Part 5

"Down South we lynch a nigger for less than that," and one of his long hands, lying on the table, clenched.

Although we were now through dinner, and I had finished my story, he made no move to leave the table, but sat there watching me and smoking, with neither of us saying anything. Finally I thought to myself:

"I suppose he is thinking of me as Mr. Campbell and Sir Henry Drake and other people have--as something queer and amusing, and perhaps he is laughing inside at me." I regretted that I had told him about myself one minute, and the next I was glad that I had. Then suddenly I had an eloquent desire to prove to him that really there was a great deal more to me than he supposed. Down in my heart there was the deep-rooted conviction, which nothing in the world could shake, that I was one of the exceptional human beings of the world, that I was destined to do things worth while. People were going to hear of _me_ some day. I was not one of the commonplace creatures of the earth, and I intended to prove that vividly to the world. But at that particular moment my one desire was to prove it to this man, this stranger with the brooding, weary face. So at last, awkwardly and timidly, and blushing to my temples and ears, and daring scarcely to look at him, I said:

"If you like, I'll read you one of my poems."

The gravity of his face softened. He started to smile, and then he said very gravely:

"So you write poetry, do you?"

I nodded.

"Go ahead," he said.

I dipped into my pocket-book, and brought forth my last effusion. As I read, he brought his hand to his face, shading it in such a way that I could not see it, and when I had finished, he was silent for so long that I did not know whether I had made an impression upon him or whether he was amused, as most people were when I read my poems to them. I tremblingly folded my paper and replaced it in my bag; then I waited for him to speak. After a while he took his hand down. His face was still grave, but away back in his eyes there was the kindliest gleam of interest. I felt happy and warmed by that look. Then he said something that sent my heart thudding down low again.

"Wouldn't you like to go to school?" said he.

"I did go to school," I said.

"Well, I mean to--er--school to prepare you for college."

The question hurt me. It was a visible criticism of my precious poem. Had that, then, revealed my pathetic condition of ignorance? I said roughly, for I felt like crying:

"Of course college is out of the question for me. I have to earn my living; but I expect to acquire an education gradually. One can educate herself by reading and thinking. My father often said that, and he's a college man--an Oxford graduate."

"That's true," said the man rather hurriedly, and as if he regretted what he had just said, and wished to dismiss the subject abruptly: "Now I'm going to take you back to your seat. We'll be in Richmond very shortly now."

We got up, but he stopped a minute, and took a card from his pocket. He wrote something on it, and then gave it to me.

"There, little girl, is my name and address," he said. "If there ever comes a time when you--er--need help of any kind, will you promise to come to me?"

I nodded, and then he gave me a big, warm smile.

When I was quite alone, and sure no one was watching me, I took out his card and examined it. "Roger Avery Hamilton" was his name. Judge of my surprise, when I found the address he had written under his name was in the very city to which I was going--Richmond!

I arrived about eight-thirty that evening. Dr. Manning was at the train to meet me. He greeted me rather formally, I thought, for a man who had been so pronounced in his attentions in Jamaica.

As he was helping me into his carriage, Mr. Hamilton passed us, with other men.

"You forgot your dog," he said to me, smiling, and handed me a basket, in which, apparently, he had put my Verley. I had indeed forgotten my poor little dog! I thanked Mr. Hamilton, and he lifted his hat, and bade us good night.

Dr. Manning turned around sharply and looked after him. They had exchanged nods.

"How did you get acquainted with that chap?" he asked me. I was now in the carriage, and was settling Verley in his basket at my feet.

"Why, he spoke to me on the train," I said.

"Spoke to you on the train!" repeated the doctor, sharply. "Are you accustomed to make acquaintances in that way?"

My face burned with mortification, but I managed to stammer:

"No, I never spoke to any one before without an introduction."

He had climbed in now and was about to take up the reins when Verley, at our feet, let out a long, wailing cry.

"I'll have to throw that beast out, you know," he said unpleasantly.

