The next day as the artist met Elsie on the beach on her way to the bath-house, his face lighted up.
"Oh, Miss Marley, it all came back to me, after twenty years," he exclaimed. "Something about you has haunted my memory ever since I first saw you last week, and the song yesterday made it more definite and more perplexing. I woke in the night and it all came back. I heard that very same song on the train going South as a young man—comparatively young, though you wouldn't call it so. Do you want to sit down a moment and let me tell you?
"I haven't even thought of it for a dozen years," he said when they had found a convenient bench. "As I said, we were bound southward, and it was toward night. The seat in front of me was occupied by an exceedingly pretty young lady and a gentleman who must have been her brother or her husband—girls married younger in those days—for their name, which escapes me, was the same. Farther ahead, on the opposite side of the car, was a woman with an infant in her arms and a boy baby of under two years at her side. As it grew late, the older baby grew tired and cross. He wanted his mother, was jealous of the tiny one, and finally he just howled. The young lady before me said a word to her companion and went directly over.
"That kid, Miss Marley, was dirty and sticky beyond words, and she was the daintiest, freshest, sweetest girl imaginable. But she smiled and held out her arms and he just tumbled into them. She hugged the little beggar close, never minding her pretty gown, and brought him back to her seat. She seemed to know just what to do—took off his shoes, loosened the neck of his dress and all that, then cuddled him down and sang to him until he went to sleep and after. Her voice was as sweet as yours, and she sang the very same thing, 'And Do You Ken Elsie Marley'—I think she sang it twice or thrice."
Perhaps it was Elsie's fondness for children; perhaps it was because he told the story so well; in any event, the girl was touched. And as usual, to cover her feeling, she tried to smile, her dimples rather at variance with the tears in her eyes.
He gazed at her curiously. "Wait, Miss Marley, that isn't all," he exclaimed. "As I recalled the young lady, I saw her face only dimly. Now do you know it suddenly comes to me that she had the largest, deepest dimples I had ever seen, one in either cheek. And I remember vowing then and there, in my youthful enthusiasm, that if ever I attempted to paint Madonna she should have just such dimples; they struck me as somehow significant, perhaps symbolic."
Elsie's heart was beating wildly.
"I wonder—could that have been your mother, Miss Marley?"
The girl could not speak for the tumult within her.
"It seems as if their name began with M, though it couldn't have been Marley, else I should have noticed on account of the song," he went on kindly, realizing her emotion. "May I ask what was your mother's maiden name, Miss Marley?"
Quite upset, Elsie started to tell the truth; said Mi—and stopped short.
"Middleton!" he exclaimed triumphantly.
"Pritchard," she said as quickly as she could get it out.
"Pritchard?" he repeated as if he must have heard wrong.
"Augusta Pritchard," the girl reiterated, her heart like a stone.
The artist was puzzled. But realizing that the loss of her mother might have been so recent as to be still a painful subject, he tactfully spoke of other things, cloaking his disappointment at not being able to work out his problem to final solution. He feared lest he might somehow have blundered upon some sad family secret. Even with twenty years between them, he couldn't believe that his senses had so deceived him, couldn't but feel that that young girl had been connected with this girl of the big dimples. And he couldn't but believe that the girl knew it. Only there was something that prevented her acknowledging it. It might be tragedy; perhaps it was disgrace? Though, somehow, he couldn't think it. Poor little thing! He let her go on her way to her bath.
But Elsie returned to the hotel and went straight to her room. She knew she would be undisturbed there, for Miss Pritchard had gone driving with old friends while she was to have had her swim. The girl flung herself upon her bed and, burying her face in her pillow, shed the bitterest tears of her life.
She had denied her mother—that darling, adorable mother who had taken the sticky baby to her heart, and sung "Elsie Marley" to him, just as she had later sung it to her own little girl. She had cast off her mother and taken on—Augusta Pritchard! What a name to exchange for Elizabeth Middleton! For even though the former were the mother of the lovely Elsie Marley who had gone to Enderby, she couldn't be compared with her beautiful mother. And, of course, her denial was far worse in that she was dead.
How proud, how happy, how humble, she should have been to say: "Why, of course, that was my mother! I knew it without the dimples!" What a wretch she must be! To have had such a mother as to have so impressed a chance stranger that he should wish to paint the Madonna in her likeness, and should have remembered her twenty years, and to have repudiated her utterly!
She felt that she could not bear it, could not endure such a weight on her heart. But what could she do? Say to Mr. Graham that itwasher mother and her namewasMiddleton? Then she would have to tell Cousin Julia everything, and she would send her away, send her off to poke and fret in Enderby, and serve tea in a conventional parsonage drawing-room. And she would never be an actress, and the true Elsie Marley would be dragged on to New York.
It would be hard on Elsie-Honey, for already she seemed just to love that poky parsonage, and was apparently quite as attached to Uncle John as she herself was to Cousin Julia. And even Cousin Julia—already Elsie couldn't but realize that Cousin Julia had given her her whole heart; she wouldn't have liked the other girl so well in the first place, and now any such overturn would—it would just break her heart!
No, that couldn't be. After all, she couldn't have done otherwise. Shehadto say what she did on account of the game. Being cast for a part, she had to play it, even though it might be disagreeable at times. And itwasn'tworse because her mother was dead; being in heaven, her mother would understand and condone. How did that hymn go?
She sat erect and sang, very sweetly, the stanza that applied:
"There is no place where earth's sorrowsAre so felt as up in heaven,There is no place where earth's failingsHave such kindly judgment given."
That comforted her strangely. "Uncle John couldn't have administered first aid himself more successfully," she said to herself humorously as she dried her eyes.
