ZELDA LIFTS A BURDEN
Copeland, the lawyer who never practised, knew Mariona pretty well,
and he was responsible for the remark that while women in High Street
continued to admonish their maids from second-story windows as to the
relation between employer and employee, there was no manner of use in
trying to be a city.
Mariona was still a good deal of a village and gossip spread through
its streets like news in the Sudan. But it must be said that the
Mariona gossips who had been expecting an explosion among the Merriams
since Zelda Dameron came home were greatly disappointed. Zelda’s life
differed in no important particular from that of other girls of her
circle. She lived with her father, which was wholly proper; she went
about to luncheons, teas and balls and derived amusement from them in
a perfectly normal, natural way; she had a voice, and when she was
asked to sing, she sang; and she struck every one as being thoroughly
unaffected and amiable. It became known that she could tell a story,
and her reputation among girls as a _raconteur_ soon dimmed that which
her singing had earned for her. A girls’ luncheon in Mariona, as
elsewhere, is a function where a dozen girls, more or less, assemble
to eat unwholesome combinations of food to the accompaniment of rapid
exclamations about nothing in particular. Zelda gained a hearing at
first because she was a new girl in town, but her audience was assured
when it became known that she could tell a story.
She told her stories with the gravity that is second nature in the
born story-teller; and her fund of anecdotes of personal misadventure
was seemingly inexhaustible. Her account of the way in which she and
her aunt had been ushered by mistake into a train bearing a royal
funeral party at Berlin, and of how an aged duke had worked himself
into a state of apoplexy in trying to determine just who the Americans
were; and of how, finally, when a countess and her daughter, for whom
the Americans had been mistaken, were missed, the train was carried
back to the Berlin station,--this incident related with trifling but
illuminative details,--of how the people looked, of the yells of the
duke to his servant not to forget the lunch basket; the grim rage of
the master of ceremonies when he discovered that Zelda and her aunt had
been put aboard by mistake,--made a story that convulsed her auditors.
Zelda saw much of Morris during the winter. He went often to the old
house in Merriam Street in spite of the fact that he assured himself
constantly that she did not interest him more than other girls. She
continued to delight in plaguing him, particularly before her uncle,
who learned, however, not to praise Morris to Zelda. Mrs. Forrest
pretended to be a diligent chaperon, but Mariona social affairs did
not amuse her, and she went out very little. Frequently Merriam took
Zelda to the theater; now and then he connived with Morris to the
end that Olive should be asked, and the four would go afterward for a
supper at Merriam’s house. Zelda brought Olive more and more into touch
with her own life. She knew no happier day than Christmas, when Mrs.
Forrest,--not, however, without urging,--gave a family dinner to which
Ezra Dameron, Olive and her mother sat down at the same board, with
Rodney presiding. There were times when Zelda’s courage failed,--when
the shadow of her mother’s unhappiness fell darkly upon her; but she
made no sign to the world. So the winter passed, and in the first
bright wistful days she went forth with Zan to find the spring.
“I have not heard you speak of your aunt and uncle of late,” said Ezra
Dameron to Zelda one day, after she had been for an outing with Olive.
“I saw Aunt Julia this afternoon. She isn’t well; she suffers a great
deal.”
“She doesn’t look like a sick woman. She was always quite robust.”
“_She’s_ robust enough, but her nerves aren’t. She has asked me to go
away with her again,--she likes going about, and she has planned to
visit a number of summer places.”
“If you don’t go, what will she do?” and the old man looked at Zelda
with a gleam of humor in his small gray eyes.
“Well, I have asked her to come to the farm.”
A smile crossed Ezra Dameron’s face.
“I am very glad you did. It would be a capital arrangement.”
“But she won’t come. She does not like that sort of thing. She likes to
be where there’s something doing.”
“Yes, yes; a worldly woman; a very worldly woman,”--and Dameron wagged
his head as he buttered his roll. He was silent for several minutes,
and when he spoke it was in a tone of kindness.
“And so you are coming with me, Zelda? I had hoped you would. I have
wished it so much that I have not pressed you to commit yourself. I
knew that your aunt would be likely to offer something more attractive
than a summer at The Beeches.”
