The next morning Cynthia's heart was heavy as she greeted her new
friends at Miss Sadler's school. Life had made a woman of her long ago,
while these girls had yet been in short dresses, and now an experience
had come to her which few, if any, of these could ever know. It was of
no use for her to deny to herself that she loved Bob Worthington--loved
him with the full intensity of the strong nature that was hers. To how
many of these girls would come such a love? and how many would be called
upon to make such a renunciation as hers had been? No wonder she felt
out of place among them, and once more the longing to fly away to
Coniston almost overcame her. Jethro would forgive her, she knew, and
stretch out his arms to receive her, and understand that some trouble
had driven her to him.
She was aroused by some one calling her name--some one whose voice
sounded strangely familiar. Cynthia was perhaps the only person in the
school that day who did not know that Miss Janet Duncan had entered it.
Miss Sadler certainly knew it, and asked Miss Duncan very particularly
about her father and mother and even her brother. Miss Sadler knew, even
before Janet's unexpected arrival, that Mr. and Mrs. Duncan had come to
Boston after Christmas, and had taken a large house in the Back Bay
in order to be near their son at Harvard. Mrs. Duncan was, in fact, a
Bostonian, and more at home there than at any other place.
Miss Sadler observed with a great deal of astonishment the warm embrace
that Janet bestowed on Cynthia. The occurrence started in Miss Sadler a
train of thought, as a result of which she left the drawing-room where
these reunions were held, and went into her own private study to write
a note. This she addressed to Mrs. Alexander Duncan, at a certain number
on Beacon Street, and sent it out to be posted immediately. In the
meantime, Janet Duncan had seated herself on the sofa beside Cynthia,
not having for an instant ceased to talk to her. Of what use to write a
romance, when they unfolded themselves so beautifully in real life! Here
was the country girl she had seen in Washington already in a fine way to
become the princess, and in four months! Janet would not have thought it
possible for any one to change so much in such a time. Cynthia listened,
and wondered what language Miss Duncan would use if she knew how great
and how complete that change had been. Romances, Cynthia thought sadly,
were one thing to theorize about and quite another thing to endure--and
smiled at the thought. But Miss Duncan had no use for a heroine without
a heartache.
It is not improbable that Miss Janet Duncan may appear with Miss Sally
Broke in another volume. The style of her conversation is known, and
there is no room to reproduce it here. She, too, had a heart, but she
was a young woman given to infatuations, as Cynthia rightly guessed.
Cynthia must spend many afternoons at her house--lunch with her, drive
with her. For one omission Cynthia was thankful: she did not mention Bob
Worthington's name. There was the romance under Miss Duncan's nose, and
she did not see it. It is frequently so with romancers.
Cynthia's impassiveness, her complete poise, had fascinated Miss Duncan
with the others. Had there been nothing beneath that exterior, Janet
would never have guessed it, and she would have been quite as happy.
Cynthia saw very clearly that Mr. Worthington or no other man or woman
could force Bob to marry Janet.
The next morning, in such intervals as her studies permitted, Janet
continued her attentions to Cynthia. That same morning she had brought a
note from her father to Miss Sadler, of the contents of which Janet
knew nothing. Miss Sadler retired into her study to read it, and two
newspaper clippings fell out of it under the paper-cutter. This was the
note:--
“My DEAR MISS SADLER:
“Mrs. Duncan has referred your note to me, and I enclose two
clippings which speak for themselves. Miss Wetherell, I believe,
stands in the relation of ward to the person to whom they refer, and
her father was a sort of political assistant to this person.
Although, as you say, we are from that part of the country (Miss
Sadler bad spoken of the Duncans as the people of importance there),
it was by the merest accident that Miss Wetherell's connection with
this Jethro Bass was brought to my notice.
“Sincerely yours,
“ALEXANDER DUNCAN.”
It is pleasant to know that there were people in the world who could
snub Miss Sadler; and there could be no doubt, from the manner in which
she laid the letter down and took up the clippings, that Miss Sadler
felt snubbed: equally, there could be no doubt that the revenge
would fall on other shoulders than Mr. Duncan's. And when Miss Sadler
proceeded to read the clippings, her hair would have stood on end with
horror had it not been so efficiently plastered down. Miss Sadler seized
her pen, and began a letter to Mrs. Merrill. Miss Sadler's knowledge of
the proprieties--together with other qualifications--had made her school
what it was. No Cynthia Wetherells had ever before entered its sacred
portals, or should again.
