What Came Afterwards CHAPTER 6.

From the City Hotel, Edwin Guyton walked leisurely down Monument Square to Lexington Street, where he stopped and waited several minutes on the corner, narrowly scrutinizing everyone who approached from the direction of the Hotel. Satisfied, at length, that Larobe was not following him, he started up Lexington Street at a quick pace, and passing the Court House, dropped down St. Paul Street to the neighborhood of Glastonberry's office, into which he disappeared.

The cold, still face of the lawyer looked at him inquiringly, as he took a chair opposite to where he sat at the office table. It was one of those unreadable faces that we sometimes see in men, which, like a turbid stream, hides everything beneath — smooth, sluggish, mysterious. "You have seen him?"

"Yes."

"Give me the interview as accurately as possible; word for word if you can — and the effect produced on Larobe."

Guyton related, with minute particularity, all that had passed between him and his father's executor.

"He's frightened — so much is clear," said Glastonberry, in his imperturbable way.

"Frightened out of his boots," returned Guyton.

"No, not so badly as that. He's an old fox, my friend, and will double on his track and throw you off the scent."

"He'll never throw me off; make yourself easy on that head," answered Guyton, confidently. "He betrayed enough tonight, to show that he believes me in possession of facts which may be used to his harm. He intends to avoid all legal issues if possible."

"No doubt of that. But none knows better than he, the questionable policy of secret compromise with an enemy. If he can hold himself clear from that perilous necessity, he will do so."

"Do you think he can, Mr. Glastonberry?"

"There is a way — "

"How? — Where?"

"It would take too much time to explain tonight. Besides, I am not fully mapped out. I only know that there is a way — difficult to be sure; but one along which he may choose to venture as a means of escaping the trap you have laid for his feet. Let me, once more, enjoin upon you the greatest prudence. Keep your own counsel. Above all, remain strictly silent, even to your nearest friend, concerning the matter now in progress, so that no one may have it in his power to report a sentence from your lips. Suspect all who approach you with a word about family affairs; and on no account allow a remark on the subject of Mr. Larobe's relation to your father's estate, to drop from your lips. You will be watched with unsleeping vigilance from this hour. Larobe will surround you with men under pay and instructions, whose business it will be to lure you into imprudences of speech, that may be tortured into evidence to prove an attempt on your part to extort money. To be forewarned, is to be forearmed, my young friend. You are embarking on a dangerous venture."

"But with a good pilot at the helm," replied Edwin, in compliment to the lawyer.

"If my ship obeys the helm — the passage will be safe. If not — the peril is imminent."

"She will obey the helm, Mr. Glastonberry. Trust my word for that."

The only response to this, was in that peculiar lifting of the upper lip, before mentioned, as if a portion of it were drawn back by a cord, showing the canine teeth.

"I shall see him, as per appointment, again on tomorrow night," said Guyton. "What program is to be followed?"

"Be, for one thing, more reserved and more mysterious," replied Glastonberry, "as if you were conscious of having said too much during the first interview. Seem more inclined tolegal measures than any other. If he intimates any confidential adjustment — any further division of your father's estate in your favor — show little favor towards the proposition. If he argues the case, listen with owl-like gravity, and put on the appearance of a man who carefully weighs two nearly equal advantages. You must play him as an angler plays his trout, and give line so long as he drags firmly on the bait. He will thus weary, weaken, and entangle himself, while you remain alert for the moment of advantage."

"Suppose he makes an out and out offer of the full sum due me from my father's estate, throwing the will aside?"

"Draw back from the offer. Don't seem in the least moved by it. Speak of the wrong to other heirs as well as the wrong to yourself. But, it is not at all likely that any such offer will come. If it should come, however, it will show him to be more frightened than now appears, and, of course, deeply involved in crime against your father and his children."

"He will never permit an investigation, Mr. Glastonberry, if in his power to prevent it. You may set your mind at rest on that. I saw enough, last night, to remove all doubts on this head."

For half an hour the conference went on. Then came the bottle of wine, over which the subject was continued until it stood empty on the table between them, when they parted.

On the next evening Guyton went to the City Hotel and called at Larobe's rooms. To his knock at the door, no answer came. He stood awhile, and then knocked again. But all was silent within.

"Mr. Larobe is not in the city," said one of the waiters who happened to pass at the moment.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, sir."

"When did he leave?"

"This morning."

"Where has he gone?"

"I do not know, sir. Perhaps they can tell you at the office."

To the office Guyton went, but the clerk answered his questions with an indifference of manner that was irritating. He did not appear to know or care anything about Larobe.

