ROMA IN WASHINGTON
Roma Fronde arose very early the next morning, to be ready to secure her
train. She spent but little time over her breakfast and her leave
taking, and a little after five o’clock she entered her carriage, with
Puck on the box, and her traveling trunk strapped behind, and started
for Goeberlin station. After a delightful morning drive up and down the
wooded hills that lay between the Hall and the village she reached the
railway depot and went into the waiting-room, while Puck took her
ticket, checked her baggage, and dispatched a telegram that she had
written to Mr. Merritt to engage apartments for her at the Wesleyan and
meet her at the Washington depot on the arrival of the latest train from
the West.
In the waiting-room she found Dr. Shaw and Paul Stone.
“I told you we should be here to see you off,” said the elder man when
both arose to shake hands with her.
“You are so good to me always,” said Roma, smiling.
“I am so glad that you have so fine a day for your journey, Miss
Fronde,” ventured the younger man.
“Thank you. It is a glorious day, is it not?” said the young lady, still
beaming.
“Much too glorious to abandon the country for the city.”
“Oh, but Washington is not like any other city in the world, I think.
Washington, with its broad, shaded streets and avenues, its deeply
shaded parks and squares, is perfectly beautiful in May and June, when
the trees are in fresh leaf and the flowers in fresh bloom—an ideal
city,” said Roma with enthusiasm.
“I remember it when it was mostly bog, swamp and scrubwood, and
Pennsylvania Avenue was like a muddy country road, with a few straggling
houses and shops built irregularly on each side,” said the old minister.
“Well, then, a beautiful city has now been evolved from that
‘wilderness,’ and literally been made to ‘bloom and blossom as the
rose,’” Roma replied.
At this moment Tuck entered the waiting-room, came up to his mistress,
and handed her her ticket and check.
“Be sure to take care of the carrier pigeons, Puck,” she said.
“’Deed will I, youn’ mist’ess, same as if dem birds was my own chillun,”
fervently replied the young negro.
“And poor little Owlet’s dog, Puck—don’t let any harm come to him.”
“Needn’ tell me dat, youn’ mist’ess. Dat doag allers sleeps wid de
chillun. Ducky Darlin’ dotes on dat doag; it’s de only comfo’t she takes
ebber since de po’ little lady was stole ’way; fo’ de po’ little lady’s
sake, I fink it is, ca’se she won’t answer to no udder name but Ducky
Darlin’, ca’se de little lady allers called her dat; so we-dem has fell
into de way ob it, too. Oh, yes, youn’ mist’ess, dat doag gwine be well
tuk care ob, an’ likewise dem birds. Dere’s de train comin’, youn’
mist’ess,” added the negro as the roar of the approaching engine was
heard.
“Well, good-by, Puck. Don’t drive the horses fast going back. They have
had a hard drive here. And if you should want to write to me, Dr. Shaw
has kindly promised to be your penman. Before the end of the year I hope
you will be able to read and write yourself.”
“Thank ’e, youn’ mist’ess. All yight, youn’ mist’ess. I’ll ’member all
yer say,” said the negro.
Roma arose and took the proffered arm of Dr. Shaw to go out upon the
platform, Mr. Stone following, and Puck bringing up the rear.
“I believe this is the first journey you have ever taken alone, my
dear,” said Dr. Shaw.
“Oh, no—not by many. When my dear father was with General Lee I used
always to go back and forth between school and home alone. Of late
years, it is true, I have had companions, until now; but it is nothing
to take this journey alone. It will be a pleasant summer day’s ride,
through a very beautiful country.”
The train rushed, roaring and rattling, up to the platform and stopped.
Roma happened to be the only passenger to get on at that station. Dr.
Shaw put her in her seat, and he and Paul Stone shook hands with her.
Puck pulled off his hat, bowed and grinned. The railway porter rattled
her trunk on the baggage car. The engine gave a shrill whistle, and shot
off, dragging the train behind it.
A long, pleasant summer day’s ride this really proved to Roma Fronde,
who was strong and healthy enough to enjoy the rapid motion and the
shifting scenes for many hours without the least fatigue or satiety.
After sixteen hours’ run the train reached Washington, at about eleven
o’clock.
Roma found Mr. Merritt waiting for her at the depot.
“Delighted to see you looking so well, my dear. I have a carriage
waiting, and your rooms at the Wesleyan Flats are engaged. Not your old
rooms, because Mrs. Brown and myself thought the associations connected
with them were, perhaps, too sad; but rooms on the first floor front.
