"I MUST LEARN THE TRUTH"
Helen was already very sick of her Uncle Starkweather's home and family.
But she was too proud to show the depth of her feeling before the old
serving man in whose charge she had been momentarily placed.
Lawdor was plainly pleased to wait upon her. He made fresh coffee in his
own percolator; there was a cutlet kept warm upon an electric stove, and
he insisted upon frying her a rasher of bacon and some eggs.
Despite all that mentally troubled her, her healthy body needed
nourishment and Helen ate with an appetite that pleased the old man
immensely.
"If--if you go out early, Miss, don't forget to come here for your
coffee," he said. "Or more, if you please. I shall be happy to serve
you."
"And I'm happy to have you," returned the girl, heartily.
She could not assume to him the rude tone and manner which she had
displayed to her uncle and cousins. _That_ had been the outcome of an
impulse which had risen from the unkind expressions she had heard them use
about her.
As soon as she could get away, she had ceased being an eavesdropper. But
she had heard enough to assure her that her relatives were not glad to see
her; that they were rude and unkind, and that they were disturbed by her
presence among them.
But there was another thing she had drawn from their ill-advised talk,
too. She had heard her father mentioned in no kind way. Hints were thrown
out that Prince Morrell's crime--or the crime of which he had been
accused--was still remembered in New York.
Back into her soul had come that wave of feeling she experienced after her
father's death. He had been so troubled by the smirch upon his name--the
cloud that had blighted his young manhood in the great city.
"I'll know the truth," she thought again. "I'll find out who _was_ guilty.
They sha'n't drive me away until I have accomplished my object in coming
East."
This was the only thought she had while she remained under old Lawdor's
eye. She had to bear up, and seem unruffled until the breakfast was
disposed of and she could escape upstairs.
She went up the servants' way. She saw the same girl she had noticed in
the parlor early in the morning.
"Can you show me my room?" she asked her, timidly.
"Top o' the next flight. Door's open," replied the girl, shortly.
Already the news had gone abroad among the under servants that this was a
poor relation. No tips need be expected. The girl flirted her cloth and
turned her back upon Helen as the latter started through the ghost walk
and up the other stairway.
She easily found the room. It was quite as good as her own room at the
ranch, as far as size and furniture went. Helen would have been amply
satisfied with it had the room been given to her in a different spirit.
But now she closed her door, locked it carefully, hung her jacket over the
knob that she should be sure she was not spied upon, and sat down beside
the bed.
She was not a girl who cried often. She had wept sincere tears the evening
before when she learned that Aunt Eunice was dead. But she could not weep
now.
Her emotion was emphatically wrathful. Without cause--that she could
see--these city relatives had maligned her--had maligned her father's
memory--and had cruelly shown her, a stranger, how they thoroughly hated
her presence.
She had come away from Sunset Ranch with two well-devised ideas in her
mind. First of all, she hoped to clear her father's name of that old
smirch upon it. Secondly, he had wished her to live with her relatives if
possible, that she might become used to the refinements and circumstances
of a more civilized life.
Refinements! Why, these cousins of hers hadn't the decencies of red
Indians!
On impulse Helen had taken the tone she had with them--had showed them in
"that cowgirl" just what they had expected to find. She would be bluff and
rude and ungrammatical and ill-bred. Perhaps the spirit in which Helen did
this was not to be commended; but she had begun it on the impulse of the
moment and she felt she must keep it up during her stay in the
Starkweather house.
How long that would be Helen was not prepared to say now. It was in her
heart one moment not to unpack her trunk at all. She could go to a
hotel--the best in New York, if she so desired. How amazed her cousins
would be if they knew that she was at this moment carrying more than eight
hundred dollars in cash on her person? And suppose they learned that she
owned thousands upon thousands of acres of grazing land in her own right,
on which roamed unnumbered cattle and horses?
Suppose they found out that she had been schooled in a first-class
institution in Denver--probably as well schooled as they themselves? What
would they say? How would they feel should they suddenly make these
discoveries?
But, while she sat there and studied the problem out, Helen came to at
least one determination: While she remained in the Starkweather house she
would keep from her uncle and cousins the knowledge of these facts.
She would not reveal her real character to them. She would continue to
parade before them and before their friends the very rudeness and
ignorance that they had expected her to betray.
