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Stolen Singer

<h3> CHAPTER XXI </h3> <h3> JIMMY REDIVIVUS </h3> If the occupants of the old red house felt over-much inclined to draw a long breath and rest on their oars after their anxiety and recent excitement, Agatha's manager was able to supply a powerful antidote. He was restlessness incarnate. He was combining a belated summer holiday with what he considered to be good business, "seeing" not only his prima donna secluded at Ilion, but other important people all the way from Portland to Halifax. When he heard that the man who ran off with his racing-car was also responsible for the mysterious departure of Miss Redmond, his excitement was great. "You mean to say that you were picked up and drugged in broad daylight in New York?" he demanded of Agatha. "Practically that." "And you escaped?" "The yacht foundered." "And that scamp walked right into your hands and you let him go?" Agatha forced a rueful smile. "I confess I'm not much used to catching criminals." Mr. Straker paused, lacking words to express his outraged spirit "I don't mean you, of course. This whole outfit here—what are they doing? Think they're put on in a walking part, eh? Don't they know enough to go in out of the rain?" Getting no reply to his fuming, he came down from his high horse, curiosity impelling. "What'd he kidnap you for—ransom?" "No. It seems that he mistook me for Miss Reynier—the lady out there on the lawn talking with Mr. Van Camp." Mr. Straker bent his intent gaze out of the window. "I don't see any resemblance at all." His crusty manner implied that Agatha, or somebody, was to blame for all the coil of trouble, and should be made to pay for it. "Even I was puzzled," smiled Agatha. "I thought she was some one I knew." "Nonsense!" growled Mr. Straker. "Anybody with two eyes could see the difference. She's older, and heavier. What did the scoundrel want with her?" "I don't know. She's a princess or something." Mr. Straker jumped. "She is!" he cried. "Lord, why didn't you tell me?" "I'm trying to." "Advertising!" he shouted joyfully. "Jimminy Christmas! We'll make it up—all this time lost. Princess who? Where from? I guess you do look like her, after all. I see it all now—head-lines! 'Strange confusion of identity! Which is the princess?' It'll draw crowds—thousands." Agatha escaped, leaving Mr. Straker to collect from others the details of his advertising story, which he did with surprising speed and accuracy. By the next morning he had pumped Sallie, Doctor Thayer and Aleck Van Camp, and had extracted the promise of an interview from Miss Reynier herself. The only really unsatisfactory subject of investigation was Mr. Hand, whom Straker watched for a day or two with growing suspicion. Straker had sputtered, good-naturedly enough, over the "accident" to his racing-car, and had taken it for granted, in rather a high-handed manner, that Mr. Hand was to make repairs. His manner toward the chauffeur was not pleasant, being a combination of the patron and the bully. It was exactly the sort of manner to precipitate civil war, though diplomacy might serve to cover the breach for a time. But the racing-car, ignominiously towed home by Miss Reynier's white machine, stood undisturbed in one of the open carriage sheds by the church. Eluded by Hand for the space of twenty-four hours, and finding that the injury to the car was far beyond his own mechanical skill to repair, Mr. Straker sent peremptory word to Charlesport and to the Hillside for the services of a mechanician, without satisfaction. Little Simon thought the matter was beyond him, but informed Mr. Straker that perhaps the engineer at the quarry—a native who had "been to Boston" and qualified as chauffeur—would come and look at it. "Then for Heaven's sake, Colonel, get him to come and be quick about it," adjured Mr. Straker. "And tell him for me that there's a long-yellow for him if he'll make the thing right." "He'll charge you two dollars an hour, including time on the road," solemnly announced Little Simon, unimpressed by any mention of the long-yellow. Had Little Simon "liked," he could probably have mended the car himself, but Mr. Straker's manner, so effective on Broadway, was not to the taste of these country people. He thought of them in their poverty as "peasants," but without the kindliness of the born gentleman. What Aleck Van Camp could have got for love, Mr. Straker could not buy; and he was at last obliged to appeal to Hand through Agatha's agency. "I'll look at it again," Hand replied shortly, when Agatha addressed him on the subject. The car being temporarily out of commission, it was necessary for Mr. Straker to adopt some other means of making himself and everybody about him extremely busy. He took a fancy for yachting, and got himself diligently instructed in an art which, of all arts, must be absorbed with the mother's milk, taken with the three R's and followed with enthusiastic devotion. In Mr. Straker every qualification for seamanship was lacking save enthusiasm, but as he himself never discovered this fact, his amour propre did not suffer, and his companions were partly relieved of the burden of his entertainment. Presently he made up his mind that it was time for him to see Jimmy. His nose, trained for scenting news, led him inevitably to the chief actor in the unusual drama which had indirectly involved his own fortunes, and he saw no reason why he should not follow it at once. "You'd better wait a while," cautioned Doctor Thayer. "That young man pumped his heart dry as a seed-pod, and got some fever germs on top of that. He isn't fit to stand the third degree just yet." "I'm not going to give him any third degree, not a bit of it. 