Fisherman's Cove was a long way from Mrs. Stump's boarding-house, but that fact gave Sally no concern. And Fisherman's Cove was much changed from the Cove that Uncle John used to tell her about, where he had been used to go to see the men haul the seines. Its waters had been fouled by the outpourings of a sewer, and the fish had deserted them years before; but that would not make the ice any the less attractive with a young moon shining upon it.
And the way to Fisherman's Cove was not the way that Uncle John had been in the habit of taking. His way, fifty years before, had led him out upon a quiet country road until he came to a little lane that led down, between high growths of bushes, to a little farmhouse. The farmhouse had overlooked the Cove. Sally could not go through the little lane to the little old farmhouse, because the farmhouse was not there now, and because there was a horrible fence of new boards right across the lane. They had been building mills on the shores of Fisherman's Cove for thirty years; and the ice ponds on which the boys and girls of thirty years before used to skate—Miss Patty had skated there, often—were no longer ice ponds, but thriving mill villages, with their long rows of brilliantly lighted windows and their neat tenements, the later ones of three stories, each story having its neat clothes-porch. If you don't know what a clothes-porch is, just go down there and see for yourself. And these neat tenements of three stories each sheltered I don't know how many families of Portuguese mill-workers, who may have been neat, but who probably were not. Thriving! Ugh! as Miss Patty invariably said, turning her head away. She did not have to go that way often, but when she didhave to she preferred to shut her eyes until her horse had taken her past it all.
Besides, Mrs. Stump's was not on Apple Tree Street, but in a much less fashionable neighborhood; one which had been fashionable some seventy or eighty years before. As fashion left that street and moved upon the ridge, the fine old houses—for they were fine old houses, even there—gradually fell in their estate. The way from Mrs. Stump's to Fisherman's Cove did not lie by that thriving mill village which has been mentioned, but by other thriving mill villages, with their tenements which, being older, were presumably not so neat. There was little to choose between the ways. Either was disagreeable enough, especially at any time when the hands were in the street, and no girl would have chosen such a time to walk upon that road. Even Sally would have avoided it; but the mill-hands were now shut up in their mills and working merrily or otherwise, and she did not give the matter a thought.
As she started upon her road, a man who had been leaning negligently upon a post at the next corner, bestirred himself, unleaned, and came toward her. Sally glanced up at him and stopped. "Oh, dear!" she said, in a voice of comical dismay. "Oh, dear! And I promised mother that I wouldn't do anything rash."
The man continued to come toward her. He had a leisurely air of certainty which ordinarily would have antagonized Sally at once.
"Well, Sally?" he said questioningly, when he was near enough to be heard without raising his voice.
"Well, Everett," Sally returned, with some sharpness. "I should really like to know what you were doing on that corner."
"Doing?" he asked in surprise. "Why, nothing at all. I was only waiting for you."
"And why," she said, with more sharpness than before, "if you were waiting for me, didn't you come to the house and wait there?"
"I don't like to go to boarding-houses and wait," he replied, smiling. "I have a prejudice against boarding-houses, although I have no doubt that Mrs. Stump's is an excellent house. And my going there might excite some comment."
"Is it your idea," Sally retorted quickly, "that your waiting on the next corner will not excite comment? There has been too much comment already."
"Well, Sally, what if there has been a certain amount of it? We don't care, do we?"
"I am not sure that we don't," she answered slowly, looking him in the face thoughtfully. "I am not sure. In fact, I think we do."
He flushed a little under her direct gaze. That subject was not to be pursued.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"I am going for a walk," she replied; "for a long walk. And I—"
"Then you'd better ride," he said quickly, interrupting her. "I can get Sawny in five minutes. Where will you be?"
"No," Sally spoke earnestly. "Don't. I'd rather not. I prefer to walk. And, Everett, I'd rather you wouldn't go with me. I want to take this walk alone."
Everett was surprised. It was rather a shock to find that he wasn't wanted.
"Oh," he said coldly. "Very well. I hope you will have a most pleasant walk to—wherever you are going."
Sally's heart was too tender. Everett seemed hurt, and she didn't like to feel that she had hurt him. "I am going to Fisherman's Cove," she said.
"Fisherman's Cove! But you know that will take you through the heart of milltown."
"Yes, but the mills aren't out. I'll come back early."
