The Debtor Part 21

"I let Charlotte take the check," Anna Carroll said again, still with an air of nervous apology, "but I saw no reason why-- I thought--"

"You thought what?" said Carroll. His voice was exceedingly low and gentle, but Anna Carroll started.

"Nothing," said she, hastily. "Nothing, Arthur."

"Well, I just went everywhere with it," Charlotte said again; "then I had to go to Anderson, after all. I just hated to. I don't like him.

He laughed when Eddy and I went there to take back the candy."

"He laughed because we took it back--a little thing like that," said Eddy.

Carroll looked at him, and the boy cast his eyes down and took a spoonful of soup with an abashed air.

"He was the only one in Banbridge that seemed to have as much as twenty-five dollars in his money-drawer," said Charlotte. "I began to think that Ina and I should have to give up going to New York."

"Don't take any more checks around the shops here to cash, honey,"

said Carroll. "Come to me; I'll fix it up some way. Amy, dear, are you all ready for the drive?"

"Yes, dear," said Mrs. Carroll. She looked unusually pretty that night in a mauve gown of some thin, soft, wool material, with her old amethysts. Even her dark hair seemed to get amethystine shadows, and her eyes, too.

Carroll regarded her admiringly.

"Amy, darling, you do get lovelier every day," he said.

The others laughed and echoed him with fond merriment.

"Doesn't she?" said Ina.

"Amy's the prettiest girl in this old town," said Eddy, and all the Carrolls laughed like children.

"Well, I'm glad you all admire me so much," Mrs. Carroll said, in her sweet drawl, "because--"

"Because what, honey?" said Carroll. The boy and the two girls looked inquiringly, but Anna Carroll smiled with slightly vexed knowledge.

"Well," said Mrs. Carroll, "you must all look at me in my purple gown and get all the comfort you can out of it; you must nourish yourselves through your aesthetic sense, because this soup is all you will get for dinner, except dessert. There is a little dessert."

Poor little Eddy Carroll made a slight, half-smothered exclamation.

"Oh, shucks!" he said, then he laughed with the others. None of them looked surprised. They all laughed, though somewhat ruefully.

"Anna came this forenoon and asked me what she should do," Mrs.

Carroll said, in her soft tone of childlike glee, as if she really enjoyed the situation. "Poor Anna looked annoyed. This country air makes Anna hungry. Now, as for me, I am not hungry at all. If I can have fruit and salad I am quite satisfied. It is so fortunate that we have those raspberries and those early pears. Those little pears are quite delicious, and they are nouris.h.i.+ng, I am sure. And then it is providential that we have lettuce in our own garden. And the grocer did not object in the least to letting last week's bill run and letting us have olive-oil and vinegar. I have plenty, so I can regard it all quite cheerfully; but Anna, poor darling, is hungry like a p.u.s.s.y-cat for real, solid meat. Well, Anna comes, face so long"--Mrs.

Carroll drew down her lovely face, to a chorus of admiring laughter, Anna Carroll herself joining. Mrs. Carroll continued. "Yes, so long,"

and made her face long again by way of encore. "And I said, 'Why, Anna, honey, what is the matter?' 'Amy,' said she, 'this is serious, very serious. Why, neither the butcher nor the egg-man will trust us.

We have only money enough to part pay one of them, just to keep them going,' says she, 'and what shall I do, Amy?' 'It's either to go without meat or eggs,' says I. 'Yes, Amy, honey,' says she. 'And you can't pay them each a little?' says I, 'for I am real wise about that way of doing, you know.'" Mrs. Carroll said the last with the air of a precocious child; she looked askance for admiration as she said it, and laughed herself with the others. "'No,' says poor Anna--'no, Amy, there is not enough money for two littles, only enough for one little. What shall we do, Amy?' 'Well,' says Amy, 'we had chops for lunch.' 'Those aren't paid for, and that is the reason we can't have beef for dinner,' says Anna. 'Well,' says Amy, 'we had those chops, didn't we? And the butcher can't alter that, anyway; and we are all nourished by those chops, and dear Arthur has had his good luncheon in the City, and there is soup-stock in the house, and things to make one of those delicious raspberry-puddings, and we cannot starve, we poor but honest Carrolls, on those things; and eggs are cheaper, are they not, honey, dear?' 'Yes,' says Anna, with that sort of groan she has when her mind is on economy--'yes, Amy, dear.' 'And,' says I, 'Arthur always wants his eggs for breakfast, and he does not like cold meat in the morning, and if he went to business without his eggs, and there was an accident on his empty stomach, only think how we would feel, Anna. So we will have,' says Amy, 'soup and pudding for dinner, and eggs for breakfast, and we will part pay the egg-man and not the butcher.' And then Amy puts on her new gown and does all she can for her family, to make up for the lack of the roast."

"Did you say it was raspberry-pudding, Amy?" asked Eddy, anxiously.

"Yes, honey, with plenty of sauce, and you may have some twice if you want it."

"Ring the bell, dear," said Carroll.

"You don't mind, Arthur, do you?" Mrs. Carroll asked, with a confident look at him.

