CHAPTER XVANOTHER SHOCK
Roma sank into deep and troubled thought. The appearance of Hanson in her neighborhood was annoying and embarrassing in the extreme. He had not the shadow of a shade of any sort of claim on her, she knew, yet he would pretend to one, and make himself very troublesome, now that her relatives had left her, and she was alone.
What should she do?
A very little reflection convinced her that her best and wisest course, indeed her only course, was to confide in her venerable pastor.
This she determined to do without delay, as there was no time to be lost.
She rang her hand bell, and brought Pompous once more to her presence.
“Go,” she said, “and tell Puck to saddle a horse, and come around here to take a letter from me to Dr. Shaw.”
Pompous bowed, and strutted off to do his errand.
Roma sat down to her writing-desk and wrote a note to her old friend and pastor, asking him to come out and see her on the following morning, if convenient, as she was in imminent need of his counsel on a very pressing matter.
When her messenger presented himself she gave him the note, and told him to take it to the rectory and wait for an answer.
When the boy had gone Roma sent the children out to play, and took up her knitting and seated herselfin her easy-chair to try to compose herself. But even her “contemplative” knitting work failed of its usual sedative effect.
The day passed heavily.
Late in the afternoon her messenger returned, bringing a note from Dr. Shaw and a letter from the post office.
Roma opened the note before glancing at the letter.
It was but a line from the rector, saying that he had a marriage ceremony to perform in the parish church at ten o’clock, but would start for Goblin Hall immediately after its conclusion.
The letter was from Mr. Merritt, and also very short; merely saying that he wrote in great haste to catch the first mail, to warn her in time that Hanson had turned up that morning, and might get her address and give her trouble. “But if he should, my dear, just turn him over to the law and telegraph for me,” added the old lawyer.
“This must have come in the mail on the same train that brought him, and reached Goeberlin about eleven. Truly, he lost no time between the train and my door,” Roma said to herself.
It then occurred to her to send Puck back to Goeberlin with a telegram to Mr. Merritt, summoning him to her aid. But upon reflection she decided to wait until after she should have talked with Dr. Shaw. Early in the evening she sent the little black child home to its mother, and sent Owlet off to bed, and soon after laid her own head on her sleepless pillow.
Very early the next morning she arose, dressed, and went out to get a breath of the fine, fresh spring air.
She found Owlet, who always rose with the birds and the chickens, already up and dressed, and sitting on the steps of the porch, with her pup at her feet, and with her tiny workbasket beside her, filled with scraps of brilliant satin and velvet and spools of bright sewing silk, busy at work on the square of a crazy quilt. Owlet never dressed dolls, never played with or possessed one. She was a little crank on thesubject of shams of all sorts, and dolls she considered shams. She was also a utilitarian, “pure and simple.” She loved to do all useful work. The crazy quilt took her fancy wonderfully. She highly approved of it, for she said:
“It uses up all the tiny little scrappy scraps that you could not do anything else with, and you don’t have to waste the least mite in cutting, but make the scraps fit just as they are. Oh, it is the best thing ever thought of, and why they should call it a crazy quilt the Lord only knows, when it is the most sensible sort of a quilt.”
So here she sat this morning, busy with her square, fitting “jags and tags and other bright fags” into a bewildering confusion of patchwork.
“How do you get on, Owlet?” inquired Roma.
“Oh, splendid! I have nearly used up all the scraps I have got.”
“And what will you do when you get through?”
“Oh, then I mean to put my squares away until I can get more scraps, and take hold and help Hera to make her rag carpet,” said the child, laying her brilliant wilderness down on her lap and smoothing it out.
“Rag carpet?” echoed Miss Fronde.
“Yes. I’ll tell you all about it. You gather up all the old rags you can find, and wash them clean, and dry them dry, and then you cut ’em into strips and sew the strips together and wind ’em into big balls, and when you have got enough you put it in a loom and weave it into a carpet.”
“Oh!”
“Yes. It isn’t such a pretty work as the sensible quilt, but is so saving and so useful. I can’t weave, but I certainly can cut strips and sew ’em together, and wind ’em up into balls.”
“Ducky is nearly as old as you are. Do you try to teach her to sew?”
“No. It’s no use. You can’t do it. She can’t learn. Ducky Darling is as sweet as sugar, but—I’m afraid—she is not possessed of common sense.”
Roma was surprised into a laugh at the hesitation, the regret and the solemnity expressed in Owlet’s words and looks.
“Here she comes now, poor little thing, playing on the musical box I gave her. That’s all she can do, and that’s only turning a little crank, you know,” added Owlet.
Ducky Darling waddled up to them, radiant with life and joy, her eyes shining like great stars from the night of her dark face. She was playing on her toy music box with the greatest delight, though the instrument, being out of repair ever since it had been in her possession, could furnish no particular tune, but mixed up rollicking “Yankee Doodle” with dirgelike “Araby’s Daughter” in the most eccentric manner. No less on that account was Ducky Darling delighted with her toy.