“Yes, father; of course I shall go with you. I have never had any other
intention.”
“You are very good to me, Zee. I am grateful to you for many things. An
old man is very poor company for a young girl. I had feared that you
might not be satisfied here. Your uncle and aunt have never treated me
fairly. We have nothing in common. I am glad to find that they have not
estranged you and me; the paternal relation is a very beautiful one;
very beautiful.”
The black maid was changing their plates, and Zelda rested her arms
on the edge of the table and looked at him with deep, searching eyes.
She knew instantly when he passed from words that represented honest
feeling to his more usual note of hypocrisy.
“Your mother,” the old man continued, and she started, for he had
rarely mentioned her mother; “your mother was a very gentle woman. She
had none of your uncle’s violence--Rodney is very violent--and she was
not a worldly woman like your Aunt Julia. She had her fling. She had
enjoyed a gay youth, but with marriage she settled down. She was an
admirable woman--an admirable woman.” He grew pensive as he stirred his
coffee. He started slightly when he looked up and found Zelda’s eyes
bent gravely upon him. She said nothing, and he went on.
“You are very like your mother. You have her looks--and she was very
beautiful; but she had not quite--your spirit. No; she was a more
subdued type. I could always understand your mother; but I am not
always sure that I understand you, Zee. But you are very kind. I am
very proud to have you here with me.”
She rose and walked into the living-room. He always waited for her to
pass, bowing his stooped figure slightly; and to-night he smiled at
her; but she passed swiftly and did not look at him. There were times
when it was impossible for her to speak to him.
Her father had spoken often during the winter of the farm. Zelda’s
willingness to go there was a great relief to him; and when she
suggested that she should like to ask Olive to spend the whole of her
vacation with them he made no objection. He knew that she saw Olive
frequently; Zee had asked her cousin to the house for meals several
times since the Dramatic Club episode, and her father had treated Olive
with his usual formal courtesy. The main thing with Ezra Dameron was to
keep Zelda away from her aunt and uncle; and it flattered his vanity
that she remained with him so steadfastly and took apparently so filial
an interest in his happiness and comfort.
Zelda went to Olive at once with her invitation.
“I’d be delighted, of course, Zee; but you mustn’t make it hard for me
to refuse. This is my busy summer; we have to move!”
“Oh!” said Zelda.
“We’re mortgaged; that’s the trouble with us; we’re not only
mortgaged, but we can’t pay! So we hope to find another house somewhere
and get out of the way.”
It was the first reference Olive had made to any financial difficulty,
and she tried to pass it off lightly.
“I suppose,” said Zelda, who was thinking very hard, “that one simply
has to have a mortgage; just as though it were measles or croup or
scarlet fever.”
“Oh, mortgages aren’t at all serious--not necessarily fatal--if you
don’t take cold or expose yourself before it’s over.”
“How does one contract a mortgage?” said Zelda. “Are there microbes?”
“I caught mine at college,” said Olive. “We blew our substance on
education. I just found it out recently. Mother has been carrying the
burden of it all by herself. The subject isn’t pleasant. Let us talk of
something else.”
“Where do you keep your mortgage?” asked Zelda, half-seriously. “How
does one get at the beast?”
“Ours seems to be in a bank just at present,” answered Olive, evasively.
“That sounds formidable. But it’s too bad that you have to move.
Harrison Street is the most charming street in town. I can’t think of
you as living anywhere else except in this pretty house.”
“You’ll have to, for we move almost at once, as they say in stories.”
Zelda’s father continued to pay a sum every month to her credit at the
bank, and money matters were rarely or never mentioned between them.
She did not understand how anxious he was to avoid any clash with
Rodney Merriam over the management of her property; and she did not
appreciate the smallness of the sum he gave her compared with the full
amount her property should have earned. Zelda was spoken of in Mariona
as an heiress, and it was the general belief that she would have not
only the property left her by her mother, but the large estate which
Ezra Dameron had been accumulating through many years. There, too, were
Mrs. Forrest and Rodney Merriam, who were childless; both were rich by
local standards.
