Sevenoaks: A Story of Today

by J. G. Holland

"I should really like to help your father, and if he is poor, money would do him a great deal of good. And here is the little boy who does not love his father well enough to get money for him, when he can have it and welcome! The little boy is taken care of. He has plenty to eat, and good clothes to wear, and lives in a fine house, but his poor father can take care of himself. I think such a boy as that ought to be ashamed of himself. I think he ought to kneel down and say his prayers. If I had a boy who could do that, I should be sorry that he'd ever been born."

Harry was proof against this mode of approach also, and was relieved, because he saw that Mr. Belcher was baffled. His instincts were quick, and they told him that he was the victor. In the meantime Mr. Belcher was getting hot. He had closed the door of his room, while a huge coal fire was burning in the grate. He rose and opened the door. Harry watched the movement, and descried the grand staircase beyond his persecutor, as the door swung back. He had looked into the house while passing, during the previous week, and knew the relations of the staircase to the entrance on the avenue. His determination was instantaneously made, and Mr. Belcher was conscious of a swift figure that passed under his arm, and was half down the staircase before he could move or say a word. Before he cried "stop him!" Harry's hand was on the fastening of the door, and when he reached the door, the boy was half across the street.

He had calculated on smoothing over the rough places of the interview, and preparing a better report of the visit of the lad's friends on the other side of the avenue, but the matter had literally slipped through his fingers. He closed the door after the retreating boy, and went back to his room without deigning to answer the inquiries that were excited by his loud command to "stop him."

Sitting down, and taking to himself his usual solace, and smoking furiously for a while, he said: "D—-n!" Into this one favorite and familiar expletive he poured his anger, his vexation, and his fear. He believed at the moment that the inventor was alive. He believed that if he had been dead his boy would, in some way, have revealed the fact. Was he still insane? Had he powerful friends? It certainly appeared so. Otherwise, how could the lad be where he had discovered him? Was it rational to suppose that he was far from his father? Was it rational to suppose that the lad's friends were not equally the friends of the inventor? How could he know that Robert Belcher himself had not unwittingly come to the precise locality where he would be under constant surveillance? How could he know that a deeply laid plot was not already at work to undermine and circumvent him? The lad's reticence, determined and desperate, showed that he knew the relations that existed between his father and the proprietor, and seemed to show that he had acted under orders.

Something must be done to ascertain the residence of Paul Benedict, if still alive, or to assure him of his death, if it had occurred. Something must be done to secure the property which he was rapidly accumulating. Already foreign Governments were considering the advantages of the Belcher rifle, as an arm for the military service, and negotiations were pending with more than one of them. Already his own Government, then in the first years of its great civil war, had experimented with it, with the most favorable results. The business was never so promising as it then appeared, yet it never had appeared so insecure.

In the midst of his reflections, none of which were pleasant, and in a sort of undefined dread of the consequences of his indiscretions in connection with Harry Benedict, the bell rang, and Mr. and Mrs. Talbot were announced. The factor and his gracious lady were in fine spirits, and full of their congratulations over the safe removal of the family to their splendid mansion. Mrs. Talbot was sure that Mrs. Belcher must feel that all the wishes of her heart were gratified. There was really nothing like the magnificence of the mansion. Mrs. Belcher could only say that it was all very fine, but Mr. Belcher, finding himself an object of envy, took great pride in showing his visitors about the house.

Mrs. Talbot, who in some way had ascertained that Mrs. Dillingham had superintended the arrangement of the house, said, in an aside to Mrs. Belcher: "It must have been a little lonely to come here and find no one to receive you—no friend, I mean."

"Mrs. Dillingham was here," remarked Mrs. Belcher, quietly.

"But she was no friend of yours."

"No; Mr. Belcher had met her."