Part 16

"I know, now, why I was a lonely, unloved child. I've always wondered, before, for I _tried_ to be good--even when I was too much of a baby to be anything else. I know, now, why you watched me out of the corners of your eyes, as if you were waiting for me to try to deceive you, in some way. You were waiting for my '_inheritance_' to crop out. How could I ever have been anything, but at my worst with you? How could I be clever, when you insisted I was dull? How could I be _myself_, when you condemned me, by your fears, to be my grandfather, and my father? What you waited for, came. Of course it would. I stole, I lied. I was a coward. 'The taint was too strong!'

"But let me tell you this, it needn't have been so. I could have been saved if, when I was a child---- Oh, I can't bear it! I can't bear it!"

She shrank together into a wretched heap on the floor, her head bowed on her knees.

Madam Crewe gazed at her, a strange shadow creeping over her face. As if to herself, she murmured, "That is what your grandfather used to plead--and your father. Whenever they were discomforted, they always said they couldn't bear it. So they didn't bear it. _I_--and others--had to bear it."

The sound of her voice, low as it was, brought Katherine to her feet. All the pent-in passion of her life, breaking loose now, beat mercilessly down upon the defenseless old woman before her. In some unaccountable way, the two seemed to have changed places. It was she who dominated, her grandmother who submitted.

The lamp burned low, sending out a rank odor that filled the room. The clock struck out three deep bell-notes.

Katherine, shuddering, sobbing, felt herself caught up in the whirlwind-strength of a new impulse. She turned her back on her grandmother. A moment, and the door of her own chamber shut her in.

Madam Crewe's head fell forward upon her breast.

* * * * *

The clock had just struck half-past five, when Martha groped her way downstairs.

She had her work "cut out for her," as she would have expressed it, and must start in promptly. She had just kindled a new fire in the kitchen-range, and was about to set out for the henhouse, and cow-barn, when a step on the porch brought her up standing.

In a second she had crossed the room, swung open the kitchen-door.

"Miss Katherine!" she exclaimed, in the breathless undertone of one brought face to face with a dread turned reality.

Katherine seemed to understand without need of explanation. She shook her head.

"No--grandmother's not sick. Grandmother is all right. But--I'm going away. I've left home. I'll never go back! Never! We had it out together last night, grandmother and I. _Last_ night, and _all_ night. I'll never cross that doorsill again, if I have to beg in the streets, or--starve."

Martha quietly closed the door, led Katherine to a chair, then set the water-kettle on the stove, without asking a question, saying a word.

"I've come straight to you, Mrs. Slawson," the girl continued breathlessly, "because you're my only friend in the place. The only one who knows anything about the kind of life I've led, and would understand."

"But, I _don't_ understand," Martha corrected her. "I thought--that is to say, I somehow or other, got the idea the two of youse was goin' to get along better, after this. I can't think how things could 'a' got to this pass when, the last I heard, everything looked so promisin'."

Katherine took her up quickly. "I don't know what you mean by _promising_. The day Mrs. Ronald was taken sick, I told grandmother about--about--what I'd done. You know--the pocket--with the letters. And she treated me like a dog. Oh, she was cruel. Sent me away, out of her sight, as if I'd been something hateful to her--which I am. She hasn't spoken to me since, until last night, except to give some order. I don't know how you can say you thought things 'looked promising.'"

Martha measured out two heaping tablespoonfuls of freshly-ground coffee into the percolator, and set it on the stove.

"I saw your gran'ma yesterday, Miss Katherine," she explained. "Her an' me had a long talk, an', from what she dropped, I got the impression she meant to turn over a new leaf two-wards you, if you'd give her the chance."

"Did she say she meant to?"

"No, not eggsackly '_say_.' But----"

"Well, then, I guess you were mistaken. Or, perhaps she _meant_ to try to do better by me, and, when the time came, she just couldn't, that's all. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. But no matter what she _meant_, no matter what _I_ did, the end of it was, we had a terrible time and--I've come away for--good."

After an interval, during which Martha had quietly relieved Katherine of the bag she clutched, she set before her a cup of steaming, fragrant coffee.

Katherine shook her head. "I couldn't touch it. I'm not hungry."

"Drink it down, hungry or not!" commanded Martha authoritatively.

Katherine obeyed.

