In September the Old Lady looked back on the summer and owned to herself
that it had been a strangely happy one, with Sundays and Sewing Circle
days standing out like golden punctuation marks in a poem of life.
She felt like an utterly different woman; and other people thought her
different also. The Sewing Circle women found her so pleasant, and even
friendly, that they began to think they had misjudged her, and that
perhaps it was eccentricity after all, and not meanness, which accounted
for her peculiar mode of living. Sylvia Gray always came and talked to
her on Circle afternoons now, and the Old Lady treasured every word she
said in her heart and repeated them over and over to her lonely self in
the watches of the night.
Sylvia never talked of herself or her plans, unless asked about them;
and the Old Lady’s self-consciousness prevented her from asking any
personal questions: so their conversation kept to the surface of things,
and it was not from Sylvia, but from the minister’s wife that the Old
Lady finally discovered what her darling’s dearest ambition was.
The minister’s wife had dropped in at the old Lloyd place one evening
late in September, when a chilly wind was blowing up from the northeast
and moaning about the eaves of the house, as if the burden of its
lay were “harvest is ended and summer is gone.” The Old Lady had been
listening to it, as she plaited a little basket of sweet grass for
Sylvia. She had walked all the way to Avonlea sand-hills for it the
day before, and she was very tired. And her heart was sad. This summer,
which had so enriched her life, was almost over; and she knew that
Sylvia Gray talked of leaving Spencervale at the end of October. The
Old Lady’s heart felt like very lead within her at the thought, and
she almost welcomed the advent of the minister’s wife as a distraction,
although she was desperately afraid that the minister’s wife had called
to ask for a subscription for the new vestry carpet, and the Old Lady
simply could not afford to give one cent.
But the minister’s wife had merely dropped in on her way home from the
Spencers’ and she did not make any embarrassing requests. Instead, she
talked about Sylvia Gray, and her words fell on the Old Lady’s ears like
separate pearl notes of unutterably sweet music. The minister’s wife
had nothing but praise for Sylvia--she was so sweet and beautiful and
winning.
“And with SUCH a voice,” said the minister’s wife enthusiastically,
adding with a sigh, “It’s such a shame she can’t have it properly
trained. She would certainly become a great singer--competent critics
have told her so. But she is so poor she doesn’t think she can ever
possibly manage it--unless she can get one of the Cameron scholarships,
as they are called; and she has very little hope of that, although the
professor of music who taught her has sent her name in.”
“What are the Cameron scholarships?” asked the Old Lady.
“Well, I suppose you have heard of Andrew Cameron, the millionaire?”
said the minister’s wife, serenely unconscious that she was causing the
very bones of the Old Lady’s family skeleton to jangle in their closet.
Into the Old Lady’s white face came a sudden faint stain of colour, as
if a rough hand had struck her cheek.
“Yes, I’ve heard of him,” she said.
“Well, it seems that he had a daughter, who was a very beautiful girl,
and whom he idolized. She had a fine voice, and he was going to send her
abroad to have it trained. And she died. It nearly broke his heart, I
understand. But ever since, he sends one young girl away to Europe every
year for a thorough musical education under the best teachers--in memory
of his daughter. He has sent nine or ten already; but I fear there isn’t
much chance for Sylvia Gray, and she doesn’t think there is herself.”
“Why not?” asked the Old Lady spiritedly. “I am sure that there can be
few voices equal to Miss Gray’s.”
“Very true. But you see, these so-called scholarships are private
affairs, dependent solely on the whim and choice of Andrew Cameron
himself. Of course, when a girl has friends who use their influence with
him, he will often send her on their recommendation. They say he sent a
girl last year who hadn’t much of a voice at all just because her father
had been an old business crony of his. But Sylvia doesn’t know anyone at
all who would, to use a slang term, have any ‘pull’ with Andrew Cameron,
and she is not acquainted with him herself. Well, I must be going; we’ll
see you at the Manse on Saturday, I hope, Miss Lloyd. The Circle meets
there, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” said the Old Lady absently. When the minister’s wife had
gone, she dropped her sweetgrass basket and sat for a long, long time
with her hands lying idly in her lap, and her big black eyes staring
unseeingly at the wall before her.
