“Bertha.
“Bertha.
“Bertha.
“Bertha.
“P. S. I told you that if a New Yorker came to buy the farm you were to shut the door in his face. But you may as well let him in.”
After bidding his aunt good-bye, Reginald went home for a few moments, and then to his office, where he met for the first time Mr. Gorham, the owner of the Leighton mortgage, and learned that the place was really where his father used to live and that the Homestead was named for the Hallams. This increased his desire to own it, and, as there was still time to catch the next train for Boston, he started for the depot and was soon on his way to Worcester, where he arrived about four in the afternoon. Wishing to make some inquiries as to the best means of reaching Leicester, he went to a hotel, where he found no one in the office besides the clerk except a tall, spare man, with long, light hair tinged with gray, and shrewdness andcuriosity written all over his good-humored face. He wore a linen duster, with no collar, and only an apology for a handkerchief twisted around his neck. Tipping back in one chair, with his feet in another, he was taking frequent and most unsuccessful aims at a cuspidor about six feet from him.
“Good-afternoon,” he said, removing his feet from the chair for a moment, but soon putting them back, as he asked if Reginald had just come from the train, and whether from the East or the West. Then he told him it was an all-fired hot day, that it looked like thunder in the west, and he shouldn’t wonder if they got a heavy shower before night.
To all this Reginald assented, and then went to the desk to register, while the stranger, on pretense of looking at something in the street, also arose and sauntered to the door, managing to glance at the register and see the name just written there.
Resuming his seat and inviting Rex to take a chair near him, he began: “I b’lieve you’re from New York. I thought so the minute you came in. I have traveled from Dan to Beersheba, and been through the war,—was a corp’ral there,—and I generally spot you fellows when I first put my eye on you. I am Phineas Jones,—Phin for short. I hain’t any real profession, but am jack at all trades and good at none. Everybody knows me in these parts, and I know everybody.”
Rex, who began to be greatly amused with this queer specimen, bowed an acknowledgment of the honor of knowing Mr. Jones, who said, “Be you acquainted in Worcester?”
“Not at all. Was never here before,” was Rex’s reply, and Phineas continued: “Slow old place, somethink, but I like it. Full of nice folks of all sorts, with clubs, and lodges, and societies, and no end of squabbles about temperance and city officers and all that. As for music,—my land, I’d smile to see any place hold a candle to us. Had all the crack singers here, even to the diver.”
Rex, who had listened rather indifferently to Phineas’s laudations of Worcester, now asked if he knew much of the adjoining towns,—Leicester, for instance.
“Wa-all, I’d smile,” Phineas replied, with a fierce assault upon the cuspidor. “Yes, I would smile if I didn’t know Leicester. Why, I was born there, and it’s always been my native town, except two or three years in Sturbridge, when I was a shaver, and the time I was to the war and travelin’ round. Pleasant town, but dull,—with no steam cars nigher than Rochdale or Worcester. Got stages and an electric car to Spencer;—run every half hour. Think of goin’ there?”
Rex said he did, and asked the best way of getting there.
“Wa-all, there’s four ways,—the stage, but that’s gone; hire a team and drive out,—that’s expensive; take the steam cars for Rochdale, or Jamesville, and then drive out,—that’s expensive, too; or take the electric, which is cheaper, and pleasanter, and quicker. Know anybody in Leicester?”
Rex said he didn’t, and asked if Phineas knew a place called Hallam Homestead.
“Wa-all, I’d smile if I didn’t,” Phineas replied. “Why, I’ve worked in hayin’-time six or seven summers for Square Leighton. He was ’lected justice of the peace twelve or fifteen years ago, and I call him Square yet, as a title seems to suit him, he’s so different-lookin’from most farmers,—kind of high-toned, you know. Ort to have been an aristocrat. As to the Hallams, who used to own the place, I’ve heard of ’em ever since I was knee-high; I was acquainted with Carter; first-rate feller. By the way, your name is Hallam. Any kin?”
Rex explained his relationship to the Hallams, while the smile habitual to Phineas’s face, and which, with the expressions he used so often, had given him thesobriquetof Smiling Phin, broadened into a loud laugh of genuine delight and surprise, and, springing up, he grasped Rex’s hand, exclaiming: “This beats the Dutch! I’m glad to see you, I be. I thought you was all dead when Carter died. There’s a pile of you in the old Greenville graveyard. Why, you ’n’ I must be connected.”
Rex looked at him wonderingly, while he went on: “You see, Carter Hallam’s wife was Lucy Ann Brown, and her great-grandmother and my great-grandfather were half-brother and sister. Now, what relation be I to Lucy Ann, or to you?”
Rex confessed his inability to trace so remote a relationship on so hot a day, and Phineas rejoined:
“’Tain’t very near, that’s a fact, but we’re related, though I never thought Lucy Ann hankered much for my society. I used to call her cousin, which made her mad. She was a handsome girl when she clerked it here in Worcester and roped Carter in. A high stepper,—turned up her nose when I ast her for her company. That’s when she was bindin’ shoes, before she knew Carter. I don’t s’pose I could touch her now with a ten-foot pole, though I b’lieve I’ll call the fust time I’m inNew York, if you’ll give me your number. Blood is blood. How is the old lady?”
Here was a chance for Rex to inquire into his aunt’s antecedents, of which he knew little, as she was very reticent with regard to her early life. He knew that she was an orphan and had no near relatives, and that she had once lived in Worcester, and that was all. The clerkship and the shoe-binding were news to him; he did not even know before that she was Lucy Ann, as she had long ago dropped theAnnas too plebeian; but, with the delicacy of a true gentleman, he would not ask a question of this man, who, he was sure, would tell all he knew and a great deal more, if urged.
“I wonder what Aunt Lucy would say to being visited and cousined by this Yankee, who calls her an old lady?” he thought, as he said that she was very well and had just sailed for Europe, adding that she was still handsome and very young-looking.
“You don’t say!” Phineas exclaimed, and began at once to calculate her age, basing his data on a spelling-school in Sturbridge when she was twelve years old and had spelled him down, a circus in Fiskdale which she had attended with him when she was fifteen, and the time when he had asked for her company in Worcester. Naturally, he made her several years older than she really was.
But she was not there to protest, and Rex did not care. He was more interested in his projected purchase than in his aunt’s age, and he asked if the Hallam farm were good or bad.
“Wa-all, ’taint neither,” Phineas replied. “You see, it’s pretty much run down for want of means and management. The Square ain’t no kind of a farmer, andnever was, and he didn’t ort to be one, but his wife persuaded him. My land, how a woman can twist a man round her fingers, especially if she’s kittenish and pretty and soft-spoken, as the Square’s wife was. She was from Georgy, and nothin’ would do but she must live on a farm and have it fixed up as nigh like her father’s plantation as she could. She took down the big chimbleys and built some outside,—queer-lookin’ till the woodbine run up and covered ’em clear to the top, and now they’re pretty. She made a bath-room out of the but’try, and a but’try out of the meal-room. She couldn’t have niggers, nor, of course, nigger cabins, but she got him to build a lot of other out-houses, which cost a sight,—stables, and a dog-kennel.”