She bathed her face and, standing before the mirror, addressed the charming reflection in the pink frock. She mustn't expect plain sailing all the time she warned her. She must expect to beup against itfrequently. She must keep her class motto in mind and not expect everything to be dead easy. It was hard not to be able to claim one's beautiful mother; but she was playing a part; she was on the stage in costume, and the part-she-was-playing's mother's name wasn't Middleton nor Moss and was Augusta Pritchard. She must keep her motto in mind and say continually to herself: "Act well your part, there all the honor lies."
That very evening at dinner some one asked her where she got her dimples—whether they were inherited?
"Or, perhaps, Miss Marley's a freak like the white peacock at the gardens?" broke in a callow youth whom Elsie disliked.
"From my mother," she said quickly, and Miss Pritchard, sensitive to the least sound of hurt in Elsie's voice, introduced another subject.
Nevertheless, she wondered. She hadn't seen Augusta Pritchard since the latter was a girl of nineteen, but she couldn't recollect that she had any dimples or shadows of dimples. She couldn't even imagine the combination of dimples with her white, cold, rather expressionless face, nor reconcile them with the true Pritchard temperament. It seemed inconceivable that Elsie could have inherited them except through the Marleys; and yet, of course, Elsie remembered her mother who had died only three years ago.
She had to consider that the girl didn't like that fresh Jerrold boy and had been nettled by his remark. Possibly in her indignation she had said what first came into her mind, though it didn't seem like her. Miss Pritchard sighed, for she had worshipped at the shrine of truth all her life, and strive as she would, she couldn't but feel a deviation from Elsie's wonted frankness here.
She pondered much upon the subject and later in the summer—on the evening preceding their return to New York, it was—as they were talking about Elsie's studying, Miss Pritchard suddenly became serious.
"Elsie, there's something I want to say to you as an older woman to a young girl," she began. "You will have one difficulty to contend with that I had in newspaper work, only in your case the temptation will be greater, and your task correspondingly harder. There's a poem of a child-actor of Queen Elizabeth's time, little Salathiel Pavy, who constantly played the part of an old man. The verses relate that he acted the part so naturally that the fates mistook him for an old man and cut off his thread of life in his tender years. Now you, Elsie dear, concerned with make-believe—fiction—as you will constantly be in your study for the stage, eager, of course, to use every moment and occasion, with one subject dominating your thoughts, will need to be very, very careful with regard to your separate, personal life. In other words, in good old-fashioned terms, you'll have to guard your soul. Keep that good and pure and true. Keep that sacred, above and apart from your work, and then whether you are ever a great actress or not, you will be a good woman."
And then half shyly, but beautifully, she repeated Matthew Arnold's "Palladium":
"Set where the upper streams of Simois flow,Was the Palladium, high 'mid rock and wood;And Hector was in Ilium far below,And fought and saw it not, but there it stood.
It stood and sun and moonshine rained their lightOn the pure columns of its glen-built hall.Backward and forward rolled the waves of fightRound Troy; but while this stood, Troy could not fall.
So in its lovely moonlight lives the soul.Mountains surround it and sweet virgin air;Cold plashing, past it, crystal waters roll:We visit it by moments, ah, too rare!
Men will renew the battle on the plainTo-morrow; red with blood will Xanthus be;Hector and Ajax will be there again,Helen will come upon the wall to see.
Then we shall rust in shade or shine in strife,And fluctuate 'twixt blind hopes and blind despairs,And fancy that we put forth all our life,And never know how with the soul it fares.
Still doth the soul from its lone fastness high,Upon our life a ruling effluence send:And when it fails, fight as we will, we die;And, while it lasts, we cannot wholly end."
"I suppose," observed the real Elsie Marley thoughtfully, drawing one of her long curls over her shoulder, "that if I'm going to be at the library regularly, I'd better put up my hair?"
She addressed Mr. Middleton, but his wife, who had of late fallen into the habit of sitting downstairs in the evening, replied. She had conceived a strong fancy to the girl, who secretly shrank from her, and bore herself toward her in a cold and distant manner.
"Oh, Elsie, love, it would be sweet to do it sort ofGrecian," she cried in her sentimental fashion, "with a classic knot at the nape of your neck, and little curls hanging down behind your ears."
"Let her leave it as it is a little longer, Milly," her husband pleaded, "for it's just as her mother wore hers."
This was not the fact, even though Elsie had been truly his niece. His sister had worn her hair in curls, but they had been many and riotous, and caught at the top of her head with a ribbon; while Elsie's two were fastened at her neck by a neat clasp, and hung as demurely as a braid would have done.
"Of course," assented Mrs. Middleton. "Elsie's the picture of her mother, I suppose?"
"She reminds me of her mother more and more every day," he said, "but she doesn't look like her at all. You remember I told you that Elizabeth had enormous dimples? They were so large that I'm not sure that they wouldn't have disfigured another face; but they added the last touch to hers—made it irresistible."
He gazed at the fire. It was late September and a chill rain beat against the windows.
"I suppose if Elizabeth had had a son,hewould have inherited the dimples," he remarked. "I believe they say girls take traits from their fathers and sons from the mother. Curious, isn't it?"
"Well, my dear, if Elsie had had dimples when she came, she would have lost them ere this," said Mrs. Middleton with unusual energy. "She's been put right into a treadmill, Jack. Only sixteen, sweet sixteen, and she hasn't had any of the gayety a young girl wants and needs, but has just slaved from morning until night ever since she came to us. At her age, she ought to be going to dances and lying late in the morning to make up sleep, and shopping and having beaux and all that sort of thing, just as her Aunt Milly did."
She sighed deeply, clasping her ringed hands. Elsie was indignant, even angry; but before she could protest, Mrs. Middleton went on.
"Instead of which, she started work at the library the first thing and has been off and on ever since, and is now going to do it permanently, besides teaching a class in the Sunday-school, looking after the choir-boys, running errands for you, and what not."
