THE OLD CEDAR TREE.
Immediately after breakfast the next morning, Mrs. Harrington returned
to the city, perhaps glad to escape from the unnatural mental atmosphere
of the house, certainly much to the relief of all the inmates of the
dwelling.
Grantley Mellen drove his guest down to the railway train. The moment
they departed Elizabeth and Elsie, as if by a common impulse, started in
a different direction, apparently anxious not to be left alone with each
other.
Elsie was passing through the hall when her brother drove up to the
door. She stopped him after he got out of the carriage for a few
moments' trifling conversation, then allowed him to pass on towards the
library.
As the girl fluttered back towards the veranda, she saw old Jarvis
Benson approaching the house, and hurried out.
"Oh, Jarvis, I wanted to see you."
Jarvis took the pipe out of his mouth, regarded her complacently, and
answered:
"Then thar's a pair on you, Miss Mellen."
"I want to have a pair of very light oars made to the little boat, so
that I can learn to row it," pursued Elsie.
"That's easy done," said Jarvis. "I guess I've got a pair that'll
answer. Only don't dround yourself."
"I'll take care of that," she replied, laughing. "But who else wants
you, Jarvis?"
"Your brother told me to come up, and--oh, there he is."
Mr. Mellen had heard voices, and came through the hall out on the
veranda.
"Good morning, Jarvis!" he said, in his quiet way.
"Good morning, sir! You don't look very well, I think," observed the
keen-sighted old man.
Elsie glanced at her brother; he was very pale, and his heavy eyes told
of a long, sleepless night.
Mr. Mellen frowned slightly; it displeased him to have his personal
appearance commented upon, and wounded his pride to know that he had not
sufficient strength to keep back every outward sign of the anxiety and
trouble he was enduring.
"Be you well, now?" continued the pertinacious old man, who had a habit
of asking questions and expressing his opinions with the utmost freedom
to people of every degree.
"Perfectly well," replied Mr. Mellen. "You have come up about that tree,
have you?"
"Wal, yes," said Jarvis. "I hadn't much to do this morning, so I thought
I'd just come round and find out what's the matter. You hain't found no
gardener yet?"
"No; I have sent to town for one. You have sufficient knowledge to keep
the greenhouse in order until one is found."
"Just as you say, sir; I'll do my best."
The gardener at Piney Cove had seen fit to leave the place a few days
before without the slightest warning, with the true, reckless
independence of the Hibernian race. When a dilemma of this kind arose,
the people of the neighborhood were in the habit of sending for old
Benson, who seemed, in some mysterious way, to have acquired a
smattering of knowledge about everything that could make him generally
useful.
Elsie did not feel particularly interested in the subject of
conversation, and was moving off in search of other amusement, when she
heard old Jarvis say:
"It's the big cypress yonder, in the thicket, ain't it?"
She stopped short in the hall, and stood leaning against the door with
her back towards them.
"Yes," Mr. Mellen answered. "I am afraid it is dying. I want you to dig
about the roots and see if you can find out where the trouble lies."
"Loosening the earth a bit'll maybe do a world of good," said Jarvis;
"I've seen it 'liven a tree right up."
"We will try, at all events," observed Mr. Mellen. "First you may take
those plants under the library window into the greenhouse; it is too
late for them to be left out."
He walked to the side of the house to point out the flowers he wished to
have removed. Elsie darted through the hall and up the stairs in
breathless haste.
She paused at the door of her sister's room and tried the knob, but the
bolt was drawn.
"Elizabeth! Elizabeth!" she called out in a frightened whisper, utterly
incapable of speaking aloud. "Open the door--for heaven's sake, open the
door!"
There was terror in her voice which communicated itself to the woman
sitting so apathetically in her chamber. She rose and opened the door,
whispering, in a voice full of alarm:
"What is it? What is it?"
Elsie pushed her back into the room, shut and locked the door, and
staggered to a couch.
"The cypress tree!" she gasped. "They are going there."
"Who?" cried Elizabeth. "What do you mean?"
"I can't speak--oh, I am choking!" gasped Elsie.
Elizabeth seized her arm, and fairly shook her with frenzied impatience.
"Speak!" she exclaimed. "Speak, I say!"
"Grant has sent old Jarvis to dig about the roots," returned Elsie, in a
shrill whisper.
Elizabeth Mellen sank slowly upon her knees, her limbs giving way
suddenly, as if she had been struck with paralysis. She caught at
Elsie's dress, the girl raised herself, and there they remained for
several moments, staring in each others' faces, with a white, sickening
terror, which could find no relief in words.
