University of Virginia Library

47. CHAPTER XLVII.
JOSIE'S FRESH TROUBLES AND COMPLICATIONS.

While the two lovers mingled their hearts
in the parlor, Mrs. Warden hearkened from
the top of the stairs in a conflict of emotions.

“If she refuses him, I do believe I shall
pound her!” she muttered, shaking her fist in
the air, while she leaned over the banisters
and strove to catch some sound which should
reveal how the wooing was speeding. “I
wish I had told her to mind what she was
about, and not make a fool of herself.”

It is a fact—a very odd one, surely, and
yet, probably, a very natural one—that this
eccentric woman looked upon her upright
and straightforward daughter as extremely
queer. Belle was not like other girls, she
insisted; there never was any telling what
she would think or what she would do; never
yet had she held her mother's opinions or
wanted to do her mother's bidding. She
had seemed to like Bradford very much, and
still, at the last minute, she might not take
him.

Nor, while saying all these things to herself,
could Mrs. Warden forget her now outcast
claim, or quite fail to grumble at the
young Congressman for condemning it. But
to a woman, and especially to an interested
mother, a betrothal is always an occupying
and august subject, capable of administering
vast consolation. When our anxious mamma
overheard how nicely matters were going
below stairs, she forgot that Belle was
singular and irrational, forgot that her appropriation
must miscarry, and was one of
the happiest of mortals.

She joined the two loving ones as soon as
her sense of the proprieties of the case would
admit, and kissed them and blessed them
with the sensibility of a heart which was as
fervid as it was wayward.

After Bradford had departed, and after she
had talked over the rose-colored future with
her daughter, she set herself to the task of
cutting loose from her lodger.

Josie had just returned from an absence
of some hours, and had been heard to go directly
to her room. Mrs. Warden dropped
in upon her with a smile, and caught her
wiping away a tear.

“My dear, you are looking very tired,” she
said. “I am afraid you overdo yourself with
these long walks.”

“I am awfully tired,” responded poor Josie,
who had come near to meeting Bradford
in the street, and had seen him evade her.
“It isn't the walking, though—that rests me;
it is listening to those long-winded creatures
at the Capitol,” she rattled on, trying to conceal
her agitation. “I couldn't help thinking
how much more interesting they would
be if they were deaf and dumb, and only
made signs. And, oh! the manners! General
Bangs sat on the small of his back, with
one leg over his desk. Honest John Vane
combed his hair with a pocket-comb which
must have cost twenty-five cents. Mr.
Sharp cleaned his long, yellow teeth with
his handkerchief. It is worse than the Japanese
ambassadors playing with their toes.”

“What is up to-day? Who spoke?” said
Mrs. Warden, who, as we remember, was
clean cracked about Congress.

“Mr. Sharp, Honest John Vane, Mr. Hollowbread,
and I don't know who else.”

“Mr. Hollowbread! You ought to have
been interested.”

Josie made a face. Mrs. Warden burst
out laughing. It was perfectly understood
between them that Mr. Hollowbread was
something of a bore, even to his betrothed.

“Oh, he does very well, you know,” added
Josie. “It was all rounded and finished,
and polished and balanced and Blaired. It
was as genteel as the gait of a gentleman of
the old school. He spoke better than any
body else, and he was applauded too; but
it was about contracting and inflating the
currency; and who cares about contraction
and inflation? I saw Mrs. John Vane there,
waving her handkerchief at her husband—
to show that it was all lace, I suppose. She
ought to have gone to the other wing and
waved it at Senator Ironman, who probably
gave it to her. They did almost nothing.
They passed one appropriation bill, but nothing
for us. Twenty-five millions to the
navy! Dear me, what a lot of money there is
wasted! Three hundred millions a year, and
nothing for you or me! I wanted to get up
and say that it was wicked, and that things
would go differently when women voted, and
all that sort of nonsense; but I saw that
poor, demented Nancy Appleyard bloomerizing
opposite me, and staring at Mr. Drummond,
and I gave up the idea of making a
speech for fear it should please her.”

“And were there no private bills?” asked
Mrs. Warden, with a faint hope that her
appropriation had passed somehow—passed
by accident, by miracle. “Are you perfectly
sure?”

“Not one; not so much as the vurth of
Mr. Stiggins's umbrella; nothing for Emmanuel,”
replied Josie.

