CHAPTER VI

There were times when, in spite of disease, death, or disaster, Mrs. John Upjohn had to have clothes; more clothes, no doubt I should say, or other clothes. At any rate, when such occasions were imminent, Mrs. Upjohn was wont to summon the dressmaker to come to her house, and the dressmaker would come promptly and would camp in the house until the siege was over, going home only to sleep. One would think that Mrs. Upjohn might have offered Letty Lambkin a bed to sleep in, for Letty had been a schoolmate of hers before misfortune overtook her; and Mrs. Upjohn had beds to spare and Letty always arrived before breakfast and stayed until after supper. Perhaps such an offer would have offended a sensitive spirit. That is only a guess, of course, for I have no means of knowing what Mrs. Upjohn's ideas were upon that subject. At all events, she never gave Letty a chance of being offended at any such offer.

An occasion such as I have mentioned arose on the day of the Hazens' fire, and Mrs. Upjohn had accordingly sent John Junior around to Letty's house with the customary message. Which message John Junior had delivered with an air of great dejection and with the very evident hope that Miss Lambkin would be unable to come. But, alas! Miss Lambkin smiled at John cheerfully and told him to tell his mother that she would be there bright and early in the morning; that she had felt it in her bones that Alicia Upjohn would be wanting her on that day, and she had put off Mrs. Robbins and Mrs. Sarjeant on purpose so's Alicia wouldn't have to wait.

Whereupon John Junior muttered unintelligibly and turned away, leaving Miss Lambkin gazing fondly after him and calling after him to know if it wasn't cold. John Junior muttered again, inaudibly to Miss Lambkin, but not unintelligibly. He was not fond of those sieges, to say the least.

"Darn it!" he muttered, kicking viciously at the ice. "That means two weeks and I can't stay at Hen's all the whole time for two weeks. A fellow has to be at home for meals. If she only wasn't there for breakfast and supper!" John Junior kicked viciously at the ice again; and, the ice proving refractory, he stubbed his toe and almost fell. "Ow!" he said; "darn it!" But that was an afterthought. He betook him to the harbor.

There is some reason to believe that the late John Senior had not regarded these visitations with more favor than did his son; there were some that did not hesitate to say that his end had been hastened by them and by the semiannual house-cleaning. Mrs. Upjohn was considered a notable housekeeper. "She takes it hard," he had said to Hen's father in an unguarded moment of confidence. Hen's father had laughed. Hen's mother was not a notable housekeeper. John Senior had sighed. At that time there was but one club in Whitby. He was not a member of that club. Such men as Hugh Morton and Gerrit Torrington were members; even John Hazen was said to be a member, although he was never at the club-rooms. So even that solace was denied to John Senior. He couldn't stay at Hen's house all the time either; and, there seeming to be no other way of escape, he up and had a stroke and died in two hours. At least, so rumor ran, the connection between cause and effect being of rumor's making. I have no wish to contradict it. I have no doubt that I should have wanted to do as John Senior had done. Very possibly Patty had some such wish.

The two weeks of Letty were now up and the end was not in sight. She and Mrs. Upjohn sat in Mrs. Upjohn's sewing-room, which was strewn with unfinished skirts and waists and scraps of cloth. Letty sewed rapidly on the skirt; Mrs. Upjohn sewed slowly--very, very slowly--on something. It really did not matter what. If the completion of Mrs. Upjohn's clothes had depended upon Mrs. Upjohn's unaided efforts she would never have had anything to wear.

"Where's Patty gone, Alicia?" asked Letty, a thread between her teeth. "Hospital?"

Mrs. Upjohn stopped sewing. "Yes," she replied in her deliberate way. "I believe her father is worse. She got a message this morning before you came, and I think it was unfavorable, to judge by her face."

"Land!" said Miss Lambkin. "I guess he's going to die. He's a pretty old man. Eighty, if he's a day, would be my guess."

Mrs. Upjohn nodded. "Just eighty."

"Pretty good guess, I call it." Miss Lambkin laughed. "I thought he must be pretty sick, or Patty wouldn't be out of the house as soon as ever breakfast was over and not turn up again until dinner-time. Then, as like as not, she'd be gone the whole afternoon. I hear he's got pneumonia."

Mrs. Upjohn nodded again.

"And I hear," Letty continued, "that he got it getting chilled and wet the night of the fire. 'T was an awful cold night, and he would stay around the house and try to tell the firemen what they sh'd do. Of course, they couldn't help squirting on him some."

"I hope," said Mrs. Upjohn, "that they didn't mean to."

"I hope not," Miss Lambkin returned. "I sh'd think the ones that did it would have it on their consciences if they did. They tell me that Sally Ladue discovered the fire. She and that Doctor Sanderson have been at the Mortons' ever since and, if you can believe all you hear, neither of 'em likes it any too well. Mrs. Morton's nice to her--she can be as nice as nice to them that she likes, though you wouldn't always think it--but Everett's the trouble."

