_"I wish your confounded Old Chester people would mind their own
affairs! This prying into things that are none of their business is--"_
Lloyd Pryor stopped; read over what he had written, and ground his
teeth. No; he couldn't send her such a letter. It would call down a
storm of reproach and anger and love. And, after all, it wasn't her
fault; this doctor fellow had said that she did not know of his call.
Still, if she hadn't been friendly with those people, the man wouldn't
have thought of "looking him up"! Then he remembered that he had been
the one to be friendly with the "doctor fellow"; and that made him
angry again. But his next letter was more reasonable, and so more
deadly.
_"You will see that if I had not happened to be at home, it might have
been a very serious matter. I must ask you to consider my position, and
discourage your friends in paying any attention to me."_
This, too, he tore up, with a smothered word. It wouldn't do; if he
wounded her too much, she was capable of taking the next train--! And
so he wrote, with non-committal brevity:
_"I have to be in Mercer Friday night, and I think I can get down to
Old Chester for a few hours between stages on Saturday. I hope your
cook has recovered, and we can have some dinner? Tell David he can get
his sling ready; and do, for Heaven's sake, fend off visitors!"_ Then he
added a postscript: _"I want you all to myself."_ He smiled as he wrote
that, but half shook his head. He did not (such was his code) enjoy
being agreeable for a purpose. "But I can't help it," he thought,
frowning; "she is so very difficult, just now."
He was right about the postscript; she read the letter with a curl of
her lip. "'A few hours,'" she said; then--"'I want you all to myself.'"
The delicate color flooded into her face; she crushed the letter to her
lips, her eyes running over with laughing tears.
"Oh, David," she cried,--"let's go and tell Maggie--we must have such a
dinner! He's coming!"
"Who?" said David.
"Why, Mr. Pryor, dear little boy. I want you to love him. Will you love
him?"
"I'll see," said David; "is Alice coming?"
Instantly her gayety flagged. "No, dear, no!"
"Well; I guess she's too old to play with;" David consoled himself;
"she's nineteen."
"I must speak to Maggie about the dinner," Helena said dully. But when
she talked to the woman, interest came back again; this time he should
not complain of his food! Maggie smiled indulgently at her excitement,
"My, Mrs. Richie, I don't believe no wife could take as good care of
Mr. Pryor--and you just his sister!"
For the rest of that glowing afternoon, Helena was very happy. She
almost forgot that uncomfortable scene with Sam Wright. She talked
eagerly of Mr. Pryor to David, quite indifferent to the child's lack of
interest. She had many anxious thoughts about what she should wear. If
it was a very hot day, how would her white dimity do? Or the thin
sprigged blue and white? it was so pretty--bunches of blue flowers on a
cross-barred muslin, and made with three flounces and a bertha. She was
wandering about the garden just before tea, trying to decide this
point, when David came to say that a gentleman wanted to see her. David
did not know his name;--he was the old tangled gentleman who lived in
the big house on the hill.
"_Oh!_" Helena said; she caught her lip between her teeth, and looked
at David with frightened eyes. The child was instantly alert.
"I'll run and tell him to go home," he said protectingly.
But she shook her head. "I've got to see him--oh, David!"
The little boy took hold of her skirt, reassuringly; "I'll not let him
hurt you," he said. She hardly noticed that he kept close beside her
all the way to the house.
Mr. Benjamin Wright was sitting on the lowest step of the front porch.
His trembling head was sunk forward on his breast; he did not lift it
at her step, but peered up from under the brim of his dusty beaver hat;
then seeing who it was, he rose, pushing himself up by gripping at the
step behind him and clutching his cane first in one hand, then in the
other. His face like old ivory chiselled into superb lines of
melancholy power, was pallid with fatigue. On his feet, with
exaggerated politeness, he took off his hat with a sweeping bow.
"Madam, your very obedient!"
"Good afternoon," she said breathlessly.
Benjamin Wright, tottering a little, changed his cane from his left to
his right hand, and chewed orange-skin fiercely. "I have called,
madam--"
But she interrupted him. "Won't you come in and sit down, sir? And pray
allow me to get you a glass of wine."
