Chapter 6

SYLVIA'S CALLER

When Dunham's telegram reached Sylvia Lacey she was for the time being powerless to disobey it. The excitement and disappointment of the interview with her aunt had resulted in a feverish attack which, though slight, destroyed her ambition to do more than lie on her narrow bed and meditate upon the situation.

She could not write to the friends at home who had pictured such a pleasant future for her with her Boston relatives. She was not able even to go out and buy a "Dramatic Mirror" to discover where Nat's company would be playing the coming week.

She lay white and slender in her black wrapper, and listlessly fingered the telegram, which was now two days old. It read:--

"Do not leave Association till you hear from me. Important. JOHN DUNHAM."

In the hopelessness of her thought her mental pictures of Dunham were always mortifying. He had heard her belittled, had heard her father slandered, had forced her to accept grudging charity, and yet the sunshine of the smile with which he had bade her good-by, his encouraging words and friendly handclasp, formed the only spot of cheer in her wilderness. The telegram was a straw to which she clung when, in the processes of dismal thought, waves seemed to go over her head.

What important matter could be coming to her? If it were only that he intended returning, with apologies or propositions from her discarded relations, she told herself with set lips that his errand would be fruitless; but even while she took comfort in reiterating this resolution, she was finding a ray of brightness in the idea that he would be the messenger.

Her aunt's words often recurred to her. "Of course we knew you would wish to get something to do."

In the precarious hand-to-mouth existence she had led with her father since she was old enough to understand his visionary, happy-go-lucky temperament, he had regarded her and taught her to regard herself as a flower of the field. He had petted her, praised her beauty, and had managed to pay their board spasmodically in first one, then another locality; and being a good fellow who usually won the hearts of his creditors, it was not until after his death that a multitude of small claims came buzzing about his daughter's ears; and it was these as much as anything which had made her accept with childlike insouciance the arrangement of the friends who packed her away to her relatives with all the celerity possible.

Her father's men friends had always admired and flattered her; she supposed that men were all alike, and that she had but to throw her lovely arms around Uncle Calvin's neck and tell him of her father's misfortunes and petty debts to have all troubles smoothed away. She had doubted a little how she should like Uncle Calvin and Aunt Martha (the latter's stiff epistles had not prepossessed her), but she had never entertained one question as to how they would like her.

To hear it declared first and foremostly that they took no interest in her, and did not want her, and secondly, that they proposed sending her out into the world to work for her living--these nightmarish facts made her rebound at once to the memory of the carefree, shabby environment where rosy possibilities had always been held before her. As her eyes rested now on the bare wall of her bedroom, it softened and melted until she saw a vision of footlights, herself in the centre of the stage, while a murmur of applause, heart-warming, inspiring, intoxicated her senses.

The day-dream soothed her to slumber, but the applause continued. Instead of rejoicing, at last it began to disturb her. Her eyes slowly opened, and she grew conscious that some one was knocking on her door.

At her summons a maid entered. "Somebody to see you, Miss. You don't feel well enough, do you?"

The girl's tone was sympathetic. Sylvia was of a different type from those who usually sought the Association. Her appearance suggested romance.

"Who is it?" she asked eagerly, half rising. "A man?"

"Yes'm."

"A tall man, very straight?"

"He ain't so awful straight," returned the maid doubtfully.

"Thick hair?" (quickly).

"Yes'm."

"Handsome teeth?"

"I--I didn't see his teeth."

"Splendid chin?"

"Law, ma'am, his beard covers his chin."

"Beard!" Sylvia sprang to her feet. "You're crazy."

"No, I ain't, ma'am. Oh, 'tain't the gentleman you came here with, and the superintendent said was one o' the best connected folks in Boston. 'Tain't him. I saw him. He's grand. I guess this one is sort of a country gentleman, but he's awful pleasant-spoken and his beard's as white as the driving snow."

Sylvia flung herself back on the bed. "You've made a mistake. He asked for somebody else."

"No, ma'am," returned the maid; "because I thought first he said 'silver lace,' and I thought maybe he was a peddler, 'cause he had a bag; so I told him we didn't want anything, and he was real nice. His eyes sort of twinkled up, and he said _he did_ want something. He wanted to see Miss--Sylvia--Lacey, real slow; and was you here? and I said you was, and he told me to tell you a cousin of your mother's wanted to see you, and his name was Jacob Johnson."

"I never heard of such a person," said Sylvia. "Does he look shabby--poor? It sounds like an impostor."

"N-no," returned the girl doubtfully. "He ain't exactly a Rube, but then you'd know he wasn't a swell, either. He looks awful nice out of his eyes. I'd like to have him _my_ mother's cousin."