“Dog-kennels!” Rex interrupted, feeling more desirous than ever for a place with kennels already in it. “How large are they?”
“There ain’t but one,” Phineas said, “and that ain’t there now. It was turned into a pig-pen long ago, for the Square can’t abide dogs; but there’s a hen-house, and smoke-house, and ice-house, and house over the well, and flower-garden with box borders, and yard terraced down to the orchard, with brick walls and steps, and a dammed brook——”
“A what?” Reginald asked, in astonishment.
“Wa-all, I should smile if you thought I meant disrespect for the Bible; I didn’t. I’m a church member,—a Free Methodist and class-leader, and great on exhortin’ and experiencin’, they say. I don’t swear. You spelt the word wrong, with anninstead of twom’s, that’s what’s the matter. That’s the word your aunt Lucy Ann spelt me down on at the spellin’-school. We two stood up longest and were tryin’ for the medal. I wasmore used to the word with annin it than I am now, and got beat. What I mean about the brook is that it runs acrost the road into the orchard, and Mis’ Leighton had it dammed up with boards and stones to make a waterfall, with a rustic bridge below it, and a butternut tree and a seat under it, where you can set and view nature. But bless your soul, such things don’t pay, and if Mis’ Leighton had lived she’d of ruined the Square teetotally, but she died, poor thing, and the Square’s hair turned white in six months.”
“What family has Mr. Leighton?” Rex asked, and Phineas replied:
“Two girls, that’s all; one handsome as blazes, like her mother, and the other—wa’all, she is nice-lookin’, with a motherly, venerable kind of face that everybody trusts. She stays to hum, Dorcas does, while——” Here he was interrupted by Rex, who, more interested just then in the farm than in the girls, asked if it was for sale.
“For sale?” Phineas replied. “I’d smile to see the Square sell his farm, though he owes a pile on it; borrows of Peter to pay Paul, you know, and so keeps a-goin’; but I don’t believe he’d sell for love nor money.”
“Not if he could get cash down and, say, a thousand more than it is worth?” Rex suggested.
Staggered by the thousand dollars, which seemed like a fortune to one who had never had more than a few hundred at a time in his life, Phineas gasped:
“One thousand extry! Wa-all, I swan, a thousand extry would tempt some men to sell their souls; but I don’t know about it fetchin’ the Square. Think of buyin’ it?”
Rex said he did.
“For yourself?”
“Yes, for myself.”
“Yougoin’ to turn farmer?” and Phineas looked him over from head to foot. “Wa-all, if that ain’t curi’s. I’d smile to see you, or one of your New York dudes, a-farmin’ it, with your high collars, your long coats and wide trouses and yaller shoes and canes and eye-glasses, and hands that never done a stroke of hard work in your lives. Yes, I would.”
Rex had never felt so small in his life as when Phineas was drawing a picture he recognized as tolerably correct of most of his class, and he half wished his collar was a trifle lower and his coat a little shorter, but he laughed good-humoredly and said, “I am afraid we do seem a useless lot to you, and I suppose we might wear older-fashioned clothes, but I can’t help the glasses. I couldn’t see across the street without them.”
“I want to know,” Phineas said. “Wa-all, they ain’t bad on you, they’re so clear and hain’t no rims to speak of. They make you look like a literary feller, or more like a minister. Be you a professor?”
Rex flushed a little at the close questioning, expecting to be asked next how much he was worth and where his money was invested, but he answered honestly, “I wish I could say yes, but I can’t.”
“What a pity! Come to one of our meetin’s, and we’ll convert you in no time. What persuasion be you?”
Reginald said he was an Episcopalian, and Phineas’s face fell. He hadn’t much faith in Episcopalians, thinking their service was mere form, with nothing in it which he could enjoy, except that he did not have to sit still long enough to get sleepy, and there were somany places where he could come in strong with an Amen, as he always did. This opinion, however, he did not express to Reginald. He merely said, “Wa-all, there’s good folks in every church. I do b’lieve the Square is pious, and he’s a ’Piscopal. Took it from his Georgy wife, who had a good many other fads. You have a good face, like all the Hallams, and I b’lieve they died in the faith. Says so, anyway, on their tombstones; but monuments lie as well as obituaries. But I ain’t a-goin’ to discuss religious tenants, though I’m fust-rate at it, they say. I want to know whatyouwant of a farm?”
Rex told him that he had long wished for a place in the country, where he could spend a part of each year with a few congenial friends, hunting and fishing and boating, and from what he had heard of the Homestead, he thought it would just suit him, there were so many hills and woods and ponds around it.
“Are there pleasant drives?” he asked, and Phineas replied:
“Tip-top, the city folks think. Woods full of roads leading nowhere except to some old house a hundred years old or more, and the older they be the better the city folks like ’em. Why, they actu’lly go into the garrets and buy up old spinning-wheels and desks and chairs; and, my land, they’re crazy over tall clocks.”
Rex did not care much for the furniture of the old garrets unless it should happen to belong to the Hallams, and he asked next if there were foxes in the woods, and if he could get up a hunt with dogs and horses.
Phineas did not smile, but laughed long and loud, and deluged the cuspidor, before he replied:
“Wa-all, if I won’t give up! A fox-hunt, with hounds and horses, tearin’ through the folks’s fields and gardens! Why, you’d be mobbed. You’d be tarred and feathered. You’d be rid on a rail.”
“But,” Rex exclaimed, “I should keep on my own premises. A man has a right to do what he pleases with his own,” a remark which so affected Phineas that he doubled up with laughter, as he said:
“That’s so; but, bless your soul, the Homestead farm ain’t big enough for a hunt. It takes acres and acres for that, and if you had ’em the foxes wouldn’t stop to ask if it’s your premises or somebody else’s. They ain’t likely to take to the open if they can help it, but with the dogs to their heels and widder Brady’s garden right before ’em they’d make a run for it. Her farm jines the Homestead, and ’twould be good as a circus to see the hounds tearin’ up her sage and her gooseberries and her violets. She’d be out with brooms and mops and pokers; and, besides that, the Leicester women would be up in arms and say ’twas cruel for a lot of men to hunt a poor fox to death just for fun. They are great on Bergh, Leicester women are, and they might arrest you.”
Reginald saw his fox-hunts fading into air, and was about to ask what there was in the woods which he could hunt without fear of the widow Brady or the Bergh ladies of the town, when Phineas sprang up, exclaiming:
“Hullo! there’s the Square now. I saw him in town this mornin’ about some plasterin’ I ort to have done six weeks ago.”
And he darted from the door, while Rex, looking from the window, saw an old horse drawing an oldbuggy in which sat an old man, evidently intent upon avoiding a street-car rapidly approaching him, while Phineas was making frantic efforts to stop him. But a car from an opposite direction and a carriage blocked his way, and by the time these had passed the old man and buggy were too far up the street for him to be heard or to overtake them.