"My dear Milly!" cried her husband, really distressed; and went on to explain that when they decided to open the library in the evening as well as the afternoon, some one had to relieve Miss Stewart for two of the afternoon hours, and every one had clamored for Elsie.
"And I love to do it," added Elsie, "and I'm so pleased that I am to have the hours when the children are out of school."
"Of course," agreed Mrs. Middleton, smiling; "dear lambs! I should have felt just the same. Indeed, you're so like I was at your age, Elsie, dearest, that I feel as if it were tomethat you are really related."
Elsie murmured a silent word of deprecation, forgetting, as she often did, that she wasn't related to Mr. Middleton, either.
The rain beat furiously. The minister rose and put another stick on the fire. He did not return to his seat but stood with his elbow on the mantel gazing at his wife. Though thin, John Middleton looked strong and well, in part, perhaps, because of his florid complexion, partly because of his serenity. But in moments of stress he had a way of seeming to grow worn and older under one's very eyes.
He felt the cogency of his wife's words. He had, indeed, he said to himself, taken possession of his sister's orphan child immediately upon her arrival, and had made a sort of drudge of her: he kept her constantly occupied, performing miscellaneous services for him—he wasn't sure that he could have demanded so much of a paid secretary. And she, like her mother, unselfish and devoted, had made no complaint.
He spoke before Elsie, who was slow of speech and was regretting that she didn't share the real Elsie Moss's gift of expression, was able to put her feeling into words that would convince him.
"No wonder you felt like putting up your curls and saying farewell to youth, Elsie," he said whimsically yet ruefully. "Your aunt is just right, dear, and we'll make a change at once. What should you say to going on to New York to make your little actress friend a visit, and then starting anew after you come back?"
Now the color flew to Elsie's cheeks and words came.
"Oh, Uncle John, I wouldn't go now for the world!" she cried in genuine dismay. "I'm just longing to go to the library every day—I think it's just—splendid! And I like it all—everything—so very much. It isn't the least a treadmill, and I'm so happy doing it. Please, please, don't take anything away; only give me more."
He felt the sincerity of her words, and again said to himself that the girl was her mother over again. His wife went over to Elsie, and stroking back her hair, kissed her brow fondly. And the color died out of the girl's cheeks and the glow from her heart as she shuddered within herself. And presently when Mr. Middleton went to his study to work, she bade Mrs. Middleton a cool good night and fled to her room.
She sat by the window some time, then went to bed; but though the sound of the rain was soothing, she could not get to sleep. It came to her that it was very thoughtful of Uncle John to wish to send her to visit Elsie; and how she would have liked to go if it didn't entail leaving the library and all the fascinating round of her daily life, and leaving him to his wife's cold comfort. How she would like to see Elsie Moss at this moment, to confide her troubles and her happiness to that sympathetic ear. If they could talk together, she could make the other understand that even with Mrs. Middleton as a drawback, she was more content, happier, than she had ever been before. And she couldn't help feeling that she was useful, too, in a measure—that she would be missed if she were to go to New York.
Still she could not sleep, and presently she found herself puzzling over a problem that had been growing upon her and now bulked big. The truth was that already the weight of the top-heavy household had fallen upon the girl's shoulders. Utterly unprepared and ignorant, she had been thrust into a tangled labyrinth of domestic affairs. The more familiar she had become with the internal working of the household, the more was she baffled and daunted. And presently it seemed to her youthful inexperience as if it stood upon the brink of ruin.
Though the minister was unaware that the bills were not paid promptly at the beginning of each month, Mrs. Middleton owed practically every establishment in the place accounts that dated far back. At this time the small sums she could pay on account when her funds came in were insufficient to satisfy any one, and one and another began to threaten Kate with going to Mr. Middleton and demanding a settlement. They declared it wasn't respectable for him to be giving away so much money when he owed probably more than a year's salary.
Kate's only recourse was to her mistress, who would be temporarily depressed, now and then to the point of tears. But shortly she either forgot all about it or postponed consideration until another month; and meantime she never parted with her last penny: she always kept enough on hand for an ample supply of novels, chocolate drops, and headache-powders, the latter being especially expensive, according to Kate.
Ignorant as Elsie was, it did not take her long to understand that the household was managed—or allowed to run on—with the utmost extravagance and waste. She had prevailed upon Kate to set the greater part of the big house in order and to keep it tidy, and she tried to induce her to be less wasteful and reckless. But the girl was developing a certain sense of justice, and she rather doubted her right to insist. Devoted as Kate was to Mr. Middleton, and attached, in an apologetic, shame-faced way, to her mistress, overworked and unpaid, save for the sums Elsie forced upon her, how could she demand that Kate be more scrupulous about details? It would seem that she had all she could carry without that.
The girl fell asleep at last, and woke next morning with the pleasant reflection that she was to begin to-day at the library as a regular salaried assistant. Second thought was still more cheering. As soon as the minister was out of the house, and she heard Kate go down-stairs from Mrs. Middleton's room, she betook herself to the disorderly kitchen. At her entrance Kate rose suddenly and went and peered anxiously into the oven—which was empty. Elsie would have liked to tell her that she didn't begrudge her those stolen moments for resting her tired feet, but she hadn't yet learned to express her new sensations. It was sufficiently difficult to explain her errand.
"Katy, here are your wages for last week," she said rather brusquely, trying to press the money into her hands. "Mrs. Middleton will—I hope she'll pay you in full very soon, but at any rate she—that is, you're going to get your wages regularly every week, and I'm going to see to it so that it shan't be neglected. And always come to me if there's anything to ask. Please don't go to her unless about the back pay."