This was somewhat encouraging, but country cousins were no part of Sylvia's plan. "You go down and tell him I've been ill. I'm not able to see him," she said at last decidedly.

"I don't like to one bit," returned the maid. "I kind of hate to disappoint him." She lingered a moment, but Sylvia shrugged her shoulders and turned her face to the wall, so the girl departed.

Only a couple of minutes had passed when the knock sounded again on Sylvia's door, and the maid pushed it open without awaiting permission.

"He asked was you able to be dressed," she began, rather breathless from her quick run, "and I said you was, and he said for me to tell you he'd come about the telegram you got."

Sylvia was still holding the telegram. She started. So Mr. Dunham was not coming. He had not admired her, then. He did despise her as a cast-off poor relation. A flush rose to her cheeks, and she sprang from the bed quickly. "I'll go down," she said briefly.

"Well, I'm real glad," declared the maid. "That wrapper looks all right. I wouldn't stop to change."

She gazed admiringly at the brilliant tints of Sylvia's complexion as the girl ran a comb through her reddish curls.

"Indeed I shan't change for him," responded Sylvia. Her heart was hot within her. Dunham might have come himself. Now she should never see him again, and she didn't care. The only reason she had wished to meet him was to show him her inflexibility and independence despite her acceptance of the despised money he had forced upon her.

She swept by the maid, who continued to gaze after her with admiration, and went downstairs to the reception room.

There she found a man with gray hair and short white beard, sitting near a window, a somewhat limp bag on the floor beside him. She paused inside the doorway and stood regarding him.

There was nothing interesting in his appearance. She had had all she wanted of relatives. If those who would have been creditable would none of her, she certainly would none of this countrified individual and his claim of cousinship.

"Good-afternoon," she began coldly. "You say you have brought me some explanation of Mr. Dunham's telegram?"

"Why, why," said the stranger, gazing at her musingly as he slowly rose from his chair; "is it possible that you are Laura's little girl?"

He stood noting her repellent attitude, and Sylvia recalled the maid's ardent recommendation of the manner in which he looked out of his eyes.

"You resemble her very little," he continued, in a slow, quiet voice as pleasant as his gaze. "I hadn't remembered that Sam Lacey was so good-looking."

This familiar mention of her mother and father seemed to establish the stranger's claim, but Sylvia was reluctant to grant it. Her hand was still against every man, and her look did not soften.

As she kept silence the visitor continued. "You've heard your mother speak of her cousin Jacob Johnson, perhaps?" he asked wistfully.

"Never," returned the girl briefly.

The man nodded. The lines in his forehead accented his expression of patience. His loving eyes studied the young features before him.

"Yes," he sighed, "you were still only a little girl when she went away, and her life was full of other things." A pause. "I wanted to marry your mother, Sylvia." Something in his tone knocked at the door of the girl's heart. She closed it tighter and kept silence.

"Wanted to so much that I never married anybody," he went on with the same slow quiet. "She preferred Sam Lacey." The speaker's lips parted in a slight smile as tender as his eyes, which began to shine again. "As I say, I'd forgotten how good-looking Sam was."

The knocking at Sylvia's heart grew clamorous. This man's voice touched some chord; and he admired her. She demanded that.

"I've tried to think right about it ever since I knew how," he continued with simplicity, "but there were long years when I didn't know how, and when the whole world seemed unprofitable. It's a real gift to see you, my little Sylvia."

The loving sincerity of the closing words shook that sensitive string in the girl's sore heart painfully. Her eyes filled while she endeavored to retain her self-control.

"It _is_ an unprofitable world, full of coldness, full of disappointments," she answered brusquely.

He nodded. "True, true," he said, and advancing he took her cold hand gently and led her to the chair near his own.

They sat down together.

"That sense of things is the flat, stale, unprofitable stuff we hear about," he added. "You've been sick, too, they tell me."

"Who could tell you that?"

"The young man in Judge Trent's office. Dunham's his name."

Sylvia's face crimsoned, and she pulled her hand from its kindly prison.

"Then he has broken his word," she said passionately.

"Steady, my girl. Perhaps you haven't the facts, and you can't think right till you have, you know."

"He promised he wouldn't talk to Uncle Calvin about me."

"Perhaps he hasn't. You didn't think I was Judge Trent in disguise, did you?"

"Did he only talk to _you_? Truly, did he?"

"So far as I know. Your uncle telegraphed for me to come to the office, and I reached there this morning. I suppose Mr. Dunham hadn't promised not to talk about you to anybody on earth, had he? Your Cousin Jacob is harmless."

