Jewel: A Chapter in Her Life Read online

  Produced by Dagny; Emma Dudding; John Bickers

  JEWEL

  A CHAPTER IN HER LIFE

  By Clara Louise Burnham

  TO F. W. R. MY FIRST INSPIRATION THIS STORY IS OFFERED IN LOVINGACKNOWLEDGMENT

  PREPARER'S NOTE

  This text was prepared from a 1903 edition, published by Grosset & Dunlap, New York.

  CONTENTS

  I. THE NEW COACHMAN II. THE CHICAGO LETTER III. MOTHER AND DAUGHTER IV. FATHER AND SON V. BON VOYAGE VI. JEWEL'S ARRIVAL VII. THE FIRST EVENING VIII. A HAPPY BREAKFAST IX. A SHOPPING EXPEDITION X. THE RAVINE XI. DR. BALLARD XII. THE TELEGRAM XIII. IN THE LIBRARY XIV. FAMILY AFFAIRS XV. A RAINY MORNING XVI. THE FIRST LESSON XVII. JEWEL'S CORRESPONDENCE XVIII. ESSEX MAID XIX. A MORNING DRIVE XX. BY THE BROOKSIDE XXI. AN EFFORT FOR TRUTH XXII. IN THE HARNESS ROOM XXIII. MRS. EVRINGHAM'S CALLER XXIV. THE RAVINE GARDEN XXV. MUTUAL SURPRISES XXVI. ON WEDNESDAY EVENING XXVII. A REALIZED HOPEXXVIII. AT TWILIGHT

  JEWEL

  CHAPTER I

  THE NEW COACHMAN

  "Now you polish up those buckles real good, won't you, 'Zekiel? I willsay for Fanshaw, you could most see your face in the harness always."

  The young fellow addressed rubbed away at the nickel plating goodhumoredly, although he had heard enough exhortations in the lasttwenty-four hours to chafe somewhat the spirit of youth. His mother, alarge, heavy woman, stood over him, her face full of care.

  "It's a big change from driving a grocery wagon to driving a gentleman'scarriage, 'Zekiel. I do hope you sense it."

  "You'd make a bronze image sense it, mother," answered the young man,smiling broadly. "You might sit and sermonize just as well, mightn'tyou? Sitting's as cheap as standing,"--he cast a glance around the cleanspaces of the barn in search of a chair,--"or if you'd rather go andattend to your knitting, I've seen harness before, you know."

  "I'm not sure as you've ever handled a gentleman's harness in your life,'Zekiel Forbes."

  "It's a fact they don't wear 'em much down Boston way."

  His mother regarded his shock of light hair with repressed fondness.

  "It was a big responsibility I took when I asked Mr. Evringham to letyou try the place," she said solemnly, "and I'm going to do my best tohelp you fill it. It does seem almost a providence the way Fanshaw'slivery fits you; and if you'll hold yourself up, I may be partial, butit seems to me you look better in it than he ever did; and I'm sure ifhandsome is as handsome does, you'll fill it better every way, even ifhe _was_ a fashionable English coachman. Mrs. Evringham was so pleasedwith his style she tried to have him kept even after he'd taken too muchfor the second time; but Mr. Evringham valued his horses too highly forthat, I can tell you."

  "Thought the governor was a widower still," remarked Ezekiel as hismother drew forward a battered chair and dusted it with the huge apronthat covered her neat dress. She seated herself close to her boy.

  "Of course he is," she returned with some asperity. "Why should he getmarried with such a home as he's got? Fifteen years I've kept house forMr. Evringham. I don't believe but what he'd say that in all that timehe's never found his beef overdone or a button off his shirts."

  "Humph!" grunted Ezekiel. "He looks as if he wouldn't mind hanging youto the nearest tree if he did. I heard tell once that there was a coldhell as well as a hot one. Think says I, when the governor was lookingme over the other day, 'You've set sail for the cold place, old boy.'"

  "Zeke Forbes, don't you ever let me hear you say such a thing again!"exclaimed Mrs. Forbes. "Mr. Evringham is the finest gentleman within onehundred miles of New York city. When a man has spent his life in WallStreet it's bound to show some in his face, of course; but what comforthas that man ever known?"

  "Pretty scrumptious place he's got here in this park, I notice,"returned the new coachman.