After a time Elizabeth shook herself free from Elsie's grasp and rose;
the power to think and act was coming back to her.
"You heard them say this?" she asked.
"Yes, yes!" cried Elsie. "Grant sent for old Jarvis to come up and dig
round the tree; he thinks it is dying."
Elizabeth threw up her arms in silence, more expressive of agony than a
shriek.
"It has come at last!" broke from her white lips. "It has come at last!"
Elsie cowered down upon the sofa and buried her head in the cushions,
shaking with hysterical tremors from head to foot, and uttering
repressed sobs.
"Exposure--ruin--disgrace!" moaned Elizabeth, as if repeating words that
some secret voice whispered in her ear. "It has come at last! It has
come at last!"
"I shall die!" shrieked Elsie. "I shall go mad!"
She beat the couch wildly with her clenched hands and gave way to a
violent nervous spasm, but this time Elizabeth made no effort to soothe
her; she stood there, cold and white, repeating at intervals, in that
dismal whisper:
"It has come at last! It has come at last!"
"Do something," sobbed Elsie. "Don't stand there as if you were turning
to stone. Think of some way to stop them."
"What can I do?" returned Elizabeth. "I tell you it has come! I knew it,
I have been expecting it!"
Elsie gave another shriek, sprang off the sofa, threw herself at her
sister's feet, clutching her dress with both hands, and cried out:
"Do something--anything! I shall go crazy--my brain is burning! I won't
live--I tell you I won't live if you don't stop this."
Elizabeth shook off her grasp, not angrily, not impatiently even, but
with a sudden change of expression, as if Elsie's despair had brought
back some half-forgotten resolution, and given her wild strength once
more.
"You will not suffer," she said, drearily. "You are safe."
"But you--what will become of you?" groaned the girl.
"Let go my dress--get up, Elsie! See, I am calm. I tell you, no harm
will come to you--get up."
Elsie staggered to her feet, and sat down on the sofa with a burst of
tears.
"I'd rather kill myself than see you tormented so!" she cried. "I have
the poison yet--I've always kept it. If they don't stop, Elizabeth, they
shall find us dead and cold----"
"Stop!" said Elizabeth. "I won't hear such wicked words! The danger is
mine, the ruin and disgrace are mine--all mine; but I do not talk of
killing myself."
"You are so brave," moaned Elsie, "and I am such a poor, weak thing. Oh,
oh! This will kill me either way, I know it will!"
"I know what will happen to me," said Elizabeth, in a voice of unnatural
calmness. "Do you know what this day will bring? Before two hours are
gone I shall be driven out of this house, a lost, ruined woman."
"No, no! Grant will forgive you--he loves you so!"
"Does a man ever forgive a wrong like that?"
"But you will say you don't know--I will."
"Are you a baby? Don't you know there will be an exposure--we shall all
be questioned--forced to give evidence."
"We will say anything--anything!" cried Elsie.
"We cannot satisfy Grantley Mellen. I tell you, Elsie, this is the last
interview we shall ever hold under this roof."
Elsie threw herself down in renewed anguish, shrieking and sobbing so
violently that nothing could be done or thought of till she had been
restored to composure by the strong remedies Elizabeth administered.
"Promise not to tell that I ever knew of it," she pleaded. "Swear! I'll
kill myself if you don't!"
"I have promised," returned Elizabeth, in a hollow voice. "I will bear
whatever comes--ruin, death--and bear it alone, you shall not be dragged
in."
These words, so solemnly spoken, appeared to give the girl new life and
energy.
"Go downstairs," she said; "stop them. You can stop them yet."
"How--what can I say?"
"Tell Grant that the gardener said the tree must be left till
spring--bribe old Jarvis to say so--oh, anything, anything; only try,
Elizabeth. Save yourself if possible."
The woman walked to the window and looked out.
"They are going," she said.
"Go down!" shrieked Elsie. "Go down, I say!"
Elizabeth took a few steps towards the door--caught sight of her face in
the mirror, and stopped appalled at the haggard image reflected there.
"Look at me," she said; "my face tells the whole story."
"There is some rouge in that drawer," said Elsie. "Mrs. Harrington left
it. I'll put it on your cheeks."
Elsie could think, now that Elizabeth showed herself ready to bear her
danger alone. She got out the rouge, rubbed it on her sister's cheeks,
and smoothed her hair.
"Now you look like yourself--nobody would notice. Go quick--stop
them--stop them!"