The first of these clippings was the article containing the arraignment
of Jethro Bass which Mr. Merrill had shown to his wife, and which had
been the excuse for Miss Penniman's call. The second was one which Mr.
Duncan had clipped from the Newcastle Guardian of the day before,
and gave, from Mr. Worthington's side, a very graphic account of the
conflict which was to tear the state asunder. The railroads were tired
of paying toll to the chief of a band of thieves and cutthroats, to a
man who had long throttled the state which had nourished him, to--in
short,--to Jethro Bass. Miss Sadler was not much interested in the
figures and metaphors of political compositions. Right had found
a champion--the article continued--in Mr. Isaac D. Worthington of
Brampton, president of the Truro Road and owner of large holdings
elsewhere. Mr. Worthington, backed by other respectable property
interests, would fight this monster of iniquity to the death, and
release the state from his thraldom. Jethro Bass, the article alleged,
was already about his abominable work--had long been so--as in mockery
of that very vigilance which is said to be the price of liberty. His
agents were busy in every town of the state, seeing to it that the
slaves of Jethro Bass should be sent to the next legislature.
And what was this system which he had built up among these rural
communities? It might aptly be called the System of Mortgages. The
mortgage--dread name for a dreadful thing--was the chief weapon of the
monster. Even as Jethro Bass held the mortgages of Coniston and Tarleton
and round about, so his lieutenants held mortgages in every town and
hamlet of the state, What was a poor farmer to do--? His choice was not
between right and wrong, but between a roof over the heads of his wife
and children and no roof. He must vote for the candidate of Jethro Bass
end corruption or become a homeless wanderer. How the gentleman and his
other respectable backers were to fight the system the article did not
say. Were they to buy up all the mortgages? As a matter of fact, they
intended to buy up enough of these to count, but to mention this would
be to betray the methods of Mr. Worthington's reform. The first bitter
frontier fighting between the advance cohorts of the new giant and the
old--the struggle for the caucuses and the polls--had begun. Miss Sadler
cared but little and understood less of all this matter. She lingered
over the sentences which described Jethro Bass as a monster of iniquity,
as a pariah with whom decent men would have no intercourse, and in the
heat of her passion that one who had touched him had gained admittance
to the most exclusive school for young ladies in the country she wrote a
letter.
Miss Sadler wrote the letter, and three hours later tore it up and wrote
another and more diplomatic one. Mrs. Merrill, though not by any means
of the same importance as Mrs. Duncan, was not a person to be wantonly
offended, and might--knowing nothing about the monster--in the goodness
of her heart have taken the girl into her house. Had it been otherwise,
surely Mrs. Merrill would not have had the effrontery! She would give
Mrs. Merrill a chance. The bell of release from studies was ringing as
she finished this second letter, and Miss Sadler in her haste forgot to
enclose the clippings. She ran out in time to intercept Susan Merrill at
the door, and to press into her hands the clippings and the note, with a
request to take both to her mother.
Although the Duncans dined in the evening, the Merrills had dinner at
half-past one in the afternoon, when the girls returned from school.
Mr. Merrill usually came home, but he had gone off somewhere for this
particular day, and Mrs. Merrill had a sewing circle. The girls sat
down to dinner alone. When they got up from the table, Susan suddenly
remembered the note which she had left in her coat pocket. She drew out
the clippings with it.
“I wonder what Miss Sadler is sending mamma clippings for,” she said.
“Why, Cynthia, they're about your uncle. Look!”
And she handed over the article headed “Jethro Bass.” Jane, who
had quicker intuitions than her sister, would have snatched it from
Cynthia's hand, and it was a long time before Susan forgave herself for
her folly. Thus Miss Sadler had her revenge.
It is often mercifully ordained that the mightiest blows of misfortune
are tempered for us. During the winter evenings in Coniston, Cynthia
had read little newspaper attacks on Jethro, and scorned them as the
cowardly devices of enemies. They had been, indeed, but guarded and
covert allusions--grimaces from a safe distance. Cynthia's first
sensation as she read was anger--anger so intense as to send all the
blood in her body rushing to her head. But what was this? “Right had
found a champion at last” in--in Isaac D. Worthington! That was the
first blow, and none but Cynthia knew the weight of it. It sank but
slowly into her consciousness, and slowly the blood left her face,
slowly but surely: left it at length as white as the lace curtain of
the window which she clutched in her distress. Words which somebody had
spoken were ringing in her ears. Whatever happens! “Whatever happens I
will never desert you, never deny you, as long as I live.” This, then,
was what he had meant by newspapers, and why he had come to her!