“I’m awful sorry,” he said, as he returned to the hotel. “He was alone, and you could of rid with him as well as not and saved your fare.”
Rex thanked him for his kind intentions, but said he did not mind the fare in the least and preferred the electric car. Then, as he wished to look about the city a little, he bade good-bye to Phineas, who accompanied him to the door, and said: “Mabby you’d better mention my name to the Square as a surety that you’re all right. He hain’t traveled as much as I have, nor seen as many swells like you, and he might take you for a confidence man.”
Rex promised to make use of his new friend if he found it necessary, and walked away, while Phineas looked after him admiringly, thinking, “That’s a fine chap; not a bit stuck up. Glad I’ve met him, for now I shall visit Lucy Ann when she comes home. He’s a little off, though, on his farm and his fox-hunts.”
Meanwhile, Reginald walked through several streets, and at last found himself in the vicinity of the electric car, which he took for Leicester. It was a pleasant ride, and he enjoyed it immensely, especially after they were out in the country and began to climb the long hill. At his request he was put down at the cross-road and the gabled house pointed out to him. Very eagerly he looked about him as he went slowly up the avenueor lane bordered with cherry-trees on one side, and on the other commanding an unobstructed view of the country for miles around, with its valleys and thickly wooded hills.
“This is charming,” he said, as he turned his attention next to the house and its surroundings.
How quiet and pleasant it looked, with its gables and picturesque chimneys under the shadow of the big apple-tree in the rear and the big elm in the front! He could see the out-buildings of which Phineas had told him,—the well-house, the hen-house, the smoke-house, the ice-house and stable,—and could hear the faint sound of the brook in the orchard falling over the dam into the basin below.
“I wish I had lived here when a boy, as my father and uncle did,” he thought, just as a few big drops of rain fell upon the grass, and he noticed for the first time how black it was overhead, and how threatening were the clouds rolling up so fast from the west.
It had been thundering at intervals ever since he left Worcester, and in the sultry air there was that stillness which portends the coming of a severe storm. But he had paid no attention to it, and now he did not hasten his steps until there came a deafening crash of thunder, followed instantaneously by a drenching downpour of rain, which seemed to come in sheets rather than in drops, and he knew that in a few minutes he would be wet through, as his coat was rather thin and he had no umbrella. He was still some little distance from the house, but by running swiftly he was soon under the shelter of the piazza, and knocking at the door, with a hope that it might be opened by the girl who Phineas had said “was handsome as blazes.”
CHAPTER VIII.REX AT THE HOMESTEAD.
The day had been longer and lonelier to Dorcas than the previous one, for then she had gone with Bertha to the train in Worcester, and after saying good-bye, had done some shopping in town and made a few calls before returning home. She had then busied herself with clearing up Bertha’s room, which was not an altogether easy task. Bertha was never as orderly as her sister, and, in the confusion of packing, her room was in a worse condition than usual. But to clear it up was a labor of love, over which Dorcas lingered as long as possible. Then when all was done and she had closed the shutters and dropped the shades, she knelt by the white bed and amid a rain of tears prayed God to protect the dear sister on sea and land and bring her safely back to the home which was so desolate without her. That was yesterday; but to-day there had been comparatively nothing to do, for after an early breakfast her father had started for Boylston, hoping to collect a debt which had long been due and the payment of which would help towards the mortgage. After he had gone and her morning work was done, Dorcas sat down alone in the great, lonely house and began to cry, wondering what she should do to pass the long hours before her father’s return.
“I wish I had Bertha’s room to straighten up again,” she thought. “Any way I’ll go and look at it.” And, drying her eyes, she went up to the room, which seemedso dark and close and gloomy that she opened the windows and threw back the blinds, letting in the full sunlight and warm summer air. “She was fond of air and sunshine,” she said to herself, remembering the many times they had differed on that point, she insisting that so much sun faded the carpets, and Bertha insisting that she would have it, carpets or no carpets. Bertha was fond of flowers, too, and in their season kept the house full of them. This Dorcas also remembered, and, going to the garden, she gathered great clusters of roses and white lilies, which she arranged in two bouquets, putting one on the bureau and the other on the deep window-seat, where Bertha used to sit so often when at home, and where one of her favorite books was lying, with her work-basket and a bit of embroidery she had played at doing. The book and the basket Dorcas had left on the window-seat with something of the feeling which prompts us to keep the rooms of our dead as they left them. At the side of the bed and partly under it she had found a pair of half-worn slippers, which Bertha was in the habit of wearing at night while undressing, and these she had also left, they looked so much like Bertha, with their worn toes and high French heels. Now as she saw them she thought to put them away, but decided to leave them, as it was not likely any one would occupy the room in Bertha’s absence.
“There, it looks more cheerful now,” she said, surveying the apartment with its sunlight and flowers. Then, going down-stairs she whiled away the hours as best she could until it was time to prepare supper for her father, whose coming she watched for anxiously, hoping he would reach home before the storm which was fast gathering in the west and sending out flashesof lightning, with angry growls of thunder. “He will be hungry and tired, and I mean to give him his favorite dishes,” she thought, as she busied herself in the kitchen. With a view to make his home-coming as pleasant as possible, she laid the table with the best cloth and napkins and the gilt band china, used only on great occasions, and put on a plate for Bertha, and a bowl of roses in the centre, with one or two buds at each plate, “Now, that looks nice,” she thought, surveying her work, with a good deal of satisfaction, “and father will be pleased. I wish he would come. How black the sky is getting, and how angry the clouds look!” Then she thought of Bertha on the sea, and wondered if the storm would reach her, and was silently praying that it would not, when she saw old Bush and the buggy pass the windows, and in a few moments her father came in looking very pale and tired. He had had a long ride for nothing, as the man who owed him could not pay, but he brightened at once when he saw the attractive tea-table and divined why all the best things were out.
“You are a good girl, Dorcas, and I don’t know what I should do without you now,” he said, stroking Dorcas’s hair caressingly, and adding, “Now let us have supper. I am hungry as a bear, as Bertha would say.”
Dorcas started to leave the room just as she heard the sound of the bell and knew the electric car was coming up the hill. Though she had seen it so many times, she always stopped to look at it, and she stopped now and saw Reginald alight from it and saw the conductor point towards their house as if directing him to it. “Who can it be?” she thought, calling her father to the window, where they both stood watching the strangeras he came slowly along the avenue. “How queerly he acts, stopping so much to look around! Don’t he know it is beginning to rain?” she said, just as the crash and downpour came which sent Rex flying towards the house.
“Oh, father!” Dorcas exclaimed, clutching his arm, “don’t you know, Mr. Gorham wrote that the New Yorker who wanted to buy our farm might come to look at it? I believe this is he. What shall we do with him? Bertha told us to shut the door in his face.”
“You would hardly keep a dog out in a storm like this. Why, I can’t see across the road. I never knew it rain so fast,” Mr. Leighton replied, as Rex’s knock sounded on the door, which Dorcas opened just as a vivid flash of lightning lit up the sky and was followed instantaneously by a deafening peal of thunder and a dash of rain which swept half-way down the hall.
