Whitaker

“ The day wore out before his patience did, and with every indication of fulfilling the prognosis of Sum Fat; by nightfall the wind had developed into an enthusiastic gale, driving before it sheeted rain and great ragged wastes of mist. Whitaker absolutely enjoyed the sensation of renewed intimacy with the weather, from which his life in New York had of late divorced him so completely. ”

“ Whitaker spoke in a low voice.
"Of course I do not know what is usual in New Orleans. But it must be the same as anywhere else. Tarrant is held a man of consequence here, and to refuse him satisfaction would be a grave thing socially. Is your mind completely made up?"
"Dueling," spoke Anthony, "is a code that has no place in the modern world; it is murderous and preposterous."
Whitaker shook his head.
"There is a law against it, but the man who refuses a challenge is marked." ”

“ King and Anthony. "Soundly thrashed, with his hat all broken and red welts across his face. Thoroughly discomfited, they tell me, and raving with rage. What will he do now?" laughed the lady. "He has been so looked up to by all our youths!" with an arch glance at Whitaker. "So patterned after in all the things that make a man of fashion and spirit! How in the world can he redeem himself?"
"Well," said Whitaker, "I suppose it is amusing, if one is inclined to take that view of it. The impulse is to laugh at any awkward thing that happens to one who has carried himself as high as Tarrant. ”

“ An inexplicable fit of trembling seized Whitaker. Dropping into a chair, he pillowed his head on his folded arms. Presently the seizure passed, but he remained moveless. With the drift of minutes, insensibly his taut muscles relaxed. Odd visions painted the dark tapestries of his closed eyes: a fragment of swinging seas shining in moonlight; white swords of light slashing the dark night round their unseen eyrie; the throat of a woman swelling firm and strong as a tower of ivory, tense from the collar of her cheap gown to the point of her tilted chin ”

“ Whitaker be pleased to wait in the drawing-room?
Mr. Whitaker surrendered top-coat and hat and was shown into the designated apartment. Almost immediately he became aware of feminine footsteps on the staircase—tapping heels, the faint murmuring of skirts. He faced the doorway, indefinably thrilled, the blood quickening in throat and temples.
To his intense disappointment there entered to him a woman impossible to confuse with her whom he sought: a lady well past middle-age, with the dignity and poise consistent with her years, her manifest breeding and her iron-gray hair. ”

“ Of Mrs. Fidelia Whitaker, the excellent wife of my old and good friend, Byron Whitaker of Detroit, Michigan. Mrs. Whitaker had many fine qualities, and commanded my respect and esteem to a high degree.
Come listen, friends, the while I paint
Upon your hearts a picture true,
Of one whose love was never faint,
But full and strong and true to you.
No master’s skill can I command,
To imitate a face so fair,
But love will help to guide my hand,
And draw the lines with tender care. ”

“ The actress had glanced across the footlights; Whitaker could not but follow the direction of her gaze; the eyes of both focussed for a brief instant on the empty aisle-seat in the fourth row. A shade of additional pallor showed on the woman's face. She looked quickly, questioningly, toward the box of her manager.
Seated as he was so near the stage, Whitaker's face stood out in rugged relief, illumined by the glow reflected from the footlights. It was inevitable that she should see him. Her eyes fastened, dilating, upon his. The scene faltered perceptibly. She stood transfixed.... ”

“ Here is nature once more at her old game of self-preservation. This train of thought, she perceives, is threatening mere waste of energy, even some collision with reality, for who will ever be able to lift a finger against Whitaker's Table of Precedency? The Archbishop of Canterbury is followed by the Lord High Chancellor; the Lord High Chancellor is followed by the Archbishop of York. Everybody follows somebody, such is the philosophy of Whitaker; and the great thing is to know who follows [Pg 113] whom. Whitaker knows, and let that, so Nature counsels, comfort you, instead of enraging you; ”

