MRS. JOHNSON’S LETTER.
The spring had passed away, and the warm June sun was shining over
Spring Bank, whose mistress and servants were very lonely, for Hugh was
absent, and with him the light of the house had departed. Business of
his late uncle’s had taken him to New Orleans, where he might possibly
remain all summer. _’Lina_ was glad, for since the fatal dress affair
there had been but little harmony between herself and her brother. The
tenderness awakened by her long illness seemed to have been forgotten,
and Hugh’s manner toward her was cold and irritating to the last degree,
so that the young lady rejoiced to be freed from his presence.
“I do hope he’ll stay,” she said one morning, when speaking of him to
her mother. “I think it’s a heap nicer without him, though dull enough
at the best. I wish we could go to some watering place. There’s the
Tifftons just returned from New York, and I don’t much believe they can
afford it more than we, for I heard their place was mortgaged to Harney.
Oh, bother, to be so poor,” and the young lady gave a little angry jerk
at the hair she was braiding.
“Whar’s ole miss?” asked Claib, who had just returned from Versailles.
“Thar’s a letter for her,” and depositing it upon the bureau, he left
the room.
“Whose writing is that?” ’Lina said, catching it up and examining the
postmark. “Ho, mother! here’s a letter in a strange handwriting. Shall I
open it?” she called, and ere her mother could reply, she had broken the
seal, and held in her hand the draft which made her the heiress of one
thousand dollars.
Had the fabled godmother of Cinderilla appeared to her suddenly, she
would scarcely have been more bewildered.
“Mother,” she screamed again, reading aloud the ‘Pay to the order of
Adaline Worthington,’ etc. “What does it mean, and who could have sent
it? Isn’t it splendid! Who is Alice Johnson? Oh, I know, that old friend
of yours, who came to see you once when I was gone. What does she say?
‘My dear Eliza, feeling that I have not long to live—’ What—dead? Well,
I’m sorry for that, but, I must say, she did a very sensible thing
sending me a thousand dollars. We’ll go somewhere now, won’t we?” and
clutching fast the draft, the heartless girl yielded the letter to her
mother, who with blanched cheek and quivering lip read the last message
of her friend; then burying her face in her hands she sobbed as the past
came back to her, when the Alice now forever at rest and herself were
girls together.
’Lina stood a moment, wishing her mother had not cried, as it made it
very awkward—then, for want of something better to do took up the letter
her mother had dropped and read it through, commenting as she read.
“Wants you to take her daughter Alice. Is the woman crazy? And her
nurse, Densie Densmore. Say, mother, you’ve cried enough, let’s talk the
matter over. Shall you let Alice come? Ten dollars a week, they’ll pay.
Five hundred and twenty dollars a year. Whew! We are rich as Jews. It
won’t cost half that sum to keep them. Our ship is really coming in.”
By this time Mrs. Worthington was able to talk of a matter which had
apparently so delighted ’Lina. Her first remark, however, was not very
pleasing to the young lady.
“As far as I am concerned I would willingly give Alice a home, but it’s
not for me to say. Hugh alone can decide it. We must write to him.”
“You know he’ll refuse,” was ’Lina’s angry reply. “He hates young
ladies. So if it hangs on his decision, you may as well save your
postage stamp to New Orleans, and write at once to Miss Johnson that she
cannot come, on account of a boorish clown.”
“’Lina,” feebly interposed Mrs. Worthington, feeling how inefficient she
was to cope with ’Lina’s stronger will. “Lina, we must write to Hugh.”
“Mother, you shall not,” and ’Lina spoke determinedly. “I’ll send an
answer to this letter myself, this very day. I will not suffer the
chance to be thrown away. Hugh may swear a little at first, but he’ll
get over it.”
“Hugh never swears,” and Mrs. Worthington spoke up at once.
“He don’t, hey? Maybe you’ve forgotten when he came home from Frankfort,
that time he heard about my dress. As old Sam says, ‘I’ve got a mizzable
memory, but I have a very distinct recollection that oaths were thick as
hail stones. Didn’t his eyes blaze though!’”
“I know he swore then; but he never has since, I’m sure, and I think he
is better, gentler, more refined than he used to be, since—since—_Adah_
came.”
A contemptuous “pshaw!” came from ’Lina’s lips, and then she proceeded
to speak of Alice Johnson, asking for her family. Were they the F. F.
V.’s of Boston? and so forth.
To this Mrs. Worthington gave a decided affirmative; repeating to her
daughter many things which Mrs. Johnson had herself told Alice in that
sad interview when she lay on her sick bed with Alice sobbing near.
So far as she was concerned, Alice Johnson was welcome to Spring Bank;
but justice demanded that Hugh should be consulted ere an answer were
returned. ’Lina, however, overruled her arguments as she always did, and
with a sigh she yielded the point, hoping there would be some way by
which Hugh might be appeased.
