Jewel

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JEWEL

A CHAPTER IN HER LIFE

By Clara Louise Burnham




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


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 HOPE
XXVIII. AT TWILIGHT




JEWEL



CHAPTER I

THE NEW COACHMAN

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

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

"It's a big change from driving a grocery wagon to driving a gentleman's
carriage, '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't
you? Sitting's as cheap as standing,"--he cast a glance around the clean
spaces of the barn in search of a chair,--"or if you'd rather go and
attend 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 let
you try the place," she said solemnly, "and I'm going to do my best to
help you fill it. It does seem almost a providence the way Fanshaw's
livery fits you; and if you'll hold yourself up, I may be partial, but
it seems to me you look better in it than he ever did; and I'm sure if
handsome is as handsome does, you'll fill it better every way, even if
he _was_ a fashionable English coachman. Mrs. Evringham was so pleased
with his style she tried to have him kept even after he'd taken too much
for the second time; but Mr. Evringham valued his horses too highly for
that, I can tell you."

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

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

"Humph!" grunted Ezekiel. "He looks as if he wouldn't mind hanging you
to the nearest tree if he did. I heard tell once that there was a cold
hell as well as a hot one. Think says I, when the governor was looking
me 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 one
hundred miles of New York city. When a man has spent his life in Wall
Street it's bound to show some in his face, of course; but what comfort
has 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 after
he 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 two
horses were visible from her seat by the wide-open doors of the barn.
"His rides back there among the hills,"--Mrs. Forbes waved her hand
vaguely toward the tall trees waving in the spring sunshine,--"are his
one pleasure; and he never tires of them. You will find the horses
here something different to groom from those common grocery horses in
Boston."

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

"Then you'd better know, young man," emphatically. "And, Zeke, what's
the names of those carriages?" pointing with sudden energy at two half
shrouded 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 I
know 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 if
she'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 hear
me? 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 is
which?"

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

"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 you
tease, now! We haven't got time. I want you to make such a success of
this that you'll stay with me. You can't think how I felt when I woke
up this morning and thought the first thing, 'Zeke's here.' Why, I've
scarcely kept acquainted with you for fifteen years. Scarcely saw you
except 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're
going to see things, same as Fanshaw did."

Thus reminded, the housekeeper looked back at the phaeton and the
brougham. "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 Ezekiel
with 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 to
joke and tease, I s'pose, but it can't be about Mr. Evringham. This is
like a law of the Medes and Persians, and I want you should understand
it. 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 harness
through his hands to discover another dingy spot.

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

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

"Listen to me, Zeke. Mr. Evringham has had two sons. His wife died when
the oldest, Lawrence, was fifteen. Well, both those boys disappointed
him. Lawrence when he was twenty-one married secretly a widow older than
himself, who had a little girl named Eloise. Mr. Evringham made the best
of it, and helped him along in business. Lawrence became a broker and
had 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 employer
at sixty a man of settled habits and naturally very set in his ways and
satisfied with his home and the way I had run it for him for fifteen
years,--when three blows fell on him at once. Firstly his son Lawrence
failed and was ruined; secondly he died; and thirdly his widow and her
daughter nineteen years old came here a couple of months ago and settled
on Mr. Evringham, and here they've stayed ever since! I don't think they
have an idea of going away." Mrs. Forbes's eyes snapped. "Such an upset
as it was! I couldn't show how I felt, of course, for it was so much
worse 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 atom
of right."

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

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

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

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

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

"Why should he?" retorted Mrs. Forbes sharply. "His two boys acted as
selfish to him as boys could. He's a disappointed, humiliated man in
that proud heart of his. He's been hunted out and harrowed up in this
peaceful retreat, when all he asked was to be let alone with his horses
and his golf clubs, and I think one daughter-in-law's enough under
the 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, when
he often had no one to talk to but me, he's let me have a glimpse of
these things, and I've told you so's you'd think right about him and
serve him all the better."

"He's got a look in his eyes like cold steel," remarked Ezekiel, "and
lines under 'em like they'd been drawn with steel; and his back's as
flat and straight as if a steel rod took the place of a spine. That
thick 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 protect
him from being imposed upon if such a thing was possible."