"It's not a way for a girl to choose."
Sally smiled. "I'll be all right, I think."
Everett shrugged his shoulders. "You'd much better let me drive you. We can go to the Cove as well as elsewhere."
Sally shook her head gently.
"As you please," he said; and he shrugged again and turned away.
Sally looked after him for a moment. "Oh, dear," she sighed. "Now I've offended him—mortally, I suppose. But it doesn't matter. I was forgetting. Nothing really matters." It didn't matter. It might be better if she had offended him mortally if he would stay offended.
So Sally put aside all thoughts of Everett and resumed her walk. She had no great difficulty in putting aside thoughts of him. I do not know what her thoughts were, as she walked on towards the Cove, but it is safe to say that they were not of Everett. She must have been thinking pretty deeply of something, for she took her way unconsciously and without seeing where she was going; and she passed the few people that she met without seeing them or being conscious that they were there. Walking so, like one asleep, she came to the end of that street, where it runs into River Street.
River Street is a dirty street. Its best friends could not say more for it. The reason is not far to seek; and a part of that reason is that, for many years—say sixty years or even seventy—it has served for a residence street for the same class of people. Residence street is perhaps rather a high-sounding name for it. You may use any other words that you like better, for River Street, from the point where Sally entered it to within a half-dozen blocks of the centre of the town, was, for long years, the one place where certain people lived. It was so wholly given up to those people that it was known as Fayal; and Fayal had a reputation which was not altogether savory. The inhabitants of this local Fayal were, in the old days, sailors, and sailors of the roughest sort; with crimps and sharks and women of several kinds, and an occasional overlord. There were no mills to speak of, twenty-five years ago, at this end of the town. When the mills began to come, the inhabitants of Fayal—at least, some of them—sent for their friends from the islands, and the friends, in turn, sent for their families; the old sailorclass, the rough men with gold hoops in their ears, gradually died off and the reputation of River Street improved. Like the street itself, it is not yet altogether savory.
At River Street, Sally began to find herself among the tenements, for Fayal had lain in the other direction and the old River Street had faded out, right here, into the remains of a country road which ended at the beach, not half a mile beyond. There was no country road now, and the less said about this particular part of the beach the better.
Sally paused for an instant and looked about her. From this point on, River Street was a continuous row of tenements, very neat and tidy tenements, no doubt, at a distance. There was no gleam in that same distance which betokened the Cove, only the neat and tidy tenements, horribly neat and tidy. Sally felt a sinking of the heart or somewhere about that region, although I believe it is not the heart that sinks.
"Oh, dear!" she exclaimed, under her breath. "I had forgotten that it was so forlorn. I will hurry through it. I wish I could shut my eyes, as Patty does, but I suppose I shall need to see."
So she hurried along, past the rows of tenements, past the few women that she met and past the small children playing in the street. The women paid no attention to her, being intent upon their own business and having enough of it to keep them well occupied. She passed a mill, with its throbbing of looms and its clattering and clicking of spindles. The long rows of windows were just beginning to be lighted as she passed. She went on, past more tenements, less closely set, and past another mill. The windows of this second mill were already lighted, and the same throbbing and clattering came faintly to her ears. In front of this mill was a broad street, almost a square, and beyond the street an open lot,—I had almost said a field, but it lacked one essential to being a field,—evidently used by the population, old and young, as a playground. This lot was surrounded by the remains of an old stone wall, a relic of the better days, whenit had been a field. Now, there was no vestige of vegetation; no living thing. A pig would have died of starvation in that lot. Both street and lot were covered with frozen mud and dirty snow, and a film of repulsive dirt, that would not wash off, coated the old stones of the wall. The whole place filled Sally with disgust. If these mills had to be somewhere, why must they put them here? Why must they? Weren't there other places, without robbing—
Sally broke off. She had been almost talking aloud to herself in fierce rebellion. Mills! Mills! Nothing but mills! They had taken up every foot of the shore in Whitby except what was occupied by the wharves. What were the people thinking of, that they suffered it? They had seen foot after foot, mile after mile, of shore given to the mills, and not a single feeble voice had been raised to prevent. They had seen the mills stretch forth surreptitious, grasping hands and take unto themselves pieces of their beautiful old shore road, a quarter of a mile at a time. That road had been unequaled for beauty, thirty years before. Sally had heard Patty speak of it often, mourning its loss. She, herself, had seen great stretches of that shore taken by the mills within the past ten years, and she had not known enough to speak or even to care. The people were mill-mad—or sleeping. Well—and Sally sighed—a haughty spirit before destruction; just before it, she hoped. A thousand times rather the few hardened sailor-men in their place than that horde everywhere.