"Oh, no! Please, please don't throw my little dog out!" I begged as he stooped down. "It's a beautiful little dog, a real thoroughbred. It's worth a lot of money."

My distress apparently moved him, for he sat up and patted me on the arm and said:

"It's all right, then. It's all right."

The doctor again began to question me about Mr. Hamilton, and I explained how he became interested in my dog; but I did not tell him about my dining with him.

"You ought to be more careful to whom you speak," he said. "For instance, this man in particular happens to be one of the fastest men in Richmond. He has a notorious reputation."

I felt very miserable when I heard that, especially when I recalled how I had talked intimately about myself to this man; and then suddenly I found myself disbelieving the doctor. I felt sure that he had slandered Mr. Hamilton, and my dislike for him deepened. I wished that I had not come to Richmond.

Dr. Manning's house was large and imposing. It stood at a corner on a very fine street. A black girl opened the door.

"You will meet Mrs. Manning in the morning," said the doctor to me, and then, turning to the girl: "'Mandy, this is Miss Ascough. She is coming to live with us here. Take her up to her room." To me he said, "_Good_ night." With a perfunctory bow, he was turning away, when he seemed to recall something, and said: "By the way, 'Mandy, tell Toby to put the dog he'll find in the buggy in the stable."

I started to plead for Verley, but the doctor had disappeared into his office. A lump rose in my throat as I thought of my little dog, and again I wished that I had not come to this place. The doctor seemed a different man to the one I had known in the West Indies, and although I had resented his flattery of me there, the curt, authoritative tone he had used to me here hurt me as much.

Curiously enough, though I had not thought about the matter previously, nor had he told me, I was not surprised to find that he was married.

My room was on the top floor. It was a very large and pretty chamber, quite the best room I had ever had, for even the hotel room, which had seemed to me splendid, was bare and plain in comparison.

'Mandy was a round-faced, smiling, strong-looking girl of about eighteen. Her hair was screwed up into funny little braids that stuck up for all the world like rat-tails on her head. She had shiny black eyes, and big white teeth. She called me "chile," and said:

"I hopes you sleep well, honey chile."

She said her room was just across the hall, and if I wanted anything in the night, I was to call her.

My own room was very large, and it was mostly in shadow. Now, all my life I've had the most unreasonable and childish fear of "being in the dark alone." I seldom went to bed without looking under it, behind bureaus, doors, etc., and I experienced a slight sense of fear as 'Mandy was about to depart.

"Isn't there any one on this floor but us?" I asked.

"No; no one else sleeps up here, chile," said 'Mandy; "but Dr. Manning he hab he labriterry there, and some time he work all night."

The laboratory was apparently adjoining my room, and there was a door leading into it. I went over and tried it after 'Mandy went. It was locked.

I took my hair down, brushed and plaited it, and then I undressed and said my prayers (I still said them in those days), and got into bed. I was tired after the long journey, and I fell asleep at once.

I am a light sleeper, and the slightest stir or movement awakens me. That night I awoke suddenly, and the first thing I saw was a light that came into the room from the partly opened door of the doctor's laboratory, and standing in my room, by the doorway, was a man. I recognized him, though he was only a silhouette against the light.

The shock of the awakening, and the horrible realization that he was already crossing the room, held me for a moment spellbound. Then my powers returned to me, and just as I had fled from that negro in Jamaica, so now I ran from this white man.

My bed was close to the door that opened into the hall. That was pitch-dark, but I ran blindly across it, found 'Mandy's door, and by some merciful providence my hand grasped the knob. I called to her:

"'Mandy!"

She started up in bed, and I rushed to her.

"Wha' 's matter, chile?" she cried.

I was sobbing with fright and rage.

"I'm afraid," I told her.

"What you 'fraid of?"

"Oh, I don't know. I'm afraid to sleep alone," I said. "Please, please, let me stay with you."

"Ah'll come and sleep on the couch in your room," she said.

"No, no, I won't go back to that room."

"It ain't ha'nted, chile," declared 'Mandy.