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

"Well, 'Zekiel Forbes," returned his mother, her eyes bright, "can't you
imagine a battleship hesitating to run down a little pleasure yacht with
all its flags flying? And can't you imagine that hesitation costing the
battleship considerable precious time and money? You've said a good deal
about my sacrificing my room in the house and coming out here to fix a
little home for us both, upstairs in the barn chambers, but perhaps you
can see now that it isn't all sacrifice, that perhaps I'm glad of an
excuse to get out of the house, where things are so different from what
they 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's
forehead. "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 roared
sentimentally, so that Essex Maid lifted her beautiful head and looked
out in surprise. "Remember Fanshaw, and put more water in it after
this," he added, dropping his arm to his mother's neck and capturing her
with a hug.

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



CHAPTER II

THE CHICAGO LETTER

The mother was still laughing and struggling in the irresistible
embrace when both became aware that a third person was regarding them in
open-mouthed astonishment.

"'Zekiel, let me _go_!" commanded the scandalized woman, and pushed
herself free from her tormentor, who forthwith returned rather
sheepishly to his buckles.

The young man with trim-pointed beard and mirthful eyes, who stood
in the driveway, had just dismounted from a shining buggy. Doubt and
astonishment were apparently holding him dumb.

The housekeeper, smoothing her disarranged locks and much flushed of
face, returned his gaze, rising from her chair.

"I couldn't believe it was you, Mrs. Forbes!" declared the newcomer.
"Fanshaw isn't--" He looked around vaguely.

"No, he isn't, Dr. Ballard," returned Mrs. Forbes shortly. "He forgot to
rub down Essex Maid one evening when she came in hot, and that finished
him with Mr. Evringham."

The young doctor's lips twitched beneath his mustache as he looked at
'Zekiel, polishing away for dear life.

"You seem to have some one else here--some friend," he remarked
tentatively.

"Friend!" echoed the housekeeper with exasperation, feeling to see just
how much Zeke had rumpled her immaculate collar. "We looked like friends
when you came up, didn't we!"

"Like intimate friends," murmured the doctor, still looking curiously at
the big fair-haired fellow, who was crimson to his temples.

"I don't know how long we shall continue friends if he ever grabs me
again like that just after I've put on a clean collar. He's got beyond
the place where I can correct him. I ought to have done it oftener when
I had the chance. This is my boy 'Zekiel, Dr. Ballard," with a proud
glance in the direction of the youth, who looked up and nodded, then
continued his labors. "Mr. Evringham has engaged him on trial. He's been
with horses a couple of years, and I guess he'll make out all right."

"Glad to know you, 'Zekiel," returned the doctor. "Your mother has been
a good friend of mine half my life, and I've often heard her speak of
you. Look out for my horse, will you? I shall be here half an hour or
so."

When the doctor had moved off toward the house Mrs. Forbes nodded at her
son knowingly.

"Might's well walk Hector into the barn and uncheck him, Zeke," she
said. "They'll keep him more'n a half an hour. That young man, 'Zekiel
Forbes,--that young man's my _hope_." Mrs. Forbes spoke impressively and
shook her forefinger to emphasize her words.

"What you hoping about him?" asked 'Zekiel, laying down the harness and
proceeding to lead the gray horse up the incline into the barn.

"Shouldn't wonder a mite if he was our deliverer," went on Mrs. Forbes.
"I saw it in Mrs. Evringham's eye that he suited her, the first night
that she met him here at dinner. I like him first-rate, and I don't mean
him any harm; but he's one of these young doctors with plenty of money
at his back, bound to have a fashionable practice and succeed. His face
is in his favor, and I guess he knows as much as any of 'em, and he
can afford the luxury of a wife brought up the way Eloise Evringham has
been. That's right, Zeke. Unfasten the check-rein, though the doctor
don't use a mean one, I must say. I only hope there's a purgatory for
the folks that use too short check-reins on their horses. I hope they'll
have to wear 'em themselves for a thousand years, and have to stand
waiting at folks' doors frothing at the mouth, and the back of their
necks half breaking when the weather's down to zero and up to a hundred.
That's what I hope!"

