Part 15

"Miss Katherine's a _good_ child. You couldn't go far wrong, if you took it for granted she was goin' to do the right thing, like you are yourself. If I was you, excuse me for sayin' it--if I was you, I'd kinda open up to Miss Katherine. She's young. With all she's so tall an' han'some-lookin', she ain't learned all the sense there is. She thinks, the same's the rest o' the kids, that the only reason she ain't got the world for the askin' is because her '_mean ol' fam'ly_' don't want her to have no fun. Give her a chance. Show her you believe in her. You got to believe folks believe in you, to do your best. Now, take you, for instance. Your talkin' up so quick an' sharp as you do, makes most parties feel you're kinda hard to get along with. But my, _I_ get along with you first-rate, because I ain't fooled by your outsides. I know your insides is all right, an' that's enough for me. But a young lady, like Miss Katherine, she wouldn't know. She's got to be showed, like Sam says they do in Missouri. But, you can take it from me, you wouldn't have to show her but once. There! I've talked a blue streak, an' prob'ly tired you all out. Only, you see, when you get me on _childern_, you got me on a subjec's my speciality, as you might say. That is, I try to make it my speciality, like Sam does cows an' pigs an' farm-produc's gener'ly, now he's got to deal with'm. Before I go, can't I get you somethin', or, maybe, see you safe in bed?"

"Bed?" echoed Madam Crewe sharply. "Why do you suggest bed to me? Do I strike you as belonging there?"

"Oh, no'm!" lied Martha calmly. "I wasn't thinkin' o' your comfort, so much as mine. It kinda's got to be a habit with me to want to tuck the little ones up an' cover'm over, 'n' know they're fixed for a good, sound sleep, before I leave'm."

Madam Crewe set her lips.

"Well, Slawson, it won't be long before you can do that for me. But not to-night. Go your way now. It's growing late. But come again soon. Very soon, you understand?"

"Yes'm."

On her way out, Martha stopped at the kitchen door.

"Say, Eunice," she accosted that placid young woman whom she found cozily toasting her toes before the grateful warmth of the range, "where's Miss Katherine?"

"I d'know."

"Who's lookin' after the little Madam?"

"Nobody much, lately. Miss Katherine used to, and she does now, when she's home, but she's off, mostly, 'n' I have all I can do getting my work done up."

"Yes, I can see that," observed Martha dryly. "Well, I'm comin' to-morra again. You can tell Miss Katherine. But in the meantime, if you was plannin' to go home to-night, _doncher_. Just you stay right on deck here all of the time, from this on, do you understand?"

"Why?"

"Because I _tell_ you, that's why. You might be needed on short notice. Now, are you goin' to do as I say or ain't you?"

"Yes."

"That's a good girl. An'--an' if I should be needed for anythin', any time, just you come for me, quick as you can put, be it day or night, an' I'll drop everythin' an' come."

Eunice followed her to the doorstep.

"Say, you give me the creeps, Mrs. Slawson."

Martha laughed. "Well, I'm glad if I got _some_ kinda move on you, young lady. You certaintly need it."

But as she went her way home, Martha was in no laughing mood.

"I got the black dog on my shoulder, for fair," she muttered, hurrying her steps, spurred on by an unreasoning longing to be home, to see Sam, the children, even Ma.

Long before she reached the Lodge, she saw the light from the sitting-room lamp streaming out genially into the chill dusk of the early autumn evening. It had a reassuring welcome in it that fairly re-established her with the world on the old terms of good-cheer and common-sense optimism. The broad, benevolent smile for which Madam Crewe had so often derided her, was on her face as she turned the knob of the sitting-room door, pushed it open. A second, and the smile was there no longer.

"What's the matter?" Martha asked, looking from Ma to Mrs. Peckett, from Mrs. Peckett to Sam Slawson, in a puzzled, wondering way.

Nobody answered.

Ma sat cowering in her accustomed place. Mrs. Peckett, deeply flushed, was standing near the window, while Sam, towering over all, showed a livid, threatening face, the like of which Martha had never seen in all the years of their life together.

"What's the matter?" she repeated.

Again the question went unanswered, but after a moment, her husband, with a gesture, bade her close the entry-door.

"Now, what _is_ the matter? For the love o' Mike, one of you say!" she demanded for the third time, after she had obeyed.

