Two days after the arrival of the bride and bridegroom the report of the
marriage reached the residence of Mrs. Trott. Jane Holder had been to
town to make some purchases, and in a dry-goods store heard a
delivery-man mention it. She made further inquiries and established the
fact of the truth of the report. And when she left the street-car at the
end of the line she walked past John's cottage and looked in at the open
door. Tilly was sweeping out the little hall and Jane got a fair view of
her as she hurried by.
"What a sweet little thing she seems!" Jane mused. "I wonder what Liz
will do. It may make her mad. I'm sure she will be mad to find out that
he has been here two days and not been over home. She is expecting some
money from John, too, but how can he give it to her now that he has set
up for himself? Why, he is just a boy! It seems funny to think of him
having a wife and a snug little home like that."
She found Mrs. Trott in the dining-room, where Dora was arranging the
table for the midday meal, and as she sat removing her hat and veil, her
gaudy green sunshade in her lap, she made her revelation.
"What are you saying?" Lizzie Trott cried, incredulously, and with her
carmined lips parted she stood staring at her friend.
Jane repeated what she had said, and then both of them were astonished
by a comment from Dora as she leaned against the table and smiled.
"I'm glad it is out," the child said. "I was dying to tell it. I knew it
was coming off long ago, but he made me promise not to give it away."
"You knew?" Mrs. Trott cried, her eyes flashing behind their waxed
lashes.
"Yes, and all about the house being rented. Huh! I guess I did! I saw
Sam Cavanaugh hide the key under the door-step one day, and after he
left I unlocked the door and went in and looked it over. Oh, it is
mighty pretty! I saw Mrs. Cavanaugh come in and clean it up one day,
too, and I knew that things was getting ripe. Huh! I've already seen
Tilly, too, for I've passed her several times while she was out in the
yard. I'd have spoke to her, but my best dress was out on the line and I
know John would want me to look neat and clean."
With steady eyes and a motionless breast Lizzie Trott turned toward the
stairs. "I want to talk to you in private, Jane," she said, under her
breath. "Come up to your room."
"I was going up, anyway, to get these hot things off," Jane said,
complainingly. "Something is wrong with me, Liz. I can't lace as tight
as I did without suffocating. I've got to take off my corset and lie
down. I almost fainted in Lowe & Beaman's this morning while I was
waiting for Doctor Renfrow to mix my tonic. He laughed and said that I
drink too much adulterated whisky for a woman of my build. He felt my
pulse and looked at my tongue and eyes and talked sorter serious about
my condition. He asked how old my mother was when she died, and when I
told him 'thirty-six' he shook his head and said I must come into his
office some day and let him examine me thoroughly."
Jane was out of breath by this time, for she had been talking while
ascending the stairs, and she turned into her room and sank down on the
bed. Mrs. Trott followed and stood over her, her hands on her hips.
"You say they have been here two days?" she said.
"Yes; came in the night," Jane panted forth as she began to unhook her
silk dress. "Oh, my! I have that gone feeling again--sort of
swimming-like, and when I try to see all of your face at once I get only
part of it--like a black spot was coming between--and if I look at the
wall there in the shade or at the floor I can see wriggling lights. The
doctor said my liver was awful."
Lizzie Trott took a chair and sat in it. She bent downward, her bare,
shapely elbows on her knees, her ringed fingers holding her chin.
"For the love of Heaven," she said, impatiently, "let up on your whining
for a minute and let's talk about John. What do you think about it?"
"Oh, I don't know what to think!" and with a low groan Jane threw
herself back on the bed. "What do I care? They are full of health and
can take care of themselves, while here I lie with hardly strength
enough to unlace myself."
"Why didn't he tell us, do you suppose?" Lizzie continued. "Why hasn't
he been over? Two days and nights, and nothing said or done! Why, it is
outrageous--simply outrageous!"
"Oh, I see what you are driving at!" Jane sat up and began to unlace her
corsets, her yellowish wrists and bony finger working behind her back.
"Now the spots are gone and my head is steady. It is peculiar how they
come and go that way. Yes, I think I see what bothers you. Well, old
pal, I'll tell you. I'll bet my life she is a good girl, and a worker,
too. Country stock, maybe. She looks it. No style to her dress or the
way she does her hair. Yes, yes, I think I understand what is bothering
you. You are wondering--well, you know what I mean. You are wondering if
anybody has told her--well, told her about us--_all_ about us, I mean."
Mrs. Trott showed a tendency to flare up, which her blank bewilderment
seemed to quench. "You can say the most catty things when you try," she
began, but finished with a low groan and sat with her eyes fixed on a
pattern in the worn rug by the bed.
"Well, I am including myself," Jane said. "You may call that catty, but
I don't. What is the use to plaster facts over? Between you and me, I
simply don't believe John would take to a fast girl. If there ever was a
boy that gave fast girls the cold shoulder, John Trott did. I always
thought he was blind, anyway--going about with his figuring and blue
papers with white lines on them. The way he hauled his money out and
threw it at us proved he never stopped to think what he was doing. Yes,
that little wife is the right sort, and I myself don't see how--well,
how he could have brought her right here, you understand. You think so,
too, and that is what is bothering you. You won't admit it, but that is
the nigger in your woodpile, Liz! My! how easy I feel when I'm
unstrapped! The doctor laid the law down on that when I was sick the
last time, you know, but how can I walk through Main Street looking--?"
"For God's sake, dry up!" Lizzie suddenly shot out. "What am I going to
do? How can I get along without his help, and he can't help me and keep
up a separate house. Must--must I go over there? Do you think I--I
ought to call? Doesn't it look like--like he means something by--by
keeping it a secret? It wasn't sudden, for Dora says he told her some
time back."
"Go over there? Huh! You make me smile, Liz. You didn't even get an
invitation to the wedding, or a chance to make a present, and yet you
are bothered about whether you ought to call or not. As for me, I'll not
put foot across his door-sill--not even if he asked me. No, not even if
he come begging me on bended knee. Huh! I guess not!"
"And why not?" Lizzie Trott asked, after a momentous pause.
"Because"--and as she answered Jane's eyes held a steely gleam as from
some inner light of self-accusation that refused to be quenched even by
fear of giving offense--"because if he did ask me I'd know the poor boy
was still blind to what everybody else knows and what he would have
known long ago if he had been as coarse as other men, or if folks had
not liked him too much to talk plain to him. No, I'll not go there. I
wouldn't know what to say, nohow. Huh! You wouldn't, either, I'll bet."
"You are not helping me much." Lizzie Trott readjusted the imitation
tortoise-shell comb in her rather lifeless hair and gave a sigh, which
was followed by a moan, half of anger, half of despair.
"I think I can take a nap now," Jane said. "I feel drowsy-like. If--if
you have finished, I wish you would pull the shades down. Tell Dora I
don't want anything to eat and not to bring it up. She will wake me if
she does."
Mrs. Trott rose sullenly and drew the shades down. She cast a parting
look at Jane, and was on the threshold when from the bed came these
words:
"Liz, do me a favor, please do, like a good girl. If Jim Stacy comes
again, don't let him know I'm up here. Tell him some lie--tell him I am
in Atlanta. He is dead broke and always drinking and jealous. I'm too
sick to talk to him, and, sick or not, he'd come right up. I've got to
get rid of him, that is certain."
Making some sort of promise, Lizzie went into her own room and sat down
in a rocking-chair. Nervously she swung back and forth for a few
minutes, and then sat still, her eyes fixed on vacancy.