“ A wondering apprehension of some nameless and desperate enterprise, somehow involving the woman who obsessed his thoughts, crawled in Whitaker's mind. The boat—running without cruising lights!—was seeking the next landing-stage. Those in charge of it had certainly some reason for wishing to escape observation.
Automatically Whitaker turned back, let himself down to the beach, and began to pick his way toward the Fiske dock, half running despite his stiff ankle and following a course at once more direct and more difficult than the way through the woods. ”

“ And what business could Rufus Stevens' Sons have there?" Whitaker took up his tankard and whipped the ale about in it with a circular motion; then he drank deeply of it. "But in a half-hour, maybe, Charles called me in." Whitaker put the tankard down and held up a hand as though in affirmation. "I never saw a man so deathly-looking; the sweat stood on his face and his eyes looked like the eyes of a very old man. He gave me a sealed paper and told me to take it to Amos Bulfinch at once. ”

“ It was a repetition of the episode of Mary Ladislas recast and rewritten: the stronger will overcame the admonitions of a saner judgment. Whitaker gave in. "Oh, have your own way," he said at length, unconsciously iterating the words that had won him a bride. "If it must be...."
Peter put him to bed, watched over him through the night, and the next morning carried him on to New Bedford, where they superintended the outfitting of Peter's yacht, the Adventuress. Beyond drawing heavily on his bank and sending Drummond a brief note, Whitaker failed to renew communication with his home. ”

“ At that very moment, before the man they called Bobby Whitaker could finish his sentence, a tall white man, of handsome and imposing presence, walked out quietly from among the knot of people behind the negroes, and laid his hand with a commanding air on the fat old mulatto’s broad shoulder. ”

“ Dear sir,—When I sent you the sketch of “Tom Airay” of this place, and his associates, I was not aware that the practice of acting plays was a very ancient one in the parish of Linton, (in which this place is.) The following extract from Whitaker’s history will prove this to have been the case, and that Airay was “the last of a bright band.” It will doubtless be perused with interest by many of the inhabitants of Craven, very few of whom I am inclined to think know of the circumstance. Whitaker’s history is an expensive work, and only in the hands of a few. ”

“ Max recovered his breath, readjusted his glasses, and resumed his stare.
"Either," he observed, "you're Hugh Whitaker come to life or a damned outrage."
"Both, if you like."
"You sound like both," complained the little man. "Anyway, you were drowned in the Philippines or somewhere long ago, and I never waste time on a dead one.... Drummond—" He turned to the lawyer with a vastly business-like air.
"No, you don't!" Whitaker insisted, putting himself between the two men. "I admit that you're a great man; you might at least admit that I'm a live one." ”

“ Ember, himself as severely beautiful in black and white as the ceremonious livery of to-day permits a man to be, was wonder-struck at sight of Whitaker in such unconventional guise, at such a time, in such a place. ”

“ Whitaker extended his leg and cast a critical eye over the heavily bandaged ankle.
"Anyway," he observed, "the effect is arresting. I look like a half Clydesdale."
Sum Fat's eyes clouded, then again gleamed with benevolent interest. "You take it easy one day or two—no walk much—just loaf—no go see pretty ladies—"
"Go 'way, you heathen—go clean your teeth!" cried Whitaker, indignantly.
"—and I think be all well and sound," concluded Sum Fat. ”

“ Ember had not telephoned, as Whitaker had hoped he would; and the chatelaine of the neighbouring cottage had not manifested any interest whatever in the well-being of the damaged amateur squire of dames.
Whitaker felt himself neglected and abused. He inclined to sulks. The loveliness of a day of unbroken calm offered him no consolation. Solitude in a lonely lodge is all very well, if one cares for that sort of thing; but it takes two properly to appreciate the beauties of the wilderness. ”

“ Throwing stones at the wickedness of other people often leads to complications. Her father, Joseph Whitaker, born in 1789, in a one-story log house, in a poor stony region near Hopewell Furnace, so near the line between Berks and Chester counties that the family could not be quite sure in which county they lived, was five feet eight inches in height, full-blooded, with thick curly hair, which he never lost, and thin chin whiskers but no beard. ”

