Captivating Mary Carstairs by Henry Sydnor Harrison

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CAPTIVATING MARY CARSTAIRS

BY

HENRY SYDNOR HARRISON

WITH A FRONTISPIECE BY R.M. CROSBY

(_This book was first published pseudonymously in February, 1911_)

1910, 1914.

TO NAWNY: HER BOOK

_NOTE_

_This book, representing the writer's first effort at a long story, has
something of a story of its own. First planned in 1900 or 1901, it was
begun in 1905, and finished at length, in a version, three years later.
Through the two years succeeding it underwent various adventures,
including, if memory serves, two complete overhauling. Having thus
reached by stages something like its present form, it was, in August,
1910, favorably reported on by the publishers; but yet another rewriting
preceded its final acceptance, a few weeks later. Meanwhile, I had
turned to fresh work; and, as it chanced, "Queed" was both begun and
finished in the interval while "Captivating Mary Carstairs" was taking
her last journeys abroad. Turned away by two publishers, the newer
manuscript shortly found welcome from a third. So it befell that I, as
yet more experienced in rejections, suddenly found myself with two
books, of widely different sorts and intentions, scheduled for
publication by different publishers, almost simultaneously. As this
seemed to be more books than society required from an unknown writer, it
was decided to put out the present story--which is a "story," as I
conceive the terms, and not a novel--over a pen name.

At that time, be it said, with an optimism that now has its humorous
side, I viewed myself prospectively as a ready and fertile writer,
producing a steady flow of books of very various sorts. Hence it
occurred to me that a pseudonym might have a permament serviceability.
So far from these anticipations proving justified, I am now moved to
abandon the pseudonym in the only instance I have had occasion to use
it. Writers have sometimes been charged with seeking to capitalize their
own good fortune. My motive, in authorizing the republication of this
story over my name, is not that. The fact is only that experience has
taught me not to like pseudonymity: my feeling being that those who take
an interest in my work are entitled, if they so desire, to see it as a
whole_.

H.S.H.

_Charleston, West Virginia, 16 March, 1914_

CONTENTS

I The Chief Conspirator Secures a Pal

II They Embark upon a Crime

III They Arrive in Hunston and Fall in with a Stranger

IV Which Concerns Politics and other Local Matters

V Introduces Mary Carstairs and Another

VI The Hero Talks with a Lady in the Dark

VII In which Mary Carstairs is Invited to the Yacht "Cypriani"

VIII Concerning Mr. Ferris Stanhope, the Popular Novelist; also Peter,
the Quiet Onlooker

IX Varney Meets with a Galling Rebuff, while Peter Goes Marching On

X The Editor of the _Gazette_ Plays a Card from His Sleeve

XI Which Shows the Hero a Fugitive

XII A Yellow Journalist Secures a Scoop but Fails to Get Away with it

XIII Varney Meets His Enemy and is Disarmed

XIV Conference between Mr. Hackley, the Dog Man, and Mr. Ryan, the Boss

XV In which Varney Does Not Pay a Visit, but Receives One

XVI Wherein Several Large Difficulties are Smoothed Away

XVII A Little Luncheon Party on the Yacht "Cypriani"

XVIII Captivating Mary

XIX In which Mr. Higginson and the Sailing-Master Both Merit Punishment,
and Both Escape it

XX Varney, Having Embarked upon a Crime, Finds out that there is a Price
to Pay

XXI Mr. Ferris Stanhope Meets His Double; and Lets the Double Meet
Everything Else

XXII Relating How Varney Fails to Die; and Why Smith Remained in
Hunston; and How a Reception is Planned for Mr. Higginson

XXIII In which Varney, after all, Redeems His Promise

CAPTIVATING MARY CARSTAIRS

Captivating Mary Carstairs

CHAPTER I

THE CHIEF CONSPIRATOR SECURES A PAL

In a rear room of a quaint little house uptown, a great bronzed-faced
man sat at a piano, a dead pipe between his teeth, and absently played
the most difficult of Beethoven's sonatas. Though he played it divinely,
the three men who sat smoking and talking in a near-by corner paid not
the least attention to him. The player, it seemed, did not expect them
to: he paid very little attention himself.

Next to the selection of members, that is, no doubt, the most highly
prized thing about the Curzon Club: you are not expected to pay
attention unless you want to. It is a sanctuary where no one can bore
you, except yourself. The members have been chosen with this in mind,
and not chosen carelessly.

