Wellgood

“ The inspector saw and gently patted my hand.
“Come,” said he, “you have head enough to see that it is never wise to force matters.” Then, possibly with an intention of rousing me, he remarked: “There is another small fact which may interest you. It concerns the waiter, Wellgood, recommended, as you will remember, by this Sears. In my talk with Jones it leaked out as a matter of small moment, and so it was to him, that this Wellgood was the waiter who ran and picked up the diamond after it fell from Mr. Grey’s hand.” ”

“ Wellgood? It seems absurd?"
"Not in Wellgood, anyhow."
"Beggars mustn't be choosers."
"You a beggar! Why, you're—"
"What am I?"
"Shall I break the rules?"
She gave him a long look before answering. "No, don't." Her voice shook a little, her composure was less perfect.
Harry was no novice; the break in the voice did not escape him. He marked it with a thrill of triumph; it told him that she was not merely playing with him; he was holding his own, he had his power. The fight was equal. He rose to his feet and stood facing her, both of them by the mantelpiece. ”

“ He knew Andy well enough to be sure that he would do nothing against him without fair warning. If he meant to tell tales to Vivien or to Wellgood, he would warn Harry first. Time enough to wrestle with him then! Meanwhile they—he was coupling Isobel with himself—would stand on the defensive; nothing should be admitted, everything should be ignored. ”

“ He looked up eagerly, however, when Sweetwater entered, and asked what news.
The detective, with some semblance of respect, answered that he had seen Wellgood, but that he had been unable to detain him or bring him within his employer’s observation.
“He is a patent-medicine man,” he then explained, “and manufactures his own concoctions in a house he has rented here on a lonely road some half-mile out of town.”
“Wellgood does? the man named Wellgood?” Mr. Grey exclaimed with all the astonishment the other secretly expected.
“Yes; Wellgood, James Wellgood. There is no other in town.” ”

“ The words reached Wellgood, where he was now crouching behind a bush. He dared come no nearer, lest they should hear his movements.
Harry had lost all hold on himself now. The pale image of Vivien was obliterated from his mind. He had no doubt about to-morrow—how had he ever doubted?—and he pleaded his cause with a passion eloquent and infectious. It was hard to meet passion like that with denial and doubt; sorely hard when belief would bring such joy and triumph! ”

“ He could stop this stranger in mid-street, with some plausible excuse, but it did not follow that he would succeed in luring him to the hotel where Mr. Grey could see him. Wellgood, or, as he believed, Sears, knew too much of life to be beguiled by any open clap-trap, and Sweetwater was obliged to see him drive off without having made the least advance in the purpose engrossing him. ”

“ Single-hearted concern for Vivien would have let Isobel go, as she prayed, and given Harry either his dismissal or the chance to mend his ways in the absence of temptation. Jealousy imperiously vetoed such suggestions. Isobel should not go. Harry should neither be dismissed nor given a fair chance and a fresh start. If he could, Wellgood would still keep Isobel; at least he would punish Harry, if he caught him. ”

“ Yes, Andy was on the whole the happiest—happier even than Harry, to whom content, triumph, and challenge were all too habitual; happier even than Vivien, who had still some schooling to endure, still some of love's finicking doubts, some of hope's artificially prudent incredulity, to overcome; beyond doubt happier than Wellgood, who had lost two pounds, or Isobel Vintry, who had challenged and had been told that her challenge should be taken up—some day! ”

“ He would like to see Vivien's affair settled before his own was undertaken. His idea was that his declaration and acceptance should follow on his daughter's engagement.
Isobel was not afraid of Mark Wellgood, as his daughter was, and as so many women would have been. She had a self-confidence equal to his own; she added to it a subtlety which would secure her a larger share of independence than it would be politic to claim openly. She had not feared him as a master, and would not fear him as a husband. Moreover she understood him far better than he read her. Understanding gives power. ”

“ Andy wondered what they would try her with to-morrow, and found himself sorry that he would not be there—to help her with his bigness and solidity.
It was difficult to say that Mr. Wellgood's system was wrong. It was absurd for a grown girl—a girl living in the country—to be frightened at horses, dogs, and motor-cars, to be disgusted by dirt and dust, by getting very hot—and by butchers' shops. All these were things which she would have to meet on her way through the world, as the world is at present constituted. ”

