself, whatever you do! Mind, the girl released you of her own accord!"
"Awfully obliged. I'll think about it jolly well, first. See you soon. Good-bye!" And Mauburn was off.
He was reproaching himself. "That poor girl has been eating her heart out for a word of love from me. I'm a brute!"