It is to be feared that Sally was getting excited; and it is to be feared that she was not truly democratic. Well, she was not and she never pretended to be. What of it? She never pretended to be what she was not. And as she thought these thoughts, she came out from behind the third mill and gave a little gasp of delight. There lay Fisherman's Cove, its frozen surface saffron and blue and crimson; and the clouds above golden and saffron and crimson, with lavender and purple in the shadows. The sun had just gone down behind another mill on the opposite shore. Sally stumbledon—she didn't dare take her eyes off that—but she stumbled on, as fast as she could, past the few scattered tenements which lay between her and the open road, and she sat down on a great stone that was part of the old sea-wall. For at this point the road ran close to the waters of the Cove, and the beach, with its load of broken ice, was at her feet. And she sighed again and sat there, watching, and a great peace fell upon her spirit and she was content.
Sally gazed, first at the sky and then at the ice of the Cove; and the golden lights upon the clouds changed to saffron and the saffron to crimson and the purple deepened. In the ice, the green which had lingered in places changed to blue and the blue to indigo and the saffron and crimson darkened and were gone. Ah! This was worth while. Was anything else worth while? What did she care, sitting there, for schools or mills or anything, indeed, but sitting there and gazing? She half turned and looked out into the bay where sky and water meet. She could not tell which was water and which was sky, for both had become a dull slate-blue. She looked again at the Cove. The color had gone, but there was a faint silvery light from a young moon which hung above the mill on the opposite shore. And from the windows of the mill shone other lights. These mills were rather picturesque at night and at a distance; they were rather pretty—of a kind. Sally did not care for that kind. The greater the distance, the more picturesque they were. Sally laughed to herself at the thought. Her laugh was gay enough and it would have done her mother's heart good to hear it. She was content; so content that she took no heed of the time, but she sat there until the young moon had sunk, in its turn, almost to the mill, and she roused herself and found that she was cold, which was not strange. And it was too late for a girl to be going past the mills; which was not strange either. If she was going, she had better be about it. So she got up from the great stone, took a last long look at the fast-darkening sky, shivered and started back, at a good pace, along the road.
She passed the last mill and, as she came to the corner of the fence, she heard the roar of many feet coming out. They burst through the doorway and she heard them pattering on the frozen mud behind her. But it was dark and she was well ahead.
At the second mill, the one of the broad square and the open lot, she saw the crowd of mill-hands pouring out of the gate as she approached. The crowd swelled and overflowed the sidewalk and then the street and poured over the wall into the lot, slowly, like some huge stream of molasses. As Sally continued on her way, she met this human stream coming toward her; but it divided before her and closed behind her, letting her through slowly. They are a peaceable, law-abiding set, for the most part, but the mill lays its heavy hand upon them. The older ones among them went stolidly to their kennels; but a few of the mill-girls looked after Sally and made quite audible remarks about her and giggled and laughed and nudged the men. And the men—the young men—looked back at her and thought—but I don't know what they thought. I only know that two of them, of mixed race, turned and followed on after her.
Sally was not aware that she was being followed, but many of the mill-girls were, and the giggling and the laughter grew, until Sally turned to see the cause. Having seen, she did not change her pace, but pursued her way steadily without again looking back or seeming to know of her two followers. The crowd ahead, going north, and the crowd behind her, going south, were well separated by this time, and there was a wide space between them. In this space were only Sally and the two men, now close behind her, and a few stragglers. In this way they went on for some distance, while the crowd ahead gradually melted away into the tenements on either side; and they were within a few blocks of the corner where Sally would turn off of River Street. The street was not well lighted and it was deserted.
