A SHADOW BEGINS TO FALL.
The letter which Katy brought us from the office was from father, who
was still in Boston and attending Mrs. Haverleigh. She was better, he
wrote, but unwilling he should leave her until all danger of a relapse
was past, consequently we need not expect him until the end of a week
when he hoped to bring us a big fee, as his patient was said to be very
wealthy. He did not mention Mr. Haverleigh, but of course there was such
an appendage to Mrs. Haverleigh and he would pay the bill. Then we began
to speculate as to the probable amount and what we should buy with it.
Fan decided upon new boots and gloves; Katy was to have a doll; while I
hoped she might also have music lessons, for aside from her wonderful
voice she had a great fondness for the piano and had already picked out
a few simple tunes which she played with a good deal of expression.
Jack, who was always included in our family councils, as if he were our
brother, laughingly told us not to count our chickens until they were
hatched, and the sequel proved the wisdom of his advice.
At the end of the week father came home, looking fresher and younger and
more erect than when he went away. The trip had done him a great deal of
good. He had met several old friends and made some new ones. When we
inquired for Mrs. Haverleigh he did not seem inclined to talk much of
her, but in answer to Fan’s direct question he told us the amount of his
fee. He had made her so many professional visits and received the usual
city price for each visit; fifty dollars in all. It was not a large sum,
and it went mostly to pay the little household bills which in spite of
our economy accumulated so fast. I gave up the music lessons for Katy,
while Fan called Mr. Haverleigh a stingy old man, as she blacked her
shabby boots and mended her worn gloves.
Sometime in November Jack went into an insurance office in Richmond, and
life at the Elms moved in so monotonous a groove that Fan, who craved
excitement, sometimes wished the war back upon us to keep us from
stagnating. There were one or two letters from Miss Errington, addressed
to me and full of Katy’s future.
Several times the Colonel sent Fan papers and magazines and once he
wrote her a letter which she promptly tore up, and then cried for half a
day. Every week father had a letter from Boston which he answered within
a few days. Once in passing the hall stand where he had laid a letter
while he went to his room for his gloves, I glanced hastily at it and
read, as I supposed, “Mr. Thomas Haverleigh, No. — Beacon St., Boston,
Mass.” Fan would have taken it up and made sure of the direction, but I
only gave it a look and wondered why he was writing to Mr. Haverleigh.
He was a good deal changed these days and he seemed silent and
abstracted and I often saw him looking at us in a wistful way as if
there was something on his mind which he hated to tell us.
“It’s money matters and the miserable bills we owe everywhere that
trouble him,” Fan said, when I spoke of it to her.
“Oh, if I were rich, and could help him; and I can. There is a way.”
“What way?” I asked, and she replied, “I can sell Black Beauty,
or—myself, which is better. Isn’t it sometimes a duty to sacrifice one’s
self for others? I didn’t tell you that Col. Errington proposed to me in
that letter I burned up! Well, he did, in an assured kind of way, as if
he thought I would be overwhelmed with the honor and say yes at once;
then, as if a doubt crept into his mind, he told me to weigh the matter
carefully before answering, for if a favor were once refused him he
never asked for it a second time. I _am_ weighing the matter carefully.
I have not answered his letter. I keep hoping something will turn up. If
it don’t I shall marry the Colonel.”
“And what of Jack?” I asked.
At the mention of his name Fan flushed a little, then replied, “I like
Jack and always shall, but what can he do, hampered with an invalid
mother and only an insurance clerk’s salary. I was never intended for a
poor man’s wife and would rather live at home in poverty with you than
in Jack’s home with his mother and old black Patsey, who was always
running away during the war and only came back after it was over because
she couldn’t do better.”
There was no use arguing with Fan when in this mood, and the subject was
not mentioned again for months. I knew she did not write to Col.
Errington, and she did write occasionally to Jack during the winter,
which passed rather slowly, for Lovering was never very gay at its best,
and the war had left too many aching hearts for us to be very hilarious.
Father, however, seemed in unusually good spirits and I occasionally
heard him whistling or humming softly to himself when he was alone. When
March came round he surprised us one morning saying he was going to
Boston again on some important business which he hoped would result
favorably for us all. He did not tell us what the business was, but when
Fan asked if it had anything to do with Mr. Haverleigh, he answered,
“Not directly; no,” and we said good-bye to him with no suspicion of the
truth. He had bought himself a new suit of clothes, which he greatly
needed, and we were very proud of him when he put them on. We told him
he looked quite the Virginia gentleman again, and Fan came near boxing
Phyllis’s ears when she heard her muttering something about “ole mas’r
savin’ his money to pay his debts instead of scurripen’ roun’ de country
an’ makin’ a fool of hisself.”
“As if our father could make a fool of himself! What does Phyllis mean?”
“I believe he has been speculating,” Fan said to me, “I feel sure
something good is going to turn up, if we wait long enough.”