"You must have been at the house late, yesterday afternoon," she said, between her absent sips. "For, I wasn't there, and I'd been at home all day except for an hour or so toward evening, when I went to the Ronalds'. When I came in grandmother called me, and, now I come to think of it, she did seem milder, kinder. She told me to take my dinner and then, after dinner, to come to her. It always scares me when grandmother summons me to appear before her--like a pensioner, or a criminal. It's always been that way, ever since I can remember. The sight of her, sitting there, cold and distant as a marble image, always freezes me to ice. I can't help it. I know I'm a coward, but I can't help it.

"I couldn't eat my dinner, for thinking what she had to say, so, by the time I went up to her, I was all of a tremble inside, though I probably didn't show it.

"Then she told me--told me--about her life. About my grandfather--my father. If you knew what I've sprung from, Mrs. Slawson, you'd turn me out of your house."

"Rot!" said Martha, "askin' pardon for the liberty."

Katherine went on--"Think of being watched, day after day--always under suspicion.--Think of having some one always being in fear and trembling because the time'll surely come when you'll show what you've sprung from. And, of course, it comes. I did the things my grandfather and my father had done before me. That was why, when I told her about the pocket, she sent me away from her. The thing she had dreaded, had happened."

"It always does," said Martha.

"So that's what I am," the girl went on shudderingly, "a coward, and a liar, and a thief. The child, and the grandchild, of cowards, thieves, liars. There's no hope for me! I can never be anything else."

Martha's hand upon her shoulder shook her, none too gently.

"Say, stop that nonsense, Miss Katherine. Stop it right now, before you say another word. There ain't any truth in it, to begin with, an' _I_ say it's wicked to _think_ such things. Just you answer me a couple o' questions, will you?"

Martha's unaccustomed severity startled Katherine out of her hysteria. She nodded acquiescence.

"Why did you tell me, firstoff, when you'd took the pocket?"

"Because I loathed myself so. I couldn't bear it alone."

"Why did you clap the name o' thief to yourself? Are you proud o' it?"

"It's the truth. I have to tell the truth!"

"Why have you?"

"Because it's _right_ to."

"Then, on your own say-so, you ain't any o' those things you said. Don't you see you ain't? A thief don't hate what he does, so he's afraid to be alone with himself. A liar don't _have_ to stick to the truth, does he? A coward won't stand up, an' face the music, 'cause it's _right_ to--not so you'd notice it, he won't. All this hangin' on to your antsisters' shirt-tails an' apern-strings, for good, or for bad, makes me sick on my back. I'm tired seein' crooked sticks tryin' to pull glory down on themselves off'n what they call their Family-trees. Don't you fool yourself. It's every man for himself these days--_thank God_! It don't folla you're what your gran'pa is, any more'n your gran'ma. You got a mind o' your own, an' a conscience o' your own, an' if you did, in a way o' speakin', lose your grip on yourself, an' done what tempted you--to do it oncet, ain't to say you'll ever do it again. It's just the very reason why you _won't_ ever do it again!"

Katherine shook her head. "That may be true. All I can say is, it doesn't seem true to me now. Anyway, I can't change my feeling about grandmother. I want never to see her again. She hates me and--I----"

"Now, easy! Go easy, Miss Katherine. What makes you think the ol' lady hates you?"

"Everything she has ever done. She's never kissed me in her life, that I can remember."

"Kissin' ain't all there is to lovin'. What did your gran'ma want to save her money for? What did she scrimp an' screw for, after bein' used to live in the lap o' lucksherry all her days----? I'm a ignorant woman, but it seems to me, she could 'a' paid up all was owin', and lived off'n her capital, an' said to herself: 'Hooray! A short life, an' a merry one! Let the grandchild I hate, look out for herself. What do _I_ care?'"

"Perhaps she don't mind saving and denying herself, any more. She's got used to it," suggested Katherine. "Maybe she likes it."

"I wouldn't be too sure," Martha admonished, "Think it over."

"I have thought it over--and over and over. Nothing will change me. I'll not go back, Mrs. Slawson."

"Where are you goin'?"

"To Boston."

"What for, to Boston?"

"First, to tell Dr. Ballard just what and who I am. Grandmother thought it was _lying_ for me to hold back that story, when I should have made a clean breast of it, at once. She acts as if she had to protect Dr. Ballard against me. She acts as if _he_ is the one who's dear to her and I'm the stranger. Well, I'll show her! I'd never marry him now, if--if----"

"An', after you got through throwin' down Dr. Ballard?"