The men came up, one on either side of Sally, and one of them said something to her, too vile to be recorded.Sally kept her eyes straight ahead and she thought rapidly. She was not exactly frightened, but she was thinking what she had better do. It would do little good to scream. The outcome of such a course was doubtful and, besides, Sally was not the kind of a girl who screams easily or at all. She meditated fighting. She could have put up a good fight; but there were two of the men and they would have been pleased with a fight, two men against one girl. What else was there for her to do? She could run, and she could run well; so well that there was an even chance, perhaps, that she could run faster and last longer than those mill-trained men. Eight or ten years of the mill do not help a man's lungs much or his morals. The dust, you know,—it seems to get into their morals as well as into their lungs. If only she didn't have skirts to bother her; but her skirt was neither tight nor very long.
The man repeated his vile speech; and Sally darted away, gathering her skirts as she ran.
The men had been taken by surprise, but they put out after her as fast as they could, laughing. This was sport; and although laughter is not recommended for runners, they managed to gain a little at first. After that first burst, they ceased to gain, but they held their own, and the chase sped merrily along River Street, a scant five yards separating the hunters from their quarry. Sally reached her corner and turned off of River Street, passing under the light of a street lamp as she made the turn. Coming down that street was a man. Sally did not see very well, for he was not in the full light and, besides, her eyes were full of tears because of her running. But the man gave a start and an exclamation and he began to run and he ran into those men like a locomotive, and he swung at one of them and hit him and knocked him into the middle of the street, so that he landed on the back of his neck in the roadway and lay limp and still. The other would have run away, but the man caught him around the neck with his left hand and cast him as far as his fellow, rolling over and over.
"Damn you!" he cried low. "No, you don't. Damn you!"
Doubtless he was forgiven that cry, even as Sally forgave it. She had stopped and was leaning against a fence. When she saw the men go into the street, one after the other, she gave a quick chuckle of delight. She may have been a little hysterical. It would not have been strange.
The second man who had been so summarily cast into the road was rising slowly, muttering and half sobbing. The first man continued to lie limp and still, and the man who had cast him there advanced slowly toward him; upon which that other ceased beating the dust from his clothes and edged away, muttering more loudly threats and vituperations. The man continued to advance, but he raised his head into the full light from the street lamp and he laughed shortly.
"You'd better be off," he said. "Get out, and hurry about it."
Sally saw his face well enough in the dim light and she knew the voice. She had not really needed to recognize either, for she knew well enough, in her heart, who it was that had come to her aid in the nick of time. She chuckled again with delight, then drew a shivering breath and gave a sob. There was no doubt about it, Sally was hysterical. She knew that she was and she stifled the sob in her throat. She despised hysterics. And she laughed a little because she couldn't help it, and she went to him.
He was kneeling in the road and he had the man's head upon one knee and was feeling him gently. He raised his head as she came near.
"I can't tell whether I have hurt him or not. It's awkward. We can't leave him lying here in the street, although he deserves no better treatment. I wish I had a horse here. You don't happen to know of one, do you, Sally?"
"N—no," she answered slowly, "not near here. I suppose I could get Sawny, if you would wait."
Fox laughed. "I don't want to ask Everett for Sawny."
"Neither do I." The sound of a horse's hoofs came to them faintly. "There's one now. I'll run to the corner and stop him." And, before Fox could make any reply, she was off, running.
The sound of the horse's hoofs stopped and presently came on, down the street.
"Hello!" cried a voice. "Is that Doctor Sanderson? What can I do?"
"It's Eugene Spencer, Fox," remarked Sally, getting out. "Wasn't that luck?"
"Yes," said Jane, "wasn't it? Shall I take Sally home?"
Fox and Sally both preferred that he should take the man.
"I hate to ask you to take him out to my hospital," said Fox apologetically, "but I don't know of anything better. I'll telephone them before you can get there, and I'll be out within an hour. I don't think he's seriously hurt."
So they bundled the man in, and Jane drove off, rather crestfallen. For his part, he thought that he ought to take Sally home first, at least. The man still lurking in the shadows hurled vile epithets and obscenities and ran after Jane.
Fox laughed a little, nervously. "Hope he has a pleasant chase. He'll hardly catch Spencer." Eugene was already at the corner. "My first patient, Sally, although the Retreat is not open yet. This man is not the kind of patient I shall hope to have, but it seemed better to send him there and avoid publicity. We can take good care of him. Hello!"
There was some kind of an uproar just around the corner. It lasted only a moment and then Eugene came driving back, alone.
"That man of yours," he said, pulling up short, "recovered very suddenly, rolled out, and the pair of them ran down the street like scared rabbits. I didn't chase them, for I thought that you would probably be glad enough to get rid of him."