"You are certain that he's not in the city," said Guyton.

"I haven't seen anything of him, today. Probably he's gone out of town."

Nothing more definite than this was obtained, and Guyton left the Hotel in some perplexity of mind.

"What does it mean?" he asked of Glastonberry, to whose office he went, hastily, on leaving the hotel, speaking with evident concern.

"Something, or nothing, so far as we are concerned," answered the lawyer. "Business, wholly unconnected with this affair, may have taken him from the city."

"I'm afraid," said Guyton, "that I went a little too far."

"In what respect?"

"That story about information received through a former attendant in the insane Asylum, may have led him to visit Du Pontz, in order to ascertain just how much it is worth."

"Not at all improbable. I'd give something to know if that were the meaning of his absence from the city."

"Would you regard such visit, as a good omen?"

"Yes. It would prove, what we suspect, that he is seriously involved, and in alarm. Tomorrow we must set inquiry afoot in a dozen directions, in order to ascertain the precise facts. If he has really gone to Long Island, our game is safe. I'd give five hundred dollars to be well assured of the fact."

"Do you know the exact location of this Asylum?" asked Guyton.

"I never heard of its existence until the present time."

"It is somewhere on Long Island."

"So you have informed me."

"And the proprietor's name is Du Pontz."

"So you say."

"Suppose I make an effort to find the place, and if successful, see what I can get out of this Frenchman?"

Glastonberry shook his head, saying, "Not yet my young friend. We must make haste slowly in this business. That may be one of our moves in order to get the vantage ground; but there's time enough."

The result of this conference was limited to the one purpose of finding out the meaning of Larobe's absence from the city, and tracing its connection, if any existed, to the business on hand.

And now let us return to Doctor Hofland's new patients in Green Street — to Mrs. Ewbank, and her sick child and husband. The Doctor's suspicions were not at fault. There was neither food nor money in the house, and the two packages of oat meal which he had sent with the medicine, served the purpose intended — quieting the "hunger-pain" in more than one stomach that night. Tearful sorrow came with the morning. One lonely watcher sat through the waning hours, from midnight until rooster crow, sleepless, while all slept; and as the day dawned faintly along the dark horizon, laid her wet face down in helpless, almost despairing sorrow, against the chilled face of her unconscious child, thanking God, even in the bitterness of her bereavement, for death.

It was all over with little Theo — all over in this world. How cold he was! Mrs. Ewbank had not observed it before. Shuddering, she drew about her the shawl which had lain loosely over her shoulders. There was no fire in the room. Long ago it had gone out, for lack of fuel. But the cold shudder was not felt until it ran along her nerves from contact with that strange iciness, which is the sign of death.

Covering the face of her departed, after a long, long yearning look, Mrs. Ewbank went silently into the next room, where her husband, Esther, and another child, five years old, were sleeping. Moving a chair to the bed, on which her husband lay, she leaned forward, burying her face in a pillow. There had not been in all her life, so dark, so hopeless an hour as this. Literally, they were without money, food, or fuel. Death had come in, as if to snap the last fiber of endurance; and for the time, Mrs. Ewbank gave up in despair, and asked that she might die. Even as the prayer went up, her husband awoke, and, partly rising in bed, saw her position.

"Lydia." He spoke to her in a voice of tenderest concern.

She did not move, nor answer.

"Lydia." He called her again, reaching forth an arm from beneath the bed-covering, and touching her.

As he did so, the cool air of the room penetrated his thin night-garment, chilling the blood, and producing an almost instantaneous fit of coughing.

"Oh, Henry!" exclaimed Mrs. Ewbank, starting up in a hurried manner, and pressing her husband back upon the bed, while she drew the covering around his shoulders and neck. "The room is wintry cold. Such imprudence may cost you your life."

As warmth returned, the coughing subsided.

"How is Theo?"

Mrs. Ewbank did not answer in words. She only laid her face, all wet with tears, close against her husband's, and sobbed uncontrollably. He understood the meaning of this, and lay very still, with shut lids.

"The Lord gave — and the Lord takes away." Mr. Ewbank tried to speak firmly, but his tones were weak and tremulous, and he could not finish the sentence. His wife understood what was in his heart — knew how far the pain had reached — how bitter the loss — for that child had been as the apple of his eye.

"The night will not always last." He tried to lift her out of the depth into which she had fallen. "This may be that darkest of all dark hours, Lydia, which gathers its thickest gloom just before the coming of daylight. It can't be darker than it is now, darling; and God still lives and is merciful."