"Oh, I know it isn't," I sobbed; "but, O 'Mandy, I'm afraid!"

IX

Next morning 'Mandy went back with me to my room. There was no one in it. For a moment the thought came to me that perhaps I had suffered from a nightmare. My clothes, everything, I found exactly as I had left them. I went over to the door opening from my room into the laboratory, and then I knew that I had not erred: the door was unlocked. I saw 'Mandy watching me, and I think she guessed the truth, for she said:

"You needn't be 'fraid no more, chile. I goin' to sleep with you every night now."

"No, 'Mandy," I said; "I can't stay here now. I've got to get away somehow."

"Dat's all right, chile," she said. "Jus' you tek you li'l' bag and slip out right now. No one's stirring in dis house yet. You won't be missed till after you sure am gone."

I was sitting on the side of the bed, feverishly turning the matter over in my mind.

"I wish I could do that," I said, "but I have no place to go, and I have no money."

'Mandy comforted me as best she could, and told me to wait till after breakfast, when I'd feel better; then I could talk to the doctor about it, and perhaps he'd give me some money; and if he wouldn't, said the colored girl, shrewdly, "you tell him you goin' ask his wife."

I felt I could not do that. I would have to find some other solution. One thing was certain, however, I could no more stay here than I could in Jamaica. There are times in my life when I have been whipped and scorched, and nothing has healed me save to get away quickly from the place where I have suffered. I felt like that in Jamaica. I felt like that now. There came another time in my life when I uprooted my whole being from a place I loved, and yet where it would have killed me to remain.

The doctor met me in the lower hall as I came down-stairs. His manner was affable and formal, and he said he would take me to his wife. I found myself unable to look him in the face, for I felt his glance would be hateful.

Mrs. Manning was in bed, propped up with pillows. At first glance she seemed an old woman. Her pale, parched face lay like a shadow among her pillows, and her fine, silvery hair was like an exquisite aureole. She had dark, restless, seeking eyes, and her expression was peevish, like that of a complaining child. As I came in, she raised herself to her elbow, and looked curiously at me and then at the doctor, who said:

"This is Miss Ascough, dear. She is to be my new secretary."

She put out a thin little hand, which I took impetuously in my own, and, I know not why, I suddenly wanted to cry again. There was something in her glance that hurt me. I had for her that same overwhelming pity that I had felt for Miss Foster in Jamaica--a pity such as one involuntarily feels toward one who is doomed. She murmured something, and I said, "Thank you," though I did not understand what she had said. Then the doctor shook up her pillows and settled her back very carefully among them, and he kissed her, and she clung to him. I realized that, incredible as it seemed, here where I had expected it least there was love.

After breakfast, which I had with the doctor, who read the morning paper throughout the meal, waited on by 'Mandy, he took me down to his offices, two large adjoining rooms on the ground floor, in one wing of the house. One room was used as a reception-room, the other as the doctor's own. Showing me through the offices, he had indicated the desk at which I was to sit in the reception-room before I summoned the courage to tell him I had decided to go. When I faltered this out, he turned clear around, and although an exclamation of astonishment escaped him, I knew that he was acting. I felt sure that he had been waiting for me to say something about the previous night.

"You certainly cannot realize what you are saying, Miss Ascough. Why should you leave a position before trying it?"

I looked steadily in his face now, and I was no longer afraid of him. I was only an ignorant girl of seventeen, and he was a man of the world past forty. I was friendless, had no money, and was in a strange country. He was a man of power, and, I suppose, even wealth. This was the city where he was respected and known. Nevertheless, I said to him:

"If I work for a man, I expect to be paid for my actual labor. That's a contract between us. After that, I have my personal rights, and no man can step over these without my consent."

They were pretty big words for a young girl, and I am proud of them even now. I can see myself as I faced that man defiantly, though I knew I had barely enough money in my purse upstairs to buy a few meals.

"I do not understand you," said the doctor, pulling at his beard. "I shall be obliged if you will make yourself clearer."

"I will, then," I said. "Last night you came into my room."