"I'll go somewhere else. To another town--and earn my living."

"Doin' what?"

"I don't know yet. But the way will open."

"You bet it will. Good an' big, the way'll open," Martha echoed her words with scoffing emphasis. "It'll make you dizzy lookin' at it gapin' at you!"

Katherine's pale cheeks flushed. "I'm not a fool, Mrs. Slawson. There are some things I can do, as it is. I can learn to do more."

"Certaintly. There's lots o' lovely things you can do in this world--_if you don't charge anythin' for'm_."

Katherine rose.

"I came to you, Mrs. Slawson, because I felt you were my friend."

"So I am."

"I came to you because I knew what you'd done for the Hinckley girl. I want you to do the same for me. There's a train leaves Burbank Junction for Boston at eleven-thirty-three. Will you take me over there in your motor?"

"No, ma'am!"

Katherine stared at her, out of astonished eyes.

"No, ma'am!" repeated Martha. "When I took Ellen Hinckley to Burbank, it was outa harm's way. If I took _you_ it'd be into it. Ellen Hinckley was a poor, weak sister, which runnin' away was all there was _for_ her. _You_ are strong as they make'm, an' stayin' 's all there is for you. Ellen owed it to herself to leave her mother. You owe it to yourself to stand by yours."

"Then I'll go to Mr. Ronald. He'll take me--when I tell him."

"Don't you believe it. An' you won't tell'm either, Miss Katherine. You're too proud, an' he's too _fair_. It wouldn't take him a minute to tell you, 'Stay by the poor little ol' lady, till she's no need o' you no more, which it won't be long, now, anyhow.' It wouldn't take'm a minute to tell you that, Miss Katherine--not for Madam Crewe's sake--but for yours."

"I'll never go back," the girl reiterated determinedly. "Whatever I do, I'll never go back. If you won't take me to Burbank, I'll wait here at the station, for the trolley. There'll be another train out sometime. I'll get to Boston somehow."

"Miss Katherine," Martha pleaded, but the girl stopped her with an impatient gesture.

"It's no use, Mrs. Slawson. I feel as if there were nothing but ugliness and horror in all the world. It's come out--even in _you_!"

Martha turned her face away quickly, as if she had been struck.

"I've not gone back on you, Miss Katherine. Take my word for it, till you can see for yourself what I say's true. You think everything's ugly now. That's because you got knocked, same as if it was, flat on your back. You're just bowled clean over. You're lookin' at things upside down. But let me tell you somethin'--there's been good in all the knocks ever I got in my life, if I had the sense to see."

"I don't believe it!" said Katherine passionately.

Martha smiled. "Certaintly you don't, at the present moment. But you will, in the course o' time. Why, the hardest knock a party'd land you, right between the eyes, you'd see _stars_."

Katherine turned quickly away, stooped to pick up her bag, and without another word, passed to the door.

"Say, Miss Katherine," called Martha, "I want to tell you somethin'. Now, listen! Dr. Ballard, he tol' me oncet----" she was talking to empty air.

Katherine had gone.

Martha followed at far as the doorstep, to look after the girlish figure marching so resolutely out into the cold gray of the early autumn morning. She stood watching it, until it passed out of sight, around the bend of the road that led to the village.

Then, with all her day's work still before her, Martha Slawson deliberately sat down to think.