When, one afternoon a week later, she decided to speak to her father
about Olive’s perplexity, she went to his office in the Dameron Block
and made no effort to conceal the fact that she had come on business.
Her father was poring over his accounts as she stood suddenly on the
threshold of the private room.
“Why, Zee, what brings you here?” he exclaimed.
The sight of her gave him a shock, as she had been in his mind;
the book over which he had been poring was the cash book of his
trusteeship. He marked his place with a scrap of paper and turned to
her.
“I came on an errand,” said Zelda. “I don’t think your housekeeping is
well done,” she added, glancing about the room.
“It serves me very well,” said the old man. “Business is only to be
considered as business.”
“I suppose that’s a warning; but I really came on a little business,
father.”
“Oh!” He had no idea that she had ever visited the office before. He
thought on the instant that she had come for money.
“I have just heard that Olive Merriam and her mother are in
trouble,--that is, money trouble.”
He looked at her quickly, and searched her with his sharp eyes. The
Merriams had been trading on Zelda’s friendship, he decided, and he
smiled to himself as he settled back in his chair, determined to thwart
any quixotic plan that Zelda might broach in their behalf.
“I imagine that they have very little--very little,” he said.
“I know nothing of their affairs; but I have just learned that they
expect to move, and when I asked Olive why, she said they owed a debt
they couldn’t pay.”
“They live on Harrison Street. I have seen the place. It’s a very
comfortable cottage, isn’t it?” he asked.
“It’s a charming little house. But it’s their things; it’s what Olive
is and does that makes it attractive. Do you happen to know what this
debt is?” she asked. He thought there might be a pitfall here and he
answered at once:
“Yes; I hold the mortgage. It’s in the bank for collection.”
“She didn’t tell me that you held it. She said a bank had it. The money
was borrowed to pay Olive’s way through school. Did you know that was
the way of it?”
“I think perhaps Mrs. Merriam said so.”
“If she said so of course that was the reason. She is a very good
woman; quite fine, I think.”
“Certainly. I didn’t mean to imply that she had not been quite frank
with me. But people are sometimes tempted by their necessities into
slight prevarications.”
He smiled and chuckled at his own wisdom in having learned this great
fact in human nature.
“Mrs. Merriam has a debt to pay, and if she can’t pay it she will lose
the house,” continued Zelda. “The debt is to you.”
“To me as trustee,” he corrected.
“Is it, then, something of mine, father?”
Dameron bowed his head.
“Your surmise is quite correct. I hold, as trustee for you, several
notes, given by Mrs. Merriam. They’re now in default and in the bank
for collection.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t know that earlier, father. I wish you had told
me. I have been seeing a good deal of my Cousin Olive. I like her
immensely; I have been to her house familiarly, and she has been to see
me pretty often, when she could get away from her work. I didn’t know,
of course, that I was even remotely their creditor. The situation isn’t
exactly comfortable, now that I know it.”
“I’m sorry that the matter should have risen; but there is no reason
why they should transfer their burdens to your shoulders, Zee.”
“I hope you understand that they have never mentioned this subject or
hinted that they owed you or me. I only know that they feel they must
leave the house. I fancy that they are being pushed by the bank--to pay
the money.”
“The bank has, of course, no alternative in the matter. It’s their
business to collect.” And this fact seemed to give Ezra Dameron
pleasure.
“But if the owner of the note doesn’t want to push the people who made
the debt,--”
“It is very bad business to carry overdue paper. New notes have to be
given in such cases.”
It was clear to Zelda that her father had no sympathy with her liking
for the Merriams or her wish to help them in their difficulty. She was
sure that she could manage in some way to stop the pressure that was
being brought to bear on them, and she hoped to do it through her
father without going to her uncle, who would, she knew, give her any
money she might ask, after he had made a row about it. But it pleased
her to carry the matter through with her father.
“What is the amount, father?”
“Two thousand dollars,--with interest; with accumulated interest.”
Zelda smiled in relief. She could comprehend two thousand dollars.
“And how much is the house worth?”