'Hero! Saved a Princess!' and all that. That's what's coming to him as soon as the newspapers get hold of it. But I want to know how he did it, and what he did it for. Tell him to buck up." Jimmy did buck up, though Mr. Straker's message still remains to be delivered. He gathered his forces and exhibited such recuperative abilities as to astonish the old red house and all Ilion. Doctor Thayer and each of his nurses in turn unconsciously assumed credit for the good work, and Sallie Kingsbury took a good share of pride in his satisfactory recovery. "Two aigs regular," she would say, with all a housekeeper's glory in her guests' enjoyment of food. There was enough credit to go round, indeed, and Jimmy presently became the animated and interesting center of the family. He might have been a new baby and his bedroom the sacred nursery. He was being spoiled every hour of the day. "Did he have a good night?" Agatha would anxiously inquire of Mr. Hand. "Can't tell which is night; he sleeps all the time," would be the tenor of Mr. Hand's reply. Or Sallie would ask, as if her fate depended on the answer, "Did he eat that nice piece er chicken, Aunt Susan?" And Mrs. Stoddard would say, "Eat it! It disappeared so quick I thought he'd choke. Wanted three more just like it, but I told him that invalids were like puppy-dogs—could only have one meal a day." "Well, how'd he take that?" asked the interested Sallie. "He said if I thought he was an invalid any longer I had another guess coming. Says he'll be up and into his clothes by to-morrow, and is going to take care of me. Says I'm pale and need a highball, whatever that is." "Never heard of it," said Sallie. "He's a good young man, if he did get pitched overboard," went on Mrs. Stoddard. "But he doesn't need me any more, and I guess I'll be going along home." "I don't know but what the rest of us need you," complained Sallie. "It's more of a Sunday-school picnic here than you'd think, what with a New York press agent and a princess, to say nothing of that Mr. Hand." "He certainly knows how to manage a sick man," said Susan. "He don't talk like a Christian," said Sallie. Mrs. Stoddard made her way to Agatha in the cool chamber at the head of the stairs. Agatha, in a dressing-sack, with her hair down, called her in and sent Lizzie away. "You're not going, are you, Mrs. Stoddard?" She took Susan's two hands and held them lovingly against her cheek. "It won't seem right here, without you." "You've done your duty, Agatha, and I've done mine, as I saw it. I'm not needed here any more, but I'll send Angie over to help Sallie with the work, after I get the crab-apples picked." Agatha held Mrs. Stoddard's hands closely. "Ah, you have been good to us!" "There is none good but One," quoted Mrs. Stoddard; nevertheless her eyes were moist with feeling. "You'll stay on in the old red house?" "I don't know; probably not for long. But I almost wish I could." "I've learned a sight by you, Agatha. I want you to know that," said Susan, struggling with her reticence and her impulse toward confession. "Oh, don't say that to me, Mrs. Stoddard. I can only remember how good you've been to us all." But Susan would not be denied. "I thought you were proud and vain and—and worldly, Agatha. And I treated you harsh, I know." "No, no. Whatever you thought, it's all past now, and you are my friend. You'll help me to take care of this dear old place—yes?" "The Lord will establish the work of your hands, my child!" She suddenly turned with one of her practical ideas. "I wouldn't let that new city man in to see Mr. Hambleton just yet, if I were you." "Is Mr. Straker trying to get in to see Mr. Hambleton?" "Knocked at the door twice this morning, and I told him he couldn't come in. 'Why not?' said he. 'Danger of fever,' said I. Then Mr. Hambleton asked me who was there, and I said, 'I don't exactly know, but it's either Miss Redmond's maid's beau or a press agent,' and then Mr. Hambleton called out, as quick and strong as anybody, 'Go 'way! I think I've got smallpox.' And he went off, quicker'n a wink, and hasn't been back since." Mrs. Stoddard's grim old face wrinkled in a humorous smile. "I guess he'll get over his smallpox scare, but Mr. Hambleton don't want to see him, not yet. He wants to see you." "I'm going in to see him soon, anyway," said Agatha. But still she waited a little before going in for her morning visit with James. It meant so much to her! It wasn't to be taken lightly and casually, but with a little pomp and ceremony. Each day since the night of the crisis she had paid her morning call, and each day she had seen new lights in Jimmy's eyes. In vain had she been matter-of-fact and practical, treating him as an invalid