"Oh, Miss Elsie, you're so good!" cried Kate warmly, believing she had arranged it with Mr. Middleton. "I'm sorry I complained. You must 'a' known I didn't mean half what I said. I wouldn't really 'a' gone to himself about it. But honest, I ain't got a whole pair o' stockin's, and can't wear them pumps I got last summer on account o' the holes, and her a-growin' yellower every day and a-layin' round and eatin' chocolate drops and headache-powders that cost good money and ain't no benefit."
She stuffed the money into a drawer of the table with a miscellaneous assortment of less valuable things. While Elsie was wondering if she could speak about the condition of the kitchen, which Elsie Moss would have pronounced unspeakable, Kate drew near to her with real appeal in her blue eyes.
"And, Miss Elsie, I wish you hadn't let what I've confided to you sort o' set you against your aunt. Everybody has their failin's, they do say, and after all if she don't do worse than eat choc'late-creams and munch headache-tablets, why, she's pretty harmless as ladies go. Mis' Jonathan Metcalf as goes to his church is just as yellow and I don't know but what yellower, and bedizened as well, and a regular shrew in her own house."
"Katy, I don't know what you mean," Elsie returned with dignity.
"Well, you call her Mis' Middleton, when you speak of her, with your voice like a buzz-saw, and it ain't because you're high and mighty with me, 'cause you ain't. You're like a sister to me, and I ain't once thought of up and leavin' sence you come as I did frequent before. And besides, when you talk of himself, you always say Uncle John. And she's good at heart, Miss Elsie; honest, she is. She'd be just as good as himself if she knew as much. Her heart's in the right place, and she takes to you and don't mistrust you don't to her."
"Well, I mustn't stay here and keep you from 'redding' up your kitchen, as you call it," said Elsie, rather neatly as she believed.
"Well, I mustn't stay here and keep you from 'redding' up your kitchen, as you call it.""Well, I mustn't stay here and keep you from 'redding' up your kitchen, as you call it."
"Well, I mustn't stay here and keep you from 'redding' up your kitchen, as you call it.""Well, I mustn't stay here and keep you from 'redding' up your kitchen, as you call it."
"Oh, there's plenty of time for that," Kate assured her cheerfully; "if not to-day, why there's another comin'."
The kitchen wasn'tredd upthat day nor the next. It remained, indeed, a sight to make a good housekeeper weep, and closets, cupboards, clothes-presses, and the celebrated servants' parlor remained untidy conglomerations of rubbish; but the general appearance of the place continued to improve. Kate's gratitude for the regular receipt of her wages was continual and practical. A chance visitor now could enter any room in the front of the house at any hour, and there was much comment among the people upon the change.
It was generally agreed that Elsie Moss must have been very carefully trained by her stepmother to bring about such a marvel. And presently some of the creditors of the household began to wonder if her influence couldn't be extended. One and another began to drop hints to Elsie which became so broad that even one quite unaccustomed to any such thing could not fail to understand. The butcher's wife, the grocer's sister, and the draper's head bookkeeper had all but informed her in so many words that unless their respective relatives or patrons were paid in full by the 1st of November, they would present their bills to Mr. Middleton, if they had to do so in the vestibule of the church.
And they were only three out of a number that seemed legion. Others spoke more plainly to Kate, and Elsie began to dread seeing certain people enter the library during her hours there. The days being shorter, the Howe baby went to bed at five o'clock, and little Mattie, who had taken a violent fancy to Elsie, used to run to the library the moment he was off her hands, remaining until six to walk home with her. And Elsie, who was devoted to the child and never tired of her company, was also relieved because her presence protected her from any but veiled hints.
The situation wore upon her, and finally she decided to have a frank talk with Mrs. Middleton. She wasn't, it is true, on terms of frankness with her, and in a sense it wasn't her place to interfere. But she knew that Mrs. Middleton wouldn't want the bills presented to her husband any more than Kate did—nor, indeed, than Elsie herself. Not that she would have cared, except for Mr. Middleton's sake. It would serve Mrs. Middleton right to be brought up short, but she dreaded the thought of his being so distressed; she didn't want him to give up the few little comforts he allowed himself, and she knew it would hurt him cruelly to have to retrench in his giving.
She wrote to Mr. Bliss, her lawyer, asking him to send her five hundred dollars, mailing the letter to the other Elsie to be forwarded from New York. That seemed to her inexperience a large sum and able to work wonders. But before her letter had reached New York she began to feel as if it wouldn't be sufficient to make everything straight for a new start; and before there was time for an answer from San Francisco, she was sadly convinced that it would be only a drop in the bucket. Whereupon she decided that if Mr. Bliss sent it to her without comment, and didn't evidently consider it a very large sum, she would ask him to duplicate it.
With a certain relief, she put off the frank talk with Mrs. Middleton until she should have received the money. It did not arrive so soon as she expected it, and she was still waiting when Kate came to her in excitement one morning saying that the iceman wouldn't leave any ice unless he were paid cash. Elsie produced her portemonnaie.
"Oh, Miss Elsie, I hate to take your money," protested Kate with tears in her eyes. "I wouldn't 'a' come to you only I'm strapped myself, what with buyin' the hat with all them plumes, and the missus after borrowin' my last five-dollar bill."
"Katy Flanagan, what made you let her have it?" cried the girl almost fiercely.
"Well, Miss Elsie, the truth is, I couldn't resist her. There's something about her, you know—a-askin' so airy like, and forgettin' how—goodness, the man'll clear out with his ice if I don't fly."
Thereafter, Elsie paid also for the ice and the milk, leaving, out of her allowance and the money she received for the library work, barely enough for postage. But she didn't mind that; it was really a slight sacrifice. She cared so much for the work at the library that she would have paid for the privilege of doing it; and she had come so well provided with all the accessories of clothing that she hadn't even to buy gloves for another year.