“About five thousand, possibly. But there is no market for such
property just at present. The trend of real estate is all in another
direction.”
“Then they’d better stay there, if no one would want the house. I’m
sure _we_ can’t move.”
The old man smiled patronizingly.
“You don’t understand business, my child. It is well that your affairs
are in trust. I have lent a good deal of money for you, and I am proud
to say that I have never lost a cent, principal or interest.”
“I’m sure you have done the best that could be done for me, but now
I’m going to ask a favor. I want to carry this loan, if it has to be
carried, personally. I want you to make it over to me, and then take it
out of my allowance, or charge it to me in the trusteeship. I suppose
I might buy it of you,--that would be more businesslike; but I haven’t
more than two hundred dollars. Maybe you’d sell it to me for that,
father, as a special favor?”
The old man shook his head and laughed.
“It is to guard you against just such philanthropy that I am your
trustee. You had better know nothing of these things, Zee.”
“But my own aunt and cousin! I hope all my money isn’t lent to my
relatives.”
“No; relatives are poor pay,” said the old man, and he rubbed his hands
together and chuckled; but he was pondering the matter seriously.
At that moment he really needed all the money he could accumulate,
and he had every intention of bringing suit on the Merriam notes and
foreclosing the mortgage; but, after all, the amount was small, and
it was better to let Zelda have her way than to risk an appeal to her
uncle, who might take it into his head to ask embarrassing questions
about the condition of the trusteeship. Ezra Dameron had gone his own
way so long that the idea of submitting his affairs to the scrutiny of
another was altogether repugnant to him.
“My dear child, your kindness of heart pleases me. It is a very
beautiful Christian spirit that prompts you to help carry another’s
burdens.”
He bent his head slightly; he was afraid to refuse to grant Zelda’s
wish; but perhaps in permitting her to help her unfortunate relatives
he would gain the favor of Heaven.
“I will draw the notes from the bank and let the matter rest for the
present, Zee, if you very much wish it.”
“If that will save them further trouble, that will do.”
“I shall give the bank notice in a day or two,” said Dameron,
reluctantly. He wished that Zelda would go. He did not at all like the
idea of having her visit him in his office, and to-day he was engrossed
with important computations. He wished to be rid of her, but she rose
so suddenly that he was startled.
“Why, father, I couldn’t think of troubling you with a thing of this
sort when you’re doing it as a favor to me! What bank is it? The
one where I keep my account? Oh, I know them over there. I’m going
down that way anyhow, and I’ll tell them you don’t want those notes
collected. Thank you ever so much.”
“No, no; I’ll have to see about it personally. You mustn’t interfere
in the matter at all!” he almost shouted at her. But she had no idea
of trusting him, and she walked straight toward the door, at which she
turned.
“It’s splendid of you to let me do it. And please don’t be late for
dinner again to-night. It’s a new trick of yours, and Polly doesn’t
like it at all. Good-by.”
Two thousand dollars looked smaller to Ezra Dameron now than ever
before in his life. His thoughts were with larger matters than mortgage
loans. It was better to drop the Merriam loan altogether than to invite
a scrutiny of the affairs of his trusteeship, he reflected; and Zelda
had hardly reached the street before he was again deep in his figures.
Zelda went directly to the bank and sought Burton, the cashier, whom
she had met several times at parties. He gave her a seat by his desk
near the front window. He was sure that she had come to solicit for a
charity, and she was so handsome that he rather enjoyed his peril.
“I have come from my father to speak about a business matter. He is
very sorry that he can’t come himself. There are some notes here for
collection, given by Mrs. Thomas Merriam to my father. He thought,
or--I mean, they were to have been collected, but it was all a mistake
about them. He wished me to say that nothing was to be done.”
“Excuse me one moment, Miss Dameron.”
He went to the note-teller’s cage and brought the notes, which were
pinned to the mortgage.
“Your father wishes nothing done in the matter?” he asked, laying the
slips of paper before Zelda.
“No,” she answered slowly, eying the notes curiously. “I suppose I may
as well take them with me,--to save my father the trouble of coming for
them.”