whose vagaries should be indulged even though they were of no importance. He would not accept her on those terms. Back of his weakness had been a strength, more and more perceptible each day, touching her with the sweetest flattery woman ever receives. It was the strength of a lover's spirit, looking out at her from his eyes and speaking to her in every inflection of his voice. Moreover, while he stoutly and continuously denied his fever-sickness, he took no trouble to conceal this other malady. As soon as he could speak distinctly he proclaimed his spiritual madness, though nobody but Agatha, and possibly Mrs. Stoddard, quite understood. "I'm not sick; don't be an idiot, Hand. And give me a shave, for Heaven's sake. Anybody can get knocked on the head—that's all the matter with me. Give me some clothes and you'll see." Even Hand had to give in quickly. Jimmy's resilience passed all expectations. He came up like a rubber ball; and now, on a fine September morning, he was getting shaved and clothed in one of Aleck's suits. Finally he was propped up in an easy chair by a window overlooking the towering elm tree and the white church. "Er—Andy—couldn't you get me some kind of a tie? This soft shirt business doesn't look very fit, does it, without a tie?" coaxed Jim. "If you ask me, I say you look fine." "Where'd you get all your good clothes, I'd like to know?" inquired Jim sternly, looking at Hand's immaculate linen. "Miss Sallie washes 'em after I go to bed in the morning," confessed Hand. "Oh, she does, does she!" jeered Jimmy. "Well, you'll have to go to bed at night, like other folks, now. And then what'll you do?" "I guess Miss Sallie'll have to sit up nights," modestly suggested Hand, when a slipper struck him in the back. "Good shot! What d'you want now—an opera hat?" he inquired derisively. "Andy!" ejaculated Jim, dismay settling on his features. "I've just thought! Do you s'pose I'm paying hotel bills all this time at The Larue?" Hand grinned unsympathetically. "If you engaged a room, sir, and didn't give it up, I believe it's the custom—" "That'll do for now, Handy Andy, if you can't get up any better answer than that. Lord, what's that!" Jim suddenly exclaimed, as if he hadn't been waiting, all ears, for that very step in the passage. "I guess likely that'll be Miss Redmond," replied the respectful Hand. And so it was. Agatha, fresh as the morning, stood in the doorway for a contemplative moment, before coming forward to take Jim's outstretched hand. "Samson—shorn!" she exclaimed gaily. "I hardly know you, all fixed up like this." "Oh, I look much better than this when I'm really dressed up, you know," Jim asserted. Agatha patted his knuckles indulgently, looked at the thinness and whiteness of the hand, and shook her head. "Not gaining enough yet," she said. "That isn't the right color for a hand." "It needs to be held longer." "Oh, no, it needs more quiet. Fewer visitors, no talking, and plenty of fresh milk and eggs." Jimmy almost stamped his foot. "Down with eggs!" he cried. "And milk, too. I'm going to institute a mutiny. Excuse me, I know I'm visiting and ought to be polite, but no more invalid's food for me. Handy Andy and I are going out to kill a moose and eat it—eh, Andy?" But Hand was gone. Agatha sat down in a big rocker at the other window. "In that case," she said demurely, "we'll all have to be thinking of Lynn and New York and work." Jim shamelessly turned feather. "Oh, no," he cried. "I'm very ill. I'm not able to go to Lynn. Besides, my time isn't up yet. This is my vacation." He looked up smiling into Agatha's face, ingenuous as a boy of seven. "Do you always take such—such venturesome holidays?" she asked. "I never took any before; at least, not what I call holidays," he said. "If you don't come over here and sit near me, I shall get up and go over to you. And Andy says I'm very wobbly on my legs. I might by accident drop into your lap." Agatha pushed her chair over toward James, and before she could sit down he had drawn it still closer to his own. "The doctor says my hand has to be held!" he assured her, as he got firm hold of hers. "For shame!" she cried. "Mustn't tell fibs." "Tell me," he begged, "is this your house, really'n truly?" It brought, as he knew it would, her ready smile. "Yep," she nodded. "And is that your tree out there?" "Yep." "Ah!" he sighed. "It's great! It's Paradise. I've dreamed of just such a heavenly place. And Andy says we've been here two weeks." "Yes—and a little more." "My holiday half gone!" His mood suddenly changed from its jocund and boyish manner, and he turned earnestly toward Agatha. "I don't know, dear girl, all that has happened since that night—with you—on the water. Hand shuts me off most villainously. But I know it's Heaven being here, with Aleck and every one so good to me, and you! You've come back, somehow, like a reality from my dreams. I watch for you. You're all I think of, whether I'm awake or asleep." Agatha earnestly regarded his frank face, with its laughing, true eyes. "Jimmy," she said—he had begged her to call him that—"it seems as if I, too, had known you a long time. More than these little two weeks." "It is more; you said so," put in Jim. "Yes; a little