Looking forward, she began to speculate on the possibility of starting anew after finances were once straightened out. It appeared doubtful, she being herself more ignorant than Kate, but presently a happy suggestion presents itself to her. One afternoon she asked Mrs. King, a kind, motherly, grey-haired lady who taught domestic science at the high school and came to the library frequently, whether there were any book to teach one how much to spend each week on different articles for a household.
"Oh, Miss Moss, I'm so glad you spoke, for I've been wanting to tell you about our seniors in domestic science this year at the high school. I think I have the nicest class I've ever had. We meet three times a week at eleven o'clock, and I have wondered if you might not like to join? Knowing that your aunt is an invalid, I thought you might want to take the care off her shoulders, and I feel sure our course would help you. You know all the girls, I think, and I should be more than pleased to help you make up what they have been over already."
Elsie could scarcely express her delight. She spoke to Mr. Middleton that evening. He had no idea of her ultimate purpose; indeed, he did not realize the confusion in which he lived, and was rather amused at the idea, but considered it an excellent method of getting better acquainted with the young people, and was pleased at her eagerness.
She entered the class at once, found the study delightful and very helpful, and the days fairly flew by. She was, after all, only sixteen, and extraordinarily immature in many ways; and it was not perhaps remarkable that after a few lessons, with extra help from Mrs. King, she began to feel quite capable of shouldering the housekeeping at the parsonage. But the more ready she felt, the less did she desire to propose it to Mrs. Middleton.
Such a step was not made easier by the fact that the latter took a keen interest in her lessons at the school. She endeavored, not always successfully, to draw the girl out upon the subject, questioning her with some felicity, praising her ambition, and taking it for granted that she was an unusual pupil and a great addition to the class. And she constantly bemoaned the fact that it had been necessary for Elsie to go outside for the instruction that she would herself have delighted to give her, had her strength permitted. Nothing could have gratified her more, she declared, clasping her hands and raising her eyes to the ceiling, but she didn't even dare allow herself to dwell upon it. For she had just enough strength to manage her own household (as every lady should do), and she hadn't the moral right to use it for other purposes.
Meantime, three weeks had passed since Elsie had written to ask her lawyer for the five hundred dollars, and she began to feel troubled. Of course, she had to allow for letter and answer going through Elsie Moss's hands, but three weeks should have covered that. She watched the mails anxiously. As she returned from the library on the twenty-fourth day since she had sent her request, she decided that unless she should hear that night, she would have Elsie Moss telegraph from New York. For the end of October approached, and she felt she couldn't face the crisis of the 1st of November, without the aid and the moral support of the money.
She was surprised to see the doctor's motor-car standing at the door, and startled when Kate, wild-eyed and dishevelled, met her at the threshold.
"Uncle John? Has anything happened?" she faltered.
"No, it ain't him. He's in the city, pore lamb, and it's myself is thankful you'll be here to tell him. It's her. Riggs was here a-dunnin' me for his money soon after you left, and nothin' would do but that I should go up to her whiles he waits in the kitchen. And a lucky thing it was, too, for there he was to go for the doctor—we both forgot clean about the telephone."
"But what is it?" cried Elsie.
"I found her on the floor like a log, Miss Elsie. She ain't dead at all, but she ain't come to, and maybe won't from taking of too many of them headache-powders as I knew was no good but didn't think no harm of."
On a sudden, without warning, Kate dropped her head upon Elsie's shoulder and began to sob wildly.
"Oh, Katy, don't," begged Elsie, truly distressed. "You and I must keep up for the sake of——"
"Of himself, miss, I know," sobbed Kate, "but, oh, I feel as if it was my own mother—or my own baby, I don't know which."
Elsie Moss's school was quite unlike her expectations, and her companions not at all like those of her eager dreams. Just as at art school one begins, she knew, with the study and copying of the antique, so the girl had supposed that in studying for the stage, one would approach it through the masterpieces of the drama. On the contrary, she didn't so much as hear the name of Shakespeare or of any other dead or classic dramatist during the first two months; and though she had to work as hard as she had expected to do, it sometimes seemed as if it were practice that didn't really count. The drill seemed to be all in the way of suppleness of limb and facility of facial expression without intellectual stimulus; indeed, it almost seemed as if the whole tendency of the school was rather narcotic than stimulating.
Further, the girls with whom she came in contact shared her ideals as little as their pasts had anything in common with hers. Many of them were not older in years, but one and all were incomparably older in other ways and painfully sophisticated. Pretty in a coarse way, painted and powdered, bold and often vulgar, they were almost without exception girls whose whole lives had been spent in the atmosphere of the stage, and that in its cheaper and poorer aspects. One or both parents, brother, sister, aunt, or uncle had figured in shows or exhibitions of some sort, and they had fallen into the profession in that manner. None had, like Elsie, chosen it as a calling.
Disappointed as she was, disheartened utterly at moments, the girl hugged her class motto to her breast and struggled on. So deep was her purpose, so strong her interest, that she not only pressed doggedly on, but forced a certain amount of satisfaction out of the struggle. How it might have been had she not possessed in Miss Pritchard a solace and refuge, it would be difficult to say. Elsie herself hardly knew how much courage and strength she gained during the evenings and other fragments of time spent with her. Looking forward to that companionship gave her patience to endure many a difficult hour which perchance she had not endured otherwise. But with that always before her, despite the hardships that were so different from those for which she had been prepared, she was nevertheless wonderfully happy—perhaps, happier than she had ever been before.
Sometimes, when the day had been unusually trying, she would greet Miss Pritchard at night with a warmth that almost frightened the latter, clinging to her as if she would never let her go. But she never confessed any of her troubles connected with the school. She talked much of it, but it was always of the most interesting occurrences and of amusing incidents. For her heart was in the matter as much as ever, and Miss Pritchard wasn't so favorably inclined toward it as to make it prudent to let her know of the disadvantages.
