What Can She Do? Part 18

"One can bear any kind of trouble better than a daily shame," said Rose bitterly.

For some unexplained reason Edith thought of Zell and Mr. Van Dam with a sudden pang.

Arden brought his last load and watched eagerly for her appearance, fearing that there might be some great falling off in the vision of the past evening.

But to his eyes the girl he was learning to glorify presented as fair an exterior in the garish day, and the reality of her beauty became a fixed fact in his consciousness, and his fancy had already begun to endow her with angelic qualities. With all her vanity, even sorrowful Edith would have laughed heartily at his ideal of her. It was one of the hardest ordeals of his life to take the money she paid him, and she saw and wondered at his repugnance.

"You will never get rich," she said, "if you are so prodigal in work, and so spare in your charges."

"I would rather not take anything," he said dubiously, holding the money, as if it were a coal of fire, between his thumb and finger.

"Then I must find some one who will do business on business principles," she said coldly. "If the fellow has any sentimental nonsense about him, I'll soon cure that," she thought.

Arden colored, thrust his money carelessly into his pocket as if it were of no account, and said briefly, "Good-morning."

But when alone he put the money in the innermost part of his pocketbook, and when his father asked him for some of it, he sternly answered:

"No, sir, not a cent." Nor did he spend it himself; why he kept it could scarcely have been explained. He was simply acting according to the impulses of a morbid romantic nature that had been suddenly and deeply impressed. The mother's quick eye detected a change in him and she asked:

"What do you think of our new neighbor?"

"Mother," said he fervently, "she is an angel."

"My poor boy," said she anxiously, "take care. Don't let your fancy run away with you."

"Oh," said he with a.s.sumed indifference, "one can have a decided opinion of a good thing as well as a bad thing, without making a fool of one's self."

But the mother saw with a half-jealous pang that her son's heart was awaking to a new and stronger love than her own.

Mrs. Allen with Zell and Laura was to come by the boat that evening, and Edith's heart yearned after them as her kindred. Now that she had had a little experience of loneliness and isolation, she deeply regretted her former harshness and impatience, saying to herself, "It is harder for them than for me. They don't like the country, and don't care anything about a garden," and she purposed to be very gentle and long-suffering.

If good resolutions were only accomplished certainties as soon as made, how different life would be!

Arden had ordered a close carriage that she might go down and meet them, and had agreed to bring up their trunks and boxes in his large wagon.

The boat fortunately landed under the clear starlight on this occasion, and feeble Mrs. Allen was soon seated comfortably in the carriage. But her every breath was a sigh, and she regarded the martyrs as a favored cla.s.s in comparison with herself. Laura still had her look of dreary apathy; but Zell's face wore an expression of interest in the new scenes and experiences, and she plied Edith with many questions as she rode homeward. Mrs. Allen brought a servant up with her who was condemned to ride with Arden, much to their mutual disgust.

"Oh, dear!" sighed Edith as they rode along. "It's a dreadful come-down for us all and I don't know how you are going to stand it, mother."

Mrs. Allen's answer was a long inarticulate sigh.

When she reached the house and entered the room where supper was awaiting them, she glanced around as a prisoner might on being thrust into a cell in which years must be spent, and then she dropped into a chair, sobbing--

"How different--how different from all my past!" and for a few moments they all cried together. As with Edith at first, so now again the new home was baptized with tears as if dedicated to sorrow and trouble.

Edith then led them upstairs to take off their things, and Mrs. Allen had a fresh outburst of sorrow as she recognized the contrast between this bare little chamber and her luxurious sleeping-apartment and dressing-room in the city. Laura soon regained her air of weary indifference, but Zell, hastily throwing off her wraps, came down to explore, and to question Hannibal.

"Bress you, chile, it does my eyes good to see you all, ony you'se musn't take on as if we'se all dyin' with slow 'sumption."

Zell put her hand on the black's shoulder and looked up into his face with a wonderfully gentle and grateful expression, saying:

"You are as good as gold Hannibal. I am so glad you stayed with us, for you seem like one of the best bits of our old home. Never mind, I'll have a grander house again soon, and you shall have a stiffer necktie and higher collar than ever."