Old Lady Lloyd, so pitifully poor that she had to eat six crackers the
less a week to pay her fee to the Sewing Circle, knew that it was in her
power--HERS--to send Leslie Gray’s daughter to Europe for her musical
education! If she chose to use her “pull” with Andrew Cameron--if she
went to him and asked him to send Sylvia Gray abroad the next
year--she had no doubt whatever that it would be done. It all lay with
her--if--if--IF she could so far crush and conquer her pride as to stoop
to ask a favour of the man who had wronged her and hers so bitterly.
Years ago, her father, acting under the advice and urgency of Andrew
Cameron, had invested all his little fortune in an enterprise that had
turned out a failure. Abraham Lloyd lost every dollar he possessed, and
his family were reduced to utter poverty. Andrew Cameron might have been
forgiven for a mistake; but there was a strong suspicion, amounting to
almost certainty, that he had been guilty of something far worse than
a mistake in regard to his uncle’s investment. Nothing could be legally
proved; but it was certain that Andrew Cameron, already noted for his
“sharp practices,” emerged with improved finances from an entanglement
that had ruined many better men; and old Doctor Lloyd had died
brokenhearted, believing that his nephew had deliberately victimized
him.
Andrew Cameron had not quite done this; he had meant well enough by
his uncle at first, and what he had finally done he tried to justify to
himself by the doctrine that a man must look out for Number One.
Margaret Lloyd made no such excuses for him; she held him responsible,
not only for her lost fortune, but for her father’s death, and never
forgave him for it. When Abraham Lloyd had died, Andrew Cameron, perhaps
pricked by his conscience, had come to her, sleekly and smoothly, to
offer her financial aid. He would see, he told her, that she never
suffered want.
Margaret Lloyd flung his offer back in his face after a fashion that
left nothing to be desired in the way of plain speaking. She would die,
she told him passionately, before she would accept a penny or a favour
from him. He had preserved an unbroken show of good temper, expressed
his heartfelt regret that she should cherish such an unjust opinion of
him, and had left her with an oily assurance that he would always be her
friend, and would always be delighted to render her any assistance in
his power whenever she should choose to ask for it.
The Old Lady had lived for twenty years in the firm conviction that she
would die in the poorhouse--as, indeed, seemed not unlikely--before she
would ask a favour of Andrew Cameron. And so, in truth, she would have,
had it been for herself. But for Sylvia! Could she so far humble herself
for Sylvia’s sake?
The question was not easily or speedily settled, as had been the case in
the matters of the grape jug and the book of poems. For a whole week
the Old Lady fought her pride and bitterness. Sometimes, in the hours
of sleepless night, when all human resentments and rancours seemed petty
and contemptible, she thought she had conquered it. But in the daytime,
with the picture of her father looking down at her from the wall,
and the rustle of her unfashionable dresses, worn because of Andrew
Cameron’s double dealing, in her ears, it got the better of her again.
But the Old Lady’s love for Sylvia had grown so strong and deep and
tender that no other feeling could endure finally against it. Love is
a great miracle worker; and never had its power been more strongly made
manifest than on the cold, dull autumn morning when the Old Lady walked
to Bright River railway station and took the train to Charlottetown,
bent on an errand the very thought of which turned her soul sick within
her. The station master who sold her her ticket thought Old Lady Lloyd
looked uncommonly white and peaked--“as if she hadn’t slept a wink
or eaten a bite for a week,” he told his wife at dinner time. “Guess
there’s something wrong in her business affairs. This is the second time
she’s gone to town this summer.”
When the Old Lady reached the town, she ate her slender little lunch and
then walked out to the suburb where the Cameron factories and warehouses
were. It was a long walk for her, but she could not afford to drive. She
felt very tired when she was shown into the shining, luxurious office
where Andrew Cameron sat at his desk.
After the first startled glance of surprise, he came forward beamingly,
with outstretched hand.
“Why, Cousin Margaret! This is a pleasant surprise. Sit down--allow me,
this is a much more comfortable chair. Did you come in this morning? And
how is everybody out in Spencervale?”