Lord Pembroke, who married a Philadelphian, is quoted as saying that the
Curzon is the most democratic club in a too confoundedly democratic
country. M. Arly, the editor, has told Paris that it is the most
exclusive club in the world. Probably both were right. The electing
board is the whole club, and a candidate is stone-dead at the first
blackball; but no stigma attaches to him for that. Of course, it is a
small club. Also, though money is the least of all passports there, it
is a wealthy club. No stretch of the imagination could describe its dues
as low. But through its sons of plutocracy, and their never-ending
elation at finding themselves in, has arisen the Fund, by which poor but
honest men can join, and do join, with never a thought of ways and
means. Of these Herbert Horning, possibly the best-liked man in the
club, who supported a large family off the funny department of a
magazine, was one. He had spurned the suggestion when it was first made
to him, and had reluctantly foregone his election; whereon Peter
Maginnis had taken him aside, a dash of red in his ordinarily composed
eye.

"How much?" he demanded brutally.

"How much for what?"

"How much for you?" roared Peter. "How much must the club pay you to get
you in?"

Horning stared, pained.

"God meant no man to be a self-conscious ass," said Peter more mildly.
"The club pays you a high compliment, and you have the nerve to reply
that you don't take charity. I suppose if Congress voted you a medal for
writing the funniest joke in America, you'd have it assayed and remit
the cash. Chuck it, will you? Once in a year we find a man we want, and
then we go ahead and take him. We don't think much of money here but--as
I say, how much?"

The "but" implied that Horning did, and hurt as it was meant to. He came
into the club, took cheerfully what they offered him that way, and felt
grateful ever afterwards that Maginnis had steered him to the light.

The big man, Maginnis himself, sat on at the piano, his great fingers
rambling deftly over the keys. He was playing Brahms now and doing it
magnificently. He was fifteen stone, all bone and muscle, and looked
thirty pounds heavier, because you imagined, mistakenly, that he carried
a little fat. He was the richest man in the club, at least so far as
prospects went, but he wore ready-made clothes, and one inferred,
correctly, that a suit of them lasted him a long time. He looked capable
of everything, but the fact was that he had done nothing. But for his
money and a past consisting of thirty years of idleness, he might have
been the happiest dog alive.

"The best government," said one of the three men who were not listening
to the piano, "is simply the surest method for putting public opinion
into power."

The sentence drifted over the player's shoulder and Brahms ended with a
crash.

"Balzac said that," he cried, rising abruptly, "and said it better! But,
good heavens, how you both miss the point! Why, let me tell you."

But this they stoutly declined to do. Amid laughter and protests--for
the big man's hobbies were well known to the club--two of them sprang up
in mock terror, and headed for the door. They indicated that they had
promised each other to play billiards and dared not break the
engagement.

"I couldn't stay to the end, anyway, Peter," explained one, from the
door. "My wife sits up when I'm out after midnight. Meet me here for
breakfast some bank-holiday, and we'll give the day to it."

Maginnis, who never got over feeling disappointed when he saw his
audience slipping away from him, sighed, searched through his frowzy
pockets for a match, lit his pipe, and fell upon a lounge near to all
the society that was left him.

"Why weren't you up?" said this society presently.

"The idea of dinner was repellent to me."

"To you, Peter--the famous trencherman of song and story? Why this
unwonted daintiness?"

"Lassitude. Too weary to climb the stairs. Besides, I wasn't hungry."

"Ah," said Reggie Townes, "you have the caveman's idea of dinner, I see.
It strikes you as purely an occasion for purveying provender to man's
interior. The social feature eludes you. You know what I think, Peter?
You ought to go to work."

"_Work!_"

"That's the word. What of it?"

"Not a thing. The idea was new to me; that's all."

"Persiflage and all that aside, why don't you take a stab at politics?"

"Politics! Here in New York! I'd sooner go into Avernus of the easy
descent. If you had a town to run all by yourself now, there might be
something in it. That idea of yours as to going to work, while
unquestionably novel, strikes me as rather clever."

"No credit belongs to me," said Townes, "if I happened to be born
brilliant instead of good-looking."

"I'll ponder it," said Peter; and stretching out his great hand with a
gesture which banished the subject, he pushed a service button and
begged Townes to be so kind as to name his poison.

Outside in the hall a voice just then called his name, and Maginnis
answered.

A young man in evening dress strolled through the doorway, a tallish,
lithe young man with a pleasant clean-cut face and very light hair. It
was evident enough that he patronized a good tailor. He glanced at the
two men, nodded absently, and dropped without speech into a chair near
the door. Townes eyed him somewhat quizzically.

