“Beside this stone wall I want flowers,” Lydia was saying to her
landscape-gardener, as she persisted in calling Jim Dodge. “Hollyhocks
and foxgloves and pinies—I shall never say peony in Brookville—and
pansies, sweet williams, lads’ love, iris and sweetbrier. Mrs. Daggett
has promised to give me some roots.”
He avoided her eyes as she faced him in the bright glow of the morning
sunlight.
“Very well, Miss Orr,” he said, with cold respect. “You want a border
here about four feet wide, filled with old-fashioned perennials.”
He had been diligent in his study of the books she had supplied him
with.
“A herbaceous border of that sort in front of the stone wall will give
quite the latest effect in country-house decoration,” he went on
professionally. “Ramblers of various colors might be planted at the
back, and there should be a mixture of bulbs among the taller plants to
give color in early spring.”
She listened doubtfully.
“I don’t know about the ramblers,” she said. “Were there
ramblers—twenty years ago? I want it as nearly as possible just as it
was. Mrs. Daggett told me yesterday about the flower-border here.
You—of course you don’t remember the place at all; do you?”
He reddened slightly under her intent gaze.
“Oh, I remember something about it,” he told her; “the garden was a
long time going down. There were flowers here a few years back; but the
grass and weeds got the better of them.”
“And do you—remember the Boltons?” she persisted. “I was so interested
in what Mrs. Daggett told me about the family yesterday. It seems
strange to think no one has lived here since. And now that I—it is to
be my home, I can’t help thinking about them.”
“You should have built a new house,” said Jim Dodge. “A new house would
have been better and cheaper, in the end.”
He thrust his spade deep, a sign that he considered the conversation at
an end.
“Tell one of the other men to dig this,” she objected. “I want to make
a list of the plants we need and get the order out.”
“I can do that tonight, Miss Orr,” he returned, going on with his
digging. “The men are busy in the orchards this morning.”
“You want me to go away,” she inferred swiftly.
He flung down his spade.
“It is certainly up to me to obey orders,” he said. “Pardon me, if I
seem to have forgotten the fact. Shall we make the list now?”
Inwardly he was cursing himself for his stupidity. Perhaps he had been
mistaken the night before. His fancy had taken a swift leap in the dark
and landed—where? There was a sort of scornful honesty in Jim Dodge’s
nature which despised all manner of shams and petty deceits. His code
also included a strict minding of his own business. He told himself
rather sharply that he was a fool for suspecting that Lydia Orr was
other than she had represented herself to be. She had been crying the
night before. What of that? Other girls cried over night and smiled the
next morning—his sister Fanny, for example. It was an inexplicable
habit of women. His mother had once told him, rather vaguely, that it
did her good to have a regular crying-spell. It relieved her nerves,
she said, and sort of braced her up....
“Of course I didn’t mean that,” Lydia was at some pains to explain, as
the two walked toward the veranda where there were chairs and a table.
She was looking fair and dainty in a gown of some thin white stuff,
through which her neck and arms showed slenderly.
“It’s too warm to dig in the ground this morning,” she decided. “And
anyway, planning the work is far more important.”
“Than doing it?” he asked quizzically. “If we’d done nothing but plan
all this; why you see—”
He made a large gesture which included the carpenters at work on the
roof, painters perilously poised on tall ladders and a half dozen men
busy spraying the renovated orchards.
“I see,” she returned with a smile, “—now that you’ve so kindly pointed
it out to me.”
He leveled a keen glance at her. It was impossible not to see her this
morning in the light of what he thought he had discovered the night
before.
“I’ve done nothing but make plans all my life,” she went on gravely.
“Ever since I can remember I’ve been thinking—thinking and planning
what I should do when I grew up. It seemed such a long, long time—being
just a little girl, I mean, and not able to do what I wished. But I
kept on thinking and planning, and all the while I _was_ growing up;
and then at last—it all happened as I wished.”
She appeared to wait for his question. But he remained silent, staring
at the blue rim of distant hills.
“You don’t ask me—you don’t seem to care what I was planning,” she
said, her voice timid and uncertain.
He glanced quickly at her. Something in her look stirred him curiously.
It did not occur to him that her appeal and his instant response to it
were as old as the race.
“I wish you would tell me,” he urged. “Tell me everything!”
She drew a deep breath, her eyes misty with dreams.
“For a long time I taught school,” she went on, “but I couldn’t save
enough that way. I never could have saved enough, even if I had lived
on bread and water. I wanted—I needed a great deal of money, and I
wasn’t clever nor particularly well educated. Sometimes I thought if I
could only marry a millionaire—”
He stared at her incredulously.
“You don’t mean that,” he said with some impatience.
She sighed.
“I’m telling you just what happened,” she reminded him. “It seemed the
only way to get what I wanted. I thought I shouldn’t mind that,
or—anything, if I could only have as much money as I needed.”
A sense of sudden violent anger flared up within him. Did the girl
realize what she was saying?
She glanced up at him.
