UNDER A CLOUD
Rose had been a few weeks at the Fifields, long enough to learn the
family ways, so that Miss Fifield felt she could leave home for a
long-planned visit. It was a stormy day, and Mrs. Patience suddenly
exclaimed, “I wonder who can be coming this way in such a hurry? Why, I
believe—yes, it is Rose, running as fast as she can. I hope Eudora is
not sick.”
Almost as she spoke the door opened and Rose rushed in, snow-powdered
and breathless; her hat blown partly off, her face wet with tears as
well as snow flakes, and her voice broken and thick with sobs, as
without giving time for any questions she burst out:
“You said it was a leading of Providence for me to go to the Fifields’.
But it wasn’t; and he says he will have me put in jail if I don’t tell
where the money is. And _how_ can I tell when I don’t know? Maybe God
cares for some folks, but I’m sure He doesn’t for me or I wouldn’t have
so much trouble. I wish I was dead, I do!” and flinging herself down on
the well-worn lounge she buried her face in the pillow and burst into a
storm of sobs.
What did it all mean? They were equally perplexed by the mystery and
distressed by Rose’s evident grief. Mrs. Patience drew off her things
and tried to calm her with soothing words; Miss Silence brought the
camphor bottle—her remedy for all ills. But Rose only cried the harder
till Mrs. Blossom kindly, but with the authority that comes of a calm
and self-controlled nature, said, “Rose, you _must_ stop crying, and
tell us what is the trouble.”
Then choking back her sobs Rose lifted her tear-swollen face and
exclaimed, “Oh, Mrs. Blossom, Mr. Fifield says I have taken a hundred
dollars! A hundred dollars in gold! And I don’t know one thing more
about it than you do, but he won’t believe me, and he calls me a thief,
and everybody will think I am awful, when I want to be good, and was
trying so hard to do my best. What shall I do?” and she wrung her
hands with a gesture of utter despair.
Further questioning at last brought a connected story, from which
it appeared that Nathan Fifield had a hundred dollars in gold, that
from some whim he had put for safe keeping in the parlor stove. That
morning, going around the house to tie up a loose vine, he had glanced
through the parlor window and seen Rose at the stove with the door
open. And when, his suspicion aroused, he had looked for the money it
had been to find it gone, and at once had accused Rose of the theft.
“And he says I showed guilt when I saw him,” Rose wailed, “and I did
start, for I was frightened to see a face looking in at the window, and
with the snow on the glass I didn’t know at first who it was.”
“But what were you in the parlor, and at the stove for?” questioned
Mrs. Blossom.
“I was dusting the front hall and the parlor. Miss Fifield sweeps the
parlor once a month and I dust it every week, though I don’t see the
need, for those are all the times anybody ever goes into it. Some
feathers came out of the duster, it’s old and does shed feathers, and
I had opened the stove door to throw them in. I didn’t know there was
ever any money in a little leather bag in there; I never dreamed of
such a thing. And if I had I shouldn’t have touched it. Madam Sharpe
always trusted me with her purse, and I never took a penny from her.
I’m not a thief, if he does say that I am. But they won’t believe me.
Miss Eudora is just as certain, and I shall have to go to jail, for I
can’t tell where the money is.”
“Poor child!” and Grandmother Sweet stroked the head that had gone
down in Mrs. Patience’s lap. “It is borne on my mind,” and she glanced
around the little group, “that Rose is wholly innocent, and that
mindful of her youth and inexperience it were well for some of us to
see Neighbor Fifield if an explanation of the mystery cannot be found.
“No,” with a wave of her hand, as both of her granddaughters made a
motion to rise, “Silence, thee is apt to be hasty and might say more
than was seemly; and Patience, thee inclines to be timid, and might not
say as much as was needful. Thy mother is the one to go; she has both
prudence and courage.”
“Oh, how good you are to me!” Rose exclaimed. “And never so good as
now! I thought you would believe me, I just felt it would kill me if
you didn’t, and now that I know you do I won’t be afraid of anything.”
Mrs. Blossom was already wrapping herself in her cloak. “Come, Rose,
put on your things; the sooner this is sifted the better,” and Rose, as
many another had done before her, felt a new comfort and strength in
Mrs. Blossom’s strength.
They found Mr. Fifield and his sister hardly less excited than Rose.
“You cannot regret, Mrs. Blossom, any more than I do, this most
distressing occurrence,” and Mr. Nathan rubbed his flushed bald head
with his red silk handkerchief. “I would rather have given the money
twice over than have had it happen. But I must say that it is no more
than I expected when my sisters persisted, against my judgment, in
bringing into the house a girl of whose ancestors they knew nothing,
and who most likely is the child of some of the foreign paupers who
are flooding our shores. I’m sorry, though not surprised, that it has
ended as it has.”
Mr. Nathan was really troubled and sorry, as he said, but he could not
help a spark of self-satisfaction that he had been proven in the right
and his sisters in the wrong. As for Miss Eudora, keenly mortified
at the turn matters had taken, her former friendliness to Rose only
increased her present indignation.
“It’s not only the loss of the money,” she exclaimed, “but the
ingratitude of it, after all our kindness to her, and I gave her my
pink muffler; she never could have done what she has if she had not
been really hardened.”
“But what proof have you that she took the money?” asked Mrs. Blossom.
“As you say she is a stranger to us all, a friendless, homeless orphan,
whose condition is a claim to our charity as well as our generosity.”
“Proof,” echoed Mr. Nathan. “Pretty plain proof I should call it, and
I’ve served three terms as Justice of the Peace. Last Saturday the
money was safe in its place of concealment. This morning I surprised
her there and her confusion on discovery was almost evidence enough of
itself. When I look for the package it is gone, and during this time
not a soul outside the immediate family has been in the house. I regret
the fact, but every circumstance points to her as the guilty one.”