Roma sat down on the steps and took the little black child on her lap and began to talk to her, to draw her out.
But there was nothing in her to bring out but tenderness, love, devotion. She had no thoughts on any, even the simplest, subject.
The breakfast bell rang.
“Have you had your breakfast, Dorcas?” inquired Miss Fronde.
“’Es,” said the child, still turning her music box.
“What did you have for breakfast?”
“B’ead an’ m’ik an’ ’lasses.”
“A very good breakfast. Now you sit here and play your organ until we get ours,” said Miss Fronde, lifting the child from her lap and seating her on the steps.
Owlet gathered up her work and rose, and the two went into the house and sat down to the table in the pleasant room, where four windows opened, two upon the old garden and two upon the woods, whence came in the fresh morning air, laden with the perfume of flowers and the songs of birds.
As soon as the meal was over Roma said to Owlet:
“We will go to our lessons at once, and get themthrough before Dr. Shaw comes. I expect him about noon.”
So little Ducky Darling was called in, and the three went into the sitting-room, where Miss Fronde seated herself in her favorite rocker, with her knitting in her hand, and the two children sat side by side on little chairs that had been hunted out of the lumber room in the attic and brought down for their use.
Owlet had a primary geography in her hand and Ducky Darling an A B C card between her fingers and her teeth, imbibing letters after her own fashion.
Quiet reigned in the little circle. Roma felt strangely tranquilized; Owlet was pleased with her study of continents and oceans; and Ducky Darling was delighted only to be allowed to sit beside the little playmate she loved so well, and who seemed to her like an angel of light and beauty.
An hour passed on without interruption, and then the sound of wheels was heard rolling toward the house.
“That must be Dr. Shaw,” said Roma, as she left her chair to look from her window. “And yet it cannot be, for it is but ten o’clock, and at this hour he is in the church, engaged in performing that marriage ceremony of which he wrote.”
Then a misgiving that the visitor might be Hanson come again, seized her. She was about to leave the room to lock the front door, when she saw the carriage stop, and—Lawyer Merritt get out of it.
With a cry of delight she ran to open the door for him in person.
“Oh, Mr. Merritt! I thank heaven you have come! Was it an inspiration? What brought you?” she exclaimed, seizing both his hands and dragging him into the drawing-room just as Pompous was strutting majestically up the hall to answer his knock.
She drew a big armchair and pushed him into it.
“There! Sit down! You must have traveled all night. You must be tired. You shall have a cup of coffee immediately. Pompous!” she cried.
“Stop, my dear,” said Mr. Merritt as soon as hecould get a chance to speak. “I breakfasted at the Goeberlin House while waiting to get a carriage to bring me here. Had to wait two hours to find one disengaged. There was a wedding on hand, or something. However, I utilized the time by getting a bath and a breakfast, so now, my dear, I am quite comfortable, and entirely at your service. You got my letter?”
“Yes, dear friend, and I should have telegraphed for you last night but for ‘sober second thought.’”
“If you had your telegram would have missed me. I was on my way here before you could have got my letter.”
“Oh! what inspired you to come?”
“Intense solicitude on your account. After I had mailed my letter I heard, by the merest accident, that Hanson had started for this place. I determined to follow by the next train, and here I am. I found the fellow’s name on the hotel register at Goeberlin. Of course he has been here?”
“Yes; but got no admittance.”
“The insolence of the scoundrel! What do you propose to do, my child?”
“I sent a message yesterday to my old pastor, Dr. Shaw, to come and advise me. I expect him here between eleven and twelve o’clock.”
“That is well, so far as it goes, but I am glad I came.”
“Oh, I am very glad and very grateful!” fervently exclaimed Roma. “But how did this wretch turn up?”
“Heaven knows. Come back from a long cruise, perhaps. He appeared at my office on Monday morning, inquiring for you. He was so insolent that I threatened to throw him out of the window, and should have done so, too, if he had not left.”
“Mr. Merritt, do you know that none of my friends here know the base fraud that was perpetrated against me by this man?”
“I suppose not, my dear. It was not a pleasant pieceof news for you to tell, and no one else could have told it.”
“No. But now that Hanson has come to this neighborhood, and dares to come to this house and set up a claim to me, I feel that I must tell my old friend, Dr. Shaw, and get the benefit of his advice on the social side of the case.”
“I think you are right, my dear.”
“And now, Mr. Merritt, can I ask another favor?”
“Anything you like, Roma. I came down here to serve you.”
“Then, when Dr. Shaw comes to-day, will you tell him the story of that felonious marriage, which has nearly wrecked my life?”
“I will do so, my dear. It is even much better that I should tell him than that you should,” promptly replied the lawyer.
This decision had scarcely been reached when the sound of wheels was again heard on the avenue.