How tenderly — how hopefully, in tone, as if to inspire hope — was this said. But there came no response.

Coldly, drearily, the winter light stole in, as the morning advanced; dusky gray yielding to the purer light, until white and yellow beams poured through the windows. And still the heart-stricken, despairing wife and mother, sat motionless by the bed-side, her face hidden.

"Mother!" It was Esther's voice. The sunbeams had awakened her with their morning kiss, given as tenderly as to the happiest child in all the land.

"Mother!" she called again, for Mrs. Ewbank neither moved nor answered. "How is Theo?"

The child was now sitting up in bed, and bending forward, her serious face turned towards her father and mother. The truth seemed, all at once, to flash upon her mind, for she slipped quickly out of bed, and without stopping to dress herself, pushed open the door that led into the next chamber. She remained there only for a moment; then came back sobbing bitterly, and crept into bed again, where she lay weeping and grieving.

"Esther!" At the call of her father, the child started up.

"Won't you dress yourself, dear?"

"Yes, father." She was out of bed in a moment.

Slowly Mrs. Ewbank raised herself, as by strong internal compulsion. The light fell over a face so ashen pale, so exhausted, so hopeless, that Esther, child as she was, lost all sense of individual suffering, in pity and alarm for her mother.

"God has taken Theo," said Mr. Ewbank, to Esther, as she came near the bed. He spoke calmly. The bitterness with him had already passed; for his thought had gone up from the child on earth, to the child in Heaven. "God has taken little Theo. He will never be sick any more, nor have pain."

Esther covered her face with her hands, and leaning over on to the bed, sobbed aloud. Waiting until he could command his voice again, Mr. Ewbank said —

"It is best, my dear, that he should go. We couldn't cure his sickness, nor ease his distress — and so God took him to the heavenly land where there is neither sickness nor suffering."

As Mr. Ewbank said this, his wife passed to the next room where her dead child lay, closing the door behind her. Uncovering the white face, already restored to calmness and beauty, for a moment it seemed to her that he was only in tranquil sleep; but the chill striking down to her heart, as she laid her lips on his icy forehead, swept this illusion aside.

"God has taken little Theo," she repeated, in thought, her husband's words, trying to find comfort in them.

Not long she remained standing by her dead, but, drawing the sheet over his face again, went downstairs, continuing into the cellar, where she groped about trying to find pieces of wood and chips with which to make a fire. The effort was only partially successful. A washing tub stood in one corner. She took hold of it, and turned it over; seemed to be in debate — then, as if acting from a hurried resolution, caught up an ax, and at a single stroke laid the vessel a wreck at her feet. Gathering a portion of the short, dry staves in her arms, and taking up a basket partly filled with chips and splinters, she returned to the chamber where she had left her husband and children, and kindled a fire on the hearth. While engaged in doing this, a knock was heard on the street door.

"I will go down," said Esther, starting away.

"Mother! Mother!" she called, at the bottom of the stairway, in a few moments. "Come here, won't you."

Mrs. Ewbank hurried down. A black man stood at the door, with a large basket in his hand.

"Are you Mrs. Ewbank?" he asked.

"Yes. I am Mrs. Ewbank," she replied.

"Then this basket is for you."

"For me? Who sent it?" she asked.

"I was told to leave it, ma'am," answered the negro, showing his white teeth. "And here is a letter."

Breaking the seal, she found a five dollar bill enclosed, and these lines, pencilled —

"Use this as you have need; and if you are in need of fuel, say so to the bearer."

The black man lingered, while Mrs. Ewbank read the note. She was so bewildered that she did not, at first comprehend the truth as a reality.

"Shall I bring a load of wood, ma'am?" he asked.

"Yes!"

The man bowed, saying — "It shall be here right away," and went out.

In the basket were loaves of bread, tea, ground coffee, sugar, butter, a bottle of milk and a bottle of wine; some eggs, fresh meat, and dried beef nicely chipped. As Mrs. Ewbank laid these articles out, one after another on the kitchen table, a few rays of light came in through the dark clouds that encompassed her mind; and her heart, which had been lying, for hours, almost like a stone in her bosom — moved with a few living pulsations. Not for herself, but for those who were dearer to her than life, went up an emotion of gratitude. Brief thanks formed themselves on her lips. A thought of her dead child, lying in one of the rooms above, stayed her feet, as she was going to the cellar for the remainder of the shattered tub, with which to kindle a fire in the kitchen stove — a thought of the living gave them motion again.