“ The winter of 1861-62 I spent at the store of Whitaker & Coudon, a firm consisting of my grandfather, my great-uncle, George P. Whitaker, of Principio, and the son-in-law of the latter, Joseph Coudon, who then lived in Camden. Their store ran from Water Street to Delaware Avenue in Philadelphia and there they sold the iron made at Durham and Principio furnaces, and likewise represented the Schalls of Norristown ”

“ Impulsively Whitaker got up to follow Max, then hesitated and sank back in doubt, his head awhirl. He was for the time being shocked out of all capacity for clear reasoning or right thinking. Uppermost in his consciousness he had a half-formed notion that it wouldn't help matters if he were to force himself in upon the crisis behind the scenes.
Beyond all question his wife had recognized in him the man whom she had been given every reason to believe dead: a discovery so unnerving as to render her temporarily unable to continue. ”

“ Dr Whitaker looked up at her quickly with a piercing look. ‘Yes,’ he replied; ‘it is a pity, for I should have dearly loved it. I’m bound up in music, almost; it’s one of my two great passions. But I had more than one reason for feeling that I ought, if possible, to go back to Trinidad. ”

“ Whitaker,' said May in low earnest voice, 'that there is hope of his recovery?'
'I do not say that,' replied the doctor; 'your ladyship is aware of the old proverb which says that there must be hope while there is life; and though Lord Forestfield is in extreme danger, with human skill and attention, under Divine Providence' (Whitaker always spoke of this last as a kind of copartnership) 'we may pull him through. ”

“ Whitaker retorted. "She's not made up—she's herself to the last detail."
Amusement glimmered in the manager's round little eyes: "You don't know her. Wait till you get a pipe at her off the stage." Then he checked the reply that was shaping on Whitaker's lips, with a warning lift of his hand and brows: "Ssh! Catch this, now. She's a wonder in this scene."
The superb actress behind the counterfeit of the hunted and hungry shop-girl was holding spell-bound with her inevitable witchery the most sophisticated audience in the world ”

“ Whitaker, who says, "he retired to the solitude of Barden, where he seems to have enlarged the tower out of a common keeper's lodge, and where he found a retreat equally favourable to taste, to instruction, and to devotion. The narrow limits of his residence shew that he had learned to despise the pomp of greatness, and that a small train of servants could suffice him, who had lived to the age of thirty a servant himself. I think this nobleman resided here almost entirely when in Yorkshire, for all his charters which I have seen are dated at Barden. ”

“ Every fibre of my being loves you.
"Mary."
Obviously not a note to be cavilled at. Whitaker took a serene and shining face to breakfast in the saloon, under the eyes of Ember.
Veins of optimism and of gratulation like threads of gold ran through the texture of their talk. There seemed to exist a tacit understanding that, with the death of Drummond, the cloud that had shadowed the career of Sara Law had lifted, while her renunciation of her public career had left her with a future of glorified serenity and assured happiness. ”

“ Whitaker would have been very little more to her than a higher kind of servant; for the insolent people among whom she had lived were in the habit of treating all those who were not of their own class, no matter how far superior to themselves in everything save the accident of birth, as persons who were necessary to their well-being, but who were in no wise to be encouraged by familiarity. ”

“ Whitaker took to his bed in company with a black temper and the aroma of arnica.
He entertained, the next day, several persons: reporters; a physician; a futile, superfluous, unornamental creature misleadingly designated a plain-clothes man; finally his friend (by now their acquaintance had warmed to real friendship) Ember. ”

“ However, one rarely finds any really insuperable obstacles in the way of an especially wrong-headed project.
Whitaker, taking his heart and his fate in his hands, accosted a venerable gentleman whom they encountered as he was on the point of turning off the sidewalk to private grounds. ”

“ Seldom, perhaps, has an habitation been so unceremoniously vacated as was the solitary farm-house on that isolated island. Whitaker delayed only long enough to place a bill, borrowed from Ember, on the kitchen table, in payment for what provisions they had consumed, and to extinguish the lamps and shut the door. ”