"They are ashamed of me--let them be ashamed," she said, to herself,
bitterly. "They hate me--I'll give them no reason for loving me, I promise
you! They think me a pauper--I'll _be_ a pauper. Until I get ready to
leave here, at least. Then I can settle with Uncle Starkweather in one
lump for all the expense to which he may be put for me.
"I'll buy no nice dresses--or hats--or anything else. They sha'n't know I
have a penny to spend. If they want to treat me like a poor relation, let
them. I'll _be_ a poor relation.
"I must learn the truth about poor dad's trouble," she told herself again.
"Uncle Starkweather must know something about it. I want to question him.
He may be able to help me. I may get on the track of that bookkeeper. And
he can tell me, surely, where to find Fenwick Grimes, father's old
partner.
"No. They shall serve me without knowing it. I will be beholden to them
for my bread and butter and shelter--for a time. Let them hate and despise
me. What I have to do I will do. Then I'll 'pay the shot,' as Big Hen
would say, and walk out and leave them."
It was a bold determination, but not one that is to be praised. Yet, Helen
had provocation for the course she proposed to pursue.
She finally unlocked her trunk and hung up the common dresses and other
garments she had brought with her. She had intended to ask her cousins to
take her shopping right away, and she, like any other girl of her age,
longed for new frocks and pretty hats.
But there was a lot of force in Helen's character. She would go without
anything pretty unless her cousins offered to buy it themselves. She would
bide her time.
One thing she hid far back in her closet under the other things--her
riding habit. She knew it would give the lie to her supposed poverty. She
had sent to Chicago for that, and it had cost a hundred dollars.
"But I don't suppose there'd be a chance to ride in this big town," she
thought, with a sigh. "Unless it is hobby-horses in the park. Well! I can
get on for a time without the Rose pony, or any other critter on four
legs, to love me."
But she was hungry for the companionship of the animals whom she had seen
daily on the ranch.
"Why, even the yip of a coyote would be sweet," she mused, putting her
head out of the window and scanning nothing but chimneys and tin roofs,
with bare little yards far below.
Finally she heard a Japanese gong's mellow note, and presumed it must
announce luncheon. It was already two o'clock. People who breakfasted at
nine or ten, of course did not need a midday meal.
"I expect they don't have supper till bedtime," thought Helen.
First she hid her wallet in the bottom of her trunk, locked the trunk and
set it up on end in the closet. Then she locked the closet door and took
out the key, hiding the latter under the edge of the carpet.
"I'm getting as bad as the rest of 'em," she muttered. "I won't trust
anybody, either. Now for meeting my dear cousins at lunch."
She had slipped into one of the simple house dresses she had worn at the
ranch. She had noticed that forenoon that both Belle and Hortense
Starkweather were dressed in the most modish of gowns--as elaborate as
those of fashionable ladies. With no mother to say them nay, these young
girls aped every new fashion as they pleased.
Helen started downstairs at first with her usual light step. Then she
bethought herself, stumbled on a stair, slipped part of the way, and
continued to the very bottom of the last flight with a noise and clatter
which must have announced her coming long in advance of her actual
presence.
"I don't want to play eavesdropper again," she told herself, grimly. "I
always understood that listeners hear no good of themselves, and now I
know it to be a fact."
Gregson stood at the bottom of the last flight. His face was as wooden as
ever, but he managed to open his lips far enough to observe:
"Luncheon is served in the breakfast room, Miss."
A sweep of his arm pointed the way. Then she saw old Lawdor pottering in
and out of a room into which she had not yet looked.
It proved to be a sunny, small dining-room. When alone the family usually
ate here, Helen discovered. The real dining-room was big enough for a
dancing floor, with an enormous table, preposterously heavy furniture all
around the four sides of the room, and an air of gloom that would have
removed, before the food appeared, even, all trace of a healthy appetite.
When Helen entered the brighter apartment her three cousins were already
before her. The noise she made coming along the hall, despite the heavy
carpets, had quite prepared them for her appearance.
Belle and Hortense met her with covert smiles. And they watched their
younger sister to see what impression the girl from Sunset Ranch made upon
Flossie.
"And this is Flossie; is it?" cried Helen, going boisterously into the
room and heading full tilt around the table for the amazed Flossie. "Why,
you look like a smart young'un! And you're only fourteen? Well, I never!"