“Oh, my!” Dorcas said, holding back her dress; and “Great Scott!” Rex exclaimed, as he sprang inside and helped her close the door. Then, turning to her, he said, with a smile which disarmed her at once of any prejudice she might have against him, “I beg your pardon for coming in so unceremoniously. I should have been drenched in another minute. Does Mr. Leighton live here?”
Dorcas said he did, and, opening a door to her right, bade him enter. Glancing in, Rex felt sure it was the best room, and drew back, saying, apologetically, “I am not fit to go in there, or indeed to go anywhere. I believe I am wet to the skin. Look,” and he pointed to the little puddles of water which had dripped from his coat and were running over the floor.
His concern was so genuine, and the eyes so kindwhich looked at Dorcas, that he did not seem like a stranger, and she said to him, “I should say you were wet. You’d better take off your coat and let me dry it by the kitchen fire or you will take cold.”
“Sheisa motherly little girl, as Phineas Jones said,” Rex thought, feeling sure that this was not the one who was “handsome as blazes,” but the nice one, who thought of everything, and if his first smile had not won her his second would have done so, as he said, “Thanks. You are very kind, but I’ll not trouble you to do that, and perhaps I’d better introduce myself. I am Reginald Hallam, from New York, and my father used to live here.”
“Oh-h!” Dorcas exclaimed, her fear of the dreaded stranger who was coming to buy their farm vanishing at once, while she wondered in a vague way where she had heard the name before, but did not associate it with Louie Thurston’s hero, of whom Bertha had told her.
He was one of the Hallams, of whom the old people in town thought so much, and it was natural that he should wish to see the old Homestead. At this point Mr. Leighton came into the hall and was introduced to the stranger, whom he welcomed cordially, while Dorcas, with her hospitable instincts in full play, again insisted that he should remove his wet coat and shoes before he took cold.
“They are a little damp, that’s a fact; but what can I do without them?” Reginald replied, beginning to feel very uncomfortable, and knowing that in all probability a sore throat would be the result of his bath.
“I’ll tell you,” Dorcas said, looking at her father. “He can wear the dressing-gown and slippers Berthagave you last Christmas.” And before Rex could stop her she was off up-stairs in her father’s bedroom, from which she returned with a pair of Turkish slippers and a soft gray cashmere dressing-gown with dark blue velvet collar and cuffs.
“Father never wore them but a few times; he says they are too fine,” she said to Rex, who, much against his will, soon found himself arrayed in Mr. Leighton’s gown and slippers, while Dorcas carried his wet coat and shoes in triumph to the kitchen fire.
“Well, this is a lark,” Rex thought as he caught sight of himself in the glass. “I wonder what Phineas Jones would say if he knew that instead of being taken for a confidence man I’m received as a son and a brother and dressed up in ‘the Square’s’ best clothes.”
Supper was ready by this time, and without any demur, which he knew would be useless, Rex sat down to the table which Dorcas had made so pretty, rejoicing now that she had done so, wondering if their guest would notice it, and feeling glad that he was in Bertha’s chair. He did notice everything, and especially the flowers and the extra seat, which he occupied, and which he knew was not put there for him, but probably for the handsome girl, who would come in when the storm was over, and he found himself thinking more of her than of the blessing which Mr. Leighton asked so reverently, adding a petition that God would care for the loved one wherever and in whatever danger she might be.
“Maybe that’s the girl; but where the dickens can she be that she’s in danger?” Rex thought, just as a clap of thunder louder than any which had precededit shook the house and made Dorcas turn pale as she said to her father:
“Oh, do you suppose it will reach her?”
“I think not,” Mr. Leighton replied; then turning to Rex, he said, “My youngest daughter, Bertha, is on the sea,—sailed on the Teutonic this morning,—and Dorcas is afraid the storm may reach her.”
“Sailed this morning on the Teutonic!” Rex repeated. “So did my aunt, Mrs. Carter Hallam.”
“Mrs. Carter Hallam!” and Dorcas set down her cup of tea with such force that some of it was spilled upon the snowy cloth. “Why, that is the name of the lady with whom Bertha has gone as companion.”
It was Rex’s turn now to be surprised, and explanations followed.
“I supposed all the Hallams of Leicester were dead, and never thought of associating Mrs. Carter with them,” Mr. Leighton said, while Rex in turn explained that as Miss Leighton’s letter had been written in Boston and he had addressed her there for his aunt it did not occur to him that her home was here at the Homestead.
“Did you see her on the ship, and was she well?” Dorcas asked, and he replied that, as he reached the steamer only in time to say good-bye to his aunt, he did not see Miss Leighton, but he knew she was there and presumably well.
“I am sorry now that I did not meet her,” he added, looking more closely at Dorcas than he had done before, and trying to trace some resemblance between her and the photograph he had dubbed Squint-Eye.
But there was none, and he felt a good deal puzzled, wondering what Phineas meant by calling Dorcas“handsome as blazes.” She must be the one referred to, for no human being could ever accuse Squint-Eye of any degree of beauty. And yet how the father and sister loved her, and how the old man’s voice trembled when he spoke of her, always with pride it seemed to Rex, who began at last himself to feel a good deal of interest in her. He knew now that he was occupying her seat, and that the rose-bud he had fastened in his button-hole was put there for her, and he hoped his aunt would treat her well.
“I mean to write and give her some points, for there’s no guessing what Mrs. Walker Haynes may put her up to do,” he thought, just as he caught the name of Phineas and heard Mr. Leighton saying to Dorcas:
“I saw him this morning, and he thinks he will get up in the course of a week and do the plastering.”
“Not before a week! How provoking!” Dorcas replied, while Rex ventured to say:
“Are you speaking of Phineas Jones? I made his acquaintance this morning, or rather he made mine. Quite a character, isn’t he?”
“I should say he was,” Dorcas replied, while her father rejoined:
“Everybody knows Phineas, and everybody likes him. He is nobody’s enemy but his own, and shiftlessness is his great fault. He can do almost everything, and do it well, too. He’ll work a few weeks,—maybe a few months,—and then lie idle, visiting and talking, till he has spent all he earned. He knows everybody’s business and history, and will sacrifice everything for his friends. He attends every camp-meeting he can hear of, and is apt to lose his balance and have what he calls the power. He comes here quite often, and isvery handy in fixing up. I’ve got a little job waiting for him now, where the plastering fell off in the front chamber, and I dare say it will continue to wait. But I like the fellow, and am sorry for him. I don’t know that he has a relative in the world.”