"I am," Fox replied, with evident relief. "He can't be much hurt. I'm much obliged to you, Spencer."
"Shan't I take Sally home? Or there's room for both of you, if you don't mind a little crowding."
"We will walk home, thank you, Jane," said Sally, with the finality he had come to expect. "I haven't seen Fox for a long time and I have a lot to say to him."
So Eugene, muttering something under his breath, made a very short turn, in which process he very nearly tipped over, and gave his horse a cut with the whip. The animal, which was not expecting this and did not deserve it, gave a bound and they were gone.
Sally chuckled. "Display of temper on Mr. Spencer's part," Fox observed, "wholly uncalled for. Bad for the horse, too. I judge that he is not the equal of Everett as a horse trainer."
Sally's chuckling broke out afresh. "No, he's not, I'm afraid. Those displays of temper are not unusual. Now, Fox, come along."
Fox was a little surprised—just a little—to feel Sally's hand within his arm, but he did know better than to show his surprise, if there were some things that he didn't know. If he had only known, he—well—but Sally was speaking to him.
"Now, Fox," she was saying, "how in the world did you happen to turn up just at that moment? You were in the nick of time."
"Oh, I don't know about that. You would probably have left them. They were about all in, both of them. But I didn't happen to turn up. It wasn't any accident. I was looking for you."
Unconsciously, Sally tightened her hold upon his arm. "Oh," she murmured, "that was nice!"
"I only got here this afternoon," Fox continued, paying no obvious attention to her murmured remark, "and I went right to Mrs. Stump's. I found your mother a little upset and rather anxious, but I didn't succeed in finding out what it was about." He did not say—perhaps he did not know—how upset Mrs. Ladue had been. She had been torn by conflicting emotions, and she showed evidences of it. But there had been never a moment's hesitation about the course shewould pursue. Only she had raised troubled, tearful eyes to Fox, and had said—but what Mrs. Ladue had said forms no part of this chronicle. Whatever she said, she did not tell him clearly of the rumors connecting Everett's name with Sally's. He would hear those rumors soon enough, if there was anything in them; if there was not, for that matter.
Sally had been thinking. "I am afraid," she said softly, "that it was about me. I hoped she was all over it when I left."
Fox turned his head and looked at her, but he did not reply to her remark directly. "She said that you had gone for a walk, but she didn't know where. I waited a long time, thinking you might come in. Your mother and I had a long talk."
Sally would have given a good deal to know what the long talk was about. "It—it isn't true, Fox," she began slowly.
"What! It is true, too. We talked for an hour and forty minutes, while I was waiting. I know."
Sally laughed nervously. "I—I meant that anything you may hear about me isn't true."
"Clear as mud, Sally. Well, I'll remember. Anything that I hear about you isn't true. But I'm not likely to hear the voice of rumor especially if it's about you."
Sally made no reply to this, and Fox went on. "When it began to grow dark, I made some inquiries, and I found a certain person who had seen you go out; and you had met a man at the next corner—Who was the man, Sally?"
"Everett," Sally replied briefly; and she started to say more, but thought better of it—or worse, as you like—and shut her lips tight together.
"Oh, yes, she said she thought it was Everett. I thought that, perhaps, she was mistaken."
"No," said Sally, "she was not mistaken."
"Hum!" said Fox, smiling to himself; but Sally could not see that. "And this exceedingly well-informed person saidthat you and Everett evidently had a spat on the street corner, and that he went off, mad."
"Yes," said Sally, nodding. She might have known that Fox couldn't see the nod.
"Too bad!" said Fox. "Exemplary young man—especially one who has seen the world and who has as perfect manners as Everett wishes it to be thought that he has—shouldn't go off mad. Very young. It reminds one of your young friend, Spencer. We should expect him to go off mad, shouldn't we, Sally?"
Sally chuckled again. "We should."
"Well," Fox resumed, "finding that you had been last seen hiking down the street without male escort, Everett having got mad and declined to play and gone home,—it is to be hoped that he had gone home,—I put out after you, lippety-clippety. All the male inhabitants of Whitby seem to think that is their chief end in life."
"Oh, Fox," said Sally faintly, "they don't."