The sharp ring of insistence in her voice seemed to pluck an answer out of Ma.

"As Heaven's me witness, Martha, I meant no harm," she whimpered peevishly.

"Well?" probed Martha.

"But to see me own son castin' black looks at me, as if he'd slay me----"

"Tell me what _you've_ done, never mind about Sam!"

"The day I first see you writin' one o' them letters, Martha----"

"What letters?"

Sam's fist came down on the table-top with the force of a sledge-hammer.

"Hold your tongue, Ma! By God! I won't have my wife's ears soiled with your dirty gossip. I've listened to you myself long enough, too long. I'd not have done it, even so, except for the need there is to stop your scandal-mongering--yours and this woman's here."

Martha laid a restraining hand upon his arm.

"Why, Sam! What ails you?" she asked in wonder. "I never seen you the like o' this before. Let Ma speak. She was sayin' about letters. What letters?"

The muscles in Sam's jaws twitched visibly beneath his tense skin. As Martha looked at him, she seemed scarcely to recognize him for the man who was her husband. Suddenly, from out of the dim recesses of her memory, emerged a line she had heard quoted in some far-off, vague time and association, when she had not consciously taken note of it. "Beware the fury of a patient man!" Now she understood what the words meant.

"If my wife must know this disgraceful thing, it's I will tell her," he spoke so low, his words were barely audible, but Ma would have felt easier if he had thundered. "Now listen, you two, to what I say. Never for one second have I doubted my woman. Never would I. When I tell you, Martha, what these have been saying, I don't do so for you to deny it. You're my wife. I believe in you--and would, against heaven and--_hell_. It seems, you've been writing letters to some one, lately, which God knows you've the right to do it. But these two here must needs spy on you, and sneak about, stealing the stray bits of scribbling you thought you'd destroyed and thrown away. They gathered them up, and, when your back was turned, pieced them together, to send to me with an anonymous letter--only I suspicioned something was afoot, and watched, and to-day I caught them at it. My God! There ought to be a separate fire in hell as punishment for such damned muck-raking!"

"Sam!" entreated Martha.

"Suppose you _have_ written Gilroy, who, none knows better than I, how once he wanted to marry you, and how you turned him down for me. Suppose you have written to Peter Gilroy, and Peter Gilroy has written to you----"

"I have, Sam, an'--he has," Martha confessed slowly.

"Surely you'd the right to do it, and I'd be the last to question you."

Martha gave him a long look.

"Did you say Ma an' Mrs. Peckett got a-holt o' my letters to Gilroy?"

Sam nodded.

"Did they give you the letters?"

Sam thrust a clinched fist toward her. It was full of crumpled scraps.

With patient care Martha smoothed out the first tattered shred that came to hand. Laboriously she read it aloud.

"'I knew what was in your heart when you ast hie so will rite as orphan as I can and no other soul will no. Love. All yours--MARTHA."

She looked up to meet her husband's eyes.

"Yes, I wrote that, Sam," she said.

Mrs. Peckett's chin, gradually lifting, at last almost regained its habitual level.

"You see," she observed suavely, "I'm not a liar, Mr. Slawson. And I'm not the other things you have called me to your shame--not mine. But I bear you no malice, nor Mrs. Slawson either. I'm not that kind of person. I'm a Christian woman, trying to do my duty."

"Damn your duty!" exclaimed Sam hoarsely.

"The only thing is," Martha interposed, hastening to cover her husband's unaccustomed profanity. "The only thing is, these bits here, as I look'm over, ain't from letters I wrote to Peter Gilroy. They're from letters I wrote to--another man."

Still Sam did not flinch.

Martha took a deep breath.

"Won't you take a chair, Mrs. Peckett? An' I'll sit, too. An' so will you, Sam. So long's we got on this subjec', we better come to a clear understandin'. That's always the best way. As I said at the start, Sam, I have been writin' to Gilroy, an' he's been writin' to me."

She leaned from her chair to where her sewing-machine stood, pulled open the drawer of its table, and took therefrom a couple of thin envelopes tied about with a strand of black darning-cotton.