"Go up and dress Jasper, and see that the fire burns while I get some breakfast. As soon as the room begins to feel warm, let in just a little air through the back window. Open it about an inch at the top and bottom, and see that it doesn't blow on your father, and set him to coughing."

"Shall I tell him?" asked Esther, light playing in the large, sad eyes, that were lifted to her mother's face.

"Yes, you may tell him." The mother caught her breath to repress a sob, and Esther went upstairs. It was nearly half an hour before Mrs. Ewbank followed with a cup of tea, a soft boiled egg, and some toast, on a platter, for her husband.

"Take Jasper down. You'll find some breakfast there," she said to Esther. The two children went out, and Mrs. Ewbank, after placing the platter on a stand, shut the back window, which had remained open a small space at the top and bottom, as directed, to air the room. Then getting a shawl to throw over the arms and shoulders of her husband, she brought the stand to the bed-side, saying, in an encouraging voice —

"Now, Henry, you must eat every mouthful of this."

"Have you eaten anything?" he asked, looking with tender concern into her wan face.

"Never mind me. I'll do well enough. Come! Eat some of this nice toast, while I break and prepare an egg."

Mr. Ewbank, with a forced effort, raised the cup of tea and swallowed a few mouthfuls. As he was removing it from his lips, he saw tears falling, in large drops, silently, over the cheeks of his wife. Her hands, busy with the egg, moved in an uncertain way — the tears were blinding her. Sinking down into the bed, Mr. Ewbank drew the covering over his face to hide a sudden rush of feeling which he had, for the moment, no power to subdue. How could he eat with his dead darling in the next room; dead, and he in such extremity, that even for the commonest burial rites he must be indebted to charity. A thought of the Potter's Field for that precious clay, wrung an involuntary groan from his heart.

"Oh, Hank! Don't give way now," sobbed Mrs. Ewbank, turning to the bed, and stooping down over her husband. "It seems as if light and help were coming. You said the darkness would not always last; and I leaned, in my feebleness, on your confidence in God, and did not utterly fall. If you had given way — if your trust had failed, Hank, I would have died. Bear up a little longer, my husband. Our Father in Heaven has not forgotten us. You said that we were in His remembrance, and that, when suffering had done its work — the light of His countenance would shine upon us. Is it not beginning to shine, Hank? Is it not a little lighter than it was? Who sent us food in this last extremity? Oh, Hank I take courage."

Mr. Ewbank drew the covering from his face, and looked at his wife in wonder. It was the first time he had heard from her lips a sentence that expressed confidence in God. Her mind had always been very dark in this direction; the windows looking skyward, shut. Now she talked of hope — of faith in God's providence — of the dawning day; and tried, in this his moment of weakness, to impart strength.

"You have spoken truth, dear wife!" he answered. Self-possession restored. "In all the circumstances of our lives, even to the minutest particulars, God is present. I confidently believe this. He is present to us now in loving kindness — not in anger. I see it — I feel it."

"Take, then, what He has sent." And Mrs. Ewbank turned from the bed to the stand on which she had placed the food prepared for her husband. "It is for the preservation of your life."

She took the plate of toast and held it for him to eat.

"Will you not eat, also? It is for you as well as for me. Both of us have work to do, and we must take food in order to gain strength. Let us walk side by side, Lydia; step for step; in the way that opens for our feet — leaning upon each other, in our weakness, for mutual support. I think, with you, that the darkest hour is past — that light is in the east. Let us prepare, thankfully and hopefully, for the coming day. It will show us our work, and we must have strength to perform it."

It was hard for either the husband or wife to keep back the tears that were almost flooding their eyes, as they compelled themselves to share the food which had come, heaven-sent, in their extremity. It refreshed, revived and strengthened them both. But, higher strength had Mrs. Ewbank gained — strength of soul — in that moment of despair, when she saw her husband's heart fail, and sprang to his aid, pointing him to the Strong for strength — to the God in whom he had trusted. Then were opened the long shut windows of her darkened mind, and light from Heaven streamed in. She felt new confidence in the future; and a calmness of spirit that gave a serener aspect to her countenance than it had worn for months.

In this state, she shut herself up with her dead child, and alone, performed the last tender, tearful services its pure body would ever receive at her hands. Then, in its white robes, she bore it in her arms to the chamber of her sick husband, and held it for him to look upon. As he laid his lips to the snowy forehead, he murmured, tremulously —

"Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." There were many tears on the baby's face when the mother carried it back. She was on her knees, by the bed-side, as Doctor Hofland entered the chamber; not having heard him in the room below, nor on the stairs.

Back to Nothing but Money!

Back to What Came Afterwards