"They do," Fox insisted; "all except Dick." He laughed. "Speaking of Dick reminds me that I have something to tell you if you don't let me forget it. Well, loping along that way, I came to the historic corner—of what street?"
"River Street. How did you happen to come that way?"
"Followed my nose. You had gone along this street. So did I. You came to the corner. So did I, and I nearly ran into you."
She shivered a little. Fox felt it, and held his arm closer to him.
"Are you cold, Sally?"
"No." She spoke low. "But I'm glad you came, Fox. I'm very glad."
"So am I, for several reasons not to be catalogued at present." They had almost reached Mrs. Stump's. "Oh, I was going to tell you something in connection with Dick. Henrietta's engaged. She wanted me to tell you. So, it is to be presumed, is Dick."
"I'm very glad, but I'm not surprised. I don't suppose Henrietta expected me to be."
"She didn't mention it, so you don't have to be."
"I'll write to her to-night. So that accounts for Dick's mysterious disappearances."
"He's been visiting us at your old place, Sally. He was so much interested in seeing your favorite trees and in hearing about you, that Henrietta felt rather jealous."
Sally laughed derisively. They were standing at the foot of Mrs. Stump's fine granite steps. Fox was silent for a moment, looking at Sally.
"I know," he said at last thoughtfully, "I know where there are some gynesaurus trees near Whitby."
Sally's face lighted up. "Could a person climb them, Fox?"
"A person about twenty-two years old?" asked Fox. "I should think she might if she is able."
"She is able," she returned, nodding emphatically. "Will you tell me where they are?"
"Some day," Fox answered, not looking at her, "I will show them to you."
Sally was in rather better spirits for some time after that walk to Fisherman's Cove, although there is some doubt whether the improvement was due to her brief sight of the Cove under a winter sun and moon or to realization of the fact that a great number of people were worse off than she or to her break with Everett or to seeing Fox again. But her break with Everett was of only a temporary nature, a fact which he made very evident to her, at least, and, incidentally, to Miss Miller and to Miss Lambkin and to Mrs. Upjohn and to many others; and, as for seeing Fox, she had been enjoying that privilege for twelve years, from time to time. To be sure, it had occasionally been a long while from time to time, but that had not seemed to trouble Sally. So, altogether, we are forced to abandon the inquiry as fruitless. Sally, if we had asked her, would have smiled and would have answered quite truly that she didn't know and she didn't care. It was the fact which was most important; the fact was, indeed, of the only importance, except to persons like Miss Letty Lambkin, who are never satisfied with the simple facts of life, but must dig down until they find certain diseased roots, which they fondly believe, without further tracing, to be the roots of those facts, but which, more often than not, do not belong to them at all, but to some other tree.
Fox's hospital had had an opening, to which the inhabitants of Whitby were invited. Whitby, in a way, was as exclusive as Philadelphia, and Fox's cards of invitation were addressed only to those fortunate persons living in a certain restricted area. That area was bounded, on the east, by the Cow Path, although a few cards found their way down the hill as far as Mrs. Stump's and Miss Miller's. Consequently,Patty went and so did Mrs. Ladue and Sally. It might have been a reception, for they found there nearly the whole of the élite of Whitby and no one else, and the whole of the hospital staff were engaged in showing small parties of the aforesaid élite over the hospital and the farm connected with it. The hospital staff had no other engagements, there being no patients yet. Patty was delighted with it—and with the staff—and expressed her intention of coming out to board as soon as the spring opened. And Fox, to whom this speech was addressed—it was delivered in rather a coquettish manner, all Miss Patty's own—smiled and bowed and made no reply. Perhaps no reply was expected. Fox had heard many such remarks. He would have his patients from among the makers of them.
As soon as he could, Fox took Mrs. Ladue and Sally out over the farm. Patty was deep in conversation with Doctor Beatty. So he missed her, to his great regret, he said. But, never mind. She'll have a chance to see it. And thereupon he smiled enigmatically, and proceeded to show them what had been done. He was proud of it. When he had shown them all of it, he waved his hand toward the old cream-colored square house.
"My residence," he said. "I am afraid that it will have to remain shut up as it is, for the present. Henrietta's change of plan—or, I shouldn't say that, perhaps—her engagement knocks my scheme of things in the head. She is to be married in June, you know."