  "Yes, he has a breath of fresh air before he goes to the city and afterhe gets back every day. Isn't that Essex Maid of his a beauty?" Mrs.Forbes cast her eyes towards the stalls where the shining flanks of twohorses were visible from her seat by the wide-open doors of the barn."His rides back there among the hills,"--Mrs. Forbes waved her handvaguely toward the tall trees waving in the spring sunshine,--"are hisone pleasure; and he never tires of them. You will find the horseshere something different to groom from those common grocery horses inBoston."

  "Oh, I don't know," drawled 'Zekiel, teasingly.

  "Then you'd better know, young man," emphatically. "And, Zeke, what'sthe names of those carriages?" pointing with sudden energy at two halfshrouded vehicles.

  "How many guesses do I get?"

  "Guessing ain't going to do. Do you know, or don't you?"

  "Know? Why," leniently, "bless your heart, mother, don't you s'pose Iknow a buggy and a carryall when I see 'em?"

  "Oh, you poor benighted grocery boy!" Mrs. Forbes raised her hands."What a mercy I mentioned it! Imagine Mrs. Evringham hearing you ask ifshe'd have the buggy or the carryall! 'Zekiel," solemnly, "listen to me.That tall one's a spider, and the other's a broom. There! Do you hearme? A _spider_ and a _broom_!"

  Ezekiel's merry eyes met the anxious ones with a twinkle.

  "Who'd have thought it!" he responded.

  "Now then, Zeke," anxiously, "it's my responsibility. I recommended you.I want you should say 'em off as glib as Fanshaw did. Now then, which iswhich?"

  "Mother, didn't you tell me that the late lamented was not aprohibitionist?"

  "Fanshaw drank like a fish, if that's what you mean."

  "Well, just because he saw things in this barn you needn't expect me to!Poor chap! Spiders and brooms! He must have been glad to go."

  Mrs. Forbes' earnest expression did not change. "'Zekiel, don't youtease, now! We haven't got time. I want you to make such a success ofthis that you'll stay with me. You can't think how I felt when I wokeup this morning and thought the first thing, 'Zeke's here.' Why, I'vescarcely kept acquainted with you for fifteen years. Scarcely saw youexcept for a few weeks in the summer time. Now I've got you again!"

  "I ain't the only thing you've got again," grinned 'Zekiel, "if you'regoing to see things, same as Fanshaw did."

  Thus reminded, the housekeeper looked back at the phaeton and thebrougham. "Be a good boy, Zeke," coaxingly, "and don't forget now,because Mrs. Evringham is a great stickler--and a great sticker, too,"added Mrs. Forbes in a different tone.

  "Who _is_ the old woman, if the governor isn't married?" asked Ezekielwith not very lively interest. "She don't seem popular with you."

  "I'll tell you who she is," returned his mother in a low, emphatic tone."she's just what I say--a sticker and an interloper."

  "H'm! Shouldn't wonder if the green-eyed monster had got after mamma,"soliloquized the youth aloud. "Somebody else sews on the buttons now,perhaps."

  "'Zekiel Forbes, we must have an understanding right off. You've got tojoke and tease, I s'pose, but it can't be about Mr. Evringham. This islike a law of the Medes and Persians, and I want you should understandit. The more you see of him the less you'll dare to joke about him."

  "I told you he scared me stiff," acknowledged Zeke, running the harnessthrough his hands to discover another dingy spot.

  "Well, he'd _better_. Now I wouldn't gossip to you of my employer'saffairs--I hope we're better than two common servants--but I want you tobe as loyal to him as I am, and to understand a few of the reasons whyhe can't go giggling around like some folks."

  "Great Scott!" interpolated the young coachman. "Mr. Evringham gogiggling around! So would Bunker Hill monument!"

  "Listen to me, Zeke. Mr. Evringham has had two sons. His wife died whenthe oldest, Lawrence, was fifteen. Well, both those boys disappointedhim
. Lawrence when he was twenty-one married secretly a widow older thanhimself, who had a little girl named Eloise. Mr. Evringham made the bestof it, and helped him along in business. Lawrence became a broker andhad made and lost a fortune when he died at the age of thirty-five."

  "Broke himself, did he?" remarked the irrepressible 'Zekiel.