'Zekiel grinned. "You want 'em to try the cold place and the hot one
too, do you?"

"Yes I do, and to stay in the one that hurts the most. The man that uses
a decent check-rein on his horse," continued Mrs. Forbes, dropping into
a philosophizing tone, "is apt to be as decent to his wife. The doctor
would be a great catch for that girl, and I _think_," dropping her
voice, "her mother'd be liable to live with 'em."

"You're keeping that dark from the doctor, I s'pose?" remarked 'Zekiel.

"H'm. You needn't think I go chattering around that house the way I do
out here. I've got a great talent, if I do say it, for minding my own
business."

"Good enough," drawled 'Zekiel. "I heard tell once of a firm that made a
great fortune just doing that one thing."

"Don't you be sassy now. I've always waited on Mr. Evringham while he
ate his meals, and that's the time he'd often speak out to me about
things if he felt in the humor, so that in all these years 't isn't any
wonder if I've come to feel that his business is mine too."

"Just so," returned 'Zekiel, with a twinkle in his eye.

"It's been as plain as your nose that the interlopers don't like to have
me there. Not that they have anything special against me, but they'd
like to have someone younger and stylisher to hand them their plates.
I'll never forget one night when they'd been here about a week, and I
think Mr. Evringham had begun to suspect they were fixtures,--I'd felt
it from the first,--Mrs. Evringham said, 'Why father, does Mrs. Forbes
always wait on your table? I had supposed she was temporarily taking the
place of your butler or your waitress.'"

The housekeeper's effort to imitate the airy manner she remembered
caused her son to chuckle as he gathered up the shining harness.

"You should have seen the look Mr. Evringham gave her. Just as if he
didn't see her at all. 'Yes,' he answered, 'I hope Mrs. Forbes will wait
on my table as long as I have one.' And I will if I have my health,"
added the speaker, bridling with renewed pleasure at the memory of that
triumphant moment. "They think I'm a machine without any feelings or
opinions, and that I've been wound up to suit Mr. Evringham and run
his establishment, and that I'm no more to be considered than the big
Westminster clock on the stairs. Mrs. Evringham did try once to get into
my employer's rooms and look after his clothes." Mrs. Forbes shook her
head and tightened her lips at some recollection.

"She bucked up against the machine, did she?" inquired Zeke.

The housekeeper glanced around to see if any one might be approaching.

"I saw her go in there, and I followed her," she continued almost in a
whisper. "She sort of started, but spoke up in her cool way, 'I wish to
look over father's clothes and see if anything needs attention.'
'Thank you, Mrs. Evringham, but everything is in order,' I said, very
respectful. 'Well, leave it for me next time, Mrs. Forbes,' she says.
'I shall take care of him while I am here.' 'Thank you,' says I, 'but
he wouldn't want your visit interfered with by that kind of work.' She
looked at me sort of suspicious and haughty. 'I prefer to do it,' she
answers, trying to look holes in me with her big eyes. 'Then will you
ask him, please,' said I very polite, 'before I give you the keys,
because we've got into habits here. I've taken care of Mr. Evringham's
clothes for fifteen years.' She looked kind of set back. 'Is it so
long?' she asks. 'Well, I will see about it.' But I guess the right time
for seeing about it never came," added the housekeeper knowingly.

"You're still doing business at the old stand, eh?" rejoined Zeke.
"Well, I'm glad you like your job. It's my opinion that the governor's
harder--"

"Ahem, ahem!" Mrs. Forbes cleared her throat with desperate loudness
and tugged at her son's shirt sleeve with an energy which caused him to
wheel.

Coming up the sunny driveway was a tall man with short, scrupulously
brushed iron-gray hair, and sweeping mustache. The lines under his eyes
were heavy, his glance was cold. His presence was dignified, commanding,
repellent.

The housekeeper and coachman both stood at attention, the latter
mechanically pulling down his rolled-up sleeves.