The descendant of Commodore What's-his-name
sighed; then she turned to the business
of evicting her tenant.

“I am so sorry to tell you that we have
got to part,” she said; and really she was
a little sorry, as well as not a little glad.

“Part! What is the matter now!” demanded
our heroine.

She spoke with an unusual tartness, for
not only was the suggestion vexatious, but
that dodging of Bradford had been irritating,
and her heart was still sore from it.

“My dear, I am so sorry,” palavered Mrs.
Warden. “I hate above all things to lose
you. But circumstances have occurred which
render it absolutely necessary that I should
have the whole of my house.”

“I thought we were to live together and
work together?” muttered Josie, almost at
the point of whimpering, for she did not
know where to go.

Mrs. Warden hesitated and pondered. She
had not by any means lost all hope with regard
to her appropriation, and this reference
to it made her long to keep friendship with
her tenant, that able and indefatigable wire-puller.
Still, one thing was certain: it was
absolutely necessary to get Bradford's old
flame out of the house; and so she presently
added, not without a sigh,

“I have dropped my claim.”

Our heroine looked up sharply; she knew
that something very extraordinary must have
happened to account for such a decision, and
she began to divine what it was, and to
tremble.

“The truth is, that Belle is engaged to
Edgar Bradford,” burst forth the proud mother,
unable longer to hold in the splendid revelation.

Perhaps it was the most crushing and torturing
piece of news that had ever fallen
upon Josie's heart. She had partially expected
it, and yet it came to her, as death or
any other giant calamity always comes, with
stunning and inclement suddenness. Her
face turned marble-white, and for a moment
she could not reply, not even in a whisper.

“And so you see, my dear, it will be really
necessary that we should soon have the
whole of our house,” continued Mrs. Warden,
meanwhile surveying her victim steadily, not
with any purpose of inflicting pain, but with
the unmeant cruelty of curiosity.

“Certainly,” murmured Josie, speaking,
as it seemed to her, out of a dream, or rather
a nightmare. Then she made an immense
effort, and added, “I congratulate Belle.”

“When should you fancy going?” asked
Mrs. Warden, somewhat anxiously.

With this pretty woman in love with
Bradford, and ready, doubtless, to fling herself
at his head on the first opportunity, it
would be well to get quit of her as soon as
possible, and perhaps well to quarrel with
her.

“I will go as soon as I can,” quavered
Josie, rising in anger. “I will see about a
lodging-place at once.”

Mrs. Warden murmured that she was “so
sorry,” rustled hastily out of the room, looked
up her daughter, and whispered, “I have
told her every thing. She is dead in love
with him.”

“Mamma! Stop!” hissed Belle, unable to
bear that any other woman should dare to
love the sacred man of her heart. “I will
not hear a word about that!”

“Never mind. She is going to-day. The
sooner the better.”

There was a sudden revulsion of feeling
in Belle, an outburst of pity for her unhappy
rival. In that joyous day, and for many joyous
days to come, it must seem to her that a
disappointment in love would be the fearfulest
of calamities, worthy of the profoundest
compassion.

“Poor Josie!” she said, pressing her hands
to her eyes and wiping away tears of sympathy.

“Nonsense!” laughed the mother. “She
can stand it—with all her men to help her.”

Meantime, Josie had left the house with
the noiselessness of a hall-thief, anxious to
evade every eye. After an hour she returned,
almost as pale as when the engagement
was revealed to her, and obviously in a state
of exhaustion. Immediately Mrs. Warden
hastened to her room to conclude a matter of
business—the price of board.

“I have found a place,” said Josie, who
was packing her trunk, and who continued
to pack without looking up. “I hate boarding-houses,
but I must try one for the present.
I shall go to-night.”

“And as to our—our common expenses?”
suggested Mrs. Warden, who had no confidence
in debtors, especially female ones. “I
thought, my dear, that perhaps we had better
settle that matter while it is convenient.”

“We never fixed upon any terms,” mumbled
Josie, whose porte-monnaie was nearly
empty, and no dividends due for some time.

“Ah! yes — don't you remember? You
were to pay one-third, my dear. Now our
expenses are about four thousand a year, and
for one month that would be three hundred
and thirty-three dollars.”

“Four thousand dollars! Goodness gracious,
Mrs. Warden! But that must include
your private expenses. You surely don't
mean to make me pay for your dresses and
jewelry?”