“ But the few persons who have seen Wellgood differ greatly in their remembrance of his features, and even of his coloring. It is astonishing how superficially most people see a man, even when they are thrown into daily contact with him. Mr. Jones says the man’s eyes are gray, his hair a wig and dark, his nose pudgy, and his face without much expression. His land-lady, that his eyes are blue, his hair, whether wig or not, a dusty auburn, and his look quick and piercing,—a look which always made her afraid. ”

“ Even the bright hues of Harry's future grew a hundredfold brighter when beheld through this enchanted medium, while Vivien's simple ideal of life seemed heaven realized. Visions were their only facts, and dreams alone their truth. Neither from without nor from within could aught harm the airy fabric that they built—Vivien out of ignorance, Harry by help of that fine oblivion of his.
For a long while Isobel Vintry—fled to her room lest Wellgood should seek her—watched them from her window with envious eyes. For them the dreams; for her, most uninspiring reality! ”

“ Harry swore softly; Isobel laughed low.
"This is ridiculous!" she remarked. "Couldn't you take just one turn with Vivien's companion? Your mother might hear straight just once."
"I'll be hanged if I chance it to-night," said Harry. "I'll take Wellgood on at billiards."
"Yes, go and do that; it's much better. It may bring back your colour, Harry."
Harry looked at her in exasperation—and in longing. "I wish there wasn't a woman in the world!" he growled.
"It's men like you who say that," she retorted, smiling. "Go and forget us for an hour." ”

“ If any man had come between him and his woman—primitive also were the terms his thoughts used—that man should pay for it. If there were any man at all, who could it be but Harry Belfield? If it were Harry Belfield, Wellgood refused to hold him innocent of an inkling of how matters stood between Isobel and Vivien's father—he must have pretty nearly guessed, even if she had not told him. ”

“ This was a decided disappointment to Sweetwater, if not to Mr. Grey. He had expected to detect signs of life in this quarter, and this additional proof of Wellgood’s absence from home made it look as if they had come out on a fool’s errand and might much better have stuck to the road.
“No promise there,” came in a mutter from his lips. “Shall I row in, sir, and try to make a landing?”
“You may row nearer. I should like a closer view. I don’t think we shall attract any attention. There are more boats than ours on the water.” ”

“ And he went back, still calling Wellgood.
The tied-up horse whinnied, and the waves gave a soft splash and that was all,—if I except Sweetwater’s muttered oath.
Coming back, he looked again at the window, then, with a gesture toward Mr. Grey, turned the corner of the building and began to edge himself along its side in an endeavor to reach the rear and see what it offered. But he came to a sudden standstill. He found himself on the edge of the bank before he had taken twenty steps. Yet the building projected on, and he saw why it had looked so large from a certain point of the approach. ”

“ Both had been thinking about Isobel, but the thoughts of neither consorted well with Vivien's "Poor Isobel!"
"Why not?" asked Harry.
"It means the loss of her situation, Harry."
"Of course! I never thought of that."
"Don't you young people be in too great a hurry," said Wellgood, with the satisfied smile of a man with a secret. "You're not going to be married the day after to-morrow! There's lots of time for something to turn up for Isobel. She needn't be pitied. Perhaps she may be tired of you and your ways, young woman, and glad to be rid of her job!" ”

“ He would welcome an alliance with Halton, and it would be an alliance on even terms; for Vivien had some money of her own, apart from what he could leave her. Whether she would have Nutley or not—well, that was uncertain. Wellgood was only forty-three and young for his years; he might yet marry and have a son. A second marriage was more than an idea in his head; it was an intention fully formed. The woman he meant to ask to be his wife at the suitable moment lived in his house and sat at his table with him—his daughter's companion, Isobel Vintry. ”