Rex could have told of his Aunt Lucy, and that through her, Phineas claimed relationship to himself, but concluded not to open up a subject which he knew would be obnoxious to his aunt. Supper was now over, but the rain was still falling heavily, and when Rex asked how far it was to the hotel, both Mr. Leighton and Dorcas invited him so cordially to spend the night with them, that he decided to do so, and then began to wonder how he should broach the real object of his visit. From all Phineas had told him, and from what he had seen of Mr. Leighton, he began to be doubtful of success, but it was worth trying for, and he was ready to offer fifteen hundred dollars extra, if necessary. His coat and shoes were dry by this time, and habited in them he felt more like himself, and after Dorcas had removed her apron, showing that her evening work was done, and had taken her seat near her father, he said:
“By the way, did Mr. Gorham ever write to you that a New Yorker would like to buy your farm?”
“Yes,” Mr. Leighton replied, and Rex continued:
“I am the man, and that is my business here.”
“Oh!” and Dorcas moved uneasily in her chair, while her father answered, “I thought so.”
Then there was a silence, which Rex finally broke, telling why he wanted that particular farm and what he was willing to give for it, knowing before he finished that he had failed. The farm was not for sale, except under compulsion, which Mr. Leighton hoped might beavoided, explaining matters so minutely that Rex had a tolerably accurate knowledge of the state of affairs and knew why the daughter had gone abroad as his aunt’s companion, in preference to remaining in the employ of Swartz & Co.
“Confound it, if I hadn’t insisted upon aunt’s offering five hundred instead of three hundred, as she proposed doing, Bertha would not have gone, and I might have got the place,” he thought.
Mr. Leighton continued, “I think it would kill me to lose the home where I have lived so long, but if it must be sold, I’d rather you should have it than any one I know, and if worst comes to worst, and anything happens to Bertha, I’ll let you know in time to buy it.”
He looked so white and his voice shook so as he talked that Rex felt his castles and fox-hunts all crumbling together, and, with his usual impulsiveness, began to wonder if Mr. Leighton would accept aid from him in case of an emergency. It was nearly ten o’clock by this time, and Mr. Leighton said, “I suppose this is early for city folks, but in the country we retire early, and I am tired. We always have prayers at night. Bring the books, daughter, and we’ll sing the 267th hymn.”
Dorcas did as she was bidden, and, offering a Hymnal to Rex, opened an old-fashioned piano and began to play and sing, accompanied by her father, whose trembling voice quavered along until he reached the words,—
“Oh, hear us when we cry to TheeFor those in peril on the sea.”
“Oh, hear us when we cry to TheeFor those in peril on the sea.”
“Oh, hear us when we cry to TheeFor those in peril on the sea.”
“Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee
For those in peril on the sea.”
Then he broke down entirely, while Dorcas soon followed, and Rex was left to finish alone, which he didwithout the slightest hesitancy. He had a rich tenor voice; taking up the air where Dorcas dropped it, he sang the hymn to the end, while Mr. Leighton stood with closed eyes and a rapt expression on his face.
“I wish Bertha could hear that. Let us pray,” he said, when the song was ended, and, before he quite knew what he was doing, Rex found himself on his knees, listening to Mr. Leighton’s fervent prayer, which closed with the petition for the safety of those upon the deep.
As Rex had told Phineas Jones, he was not a professor, and he did not call himself a very religious man. He attended church every Sunday morning with his aunt, went through the services reverently, and listened to the sermon attentively, but not all the splendors of St. Thomas’s Church had ever impressed him as did that simple, homely service in the farm house among the Leicester hills, where his “Amen” to the prayer for those upon the sea was loud and distinct, and included in it not only his aunt and Bertha, but also the girl whom he had knocked down, who seemed to haunt him strangely.
“If I were to have much of this, Phineas would not be obliged to take me to one of his meetings to convert me,” he thought, as he arose from his knees and signified his readiness to retire.
CHAPTER IX.REX MAKES DISCOVERIES.
It was Mr. Leighton who conducted Rex to his sleeping-room, saying, as he put the lamp down upon the dressing-bureau: “There’s a big patch of plaster off in the best chamber, where the girls put company, so you are to sleep in here. This is Bertha’s room.”
Rex became interested immediately. To occupy a young girl’s room, even if that girl were Squint-Eye, was a novel experience, and after Mr. Leighton had said good-night he began to look about with a good deal of curiosity. Everything was plain, but neat and dainty, from the pretty matting and soft fur rug on the floor, to the bed which looked like a white pin-cushion, with its snowy counterpane and fluted pillow-shams.
“It is just the room a nice kind of a girl would be apt to have, and it doesn’t seem as if a great, hulking fellow like me ought to be in it,” he said, fancying he could detect a faint perfume such as he knew some girls affected. “I think, though, it’s the roses and lilies. I don’t believe Squint-Eye goes in for Lubin and Pinaud and such like,” he thought, just as he caught sight of the slippers, which Dorcas had forgotten to remove when she arranged the room for him.
“Halloo! here are Cinderella’s shoes, as I live,” he said, taking one of them up and handling it gingerly as if afraid he should break it. “French heels; and, by Jove, she’s got a small foot, and a well-shaped one, too. I wouldn’t have thought that of Squint-Eye,” he said,with a feeling that the girl he called Squint-Eye had no right either in the room or in the slipper, which he put down carefully, and then continued his investigations, coming next to the window-seat, where the work-basket and book were lying. “Embroiders, I see. Wouldn’t be a woman if she didn’t,” he said, as he glanced at the bit of fancy work left in the basket. Then his eye caught the book, which he took up and saw was a volume of Tennyson, which showed a good deal of usage. “Poetical, too! Wouldn’t have thought that of her, either. She doesn’t look it.” Then turning to the fly-leaf, he read, “Bertha Leighton. From her cousin Louie. Christmas, 18—.”
“By George,” he exclaimed, “that is Louie Thurston’s handwriting. Not quite as scrawly as it was when we wrote the girl and boy letters to each other, but the counterpart of the note she sent me last summer in Saratoga, asking me to ride with her and Fred. And she calls herself cousin to this Bertha! I remember now she once told me she had some relatives North. They must be these Leightons, and I have come here to find them and aunt’s companion too. Truly the world is very small. Poor little Louie! I don’t believe she is happy. No woman could be that with Fred, if heismy friend. Poor little Louie!”
There was a world of pathos and pity in Rex’s voice as he said, “Poor little Louie!” and stood looking at her handwriting and thinking of the beautiful girl whom he might perhaps have won for his own. But if any regret for what might have been mingled with his thoughts, he gave no sign of it, except that the expression of his face was a shade more serious as he put the book back in its place and prepared for bed, where helay awake a long time, thinking of Louie, and Squint-Eye, and the girl he had knocked down on the ship, and Rose Arabella Jefferson, whose face was the last he remembered before going to sleep.
The next morning was bright and fair, with no trace of the storm visible except in the freshened foliage and the puddles of water standing here and there in the road, and Rex, as he looked from his window upon the green hills and valleys, felt a pang of disappointment that the place he so coveted could never be his. Breakfast was waiting when he went down to the dining-room, and while at the table he spoke of Louie and asked if she were not a cousin.
“Oh, yes,” Dorcas said, quickly, a little proud of this grand relation. “Louie’s mother and ours were sisters. She told Bertha she knew you. Isn’t she lovely?”