It was contrary to Mrs. Upjohn's principles to look surprised at any piece of information--and as if she had not heard it before. She gave a little laugh.

"A good many girls," she remarked, "would give their eyes to be at the Mortons' for two weeks."

"I guess that's what's the trouble with Everett," said Miss Lambkin pointedly. "Too much girl; and I guess he isn't any too particular about the kind either."

Mrs. Upjohn was curious. To be sure, she was always curious, which was a fact that she flattered herself she concealed very neatly. Other people were not of the same opinion.

"Why, Letty?" she asked frankly. She seldom allowed her curiosity to be so evident. "I've never heard of his being seen with any girls that he ought not to be with. Have you?"

"Oh, not in Whitby," replied Miss Lambkin. "Not for Joseph! As far's that goes, he isn't seen very often with girls that he ought to be with. But I hear that when he's in Boston it's a different story. Of course, I haven't seen him with my own eyes, but I have reliable information. You know he goes to Boston for weeks at a time."

"M-m," assented Mrs. Upjohn, rocking quietly and comfortably. "He stays at the best hotels, I believe."

"_Registers_ at the most expensive," corrected Miss Lambkin, "I have no doubt. I s'pose he stays there some of the time. To tell the truth," she confessed, somewhat crestfallen at having to make the humiliating confession, "I didn't just hear what Everett does that Sally Ladue doesn't like."

"Oh," said Mrs. Upjohn. She did not look up and there was a certain air of triumph in the way she uttered that simple syllable which grated on Miss Lambkin's sensibilities.

"Sally's a sort of high-and-mighty girl," continued Miss Lambkin tentatively.

"Sally's a nice girl and a good girl," said Mrs. Upjohn cordially; "capable, I should say."

"No doubt she is," Letty returned without enthusiasm. "It's rather strange that she is all that, considering what her father did."

Mrs. Upjohn laughed comfortably. "I used to know her father. There was no telling what he would do."

"Ran off with another woman," said Letty, "and some money. That's what I heard."

Mrs. Upjohn laughed again. "He disappeared," she conceded. "I never heard that there was any other woman in the case and I'm reasonably sure there wasn't any money."

"He hasn't ever been heard of since?"

Mrs. Upjohn shook her head.

"And he left them without any money? I thought he stole it."

"I don't think so. Doctor Sanderson kept them afloat for some time, I believe, until Patty asked Sally here. Then he got Mrs. Ladue into Doctor Galen's hospital."

"M-m," Letty murmured slowly. She had a needle between her lips or she would have said "o-oh." She removed the needle for the purpose of speech. "So that's Doctor Sanderson's connection with the Ladues. I always wondered. It might have been 'most anything. His sister's up and coming. She'll have Dick Torrington if he don't look out. She's made the most of her visit."

Letty's murmur might have meant much or it might have meant nothing at all. At all events, Mrs. Upjohn let it go unchallenged, possibly because her curiosity was aroused by what Letty said later. She asked no questions, however. She only waited, receptively, for further communications on the subject of Henrietta and Dick. Miss Lambkin did not vouchsafe further information on that subject, but immediately branched off upon another.

"I'm told," she said, with the rapidity of mental change that marked her intellectual processes, "that John Hazen's house was in an awful state the morning after the fire. I went around there as soon's ever I could, to see what I could see, but the door was locked and I couldn't get in. I looked in the windows, though, and the furniture's all gone from some of the rooms, even to the carpets. There was a ladder there, and I went up it, and the bedroom was all stripped clean. I couldn't carry the ladder, so I didn't see the others. I made some inquiries and I was told that the furniture was all stored in the stable. That wasn't burned at all, you know. I thought that perhaps Patty'd been and had it moved, though it don't seem hardly like her. It's more like John Hazen himself. But he wasn't able."

Mrs. Upjohn smiled and shook her head. "It wasn't Patty," she replied, "or I should have known it. I guess it was Sally. Perhaps Doctor Sanderson helped, but it is just like Sally. She's a great hand to take hold and do things."

"You don't tell me!" said Miss Lambkin. "But I don't suppose she did it with her own hands. I shouldn't wonder," she remarked, "if she'd find some good place to board, the first thing you know. She might go to Miss Miller's. She could take 'em, I know, but she wouldn't have room for Doctor Sanderson, only Sally and her mother and Charlie. Charlie's a pup, that's what he is. But I can't see, for the life of me, what Doctor Sanderson keeps hanging around here for. Why don't he go home?"

Not knowing, Mrs. Upjohn, for a wonder, did not undertake to say. Miss Lambkin hazarded the guess that the doctor might be sparking around Sally; but Mrs. Upjohn did not seem to think so.

"Well," Letty went on, "I wonder what the Hazens'll do. It'd cost an awful sight to repair that house; almost as much as to build a new one. What insurance did you hear they had? Has Patty said?--This skirt is about ready to try on, Alicia. I want to drape it real nice. Can't you stand on the table?"

She spread a folded newspaper on the top of the table.