“I never meant to tell any one about that part of it,” she said
hurriedly. “And—it wasn’t necessary, after all; I got the money another
way.”
He bit off the point of a pencil he had been sharpening with laborious
care.
“I should probably never have had a chance to marry a millionaire,” she
concluded reminiscently. “I’m not beautiful enough.”
With what abominable clearness she understood the game: the
marriage-market; the buyer and the price.
“I—didn’t suppose you were like that,” he muttered, after what seemed a
long silence.
She seemed faintly surprised.
“Of course you don’t know me,” she said quickly. “Does any man know any
woman, I wonder?”
“They think they do,” he stated doggedly; “and that amounts to the same
thing.”
His thoughts reverted for an uncomfortable instant to Wesley Elliot and
Fanny. It was only too easy to see through Fanny.
“Most of them are simple souls, and thank heaven for it!”
His tone was fervently censorious.
She smiled understandingly.
“Perhaps I ought to tell you further that a rich man—not a millionaire;
but rich enough—actually did ask me to marry him, and I refused.”
“H’mph!”
“But,” she added calmly, “I think I should have married him, if I had
not had money left me first—before he asked me, I mean. I knew all
along that what I had determined to do, I could do best alone.”
He stared at her from under gathered brows. He still felt that curious
mixture of shame and anger burning hotly within.
“Just why are you telling me all this?” he demanded roughly.
She returned his look quietly.
“Because,” she said, “you have been trying to guess my secret for a
long time and you have succeeded; haven’t you?”
He was speechless.
“You have been wondering about me, all along. I could see that, of
course. I suppose everybody in Brookville has been wondering and—and
talking. I meant to be frank and open about it—to tell right out who I
was and what I came to do. But—somehow—I couldn’t.... It didn’t seem
possible, when everybody—you see I thought it all happened so long ago
people would have forgotten. I supposed they would be just glad to get
their money back. I meant to give it to them—all, every dollar of it. I
didn’t care if it took all I had.... And then—I heard you last night
when you crossed the library. I hoped—you would ask me why—but you
didn’t. I thought, first, of telling Mrs. Daggett; she is a kind soul.
I had to tell someone, because he is coming home soon, and I may
need—help.”
Her eyes were solemn, beseeching, compelling.
His anger died suddenly, leaving only a sort of indignant pity for her
unfriended youth.
“You are—” he began, then stopped short. A painter was swiftly
descending his ladder, whistling as he came.
“My name,” she said, without appearing to notice, “is Lydia Orr Bolton.
No one seems to remember—perhaps they didn’t know my mother’s name was
Orr. My uncle took me away from here. I was only a baby. It seemed best
to—”
“Where are they now?” he asked guardedly.
The painter had disappeared behind the house. But he could hear heavy
steps on the roof over their heads.
“Both are dead,” she replied briefly. “No one knew my uncle had much
money; we lived quite simply and unpretentiously in South Boston. They
never told me about the money; and all those years I was praying for
it! Well, it came to me—in time.”
His eyes asked a pitying question.
“Oh, yes,” she sighed. “I knew about father. They used to take me to
visit him in the prison. Of course I didn’t understand, at first. But
gradually, as I grew older, I began to realize what had happened—to him
and to me. It was then I began to make plans. He would be free,
sometime; he would need a home. Once he tried to escape, with some
other men. A guard shot my father; he was in the prison-hospital a long
time. They let me see him then without bars between, because they were
sure he would die.”
“For God’s sake,” he interrupted hoarsely. “Was there no one—?”
She shook her head.
“That was after my aunt died: I went alone. They watched me closely at
first; but afterward they were kinder. He used to talk about
home—always about home. He meant this house, I found. It was then I
made up my mind to do anything to get the money.... You see I knew he
could never be happy here unless the old wrongs were righted first. I
saw I must do all that; and when, after my uncle’s death, I found that
I was rich—really rich, I came here as soon as I could. There wasn’t
any time to lose.”
She fell silent, her eyes shining luminously under half closed lids.
She seemed unconscious of his gaze riveted upon her face. It was as if
a curtain had been drawn aside by her painful effort. He was seeing her
clearly now and without cloud of passion—in all her innocence, her
sadness, set sacredly apart from other women by the long devotion of
her thwarted youth. An immense compassion took possession of him. He
could have fallen at her feet praying her forgiveness for his mean
suspicions, his harsh judgment.
The sound of hammers on the veranda roof above their heads appeared to
rouse her.
“Don’t you think I ought to tell—everybody?” she asked hurriedly.
He considered her question in silence for a moment. The bitterness
against Andrew Bolton had grown and strengthened with the years into
something rigid, inexorable. Since early boyhood he had grown
accustomed to the harsh, unrelenting criticisms, the brutal epithets
applied to this man who had been trusted with money and had defaulted.
Even children, born long after the failure, reviled the name of the man
who had made their hard lot harder. It had been the juvenile custom to
throw stones at the house he had lived in. He remembered with fresh
shame the impish glee with which, in company with other boys of his own
age, he had trampled the few surviving flowers and broken down the
shrubs in the garden. The hatred of Bolton, like some malignant growth,
had waxed monstrous from what it preyed upon, ruining and distorting
the simple kindly life of the village. She was waiting for his answer.