  "Yes, he did. Here we were, living in peace and comfort,--my employerat sixty a man of settled habits and naturally very set in his ways andsatisfied with his home and the way I had run it for him for fifteenyears,--when three blows fell on him at once. Firstly his son Lawrencefailed and was ruined; secondly he died; and thirdly his widow and herdaughter nineteen years old came here a couple of months ago and settledon Mr. Evringham, and here they've stayed ever since! I don't think theyhave an idea of going away." Mrs. Forbes's eyes snapped. "Such an upsetas it was! I couldn't show how I felt, of course, for it was so muchworse for him than it was for me. He had never cared for Mrs. Evringham,and scarcely knew the girl who called him 'grandfather' without an atomof right."

  "Hard lines," observed 'Zekiel. "Does the girl call herself Evringham?"

  "Does she?" with scorn. "Well I guess she does. Of course she was onlyfour when her mother married Lawrence, and I guess she was fond ofher stepfather and he of her, because he never had any children; butsometimes I ask myself, is it going on forever? I only hope Eloise'llget married soon."

  'Zekiel dropped the harness to arrange imaginary curls on his templesand pat the tie on his muscular neck. "If she's pretty I'm willing," heresponded.

  His mother shook her head absently. "Then there was Mr. Evringham'syounger son, a regular roving ne'er-do-well. He didn't like Wall Streetand he went West to Chicago. He was a rolling stone, first in oneposition and then in another; then he got married, and after a few yearshe rolled away altogether. All Mr. Evringham knows about him and hisfamily is that he had one child. Harry wrote a few letters about hiswife Julia and the baby, at the time it was born, and Mr. Evringham senta present of money; then the letters ceased until one day the wife wrotehim frantically that her husband had disappeared and begged to knowwhere he was. Mr. Evringham knew nothing about him and wrote her so, andthat is the last he's heard. So you see if he looks cold and hard, he'shad enough to make him so."

  "H'm!" ejaculated 'Zekiel. "He don't give the impression of lyin' awakenights wondering how his deserted daughter-in-law and the kid make out."

  "Why should he?" retorted Mrs. Forbes sharply. "His two boys acted asselfish to him as boys could. He's a disappointed, humiliated man inthat proud heart of his. He's been hunted out and harrowed up in thispeaceful retreat, when all he asked was to be let alone with his horsesand his golf clubs, and I think one daughter-in-law's enough underthe circumstances. I have some respect for Mrs. Harry, whoever she is,because she lets him alone. In all the long years we've spent here, whenhe often had no one to talk to but me, he's let me have a glimpse ofthese things, and I've told you so's you'd think right about him andserve him all the better."

  "He's got a look in his eyes like cold steel," remarked Ezekiel, "andlines under 'em like they'd been drawn with steel; and his back's asflat and straight as if a steel rod took the place of a spine. Thatthick gray hair and mustache of his might be steel threads."

  "He's a splendid sight on horseback," responded Mrs. Forbes devoutly."His sons were neither of 'em ever the man he is. I'd like to protecthim from being imposed upon if such a thing was possible."

  "Sho!" drawled 'Zekiel. "Might's well talk about protecting abattleship."

  "Well, 'Zekiel Forbes," returned his mother, her eyes bright, "can't youimagine a battleship hesitating to run down a little pleasure yacht withall its flags flying? And can't you imagine that hesitation costing thebattleship considerable precious time and money? You've said a good dealabout my sacrificing my room in the house and coming out here to fix alittle home for us both, upstairs in the barn chambers, but perhaps youcan see now that it isn't all sacrifice, that perhaps I'm glad of anexcuse to get out of the house, where things are so different from whatthey used to be, and to have a cosy home with my own boy. Now then,'Zekiel," coaxingly, these words recalling her boy's responsibilities,"look over there once more and tell me which of those is the spider."

  Zekiel dropped the harness and laid his hand gently on his mother'sforehead. "There isn't anything there, dear mother," he said soothingly.

  "Zeke!" she exclaimed, jerking away with a short reluctant laugh.

  "'Mother, dear mother, come home with me now,'" he roaredsentimentally, so that Essex Maid lifted her beautiful head and lookedout in surprise. "Remember Fanshaw, and put more water in it afterthis," he added, dropping his arm to his mother's neck and capturing herwith a hug.

  "'Zekiel!" she protested. "'Zekiel!"