There is hardly anybody there at this season, so you may really have
your choice of apartments, if you should not like those that have been
made ready for you,” said Mr. Merritt, after the first greetings were
over and as he led her out on the sidewalk, where a hack was waiting to
receive them.
“You were very kind to take so much trouble on my account. I thank you
very much,” said Roma as he handed her into the carriage.
“Oh, now, don’t hurt my feelings,” said the lawyer with a laugh, as he
paused at the carriage before following her. “But tell me—how about your
baggage?”
“Oh, I have only a trunk. I gave the check and address to an expressman
on the train, and the trunk will be delivered to-morrow morning. It is
too late to-night, you know.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Merritt, and he gave the order to the coachman,
“Wesleyan Flats,” and got in and seated himself beside her.
They bowled along Pennsylvania Avenue to Fourteenth Street, and up that
street to the northern terminus, and then turned west, and drove until
they reached the new, tall, red-brick building named after the great
Methodist.
When the hack drew up before the door Roma noticed that lights were
burning only in the hall and in the first floor front. She went up the
steps and rang the bell while her old friend was taking out her bag and
wraps and telling the coachman to wait for him.
Mrs. Brown, the janitress, opened the door herself.
“Oh, Miss Fronde! I am so glad to see you back again,” she said.
“And you sat up for me. That was very kind,” Roma replied.
“It is only half-past eleven. I am seldom in bed before this time,” said
the janitress as they all went toward the elevator and entered it.
’Pollyon Syphax was on duty there.
“Where is Titus?” inquired Miss Fronde.
Titus was the elevator boy who had been on duty during Roma’s first
sojourn in the house.
“Titus? Oh, poor little fellow! the work, including the late hours, was
too much for him. He is in the Children’s Hospital,” replied Mrs. Brown
as the elevator landed them all on the first floor, and she led the way
to Roma’s new apartments—front parlor, bedroom and bathroom. The gas was
lighted and the windows hoisted, though the Venetian shutters were
closed, but let in the cool night air through the slats.
“I hope the child is not seriously ill?” Roma said interrogatively.
“Oh, no. He has been so, but now he is getting well,” replied the
janitress.
“I will take him down to the Isle of Storms with me,” was Roma’s thought
as she sat down in an easy-chair and took off her bonnet.
“Now, what shall I bring you to eat?” inquired Mrs. Brown.
“Nothing at this late hour. I had tea on the train. Where is my old
friend Tom?”
“Oh, he and his mother both left at the end of the season. They are
living in a one-room shanty in the woods west of this, and she is
washing, and her boy fetches and carries the clothes backward and
forward.”
“I will make them both happy by taking them back to the Isle of Storms,
to the old home they have been pining for,” was Roma’s secret thought.
“You see,” said Mrs. Brown, “the house is nearly empty at this season.
The few permanent tenants have their own servants, and cook their own
meals. The restaurant requires but one cook and one waiter. Sarah Ann
Syphax and her brother ’Pollyon fill these places. My own son, George,
runs the elevator at present, but as he has gone to bed, ’Pollyon
obligingly undertook to do it to-night, his duties at the restaurant
being over for the evening.”
Mr. Merritt had seated himself in the big armchair, and was debating in
his own mind whether he should tell Roma of the dispatch he had received
that day announcing the discovery of little Owlet in the streets of New
York. He decided not to do so that night, lest the news should deprive
Roma of sleep, so he got up and said:
“Well, now, my dear, as I see you are safe under Mrs. Brown’s wing, I
will bid you good-night.”
“But you will come to-morrow morning?” said Roma.
“I fear not. I have a case in court that may occupy me all day.”
“Then come and dine with me at seven in the evening.”
“With pleasure. Good-night, my dear. Get to bed as soon as you can.”
“Good-night, good friend. Sincere thanks for all your kindness,” said
Roma, holding out her hand. The lawyer pressed it and went his way.
But Mrs. Brown, late as it was, was disinclined to move. She was rather
inclined for a gossip. Sinking into the chair that Mr. Merritt had
vacated, she said:
“I really thought, when Mr. Merritt engaged these rooms for you, that
you were coming here on your bridal tour.”
“Why should you have thought so?” demanded Roma.
“Because that gentleman who came here soon after you left as good as
told me that he and you were soon to be married, and as good as promised
to bring you here on your bridal tour.”
“What gentleman?”
“Why, Mr. William Hanson.”
“Tell me all about his visit.”