For a long time he did not say a word, but appeared to be considering the matter.

"I beg your pardon for that," he said at last, "but I think my explanation will satisfy you. I did not know that that room was the one my wife had assigned to you. I had been accustomed to occupy it myself when engaged at night upon laboratory work. I was as mortified as you when I discovered my unfortunate mistake last night, and I very much regret the distress it gave you."

No explanation could have been clearer than that, but looking at the man, I felt a deep-rooted conviction that he lied.

"Come now," he said cheerfully, "suppose we dismiss this painful subject. Let us both forget it." He held out his hand, with one of his "fatherly" smiles. I reluctantly let him take mine, and I did not know what to do or say. He took out his watch and looked at it.

"I have a number of calls to make before my noon hour," he said, "but I think I can spare an hour to explain your duties to you."

They were simple enough, and in other circumstances I should have liked such a position. I was to receive the patients, send out bills, and answer the correspondence, which was light. I had one other duty, and that he asked me to do now. There was something wrong with his eyes, and it was a strain upon them for him to read. So part of my work was to read to him an hour in the morning and one or two in the evening.

There was a long couch in the inner office, and after he had selected a book and brought it to me, he lay down on the couch, with a green shade over his eyes, and bade me proceed. The book was Rousseau's "Confessions."

In ordinary circumstances the book would have held my interest at once, but now I read it without the slightest sense of understanding, and the powerful sentences came forth from my lips, but passed through heedless ears. I had read only two chapters when he said that that would do for to-day. He asked me to bring from the top of his desk a glass in which was some fluid and an eye-dropper. He requested me to put two drops in each of his eyes.

As he was lying on his back on the couch, I had to lean over him to do this. I was so nervous that the glass shook in my hand. Judge of my horror when, in squeezing the little rubber bulb, the glass part fell off and dropped down upon his face.

I burst out crying, and before I knew it, he was sitting up on the couch and comforting me, with his arms about my waist. I freed myself and stood up. He said:

"There, there, you are a bit hysterical this morning. You'll feel better later."

He began moving about the office, collecting some things, and putting them into a little black bag. Toby knocked, and called that the buggy was ready. As the doctor was drawing on his gloves he said:

"Now, Miss Ascough, suppose you make an effort to--er accustom yourself to things as they are here. I'm really not such a bad sort as you imagine, and I will try to make you very comfortable and happy if you will let me."

I did not answer him. I sat there twisting my handkerchief in my hands, and feeling dully that I was truly the most miserable girl in the world. As the doctor was going out, he said:

"Do cheer up! Things are not nearly as bad as they seem."

Maybe they were not, but, nevertheless, the stubborn obsession persisted in my mind that I must somehow get away from that place. How I was going to do that without money or friends, I did not know. And if I did leave this place, where could I go?

I thought of writing home, and then, even in my distress, I thought of papa, absent-minded, impractical dreamer. Could I make him understand the situation I was in without telling him my actual experience? I felt a reluctance to tell my father or mother that. It's a fact that a young girl will often talk with strangers about things that she will hesitate to confide to her own parents. My parents were of the sort difficult to approach in such a matter. You see, I was one of many, and my father and mother were in a way even more helpless than their children. It was almost pathetic the way in which they looked to us, as we grew up, to take care of ourselves and them. Besides, it would take two days for a letter to reach my home, and another two days for the reply to reach me, and where could my poor father raise the money for my fare? No, I would not add to their distresses.

I went up to my room, after the doctor was gone, and I aimlessly counted my money. I had less than three dollars. I was putting it back into my bag, with the papers, trinkets, cards, and the other queer things that congregate in a girl's pocketbook, when Mr. Hamilton's card turned up on my lap.

I began to think of him. I sat there on the side of my bed in a sort of dreaming trance, recalling to my mind that charmed little journey in the company of this man. Every word he had said to me, the musing expression of his face, and his curious, grudging smile--I thought of all this. It was queer how in the midst of my trouble I could occupy my mind like this with thoughts of a stranger. I remembered that Dr. Manning had said he was a notorious man. I did not believe that. I thought of that kindly look of interest in his tired face when he had asked me if I wanted to go to school, and then electrically recurred to me his last words on the train when he had given to me his card,--that if I ever needed help, would I come to him?

