"He has never talked that way to me, sir: it"s all about Mercedes, and his going to her," and Harley opened the door, and both went in.
And sure enough, the old man"s raving changed. "I must go to her. I must go to her. I must go to her. I cannot help it, I must go to her."
"Sometimes he thinks he has gone," whispered Harley. "Then he is quieter."
"What are these?" said Mr. Bowdoin, kicking over a pile of newspapers on the floor. "Why does he have New Orleans newspapers?"
The two men looked, and found one paper folded more carefully, on the table; in this they read the item telling of St. Clair"s death. They looked at one another.
"That is it, then," said Harley. "I wonder if he left her poor?"
"So she is not in Havana, after all," said Mr. Bowdoin.
And old Jamie, who had been speaking meaningless sentences, suddenly broke into his old refrain: "_A thousand dollars more!_"
"I must get to the bank," said the old gentleman, "and stop that meeting."
"And _I_ must go to _her_!" cried Harleston Bowdoin.
The other grasped his hand. But Jamie"s spirit was far away, and thought that all these things were done.
XII.
Old Mr. Bowdoin went back to his bank meeting, which he peremptorily postponed, bidding James his son to vote that way, and he would give him reasons afterward. Going home he linked his arm in his, and told him why he would not have that meeting, and the new bank formed, and all its a.s.sets and trusts counted, until James McMurtagh was well again, or not in this world to know. And that same night, Commander Harleston, still on sick leave, started by rail for New Orleans, with orders that would take him through the lines. They had doctors and a nurse now for poor old Jamie; but Mr. Bowdoin was convinced no drug could save his life and reason,--only Mercedes. He lay still in a fever, out of his mind; and the doctors dreaded that his heart might stop when his mind came to. That, at least, was the English of it; the doctors spoke in words of Greek and Latin.
James Bowdoin suggested to his father that they should open the chest, thereby exciting a most unwonted burst of ire. "I pry into poor Jamie"s accounts while he"s lost his mind of grief about that girl!"
(For also to him Mercedes, now nigh to forty, was still a girl.) "I would not stoop to doubt him, sir." Yet, on the other hand, Mr.
Bowdoin would probably have never condoned a theft, once discovered; and James Bowdoin wasted his time in hinting they might make it good.
"Confound it, sir," said the father, "it"s the making it good to Jamie, not the making it good to us, that counts,--don"t you see?"
"You do suspect him, then?"
"Not a bit,--not one whit, sir!" cried the father. "I know him better.
And I hate a low, suspicious habit of mind, sir, with all my heart!"
"You once said, sir, years ago (do you remember?), that but one thing--love--could make a man like Jamie go wrong."
"I said a lot of d----d fool things, sir, when I was bringing you up, and the consequences are evident." And Mr. Bowdoin slammed out of the breakfast-room where this conversation took place.
But no word came from Harleston, and the old gentleman"s temper grew more execrable every day. Again the bank directors met, and again at his request--this time avowedly on account of McMurtagh"s illness--the reorganization and examination were postponed. And at last, the very day before the next meeting, there came a telegram from Harley in New York. It said this only:--
"Landed to-day. Arrive to-morrow morning. Found."
"Now why the deuce can"t he say what he"s found and who"s with him?"
complained old Mr. Bowdoin to his wife and son for the twentieth time, that next morning.
Breakfast was over, and they were waiting for Harley to arrive. Mrs.
Bowdoin went on with her work in silence.
"And why the devil is the train so late? I must be at the bank at eleven. Do you suppose she"s with him?"
"How is Jamie?" said Mrs. Bowdoin only in reply.
"Much the same. Do you think--do you think"--
"I am afraid so, James," said the old lady. "Harley would have said"--
"There he comes!" cried Mr. Bowdoin from the window. Father and son ran to the door, in the early spring morning, and saw a carriage stop, and Harley step out of it, and then--a little girl.
XIII.
The image of Mercedes she was; and the old gentleman caught her up and kissed her. He had a way with all children; and James thought this little maid was just as he remembered her mother, that day, now so long gone, on the old Long Wharf, when the sailing-vessel came in from the harbor,--the day he was engaged to marry his Abby. Old Mrs.
Bowdoin stood beside, rubbing her spectacles; and then the old man set the child upon his lap, and told her soon she should see her grandfather. And the child began to prattle to him in a good English that had yet a color of something French or Spanish; and she wore a black dress.
"But perhaps you have never heard of your old grandfather?"
The child said that "mamma" had often talked about him, and had said that some day she should go to Boston to see him. "Grandfather Jamie," the child called him. "That was before mamma went away."
Mr. Bowdoin looked at the black dress, and then at Harleston; and Harleston nodded his head sadly.
"Well, Mercedes, we will go very soon. Isn"t your name Mercedes?" said the old gentleman, seeing the little maid look surprised.
"My name is Sarah, but mamma called me Sadie," lisped the child.
Mr. Bowdoin and Harleston looked each at the other, and had the same thought. It was as if the mother, who had so darkened (or shall we, after all, say lightened?) Jamie"s life, had given up her strange Spanish name in giving him back this child, and remembered but the homely "Sadie" he once had called her by. But by this time old lady Bowdoin had the little maid upon her lap, and James was dragging Harley away to tell his story. And old Mr. Bowdoin even broke his rule by taking an after-breakfast cigar, and puffed it furiously.
"I got to New Orleans by rail and river, as you know. There I inquired after St. Clair, and had no difficulty in finding out about him. He had been a sort of captain of marines in an armed blockade-runner, and he was well known in New Orleans as a gambler, a slave-dealer"--
Mr. Bowdoin grunted.
--"almost what they call a thug. But he had not been killed instantly; he died in a city hospital."
"There is no doubt about his being dead?" queried Mr. Bowdoin anxiously.
"Not the slightest. I saw his grave. But, unhappily, Mercedes is dead, too."
"All is for the best," said Mr. Bowdoin philosophically. "Perhaps you"d have married her."