Rex said she was lovely, and that he had known her since she was a child, and had been in college with her husband. Then he changed the conversation by inquiring about the livery-stables in town. He would like, he said, to drive about the neighborhood a little before returning to New York, and see the old cemetery where so many Hallams were buried.
“Horses enough, but you’ve got to walk into town to get them. If old Bush will answer your purpose you are quite welcome to him,” Mr. Leighton said.
“Thanks,” Rex replied. “I am already indebted to you for so much that I may as well be indebted for more. I will take old Bush, and perhaps Miss Leighton will go with me as a guide.”
This Dorcas was quite willing to do, and the two were soon driving together through the leafy woods and pleasant roads and past the old houses, where thepeople came to the doors and windows to see what fine gentleman Dorcas Leighton had with her. Every one whom they met spoke to Dorcas and inquired for Bertha, in whom all seemed greatly interested.
“Your sister must be very popular. This is the thirteenth person who has stopped you to ask for her,” Rex said, as an old Scotchman finished his inquiries by saying, “She’s a bonnie lassie, God bless her.”
“She is popular, and deservedly so. I wish you knew her,” was Dorcas’s reply; and then as a conviction, born he knew not when or why, kept increasing in Rex’s mind, he asked, “Would you mind telling me how she looks? Is she dark or fair? tall or short? fat or lean?”
Dorcas answered unhesitatingly, “She is very beautiful,—neither fat nor lean, tall nor short, dark nor fair, but just right.”
“Oh-h!” and Rex drew a long breath as Dorcas went on: “She has a lovely complexion, with brilliant color, perfect features, reddish-brown hair with glints of gold in it in the sunlight, and the handsomest eyes you ever saw,—large and bright and almost black at times when she is excited or pleased,—long lashes, and carries herself like a queen.”
“Oh-h!” Rex said again, knowing that Rose Arabella Jefferson had fallen from her pedestal of beauty and was really the Squint-Eye of whom he had thought so derisively. “Have you a photograph of her?” he asked, and Dorcas replied that she had and would show it to him if he liked.
They had now reached home, and, bringing out an old and well-filled album, Dorcas pointed to a photograph which Rex recognized as a facsimile of the one his aunthad insisted belonged to Miss Jefferson. He could not account for the peculiar sensations which swept over him and kept deepening in intensity as he looked at the face which attracted him more now than when he believed it that of Rose Arabella of Scotsburg.
“I wish you would let me have this. I am a regular photo-fiend,—have a stack of them at home, and would like mightily to add this to the lot,” he said, remembering that the one he had was defaced with Rose Arabella’s name.
But Dorcas declined. “Bertha would not like it,” she said, taking the album from him quickly, as if she read his thoughts and feared lest he would take the picture whether she were willing or not.
It was now time for Rex to go, if he would catch the next car for Worcester. After thanking Mr. Leighton and Dorcas for their hospitality and telling them to be sure and let him know whenever they came to New York, so that he might return their kindness, he bade them good-bye, with a feeling that although he had lost his fancy farm and fox-hunts, he had gained two valuable friends.
“They are about the nicest people I ever met,” he said, as he walked down the avenue. “Couldn’t have done more if I had been related. I ought to have told them to come straight to our house if they were ever in New York, and I would if it were mine. But Aunt Lucy wouldn’t like it. I wonder she didn’t tell me about the mistake in the photographs when I was on the ship. Maybe she didn’t think of it, I saw her so short a time. I remember, though, that she did say that Miss Leighton was rather too high and mighty, and, by George, I told her to sit down on her! Ihavemade a mess of it; but I will write at once and go over sooner than I intended, for there is no telling what Mrs. Haynes may put my aunt up to do. I will not have that girl snubbed; and if I find them at it, I’ll——”
Here he gave an energetic flourish of his cane in the air to attract the conductor of the fast-coming car, and posterity will never know what he intended doing to his aunt and Mrs. Walker Haynes, if he found them snubbing that girl.
There was a stop of a few days at the Metropole in London, where Mrs. Hallam engaged a courier; there was another stop at the Grand in Paris, where a ladies’ maid was secured; and, thus equipped, Mrs. Hallam felt that she was indeed travelingen princeas she journeyed on to Aix, where Mrs. Walker Haynes met her at the station with a very handsome turnout, which was afterwards included in Mrs. Hallam’s bill.
“I knew you would not care to go in the ’bus with your servants, so I ventured to order the carriage for you,” she said, as they wound up the steep hill to the Hôtel Splendide.
Then she told what she had done for her friend’s comfort and the pleasure it had been to do it, notwithstanding all the trouble and annoyance she had beensubjected to. The season was at its height, and all the hotels were crowded, especially the Splendide. A grande duchesse with her suite occupied the guestrooms on the first floor; the King of Greece had all the second floor south of the main entrance; while English, Jews, Spaniards, Greeks, and Russians had the rooms at the other end of the hall; consequently Mrs. Hallam must be content with the third floor, where a salon and a bedchamber, with balcony attached, had been reserved for her. She had found the most trouble with the salon, she said, as a French countess was determined to have it, and she had secured it only by engaging it at once two weeks ago and promising more per day than the countess was willing to give for it. As it had to be paid for whether occupied or not, she had taken the liberty to use it herself, knowing her friend would not care. Mrs. Hallam didn’t care, even when later on she found that the salon had been accredited to her since she first wrote to Mrs. Haynes that she was coming and asked her to secure rooms. She was accustomed to being fleeced by Mrs. Haynes, whom Rex called a second Becky Sharp. The salon business being settled, Mrs. Haynes ventured farther and said that as she had been obliged to dismiss her maid and had had so much trouble to fill her place she had finally decided to wait until her friend came, when possibly the services of one maid would answer for both ladies.
“Gracie prefers to wait upon herself,” she continued, “but I find it convenient at times to have some one do my hair and lay out my dresses and go with me to the baths, which I take about ten; you, no doubt, who have plenty of money, will go down early in one of those covered chairs which two men bring to your room.It is a most comfortable way of doing, as you are wrapped in a blanket quiteen déshabilleand put into a chair, the curtains are dropped, and you are taken to the bath and back in time for your firstdéjeûner, and are all through with the baths early and can enjoy yourself the rest of the day. It is rather expensive, of course, and I cannot afford it, but all who can, do. The Scrantoms from New York, the Montgomerys from Boston, the Harwoods from London, and old Lady Gresham, all go down that way; quite a high-toned procession, which some impertinent American girls try to kodak. I shall introduce you to these people. They know you are coming, and you are sure to like them.”
Mrs. Haynes knew just what chord to touch with her ambitious friend, who was as clay in her hands. By the time the hotel was reached it had been arranged that she was not only to continue to use the salon, but was also welcome to the services of Mrs. Hallam’s maid, Celine, and her courier, Browne, and possibly her companion, although on this point she was doubtful, as the girl had a mind of her own and was not easily managed.