She seized Flossie by both hands, in spite of that young lady's desire to
keep them free.
"Goodness me! Keep your paws off--do!" ejaculated Flossie, in great
disgust. "And let me tell you, if I _am_ only fourteen I'm 'most as big as
you are and I know a whole lot more."
"Why, Floss!" exclaimed Hortense, but unable to hide her amusement.
The girl from Sunset Ranch took it all with apparent good nature,
however.
"I reckon you _do_ know a lot. You've had advantages, you see. Girls out
my way don't have much chance, and that's a fact. But if I stay here,
don't you reckon I'll learn?"
The Starkweather girls exchanged glances of amusement.
"I do not think," said Belle, calmly, "that you would better think of
remaining with us for long. It would be rather bad for you, I am sure, and
inconvenient for us."
"How's that?" demanded Helen, looking at her blankly. "Inconvenient--and
with all this big house?"
"Ahem!" began Belle, copying her father. "The house is not always as free
of visitors as it is now. And of course, a girl who has no means and must
earn her living, should not live in luxury."
"Why not?" asked Helen, quickly.
"Why--er--well, it would not be nice to have a working girl go in and out
of our house."
"And you think I shall have to go to work?"
"Why, of course, you may remain here--father says--until you can place
yourself. But he does not believe in fostering idleness. He often says
so," said Belle, heaping it all on "poor Pa."
Helen had taken her seat at the table and Gregson was serving. It mattered
nothing to these ill-bred Starkweather girls that the serving people heard
how they treated this "poor relation."
Helen remained silent for several minutes. She tried to look sad. Within,
however, she was furiously angry. But this was not the hour for her to
triumph.
Flossie had been giggling for a few moments. Now she asked her cousin,
saucily:
"I say! Where did you pick up that calico dress, Helen?"
"This?" returned the visitor, looking down at the rather ugly print. "It's
a gingham. Bought it ready-made in Elberon. Do you like it?"
"I love it!" giggled Flossie. "And it's made in quite a new style, too."
"Do you think so? Why, I reckoned it was old," said Helen, smoothly. "But
I'm glad to hear it's so fitten to wear. For, you see, I ain't got many
clo'es."
"Don't you have dressmakers out there in Montana?" asked Hortense, eyeing
the print garment as though it was something entirely foreign.
"I reckon. But we folks on the range don't get much chance at 'em.
Dressmakers is as scurce around Sunset Ranch as killyloo birds. Unless ye
mought call Injun squaws dressmakers."
"What are killyloo birds?" demanded Flossie, hearing something new.
"Well now! don't you have them here?" asked Helen, smiling broadly.
"Never heard of them. And I've been to Bronx Park and seen all the birds
in the flying cage," said Flossie. "Our Nature teacher takes us out there
frequently. It's a dreadful bore."
"Well, I didn't know but you might have 'em East here," observed Helen,
pushing along the time-worn cowboy joke. "I said they was scurce around
the ranch; and they be. I never saw one."
"Really!" ejaculated Hortense. "What are killyloo birds good for?"
"Why, near as I ever heard," replied Helen, chuckling, "they are mostly
used for making folks ask questions."
"I declare!" snapped Belle. "She is laughing at you, girls. You're very
dense, I'm sure, Hortense."
"Say! that's a good one!" laughed Flossie. But Hortense muttered:
"Vulgar little thing!"
Helen smiled tranquilly upon them. Nothing they said to her could shake
her calm. And once in a while--as in the case above--she "got back" at
them. She kept consistently to her rude way of speaking; but she used the
tableware with little awkwardness, and Belle said to Hortense:
"At least somebody's tried to teach her a few things. She is no
sword-swallower."
"I suppose Aunt Mary had some refinement," returned Hortense, languidly.
Helen's ears were preternaturally sharp. She heard everything. But she had
such good command of her features that she showed no emotion at these side
remarks.
After luncheon the three sisters separated for their usual afternoon
amusements. Neither of them gave a thought to Helen's loneliness. They did
not ask her what she was going to do, or suggest anything to her save
that, an hour later, when Belle saw her cousin preparing to leave the
house in the same dress she had worn at luncheon, she cried:
"Oh, Helen, _do_ go out and come in by the lower door; will you? The
basement door, you know."