"There! Now, you won't mar the top. Take your skirt right off and climb up."

Mrs. Upjohn was a heavy woman and she obeyed with some difficulty. Miss Lambkin continued in her pursuit of information while she draped the skirt.

"You haven't answered about the insurance, Alicia. What did Patty say about it? I don't suppose Patty'd know exactly and I wouldn't trust her guess anyway. John Hazen never seemed to, to any extent. Patty's kind o' flighty, isn't she, and cracked on the men, although you wouldn't think it from her highty-tighty manner. She used to think she was going to marry Meriwether Beatty, I remember. Land! He had no more idea of marrying her than I had. And she's been cracked on every man that's more'n spoken to her since. She's got the symptoms of nervous prostration; all the signs of it. I shouldn't be a bit surprised if she went crazy, one o' these days. If Doctor Sanderson is looking for patients for his sanitarium he needn't look any farther. Patty's it. Turn around, Alicia. I don't get a good light on the other side. Why, Patty's--"

Mrs. Upjohn had heard the front door shut. "Sh-h-h!" she cautioned. "Here's Patty now."

They heard Patty come slowly up the stairs and, although there were no sounds of it, she seemed to be weeping.

"Now, I wonder," whispered Miss Lambkin, "what's the matter. Do you s'pose her--"

"Sh, Letty! She'll hear you. I'll get down and go to her."

"Without a skirt, Alicia?"

But Mrs. Upjohn did not heed. She got down from the table, clumsily enough, and went to the door. Patty had just passed it.

"Patty!" Mrs. Upjohn called softly. "Is there anything the matter?"

Patty turned a miserable, tear-stained face. "It--it's all o-over," she said dully.

"Your father?" asked Mrs. Upjohn. She spoke in an awe-struck whisper in spite of herself. Did not Death deserve such an attitude?

Patty nodded silently. "I'm so sorry, Patty," Mrs. Upjohn's sympathy was genuine. "I _am_ so sorry."

"Oh, Alicia," Patty cried in a burst of grief, "my father's d-dead."

Mrs. Upjohn folded ample arms about her and patted her on the shoulder as if she had been a child. "There, there, Patty! I'm just as sorry as I can be; and so will everybody be as soon as they hear of it. But you just cry as much as you want to. It'll do you good."

So they stood, Mrs. Upjohn unmindful of the fact that she had no skirt and Patty crying into a lavender silk shoulder.

"Land!" The voice was the voice of Miss Lambkin and it proceeded from the doorway. "I'm awfully sorry to hear your father's dead, Patty. How did--"

Patty lifted her head majestically from the lavender silk shoulder. "My grief is sacred," she murmured; and fled to her room.

"Mercy me!" muttered Miss Lambkin. "I didn't have my kid gloves on. I ought to have known better'n to speak to Patty without 'em. You may as well come back, Alicia," she continued in a louder voice, "and finish with that skirt. Perhaps, now, you'll be wanting a new black dress. Your old one's pretty well out of fashion."

She filled her mouth with pins while Mrs. Upjohn again mounted the table.

Mrs. Upjohn shook her head slowly. "No," she answered, "I guess the old one will do for a while yet. I shouldn't want one for anything but the funeral anyway, and you couldn't begin to get one done by that time. It would be different if it was a relative."

"It's curious," remarked Miss Lambkin, as well as she could with her mouth full of pins, "how things go. Now, there's many of our relatives--mine, anyway--that we could spare as well as not; better than some of those that are no kin to us. And we have to wear black for them and try to look sorry. Black isn't becoming to some, but it seems to me you'd look full as well in it as you do in that lavender, and that place on your shoulder where Patty cried tears is going to show anyway. But, as I was going to say, a man like John Hazen is going to be missed. I wonder who was there, at his death-bed. Patty, of course, and Sally Ladue, I s'pose, and maybe Mrs. Ladue and Meriwether Beatty. Sally was real fond of her Uncle John and he of her. It's my opinion that Sally'll be sorrier than Patty will. Come right down to it, Patty isn't so broken-hearted as she likes to think, though she'll miss him."

To this Mrs. Upjohn agreed, but Letty did not wait for her reply.

"And I wonder," she went on, working rapidly while she talked, "how much he's left. Patty hasn't said, I s'pose. I don't s'pose she'd have much of an idea anyway, and I don't know's anybody could tell until his business is all settled up. He had quite a number of vessels, and it seems a great pity that there isn't anybody to take his business up where he left it. He did well with it, I'm told. It's my guess that you'll find that John Hazen's left Sally a good big slice."

"I hope so, with all my heart." Mrs. Upjohn spoke cordially, as she did invariably of Sally.

"My!" Letty exclaimed with an anticipatory squeal of delight. "Wouldn't it put Patty in a proper temper if he had! Now, Alicia," she said, standing back and looking the skirt up and down, "we'll call that skirt right. It hangs well, if I do say it. Take it off and I'll finish it right up. You can come down now."