“Why, he came here to inquire after you. Somebody had told him you were
staying here. He said he had been on a long voyage, and I think he said
he had been shipwrecked; in that way he had lost trace of you. He asked
me ever so many questions, and made me tell him all about you—every
single thing. About your goodness to Madam Nouvellini and your adoption
of her orphan child, and your devotion to the little one, and all; and
he just as good as told me how you was engaged to be married to him, and
just as good as pledged his word that he would bring you here on your
bridal tour.”
“Then he told you absolute falsehoods. I never was engaged to the man,
and never could have been so.”
“See that, now! Maybe you didn’t even know him?”
“I used to know him—never as a friend, even, for I could never have had
the slightest confidence in his honor or honesty.”
“See that, now!”
A clock not far off struck twelve.
“Well, Miss Fronde, I won’t keep you up. Good-night,” said the
janitress.
“Good-night,” replied Roma, and the elder woman left the room.
“Then that man did know that Owlet was his own child,” she said. “No
doubt, hearing of my attachment to the little one, he came down to
Goblin Hall especially to make a bargain with me to the effect that if I
wished to keep my pet I must take him, too. But as I absolutely refused
to admit him, he watched his opportunity, abducted the child, and wrote
to me cautiously from a distance. It is a wonder he did not take her by
a legal process. But, ah! I see. To do that he would have been obliged
to confess his marriage with the ballet girl, and he knew that he could
safely abduct her and that I could do nothing. Oh, my poor little Owl!
Dr. Shaw may say what he pleases, but I know that dandy devil, William
Hanson, is quite capable—not of killing the child, for he is too much
afraid of the penalty, but of doing worse by her—of losing her, or
throwing her away, as soon as he finds that he cannot use her as a bait
for me. Poor little Owl!” Roma said to herself with a profound sigh.
Presently she arose and went into her comfortable bedroom, undressed,
and went to bed.
Her sixteen hours of continuous railway riding, which might have
fatigued a less robust woman “half to death,” only prepared her to enjoy
a luxurious repose; and so, notwithstanding her uneasiness on little
Owlet’s account, she soon fell into a profound sleep that lasted until
late in the morning.
She awoke at last from such a state of deep unconsciousness that, on
opening her eyes, she was surprised to find herself in a strange,
modern, elegantly furnished chamber, instead of her old-fashioned
bedroom at Goblin Hall.
Then, almost instantly, she remembered where she was and what she had to
do.
She arose quickly, opened her windows, bathed and dressed, and went to
the elevator.
Mrs. Brown’s son, George, a lad fourteen years old, was on duty. She
bade him good-morning, and went all the way down to “Rebecca’s Well,” as
the restaurant in the basement was daintily called.
It was late, and there was no one in the place except the very tall,
very gaunt and very black waiter with the baleful name.
She seated herself at one of the smaller tables and touched the bell.
’Pollyon Syphax came to her at once. She ordered breakfast, and was
promptly served.
Then she asked the waiter if he could direct her to the house occupied
by Lucy and her boy Tom.
“Yo’ can’t miss ob it, ma’am. It is yight in de bit o’ woods lef’ back
ob dis yere house,” he told her.
So, as soon as she had finished her breakfast she went upstairs to her
room, put on her walking jacket, hat and gloves, and went down and out
to find her colored friends.
She had only to go to the corner of the building, turn into an open
brier and thistle-grown lot, and cross it to the bit of wood at the back
of the big house.
There, nestled among the trees, she saw the little whitewashed shanty,
with clotheslines full of newly washed clothes hanging all around it.
“Poor souls!” Roma said to herself. “That is the nearest approach to the
country life they long for to be found in the suburbs of the city; and
how much better is that little nest in the fragrant pine wood than a
room in a stifling tenement house.”
As she walked toward the shanty, Lucy, in a red turban and a blue gown,
came out of the house with a tub of clothes in her hands, and began to
take them out and hang them on the line.
She was so intent upon her work that she did not see Miss Fronde until
that young lady came immediately behind her and said:
“How do you do, Aunt Lucy?”
“Who dat?” exclaimed the woman, with a start. “Lor’ b’ess my po’ soul,
young miss! I f’ought it was a speerit as spoke, I did, fo’ a fac’! So
yo’s com’d back? ’Deed, I’s moughty proud to see yo’, honey. Come in de
house. Tom, he’s gone to ca’ay some clo’es home; he’ll stan’ on his head
w’en he years yo’ is com’d back—’deed he will!”
Roma followed the woman into the shanty, and found the poorest, barest,
but cleanest little nest that ever two blackbirds found shelter in.
The little bed in the corner, the big stove, with its boiler, and the
wooden bench with its washtub, seemed to fill all the space.