“That is Dr. Shaw now, I am sure!” exclaimed Roma, and again she anticipated the slow and solemn movements of Pompous by flying to the front door and opening it at the instant the old minister alighted from his carriage.
“I hope there is no trouble, my dear,” said the kindly old man, after the first greetings had passed, and she was showing him into the drawing-room.
“Yes, dear friend, there is trouble. Sit down here in this large chair; put your feet on this hassock; give me your hat and gloves. There is our mutual friend, Mr. Merritt, of Washington. He will tell you all you should know,” said Roma.
The clergyman and the attorney shook hands very cordially. They were old friends.
Roma left the room for a moment to put up the pastor’s hat and gloves and to release the children from their lessons and send them out to play.
Then she returned to the drawing-room.
And then and there, in her presence, the story of her unequaled wrongs was told by the lawyer to herold pastor, who listened with an amazed, horrified, scandalized expression.
“Why, this sinner is a subject for the State prison!”
“He deserves it,” assented the lawyer.
“Oh, my poor Roma! My dear child!” sighed the old minister, taking her hand.
Roma winced. She hated to be pitied, even by her kind-hearted pastor.
“The only way in which the wretch can hurt me is by his false, unscrupulous tongue. He will tell every one who will listen to him that he married me, while I am known to be living here as a single woman. This will cause humiliating gossip. People always get facts distorted in cases like this, out of the routine of life. Questions will be asked and answered recklessly. There will have been something irregular, if not disreputable, in the matter. Was she married, or not married? will be asked. To which was she married? To whom ought she to have been married? Such questions, relative to a woman, right or wrong, just or unjust, reasonable or unreasonable, must always be damaging. Curiosity investigates without justice; thoughtlessness perverts, and malice distorts. I must be prepared to meet all this,” concluded Roma, with a profound sigh.
“My dear child,” said Dr. Shaw, “give me your authority to tell your whole story from beginning to end, without any concealments from your friends and neighbors, and believe me, Roma, it will meet with nothing but full confidence, sympathy and admiration. Come; shall I do this?”
“Use your own excellent judgment, dear Dr. Shaw, and accept my heartfelt thanks. Already you have inspired me with courage,” said Roma, brightening.
Here Lawyer Merritt laughed.
“The idea of any one inspiring you with courage, my royal Amazon! You, who have displayed courage and heroism under trials that must have daunted the bravest,” he said.
“Ah! but, dear friend, there is one sort of trial thatwould crush me—to have the good name of my mother’s daughter breathed upon by slander.”
“That must never—can never be, Roma!” exclaimed the clergyman and the lawyer, in a breath.
At this moment they were interrupted by a strange incident.
Ducky Darling rushed into the room and flung herself face downward on the floor, with all her limbs sprawled out, howling:
“Oh, Owly! Owly! Owly!”
“Why, what is the matter, Dorcas?” inquired Miss Fronde, raising the child to her feet and looking at her.
The little black face was all screwed up with anguish and streaming with tears.
“What about Owlet? Where is she?” inquired the young lady, drawing the child nearer and gazing in her convulsed face.
“Dorn’way! W’ite man!” sobbed the child, wildly weeping.
“White man? What white man? Stop crying, dear, and tell me all about it,” said Roma, with increasing anxiety, while the minister and the attorney looked on with silent interest.
“Oh! w’ite man! Owly! Owly!” wildly wailed the child.
“Where did you leave Owlet? Tell me.”
“Yoad!—ta’yidge! w’ite man! Owly! Owly!” heaved and gasped the child.
“Come and show me where you left her,” said Miss Fronde, now seriously alarmed, as she took the hand of the child.
Dorcas, her little black face streaming with tears, her breast heaving with sobs, drew the lady, followed by the two gentlemen, toward the door, out of the house, along the locust avenue, and through the great gate leading to the road, which was bordered on the opposite side by a fine piece of woods.
“Deh! deh!” she wildly wailed, pointing to a nook under the trees, which was a favorite resort with the children.
There were the signs of the children’s late presence and abrupt departure. There on the ground lay Ducky Darling’s adored musical box, dropped and forgotten in her wild woe. There also lay Owlet’s little workbasket, upset, with needle case, scissors, thimble, spools of silk and bright scraps scattered among the weeds and wild flowers.
On the road, just in front of the spot, were traces of carriage wheels which had stopped and turned there.
“Deh! deh!” still wildly wailed the child. “Deh!—w’ite man!—ta’yidge!—Owly!”
Roma began to understand, and a sickening fear seized her heart.
“Do you mean,” she inquired, “that a white man carried Owlet away in a carriage?”
“’Es-s-s! Oh, ’es-s-s!”
“Which way did he go?”
“Deh-h-h-h!” howled the child, pointing up the road leading to the village.
Roma would not let the poor child see how much shocked, grieved and bewildered she really was.
She turned and looked in the faces of her two good friends and supporters.