"Evening, Larry. A little introspective to-night, yes?"

Peter said: "By bull luck you have stumbled into a company of gentlemen
about to place an order. Go ahead. Mention a preference."

The young man, unseeing eyes on Peter, did not answer. Instead, he
sprang up, as though struck by a thought of marked interest and bolted
out the door. They saw him vanish into the telephone booth across the
hall and bang the glass door shut behind him.

"Forgot an engagement."

"You mean remembered one," said Peter.

"It all figures out to the same answer," said Townes; and glancing
presently at his watch, he announced that he must be trotting on.

"But I've ordered something for you, man."

"Varney can use it, can't he?"

The door opened, and the tallish young man stood on the threshold again,
this time social and affable. His distraitness, oddly enough, had all
gone. He greeted the two in the smoking-room as though he had seen them
for the first time that evening; expressed his pleasure at being in
their company; inquired after their healths and late pursuits; pressed
cigarettes upon them.

They rallied him upon his furtive movements and fickle demeanor, but
drew only badinage in kind, and no explanations; and Townes, laughing,
turned to the door.

"Dally with us yet a little while, Reggie."

"No, gentles, no! I'm starting abroad to-night and have already dallied
too long."

"Abroad!"

"My sister," said Townes, "as perhaps you don't know, wedded a
foreigner--Willy Harcourt, born and raised in Brooklyn. Therefore, I am
now leaving to go to a party in Brooklyn. Say that to yourself
slowly--'a party in Brooklyn!' Sounds sort of ominous, doesn't it? If
the worst happens, I look to you fellows to break it to my mother.
Please mention that I was smiling to the last."

He waved a farewell and disappeared into the hall. Varney dropped into
the chair Townes had left empty, and elevated his feet to the lounge
where sprawled the length of Peter Maginnis. Peter looked up and the
eyes of the two men met.

"Well, Laurence? What is the proposition?" "Proposition? What do you
mean?"

"An ass," replied Maginnis, pumping seltzer into a tall glass, "could
see that you have something on your mind."

Varney pulled a match from the little metal box-holder, and looked at
him with reluctant admiration. "Sherlock Holmes Maginnis! I _have_
something on my mind. A friend dropped it there half an hour ago, and
now I 've come to drop it on yours." He glanced at the room's two doors
and saw that both were shut. "Time is short. The outfit upstairs may
drift in any minute. Listen. Do you recall telling me the other day,
with tears in your eyes, that you were slowly dying for something new
and interesting to do?"

Peter nodded.

"I think of your pleasure," said Varney, "always. By looking about me
and keeping my eyes and ears open at all hours, I have found you just
the thing."

"New and interesting?"

"There are men in this town who would run themselves to death trying to
get in it on the ground floor."

Maginnis shook his head.

"I have done everything in this world," he said almost sadly, "except, I
may say, the felonies."

"But this," said Varney, "is a felony."

Struck by his tone, Peter glanced up. "Mean it?"

"Sure thing."

"As I remarked before, what is the proposition?"

"To sum it all up in a word," said Varney, "there's a job of kidnapping
on and I happened to get the contract. That's all there is to the little
trifle."

Peter swung his feet around to the floor, and sat up. His conviction
that Varney was trying to be funny died hard.

Varney laughed. "I need a pal," he added. "Five minutes ago I telephoned
and got permission to offer the place to you."

"Stop being so confounded mysterious," Peter broke out, "and go ahead!"

Varney blew smoke thoughtfully and said, "I will. In fact, that's what I
came for. It's a devil of a delicate little matter to talk about to
anybody, as it happens. Of course, what I tell you must never go an inch
further, whether you come along or not."

"Naturally."

"You know my Uncle Elbert?"

"Old Carstairs?"

Varney nodded. "He wouldn't thank you for the adjective, though. I got
the contract from him. By the way, he's not my uncle, of course; he was
simply a great friend of my mother's. I inherited the friendship, and in
these last five years he and I have somehow managed to get mighty close
together. Eight years or so ago," he continued, "as you may, or may not
know, Uncle Elbert and his wife parted. There wasn't a thing the matter,
I believe, except that they weren't hitting it off particularly well.
They simply agreed to disagree. _Nouveau riche_, and all that, wasn't
it? Mrs. Carstairs has some money of her own. She picked up, packed up,
walked out, bought a place up the river, near Hunston, and has lived
there ever since."

Peter looked up quickly. "Hunston? Ha! But fire away."