The sisters, watching her, cried out in dismay. There was no need to
tell them that they were looking on at a tragedy, and all the love and
sympathy in their hearts went out to her.
“Cynthia! Cynthia! What is it?” cried Susan, who, thinking she would
faint, seized her in her arms. “What have I done?”
Cynthia did not faint, being made of sterner substance. Gently, but
with that inexorable instinct of her kind which compels them to look for
reliance within themselves even in the direst of extremities, Cynthia
released herself from Susan's embrace and put a hand to her forehead.
“Will you leave me here a little while--alone?” she said.
It was Jane now who drew Susan out and shut the door of the parlor after
them. In utter misery they waited on the stairs while Cynthia fought out
her battle for herself.
When they were gone she sank down into the big chair under the reading
lamp--the very chair in which he had sat only two nights before. She saw
now with a terrible clearness the thing which for so long had been but a
vague premonition of disaster, and for a while she forgot the clippings.
And when after a space the touch of them in her hand brought them back
to her remembrance, she lacked the courage to read them through. But not
for long. Suddenly her fear of them gave place to a consuming hatred of
the man who had inspired these articles: of Isaac D. Worthington, for
she knew that he must have inspired them. And then she began again to
read them.
Truth, though it come perverted from the mouth of an enemy, has
in itself a note to which the soul responds, let the mind deny as
vehemently as it will. Cynthia read, and as she read her body was shaken
with sobs, though the tears came not. Could it be true? Could the least
particle of the least of these fearful insinuations be true? Oh, the
treason of those whispers in a voice that was surely not her own, and
yet which she could not hush! Was it possible that such things could be
printed about one whom she had admired and respected above all men--nay,
whom she had so passionately adored from childhood? A monster of
iniquity, a pariah! The cruel, bitter calumny of those names! Cynthia
thought of his goodness and loving kindness and his charity to her and
to many others. His charity! The dreaded voice repeated that word, and
sent a thought that struck terror into her heart: Whence had come the
substance of that charity? Then came another word--mortgage. There it
was on the paper, and at sight of it there leaped out of her memory
a golden-green poplar shimmering against the sky and the distant blue
billows of mountains in the west. She heard the high-pitched voice of a
woman speaking the word, and even then it had had a hateful sound, and
she heard herself asking, “Uncle Jethro, what is a mortgage?” He had
struck his horse with the whip.
Loyal though the girl was, the whispers would not hush, nor the doubts
cease to assail her. What if ever so small a portion of this were true?
Could the whole of this hideous structure, tier resting upon tier, have
been reared without something of a foundation? Fiercely though she told
herself she would believe none of it, fiercely though she hated Mr.
Worthington, fervently though she repeated aloud that her love for
Jethro and her faith in him had not changed, the doubts remained. Yet
they remained unacknowledged.
An hour passed. It was a thing beyond belief that one hour could have
held such a store of agony. An hour passed, and Cynthia came dry-eyed
from the parlor. Susan and Jane, waiting to give her comfort when she
was recovered a little from this unknown but overwhelming affliction,
were fain to stand mute when they saw her to pay a silent deference to
one whom sorrow had lifted far above them and transfigured. That was the
look on Cynthia's face. She went up the stairs, and they stood in the
hall not knowing what to do, whispering in awe-struck voices. They were
still there when Cynthia came down again, dressed for the street. Jane
seized her by the hand.
“Where are you going, Cynthia?” she asked.
“I shall be back by five,” said Cynthia.
She went up the hill, and across to old Louisburg Square, and up the
hill again. The weather had cleared, the violet-paned windows caught the
slanting sunlight and flung it back across the piles of snow. It was
a day for wedding-bells. At last Cynthia came to a queerly fashioned
little green door that seemed all askew with the slanting street, and
rang the bell, and in another moment was standing on the threshold of
Miss Lucretia Penniman's little sitting room. To Miss Lucretia, at her
writing table, one glance was sufficient. She rose quickly to meet
the girl, kissed her unresponsive cheek, and led her to a chair. Miss
Lucretia was never one to beat about the bush, even in the gravest
crisis.
