SQUARING ACCOUNTS.
On the evening of the day on which the Coles' had arrived, and Miss Crew
had come out in her true colors as Pearl Villiers, the heiress, in which
her step-sister, Mrs. Cole, was branded with the name and character she
has earned as devotee of the father of lies; there was so much to say,
and so many to say it; so many hand clasps for the poor victim, Charlie
Cole, on the incoming for his wife of Will Smyth, the Tremaines the A.
Jones, and others, that the slipping out of Mrs. Dale and Mr. Blair, to
meet the girl, Beatrice Hill, is unnoticed.
After waiting in the shadow of the house, building on the next lot, for
a considerable time, and evening is fast waning into night, Mr. Cobbe
appears in the distance, coming at a brisk pace; nears, opens the gate,
is up the walk, rings, and is admitted.
"Now she will come, I fervently hope," said Mrs. Dale, impatiently;
"horrid pair they are, interfering with our hearing the circus indoors.
If our friend, Mr. Cobbe was mated to that hideous scold, Mrs. Cole, I
reckon he would not get too much line. But she would never have trapped
him, he knows too much; unless, indeed, she had settled half the plunder
on him to close his mouth with the bon-bons that his soul loveth."
"Your words, Mrs. Dale, give me an idea; I wonder if he would pose as
'Pooh Bah,' and pocket an insult, in the shape of a bribe, to give our
dear friend her freedom."
"Yes; I do believe he would," she answers, eagerly; "I wonder we have
not thought of that before."
"But how can we work it; I cannot appear, though my bank notes are at
his service; I wonder if your very philanthropic husband would undertake
the delicate mission?"
"Indeed, he would; he just loves making rough places smooth for people."
"It is very good of him," he said, gratefully. "I fear this girl, Hill,
is as slippery as Cobbe himself; you had better return to the house, and
I shall go to her address, Seaton street; and if I do not find her,
shall see if I can elicit any item of importance from others in the
house."
"But you will wish to come in and tell Elaine good-night first; you will
not sleep otherwise," she said, teasingly.
"You are right; but I must practise self-denial; indeed, it is my life
just now, and endeavor to earn a blissful reward by gaining her release
from Mr. Cobbe. Did you ever see such a contrast in faces and expression
as that vixen, Cole's wife, presented, compared to our dear Elaine?"
"No; unless it was myself, which of course you did not see," she said,
saucily; "but I like you all the better for it. I hate your men who are
all things to all women; go now, and success attend you. Good-night."
Walking rapidly, winged love buoying him up, he soon reaches the Spadina
Avenue terminus, when, fortune smiling, he has not to wait the twenty
minutes for the car, for the driver is in the act of turning the horses'
heads south. Entering, wrapt in thought, he does not notice the numbers
on this broad highway who make their ingress or egress. Pretty girls,
peeping from cloud-like fascinators, attended by their chosen valentine,
or by chaperon, evidently, by their gay trappings, bent on scoring a
last dance before Lent, for this is St. Valentine's Day, and to-morrow
will be Ash Wednesday, and so good-bye for a season to the pleasures of
Terpsichore. No, he is observant of nothing, excepting the many
stoppages, at which he is impatient. Even electric lighted King street
is passed through unnoticed; men thinking, on seeing his bent head and
knit brows, poor fellow, probably bit by the "Central." Girls
whispering, "He has missed the ring in his Shrove Tuesday pancakes this
evening, getting only the button. What a pity, for he would be handsome
if he would only see us."
At the crossing of his turn north, the driver calling Sherbourne street,
he changes cars, and in due course leaves them, to walk up Seaton
street. Reaching his number, he rings the bell of a small rough-cast
house. A man in his shirt sleeves, and with the smell of fresh pine
about him, opens the door.
"Does a young woman, named Hill, live here?"
"Yes, sir; just step in, please," and ushering him into a sitting-room,
at one end there being a new pine table nearly finished, tools and
shavings about. A woman, who is nursing a baby, says: "Take this chair,
sir; but I'm a'most feared Beatrice has too bad a head to see you."
"Tell her, please, that I must see her, if she is able to sit up at
all," he says, decidedly.
"Very well, sir," and going to another room on same flat, he could hear
half-angry words and sobs.
The woman returning, eyeing him suspiciously, said:
"No, sir; she says as how she'll see you to-morrow."
"That won't do. I _must_ have the information she has promised,
otherwise the detectives will do the work for me at once," he said
sternly.
"Detectives! oh!" she cries, quickly, in changed tones, leaving the
room; when there is more parleying on the part of the woman. She now
returns, saying:
"Please, step this way, sir."
Going into the girl's room, who is evidently a vest-maker, by the pile
of said articles on a table, another on the sewing-machine. She gives a
sulky nod, pointing him to a chair. She has a seedy gown on, untidy
hair, and no collar, looking as if she cared for naught. There is an
attempt at decoration on the flowered wall-paper, in shape of business
cards pinned thereon, with the inevitable bow of ribbon; three cane
chairs, a trunk, a bright rag carpet, two tables, and a small lounge,
furnish the room. Conspicuous among the photos lying on a table, and the
only one enthroned in a scarlet plush frame, is a smiling photograph of
Mr. Cobbe.
Determined on showing nothing like feeling, in her half hysterical
state, he says, briefly:
"Well, what have you to tell me, as you failed in keeping your
appointment? I have come to hear."
"And suppose I go back on my word, and don't tell you?" she said,
doggedly.
