CHAPTER XXIII
THE letter for which Reliance had so anxiously waited came in the evening mail next day. Esther had written it from Boston. She had spent the night at the house of Bob’s cousin in South Denboro, and she and her husband had taken the early train from that station, as they had planned. They were going at once to the steamship office to see what arrangements could be made for their passage to Europe. She would write again as soon as those arrangements were made. Bob had broken the news to his grandfather and there had been another distressing scene.
“It is all so dreadful,” wrote Esther, “that I don’t want to think about it now. Poor Bob! And poor Mr. Cook! And Uncle Foster! And you, Auntie! I feel as if I must be a wicked, ungrateful girl. He says I am not and that we have done the only thing that could be done. He is a dear fellow and I love him. He is sure we will never be sorry and that by and by everything will be right again. Oh, I hope so!... You will tell Uncle Foster how sorry I was to leave him, won’t you? Make him understand just why I had to do it, Aunt Reliance. And then write me what he says. I will write him as soon as I hear from you that he cares to have me write. Do you think he will ever forgive me?”
Reliance felt no certainty on this point. She had not seen Foster Townsend that day. Nor had she heard from him. Varunas came for the mail, as usual, but he had nothing to tell. “The old man is glum as an oyster,” he said. “Ain’t hardly spoke a word all day and Nabby she’s scared he’s goin’ to be sick or somethin’. Say, where’s Esther gone? I thought likely she was down here to your house, Reliance, but Millard says she ain’t. He’s struck dumb, too, seems so. What’s the matter with all hands?”
His question was answered next morning. Where, or from where, the amazing rumor first came is uncertain. Whether the Reverend Mr. Barstow told of the marriage ceremony, or Ezra Farmer told of issuing the certificate—whether the news was first made public in Denboro, or South Denboro, or there in Harniss, is still but a guess. And very few guessed or tried. The essential fact was all that mattered. Within a dozen hours the whole county buzzed. The great Foster Townsend’s niece had married the grandson of the almost as famous Elisha Cook. They were married and had run away together to Boston—to Chicago—to Europe—to nobody knew for certain where. Mrs. Benjamin Snow said, “Heavens and earth!” when she heard it. Mrs. Tobias Eldridge said, “My good land of love!” Every one said something and followed it with: “What will Foster Townsend do? Has anybody seen him since it happened?”
No one had, for he had kept out of their way. The few who called at the mansion—Mr. Colton, Captain Ben Snow, and others who had a claim to close acquaintanceship—were told by the maid or Nabby Gifford that he was busy with “law papers” and could not see anybody. Reliance Clark was the next best bet and they hurried to the post office. Reliance was quite willing to talk, up to a certain point. Yes, it was true. Esther Townsend was now Mrs. Robert Griffin. They had been married in her sitting-room by the Baptist minister and she was present at the wedding. Why the haste? Was it true that they had run off? Did Foster Townsend know of it before it happened? Where were they now? All these queries she parried or answered non-committally. To too-persistent questioners, of a certain type, she replied in another fashion. “If you are so terribly anxious to know how Cap’n Townsend takes it,” she observed, “why don’t you go and ask him? Bob and Esther are married. That much I do know. And you can advertise it to all creation.”
This was so far the greatest sensation of a sensational season. Following so closely upon the accident to Seymour Covell it drove even that and its trail of gossip and surmise from the public mind. The whisperings concerning Bob Griffin’s part in that accident, or his responsibility for it, were forgotten. Covell, in the Boston hospital, was reported to have regained consciousness and to be on the road to recovery. The question of what he was doing on the lower road—of who saw him and Griffin there, if indeed any one saw them—ceased to be debated. Carrie Campton and her parents began to breathe more easily. So did Millard Clark, although breathing was practically the only luxury his sister permitted him to indulge in just then. Millard’s position was hard indeed. To be an inmate of the very house in which the amazing marriage had taken place, to be as wildly excited concerning it as every one else, and to be ordered to hush, or be still, or to mind his own business whenever he dared venture to hint a request for inside information, was torture indeed for Mr. Clark. And, worst of all, his orders—orders which, in fear of Foster Townsend and his sister, he did not dare disobey—were to say that he knew nothing and keep on saying it. “It is the truth,” declared Reliance. “You don’t know anything and, so far as I am concerned, you never will. And, if my shoulder was as lame as yours is, I don’t think I should run the risk of doin’ anything likely to bring Cap’n Foster down on me again. He might break your neck next time.”
Many pairs of eyes were on the watch for the first public appearance of the big mogul. He would have to show himself sometime and when he did—how would he look and act? What would he have to say? They knew already what Elisha Cook was saying. According to Denboro reports he declared himself to be through with his grandson for good and all. “He is a fool, let him go his fool way. I’m done with him.” This, according to gossip, was the proclamation from Cook headquarters. And the Denboro doctor was reported to have added that the old man’s sole comfort in the situation was the thought of Foster Townsend’s fury. “I only wish I was where I could see him squirm,” chuckled Elisha.
So all Harniss was agog, and rushed excitedly to its windows when, two days after the elopement, the Townsend span was again seen trotting majestically along the main road. Varunas, of course, was driving and his employer sat alone upon the rear seat of the carriage. He looked heavy-eyed and drawn and tired, that was the consensus of opinion, but to the bows and hat lifting of those he passed his own bow was as coolly dignified as ever. It was noon—mail time—and the group at the post office watched, with bated breath, as he alighted and walked into the building.
Tobias Eldridge told it all to his wife when he reached home.