"She and Uncle Elbert have stayed pretty good friends all through it.
They exchange letters now and then, and once or twice when she has been
in the city, I believe they have met--though not in recent years. My
private suspicion is that she has never entirely got over being in love
with him. Anyhow, there's their general relationship in a
nutshell--parted but friendly. It might have stayed just like that till
they were both in their graves, but for one accidental complication.
There is a child."

"I seem to remember," said Peter. "A little boy."

"On the contrary. A little girl. Uncle Elbert," said Varney, "is a bit
of a social butterfly. Mrs. Carstairs is an earnest domestic character.
As I gather, that was what they clashed on--the idea of what a home
ought to be. When the split came, Mrs. Carstairs took the child and
Uncle Elbert was willing enough to have her do it. That was natural
enough, Peter. He had his friends and his clubs and his little dinners,
and he was no more competent to raise a girl baby than you are, which is
certainly going some for a comparison. I suppose the fact was that he
was glad to be free of the responsibility. But it's mighty different
now.

"You see," said Varney, lighting one cigarette from another and
throwing the old one away, "he must be pretty lonely all by himself in
that big house of his. On top of that he's getting old and isn't in very
good health. Explain it any way you like. The simple fact is that within
this last year or so, it's gradually gotten to be a kind of obsession
with him, an out-and-out, down-and-out monomania, to know that kid--to
have her come and spend part of every year with him. That's natural,
too, I should say."

"H'm. Mrs. Carstairs sticks to her like fly-paper, I suppose?"

"Not at all. She admits Uncle Elbert's rights and is entirely willing to
let him have Mary--for such is our little heroine's name--for part of
the time. It is the child who is doing the fly-paper business. The
painful fact is that she declines to have anything whatever to do with
her father. Invitations, commands, entreaties--she spurns them all. Yes,
I asked him if they had tried spanking, but he didn't answer--seemed
rather miffed, in fact. The child simply will not come, and that is
point number one. Now, of course, Uncle Elbert realizes that he has not
been what the world would call a good father. And he has figured it out
that Mary, evidently a young precocity, has judged him, found him
guilty, and sentenced him to banishment from her affections. That hurts,
you know. Well, he is certain that if he could once see her and be
thrown with her for a few days, she would find that he is not such an
old ogre, after all, would take him back as a father, as we might say,
and that after that everything would be plain sailing. That's his
theory. The point is how to see her and be thrown with her for the
necessary few days."

"Why does n't he get on the train and go to Hunston? Or, if Mrs.
Carstairs is really so decent about the thing, why doesn't she get on
the train and bring Mary down here?"

"Good. I put both of those up to him, and they seemed to embarrass him a
little. I gathered that he had suggested them both to Mrs. Carstairs,
and that she had turned them down hard. The ground seemed delicate. You
see, we must allow for the personal equation in all this. No matter
where they met, he couldn't hang around the house getting acquainted
with Mary without coming into sort of intimate contact with Mrs.
Carstairs, and giving a kind of domestic touch to their relations. You
see how that is. She wants to be fair and generous about it, but if she
is in love with him, that would be a little more than flesh and blood
could bear, I suppose. Then, as I say, there is the pig-headedness of
the child. Anyway, Uncle Elbert assures me that both those plans are
simply out of the question. So there is the situation. Mary won't come
to see him by herself. Mrs. Carstairs won't bring Mary to see him, and
she won't let him come to see Mary. Well, what remains?"

Peter said nothing. In a room overhead a manifestly improvised quartet
struck up "Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot?" with great enthusiasm.

"You see there is only one thing. The old gentleman," said Varney, "has
brooded over the matter till it's broken him all up. He was in bed when
I was there just now. He asked me to go to Hunston and bring his
daughter to him. I told him that kidnapping was a little out of my line.
'Kidnapping is rather a harsh word,' he said. 'Yes,' said I, 'it's a
criminal word, I believe.' But--"

Peter looked up, interrupting. "Is this all straight? Is that really
what he wants you to do?"

"Naturally, Peter. Why not? You cling to the theory that such heroic
measures are entirely unnecessary? So did I till I had threshed the
whole thing up and down with Uncle Elbert for an hour and a half, trying
to suggest some alternative that didn't look so silly. Kindly get the
facts well into your head, will you? The man must pursue Mary's
affection either there or here, mustn't he? He can't do it there because
his wife won't let him. In order to do it here, one would say offhand
that Mary would have to be here, and since her mother declines to bring
her, it does look to me as if the job would have to be done by somebody
else. However, if my logic is wrong, kindly let your powerful--"

"I don't say it's wrong. I merely say that it sounds like a cross
between a modern pork-king's divorce suit and a seventeenth century
peccadillo."