“You have read the articles,” she said.
Read them! During her walk hither Cynthia had been incapable of thought,
but the epithets and arraignments and accusations, the sentences and
paragraphs, wars printed now, upon her brain, never, she believed, to
be effaced. Every step of the way she had been unconsciously repeating
them.
“Have you read them?” asked Cynthia.
“Yes, my dear.”
“Has everybody read them?” Did the whole world, then, know of her shame?
“I am glad you came to me, my dear,” said Miss Lucretia, taking her
hand. “Have you talked of this to any one else?”
“No,” said Cynthia, simply.
Miss Lucretia was puzzled. She had not looked for apathy, but she
did not know all of Cynthia's troubles. She wondered whether she had
misjudged the girl, and was misled by her attitude.
“Cynthia,” she said, with a briskness meant to hide emotion for Miss
Lucretia had emotions, “I am a lonely old woman, getting too old,
indeed, to finish the task of my life. I went to see Mrs. Merrill the
other day to ask her if she would let you come and live with me. Will
you?”
Cynthia shook her head.
“No, Miss Lucretia, I cannot,” she answered.
“I won't press it on you now,” said Miss Lucretia.
“I cannot, Miss Lucretia. I'm going to Coniston.”
“Going to Coniston!” exclaimed Miss Lucretia.
The name of that place--magic name, once so replete with visions of
happiness and content--seemed to recall Cynthia's spirit from its
flight. Yes, the spirit was there, for it flashed in her eyes as she
turned and looked into Miss Lucretia's face.
“Are these the articles you read?” she asked; taking the clippings from
her muff.
Miss Lucretia put on her spectacles.
“I have seen both of them,” she said.
“And do you believe what they say about--about Jethro Bass?”
Poor Miss Lucretia! For once in her life she was at a loss. She, too,
paid a deference to that face, young as it was. She had robbed herself
of sleep trying to make up her mind what she would say upon such an
occasion if it came. A wonderful virgin faith had to be shattered, and
was she to be the executioner? She loved the girl with that strange,
intense affection which sometimes comes to the elderly and the lonely,
and she had prayed that this cup might pass from her. Was it possible
that it was her own voice using very much the same words for which she
had rebuked Mrs. Merrill?
“Cynthia,” she said, “those articles were written by politicians, in a
political controversy. No such articles can ever be taken literally.”
“Miss Lucretia, do you believe what it says about Jethro Bass?” repeated
Cynthia.
How was she to avoid those eyes? They pierced into, her soul, even as
her own had pierced into Mrs. Merrill's. Oh, Miss Lucretia, who pride
yourself on your plain speaking, that you should be caught quibbling!
Miss Lucretia blushed for the first time in many, years, and into her
face came the light of battle.
“I am a coward, my dear. I deserve your rebuke. To the best of my
knowledge and belief, and so far as I can judge from the inquiries I
have undertaken, Jethro Bass has made his living and gained and held his
power by the methods described in those articles.”
Miss Lucretia took off her spectacles and wiped them. She had committed
a fine act of courage.
Cynthia stood up.
“Thank you,” she said, “that is what I wanted to know.”
“But--” cried Miss Lucretia, in amazement and apprehension, “but what
are you going to do?”
“I am going to Coniston,” said Cynthia, “to ask him if those things are
true.”
“To ask him!”
“Yes. If he tells me they are true, then I shall believe them.”
“If he tells you?” Miss Lucretia gasped. Here was a courage of which she
had not reckoned. “Do you think he will tell you?”
“He will tell me, and I shall believe him, Miss Lucretia.”
“You are a remarkable girl, Cynthia,” said Miss Lucretia, involuntarily.
Then she paused for a moment. “Suppose he tells you they are true? You
surely can't live with him again, Cynthia.”
“Do you suppose I am going to desert him, Miss Lucretia?” she asked. “He
loves me, and--and I love him.” This was the first time her voice had
faltered. “He kept my father from want and poverty, and he has brought
me up as a daughter. If his life has been as you say, I shall make my
own living!”
“How?” demanded Miss Lucretia, the practical part of her coming
uppermost.