more. And if it hadn't been for you, I shouldn't be here, or anywhere. I often think of that." "You see!" he cried. "I had to have you, even if I followed you half-way round the globe; even if I had to jump into the sea. Kismet—you can't escape me!" But Agatha was only half smiling. "No," she protested, "it is not that. I owe—" Jim put his fingers on her lips. "Tut, tut! Dear girl, you owe nothing, except to your own courage and good swimming. But as for me, why, you know I'm yours." "James," Agatha could not help preaching a bit, "just because we happen to be the actors in an adventure is no reason, no real reason, why we should be silly about each other. We don't have to end the story that way." "Oh, don't we! We'll see!" shouted Jim. "And I'm not silly, if some other people are. I don't see why I should be cheated out of a perfectly good climax, if you put it that way, any more than the next fellow. Agatha, dearest—" But she wouldn't listen to him. "No, no," she protested, slowly but earnestly. "Look here, Mr. James Hambleton, of Lynn! I promise to do anything, or everything, that you honestly want, after you get well. I'll listen to you then. But I'm not going to let a man who is just out of a delirium make love to me." "But I'm not just out. I only had a whack on the head, and that's nothing. I'm strong as an ox. I'm saner than anybody. Do listen to me, Agatha." "No—no, I mustn't." "But tell me, dear. You're free? You're not—" he searched for the word that suited his mood—"you're not plighted?" She smiled. "No, I'm not plighted." "Ah!" he chortled, and seized both her hands, putting them to his lips. She stood over him, looking down tenderly. <center> <ANTIMG SRC="images/img-330.jpg" ALT="She stood over him, looking down tenderly." BORDER="2" WIDTH="368" HEIGHT="581"> <h4> [Illustration: She stood over him, looking down tenderly.] </h4> </center> "Time for your broth, Mr. Hambleton, and Mr. Straker wants to know if he can see you," interrupted Mr. Hand. "Can't see him, Andy. I'm very busy," began Jim; then added, "By the way, who is Mr. Straker?" "Tell him he may come in for a few minutes, Mr. Hand," directed Agatha. Presently the manager was being introduced in the properest manner to the invalid. Agatha, knowing James would need protection from quizzing, stayed by. "Now, tell me," wheedled Mr. Straker, "the whole story just exactly as it happened to you, please. It's very important that I should know all the details." So Jimmy, aided now and then by Agatha, delivered a Straker-ized version of the wreck and the arrival at Ilion. "But before that," questioned the manager. "How did you happen to be on the Jeanne D'Arc?" For the first time James hesitated. Not even Agatha knew that part of the story. "I was picked up by the Jeanne D'Arc in New York harbor," he replied slowly. Mr. Straker frowned. "How—picked up?" "Out of the water." "What were you in the water for?" "I had just dropped off a tug." "What for?" "Because I wanted the yacht to pick me up." At this point Mr. Straker directed a commiserating look at Agatha. It said "Crazy" as plain as words. "What were you on the tug for?" "I had followed the yacht." "What for?" The pause before James's next answer was apparent. When it came, there came with it that same seven-year-old look of smiling ingenuousness. "I just wanted to see what they were going to do with Miss Redmond." "Jimminy Christmas!" exploded Mr. Straker. "Any more kinks in this story? How'd you know they'd stolen Miss Redmond?" And so Jimmy had to tell it all, with the abominable Straker growing more and more excited every minute, and Agatha standing mute and awe-struck, looking at him. It was plain that Jimmy, for the moment, had the upper hand. "And that's about all!" he laughed. "What on earth, man, is the matter with you?" fumed Straker. "Didn't you know there were a hundred chances to one the yacht wouldn't pick you up?" Jimmy nodded, unabashed. "One chance is good enough for me. Nothing can kill me this trip, I tell you. I'm good for anything. Lucky star's over me. I knew it all the time." Straker turned a disgusted face toward Agatha. "He's crazy as a loon! Isn't he?" he questioned glumly. But Jimmy knew his man. "No, not crazy, Mr. Straker. Only a touch o' sun! And it's glorious, isn't it, Miss Redmond?" She loved him for his boyish laughter, for the rollicking spirit in his voice, but her eyes suddenly filled as she pondered the meaning back of his extraordinary story. With Mr. Straker gone at last, it was she who came to Jim with outstretched hands. "You mean you heard me call for help, there on the hill?" "Yep," he answered, suddenly sheepish. "And you followed to rescue me if you could?" "Yep—of course." "Ah, James! Why did you do it?" Jim's small-boy expression beamed from his eyes. "I followed the Voice and the Face—as I told you once before. Don't you remember?" "I remember. But why?" His seven-year-old mood was suddenly touched with poetic dignity. "I could naught else," he said, looking into her face. It was all tenderness; and she did not resist when he drew her gently down, till her lips touched his. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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