"Bress you," said Hannibal with moist eyes, "it does my ole black heart good to hear you. But, Miss Zell, I say," he added in a loud whisper, "when is it gwine to be?"

"Oh!" said poor Zell, asked for definiteness, "some day," and she pa.s.sed into the large room where Arden was just setting down a trunk.

"Don't leave it there in the middle of the floor," she said sharply.

"Take it upstairs."

Arden suddenly straightened himself as if he had received a slight cut from a whip, and turned his sullen face full on Zell, and it seemed very repulsive to the imperious little lady.

"Don't you hear me?" she asked sharply.

"Perhaps it would be well for you not to ask favors of your neighbors in that tone," he replied curtly.

Edith, coming down, saw the situation and said with oil in her voice, "You must excuse my sister, Mr. Lacey. She does not know who you are.

Hannibal will a.s.sist with the trunks if you will be so kind as to take them upstairs."

"She is different from the rest," thought Arden, readily complying with her request.

But Zell said as she turned away, loud enough for him to hear, "What airs these common country people do put on!" Zell might have loaded Arden's wagon with gold, and he would not have lifted a finger for her after that. If he had known that Edith's kindness had been half policy, his face would have been more sullen and forbidding than ever.

But she dwelt glorified and apart in his consciousness, and if she could only maintain that ideal supremacy, he would be her slave. But in his morbid sensitiveness she would have to be very careful. The practical girl at this time did not dream of his fanciful imagining about her, but she was bent on securing friends and helpers, however humble might be their station, and she had shrewdly and quickly learned how to manage Arden.

The next day was spent by the family in getting settled in their narrow quarters, and a dreary time they had of it. It was a long rainy day, the roof leaked badly, and every element of discomfort seemed let loose upon them.

Mrs. Allen had a nervous headache, and one of her worst touches of dyspepsia, and Zell and Laura were so weary and out of sorts that little could be accomplished. Between the tears and sighs within, and the dripping rain without, Edith looked back on the first two days, when the Laceys were helping her, as bright in contrast. But Mrs.

Allen was already worrying over the Laceys' connection with their settlement in the neighborhood.

"We shall be a.s.sociated with these low people," said she to Edith querulously. "Your first acquaintances in a new place are of great importance."

Edith was not ready any such a.s.sociation, and she felt that there was force in her mother's words. She had thought of the Laceys chiefly in the light of their usefulness.

She was glad when the long miserable day came to a close, and she welcomed the bright suns.h.i.+ne of the following morning, hoping it would dispel some of the gloom that seemed gathering round them more thickly than ever.

After partaking of a rather meagre breakfast, for Hannibal's materials were running low, Edith pushed back her chair, and said:

"I move we hold a council of war, and look the situation in the face.

We are here, and we've got to live here. Now what shall we do? I suppose we must go to work at something that will bring in money."

"Go to work, and for money!" said Mrs. Allen sharply from her cus.h.i.+oned arm-chair. "I hope we haven't ceased to be ladies."

"But, mother, we can't live forever on the t.i.tle. The 'butchers, bakers, and candlestick-makers' won't supply us long on that ground.

What did the lawyer, who settled father's estate, say before you left?"

"Well," replied Mrs. Allen vaguely, "he said he had placed to our credit in--Bank, what there was left, and he gave me a check-book and talked economy as men always do. Your poor father, after losing hundreds at the club, would talk economy the next morning, in the most edifying way. He also said that there was some of that hateful stock remaining that ruined your father, but that it was of uncertain value, and he could not tell how much it would realize, but he would sell it and place the proceeds also to our credit. It will amount to considerable, I think, and it may rise.

"Now, girls," continued Mrs. Allen, settling herself back among the cus.h.i.+ons, and resting the forefinger of her right hand impressively on the palm of the left, "this is the proper line of policy for us to pursue. I hope in all these strange changes I am still mistress of my own family. You certainly don't think that I expect to stay in this miserable hovel all my life. If you two girls, Laura and Edith, had made the matches you might, we should still be living on the avenue.