I needed help now. I needed it more than any girl ever needed it before. Of that I felt truly convinced. This doctor was a villain. There was something bad and covetous about his very glance. I had felt that in Jamaica. It was impossible for me to remain alone with him in his house; for I should be virtually alone, since his wife was a paralytic.

Hurriedly I packed my things, shoving everything back into my suitcase, and then I put on my hat. In the doctor's office I found the telephone-book. I looked up the name of Hamilton. Yes, it was there. It seemed to me a miraculous thing that he really was there in that telephone-book and that he actually was in this city.

I called the number, and somebody, answering, asked whom I wished to speak to, and I said Mr. Roger Avery Hamilton.

"Who is it wants him?" I was asked.

"Just a friend," I replied.

"You will have to give your name. Mr. Hamilton is in a conference, and if it is not important, he cannot speak to you just now."

"It is important," I said. "He would want to speak to me, I know."

There was a long pause, and central asked me if I was through, and I said frantically:

"No, no; don't ring off."

Then a moment later I heard his voice, and even over the telephone it thrilled me so that I could have wept with relief and joy.

"Yes?"

"Mr. Hamilton, this is Miss Ascough."

"Miss Ascough?"

"Yes; I met you on the train coming from Boston."

"Oh, yes, the little girl with the dog," he said.

His voice, more than his words, warmed me with the thought that he had not forgotten me, and was even pleased to hear from me again.

"You said if I ever needed help--"

I broke off there, and he said slowly:

"I--see. Where are you?"

I told him.

"Can you leave there right away?"

I said I could, but that I did not know my way about the city.

He asked me to meet him in half an hour at the St. R---- Hotel, and directed me explicitly what car to take to get there, telling me to write it down. I was to have 'Mandy put me on this car, and I must be sure to tell the conductor to let me off at this hotel. The car stopped in front of it.

I wrote a note to Dr. Manning before going. I said I was sorry to leave in this way, but despite what he had said, I could not trust him. I added that I was so unhappy I had decided the best thing for me to do was to go at once. I left the note with 'Mandy, whom I kissed good-by, something I had never dreamed I could do, kiss a black girl! All the way on the car I was desperately afraid the conductor would not let me off at the right place, and I asked him so often that finally, in exasperation, he refused to answer me. When we at last reached there, he wrathfully shouted the name of the hotel into the car, though he did not need to cry, "Step lively!"

X

Mr. Hamilton was waiting for me outside the hotel. He gave my bag to a boy, who produced it later, and then took me to a corner of the drawing-room. Almost at once he said:

"I expected to hear from you, but not so soon."

"You were expecting?" I said. "Why?"

"Well," he said rather reluctantly, "I had a hunch you would not stay there long. Just what happened?"

I told him.

He kept tapping with his fingers on the table beside him and looking at me curiously. When I was through, he said:

"Well, we're a pretty bad lot, aren't we?"

I said earnestly:

"_You're_ not!" which remark made him laugh in a rather mirthless sort of way, and he said:

"You don't know me, my child." Then, as if to change the subject: "But now, what do you want to do? Where do you want to go?"

"I'd like to go to some big city in America," I said. "I think, if I got a chance, I'd succeed as a poet or author."

"Oh, that's your idea, is it?" he asked half good-humoredly, half rather cynically. I nodded.

"Well, what big city have you decided upon?"

"I don't know. You see, I know very little about the States."

"How about New York or Chicago?"

"Which is the nearest to you?" I asked, timidly.

He laughed outright at that.

"Oh, so you expect to see _me_, do you?"

"I _want_ to," I said. "You _will_ come to see me, won't you?"

"We'll see about it," he said slowly. "Then it's Chicago? I have interests there." I nodded.

"And now," he went on, "how much money do you need?"