CHAPTER II.
If she was a little fraud, as she declared herself to be, she had the frankest, honestest, prettiest face in the world, and many curious and admiring eyes turned on her as she alighted from the carriage on reaching Lewisburg and tripped lightly across the narrow pavement into the post-office.
After she had duly registered the letter containing the forty dollars she went into a few stores, where she looked at summer silks; shook her dark, curly head in pretended disapproval of the prices, bought a paper of pins and a neck ribbon, then returned to the carriage before Uncle Abe, who was exchanging the compliments of the day with some gossips of his own color, was half ready to leave.
“Lor’, Miss Looisy, you aine a-gwine yit?”
“Yes, Uncle Abe.”
“Dem hosses aine got rested yit, dat’s a fac’. Doane you want stay awhile, honey, and call on sum o’ de fust famblies o’ de town?” wheedlingly.
The girl laughed merrily.
“I don’t know a person in Lewisburg from Adam,” she said. “Come on, Uncle Abe; you’ve gossiped enough this time,” and with a resigned sigh the old darky climbed to his seat again, whipped up the horses, and set off on the return journey to Ferndale.
Molly Trueheart leaned back in the carriage and gave herself up to the enjoyment of her own thoughtsuntil they again came in sight of the Laurens estate when she called out to the old driver:
“Uncle Abe, who stays over there when the family goes abroad?”
Uncle Abe, out of humor at being separated so soon from his gossip, grunted out crossly:
“Nobody but dem sassy Laurens niggers.”
Molly felt herself snubbed and drew back her curly head, relapsing into a silence that lasted until she again crossed the threshold of Ferndale.
Mrs. Thalia Barry was sitting in the wide hall taking snuff out of a golden snuff-box.
She was a tall, spare woman with a frame that had originally been strong and stout, although now dwindled by the encroachments of age and the horrors of a chronic dyspepsia. She had thin, masculine-looking features, a false front of waved, white hair, false teeth, and her small, twinkling, greenish-gray eyes were partially hidden by gold-rimmed spectacles. She dressed habitually in soft, thick, gray silk, and pinned her collar of the yellowest old real lace with a magnificent diamond brooch. Ill-health had magnified an already imperious temper; and Molly was not far wrong when she complained that the aristocratic old lady was a perfect old dragoness, for she was the terror of her servants when in one of her “spells,” as they called them, and even her young visitor had more than once smarted under the lash of her displeasure.
But she looked up now with some eagerness, and said in her shrill, curt tone:
“Back so soon? I hope that old rascal, Abe, did not drive my horses too fast! Well, Louise, come and show me your silk.”
The pretty, dark eyed girl, in her cheap white dressand rustic straw hat, halted in the door-way with a frightened expression and gazed half appealingly into Mrs. Barry’s stern, ugly face.
“Well?” said the lady, impatiently. “Do you want some one to bring your bundle in from the carriage? Here, Ginny Ann,” to an old negro woman hovering about the back door, “go out to the carriage and get Miss Barry’s bundle!”
Molly sprang forward, her frightened expression changing to one of defiant bravery.
“Oh, aunt, she needn’t go! There’s—there’s no bundle there! I didn’t buy the dress!” she cried out, desperately.
“But why?” cried Mrs. Barry in amazement.
And the girl faltered, with hot blushes.
“I didn’t need it, you know.”
Mrs. Barry flew suddenly into a fury.
“Not need the dress, you silly girl, when you have not a decent rag to your back! What do you mean?” she stormed, in loud, angry tones.
Molly’s blushes grew hotter still, but they were those of anger now, and her black eyes blazed as she retorted:
“Well, if I have nothing but rags, what more do I need in this old tomb of a place where no one ever comes from week’s end to week’s end? I know you’ll be mad, Aunt Thalia, but if you kill me for it, I’ll tell the truth at once! I sent that money to my sister!”
Mrs. Barry’s face grew purple with wrath. She stamped furiously upon the carpeted floor.
“Never say that word again!” she burst out fiercely. “You have no sister.”
“My step-sister, then, Aunt Thalia,” amended Molly.
A glance of concentrated scorn and anger shone on her through the glasses of Mrs. Barry.
“Louise Barry, I thought you had more pride than to claim that girl—the daughter of the low-lived actress, who wheedled your father into marrying her, his second wife—your sister! The connection is a disgrace to you.”
“Hush, Aunt Thalia. You must not talk so to me!” said the girl, sharply. She had grown quite pale, and her slender little hands were clinched tightly together. She bit her red lips fiercely, to keep back burning words that had rushed to their portals.
Mrs. Barry snorted scornfully.
“You take her part, eh? that low-born brat that her dying mother saddled on your aunt Lucy. Louise Barry, I’m ashamed of you, disappointed in you. I wish now that I had taken you here to live when your father died, then Lucy Everett would have had to send Molly Trueheart to the poor-house instead of supporting her on the money I have sent every year to you.”