Carroll smiled. "No, darling, only I hope none of you are really going hungry."

They all laughed at him. "Soup and pudding are all one ought to eat in such hot weather," Charlotte said, conclusively.

She even jumped up, ran to her father, and threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, to rea.s.sure him. "You darling papa," she whispered in his ear, and when he looked at her tears shone in her beautiful eyes.

Carroll's own face turned strangely sober for a second, then he laughed. "Run back to your seat and get your pudding, sweetheart," he said, with a loving push, as the maid entered.

People thought it rather singular that the Carrolls should have but one maid, but there were reasons. Carroll himself, when he first organized his Banbridge establishment, had expressed some dissent as to the solitary servant.

"Why not have more?" he asked, but Anna Carroll was unusually decided in her response.

"Amy and I have been talking it over, Arthur," said she, "and we have decided that we would prefer only Marie."

"Why, Anna?" Carroll had asked, with a frown.

"Now, Arthur, dear, don't look cross," his wife had cried. "It is only that when the truce is over with the butcher and baker--and after a while the truce always is over, you know, you poor, dear boy, ever since you--ever since you were so badly treated about your business, you know, and when the butcher and the baker turn on us, Anna and I have decided it would be better not to have a trust in the kitchen. You know there has always been a trust in the kitchen, and two or even three maids saying they will not make bread and roast and wash the dishes, and having a council of war on the back stoop with the baker and grocer, are so much worse than one maid, don't you know, precious?"

"The long and the short of it is, Arthur," Anna Carroll said, quite bluntly, "it is much less wearing to get on with one maid who has not had her wages, and much easier to induce her to remain or forfeit all hope of ever receiving them, than with more than one."

Only the one maid was engaged, and now Anna's prophecy had come to pa.s.s, and she was remaining for the sake of her unpaid wages. She was a young girl, and pretty for one of her sisterhood, who perpetuate, as a rule, the hard and strenuous lineaments and forms held to hard labor, until they have attained a squat solidity of ungraceful muscle. This little Hungarian Marie was still not overdeveloped muscularly, although one saw her hands with a certain shock after her little, smiling face, which still smiled, despite her wrongs. Nothing could exceed the sweetness of the girl's disposition, although she came of a fierce peasant line, quick to resort to the knife as a redresser of injuries, and quick to perceive injuries.

Marie still danced a.s.siduously about her tasks, which were manifold, for not one of the Carroll women had the slightest idea of any accountability in the matter of household labor. It never occurred to one of them to make her bed, or even hang up her dress, but, instead, to wonder why Marie did not do it. However, if Marie really had an ill day, or, as sometimes happened, was up all night at a ball, they never rebelled or spoke an impatient word. The beds simply remained unmade and the dresses where they had fallen. The ladies always had a kindly, ever-caressing smile or word for little Marie. They were actually, in a way, fond of her, as people are fond of a pretty little domestic beast of burden, and Marie herself adored them. She loved them from afar, and one of her great reasons for wis.h.i.+ng to stay for her wages was to buy some finery after the fas.h.i.+on of Charlotte's and Ina's. Marie had not asked for her wages many times, and never of Captain Carroll, but to-night she took courage. There was a ball that week, Thursday, and her poor, little, cheap muslin of last season was bedraggled and faded until it was no longer wearable.

Marie waylaid Captain Carroll as he was returning from the stable, whither he had been to see a lame foot of one of the horses. Marie stood in her kitchen door, around which was growing l.u.s.tily a wild cuc.u.mber-vine. She put her two coa.r.s.e hands on her hips, which were large with the full gathers of her cotton skirt. Around her neck was one of the garish-colored kerchiefs which had come with her from her own country. It was an ugly thing, but gave a picturesque bit of color to her otherwise dingy garb.

"Mr. Captain," said Marie, in a very small, sweet, almost infantile voice. It was frightened, yet with a certain coquetry in it. This small Hungarian girl had met with very few looks and words in her whole life which were not admiring. In spite of her poor estate she had the power of the eternal feminine, and she used it knowingly, but quite artlessly. She knew exactly how to speak to her "Mr. Captain,"

in such a way that a smile in response would be inevitable.

Carroll stopped. "Well, Marie?" he said, and he smiled down into the little face precisely after the manner of her calculation.

"Mr. Captain," said she again, and again came the feeler after a smile, the expression of droll sweetness and appeal which forced it.

"Well, Marie," said Carroll, "what is it? What do you want?"

Marie went straight to the point. "Mine vages," said she, and a bit of the coquetry faded, and her small smile waxed rather piteous. She wanted that new dress for the ball sadly.

Carroll's face changed; he compressed his mouth. Marie shrank a little with frightened eyes on his face.

"How much is it, Marie?" asked Carroll.

"Tree mont vage, Mr. Captain," answered Marie, eagerly, "I haf not had."

Carroll took out his pocket-book and gave her a ten-dollar note.

Marie reached out for it eagerly, but her face fell a little. "It is tree mont, Mr. Captain," she ventured.