"And I reply that I don't care a hoot how it sounds. The only question
of any interest to me, Peter, is whether or not Uncle Elbert has a moral
right to a share in his own child. I say that he has such a right, and I
say further that this is the only way in the world that he can assert
his right. Oh, hang how it sounds! I'm the nearest thing to a son that
he has in this world, and I mean for him to have his rights. So--"

"Very fine," said Peter dryly. "But what's the matter with Carstairs
getting his rights for himself? Why doesn't he sneak up there and pull
the thing off on his own?"

Varney laughed. "Evidently you don't know Uncle Elbert, after all. He's
as temperamentally unfit to carry through a job of this sort as a
hysterical old lady. Besides, even though they haven't met for so long,
I suppose his own daughter would recognize him, wouldn't she? I never
gave that idea a thought. Like his wife, he says he wants to have
nothing whatever to do with it. In fact, I made him put that in the form
of a promise--he's to give me an absolutely free hand, subject to the
conditions, and not interfere in any way. In return I ended by swearing
a great iron-clad oath not only to go, but to bring the child back with
me. The swear was Uncle Elbert's idea, and I didn't mind. Confound
it!--this is getting rather intimate, but here is Mrs. Carstairs's
letter giving a partial consent to the thing. It just got in this
afternoon; he sent for me the minute he'd read it, I believe, and I
never saw a man more excited."

He pulled a scrawled and crossed note-sheet from his pocket, and read in
a guarded and slightly embarrassed voice:

HUNSTON, 25th of September.

MY DEAR ELBERT,--I hardly know how to answer you, though I have been
over and over the whole subject on my knees. As you know, if I could
send Mary to you, I would, sadly as I should miss her, for the wish
lies close to my heart to have her know her father. But she will not
hear of leaving me and there is an end of that. What you suggest is so
new and so _dreadful_ in many ways that it is very hard to consent to
it. Of course, I realize that it is not right for me to have her always.
But the utmost I can bring myself to say is that if you can succeed in
what you propose I will do nothing to interfere with you, and will see
that there is no scandal here afterwards. Of course, I am to have no
part in it, and no force is to be used, and everything is to be made as
agreeable for her as is possible under the circumstances. Oh, I am
miserable and doubtful about the whole thing, but pray and trust that it
is for the best, and that she will find some way to forgive me for it
afterwards.

A.E.C.

"H'm. No force is to be used," said Peter. "May I ask just how you
expect to get Mary on the choo-choo?"

"Now we are getting to the meat of the matter," said Varney. "We shall
not have to get Mary on the choo-choo at all. We are going to use a
yacht, which will be far more private and pleasant, and also far easier
to get people on. Uncle Elbert's _Cypriani_ lies in the harbor at this
moment, ready to start anywhere at half a day's notice. It will start
for Hunston to-morrow afternoon, with me on board. I'll need another man
to put the thing through right, and I'd rather trust a friend than a
servant. So would Uncle Elbert. When I came in here just now, I was at
once taken with your looks for the part, and I have been authorized by
'phone to give you first refusal on this great chance."

Peter said nothing. Varney feared that he looked rather bored.

"At first," he went on promptly, "I'll confess that I didn't see so much
in the thing. But the more I've thought of it the more its unique charm
has appealed to me. It is nothing more nor less than a novel, piquant
little adventure. Exactly the sort of thing to attract a man who likes
to take a sporting chance. Look at the difficulties of it. Go to a
strange town where there are thousands and millions of strange children,
locate Mary, isolate her, make friends with her, coax her to the
yacht--captivate her, capture her! How are we to do all that, you ask? I
reply, the Lord knows. That is where the sport comes in. We are
forbidden to use force. We are forbidden to use Mrs. Carstairs or bring
her into it in any way. We are forbidden, of course, to let the child
know who we are. Everything must be done by almost diabolical craft,
while dodging suspicion at every step. Can you beat it for a fascinating
little expedition?"

Peter relit his pipe and meditatively dropped the match on the floor.
"How old is Mary?"

"Old?" said Varney, surprised at the question, "Oh, I don't know. The
separation took place--h'm--say eight years ago, and my guess is that
she was about four at the time. From this and the way Uncle Elbert spoke
of her, I daresay twelve would hit it fair and square. A grand age for
kidnapping, what?"

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