“It would seem so much more honest,” she said in a tired voice. “Now
they can only think me eccentric, foolishly extravagant, lavishly
generous—when I am trying— I didn’t dare to ask Deacon Whittle or Judge
Fulsom for a list of the creditors, so I paid a large sum—far more than
they would have asked—for the house. And since then I have bought the
old bank building. I should like to make a library there.”
“Yes, I know,” he said huskily.
“Then the furniture—I shall pay a great deal for that. I want the house
to look just as it used to, when father comes home. You see he had an
additional sentence for trying to escape and for conspiracy; and since
then his mind—he doesn’t seem to remember everything. Sometimes he
calls me Margaret. He thinks I am—mother.”
Her voice faltered a little.
“You mustn’t tell them,” he said vehemently. “You mustn’t!”
He saw with terrible clearness what it would be like: the home-coming
of the half-imbecile criminal, and the staring eyes, the pointing
fingers of all Brookville leveled at him. She would be overborne by the
shame of it all—trampled like a flower in the mire.
She seemed faintly disappointed.
“But I would far rather tell,” she persisted. “I have had so much to
conceal—all my life!”
She flung out her hands in a gesture of utter weariness.
“I was never allowed to mention father to anyone,” she went on. “My
aunt was always pointing out what a terrible thing it would be for any
one to find out—who I was. She didn’t want me to know; but uncle
insisted. I think he was sorry for—father.... Oh, you don’t know what
it is like to be in prison for years—to have all the manhood squeezed
out of one, drop by drop! I think if it hadn’t been for me he would
have died long ago. I used to pretend I was very gay and happy when I
went to see him. He wanted me to be like that. It pleased him to think
my life had not been clouded by what he called his _mistake_.... He
didn’t intend to wreck the bank, Mr. Dodge. He thought he was going to
make the village rich and prosperous.”
She leaned forward. “I have learned to smile during all these years.
But now, I want to tell everybody—I long to be free from pretending!
Can’t you see?”
Something big and round in his throat hurt him so that he could not
answer at once. He clenched his hands, enraged by the futility of his
pity for her.
“Mrs. Daggett seems a kind soul,” she murmured. “She would be my
friend. I am sure of it. But—the others—”
She sighed.
“I used to fancy how they would all come to the station to meet
him—after I had paid everybody, I mean—how they would crowd about him
and take his hand and tell him they were glad it was all over; then I
would bring him home, and he would never even guess it had stood
desolate during all these years. He has forgotten so much already; but
he remembers home—oh, quite perfectly. I went to see him last week, and
he spoke of the gardens and orchards. That is how I knew how to have
things planted: he told me.”
He got hastily to his feet: her look, her voice—the useless smart of it
all was swiftly growing unbearable.
“You must wait—I must think!” he said unsteadily. “You ought not to
have told me.”
“Do you think I should have told the minister, instead?” she asked
rather piteously. “He has been very kind; but somehow—”
“What! Wesley Elliot?”
His face darkened.
“Thank heaven you did not tell him! I am at least no—”
He checked himself with an effort.
“See here,” he said: “You—you mustn’t speak to any one of what you have
told me—not for the present, anyway. I want you to promise me.”
Her slight figure sagged wearily against the back of her chair. She was
looking up at him like a child spent with an unavailing passion of
grief.
“I have promised that so many times,” she murmured: “I have concealed
everything so long—it will be easier for me.”
“It will be easier for you,” he agreed quickly; “and—perhaps better, on
the whole.”
“But they will not know they are being paid—they won’t understand—”
“That makes no difference,” he decided. “It would make them, perhaps,
less contented to know where the money was coming from. Tell me, does
your servant—this woman you brought from Boston; does she know?”
“You mean Martha? I—I’m not sure. She was a servant in my uncle’s home
for years. She wanted to live with me, so I sent for her. I never spoke
to her about—father. She seems devoted to me. I have thought it would
be necessary to tell her—before— He is coming in September. Everything
will be finished by then.”
His eyes were fixed blankly on the hedge; something—a horse’s ears,
perhaps—was bobbing slowly up and down; a faint rattle of wheels came
to their ears.
“Don’t tell anyone, yet,” he urged, and stepped down from the veranda,
his unseeing gaze still fixed upon the slow advance of those bobbing
ears.
“Someone is coming,” she said.
He glanced at her, marveling at the swift transition in her face. A
moment before she had been listless, sad, disheartened by his apparent
disapproval of her plans. Now all at once the cloud had vanished; she
was once more cheerful, calm, even smiling.
She too had been looking and had at once recognized the four persons
seated in the shabby old carryall which at that moment turned in at the
gate.
“I am to have visitors,” she said tranquilly.
His eyes reluctantly followed hers. There were four women in the
approaching vehicle.
As on another occasion, the young man beat a swift retreat.