“For all that,” Mrs. Blossom’s voice was calmly even, “I believe there
is some mistake. At the Refuge they told Patience they had always
found her truthful and honest, and while she was with us we never saw
anything to make us doubt that she was perfectly trusty. I did not even
know of her meddling with what she ought not to.”
“Oh, she’s a sly one,” and Mr. Nathan rubbed his head harder than
before. “She has taken us all in—and that includes myself, and inclines
me still more to the belief that this is not her first offence; and
also to the opinion that she should be promptly dealt with.”
“At the same time I hope,” urged Mrs. Blossom, “that you will do
nothing hastily. Imprisonment is a terrible thing for a young girl like
Rose, and might blast her whole life. Time makes many things clear, and
it is always better to err on the side of mercy than of justice.”
“Certainly, certainly. And I do not know,” lowering his voice so it
might not reach Rose, “that I should really send her to jail; but the
law—” and he waved his hand with his most magisterial air, “the law
must be a terror to evil-doers. If not, what is law good for? We might
as well not have any, and my social as well as my official position
demands that I enforce it.”
“And she deserves to be well punished, if ever any one did.” Miss
Eudora gave an indignant shake to her curls as she spoke. “And I was
just thinking of giving her the blue cashmere I had when I went to
Albany. Jane is always complaining of what she calls my ‘shilly-shally’
ways, and finding fault with my lack of decision, and I feel that at
whatever cost to myself I must be firm in this. Though nobody knows
what a shock it has been to my nerves.”
“Besides,” triumphantly added Mr. Nathan Fifield, who felt that he was
on the defensive before Mrs. Blossom, and holding up as he spoke an
old-fashioned, richly chased gold locket, “here is further evidence.
While Rose was gone Eudora made an examination of her effects and this
is what she found concealed in a pincushion. Now I leave it to you if
it looks reasonable that a child in her position would have a valuable
trinket like that; or if she had, would keep it hidden?”
When they entered the house Mrs. Blossom had told Rose to stay in
another room, but through the partly opened door she caught a glimpse
of the locket as it swung from Mr. Nathan’s fingers.
“That is mine!” she cried, darting in. “My very own, and it was my
mother’s. What right have you with it, I should like to know? And why
isn’t it stealing for you to go and take my things?”
“Hush, Rose!” Mrs. Blossom reproved. And then her faith in Rose a
little shaken in spite of herself, “If the locket is yours, as you say,
why did you never tell us about it? And why did you hide it so?”
“Why, I never once thought of it,” she answered, looking frankly up at
Mrs. Blossom. “I don’t think the locket is pretty at all, it is so
queer and old-fashioned, and I don’t even know whose picture is inside.
All the reason I care for it is because it was my mother’s. And I sewed
it up in that pincushion, which one of the teachers at the Refuge gave
me, because I was afraid if Mrs. Hagood saw the locket she might take
it away from me.”
“I wonder if this could have been her mother’s father,” for Mrs.
Blossom’s mind at once turned to the subject she had thought of so
often—that of Rose’s family.
“There was a chain to the locket once, but I broke and lost that. I
remember that mamma used sometimes to let me wear it, and it seems to
me she said it was Uncle Samuel’s picture, but I’m not sure.”
“It certainly is a good face.” And Mrs. Blossom held out the open
locket to Miss Eudora, who as she took it let it drop from her fingers
that the unwonted excitement had made tremulous. In striking the floor
a spring was pressed to a compartment behind the picture, and as Mr.
Nathan Fifield stooped to pick it up a piece of closely folded paper
fell out.
Mrs. Blossom hastily spread this out, and found it the marriage
certificate of Kate Jarvis and James Shannon, dated at Fredonia, N.
Y., some sixteen years before. “Here is a clue to Rose’s family,” she
exclaimed, as they all clustered about the bit of time-yellowed paper,
forgetting for the moment the cloud that rested so heavily over Rose.
“It surely should be,” responded Mr. Nathan.
“I shall write to Fredonia at once,” continued Mrs. Blossom. “And as
the minister whose name is signed may in the meantime have died or
moved away, my best course would be to write first to the postmaster
for information, would it not?”
[Illustration: “HERE IS A CLUE TO ROSE’S FAMILY.”—_Page 216._]
“That is what I should advise.” Squire Nathan was never so happy as
when giving advice. “It might be well to inclose a letter to the
minister, and also a copy of the marriage certificate. If Rose has
any relatives living she ought to trace them by this. Though whether
she is likely to prove any credit to her family or not is doubtful,”
he added, recalling with a frown the fact that she was a suspected
criminal.
“I have faith in her that she will.” Mrs. Blossom’s tone was decided.
“And if you are willing to let matters rest for the present I will, if
you have no objections, take Rose home with me.”
“I shall be only too glad to have you, for my part.” Miss Eudora’s tone
was fervent. “After what has happened I don’t feel that I could endure
her in the house another day.”
“And of course I shall consider you responsible for her safekeeping,”
added Mr. Nathan. “She admits that she ran away once; she may do so
again.”
“No, I won’t, you need not be afraid.” Rose’s voice was trembling, but
she held it firm.
“For you understand,” with emphasis, “that I am not dropping the matter
of the missing money, but only, at your request, passing it over for
the present. I will repeat, however, that if Rose will confess and
return the money, no one but ourselves shall ever know of it. If she
does not I shall feel myself constrained, much as I may regret the
necessity, to resort to more severe measures,” and he blew his nose
with a great flourish of his red silk handkerchief by way of emphasis.