"P'raps I'd ought to have told you firstoff, Sam, but I didn't, because I thought your feelin's might be hurt, an'--what you don't know won't worry you. The day after you had the news of Andy's note comin' doo, I got a letter from Gilroy. I've it right here now. Also mine answerin' it. That's to say, a _copy_ of mine answerin' it. The reason I kep' 'm is, Gilroy is with Judge Granville, an'--well--when you're dealin' with foxy parties, you got to be foxy to match'm. I won't read you the letters. If you like, _you_ can read'm. They're here _for_ you. Gilroy said 'twas him held your note for Andy. He'd took it over, an' he was writin' me to say that, for the sake o' the days gone by, he wanted to do me a kindness. He said he'd let you off the note. He said, well he knew what a poor provider you was, an' we'd prob'ly none too much, if we had anythin' a tall, an', as for him, he'd _plenty_, so he'd never miss it, bein' as he is a bachelder, an' right-hand-man to Judge Granville, an' prosperin' better an' better every day.

"I wrote'm back, post-haste, that I thanked'm kindly, but you'd already sent the money to Andy. Such bein' the case, I couldn't o' course take him at his word to let you off the note, but knowin' me so well as he'd used to, he'd know that I'd like nothin' better than take money off'n a friend who meant so kindly by me _as his letter showed he did_. Bein' that kind of a friend, I said, I knew he'd like to hear you're doin' grand--you're right-hand-man to Mr. Ronald, an' we've all we need an' more, too, an' prosperin' better an' better every day.

"I took my letter to Miss Claire, before ever I sent it off, to make sure it was all right, an' Gilroy'd know what I meant. Miss Claire laughed when she was through readin' it. She said, it was surely all right, but what he'd read between the lines had illustrations, whatever that means. Anyhow, it stirred up Gilroy somethin' fierce, an'----" Martha paused, the blood surged up to her face in a tide. "He wrote to me again. A whole lot o' love-sick trash. I sent his letter back to'm (me keepin' a copy) with just a gentle hint o' warnin' to the effec' that if ever he done the like again, I'd tell you on'm, an' we'd both of us come down to New York by the first train, an' take a turn out of'm--first you, an' then me _on your leavin's_. Here's the whole co-respondence, Sam. I'm glad to get rid of it. It was clutterin' up my machine-drawer. But, p'raps, before you take it, to lock it away--Mrs. Peckett an' Ma would like to examine it."

Mrs. Peckett shook her head.

"Then you're satisfied I ain't a callyope?" Martha asked her.

"A _what_?" demanded Sam sharply.

"A callyope. One o' them things whistles on a boat, which, every oncet in a while we'd hear'm on the river, down home. Likewise, they mean coqwette."

"You mean _siren_?"

"Yes. Sure. They're called both ways. Madam Crewe says all women are sirens. Then you're satisfied I ain't a siren, Mrs. Peckett?"

Mrs. Peckett inclined her head, smiling with easy patronage.

Martha regarded her narrowly for a moment.

"I see you _ain't_ satisfied!"

"I certainly am, so far as Mr. Gilroy is concerned, but----"

Sam got upon his feet in a manner to cause Mrs. Peckett to come to a sudden halt.

"I know what she means, Sam. Keep cool, an' let me handle this, which I'm the only one can, anyhow. You'd like to know the name o' the party I wrote them letters to, you an' Ma amused yourselves playin' puzzles with? Well, I'll tell you his name. It's Dr. Ballard, an' even _you_ couldn't be so much of a looney as think _Dr. Ballard_ would give a second thought to the likes o' me, that I'd be writin' love-letters to'm, much less him wastin' time to read'm, let alone write me back.

"Before he went away, Dr. Ballard told me, he'd a likin' for this place an' every mother's son in it, which, _I s'pose_, that means you, too, an' he ast would I write'm, to tell how things was goin' on, an' if Miss Claire an' the baby was gettin' on, an' how Buller was comin' along. I promised I would. An' I kep' my promise, an' I'm goin' to keep on keepin' it. Any objection?"

Mrs. Peckett signified she had none.

"Then all that remains is to say good-by," said Martha gravely, rising and standing with quiet dignity beside her husband.

Mrs. Peckett took a step toward the door. Then abruptly she turned and extended her hand to Martha.

Sam Slawson shook his head. "No, you don't!" he forbade decidedly.