“I saw that in her face the moment I looked at her, and thought she might give you trouble. She really looked as if she expected me to speak to her. Who is she?” Mrs. Haynes asked, and very briefly Mrs. Hallam told all she knew of her,—of the mistake in the photographs, of Reginald’s admiration of the one which was really Bertha’s, and of his encounter with her on the ship.
“Hm; yes,” Mrs. Walker rejoined, reflectively, and in an instant her tactics were resolved upon.
Possessed of a large amount of worldly wisdom andforesight, she boasted that she could read the end from the beginning, and on this occasion her quick instincts told her that, given a chance, this hired companion might come between her and her plan of marrying her daughter Grace to Rex Hallam, who was every way desirable as a son-in-law. She had seen enough of him to know that if he cared for a girl it would make no difference whether she were a wage-earner or the daughter of a duke, and Bertha might prove a formidable rival. He had admired her photograph and been kind to her on the boat, and when he met her again there was no knowing what complications might arise if, as was most probable, Bertha herself were artful and ambitious. And so, for no reason whatever except her own petty jealousy, she conceived a most unreasonable dislike for the girl; and when Mrs. Haynes was unreasonable she sometimes was guilty of acts of which she was afterwards ashamed.
Arrived at the hotel, which the ’bus had reached before her, she said to Bertha, who was standing near the door, “Take your mistress’s bag and shawl up to the third floor, No. —, and wait there for us.”
Bertha knew it was Celine’s place to do this, but that demoiselle, who thus far had not proved the treasure she was represented to be, had found an acquaintance, to whom she was talking so volubly that she did not observe the entrance of her party until Bertha was half-way up the three flights of stairs, with Mrs. Hallam’s bag and wrap as well as her own. The service at the Splendide was not the best, and those who would wait upon themselves were welcome to do so, and Bertha toiled on with her arms full, while Mrs. Hallam and Mrs.Haynes took the little coop of a lift and ascended very leisurely.
“This is your room. I hope you will like it,” Mrs. Haynes said, stopping at the open door of a large, airy room, with a broad window opening upon a balcony, where a comfortable easy-chair was standing. Mrs. Hallam sank into it at once, admiring the view and pleased with everything. The clerk at the office had handed her a letter which had come in the morning mail. It was from Rex, and was full of his visit to the Homestead, the kindness he had received from Mr. Leighton and Dorcas, and the discovery he had made with regard to Bertha.
“I wonder you didn’t tell me on the ship that I was right and you wrong,” he wrote. “You did say, though, that she was high and mighty, and I told you to sit on her. But don’t you do it! She is a lady by birth and education, and I want you to treat her kindly and not let Mrs. Haynes bamboozle you into snubbing her because she is your companion. I sha’n’t like it if you do, for it will be an insult to the Leightons and a shame to us.” Then he added, “At the hotel in Worcester I fell in with a fellow who claimed to be a fortieth cousin of yours, Phineas Jones. Do you remember him? Great character. Called you cousin Lucy Ann,—said you spelled him down at a spelling-match on the word ‘dammed,’ and that he was going to call when you got home. I didn’t give him our address.”
After reading this the view from the balcony did not look so charming or the sunlight so bright, and there was a shadow on Mrs. Hallam’s face caused not so much by what Rex had written of the Homestead as by his encounter with Phineas Jones, her abomination. Whyhad he, of all possible persons, turned up? And what else had he told Rex of her besides the spelling episode? Everything, probably, and more than everything, for she remembered well Phineas’s loquacity, which sometimes carried him into fiction. And he talked of calling upon her, too! “The wretch!” she said, crushing the letter in her hands, as she would have liked to crush the offending Phineas.
“No bad news, I hope?” Mrs. Haynes said, stepping upon the balcony and noting the change in her friend’s expression.
Mrs. Hallam, who would have died sooner than tell of Phineas Jones, answered, “Oh, no. Rex has been to the Homestead and found out about Bertha, over whom he is wilder than ever, saying I must be kind to her and all that; as if I would be anything else.”
“Hm; yes,” Mrs. Haynes replied, an expression which always meant a great deal with her, and which in this case meant a greater dislike to Bertha and a firmer resolve to humiliate her.
It was beginning to grow dark by this time. Reentering her room, Mrs. Hallam asked, “Where is Celine? I want her to open my trunk and get out a cooler dress; this is so hot and dusty.”
But Celine was not forthcoming, and Bertha was summoned in her place. At the Metropole Bertha had occupied a stuffy little room looking into a court, while at the Grand in Paris she had slept in what she called a closet, so that now she felt as if in Paradise when she took possession of her room, which, if small and at the rear, looked out upon grass and flowers and the tall hills which encircle Aix on all sides.
“This is delightful,” she thought, as she leaned fromthe window inhaling the perfume of the flowers and drinking in the sweet, pure air which swept down the green hillside, where vines and fruits were growing. She, too, had found a letter waiting for her from Dorcas, who detailed every particular of Reginald’s visit to the Homestead, and dwelt at some length upon his evident admiration of Bertha’s photograph and his desire to have it.
“I don’t pretend to have your psychological presentiments,” Dorcas wrote, “but if I had I should say that Mr. Hallam would admire you when he sees you quite as much as he did your picture, and I know you will like him. You cannot help it. He will join you before long.”
Bertha knew better than Dorcas that she should like Rex Hallam, and something told her that her life after he came would be different from what it was now. For Mrs. Hallam she had but little respect, she was so thoroughly selfish and exacting, but she did not dislike her with the dislike she had conceived in a moment for Mrs. Haynes, in whom she had intuitively recognized a foe, who would tyrannize over and humiliate her worse than her employer. During her climb up-stairs she had resolved upon her course of conduct towards the lady should she attempt to browbeat her.
“I will do my best to please Mrs. Hallam, but I will not be subject to that woman,” she thought, just as some one knocked, and in response to her “Come in,” Mrs. Haynes appeared, saying, “Leighton, Mrs. Hallam wants you.”
“Madam, if you are speaking to me, I amMiss Leighton,” Bertha said, while her eyes flashed so angrily that for a moment Mrs. Haynes lost her self command andstammered an apology, saying she was so accustomed to hearing the English employees called by their last names that she had inadvertently acquired the habit.
There was a haughty inclination of Bertha’s head in token that she accepted the apology, and then the two, between whom there was now war, went to Mrs. Hallam’s room, where Bertha unlocked a trunk and took out a fresher dress. While she was doing this, Mrs. Hallam again stepped out upon the balcony with Mrs. Haynes, who said;
“It is too late fortable d’hôte, but I have ordered a nice little extra dinner for you and me, to be served in our salon. I thought you’d like it better there the first night. Grace has dined and gone to the Casino with a party of English, who have rooms under us. The king is to be there.”
“Do you know him well?” Mrs. Hallam asked, pleased at the possibility of hobnobbing with royalty.
“Ye-es—no-o. Well, he has bowed to me, but I have not exactly spoken to him yet,” was Mrs. Haynes’s reply, and then she went on hurriedly, “I have engaged seats for lunch and dinner for you, Grace and myself in thesalle-à-manger, near Lady Gresham’s party, and also a small table in a corner of the breakfast-room where we can be quite private and take our coffee together, when you do not care to have it in your salon. Grace insists upon going down in the morning, and of course, I must go with her.”