But it was terribly hard for one of her nature to have no one in whom to confide, and she longed for Elsie Marley. If she could have talked things over with Elsie Marley it would have made it easier. Simply to unburden her heart would mean much. Ever since she had been in New York she had longed to see Elsie again; and with this added reason, and a desire to learn more of her life in Enderby than she could gather from her stiff and rather non-committal letters, she began to feel, about the time that she forwarded a letter to Elsie's lawyer in San Francisco, that she must induce her to come to New York for a visit.
A letter from her stepmother seemed to render it almost imperative. Mrs. Moss, who was devoted to Elsie and missed her sadly, was greatly troubled by the irregularity of the girl's letters and hurt by their want of frankness. Knowing that John Middleton had not approved of Elsie's father marrying her, she began to fear lest he be trying to turn his niece against her. Now she had written to protest against the perfunctory letters, which, instead of allowing her to share in any way in Elsie's life, shut her out.
Elsie was deeply moved and full of compunction. She loved her stepmother dearly and thought of her constantly, faithful soul that she really was. She was always wondering howauntiewould take this or view that; but the very topics she was moved to enlarge upon in her letters were those which circumstances forbade her to mention. All her interests were connected with Miss Pritchard, of whose very existence Mrs. Moss was unaware, with the school, and less directly with Elsie Marley, whose name she was masquerading under. Leaving all these out of consideration, and depending almost wholly upon the fragments she received concerning life in the parsonage at Enderby, a brief letter once in three or four weeks was the utmost the girl could compass.
Immediately upon receipt of her stepmother's letter, she determined to ask Miss Pritchard if she might invite her friend Elsie Moss to come on for a week or a fortnight. As she waited for Miss Pritchard to come from the office that night, however, it suddenly occurred to her to wonder if it would be quite safe. Despite her enthusiastic admiration of Elsie Marley, which had not in the least abated, and despite the unfavorable impression she had of the Pritchards, which only deepened as the days passed, she had come to feel that in personal appearance and somewhat in manner her friend must resemble her kinsfolk.
In which case it would be as dangerous for the well-being of the one as of the other for her to be brought in contact with Miss Pritchard. For, stiff as were her letters and non-committal, Elsie knew that there was little difference in the strength of attachment that held the wrong Elsie to the place she had usurped in either instance. Whatever she might do, therefore, she mustn't bungle or err in that respect.
The Pritchard estate was not yet settled. The house had been sold and such personal effects and heirlooms as were to be kept for Elsie Marley put in storage for the time in San Francisco. Elsie Moss understood this, and knew that Miss Pritchard did so; but she felt that the latter wondered that she had no relics or keepsakes with her. She had had to confess one day that she had no photographs of her family she would be willing to show, leaving Miss Pritchard to make such inference as she would.
That evening at the dinner-table—she felt it would be easier to approach the matter in semi-public—Elsie asked her if she happened to have any old Pritchard photographs.
"Yes, dear, I have an old album in the chest by the window that has pictures of Aunt Ellen, Cousin Ellen, and Cousin Augusta. There are half a dozen, I think, of Cousin Ellen, and three or four of your mother, but no baby picture of you, nor any other, if that's what you're looking for. After my father died we began to lose connection with one another, and after that visit I made when you were a baby, all communication ceased. So I got no photographs after that."
"No, I wasn't thinking of my kid pictures, Cousin Julia. I was just—wondering," the girl returned. "Would it be an awful bother to get out the album?"
"No bother at all, child. To tell the truth, I love to get it out, for there are a lot of other pictures besides the Pritchards that I like to look over. There's a picture of my Cousin Arthur Moore, who fell in the battle of Lookout Mountain, that I'd like you to see."
When the old-fashioned, velvet-bound, nickel-clasped book was produced, Elsie almost forgot her immediate purpose in her interest in the likenesses. But one of Ellen Pritchard at fourteen, Miss Pritchard's cousin and supposedlyheraunt, brought her up sharply. For Elsie Marley was the very image of it. Rearrange her hair, put her into the beruffled skirt and polonaise, and she might have sat for it. Or part this girl's hair and gather it loosely back, dress her in a tailored suit and correct blouse, and she would be Elsie Marley. What a frightful thing this family resemblance was! Elsie stifled a sigh. Her cake was dough, sure enough!
Partly to ease her dismay and postpone considering her problem until she should be alone, the girl gave herself up to the study of the other pictures. It wasn't difficult to lose herself, for she found them of absorbing interest.
Among the Pritchards, Elsie's grandmother was the most striking personage. The strength and sagacity of her handsome face, which the expression of pride could not conceal, related her to Miss Pritchard unmistakably. Pride, mingled with frailty and general lack of other expression, characterized the invalid daughter; and pride that was arrogance, the bored face of Augusta Pritchard, who was supposed to be her mother.
It was late when the girl finally closed the album.
"Many thanks, Cousin Julia," she murmured rather absently, a far-away look in her dark eyes.
After a little she rose and began to wander about the room.
"Cousin Julia," she said presently, "I can't help wondering—honestly, don't you ever wish I looked more—I mean that I looked any like them? They're mighty aristocratic-looking guys after all."
"My dear, when you talk like that you know as well as I that you're fishing," insisted Miss Pritchard. "I have told you that I'm too well-satisfied. I have to watch out for flaws."
"Well, don't you ever think, anyhow, that suchwhoppingdimples are—almost vulgar?"
"I adore them," responded Miss Pritchard calmly. "But anyhow, you know, they are supposed to be Pritchard. Didn't you tell that what's-his-name boy you got them from your mother?"
Elsie colored.
"I loathed that gump," she said.
Miss Pritchard did not press the matter, though she wished very much Elsie had explained or made other amends.
