Mr. Waddy's Return

by Theodore Winthrop

So they drove off in very handsome style, admired by the admiring, envied by the envious. Mrs. Budlong complained of a headache, and kept her room the rest of the day.

Wellabout drove Dunstan away. They stopped at Mr. Waddie’s. Diana would see her betrothed to-day. His heart sank at the announcement. There was, indeed, no hope; she must die; slowly, sadly, after many days of lingering adieux, and all that divine beauty be no more seen and felt to inspire and to consecrate her neighbour world.

Mr. Waddy, Major Granby, and Peter Skerrett returned at ten that evening from dining at the Skibbereens’. Old Budlong met them in the hall, and they all went up to Mr. Waddy’s parlour for a cigar.

Chin Chin had reappeared, looking as unwholesome as a cold buckwheat cake. Retribution for his reticence had overtaken him. He began to tell Ira his story of the stable scene in his odd, broken English. While he was so doing, there was a knock at the door. A woman, Miss Arabella’s maid, to see Mr. Skerrett, and the Bowery Boy for Mr. Waddy.

Ira interpreted Chin Chin’s tale to the other gentlemen.

“Well,” said the Bowery Boy, who had waited with the imperturbableness of his class, “if somebody tried t’ pizen the hoss afore, it must be the same chap as has did it now. I found this piece of a ball in the manger, and Pallid’s down on his side as dead as Billy Kirby.”

At this moment Peter Skerrett returned.

“Send your people away, Waddy,” said he. “Mr. Budlong, these gentlemen are friends. We shall need their advice. Your wife and Mr. Belden are missing. They probably went in the Providence boat two hours ago.”

For a moment no one spoke. Poor Bud sat staring, his face purple, unable for a breath to comprehend. Then his colour faded, his face fell suddenly into folds and wrinkles. He put down his head and groaned.

Before anyone could find words of consolation, or realise how powerless to console any words must be, there came another knock at the door. It was Figgins, looking more like a ticket-of-leave man than ever. The bow in his legs seemed to have increased.