"So you're moving out here, Mrs. Forbes," was the remark with which the
newcomer announced himself.

"Yes, Mr. Evringham. The man has been here to put in the electric bell
you ordered. I shall be as quick to call as if I was still in the house,
sir, and I thank you--'Zekiel and I both do--for consenting to my making
it home-like for him. Perhaps you'd come up and see the rooms, sir?"

"Not just now. Some other time. I hope 'Zekiel is going to prove himself
worth all this trouble."

The new coachman's countenance seemed frozen into a stolidity which did
not alter.

"I'm sure he'll try," replied his mother, "and Fanshaw's livery fits him
to such a turn that it would have been flying in the face of Providence
not to try him. Did you give orders to be met at this train, sir?" Mrs.
Forbes looked anxiously toward the set face of her heir.

"No--I came out unexpectedly. I have received news that is rather
perplexing."

The housekeeper had not studied her employer's moods for years without
understanding when she could be of use.

"I will come to the house right off," was her prompt response. "It's a
pity you didn't know the bell was in, sir."

"No, stay where you are. I see Dr. Ballard is here. We might be
interrupted. You can go, 'Zekiel."

The young fellow needed no second invitation, but turned and mounted the
stairway that led to the chambers above.

Mr. Evringham took from his pocket a bunch of papers, and selecting a
letter handed it to Mrs. Forbes, motioning her to the battered chair,
which was still in evidence. He seated himself on the stool Zeke had
vacated, while his housekeeper opened and read the following letter:--


CHICAGO, April 28, 19--.

DEAR FATHER,--The old story of the Prodigal Son has always plenty
of originality for the Prodigal. I have returned, and thank Heaven
sincerely I do not need to ask you for anything. My blessed girl Julia
has supported herself and little Jewel these years while I've been
feeding on husks. I don't see now how I was willing to be so revoltingly
cruel and cowardly as to leave her in the lurch, but she has made
friends and they have stood by her, and now I've been back since
September, doing all in my power to make up what I can to her and Jewel,
as we call little Julia. They were treasures to return to such as I
deserved to have lost forever; but Julia treats me as if I'd been white
to her right all along. I've lately secured a position that I hope to
keep. My wife has been dressmaking, and this is something in the dry
goods line that I got through her. The firm want us to go to Europe
to do some buying. They will pay the expenses of both; but that leaves
Jewel. I've heard that Lawrence's wife and daughter are living with you.
I wondered if you'd let us bring Jewel as far as New York and drop her
with you for the six weeks that we shall be gone. If we had a little
more ahead we'd take the child with us. She is eight years old and
wouldn't be any trouble, but cash is scarce, and although we could board
her here with some friend, I'd like to have her become acquainted with
her grandfather, and I thought as Madge and Eloise were with you, they
would look after her if Mrs. Forbes is no longer there. This has all
come about very suddenly, and we sail next Wednesday on the Scythia, so
I'll be much obliged if you will wire me. I shall be glad to shake your
hand again.

Your repentant son,

HARRY.


Mrs. Forbes looked up from the letter to find her employer's eyes upon
her. Her lips were set in a tight line.

"Well?" he asked.

"I'd like to ask first, sir, what you think of it?"

"It strikes me as very cool. Harry knows my habits."

The housekeeper loosened the reins of her indignation.

"The idea of your having a child here to clatter up and down the stairs
at the very time you want to take a nap!" she burst forth. "You've had
enough to bear already."

"A deal of company in the house as it is, eh?" he rejoined. It was the
first reference he had ever made to his permanent guests.

"It's what I was thinking, sir."

"You're not for it, then, Mrs. Forbes?"

"So far as taking care of the child goes, I should do my duty. I don't
think Mrs. Evringham or her daughter would wish to be bothered; but I
know very little about children, except that your house is no place for
them to be racing in. One young one brings others. You would be annoyed,
sir. Some folks can always ask favors." The housekeeper's cheeks were
flushed with the strength of her repugnance, and her bias relieved Mr.
Evringham's indecision.