"Between the two o' them, they've made a mess of it, for fair," she told herself. "But I'll give the ol' lady this credit, I do b'lieve she started in _wantin'_ to do the right thing. The trouble with her is, she waited too long, an' in the meantime, Miss Katherine's been bottlin' in her steam, an' gettin' bitterer an' bitterer, till all it took was the first word from the little Madam, to bust her b'iler, an' send the pieces flyin'. Miss Katherine says they talked all night. I bet 'twas her done the talkin'. I can jus' see her takin' the bit between her teeth, an' lettin' rip, for all she was worth, same's Sam wipin' up the floor with Mrs. Peckett, which he'd never raised his hand to a soul in his life before, an' prob'ly never will again. Just for oncet the both of'm, him an' her, had their fling, more power to'm! In the meantime, the fat's in the fire. If I'd 'a' had the book-learnin' I'd oughta, an' not been the ignorant woman I am, I'd 'a' been able to speak the wise word to Miss Katherine, that would 'a' cooled her off, an' ca'med her down, till she'd have her reason back, an' could see the right an' wrong of it for herself. But I haven't, an' she ain't, an' while I'm sittin' here thinkin' about it, she's makin' tracks for Boston, an' Dr. Ballard. Bein' a man, he'll welcome her with open arms. Bein' a girl, she'll forget all about her good intentions to throw'm down, the minute she claps eyes on'm. An' then, when it's all over, an' Time has fanned the first flush off'n 'm, he'll get to thinkin' how she ain't the woman he thought her, because she left her gran'ma in the lurch, which he tol' me with his own lips he'd never ask her do it. In fac', he wouldn't respec' her if she did do it, an' the poor ol' lady so sick, 'n' old, 'n' lonesome. An', with one like Dr. Ballard, a girl'd want to think twice before she'd risk lowerin' herself, to do what he couldn't respec'. No, Dr. Ballard mustn't know Miss Katherine's left her gran'ma alone. He mustn't know it, even if she _does_ it! But how is he goin' not to know it, I should like to know?"

For a few moments Martha painfully pondered the problem, without any sign of untangling its knotted thread. Then suddenly she rose and, going to the foot of the stairway, called up to Sam:

"Say, Sam--come here a minute, will you? I wisht you'd wake up Cora, an' tell her get busy fixin' the breakfast. An' when you come down, set Sammy feedin' the hens, an' turnin' the cow out. I ain't able to do my chores, because I got suddently called away. I prob'ly won't be back till dinnertime, or maybe night. Don't wait for me, an' don't be uneasy. I'll tell you about it later."

She caught up her coat and hat, hanging on a hook on the entry closet door, and put them on while she was making her way across the grounds, in the direction of the big house.

She knew, before she crossed the kitchen doorsill, that Mr. Ronald would not be up at this hour of the morning; nevertheless, she got Tyrrell to take a message for her to his door.

"Tell'm I got somethin' very important I wanta say. Ask'm will he let me telefoam it up to'm."

Mr. Frank sent down word, "Certainly!"

"I got a favor to ask of you, sir," Martha told him without reserve.

"Let's hear it."

"Somethin' 's happened out to ol' lady Crewe's. Miss Katherine, she come to me just now, all upset an' wild-like. Las' night, when I see the little Madam, she showed as plain as could be, she's not long for this world, an' by now--what with the shock she's got--she's prob'ly goin' fast. Will you telefoam Dr. Ballard, an' ask'm to come to her right off? He told me, before he left, if any of you folks, here, or _her'd_ reely need'm, I was to let'm know, an' he'd come, if it took a leg."

"But, Martha," objected Mr. Frank, "that's the point. If we _really need_ him. Are you sure the case is so urgent? Recollect, Dr. Ballard is a busy man. His time is worth more than money. Much more. There isn't one chance in a thousand, that he could leave to come here, on the spur of the moment, even if I asked him."

"He'd come," said Martha confidently.

"And I don't want to ask him--I'd have no right to do it, unless the need is extreme. Is the need extreme? Are you sure of it?"

Martha hesitated but a moment. "Yes, sir. I'm sure," she answered.

"Then I understand you to say that I am to call up Dr. Ballard. I am to tell him that Madam Crewe is in a critical condition. I am to ask him to come on at once. It is a matter of life or death. That is the message, Martha?"

"Yes, sir."

"You're positive? Life or death?"

"Life--_an'_ death," repeated Martha distinctly.

"Then call up Central, and ask for Long Distance. When you get it, give me the wire. Shall you wait for the answer?"

"No, sir. I'm goin' straight to the little ol' lady's now. She needs me, an'--I _know_ the doctor'll come."

*CHAPTER XVII*

The "little ol' lady's" need of her was as distinct in Martha's consciousness, as if it had come to her in the form of a verbal message, through ordinary physical channels.

Its insistent reiteration, since the night before, had drowned out the impression of Mrs. Peckett's mischievous tongue, even Katherine's poignant reproaches. Everything else fell into the background before that one soundless cry of appeal.

For once in her life Martha hurried.

Eunice Youngs met her at the kitchen-porch, showing a scared face.

