The Stolen Singer | Page 5

a feeble
protest. A mass of something, pressed to her mouth and nostrils, incited
her to superhuman efforts. She struggled frantically, fumbled at the
door, tore at the curtain, and succeeded in getting her head for an
instant at the opening, while she clutched her assailant and held him
helpless. But only for a moment. The firm large hands quickly
overpowered even the strength induced by frenzy, and in another
minute she was lying unresisting on the soft cushions of the tonneau.
The car careened through the streets, the figure of the unresponsive
Hand mocked her cries for help, the neat hard face of the stranger
continued to bend over her. Then everything swam in a maelstrom of
duller and duller sense, the world grew darker and fainter, till finally it
was lost in silence.
CHAPTER II
HAMBLETON OF LYNN
The Hambletons of Lynn had not distinguished themselves, in late
generations at least, by remarkable deeds, though their deportment was
such as to imply that they could if they would. They frankly regarded
themselves as the elect of earth, if not of Heaven, always, however,
with a becoming modesty. Since 1636 the family had pieced out its
existence in the New World, tenaciously clinging to many of its
old-country habits. It had kept the b in the family name, for instance; it
had kept the name itself out of trade, and it had indulged its love of
country life at the expense of more than one Hambleton fortune.
A daughter-in-law was once reported as saying that it would have been
a good thing if some Hambleton had embarked in trade, since in that
case they might have been saved from devoting themselves exclusively
to an illustration of polite poverty. She was never forgiven, and died
without being reconciled to the family. As to the spelling of the name,
the family claimed ancestral authority as far back as King Fergus the
First. Mrs. Van Camp, a relative by marriage--a woman considered by

the best Hambletons as far too frank and worldly-minded--informed the
family that King Fergus was as much a myth as Dido, and innocently
brought forth printed facts to corroborate her statement. One of the
ladies Hambleton crushed Mrs. Van Camp by stating, in a tone of deep
personal conviction, with her cap awry, "So much the worse for Dido!"
A salient strength persisted in the Hambletons--a strength which
retained its character in spite of cross-currents. The Hambleton tone
and the Hambleton ideas retained their family color, and became,
whether worthily or not, a part of the Hambleton pride. More than one
son had lost his health or entire fortune, which was apt not to be large,
in attempts to carry on a country place. "A Hambleton trait!" they
chuckled, with as much satisfaction as they considered it good form to
exhibit. In Lynn, where family pride did not bring in large returns, this
phrase became almost synonymous with genteel foolishness.
The Van Camp fortune, which came near but never actually into the
family, was generally understood to have been made in shoes, though
in reality it was drugs.
"People say 'shoes' the minute they hear the word Lynn, and I'm tired of
explaining," Mrs. Van Camp put it. She was third in line from the
successful druggist, and could afford, if anybody could, to be
supercilious toward trade. But she wasn't, even after twenty years of
somewhat restless submission to the Hambleton yoke. And it was she
who, during her last visit to the family stronghold, held up before the
young James the advantages of a commercial career.
"You're a nice boy, Jimsy, and I can't see you turned into a poor lawyer.
You're not hard-headed enough to be a good one. As for being a
minister, well--no. Go into business, dear boy, something substantial,
and you'll live to thank your stars."
Jimsy received this advice at the time with small enthusiasm, and a
reservation of criticism that was a credit to his manners, at least. But
the time came when he leaned on it.
Her own child, however, Mrs. Van Camp encouraged to a profession

from the first. "Aleck isn't smart enough for business, but he may do
something as a student," was Mrs. Van Camp's somewhat trying
explanation; and Aleck did do something as a student. Extremely
impatient with any exhibition of laziness, the mother demanded a good
accounting of her son's time. Aleck and Jim, who were born in the
same year, ran more or less side by side until the end of college. They
struggled together in sports and in arguments, "rushed" the same girl in
turn or simultaneously, and spent their long vacations cruising up and
down the Maine coast in a thirty-foot sail-boat. Once they made a more
ambitious journey all the way to Yarmouth