"Oh, Cousin Julia, how perfectly gorgeous!" cried Elsie, "but oh, I don't need it, and—oh, please take it back. You just shower things on me, and I feel so wicked to have you spend so much on me."
"Elsie, child, don't you understand yet how happy I am to have you to spend it on?" returned Miss Pritchard.
It was quite true that the latter was constantly bestowing not only small, but rich and costly gifts upon the girl who had come to live with her and for whom she had come to live. In this instance it was an opera-cloak of rose-colored broadcloth, wadded, and lined with white brocaded satin, soft and light and warm. The two went often to the theatre, and it would be useful, though Miss Pritchard herself had never owned such a garment, and it was certainly rather elegant for a girl of sixteen.
"Now, Elsie," Miss Pritchard went on, "I want to ask you something—I have more money than I know what to do with. Whom should I spend it on if not on you?"
Elsie winced. Her little face grew wistful. "Then it's because I'm a Pritchard you do it?" she demanded.
Miss Pritchard laughed. "My dear, how you pin one to cold facts. If you must know, then, it's because you aren't a Pritchard. It's because you're yourself, through and through, and haven't a trace nor a look of the Pritchards that I love you so and long to have you happy here with me, who am not a Pritchard either. No doubt your family rubbed that fact in sufficiently, so you didn't expect me to be. To tell the truth, I could never abide the Pritchards. I was such a misfit when I visited Aunt Ellen's years ago, that I rather dreaded your coming, though I did feel that being so young you might not be inveterate, and that we might manage to hit it off, as they say."
Immensely cheered, Elsie kissed her warmly. Miss Pritchard threw the cloak over her shoulders, produced a rosy silk scarf to tie over her bobbed hair, and they were off.
The conversation came back to Miss Pritchard next day as she sat at her desk near a great window whence the streets below were like canyons.
"Dear me, how little Elsie must have had in her life to be so absurdly grateful as she is," she said to herself. "And what a life those women must have led her to make her so ready to refuse what meant so much to her if it came to her as to a Pritchard."
Which suddenly reminded her of the Pritchard family lawyer and a letter she had found on her plate that morning with the name of the firm Bliss & Waterman on the envelope. Not caring to open it before Elsie, she had brought it to the office.
Breaking the seal, she was amazed to learn that the lawyer wished to consult her in regard to a request for five hundred dollars Elsie Marley had recently made. He would not, of course, hand over a comparatively large sum like that without her guardian's sanction, and he felt constrained to add that certain outstanding obligations against the residue of the property had recently come to light which might curtail the income for a year. He still felt that if Miss Pritchard remained willing to pay Elsie's general expenses, that the allowance which they had agreed upon and which he had sent regularly ought to cover pin-money and something more. Elsie had made no explanations. Of course, if the money were for educational purposes, he would arrange to send it. If Miss Pritchard would kindly make the situation clear to him, he would follow her instructions, but he awaited her reply before acting upon her ward's request.
Miss Pritchard felt absolutely at sea. She was as puzzled as she was troubled. Elsie had seemed so frank and open, and, despite her generous nature, had seemed so frugal in her expenditure, making a little go much further than Miss Pritchard herself could do, that she couldn't imagine her demanding this sum without consulting her in regard to it. She knew exactly what Elsie paid at the school—she had insisted upon paying her own expenses out of five hundred dollars she had brought with her and deposited. She knew, too, practically every penny she spent in other ways, the total of which was always far below the amount of her allowance; she knew her associates, and could have accounted for every hour of her time. She could almost believe that Mr. Bliss had made a blunder.
After pondering upon the subject all day, she telegraphed him not to send the money, and decided to question Elsie that night.
She had no opportunity that evening, however. A certain Madame Valentini, a former prima donna who had been a famous soprano in the early days of "Pinafore," and who came to Miss Peacock's each year for opera, had arrived during the day, and she and Miss Pritchard being old friends, the evening was devoted to her. Madame Valentini was white-haired now, and very stout, with chin upon chin; and the real Elsie Marley would have thought her vulgar, for she rouged her cheeks, laughed out heartily and frequently, and wore colors and fashions ill-suited to her age and size, with jewels enough for a court-ball. But she was full of life and spirit, warm-hearted, invariably cheerful, an amusing and fluent talker, and musical to the ends of her be-ringed fingers and the satin tips of her shoes.
Like every one else at Miss Peacock's, she took to Elsie at once. She understood that the girl was studying for the stage, but recognized in a twinkling that she had a singing voice, and finally prevailed upon her to try it. She herself played the accompaniment with a skill that was a revelation to Elsie, who had never enjoyed singing as she enjoyed it that night.
When she had done, the prima donna threw her arms about the girl and drew her to her bosom. Elsie Marley must have shuddered, but her namesake, thrilled with singing to the sympathetic accompaniment, kissed her warmly on her unnaturally pink cheek.
"Oh, my angel, what a voice, what a voice!" cried madame. "Entrancing! marvellous! It's simply perfect in tone and quality, and correct practice would increase its range. And when you put on a little more flesh (here, even Elsie Moss groaned silently) you'll get volume, too. Stop everything, child, and cultivate it. It's worth millions."
Elsie flushed. She couldn't help being pleased by the extravagant praise, but she couldn't bear to be advised to give up the dramatic stage.
The older singer turned to Miss Pritchard. "My dear Miss Pritchard, why do you let this charming child waste her time learning to do vaudeville stunts that any limber-jointed, pretty-faced chit could do, with a glorious voice like that?"
"It seemed wonderful to me, and Charley Graham confirmed me in the belief," Miss Pritchard owned, "and Elsie herself confesses that people have always advised her to study singing rather than acting."
"Only because they thought it was more respectable," protested Elsie, pouting.