Sylvia looked into the small eyes so luminous with kindness.

"But it was Uncle--Judge Trent who sent for you?"

"Yes, I think he'd somehow got the idea that you didn't care about seeing him."

"They've been cruel to me. Aunt Martha was--Oh, I mustn't, I can't speak of it!" The girl's lips pressed together after the vehement burst.

"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth," said Cousin Jacob. The quotation from his lips became a remark. His companion looked at him in surprise. "I've an idea you're some ways off the inheritance, Sylvia."

"There's a difference between meekness and servility, I hope," she returned hotly.

"I hope so," agreed Jacob Johnson equably. "This matter's just like everything else, little girl. You haven't any call to do anything about it but just think right."

"Oh," murmured Sylvia impatiently.

"Yes, I know. It takes time, especially if you aren't in practice. That Mr. Dunham's an honest, manly chap?" He put it as a question.

"Yes, indeed."

"There, then." The visitor nodded. "So far, so good. He told me where you were."

"And not Uncle Calvin?"

"No, he'd promised not to. A girl who thought she was high-strung, excited, and mad, made him promise not to."

"Is that the way he described me?"

Cousin Jacob pointed an emphasizing finger. "She's thinking it again. No, he didn't describe you in just those words. Well, Judge Trent and Miss Lacey took this business a good deal to heart, after all; and they sent for me to tell me about things; and as long as Mr. Dunham told me where you were, I thought I'd take a run to Boston. I'd go many a mile further to see Laura's child."

"I wish she had told me about you instead of wasting time making me kiss Uncle Calvin's picture good-night." The scornful tone brought another smile to her companion's lips.

"Your Uncle Calvin has made his mark," he said.

"A black and blue one, I'll warrant," retorted Sylvia.

Jacob Johnson shook his head gravely. "He's made his mark, and your Cousin Jacob is only a farmer."

Sylvia's lips had nearly formed the words, "I thought so." Her eyes dropped involuntarily to the limp bag.

"I was wondering what you were intending to do here in Boston, little girl?"

"I can't stay in Boston," she returned, and her lip quivered. "Just think, Cousin Jacob, I'm spending Uncle Calvin's money when I hate him! Isn't it awful?"

"It is," returned the other, with conviction. "Hating folks is the very worst business anybody can invest in."

"I didn't mean that. Isn't it awful to be obliged to him? You don't know. You don't understand."

"Yes, I do," the speaker nodded. "I know the whole thing from A to izzard. Well, how do you expect to leave Boston, and what will you do?"

"Go on the stage."

"Oh, I guess not, little one. How old are you? You look fifteen, but you're more. I remember when you were born, and how I envied Sam."

"I'm nineteen."

"If you were going on the stage, it would have been well to be thinking of it even sooner. Have you had any experience?"

"No, except knowing an actor."

"And you're counting on his help?"

"Yes. I think I'd better marry him."

Jacob Johnson looked at her in silence. "You love him?" he asked at last.

"A--pretty well."

Her companion shook his head, smilingly. "Is he famous?"

"No. He says his chance has never really come."

"Young?"

"Oh, no."

Cousin Jacob threw back his head. "What a way out of trouble: to many an actor of that sort whom you love pretty well! You are very good to look at, Sylvia, my child, and any chance you could get on the stage would come from that. Bad business, hard business, dangerous business. Anyway, you're not strong yet. I have a proposal to make you. Come up with me to the farm for a while and drink milk."

"Why, Cousin Jacob!" Sylvia's cheeks had grown very white, and now a little color stole back into them. "Oh, you're kind!"

"Well, then, if you think so, come!"

"When?" Sylvia already had a sick dread of the little room upstairs and its thoughts.

"Now."

"To-day--to-night?" eagerly.

He nodded. "We may as well go to Portland to-night as to stay here. Then we'll go to the farm to-morrow."

Sylvia took his hand in both hers and looked earnestly into his eyes. "Forgive me," she begged.

"For what?"

"For being so--so snippy when I first came into the room; for not believing in you, nor wanting you."

Cousin Jacob took her chin in his hard hand and his shining gaze met hers.

"You weren't thinking right, Sylvia. Oughtn't it to make you easier on other folks? Other folks who didn't know you, who didn't believe in you, who didn't want you? They weren't thinking right, and they suffered for it afterward just as we all do. You'd have been kind to your Cousin Jacob in the end, anyway. They'd have been kind in the end to their niece. I saw you weren't glad to see me. I might have picked up my grip and left"--

"Oh, I'm so glad you didn't. I'm so glad you didn't! You'll wait while I pack?"

He patted her shoulder. "Yes, oh, yes. I'll wait."