"But, Fox," Mrs. Ladue exclaimed, "surely, you don't mean that you won't open the house at all!" She was sorry for him. Why did he have to miss the satisfaction of living in his own house? Such a house, too!
He nodded. "I don't see any prospect of it," he answered, rather gloomily for him; "at least," he added, with a short laugh, "until I am married. There is really no reason for it, you know. There is likely to be room enough at this end of the establishment for some time."
It was Margaret Savage he referred to, Sally supposed.At least, Henrietta, she remembered, had said—had intimated it. Suddenly, she hated the old house.
"It's a shame," Mrs. Ladue said softly. "It's a perfect shame, Fox. If—if you want to live in it, there's no reason—"
Fox shook his head. "It wouldn't be best or wise, dear Mrs. Ladue," he said gently. "I can wait."
"Aren't you going to show it to us?" asked Mrs. Ladue then, with heightened color. "We should like to see the inside, shouldn't we, Sally?"
But Sally did not have a chance to reply. "Not to-day," said Fox. "Sometime, soon, I hope, but not to-day."
He said no more and Mrs. Ladue said nothing and Sally said nothing; and they went in again, by unanimous consent, and presently Mrs. Ladue and Sally and Patty drove away, although so early a departure was much against Patty's inclination. They would not have succeeded in getting her to go at all but that Fox took Doctor Beatty off to show him something, and Doctor Beatty thanked him, although he did not make it clear whether it was for wanting to show him the something or for taking him away. But Meriwether Beatty had shown a capacity for leaving Patty when he felt like it, so that I am forced to conclude that that had nothing to do with his thanks. When they got back to Mrs. Stump's they found a letter from Charlie waiting for them on the hall table. I may add that Patty found a letter from Charlie, also, but it was not like the one to his mother and Sally. It differed from theirs in several important particulars.
Charlie wrote a letter home every week, with unfailing regularity. It was a perfunctory letter, filled with the unimportant happenings at college. It never gave any information about himself except on those rare occasions when he had something favorable to report, and it did not need to be anything exceptionally favorable either.
He wrote to Patty irregularly, sometimes more often sometimes less, depending upon his needs. Once, when hehad been having an unusually good run of luck, he let nearly three weeks elapse between letters, and then his next letter was almost seven pages long and contained no reference to money. Patty had been awaiting a letter nervously and opened this one with fear and trembling. The combination, after such an interval, transported Patty with delight, and she ran over at once to show the letter to Mrs. Ladue. It was the only one that she did show to Mrs. Ladue, for all the others either were evidently dictated by a necessity more or less dire, or they referred to previous "loans" of which Mrs. Ladue and Sally knew nothing. Patty always managed to supply his needs, although sometimes with extreme difficulty and with a great casting up of accounts, in which process many perfectly good pencils were consumed in a manner for which they were not intended. If the makers of pencils had designed them for such use, they would have made them with lolly-pops or chewing-gum on one end.
Charlie's letters to Patty were triumphs of art, and would have made his scholastic fortune if they could have been presented as daily themes. If they were not always free from error, they were always readable and the matter was treated in a way which unfailingly would have been of interest to any one but Patty, and they showed evidence of a lively and well-nourished imagination which was not allowed to become atrophied. "William Henry's Letters to his Grandmother," although of a somewhat different nature, were not a patch upon them.
But Patty was too much concerned about the matter treated in these letters to be interested in their literary value; and, besides, she was not in a position to know the extent of the exercise to which Charlie's imagination was subjected in the course of composition. Her own imagination was not without exercise, for she had to finance his requests.
Patty's financing, that winter, would have done credit to a promoter. She had already succeeded in getting herself involved deeply with the builder who was repairing her house and with Dick, although Dick was as yet in blissfulignorance of the fact. The builder had been paid but very little since Christmas; but he, being an elderly man who had known her father well, and who, accordingly, trusted any member of the family implicitly, had said nothing yet. Patty wondered, with some fear and trembling, how much longer he would go on without saying anything. And then she put the whole matter aside. She could not see her way out yet.
It was not that she considered the repairs upon her house, which amounted almost to rebuilding, as properly any business of Dick's. But, unaccountably and inscrutably to Patty, if not to her friends and acquaintances, her father had given Richard Torrington great discretion, under his will. The Richard aforesaid was even empowered to keep the management of all Patty's property and to give her no more than a stated allowance, if he saw good reason to do so. Mr. Hazen had made him virtually a trustee, perhaps actually; but, so far, he seemed to regard himself as no more than the channel through which Patty's money must necessarily flow and he honored all her requests, asking only that she tell him the general purpose to which the money was to be applied.