“I shall teach school. I believe I can get a position, in a place where
I can see him often. I can break his heart, Miss Lucretia, I--I can
bring sadness to myself, but I will not desert him.”
Miss Lucretia stared at her for a moment, not knowing what to say or do.
She perceived that the girl had a spirit as strong as her own: that her
plans were formed, her mind made up, and that no arguments could change
her.
“Why did you come to me?” she asked irrelevantly.
“Because I thought that you would have read the articles, and I knew
if you had, you would have taken the trouble to inform yourself of the
world's opinion.”
Again Miss Lucretia stared at her.
“I will go to Coniston with you,” she said, “at least as far as
Brampton.”
Cynthia's face softened a little at the words.
“I would rather go alone, Miss Lucretia,” she answered gently, but with
the same firmness. “I--I am very grateful to you for your kindness to me
in Boston. I shall not forget it--or you. Good-by, Miss Lucretia.”
But Miss Lucretia, sobbing openly, gathered the girl in her arms and
pressed her. Age was coming on her indeed, that she should show such
weakness. For a long time she could not trust herself to speak, and then
her words were broken. Cynthia must come to her at the first sign of
doubt or trouble: this, Miss Lucretia's house, was to be a refuge in any
storm that life might send--and Miss Lucretia's heart. Cynthia promised,
and when she went out at last through the little door her own tears were
falling, for she loved Miss Lucretia.
Cynthia was going to Coniston. That journey was as fixed, as inevitable,
as things mortal can be. She would go to Coniston unless she perished
on the way. No loving entreaties, no fears of Mrs. Merrill or her
daughters, were of any avail. Mrs. Merrill too, was awed by the vastness
of the girl's sorrow, and wondered if her own nature were small by
comparison. She had wept, to be sure, at her husband's confession, and
lain awake over it in the night watches, and thought of the early days
of their marriage.
And then, Mrs. Merrill told herself, Cynthia would have to talk with Mr.
Merrill. How was he to come unscathed out of that? There was pain and
bitterness in that thought, and almost resentment against Cynthia,
quivering though she was with sympathy for the girl. For Mrs. Merrill,
though the canker remained, had already pardoned her husband and had
asked the forgiveness of God for that pardon. On other occasions, in
other crisis, she had waited and watched for him in the parlor window,
and to-night she was at the door before his key was in the lock, while
he was still stamping the snow from his boots. She drew him into the
room and told him what had happened.
“Oh, Stephen,” she cried, “what are you going to say to her?”
What, indeed? His wife had sorrowed, but she had known the obstacles and
perils by which he had been beset. But what was he to say to Cynthia?
Her very name had grown upon him, middle-aged man of affairs though he
was, until the thought of it summoned up in his mind a figure of purity,
and of the strength which was from purity. He would not have believed
it possible that the country girl whom they had taken into their house
three months before should have wrought such an influence over them all.
Even in the first hour of her sorrow which she had spent that afternoon
in the parlor, Cynthia had thought of Mr. Merrill. He could tell her
whether those accusations were true or false, for he was a friend of
Jethro's. Her natural impulse--the primeval one of a creature which is
hurt--had been to hide herself; to fly to her own room, and perhaps
by nightfall the courage would come to her to ask him the terrible
questions. He was a friend of Jethro's. An illuminating flash revealed
to her the meaning of that friendship--if the accusations were true. It
was then she had thought of Miss Lucretia Penniman, and somehow she had
found the courage to face the sunlight and go to her. She would spare
Mr. Merrill.
But had she spared him? Sadly the family sat down to supper without her,
and after supper Mr. Merrill sent a message to his club that he could
not attend a committee meeting there that evening. He sat with his wife
in the little writing room, he pretending to read and she pretending to
sew, until the silence grew too oppressive, and they spoke of the matter
that was in their hearts. It was one of the bitterest evenings in
Mr. Merrill's life, and there is no need to linger on it. They talked
earnestly of Cynthia, and of her future. But they both knew why she did
not come down to them.
“So she is really going to Coniston,” said Mr. Merrill.
“Yes,” answered Mrs. Merrill, “and I think she is doing right, Stephen.”
Mr. Merrill groaned. His wife rose and put her hand on his shoulder.
“Come, Stephen,” she said gently, “you will see her in the morning.
“I will go to Coniston with her,” he said.
“No,” replied Mrs. Merrily “she wants to go alone. And I believe it is
best that she should.”