“That’s a little--irregular, I suppose,” said the young man,
doubtfully, but he laughed.
“I suppose it is,” said Zelda, “but father was very anxious that
nothing should be done, so I’ll just take them along. Your bank is so
big that some one might forget a little thing like this.”
The young man hesitated and was lost. Zelda crumpled the papers between
her gloved fingers and closed her fist upon them.
“There’s something else I have intended speaking to you about,” she
said, dismissing the notes carelessly. “You haven’t had any nice new
money in your bank for a long time, Mr. Burton. And old bills are
perfectly horrible. I shouldn’t think people would stand it--these old,
worn-out bills. Suppose a new bank should start up with a lot of new
money--you wouldn’t last a day.”
The cashier laughed; Miss Dameron had a reputation for saying amusing
and unexpected things.
“I’ll ask the teller to keep a fresh supply for you. We don’t want to
lose your account, Miss Dameron.”
“Thank you, so much. And if father should come in please tell him I
have the notes. I might miss him, you know.”
The cashier found a moment of leisure in which to speak to the
president, an elderly gentleman with a well-trimmed beard and a
fondness for red scarfs.
“There’s something doing in the Dameron family,” Burton announced.
“Has the old man murdered the girl or is he just torturing her to
prolong the agony?” said the president.
“The girl’s all right. She has the whip hand.”
“She may think she has; but he’s a keen one, is Ezra.”
“Miss Dameron was just in to get those notes of Thomas Merriam’s widow
we have for collection. The old man told me yesterday to go ahead
and collect them without delay. The daughter came in this afternoon
and said her father was very anxious that Mrs. Merriam should not be
disturbed. He was even so worried about it that he sent Miss Dameron
around to get the notes. I imagine he was troubled to death about it.”
The cashier thrust his hands into his pockets and grinned.
“I suppose she gave you a receipt for the notes.”
“No. One doesn’t ask Miss Dameron for receipts,” replied the cashier.
“I’d have given her all the government bonds in the vault if she had
asked for them.”
“You speak as though you were sorry she hadn’t.”
“I guess the old man has met his match,” said the cashier. “Miss
Dameron has struck up an intimacy with her cousin, Olive Merriam, whose
mother owes E. Dameron, Esquire, money. When E.’s daughter heard the
money was to be collected she told him it was no good and pulled him
off. And being a bright young woman she came around herself for the
notes. She’s on to the old man like a million of brick.”
“Well,” said the president, conservatively, “he’s an old customer of
ours. We must not lose him.”
“That would be a real loss,” said the cashier. “The daughter comes in
once a week to cash a check, and I couldn’t bear to part with that. The
sight of her coming in in that sweepy, on-wings-from-heaven way of hers
lifts my spirit like a cocktail.”
“You have it bad,” said the president. “If you’re going to that
clearing-house meeting you’d better skip.”
Zelda locked the mortgage and notes in her own desk, with no intention
of giving them to her father, unless he should demand them. When he
came home in the evening he seemed to be lost in meditation, and after
a silent meal he studied his papers while Zelda sat and read.
She had no longer the consolation of the open fire, which, though an
ugly thing of coal, had nevertheless made many of the winter evenings
tolerable. The open windows now admitted the street noises, and the
cries of the neighborhood children at play stole into the room. There
was something stifling in her life; she felt sometimes that she could
not breathe. She sat for long with a book in her hands, but with her
eyes upon the wall; and, as she was thus lost in her thoughts, she was
aware suddenly that her father’s eyes were bent upon her.
“Oh, Zee,” he said when she turned to him, “what was it you asked me
to-day about Mrs. Merriam’s loan? I have been so occupied that I don’t
quite remember what we decided to do about it.”
There was a senile quaver in his voice; but she knew that he did not
speak the truth.
“You said you would withdraw the notes from the bank, and you let me go
to explain about it. I brought the papers home and put them away in my
desk.”
“Yes, yes; I believe that was it. Yes; to be sure. So you have the
notes. Well, you’d better hand them to me,--quite at your convenience.”
“Certainly, father.”
He was satisfied and turned again to his endless computations.