"Come in? No, madam, no. We are simple rustics here in Old Chester; we
must not presume to intrude upon a lady of such fashion as you. I fear
that some of us have already presumed too much"--he paused for breath,
but lifted one veined old hand to check her protest--"too much, I say!
Far too much! I come, madam, to apologize, and to tell you--" Again he
stopped, panting; "to tell you that I insist that you forbid further
intrusion--at least on the part of my grandson."
"But," she said, the color hot in her face, "he does not intrude. I
don't know what you mean. I--"
"Oh, madam, you are too kind, I am sure you know what I mean; it is
your excessive kindness that permits the visits of a foolish
boy--wearying, I am sure, to a lady so accustomed to the world. I will
ask you to forbid those visits. Do you hear me?" he cried shrilly,
pounding the gravel with his cane. "Gad-a-mercy! Do you hear me? You
will forbid his visits!"
"You are not very polite, Mr. Old Gentleman," said David thoughtfully.
"David!" Helena protested.
Benjamin Wright, looking down at the little figure planted in front of
her, seemed to see him for the first time.
"Who is this! Your child?"
"A little boy who is visiting me," she said. "David, run away."
Benjamin Wright made a sneering gesture. "No, no; don't dismiss him on
my account. But that a child should visit you is rather remarkable. I
should think his parents--"
"Hush!" she broke in violently, "Go, David, go!"
As the child went sulkily back to the garden, she turned upon her
visitor. "How dare you! Dr. Lavendar brought him to me; I will not hear
another word! And--and I don't know what you mean, anyhow. You are a
cruel old man; what have I ever done to you? I have never asked your
grandson to come here. I don't want him. I have told him so. And I
never asked you!"
Benjamin Wright cackled. "No; I have not been so far honored. I admit
that. You have kept us all at arm's length,--except my boy." Then,
bending his fierce brows on her, he added, "But what does Lavendar mean
by sending a child--to you? What's he thinking of? Except, of course,
he never had any sense. Old Chester is indeed a foolish place. Well,
madam, you will, I know, _protect yourself,_ by forbidding my grandson
to further inflict his company upon you? And I will remove my own
company, which is doubtless tiresome to you."
He bowed again with contemptuous ceremony, and turned away.
The color had dropped out of Helena's face; she was trembling very
much. With a confused impulse she called to him, and even ran after him
for a few steps down the path. He turned and waited for her. She came
up to him, her breath broken with haste and fear.
"Mr. Wright, you won't--" Her face trembled with dismay. In her fright
she put her hand on his arm and shook it; "you won't--?"
As he looked into her stricken eyes, his own suddenly softened.
"Why--" he said, and paused; then struck the ground with his stick
sharply. "There, there; I understand. You think I'll tell? Gad-a-mercy,
madam, I am a gentleman. And my boy Sam doesn't interest you? Yes, yes;
I see that now. Why, perhaps I've been a trifle harsh? I shall say
nothing to Lavendar, or anybody else."
She put her hands over her face, and he heard a broken sound. Instantly
he reddened to his ears.
"Come! Come! You haven't thought me harsh, have you? Why, you
poor-_bird!_ It was only on my boy's account. You and I understand each
other--I am a man of the world. But with Sam, it's different, now,
isn't it? You see that? He's in love with you, the young fool! A great
nuisance to you, of course. And I thought you might--but I ask your
pardon! I see that you wouldn't think of such a thing. My dear young
lady, I make you my apologies." He put his hand out and patted her
shoulder; "Poor bird!" he said. But she shivered away from his touch,
and after a hesitating moment he went shuffling down the path by
himself.