"Oh, Mrs. Slawson," she drawled, with something in her voice and manner almost resembling animation, "oh, Mrs. Slawson, if ever I was glad to see anybody!"

"What's the trouble?"

"I d'know. When I went up to Miss Katherine's room about an hour ago, with Madam's coffee, I knocked an' knocked, an' no one answered. Then, I went to Madam's door, an' knocked an' knocked, an' no one answered. But the sitting-room door was open, so I peeked in, an'----"

"Well?" Martha's impatience spurred her on.

"Madam was sitting up in her chair, just like always, only she--looked like she was dead."

Before the words were fairly out, Martha had brushed Eunice aside, and was halfway up the back stairs. In the moment it took her to cover the distance between them and the sitting-room, her thoughts ran riot, but one sentence kept repeating itself unconsciously:

"Poor Miss Katherine! Poor Miss Katherine!"

Automatically she tapped on the sitting-room door, pushed it open, and entered.

Madam Crewe was sitting in her chair, as Eunice had described her, but as Martha came forward, the drooping head lifted ever so slightly, the heavy eyes gave out a faint spark.

Without a word Martha poured into a glass one of Dr. Ballard's stimulants, in the use of which she had been well instructed. She held the glass to Madam Crewe's lips, supporting her while she drank, then waiting until the lips showed a tinge of color.

"Good--morning! Why don't--you--ask--me, how I--slept?"

Martha caught the labored words with difficulty. She caught, what was even more difficult, the intention to preserve the old tone of caustic raillery.

"I never do," she answered imperturbably, playing up with gallant spirit, to the required pace. "I never do. Mornin's, when folks ask you how you slep', mostly it's just for the chance to let you know how _they didn't_."

"Kath--er--ine?"

"I see her before I come in here. She's kinda played out, this mornin'. I guess we better let her rest a while, hadn't we?"

Madam Crewe's eyes conveyed assent.

Chatting lightly on, ignoring any reason for not doing so, Martha undressed the rigid little body, and laid it tenderly in bed. Somehow, she managed to prepare a breakfast which the Madam patiently suffered herself to be fed, though Martha knew it was a hardship.

"It'd astonish you, how she's fightin'," Mrs. Slawson told Miss Claire, whom Mr. Ronald brought out in the course of the early forenoon to make inquiries. "It'd astonish you. She _won't_ give in. She falls asleep, in spite of herself, but after a minute, there she is awake again, for all the world as if the spirit in her wouldn't let itself be downed. I never see anybody _livin'_ as fierce as her. She's doin' it, for all she's worth. Every minute, full up, begrutchin' the time she has to lose for rest."

"You were right about Dr. Ballard, Martha," Francis Ronald admitted. "He is coming. I am going to Burbank to meet him and bring him back with me, directly I have taken my wife home."

Martha nodded. "I knew he'd do it. He's the kind you couldn't slip up on. Same's yourself, sir."

When Martha returned to her patient, Madam Crewe had to be told where she had been, had to be shown the flowers Mrs. Ronald had brought, informed of the messages she had left.

Then--"Where's Katherine?"

The question kept repeating itself, as if in spite of her.

"Comin' presently," Martha shied the point dexterously.

"I tried--last night ... 'square deal'---- Failed."

"Oh, no! you didn't fail. You mustn't be in too much of a hurry. Miss Katherine'll see what you meant, give her a chance to get the right squint at it. You got to be pationate with childern. Time goes slow for them. Miss Katherine's a _good_ child!"

Madam Crewe raised her eyes, and fixed them full on Martha. "Slawson--you're a _good_ woman."

* * * * *

It seemed to Katherine Crewe, trudging along the dreary stretch of road on her way to the station, that there was no use struggling any longer in a world where the combined forces were so obviously, so uncompromisingly against her. Her one hope had been Mrs. Slawson. Mrs. Slawson had failed her.

As she foresaw it, there was nothing in her meeting with Dr. Ballard to promise better things. She had told him, once and for all, she would never marry him. He had taken her at her word, and gone away. What she had to tell him now, would only constitute another reason for her to hold to her decision--another ground for him to accept it with easy resignation.

Filed past, in slow procession through her brain, all the haunting years, through which she had tried, and tried, and had had nothing but disappointment, frustration, for her pains.

Dr. Ballard had assured her one could overmaster conditions.

Not when the blood of weaklings ran in one's veins.