The girl stood looking at her with a heaving breast and eyes dilated with anger. When her aunt paused the girlish head was lifted proudly, and the young voice trembling with passion, answered sharply:
“Molly Trueheart’s mother, the low-lived actress, as you call her, left her daughter a legacy, small, but sufficient to pay for her board and clothing. She would not have to go to the poor-house, even if Aunt Lucy turned her out-of-doors.”
“Oh, indeed; I did not know she was an heiress. I thought she was a pauper. Why did you send her the money then, since she did not need it?” sharply.
“I—I owed it to her, Aunt Thalia,” said the girl with a defiant air.
“So then the allowance I have made you every year was not sufficient, and you had to borrow from that creature?”
“Ye-es, madame,” in a stifled tone.
“Very well, you shall never have that humiliation henceforth. It is not for Philip Barry’s daughter and my heiress to undergo such straits. Henceforth your home will be at Ferndale, and I’ll try to cure you of all fancy for your low-born connection. I’ll write to your aunt Lucy tonight and tell her so.”
“I—I won’t stay!” stormed the girl, in sudden passionate defiance and terror commingled. Her black eyes blazed as she fixed them on Mrs. Barry’s face.
The old lady gazed at her silently a moment as if almost paralyzed by astonishment.
“Why, you pert little baggage!” she muttered, then she made a dart toward the girl and clutched her arm with fingers that seemed strong as iron. Molly struggled wildly to get away, but Mrs. Barry held her tightly.
“Come here, Ginny Ann, and help me!” she called to the gaping old negress, and between them they dragged the girl upstairs, where Mrs. Barry deliberately pushed her into the big garret and locked the door.
“Stay there, miss, until you come to your senses and ask my pardon for your impertinence!” she screamed through the key-hole.
Then Molly heard the departing footsteps of the grim old lady and her satellite, and realized that she was locked up like a naughty child in punishment for her misdemeanor.
She was in doubt whether to laugh or cry at the preposterousness of the whole thing.
At first she indulged in a burst of defiant laughter which soon changed to hysterical sobbing. Sinking down on an old moth-eaten sofa she covered her face with her hands, and tears rained through her fingers.
“Oh, mamma, my true, gifted, beautiful mamma, it was bitter to hear you maligned so, and you in your tragic grave!” she murmured sadly. “And I, your own daughter, I could not take your part because of the promise that bound me to keep Louise’s secret. How can I ever like that proud old woman again?”
Like a grieved child she sobbed herself to sleep in the musty, close-smelling garret, where quiet reigned supreme save for the patter of startled mice across the bare, dusty floor.
Two hours passed, and Ginny Ann, the black woman, was sent up to inquire regarding the state of mind of the imprisoned culprit.
“Ole missis wants to know is you sorry fo’ youse sassiness yet?” she bawled through the key-hole.
There was no reply, and she went down and reported that Miss Louise was sulking yet, and wouldn’t answer a word.
“Let her stay until night, then. I guess the darkness will cure her of her stubbornness,” chuckled Mrs. Barry, evilly.
But all the same she had sent Agnes Walker, her maid, back to Lewisburg with old Abe, with instructions to buy the summer silk and a white muslin besides. The old lady had very particular reasons for wanting her niece to have this finery.
And while the prisoner sobbed herself to sleep in the garret, and Agnes Walker tumbled over silks andmuslins in Lewisburg, Mrs. Barry had Ginny Ann unpacking trunks in the dressing-room and hauling out finery that had not seen the light for years, but which in the revolutions of fashion’s wheel was as fashionable now as in the long ago years when Mrs. Barry had bedecked her form in the costliest fabrics and richest laces to grace the grand society in which she moved before she had settled down, a childless widow, at lonely Ferndale, her dower house, to nurse her grief for her lost partner and her chronic dyspepsia together and to make herself a terror to any one who dared dispute her despotic will.
“Lor’, ole mis, dere’s dat white satting dress you wore when you went to see de queen ober de water,” exclaimed old Ginny Ann, as she lifted out a tray and disclosed beneath a lustrous heap of yellow satin and flounces of fine point lace. “But, Lor’ A’mighty, it’s all yallered er layin’. I ’speck I kin bleach de lace all right by layin’ it out in de dew at night, but dat satting won’t wash, and it’s jes’ ruinated,” sighing heavily and rolling up the whites of her eyes.
“There, don’t touch it, you old simpleton!” cried Mrs. Barry, hastily. “That dress has sacred memories. I wore it at a Drawing-room in London when I was presented to Queen Victoria on my wedding-tour, and on my return home at an Inauguration Ball in Washington, when our good President, Mr. Fillmore, took his seat. Shut up the trunk, Ginny Ann. I cannot cut up that dress even for my niece.”
“Dat’s so, dat’s so, ole mis. De impertent chile don’t deserbe it!” mumbled Ginny Ann.
“Hold your tongue, sauce-box!” cried her mistress, irately.