"But, foolish child, wouldn't you far and away rather be a singer—a famous singer?" demanded madame. "You'd get into grand opera, you know. You'd be lovely as Juliet or Butterfly even now."
"I'd rather be an actress," pleaded the girl so sweetly deprecating that Madame Valentini hardly wondered that Julia Pritchard should give her her way.
So long as she remained at Miss Peacock's, madame devoted much time, very happily, to Elsie's musical education. She made the girl sing for her every day, giving her assistance that was really invaluable. She took her to the opera twice a week, where she was a wonderful companion, calling attention to fine points that all but a connoisseur must have missed, and discussing all sorts of pertinent musical topics between the acts. And she rejoiced with Miss Pritchard because of Elsie's obvious enjoyment.
Meantime, Miss Pritchard found occasion to speak to Elsie on the subject of Mr. Bliss's letter. She handed it to her; the girl read it quietly and passed it back without speaking, yet meeting her eyes frankly.
"I confess, Elsie, I can't conceive how you should want so large a sum at this time," Miss Pritchard began. "I trust you so thoroughly that I believe it must be for something worth while—at least you think it is, child. And I feel that you so trust me that you will explain to me if you can. In any event, I have decided to give it to you out of my own pocket. I know that you are careful and economical and think it must be for your education in some manner, and don't feel that I am foolish in doing it. How will you have it, check or cash?"
Elsie had been growing weak after the first surprise. She had already cashed three huge checks (as they seemed to her), and sent them in money-orders to Enderby: and she had forwarded a letter some time before that Elsie had explained to be a request for money. But she was aghast at the sum. She couldn't imagine what the other girl could want it for.
The tradition had always been in her family, who were always poor, that Uncle John was rich; and though she had learned with some surprise that he had only one servant, she had heard nothing to indicate that he did not live in the "style" she had always imagined. She felt troubled if it was in order to keep up with that style that Elsie Marley wanted the money; but though she was reluctant to take it from Miss Pritchard, she by no means hesitated as she had in the case of the opera-cloak. For this was a legitimate case of Pritchard to Pritchard.
"A check?" repeated Miss Pritchard.
"Cash, please, Cousin Julia," returned the girl, her dimples almost visible. Then she looked straight into Miss Pritchard's eyes.
"Please tell me—are you doing this, too, because I'm not a Pritchard, or as my guardian?"
And whether it was because the girl's heart was so set upon that particular answer, or because Julia Pritchard was so staunch and true, with such a keen instinct for the real and right—in any event she returned promptly: "As your guardian, Elsie, Pritchard to Pritchard."
Elsie embraced her warmly, whispering that she couldn't explain, but it was truly all right. The next day she got a post-office order and sent the money to Elsie Marley without saying that it hadn't come from the lawyer in California as the other sums she had forwarded had done. Consequently, when a letter came from Mr. Bliss saying that he couldn't let Elsie Marley have the five hundred dollars she had asked for without an order from her guardian, she felt obliged to withhold it entirely.
It troubled her to do so, and weighed upon her mind afterward. She told herself that she would, of course, explain when she saw Elsie Marley, and meantime—it was, after all, nothing but a formal business communication, not a real letter, and of no account in that the business itself had gone through. Still, it seemed a great pity that there should be any concealment between herself and the other Elsie. As things stood, she was sufficiently involved in concealment, to give it no worse name, without that. It had been understood that she should read all the letters that came before sending them on to Enderby; but to keep one and never mention it, necessary though it was, and demanded by circumstances, seemed somehow almost like stealing.
And the worst was that circumstances might go on making demands, and she might have to do yet more reprehensible things—things that weren't merelyalmostlike wrong-doing. Some day she might have to lie right out.
Well, as to that, what had it been when she said that her mother's name was Pritchard? That had been acting—a part of her rôle. And then, of course she constantly deceived Miss Pritchard, in a way, though not dishonestly. That was acting, too. She and Elsie Marley had entered into a contract, indeed, each to act the part of the other. They weren't hurting any one: each fitted into the wrong place as she couldn't have into the right. And yet in very truth it was very much like plain lying!
Elsie Moss flinched. Then she recollected how once at home some of the girls of her class at school had been discussing a subject given in the rhetoric they studied under "Argumentation"—"Is a lie ever justifiable?" These girls of the "Per aspera ad astra" motto had decided the question in the affirmative. They had agreed that lying to a burglar wasn't wrong—it might prevent him from robbing a widow or one's own mother—the same with regard to a murderer, an insane person, or one sick unto death. And one and all had declared with spirit that if they lived in England and a hunting-party should come along with their cruel hounds and ask which way the fox or hare had gone, they would point in exactly the wrong direction. Elsie herself had declared that she would have said that the little creature hadn't come this way at all.
Not that that was exactly similar. The girl owned that however she might please Miss Pritchard, and Elsie Marley might gratify Uncle John, in each case it was the girl herself who benefited chiefly by the scheme, and for whom it had been arranged and carried through. Pleasing Uncle John and Cousin Julia was what is called in chemistry a by-product.
Furthermore, there was the question as to whether Cousin Julia, in any event, would value satisfaction secured thus by indirection? Absolutely straight-forward, as she was, mightn't she judge their action severely, label it plain deceit, and—oh, no! she couldn't refuse to have anything further to do with her! It began to seem as if even failure in what she had always considered her life-work wouldn't be so terrible as that. The girl didn't put it into so many words, but as the days passed she seemed to have a vague sense of another life-work which might consist in growing up toward Miss Pritchard's standards of what is fine and good and worth while. But Elsie wouldn't dwell upon it, for she couldn't, of course, begin to approach any such goal—she couldn't even make a start—without confession. And confession wouldn't mean only the loss of her chance to realize her ambition; it would mean the loss of Cousin Julia herself.