In consequence of this situation, there had been certain checks signed by Richard Torrington, Executor, designed to be applied to payments upon the house. Several of these checks had been hypothecated by Patty and diverted to other uses. Possibly Charlie Ladue could have given some information as to those uses. Certainly Patty could not. She knew nothing at all of the ultimate purposes to which her money was put. For that matter, Charlie's knowledge went only one step farther. He was nothing but a channel through which Patty's money necessarily flowed. A good, generous sewer-pipe would have served as well, for all the good that the money did him; and the process was rapidly undermining Patty's morals.
It was a great pity that Patty had chosen this method of supply. As long as she was bound to keep Charlie supplied with whatever he asked for, or as nearly as she could come to that, it would have been much better to ask Dick todouble her allowance for her personal use. He might have wondered at such a request, but he would have done it without question, and thereby Patty's self-respect would have been saved without producing any effect upon Charlie's in either way. One wonders whether Charlie had any shreds of self-respect left, anyway.
So it is difficult to say whether Patty looked forward with greater joy than dread to Charlie's coming home for the Easter recess. For some weeks he had kept her stirred up by his requests, but these requests were for relatively small sums, ten dollars or twenty-five, and once he asked for fifty. But for ten days before his vacation, he had asked her for nothing, and her fears were forgotten.
When, at last, the Easter recess began, Charlie appeared promptly on the afternoon when he should have appeared and he looked neither forlorn nor seedy. To a careful eye, a loving eye, watching him for some days, he might have seemed to be possessed of an anxiety which he took pains to conceal; but it was an elusive thing and, if he chose to deny its existence, how was one to prove it?
Sally thought that she detected something, she could not tell just what, and she asked her mother, casually, whether she had noticed anything.
Mrs. Ladue looked up quickly. "I can't tell, Sally," she replied. "I thought I did, and I spoke to Charlie about it, but he assured me that there was nothing wrong and that it must be all my imagination. I couldn't press the question. To tell the truth, I was afraid to. He seems to have no disposition to confide in me and to have a low opinion of my judgment, but I shouldn't like to have him say so. If—if you could speak to him—"
"Very well," said Sally, sighing wearily, "I will, although I have no hope of accomplishing anything by it—except arousing his suspicion," she added with a short laugh, "if there is anything which worries him and which he is unwilling to tell. We are not in Charlie's confidence."
"We have not been—Ihave not been in his confidencefor eleven years—since I was taken sick." Mrs. Ladue sighed in her turn. "He seems like a stranger. I haven't been able to get near him. But he seems to be rather afraid of your judgment, Sally."
"That's not a great help," Sally remarked with another short laugh, "in getting near him, is it? But I'll try."
Accordingly Sally asked him whether—she was careful to put the question in as natural a form as possible and she tried to make it seem casual, too—she asked him whether there was anything he would like to have them do for him. It is not likely that she succeeded thoroughly in either of these attempts, for Charlie only looked startled and answered that he didn't think there was anything. And he added that he was a little anxious about his reports. If they were not as good as they might be, he hoped that mother would not be too much disappointed. And Sally had shrugged a little and smiled a little and shown a little of the contempt which she always felt for lying. She did not know that Charlie was lying, but she felt that he was, and she could not have helped that little smile of contempt to save her life. But Charlie did not recognize her smile as one of contempt. He went off to see Patty, smiling and patting himself on the back for having thrown Sally off the scent so cleverly.
It is not to be supposed that either Mrs. Ladue or Sally was so lacking in natural affection that she let Charlie go on the way he was going without a struggle—without several struggles. Not that they knew just the way he was going, but they knew very well that they had lost all their control over him; the control which is due to a mutual love. It was Charlie who had shown a lack of natural affection. His mother had struggled in vain against that lack and against the effect of Patty's indulgence. As for Sally, if the love and regard of ten or twelve years before, a love very like a mother's, had been changed insensibly into the tolerant contempt of the strong for the weak—not always perfectly tolerant, I am afraid—Charlie had only himself to blame. But, as for blaming himself—pfooh! Much he cared!