CHAPTER VI.
“Isn’t he perfectly charming, Leola? As handsome as a picture, and the prettiest manners I ever saw—so courteous, so kind, altogether different from some of the country bumpkins about here, who don’t seem to appreciate ladies as they ought. But really, for the life of me, I cannot tell which one of us he is courting, for he is so nice to us both. Sometimes I think it’s you, and then, again, I may be the object of his affection. I cannot deny there may be a little disparity in our years, but I do not believe he would mind that, do you, dear?”
This was two weeks later than the picnic, from which it may be inferred that Ray Chester’s courtship was progressing finely, without let or hindrance from Wizard Hermann.
Fortune had favored our daring hero, for Leola’s guardian had been absent from home nearly two weeks, and on returning he had resumed his laboratory work with such zeal that he remained quite in ignorance of the fact that a handsome young man, a stranger from the city, was a daily and welcome caller on the ladies of his family.
His first news of the fact came fromMr. Bennett, his rich and rotund neighbor, who, perhaps growing jealous over Miss Tuttle, desired to know if Mr. Hermann had any knowledge of the stranger’s intentions.
“In a word, sir, is the fellow sparking Miss Tuttle or Leola?” he said, brusquely.
Mr. Hermann, startled, denied any knowledge of the young man.
“I’ve been up to New York for some precious chemicals I required, and I was nearly ten days absent. Since I returned I’ve been almost too busy to take time to eat or sleep, and I have not seen or heard of any young man,” he declared.
The sleek Bennett soon made him acquainted with the facts as he knew them himself.
“The fellow’s from the city, somewhere away off, good-looking and dandyfied, an artist, he claims to be. He’s boarding down to Widow Gray’s, and showed himself first at a picnic, where he came with her and got introduced to the whole country-side. I’m not saying he isn’t as pleasant a young chap as I ever met, but I don’t like it, seeing him in and out at Wheatlands all the time without knowing for sure who he’s after, Hermann,” he concluded, uneasily.
“I’ll look into the matter this very day and find out what’s in the wind,” was the reassuring reply.
Bennett’s little ferret eyes looked sharply at him, and he muttered:
“I won’t have any fooling over this here bargain. The mortgage falls due pretty soon now, and if you fail to keep your word, I’ll foreclose at once, I swear.”
“I’ll keep it to the letter: don’t you be uneasy,” soothed Wizard Hermann, adding:
“Have you done anything to help along your own cause, eh?”
“I’ve called several times and fetched the geerls presents of fruit and candy, and took ’em riding in my fine new turnout, but that dad-blame dandy was always along, and I couldn’t hardly get in a word edgeways to the geerl, and Miss Tuttle, she done all the talking to me, so’s I hadn’t any show at all with Leola,” Bennett muttered, morosely.
“Let’s see; suppose you write a letter and propose formally for her hand. Tell her how rich you are, and that you’ll give her anything her heart craves. If she refuses, then I shall have to use my influence,” Wizard Hermann said, consolingly, wishing he were well out of all this bother and back in his laboratory at work with his beloved chemicals.
His house and lands were all mortgaged to his rich neighbor, and he had not a dollar to pay him to prevent foreclosure. It seemed like a providence when the rich widower cast his covetous eyes on lovely Leola, and offered, if Hermann could get her to marry him, to release the debt.
It was fifteen thousand dollars, but Wheatlands, with its wide-spreading acres, was worth twice as much, and it was terrible to thus sacrifice the home of his forefathers; so Hermann, who had burned up all that money in his foolish and mysterious experiments, decided that Leola must be sacrificed to pay the debt, since there was no other way.
But how to obtain her consent he did not know, and, since the morning when she had so angrily repulsed him, the subject had tacitly dropped between them, Hermann realizing that his end could only be gained by force and cunning.
Bennett’s story about a possible rival put a new element of trouble into the affair, so he set himself to investigate matters by calling the governess to account.
When he summoned her to the library she thought he only wanted to go over some housekeeping accounts with her, or possibly to pay some arrears of her salary long overdue.
Visions of a new gown and bonnet floated joyfully before her mind’s eye, but she was soon undeceived.
“Who and what of this young dandy who is making so free of my house these two weeks?” he demanded.
Miss Tuttle bridled, and tried to blush like an eighteen-year-old girl.
“Oh, Mr. Hermann, the most charming young man—he’s a boarder at Widow Gray’s, and is most attentive,” she simpered.
“So I have heard, but who is he after—Leola?” he demanded.
“Oh, sir, no, indeed—that is, I cannot really be sure of his intentions toward either; he’s so very charming to both of us we cannot decide between us which he prefers yet—but he does not seem like a flirt!”
“Amanda Tuttle, don’t be an old fool! How do you suppose any young man could hesitate between an old woman like you and pretty Leola?” he replied, brusquely.
“Sir!” Miss Tuttle bridled, and tears came into her eyes.
“Well, well, I spoke roughly, but you should not be so silly,” returned her employer. “Remember you were not very pretty when you first came here, and fifteen years has changed you into a faded old maid.”
“I—I—hate you!” she sobbed, pitifully.
“Hard words break no bones,” he said, carelessly.
“If you will pay me my salary I’ll leave Wheatlands forever!” she sobbed, bitterly, in her humiliation; but he went on, coolly:
“No, I don’t want you to leave; I really need your services, Miss Tuttle. But as to whether you ever get that money I owe you depends on your own exertions. I’ve lost everything, and unless Leola makes a rich marriage I’ve planned for her, I will not have a roof over my head this day month.”
Miss Tuttle mopped her wet eyes with a little lace-edged handkerchief, and straightened up, full of breathless curiosity.
“Oh, who is he?” she exclaimed; and thereupon he suddenly confided his difficulties freely to her, hopeful of her ready co-operation, but, being totally unversed in the intricacies of a woman’s heart, he made the mistake of his life.
On learning that the rotund widower, Bennett, whom she secretly loved, was a suitor for Leola’s hand, the spinster promptly went into hysterics that she could not have helped to save her life.
She shrieked furiously:
“Oh, the fat villain, the vile deceiver! After all his attentions to me since his poor wife died, to turn around and fall in love with a chit of a girl like Leola! Oh, I could tear him limb from limb, the wretch! And as to marrying him, she shall not—never, never!”
“Oh, really, really!” soothed her employer, but all to no purpose, for, her heart being touched, she could not restrain her excitable feelings, but raved on angrily and tearfully for some time, until her emotion spent itself, the old man having bided his time to this end.
He now observed, sarcastically:
“If you have done making a fool of yourself now, Amanda Tuttle, perhaps you will tell me what you are going to do about it. You cannot marry Bennett if he will not have you.”
“No,” she moaned, tearfully; and he continued, coolly:
“Perhaps you will bring suit for breach of promise.”
Miss Tuttle fairly tore her hair in her humiliation.
“Will you, now?” he repeated.
“No,” she sobbed, suddenly realizing that she really had no grounds to base a legal action upon. She had built her hopes on a baseless fabric of neighborly politeness, nothing more, and her house of cards had tumbled to the ground.
The revulsion from long hope to sudden despair was so bitter that it awakened an intense and jealous hatred for Leola, superseding the devotion of years.
Hermann realized that he had made a mistake in taking her into his confidence, and made a masterly retreat, exclaiming:
“Oh, well, well, don’t take it so hard, Amanda Tuttle; you’re too old to behave like a love-sick chit! It isn’t likely that Leola will want to marry him, anyhow, and if she refuses, of course I must let old Bennett take the house and everything, and we can all go to the almshouse together!”