Roma sat down on a three-legged stool, because there was no better seat
in the place.
“I am going down to the old house on the Isle of Storms, Lucy. How would
you and your boy like to go with me?” inquired Roma.
The woman stared at her so stupidly that Miss Fronde repeated the
question.
Then Lucy burst out suddenly:
“Oh, Miss Yoma! ’Ow would I like to go back to dat b’essed ole p’ace?
’Ow would I like to go to hebben, w’en my time come? Not as I’m in any
huyey to go dere, neider. I f’ought I was gwine to hebben w’en I
’mancipated de ole p’ace an’ com’d yere. But, Lor’!”
“And so you would like to return, then?”
“Like! W’y, youn’ mist’ess, I jeams ob it at night. I jeams as I’m back
dere in my log house, a-smokin’ ob my sweet corncob pipe by my b’ight
pine-knot fire, an’ I feels so happy, an’ finks as it is yeal, an’ dis
yere was de jeam. Den I wakes up, an’ sometimes I cwies. It mos’ b’eaks
my heart. It do, fo’ a fac’. Sometimes Tom say to me, he say, ‘Mammy,
w’at de matter wid yo’?’ An’ I say, ‘Oh, Tom!’ I can say no mo’n dat.”
“When can you be ready to go with me, Lucy?”
“Any time—dis minit!—w’ich I doane mean zackly dat, but soon’s ebber I
finishes ob dem clo’es w’at’s hangin’ on de line, w’ich will be dis
werry arternoon, ’ca’se one mus’ keep deir ’gagements, yo’ know, ma’am.”
“Certainly,” assented Roma.
“But I can be yeady to go to-night or moyer mo’nin’.”
“To-morrow morning will be quite time enough.”
“An’ I s’pose I kin take my furn’ture ’long ob me in de boat, Miss
Yoma?”
Miss Fronde looked around on the property in question, pathetic in its
utter poverty, and then said:
“Certainly, if you wish to take it; but when you enter my service I will
give you much better furniture than this for your cottage on the Isle.”
“All yight, den, youn’ mist’ess. I kin jus’ gib dese yere fings to po’
Sa’a Ann Syphax, w’ich is a berry po’ ’oman, w’ich I fink people as is
well off an’ has yich ladies fo’ fr’en’s, ’ad ought to be good to de
po’. Doane yo’?”
“Yes, indeed. Now, good-by, Lucy. I have a great deal to do to-day, and
so I see have you. Tell Tom to come to see me this afternoon.”
“Oh, won’t he, dough! Yopes wouldn’ hol’ him w’en he know yo’ back!”
exclaimed the woman.
Roma did not return immediately to the Wesleyan, but walked down to
Fourteenth Street and took a car, intending to go to the Children’s
Hospital.
On arriving at the building she asked to see Titus Blair, and was shown
to the convalescent ward, where the boy was walking about, amusing
himself with some half dozen of his companions.
As soon as he saw Miss Fronde his pale, thin face lighted up with joy,
and he came to meet her as fast as his feeble limbs could fetch him.
Roma took his hand, and made him sit down on the bench that ran along
the wall, and without referring to his illness at all, she asked the
orphan boy where he was to go after leaving the hospital.
Titus said that he did not know. He supposed he would go somewhere and
sell papers or matches until the first of December, when the busy season
came, and then he thought he would be taken on again at the Wesleyan to
run the elevator.
“How would you like to go with me to my seaside house for the summer?”
Miss Fronde inquired.
“Oh, that would be so good!” he exclaimed.
“Then you shall go with me. I will speak to the house physician, and
find out if you are fit to be discharged in time to accompany me.
Good-by, now.”
“An’ de little miss, ma’am—is she well?”
“Owlet was well when I saw her last,” replied Miss Fronde evasively.
And then she hurried away, to avoid answering more direct questions
about her lost pet.
She went to the office of the house physician and had an interview with
him, in which she learned that she might take the boy to the seaside as
soon as she should please to do so.
From the hospital Roma went to the office of her father’s old friend,
Dr. Washburn, but not finding him, she sat down at his table and wrote a
note, asking him to call on her, if possible, during the afternoon.
By the time Roma got back to her apartments at the Wesleyan it was six
o’clock, and time to dress for her tête-à-tête dinner with Mr. Merritt.
She ordered the table to be set in her private parlor, and then went
into her bedroom to make her toilet.
In twenty minutes, or less time, she came out, dressed in a simple gray
silk gown, with fine lace at throat and wrists.
As she entered the room at one door some one came in at the other.
And the next instant Owlet had flown like a bird into her arms.