WILLY CROUP DOESN'T KNOW
The next afternoon as the train approached Plainton, Mrs. Cliff found
herself a great deal agitated as she thought of the platform at the
station. Who would be there,--how should she be met? With all her heart
she hoped that there would not be anything like a formal reception, and
yet this was not improbable. Everybody knew she was coming; everybody
knew by what train she would arrive. She had written to Willy Croup, and
she was very sure that everybody knew everything that she had written.
More than this, everybody knew that she was coming home rich. How rich
they were not aware, because she had not gone into particulars on this
subject, but they knew that the wealthy Mrs. Cliff would arrive at 5.20
that afternoon, and what were they going to do about it?
When she had gone home before, all her friends and neighbors, and even
distant acquaintances,--if such people were possible in such a little
town,--had come to her house to bid her welcome, and many of them had
met her at the station. But then they had come to meet a poor,
shipwrecked widow, pitied by most of them and loved by many. Even those
who neither pitied nor loved her had a curiosity to see her, for she had
been shipwrecked, and it was not known in Plainton how people looked
after they had been wrecked.
But now the case was so different that Mrs. Cliff did not expect the
same sort of greeting, and she greatly feared formality. If Mr. Perley
should appear on the platform, surrounded by some of the leading members
of his congregation, and should publicly take her by the hand and bid
her "Welcome home!" and if those who felt themselves entitled to do so,
should come forward and shake hands with her, while others, who might
feel that they belonged to a different station in life, should keep in
the background and wait until she came to speak to them, she would be
deeply hurt.
After all, Plainton and the people in it were dearer to her than
anything else in the world, and it would be a great shock if she should
meet formality where she looked for cordial love. She wanted to see Mr.
Perley,--he was the first person she had seen when she came home
before,--but now she hoped that he would not be there. She was very much
afraid that he would make a stiff speech to her; and if he did that, she
would know that there had been a great change, and that the friends she
would meet were not the same friends she had left. She was almost afraid
to look out of the window as the train slowed up at the station.
The minds of the people of Plainton had been greatly exercised about
this home-coming of Mrs. Cliff. That afternoon it was probable that no
other subject of importance was thought about or talked about in the
town, and for some days before the whole matter had been so thoroughly
considered and discussed that the good citizens, without really coming
to any fixed and general decision upon the subject, had individually
made up their minds that, no matter what might happen afterward, they
would make no mistake upon this very important occasion which might
subsequently have an influence upon their intercourse with their old,
respected neighbor, now millionnaire. Each one for himself, or herself,
decided--some of them singly and some of them in groups--that as they
did not know what sort of a woman Mrs. Cliff had become since the change
in her circumstances, they would not place themselves in false
positions. Other people might go and meet her at the station, but they
would stay at home and see what happened. Even Mr. Perley thought it
wise, under the circumstances, to do this.
Therefore it was, that when Mrs. Cliff stepped down upon the platform,
she saw no one there but Willy Croup. If Mrs. Cliff was a little shocked
and a good deal surprised to find no one to meet her but that
simple-minded dependant and relative, her emotions were excited in a
greater degree by the manner in which she was greeted by this old friend
and companion.
Instead of rushing toward her with open arms,--for Willy was an
impulsive person and given to such emotional demonstrations,--Miss Croup
came forward, extending a loosely filled black cotton glove. Her large,
light-blue eyes showed a wondering interest, and Mrs. Cliff felt that
every portion of her visible attire was being carefully scanned.
For a moment Mrs. Cliff hesitated, and then she took the hand of Willy
Croup and shook it, but she did not speak. She had no command of words,
at least for greeting.
Willy earnestly inquired after her health, and said how glad she was to
see her, but Mrs. Cliff did not listen. She looked about her. For an
instant she thought that possibly the train had come in ahead of time,
but this, of course, was absurd--trains never did that.
"Willy," she said, her voice a little shaken, "has anything happened? Is
anybody sick?"
"Oh no!" said Willy; "everybody is well, so far as I know. I guess you
are wondering why there is nobody here to meet you, and I have been
wondering at that too. They must have thought that you did not want to
be bothered when you were attending to your baggage and things. Is
anybody with you?"
"With me!" exclaimed Mrs. Cliff; "who could be with me?"
"Oh, I didn't know," replied the other; "I thought perhaps you might
have a maidservant, or some of those black people you wrote about."
Mrs. Cliff was on the point of telling Willy she was a fool, but she
refrained.
"Here is the baggage-man," said Willy, "and he wants your checks."
As Mrs. Cliff took the little pieces of brass from her purse and handed
them to the man, Willy looked on in amazement.
"Good gracious!" she exclaimed. "Seven! I guess you had to pay for extra
baggage. Shall I get you a carriage, and where do you want to be driven
to--to your own house or the hotel?"
Now Mrs. Cliff could not restrain herself. "What is the matter with you,
Willy? Have you gone crazy?" she exclaimed. "Of course I am going to my
own house, and I do not want any carriage. Did I ever need a carriage to
take me such a short distance as that? Tell the man to bring some one
with him to carry the trunks upstairs, and then come on."