“Oh, exactly!” stared the lady of the
house, honestly confounded. She had gone
through the whole of this wonderful calculation
without once suspecting the error
which vitiated it. “Why, certainly! How
could I forget that? Isn't it funny? Well,
as to my mere housekeeping expenses, I don't
know in the least what they are. It would
take me forever to find out. Perhaps Belle
would know something. She pays all the
bills.”

She flew down stairs and consulted her
daughter.

“I certainly think,” she said, “that she
ought to pay forty dollars a week.”

“Oh! mamma! And you say she really
loved him!” returned Belle, who had come to
regard that fact with solemn sympathy and
tenderness. “How can you chaffer with her?
Take any thing—take nothing. We will
pawn our furniture to get along.”

“And how will I ever buy you an oufit?”
groaned the impoverished descendant of
Commodore Hooker.

“What! are we so poor as that? Well,
I will be married without an outfit. I will
ask my husband for dresses to begin my
married life,” declared the heroic Belle,
shedding a few of those tears which generally
accompany feminine heroism. “But
one poor woman must not rob another. It
is worse, almost, than robbing the Treasury.
Mamma, don't you ask her more than ten
dollars a week. That will more than cover
the cost of her food. I suppose she would
rather pay it than be under an obligation.”

Mrs. Warden hurried back to her lodger,
closed the door behind her carefully, and
smiled ever so sweetly.

“I think forty dollars a week would be
right, my dear,” she said. “That would be
one hundred and seventy for the month,
which is only half of the three hundred and
thirty-three we spoke of. We are perfectly
willing to take off half.”

“Mrs. Warden, that three hundred and
thirty-three ought to have been divided by
three,” suggested Josie, who had been ciphering
in her head.

“Oh, that is nonsense!” broke out Mrs.
Warden, confounded again, but none the
less irritated.

“It is not nonsense. There are three of
us, are there not? And I must say that it
is very strange of you to try to saddle the
whole expense of the family upon me.”

Mrs. Warden was tempted to tell Josie at
once that she was a bad woman, and that
she had killed her aunt and uncle, and that
every body said so. Her next impulse was
to fly down stairs and refer this knotty
problem to Belle, who, as our readers have
doubtless perceived, was her real head-piece
and counselor in times of perplexity. But,
remembering that that young lady's decision
had already been given against her, she
stood irresolute, and only snapped her black
eyes at Josie.

“I think it is just a piece of extortion,”
muttered the latter, packing away with hysterical
vehemence.

“It is no extortion,” retaliated Mrs. Warden,
her contralto voice bursting forth in its
deepest notes of indignation. “It is just
simple fairness and honesty. And I think,
Mrs. Murray, that you are not the person to
judge and condemn other people. You make
trouble wherever you go. You worried your
poor old aunt and uncle into the grave, and
now you come here to worry me into mine.”

“What ridiculous nonsense!” exclaimed
Josie, very much refreshed and supported
by what seemed to her the absurd injustice
of this accusation. “My aunt and uncle
died because they were superannuated and
feeble. And as for you, you look more likely
to murder somebody else than to be killed
yourself.”

“That will do, Mrs. Murray,” gasped Mrs.
Warden, sitting suddenly down and pressing
her hand to her heart, as though some great
physical pain had smitten her. “I have
nothing more to say to you.”

“I shall be very happy to hear any thing
rational from you,” declared Josie, with the
cheerfulness of conscious victory.

After a number of labored breaths, Mrs.
Warden murmured something about ten dollars
a week. Josie produced her porte-monnaie,
counted out lingeringly forty-three dollars,
and laid them on a chair in silence.

Mrs. Warden returned no change; she did
not know, indeed, that any was due; she
merely took the money and sailed out of the
room. Once down stairs, she threw the bills
into her daughter's lap, and sobbed out,

“Oh, that woman! She has insulted me
abominably. Belle, if you go near her she
will kill you.”

Not in the least believing this tremendous
statement, but startled by a fear (an old fear)
concerning her mother's health, the girl
sprung up, passed her arm around the crying
woman, led her to her bedroom, and
made her lie down.

Half an hour later, when a hack came for
the departing lodger, Mrs. Warden jumped
off the bed, rustled enthusiastically into the
hall, threw her arms around Josie, and kissed
her violently.