"I guess we better wait a while, an' see how we feel about each other later," Martha explained without animus. "My husban' says, 'No, you don't!' so' o' course that settles it for the present, anyhow. It's a kind o' pity things has come to this pass, for I don't like to be on the outs with anybody. But you certaintly took a risk, Mrs. Peckett. If my husban' had been like _some_ men----! I don't see how you dared do it, knowin' you're a woman, yourself, with a man o' your own. P'raps 'twas because you'd set out to make me over, that you hold me so cheap. I always noticed folks is never so choice o' made-over things. They think the best wear's out of'm anyhow, an' it don't matter if they do use'm sort o' careless now. But it _is_ matter, for it's _you'll_ be blamed for not bein' clean, not the thing you've dirtied. Besides, sometimes a _made-over_ will serve you better than new. I give you leave to remember that, Mrs. Peckett."

When their visitor was gone, Ma began to cry aloud.

"The fear is in me heart. I haven't a limb to move, the way I'd be dreadin' Sam's punishin' me!" she moaned, rocking backward and forward in her chair.

"He'll not punish you, Ma!" Martha promised.

Still Sam bent stormy brows upon his mother.

"I'll not punish you," he said, "but after what's happened, I guess we'll all feel happier if you make your home away from this."

"I'll die ere ever I'll go back to New York City to live wit' the likes o' them as don't want me!" sobbed the old woman explosively.

"A Home, then. I'll see you settled in a good Home."

Ma looked into his stern eyes, saw no relenting there, and turned to Martha. She held up her hands with the mute appeal of a child begging to be carried.

And Martha nodded. She would carry her.

"For," she explained to Sam, later, "Ma's only a child, after all. With no more sense, or as much as Sabina. Let her stay, Sam."

*CHAPTER XVI*

Martha had been gone but a quarter of an hour or so, when Katherine appeared at her grandmother's door.

It had become a purely perfunctory act, this pausing at the sitting-room threshold, and asking, "Can I do anything for you, grandmother?" To-night the answer was startlingly out of the ordinary.

"Yes. Come in. I want to speak to you."

The girl came forward, outwardly calm, inwardly, so shaken with a morbid dread of what might await her, that she dared not venture to speak, for fear her voice would betray her.

"Light the lamp."

Her uncertain fingers fumbled the first match, till it dropped to the floor. The second went out, before she could guide it to the wick. Only at the third attempt was she successful--and she knew her grandmother despised clumsy inefficiency.

"Where have you been?"

"To the Ronalds. We're getting up a course of lectures, don't you remember, for the natives--to run through the winter."

"The natives to run through the winter?"

Katherine shrank back hypersensitively from the foolish banter.

"I am doing the work. Mr. Ronald is giving the money."

"A very proper arrangement."

"It has kept me busy. I hope you haven't felt neglected."

"Not in the least. As usual, everything has been done for me that _had_ to be done."

The little old woman was trying her best to act on Martha's advice, but her tongue, sharpened by years of skilful practice, could not sheathe its keen edge all at once. When next she spoke, it was with so studied a mildness that Katherine stared at her, wondering.

"You probably met Slawson as you came in? You must have passed her on the road."

"No, the Ronalds brought me home in their car. We drove out along the mountain-road, to see the foliage. We came back the other way."

"Well, get your things off now. And when you've had your dinner, come back to me. Or--no! I'll ring!"

It darted through Katherine's mind that her grandmother spoke with singular self-repression. Again she regarded her with puzzled eyes. Such moderation could only breed suspicion, in a mind grown abnormal in solitary confinement.

The girl ate no dinner.

It was late before she heard the silver tinkle that sounded, in her ears, like the crack of doom.

It was well her grandmother bade her, with a gesture, to sit down. Her quaking knees would hardly have borne her, standing.

"I'm a coward! A poor, weak coward!" she confessed to herself bitterly, resenting her weakness, yet apparently powerless to control it.

"I've been thinking over what you told me, and I have concluded to change my tactics with regard to you," the old woman plunged in, without preamble. "Perhaps I've made a mistake in the past, keeping from you things you should have known. All I can say is, I acted in good faith, for your best."

Katherine smiled faintly. "Isn't that what parents always say when they punish?"

Madam Crewe raised her chin in her old supercilious manner, then quickly lowered it.