"Let me carry your bag," said Willy, as the two walked away from the
station at a much greater pace, it may be remarked, than Willy was
accustomed to walk.
"No, you shall not carry my bag," said Mrs. Cliff, and not another word
did she speak until she had entered the hallway of her home. Then,
closing the door behind her, and without looking around at any of the
dear objects for a sight of which she had so long been yearning, she
turned to her companion.
"Willy," she cried, "what does this mean? Why do you treat me in this
way when I come home after having been away so long, and having suffered
so much? Why do you greet me as if you took me for a tax collector? Why
do you stand there like a--a horrible clam?"
Willy hesitated. She looked up and she looked down.
"Things are so altered," she said, "and I didn't know--"
"Well, know now," said Mrs. Cliff, as she held out her arms. In a moment
the two women were clasped in a tight embrace, kissing and sobbing.
"How should I know?" said poor Willy, as she was wiping her eyes.
"Chills went down me as I stood on that platform, wondering what sort of
a grand lady you would look like when you got out of the car, with two
servant women, most likely, and perhaps a butler, and trying to think
what I should say."
Mrs. Cliff laughed. "You were born addle-pated, and you can't help it.
Now, let us go through this house without wasting a minute!" Willy gazed
at her in amazement.
"You're just the same as you always was!" she cried "Indeed I am!" said
Mrs. Cliff. "Did you clean this dining-room yourself, Willy? It looks as
spick and span as if I had just left it."
"Indeed it does," was the proud reply, "and you couldn't find a speck of
dust from the ceiling to the floor!"
When Mrs. Cliff had been upstairs and downstairs, and in the front yard,
the side yard, and the back yard, and when her happy eyes had rested
upon all her dear possessions, she went into the kitchen.
"Now, Willy," she said, "let us go to work and get supper, for I must
say I am hungry."
At this Willy Croup turned pale, her chin dropped, a horrible suspicion
took possession of her. Could it be possible that it was all a mistake,
or that something dreadful had happened; that the riches which everybody
had been talking about had never existed, or had disappeared? She might
want to go to her old home; she might want to see her goods and
chattels, but that she should want to help get supper--that was
incomprehensible! At that moment the world looked very black to Willy.
If Mrs. Cliff had gone into the parlor, and had sat down in the best
rocking-chair to rest herself, and had said to her, "Please get supper
as soon as you can," Willy would have believed in everything, but now--!
The grinding of heavy wheels was heard in front of the house, and Willy
turned quickly and looked out of the window. There was a wagon
containing seven enormous trunks! Since the days when Plainton was a
little hamlet, up to the present time, when it contained a hotel, a
bank, a lyceum, and a weekly paper, no one had ever arrived within its
limits with seven such trunks. Instantly the blackness disappeared from
before the mind of Willy Croup.
"Now, you tell the men where to carry them," she cried, "and I will get
the supper in no time! Betty Handshall stayed here until this morning,
but she went away after dinner, for she was afraid if she stayed she
would be in the way, not knowing how much help you would bring with
you."
"I wonder if they are all crack-brained," thought Mrs. Cliff, as she
went to the front door to attend to her baggage.
That evening nearly all Plainton came to see Mrs. Cliff. No matter how
she returned,--as a purse-proud bondholder, as a lady of elegant wealth
with her attendants, as an old friend suddenly grown jolly and
prosperous,--it would be all right for her neighbors to go in and see
her in the evening. There they might suit themselves to her new
deportment whatever it might be, and there would be no danger of any of
them getting into false positions, which would have been very likely
indeed if they had gone to meet her at the station.
Her return to her own house gave her real friends a great deal of
satisfaction, for some of them had feared she would not go there. It
would have been difficult for them to know how to greet Mrs. Cliff at a
hotel, even such an unpretentious one as that of Plainton. All these
friends found her the same warm-hearted, cordial woman that she had
ever been. In fact, if there was any change at all in her, she was more
cordial than they had yet known her. As in the case of Willy Croup, a
cloud had risen before her. She had been beset by the sudden fear that
her money already threatened to come between her and her old friends.
"Not if I can help it!" said Mrs. Cliff to herself, as fervently as if
she had been vowing a vow to seek the Holy Grail; and she did help it.
The good people forgot what they had expected to think about her, and
only remembered what they had always thought of her. No matter what had
happened, she was the same.
But what had happened, and how it had happened, and all about it, up and
down, to the right and the left, above and below, everybody wanted to
know, and Mrs. Cliff, with sparkling eyes, was only too glad to tell
them. She had been obliged to be so reserved when she had come home
before, that she was all the more eager to be communicative now; and it
was past midnight before the first of that eager and delighted company
thought of going home.
There was one question, however, which Mrs. Cliff successfully evaded,
and that was--the amount of her wealth. She would not give even an
approximate idea of the value of her share of the golden treasure. It
was very soon plain to everybody that Mrs. Cliff was the same woman she
used to be in regard to keeping to herself that which she did not wish
to tell to others, and so everybody went away with imagination
absolutely unfettered.