"Then you shall be made to speak," he says, with a brave front; though
his heart is heavy at her words.
"Oh, I know what fine gentlemen's boasts add up to," she says, crossly
and defiantly, dashing away her tears; "to just nothing."
"You shall be put in the lock-up if you are caught prowling about any
one's residence after this."
"And what would you gain by that?" she says, cunningly.
While Blair, sighing for woman's tact, wishes Mrs. Dale was with him,
when a sudden thought occurs to him; rising, as if to go, he says, with
assumed carelessness:
"Very well; if you won't help yourself and me, by making a clean breast
of it, things will have to take their own course, and that man,"
indicating by a gesture the photograph of Mr. Cobbe, "and that man will
be lost to you, as the husband of a certain lady in the north-west end."
At this she is humble enough, her tears bursting afresh.
"Oh, no, no; I am just crazy to-night, that my Phil is with her; and I
have been crying my eyes out, because I daren't go up, because of you
coming out to make me tell on him; oh, oh, oh."
"But can't you see, girl, that this is the only way you will keep him to
yourself, by telling what hold you have on him. If you don't, as sure as
you are alive, he will marry yonder lady, and spurn you like a worm
under his heel," he said, with angry impatience.
"Oh, never; oh, oh, oh, me! I suppose I had best tell, then." And going
to the trunk, taking out a small box, which she unlocks with a key,
suspended by a ribbon around her neck, she takes therefrom a few lines
written on half a sheet of paper, handing it to him. It read:
"SIMCOE ST., March 16.
"DEAREST LOVE,--Be _sure_ and be on time at the Union Depot.
It's all nonsense your asking me to marry you before we start.
It's not common sense of you. The other women who want me would
tear your pretty eyes out. No, Betty, my petty. I will marry
you when we get to Buffalo; not before; so do not make me
angry, when you ought to be the happiest woman in Toronto at
going away with your own
"PHILIP."
"Did he marry you?" asked Blair, placing the paper carefully in his
pocket-book.
Coloring, as she hangs her head, she does not notice his act.
"What's that to you?" she said, doggedly.
"It's everything; speak, or take the consequences."
"He didn't, then; but he's not free to marry that hussy, since I have
his writ promise, where is my paper? Give it me."
"Softly, softly, young woman; I want him to do right by you."
"But you'll only rouse the devil in him, sir; and he'll see me no more,"
she says, wringing her hands.
"Listen to reason, girl, I will borrow this paper, and on my honor; but
pshaw, you won't credit me with so scarce a commodity," he says, half
aside. "Lend me the letter until this time to-morrow, and here is ten
dollars; when I return it you shall have ten more."
"Not much; you bet, it shan't leave my eye-sight for any money."
But after a weary talk she unwillingly consents; when he leaves the
house.
During the next three days and nights Mr. Blair was half beside himself
with anxieties, doubts and fears; for Mr. Dale, even with the letter to
Beatrice Hill in his hand, could do nothing with Mr. Cobbe. As mulish as
the girl Hill, he refused to release Mrs. Gower from her oath; finally,
in fiery wrath declaring there would be a heavy breach of promise case,
did she break faith.
The result was, that with the Dales, Pearl Villiers and Mr. Cole, at
Holmnest, a busy week was spent.
Mrs. Gower telling Mr. Cobbe, since he would have it so, she would wed
him sometime or other, parting with him at the foot of the altar,
henceforth to meet as strangers; that but for his own acts, they would
have been friends; but she could never forget all she had already
suffered in nervous fear of the girl Hill.
And so, as rapidly as possible she prepares, as before arranged, to
leave Holmnest for some months. Charlie Cole was to join his father at
Jacksonville, Florida, the following day; Pearl Villiers and herself
following. The house to be left in care of the kitchen, the Dales making
it their home when in the city; but in a day or two, they would be most
likely summoned to New York on peremptory business for a few days.
Mrs. Dale and Mrs. Gower were amused in a sad sort of way, for their
thoughts were gravely set, on the attitude taken by Mr. Cobbe. Still, it
was a sort of distraction to note the manner of each toward the other;
of Pearl Villiers and Charlie Cole, the latter demanding, and the former
seeming to think it her duty to wait on him, humor him, go out for
little sunlit walks on the veranda with him, play his favorite music,
and endeavor to make up to him for her step-sister's wicked act, in
coming between them.
"It's a rather dangerous game though, Elaine; they will trade hearts
unconsciously."
"Yes, I have feared that, Ella; God spare her from that misery," she
says, gravely, with hands pressed to her own aching heart.
"Pearl," said Charlie Cole, as throwing away his cane, he leans lightly
on her arm, as they pace up and down the sun-warm veranda, half an hour
before the hack arrives to convey him to the Union Depot, "Tell me,
Pearl, dear; but for my wretched union with your wicked step-sister,
would you have married me willingly, mark me, willingly?" he says,
probing her.
"I would," she says, truthfully, blushing vividly; "but I don't think
it's quite right to talk of it now, Charlie, is it? only, if we had
known long ago when we have met as strangers, Margaret might have been
spared this sin."
"How your eyes seemed to follow me, Pearl. Our friend, Mrs. Gower, and
myself have been the foot-ball of circumstances, she used to have
instantaneous photographs of Blair, and is doomed to Cobbe; same fate as
mine."
"My heart is full of pity for you both, dear; but try and think of it as
God's will, and it will come easier."
"I know all that; but it's confoundedly hard that those vultures should
have it all their own way."