“Now let us talk a little about the thousand dollars,” ’Lina said, for
already the money was beginning to burn in her hands.
“I’m going to Saratoga, and you are going, too. We’ll have heaps of
dresses. We’ll take _Lu_, for a waiting-maid. That will be sure to make
a sensation at the North. ‘Mrs. Worthington, daughter, and colored
servant, Spring Bank, Kentucky.’ I can almost see that on the clerk’s
books. Then I can manage to let it be known that I’m an heiress, as I
am. We needn’t tell that it’s only a thousand dollars, most of which I
have on my back, and maybe I’ll come home _Adaline_ somebody else. There
are always splendid matches at Saratoga. We’ll go north the middle of
July, just three weeks from now.”
’Lina had talked so fist that Mrs. Worthington had been unable to put in
a word; but it did not matter. ’Lina was invulnerable to all she could
say. She’d go to town that very day and make her purchases. Miss Allis,
of course, must be consulted for some of her dresses, while _Adah_ could
make the rest. With regard to Miss Alice, they would write to her at
once, telling her she was welcome to Spring Bank, and also informing her
of their intentions to come north immediately. She could join them at
Saratoga, or, if she preferred, could remain at Snowdon until they
returned home in the autumn.
’Lina’s decision with regard to their future movements had been made so
rapidly and so determinedly, that Mrs. Worthington had scarcely ventured
to expostulate, and the few remonstrances she did advance produced no
impression. ’Lina wrote to Alice Johnson that morning, went to Frankfort
that afternoon, to Versailles and Lexington the next day, and on the
morning of the third, after the receipt of Mrs. Johnson’s letter, Spring
Bank presented the appearance of one vast show-room, so full of silks,
and muslins, and tissues, and flowers, and ribbons, and laces, while
amidst it all, in a maze of perplexity as to what was required of her,
or where first to commence, sat Adah, who had come at ’Lina’s bidding.
Womanlike, the sight of ’Lina’s dresses awoke in Adah a thrill of
delight, and she entered heartily into the matter without a single
feeling of envy.
“I’s goin’, too. Did you know that?” Lulu said to her, as she sat
bending over a cloud of lace and soft blue silk.
“You? For what?” and Adah lifted her brown eyes inquiringly.
“Oh, goin’ to wait on ’em. It’s grand to have a nigger and Miss ’Lina
keeps trainin’ me how to act and what to say. I ain’t to tell how mean
Spring Bank is furnished, nor how poor master Hugh is. Nothin’ of the
kind. We’re to be fust cut. Oh, so nice, Miss ’Lina an, _Airey_, and
when we get home, if I does well, I’m to hev that gownd, all mud, what
Miss ’Lina wared to the Tiffton party, whew!” and in the mischievous
glance of Lulu’s saucy eyes, Adah read that the quick-witted negro was
not in the least deceived with regard to the “Airey,” as she called Miss
’Lina.
Half amused at Lulu’s remarks and half sorry that she had listened to
them, Adah resumed her work, just as ’Lina appeared, saying to her,
“Here is Miss Tiffton’s square-necked bertha. She’s just got home from
New York, and says they are all the fashion. You are to cut me a
pattern. There’s a paper, the Louisville Journal, I guess, but nobody
reads it, now Hugh is gone,” and with a few more general directions,
’Lina hurried away, having first tossed into Adah’s lap the paper
containing Anna Richards’ advertisement.
In spite of the doctor’s predictions and consignment of that girl to
Georgia, or some warmer place, it had reached her at last. The
compositor had wondered at its wording, a few casual readers had
wondered at it, too—a western editor, laughing jocosely at its “married
or unfortunate woman with a child a few months old,” had copied it into
his columns, thus attracting the attention of his more south-western
neighbor, who had thought it too good to lose and so given it to his
readers with sundry remarks of his own. But through all its many
changes, Adah’s God had watched it, and brought it around to her. She
did not see it at first, but just as her scissors were raised to cut the
pattern, her eyes fell on the spot headed, “A curious advertisement,”
and suspending her operations for a moment, she read it through, a
feeling rising in her heart that it was surely an answer to her own
advertisement sent forth months ago, with tearful prayers that it might
be successful. She did not know that “A. E. R.” meant it for her, and no
one else. She only felt that at Terrace Hall there was a place for her,
a home where she would no longer be dependent on Hugh, whose straits she
understood perfectly well, knowing why Rocket was sold, and how it hurt
his master to sell him. Oh, if she only could redeem him, no toil, no
weariness would be too great; but she never could, even if “A. E. R.”
should take her—the pay would be so small that Rocket would be old and
worthless ere she could earn five hundred dollars; but she could do
something toward it, and her heart grew light and happy as she thought
how surprised Hugh would be to receive a letter containing money earned
by the feeble Adah, to whom he had been so kind.