The Old Lady had flushed at his first words. To hear the name by which
her father and mother and lover had called her on Andrew Cameron’s lips
seemed like profanation. But, she told herself, the time was past for
squeamishness. If she could ask a favour of Andrew Cameron, she could
bear lesser pangs. For Sylvia’s sake she shook hands with him, for
Sylvia’s sake she sat down in the chair he offered. But for no living
human being’s sake could this determined Old Lady infuse any cordiality
into her manner or her words. She went straight to the point with Lloyd
simplicity.
“I have come to ask a favour of you,” she said, looking him in the eye,
not at all humbly or meekly, as became a suppliant, but challengingly
and defiantly, as if she dared him to refuse.
“DE-lighted to hear it, Cousin Margaret.” Never was anything so bland
and gracious as his tone. “Anything I can do for you I shall be only
too pleased to do. I am afraid you have looked upon me as an enemy,
Margaret, and I assure you I have felt your injustice keenly. I realize
that some appearances were against me, but--”
The Old Lady lifted her hand and stemmed his eloquence by that one
gesture.
“I did not come here to discuss that matter,” she said. “We will not
refer to the past, if you please. I came to ask a favour, not for
myself, but for a very dear young friend of mine--a Miss Gray, who has a
remarkably fine voice which she wishes to have trained. She is poor,
so I came to ask you if you would give her one of your musical
scholarships. I understand her name has already been suggested to you,
with a recommendation from her teacher. I do not know what he has said
of her voice, but I do know he could hardly overrate it. If you send her
abroad for training, you will not make any mistake.”
The Old Lady stopped talking. She felt sure Andrew Cameron would
grant her request, but she did hope he would grant it rather rudely or
unwillingly. She could accept the favour so much more easily if it were
flung to her like a bone to a dog. But not a bit of it. Andrew Cameron
was suaver than ever. Nothing could give him greater pleasure than to
grant his dear Cousin Margaret’s request--he only wished it involved
more trouble on his part. Her little protege should have her musical
education assuredly--she should go abroad next year--and he was
DE-lighted--
“Thank you,” said the Old Lady, cutting him short again. “I am much
obliged to you--and I ask you not to let Miss Gray know anything of my
interference. And I shall not take up any more of your valuable time.
Good afternoon.”
“Oh, you mustn’t go so soon,” he said, with some real kindness or
clannishness permeating the hateful cordiality of his voice--for Andrew
Cameron was not entirely without the homely virtues of the average man.
He had been a good husband and father; he had once been very fond of his
Cousin Margaret; and he was really very sorry that “circumstances” had
“compelled” him to act as he had done in that old affair of her father’s
investment. “You must be my guest to-night.”
“Thank you. I must return home to-night,” said the Old Lady firmly, and
there was that in her tone which told Andrew Cameron that it would be
useless to urge her. But he insisted on telephoning for his carriage to
drive her to the station. The Old Lady submitted to this, because she
was secretly afraid her own legs would not suffice to carry her there;
she even shook hands with him at parting, and thanked him a second time
for granting her request.
“Not at all,” he said. “Please try to think a little more kindly of me,
Cousin Margaret.”
When the Old Lady reached the station she found, to her dismay, that her
train had just gone and that she would have to wait two hours for the
evening one. She went into the waiting-room and sat down. She was very
tired. All the excitement that had sustained her was gone, and she felt
weak and old. She had nothing to eat, having expected to get home in
time for tea; the waiting-room was chilly, and she shivered in her thin,
old, silk mantilla. Her head ached and her heart likewise. She had won
Sylvia’s desire for her; but Sylvia would go out of her life, and the
Old Lady did not see how she was to go on living after that. Yet she sat
there unflinchingly for two hours, an upright, indomitable old figure,
silently fighting her losing battle with the forces of physical and
mental pain, while happy people came and went, and laughed and talked
before her.
At eight o’clock the Old Lady got off the train at Bright River station,
and slipped off unnoticed into the darkness of the wet night. She had
two miles to walk, and a cold rain was falling. Soon the Old Lady was
wet to the skin and chilled to the marrow. She felt as if she were
walking in a bad dream. Blind instinct alone guided her over the last
mile and up the lane to her own house. As she fumbled at her door,
she realized that a burning heat had suddenly taken the place of her
chilliness. She stumbled in over her threshold and closed the door.