“I am so sorry to have you go!” she exclaimed,
exactly as if there had been no
quarrel. “I shall miss you dreadfully.”

“We shall meet now and then, I suppose,”
returned Josie, who had a sharper grief to
struggle with than Mrs. Warden, and could
not feel the parting very keenly. “Good-bye,
Belle,” she added, merely shaking hands,
for it was beyond her strength to embrace
her victorious rival.

Then she left the house with tears in her
eyes, tears of sorrow and also tears of rage.
Not to mention her love-trial, this was the
second home which she had been driven from
within a few weeks, and she felt that she
had a right to be angry with somebody.

That evening, however, Sykes Drummond
came to see her, and alleviated the lonesomeness
of her new residence. She was quite
plaintive with him at first, and yet humorous
and shrewd withal.

“I am doomed to wander,” was one of her
observations. “I shall never live long
enough in one place to take root there, or
to collect two trunkfuls of baggage. It is
dreadful to move; at least, it is dreadful to
a woman; it is so stripping and so vulgarizing.

It knocks off all the knickknacks and
decorations of life; and what is life without
decorations, to a lady? I had just begun to
deposit my sediment, and here I am all riled
again. Just see what a cluttered, rampageous,
disgusting state this room is in! I
didn't mean that you should see it until I
had got it into shape. You had no business
to rush up here as you did. What if every
gentleman should follow his card on the
full run in that style?”

“I will be house-maid, or lady's-maid, and
put you to rights,” he offered, quite pleased
with the chance.

“You mustn't shut the door,” she ordered,
after he had closed and latched it. “What
would people say?”

“How can I move things about, then?
Let it stay shut. Don't you mean to receive
calls in your room? It is common enough
in Washington.”

“If you stay, you must work. Help me
get up my lace curtains. I must try to hide
these dowdy, dusty, musty draperies. Put
a stool in that chair, and climb up on it, and
break your neck for my sake.”

“I would rather break Mr. Hollowbread's
neck for my sake and yours. As for mounting
that cricket, I shall drive it through the
chair.”

“Then help me up. I can hammer, and
you can steady me.”

He helped her up, and he steadied her.
It was evidently very agitating and unsteadying
business for both of them. Drummond's
muscular hands trembled, and Josie's
lovely face was soon deeply flushed.

The work went on in silence, or with
only a few hastily breathed words, the silence
and the speech alike significant of
emotion.

Of a sudden Josie slipped, uttered a little
cry, dropped her hands on the young man's
shoulders, and fell with her full weight into
his arms.

Enormously strong, and no doubt prepared
for some such collision, he received it without
staggering, caught her firmly, let her
slowly to the floor, and still held her.

“Mr. Drummond!” she gasped, thoroughly
frightened and paralyzed, looking up bewildered
into his fierce black eyes, and feeling
incapable of resistance, no matter what
he did.

“You are mine,” he answered, in a choked,
hoarse, scaring voice. “You must be my
wife.”

And then he began to kiss her neck as if
he would devour it, or at least bite into it.

“Mr. Drummond—stop!” she begged, for
she could not command. “Oh, do.”

And then she lost her breath, and could
not even beg.

“Will you promise to be my wife?” he
presently asked, bending her head back over
his arm, and looking down into her hot face
with savage longing and domination. “I
am going to be your husband.”

“Oh, Sykes!—I don't think I can—I suppose
I must—yes,” was the wonderful answer.

And so it was done; she was engaged to
two men at once; something uncommon
even with Josie Murray.

A minute later, after she had got loose
from him and recomposed her trimmings
and furbelows, she suddenly burst out laughing.

“Here I am in a pretty fix!” she said.
“What am I to do with Mr. Hollowbread?”

“Why, throw him over,” answered Drummond,
somewhat astonished. “Give him
his passports.”

“My dear friend! I dare not. On your
account I dare not. What will become of
my bill? He gives respectability to it.
Just now I dare not lose him.”

There was a long argument, but it ended
in her having her wickedly sly way; and
the fact shows not only her powers of coaxing
and persuasion, but also Drummond's
coarseness of feeling.

“Very well,” he said, at last, indulging
for the first time this evening in his characteristic
“haw, haw!” “I don't mind your
putting a joke on him. We will keep him
in play until you have got your money.”