Adah was a famous castle-builder, and she went on rearing castle after
castle, until ’Lina came back again and taking a seat beside her, began
to talk so familiarly and pleasantly that Adah felt emboldened to tell
her of the advertisement and her intention to answer it. Averse as ’Lina
had at first been to Adah’s remaining at Spring Bank, she now saw a
channel through which she could be made very useful, and would far
rather that she should remain. So she opposed the plan, urging so many
arguments against it that Adah began to think the idea a foolish one,
and with a sigh dismissed it from her mind until another time, when she
might give it more consideration.
That afternoon Ellen Tiffton rode over to see ’Lina, who told her of
Alice Johnson, whom they were expecting.
“Alice Johnson,” Ellen repeated; “why, that’s the girl father says so
much about. Fortieth or fiftieth cousin. He was at their house in Boston
a few years ago, and when he came home he annoyed me terribly by quoting
Alice continually, and comparing me with her. Of course I fell in the
scale, for there was nothing like Alice, Alice—so beautiful, so refined,
so sweet, so amiable, so _religious_.”
“Religious!” and ’Lina laughed scornfully. “Adah pretends to be
religious, too, and so does Sam, while Alice will make three. Pleasant
prospects ahead. I wonder if she’s the blue kind—thinks dancing wicked,
and all that.”
Ellen could not tell. She only knew what her father said; but she did
not fancy Miss Alice to be more morose or gloomy—at all events she would
gladly have her for a companion, and she thought it queer that Mrs.
Johnson should send her to a stranger, as it were, when they would have
been so glad to receive her. “Pa won’t like it a bit, I know, and I
quite envy you,” she said, as she took her leave, her remarks raising
Alice largely in ’Lina’s estimation, and making her not a little proud
that Spring Bank had been selected as Miss Johnson’s home.
One week later, and there came a letter from Alice herself saying that
at present she was stopping in Boston with her guardian, Mr. Liston, who
had rented the cottage in Snowdon, but that she would meet Mrs.
Worthington and daughter at Saratoga. Of course she did not now feel
like mingling in gay society, and should consequently go to the
Columbian, where she could be comparatively quiet but this need not
interfere with their arrangements, as they could see each other often.
The same day also brought a letter from Hugh, making many kind inquiries
after them all, saying his business was turning out better than he
expected, and enclosing forty dollars, fifteen of which, he said, was
for Adah, and the rest for Ad, as a peace offering for the harsh things
he had said to her. Hugh’s conscience when away was always troubling him
with regard to ’Lina, and knowing that money with her would atone for a
score of sins, he had felt so happy in sending it, giving her the most
because he had sinned against her the most. Once the thought suggested
itself that possibly she might keep the whole, but he repudiated it at
once as a base slander upon ’Lina.
Alas, he little suspected the treachery of which she was capable. As a
taste of blood makes wild beasts thirst for more, so Mrs. Johnson’s
legacy had made ’Lina greedy for gold, and the sight of the smooth paper
bills sent to her by Hugh, awoke her avaricious passions. Forty dollars
was just the price of a superb pearl bracelet in Lexington, and if Hugh
had only sent it all to her instead of a part to Adah! What did Adah
want of money, any way, living there in the cornfield, and seeing
nobody? Besides that, hadn’t she just paid her three dollars, and a
muslin dress, and was that not enough for a girl in her circumstances?
Nobody would be the wiser if she kept the whole, for her mother was not
present when Claib brought the letter. She’d never know they’d heard
from Hugh; and on the whole she believed she’d keep it, and so she went
to Lexington next day in quest of the bracelet, which was pronounced
beautiful by the unsuspecting Adah, who never dreamed that her money had
helped to pay for it. Truly ’Lina was heaping up against herself a dark
catalogue of sin to be avenged some day, but the time was not yet.
Thus far every thing went swimmingly. The dresses fitted admirably, and
nothing could exceed the care with which they had been packed. Her
mother no longer annoyed her about Hugh. Lulu was quite well posted with
regard to her duty. Ellen Tiffton had lent her quizzing-glass and
several ornaments, while Irving Stanley, grand-nephew like Hugh, to
Uncle John, was to be at Saratoga, so ’Lina incidentally heard, and as
there was a kind of relationship between them, he would of course notice
her more or less, and from all accounts, to be noticed by him was a
thing to be desired.
Thus it was in the best of humors that ’Lina tripped from Spring Bank
door one pleasant July morning, and was driven with her mother and Lulu
to Lexington, where they intended taking the evening train for
Cincinnati.