"Sure!" replied Helen, cheerfully. "Saves the servants work, I suppose,
answering the bell."
But she knew as well as Belle why the request was made. Belle was ashamed
to have her appear to be one of the family. If she went in and out by the
servants' door it would not look so bad.
Helen walked over to the avenue and looked at the frocks in the store
windows. By their richness she saw that in this neighborhood, at least, to
refit in a style which would please her cousins would cost quite a sum of
money.
"I won't do it!" she told herself, stubbornly. "If they want me to look
well enough to go in and out of the front door, let them suggest buying
something for me."
She went back to the Starkweather mansion in good season; but she entered,
as she had been told, by the area door. One of the maids let her in and
tossed her head when she saw what an out-of-date appearance this poor
relation of her master made.
"Sure," this girl said to the cook, "if I didn't dress better nor _her_
when I went out, I'd wait till afther dark, so I would!"
Helen heard this, too. But she was a girl who could stick to her purpose.
Criticism should not move her, she determined; she would continue to play
her part.
"Mr. Starkweather is in the den, Miss," said the housekeeper, meeting
Helen on the stairs. "He has asked for you."
Mrs. Olstrom was a very grim person, indeed. If she had shown the girl
from the ranch some little kindliness the night before, she now hid it all
very successfully.
Helen returned to the lower floor and sought that room in which she had
had her first interview with her relatives. Mr. Starkweather was alone. He
looked more than a little disturbed; and of the two he was the more
confused.
"Ahem! I feel that we must have a serious talk together, Helen," he said,
in his pompous manner. "It--it will be quite necessary--ahem!"
"Sure!" returned the girl. "Glad to. I've got some serious things to ask
you, too, sir."
"Eh? Eh?" exclaimed the gentleman, worried at once.
"You fire ahead, sir," said Helen, sitting down and crossing one knee over
the other in a boyish fashion. "My questions will wait."
"I--ahem!--I wish to know who suggested your coming here to New York?"
"My father," replied Helen, simply and truthfully.
"Your father?" The reply evidently both surprised and discomposed Mr.
Starkweather. "I do not understand. Your--your father is dead----"
"Yes, sir. It was just before he died."
"And he told you to come here to--to _us_?"
"Yes, sir."
"But why?" demanded the gentleman with some warmth.
"Dad said as how you folks lived nice, and knew all about refinement and
eddication and all that. He wanted me to have a better chance than what I
could get on the ranch."
Mr. Starkweather glared at her in amazement. He was not at all a
kind-hearted man; but he was very cowardly. He had feared her answer would
be quite different from this, and now took courage.
"Do you mean to say that merely this expressed wish that you might live
at--ahem!--at my expense, and as my daughters live, brought you here to
New York?"
"That begun it, Uncle," said Helen, coolly.
"Preposterous! What could Prince Morrell be thinking of? Why should I
support you, Miss?"
"Why, that don't matter so much," remarked Helen, calmly. "I can earn my
keep, I reckon. If there's nothing to do in the house I'll go and find me
a job and pay my board. But, you see, dad thought I ought to have the
refining influences of city life. Good idea; eh?"
"A very ridiculous idea! A very ridiculous idea, indeed!" cried Mr.
Starkweather. "I never heard the like."
"Well, you see, there's another reason why I came, too, Uncle," Helen
said, blandly.
"What's that?" demanded the gentleman, startled again.
"Why, dad told me everything when he died. He--he told me how he got into
trouble before he left New York--'way back there before I was born," spoke
Helen, softly. "It troubled dad all his life, Uncle Starkweather.
Especially after mother died. He feared he had not done right by her and
me, after all, in running away when he was not guilty----"
"Not guilty!"
"Not guilty," repeated Helen, sternly. "Of course, we all know _that_.
Somebody got all that money the firm had in bank; but it was not my
father, sir."
She gazed straight into the face of Mr. Starkweather. He did not seem to
be willing to look at her in return; nor could he pluck up the courage to
deny her statement.
"I see," he finally murmured.
"That is the second reason that has brought me to New York," said Helen,
more softly. "And it is the more important reason. If you don't care to
have me here, Uncle, I will find work that will support me, and live
elsewhere. But I _must_ learn the truth about that old story against
father. I sha'n't leave New York until I have cleared his name."