“You are very kind,” Mrs. Hallam said, thinking how nice it was to have all care taken from her, while Mrs. Haynes continued:
“Your servants take their meals in the servants’ hall. Celine will naturally prefer to sit with her ownpeople, and if you like I will arrange to have places reserved with the English for your courier and—and——”
She hesitated a little, until Mrs. Hallam said, in some surprise:
“Do you mean Miss Leighton?”
Then she went on. “Yes, the courier and Miss Leighton; he seems a very respectable man,—quite superior to his class.”
Here was a turn in affairs for which even Mrs. Hallam was not prepared. Heretofore Bertha had taken her meals with her, nor had she thought of a change; but if Mrs. Walker Haynes saw fit to make one, it must be right. Still, there was Rex to be considered. Would he think this was treating Bertha as she should be treated? She was afraid not, and she said, hesitatingly, “Yes, but I am not sure Reginald would like it.”
“What has he to do with it, pray?” Mrs. Haynes asked, quickly.
Mrs. Hallam replied, “Her family was very nice to him, and you know he wrote me to treat her kindly. I don’t think he would like to find her in the servants’ hall.”
This was the first sign of rebellion Mrs. Haynes had ever seen in her friend, and she met it promptly.
“I do not see how you can do differently, if you adhere to the customs of those with whom you wish to associate. Several English families have had companions, or governesses, or seamstresses, or something, and they have always gone to the servants’ hall. Lady Gresham has one there now. Miss Leighton may be all Reginald thinks she is, but if she puts herself in the position of an employee she must expect an employee’s fare, and not thrust herself upon first-class people.You will only pay second-class for her if she goes there.”
Lady Gresham and the English and paying second-class were influencing Mrs. Hallam mightily, but a dread of Rex, who when roused in the cause of oppression would not be pleasant to meet, kept her hesitating, until Bertha herself settled the matter. She had heard the conversation, although it had been carried on in low tones and sometimes in whispers. At first she resolved that rather than submit to this indignity she would give up her position and go home; then, remembering what Mrs. Hallam had said of Reginald, who was sure to be angry if he found her thus humiliated, she began to change her mind.
“I’ll do it,” she thought, while the absurdity of the thing grew upon her so fast that it began at last to look like a huge joke which she might perhaps enjoy. Going to the door, she said, while a proud smile played over her face, “Ladies, I could not help hearing what you said, and as Mrs. Hallam seems undecided in the matter I will decide for her, and go to the servants’ hall, which I prefer. I have tried first-class people, and would like a chance to try the second.”
She looked like a young queen as she stood in the doorway, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks glowing with excitement, and Mrs. Haynes felt that for once she had met a foe worthy of her.
“Yes, that will be best, and I dare say you will find it very comfortable,” Mrs. Hallam said, admiring the girl as she had never admired her before, and thinking that before Rex came she would manage to make a change.
That night, however, she had Bertha’s dinner sent toher room, and also made arrangements to have her coffee served there in the morning, so it was not until lunch that she had her first experience as second-class. The hall, which was not used for the servants of the house, who had their meals elsewhere, was a long room on the ground-floor, and there she found assembled a mixed company of nurses, maids, couriers, and valets, all talking together in a babel of tongues, English, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Greek, and all so earnest that they did not see the graceful young woman who, with a heightened color and eyes which shone like stars as they took in the scene, walked to the only vacant seat she saw, which was evidently intended for her, as it was next the courier Browne. But when they did see her they became as silent as if the king himself had come into their midst, while Browne rose to his feet, and with a respectful bow held her chair for her until she was seated, and then asked what he should order for her. Browne, who was a respectable middle-aged man and had traveled extensively with both English and Americans, had seen that Bertha was superior to her employer, and had shown her many little attentions in a respectful way. He had heard from Celine that she was coming to the second salon, and resented it more, if possible, than Bertha herself, resolving to constitute himself her protector and shield her from every possible annoyance. This she saw at once, and smiled gratefully upon him. No one spoke to her, and silence reigned as she finished her lunch and then left the room with a bow in which all felt they were included.
“By Jove, Browne, who is that person, and how came she here? She looks like a lady,” asked an English valet, while two or three Frenchmen nearly lost theirbalance with their fierce gesticulations, as they clamored to know who the grande mademoiselle was.
Striking his fist upon the table to enforce silence, Browne said:
“She is a Miss Leighton, from America, and far more a lady than many of the bediamonded and besatined trash above us. She is in my party as madam’s companion, and whoever is guilty of the least impertinence towards her in word or look will answer for it to me; tome, do you understand?” And he turned fiercely towards a wicked-looking little Frenchman, whose bad eyes had rested too boldly and too admiringly upon the girl.
“Mon Dieu, oui, oui, oui!” the man replied, and then in broken English asked, “Why comes she here, if she be a lady?”
It was Celine who answered for Browne:
“Because her mistress is a cat, a nasty old cat,—as the English say. And there is a pair of them. I heard them last night saying she must be put down, and they have put her down here. I hate them, and mine most of all. She tries to get me cheap. She keeps me fly-fly. She gives me nopourboires. She sleeps me in a dog-kennel. Bah! I stay not, if good chance come.L’Amèricainehundred times more lady.”
This voluble speech, which was interpreted by one to another until all had a tolerably correct idea of it, did not diminish the interest in Bertha, to whom after this every possible respect was paid, the men always rising with Browne when she entered the dining-hall and remaining standing until she was seated. Bertha was human, and such homage could not help pleasing her, although it came from those whose language she couldnot understand, and who by birth and education were greatly her inferiors. It was something to be the object of so much respect, and when, warmed by the bright smile she always gave them, the Greeks, and the Russians, and the Italians, not only rose when she entered the hall, but also when she passed them outside, if they chanced to be sitting, she felt that her life had some compensations, if it were one of drudgery and menial service.
True to her threat, Celine left when a more desirable situation offered, and Mrs. Hallam did not fill her place. “No need of it, so long as you have Miss Leighton and pay her what you do,” Mrs. Haynes said; and so it came about that Bertha found herself companion in name only and waiting-maid in earnest, walking demurely by the covered chair which each morning took Mrs. Hallam to her bath, combing that lady’s hair, mending and brushing her clothes, carrying messages, doing far more than Celine had done, and doing it so uncomplainingly that both Mrs. Hallam and Mrs. Haynes wondered at her. At last, however, when asked to accompany Mrs. Haynes to the bath, she rebelled. To serve her in that way was impossible, and she answered civilly, but decidedly, “No, Mrs. Hallam. I have done and will do whatever you require for yourself, but for Mrs. Haynes, nothing. She never spares an opportunity to humiliate me. I will not attend her to her bath. I will give up my place first.” That settled it, and Bertha was never again asked to wait upon Mrs. Haynes.