“ Vivien should awake to realize that she was more than a chaperon, tiresome for the moment, soon to be dismissed; Harry should understand that to one man she was no old-maid duenna, but the woman he wanted for wife. While she played chaperon at Nutley she wrote letters to Wellgood—letters keeping his passion alive, playing with his confidence, transparently feigning to ignore, hardly pretending to deny. They were letters a lover successful in the end would laugh at. If in the issue the man found himself jockeyed, they would furnish matter for fury as a great deceit. ”

“ Had the moon been stronger, he might have been seen to blush. "I don't want to be—oh, well, serious. That's rot, I know—after dinner. But—well, you're all in it—insiders—I'm an outsider. And I say that what the swine want is—pearls!"
"If we've got them?" The question, or insinuation, was Belfield's. He was looking at Andy with a real, if an only half-serious, interest.
"Swine are swine," remarked Wellgood. "They mustn't forget it. Neither must we."
"But pearls by no means always pearls?" Belfield suggested. "Though they may look the real thing if a pretty woman hangs them round her neck." ”

“ Mr. Grey seemed startled.
“It’s darker than I thought,” said he. “But call the man and if I can not see him plainly, I’ll shout to the horse to stand, which you will take as a signal to bring this Wellgood nearer. But do not be surprised if I ride off before he reaches the buggy. I’ll come back again and take you up farther down the road.”
“All right, sir,” answered Sweetwater, with a side glance at the speaker’s inscrutable features. “It’s a go!” And leaping to the ground he advanced to the manufactory door and knocked loudly. ”

“ She rose to a hope that her tricks and her fencing had been successful, that he was quite in the dark, that the issue was to his mind between their two selves alone, with no intruder.
Wellgood's jealousy bade him be proud of his effort, and encouraged him to persevere. The natural temper of the man might be raging, almost to the laying of hands on her; it must be kept down; the time for it was not yet. Rudeness or roughness would give her an excuse for flight; he would not have her fly. A plausible kindness, a considerate smoothness—that was the card jealousy selected for him to play. ”

“ Belfield humorously traded on his infirmity. "A dishonest fellow who won't pay his tradesmen, a flirtatious minx who will make mischief, a spoilt urchin who insists on doing what he shouldn't—all rather attractive, aren't they? If everybody behaved properly we should have no 'situations.' What would become of literature and the drama?"
"And if nobody had any spare cash, what would become of them, either?" asked Harry.
"Well, we could do with a good deal less of them. I'll go so far as to admit that," said Wellgood. ”

“ They had worked together over Vivien's rather severe training in a matter-of-fact way; but there had been this diversion for hours of leisure. Why not? Flirtation of this order was not the conventional thing between the girl's father and the girl's companion. No matter! They were both vigorously self-confident people; the flirtation suited the taste of at least one of them, and served the ends of both.
The near approach of the lovers—the imminence of a declared engagement—made a change. Wellgood advanced more openly; Isobel challenged and repelled more impudently. ”

“ His part was to play, with just the proper display of horror and curiosity, the ordinary menial brought face to face with a crime in high life. He could do this. He could even sustain his share in the gossip, and for this purpose kept near the other waiters. The absence of the diamond was all that troubled him. That brought him at times to the point of vertigo. Had Mr. Grey recognized and claimed it? If so, he, Abner Fairbrother, must remain James Wellgood, the waiter, indefinitely. ”

“ In very truth the atmosphere at Nutley was heavy with threatening clouds; unless a fair wind came to scatter them, the storm must soon break. Isobel had fled within her feminine barricades—the barricades which women are so clever at constructing and at persuading the conventions of life to help them to defend. A woman's solitudes may not be stormed; with address she can escape private encounters. In sore fear of Harry because sore afraid of herself, she gave him no opportunity. In sore fear of Wellgood, she shrank from facing him with a rupture of their secret arrangement. ”

“ And the diamond? Still the diamond! You hint that he stole that, too. That with some idea of its proving useful to him on this gala occasion, he had provided himself with an imitation stone, setting and all,—he who has never shown, so far as we have heard, any interest in Mrs. Fairbrother’s diamond, only in Mrs. Fairbrother herself. If Wellgood is Sears and Sears the medium by which the false stone was exchanged for the real, then he made this exchange in Mr. Grey’s interests and not his own. ”