On the way home he sniffled audibly; and when he reached the entrance
to his own place he stopped, tucked his stick under his arm, and blew
his nose with a sonorous sound. As he stuffed his handkerchief back
into his pocket, he saw his grandson lounging against the gate,
evidently waiting for him... The dilapidation of the Wright place was
especially obvious here at the entrance. The white paint on the two
square wooden columns of the gateway had peeled and flaked, and the
columns themselves had rotted at the base into broken fangs, and hung
loosely upon their inner-posts; one of them sagged sidewise from the
weight of the open gate which had long ago settled down into the
burdocks and wild parsley that bordered the weedy driveway. What with
the canaries, and the cooking, and the slovenly housework, poor old
Simmons had no time for such matters as repairing or weeding.
Sam, leaning on the gate, watched his grandfather's toiling progress up
the hill. His face was dull, and when he spoke all the youth seemed to
have dropped out of his voice.
"Grandfather," he said, when Mr. Wright was within speaking distance,
"I want to go away from Old Chester. Will you give me some money, sir?"
Benjamin Wright, his feet wide apart, and both hands gripping the top
of his stick, came to a panting standstill and gaped at him. He did not
quite take the boy's words in; then, as he grasped the idea that Sam
was agreeing to the suggestion which he had himself made more than a
month before, he burst out furiously. "Why the devil didn't you say so,
_yesterday?_ Why did you let me--you young jackass!"
Sam looked at him in faint surprise. Then he proceeded to explain
himself: "Of course, father won't give me any money. And I haven't got
any myself--except about twelve dollars. And you were kind enough, sir,
to say that you would help me to go and see if I could get a publisher
for the drama. I would like to go to-morrow, if you please."
"Go?" said Benjamin Wright, scowling and chewing orange-skin rapidly,
"the sooner the better! I'm glad to get rid of you. But, confound you!
why didn't you tell me so yesterday? Then I needn't have--Well, how
much money do you want? Have you told your--your mother that you are
going? Come on up to the house, and I'll give you a check. But why
didn't you make up your mind to this yesterday?" Snarling and snapping,
and then falling into silence, he began to trudge up the driveway to
his old house.
Sam said briefly that he didn't know how much money he wanted, and that
he had not as yet told his family of his purpose. "I'll tell mother
to-night," he said. Then he, too, was silent, his young step falling in
with his grandfather's shuffling gait.
When Mr. Wright left her, Helena stood staring after him, sobbing under
her breath. She was terrified, but almost instantly she began to be
angry....
That old man, creeping away along the road, had told her that he would
not betray her; but his knowledge was a menace, and his surprise that
she should have David, an insult! Of course, her way of living was
considered "wrong" by people who cannot understand such
situations--old-fashioned, narrow-minded people. But the idea of any
harm coming to David by it was ridiculous! As for Sam Wright, all that
sort of thing was impossible, because it was repugnant. No married
woman, "respectable," as such women call themselves, could have found
the boy's love-making more repugnant than she did. And certainly her
conduct in Old Chester was absolutely irreproachable: she went to
church fairly often; she gave liberally to all the good causes of the
village; she was kind to her servants, and courteous to these stupid
Old Chester people. And yet, simply because she had been forced by
Frederick's cruelty into a temporary unconventionality, this dingy,
grimy old man despised her! "He looked at me as if I were--I don't know
what!"
Anger swept the color up into her face, her hands clenched, and she
ground her heel down into the path as if she were grinding the insolent
smile from his cruel old face. Horrible old man! Dirty, tremulous; with
mumbling jaws chewing constantly; with untidy white hairs pricking out
from under his brown wig; with shaking, shrivelled hands and blackened
nails; this old man had fixed his melancholy eyes upon her with an
amused leer. He pretended, if you please! to think that she was
unworthy of his precious grandson's company--unworthy of David's little
handclasp. She would leave this impudent Old Chester! She would tell
Lloyd so, as soon as he came. She would not endure the insults of these
narrow-minded fools.
"Hideous! Hideous old wretch!" she said aloud furiously, between shut
teeth. "How dared he look at me like that, as if I were--Beast! I
hate--I hate--I _hate_ him." Her anger was so uncontrollable that for a
moment she could not breathe. It was like a whirlwind, wrenching and
tearing her from the soil of contentment into which for so many years
her vanity and selfishness had struck their roots.
_"But the Lord was not in the wind."_