"I don't know. I've had no experience. I never punished. Perhaps that is where I made my mistake."

Again Katherine's lips curled slightly in a wry smile.

"You need have no regrets there, grandmother. You have nothing to make up to me on that score."

"You mean I have punished you?"

"Oh--very thoroughly."

"Curious! I can't see myself doing it."

"I can't see you _not_ doing it!"

Madam Crewe, in her turn, stared, surprised. Katherine was acting out of all character, in quite a new, unaccountable fashion.

"I suppose I must take your word for it," her grandmother admitted with an odd sigh. "Be kind enough not to interrupt. You know the story of the man I did not marry. Now you shall hear the story of the man I did marry.

"My father took me abroad after--after the Ballard fiasco. I did not care where I went, what I did. I was quite broken down. Quite, as Slawson would say, 'broken up.' Nothing made any difference to me. Everything was distasteful.

"One day, in London, my father brought a young man to me, introducing him as my future husband. That was all there was to it. I neither objected, nor approved. I had no mother. I did not understand.

"We were married almost immediately--my new lover was very eager. He urged haste. Almost immediately I discovered that my father had been duped by a cheap adventurer, a man without heart or conscience. A poor, weak wretch of profligate habits, a liar, a cheat. He had posed in society as a man of means, heir to a title. He was nothing of the sort. All those he had brought to stand sponsor for him, were hirelings paid to mislead us.

"For a long time I tried to hide the truth from my father. When, at last, he learned it, it killed him. He died in a fit of apoplexy, brought on by rage against the man who had gulled him.

"My fortune was large. My husband squandered a considerable part, before I had sense to take steps to save it. He was a spendthrift. He forged my name on checks, he stole from my purse. I presume you wonder why I did not rid myself of him? In those days divorces were not the casual things they are now. A woman divorced, was a woman disgraced. Moreover, there was the boy. For his sake I bore, forbore. For his sake, I fought to save my fortune. He was my one hope. He was to make up, by his perfect rightness, for all that was wrong in my universe. I suppose I spoiled him. Slawson says you can't spoil a good child. If that is so, my boy must have been bad from the beginning. This I know, he was always his father's child. He had none of me in him. As a baby, he was full of soft, coaxing ways. It was torture to see them gradually becoming smooth, calculating, treacherous.

"Sit still! I know he was your father--but he was my son _first_. I used to pray, night after night, that he might not live to follow in his father's footsteps. Useless. The taint was too strong.

"He married your mother precisely as your grandfather had married me. I would have prevented it, if I had known. It was all so carefully, secretly arranged that I did not know. Your mother was sacrificed, as I had been. Her fortune was swept away. She died when you were hardly more than a baby. I was glad when she died. She was out of it.

"Your father brought you to me to be cared for. The sight of you, in your little black ribbons, was a constant reproach. I was afraid to look into your eyes, for fear I should see in them what had killed your mother.

"One thing I determined, that you were not to be spoiled. I would bring you up as well as I could. I had failed with your father. I would try a different method with you. I repeat, I acted in good faith. I did my best.

"Your father died suddenly--no matter how--enough that 'twas disgracefully. Within a twelve-month, I was a widow. Behind my crepe I humbly thanked Almighty God.

"When I came to settle up my estate, I found myself practically impoverished. That is, everything had been so attached, encumbered, I could get no benefit from it. My income must be turned back to the estate, to save it. My only salvation--yours--was to cut myself off from all but a pittance, until every claim had been met, and I stood free and quit. That has been done. I owe no man anything. I have sacrificed much, but not my integrity, and not one acre, one security belonging to the property your great-grandfather left me, rescued from my husband. It is all intact. Your inheritance----"

Katherine was on her feet in an instant.

"Inheritance!" she blazed. "You have just told me what my inheritance is! Fraud, lies, treachery--everything that is base. What does money matter to a creature like me? I can never get away from what I am. As you say, 'the taint is too strong!' Hush! _I_ am speaking now. And I'm _going_ to speak, and you've _got_ to listen! For once in my life, I am going to have my say--I'm going to forget I am young and you are old, and I'm going to let you know what I have been feeling, thinking, _being_ all these years, when you've thought I was a tame thing you could order about, and scold and ridicule, to the top of your bent.