 | CHAPTER XIV.
WE CAN'T WORK. What can she do? |  |
14. CHAPTER XIV.
WE CAN'T WORK.
THE gentlemen agreed to meet the ladies the
next day at church. Mrs. Allen insisted upon
it, as she wished to show the natives of Pushton
that they were visited by people of style from the
city. As yet they had not received many calls,
and those venturing had come in a reconnoitering
kind of way. She knew so little of solid country
people as to suppose that two young men, like
Gus Elliot and Van Dam, would make a favorable
impression. The latter with a shrug and grimace at
Zell, which she, poor child, thought funny, promised
to do so, and then they took leave with great
cordiality.
So they were ready to hand the Allens out of
their carriage the next morning, and were, with the
ladies, who were dressed even more elaborately
than on the previous Sabbath, shown to a prominent
pew, the centre of many admiring eyes, as they
supposed. But where one admired, ten criticised.
The summer hotel at Pushton had brought New
York too near and made it too familiar for Mrs. Allen's
tactics. Visits to town were easily made and
frequent, and by brief diversions of their attention
from the service, the good church people soon satisfied
the bold fast type, an impression strengthened by
the parties themselves who had devotion only for
Zell and Edith, and a bold stare for any pretty girl
that caught their eyes.
After church they parted with the understanding
that the gentlemen should come out toward
night and spend the evening.
Mr. Van Dam and Gus Elliot dined at the village
hotel, having ordered the best dinner that the
landlord was capable of serving, and a couple
of bottles of wine. Over this they became so
exhilarated as to attract a good deal of atten
tion. A village tavern is always haunted by idle
clerks, and a motley crowd of gossips, on the Sabbath,
and to these the irruption of two young
bloods from the city, was a slight break in the monotony
of their slow shuffling jog toward perdition;
and when the fine gentlemen began to get
drunk and noisy it was really quite interesting. A
group gathered round the bar, and through the
open door could see into the dining-room. Soon
with unsteady step, Van Dam and Elliot joined
them, the latter brandishing an empty bottle, and
calling in a thick loud voice,—
“Here landlord (hic) open a bottle (hic) of
wine, for these poor (hic) suckers.(hic) I don't suppose
(hic) they ever tasted (hic) anything better
than corn whiskey. (hic) But I'll moisten (hic)
their gullets to-day (hic) with a gentleman's drink.”
The crowd was mean enough, as the loafers
in the prospect of a treat, even though accompanied
with words synonymous with a kick. But one
big raw-boned fellow who looked equal to any
amount of corn-whiskey, or anything else, could
not swallow Gus's insolence, and stepped up saying,—
“Look here Capen, I'm ready enough to drink
with a chap when he asks me like a gentleman, but
I feel more like puttin' a head on you than drinkin'
with yer.”
Gus had the false courage of wine and prided
himself on his boxing. In the headlong fury of
drunkenness he flung the bottle at the man's head,
just grazing it, and sprang toward him, but stumbled
and fell. The man, with a certain rude sense
of chivalry, waited for him to get up, but the mean
loafers, who had cheered were about to manifest
their change of sentiment toward Gus, by kicking
him in his prostrate condition. Van Dam, who
also had drank too much to be his cool careful self,
now drew a pistol, and with a savage volley of oaths,
swore he would shoot the first man who touched
his friend. Then helping Gus up, he carried him
off to a private room, and with the skill of an old
experienced hand, set about righting himself and
Elliot up so that they might be in a presentable
condition for their visit at the Allens.
“Curse it all, Gus, why can you not keep within
bounds? If this gets to the girls' ears it may
spoil everything.”
By five o'clock Gus had so far recovered as to
venture to drive to the Allens, and the fresh air
restored him rapidly. Before leaving, the landlord
said to Van Dam,—
“You had better stay out there all night.
From what I hear the boys are going to lay for you
when you come home to-night. I don't want any
rows connected with my house. I'd rather you
wouldn't come back.”
Van Dam muttered an oath, and told the driver
to go on.
As a matter of course they were received very
cordially. Gus was quite himself again. He only
seemed a little more inclined to be sentimental and
in higher spirits than usual.
They walked again in the twilight through the
garden and under the budding trees of the orchard.
Gus assumed a caressing tone and manner, which
Edith half received and half resented. She felt
that she did not know her own mind and did not
understand him altogether, and so she took a diplomatic
middle course that would leave her free to
go forward or retreat. Zell, under the influence of
Mr. Van Dam's flattering manner, walked in a beautiful
but lurid dream. At last they all gathered in
the parlor and chatted and laughed over old times.
On this Sabbath evening one of the officers of
the church seeing that the Allens had twice worshipped
with them, felt that perhaps he ought to
call and give some encouragement. As he came
up the path he was surprised at the confused sound
paused, and through an opening between the curtains
saw the young men of whose bar-room performance
he had happened to hear. Not caring to
meet any of their ilk he went silently away shaking
his head with ill-omened significance. Of course
the good man told his wife what sort of company
their new neighbors kept, and who didn't she tell?
The evening grew late, but no carriage came
from the village.
“It's very strange,” said Van Dam.
“If it don't come you must stay all night,” said
Mrs. Allen graciously. “We can make you quite
comfortable even if we have a little house.”
Mr. Van Dam, and Gus also, were profuse in
their thanks. Edith bit her lip with vexation.
She felt that gentlemen who to the world would
seem so intimate with the family, in reality held no
relation, and that she and Zell were being placed
in a false position. But no scruples of prudence
occurred to thoughtless Zell. With an arch look
toward her lover she said,—
“I think it threatens rain so of course you cannot
go.”
“Let us go out and see,” he said.
In the darkness of the porch he put his arm
around and drew the unresisting girl to him, but
he did not say like a true man,
“Zell, be my wife.”
But poor Zell thought that was what all his
attention and show of affection meant.
Edith and Gus joined them, and the latter
thought also to put his regard in the form of caressing
action, rather than in honest outspoken
words, but she turned and said a little sharply,—
“You have no right.”
“Give me the right then,” he whispered.
“Whether I will ever do that I cannot say. It
depends somewhat on yourself. But I cannot now
and here.”
The warning hand of Van Dam was reached
through the darkness and touched Gus' arm.
The next morning they walked back to the
village, were driven two or three miles to the nearest
railway station, and took the train to the city,
having promised to come soon again.
The week following their departure was an
eventful one to the inmates of the little cottage,
and all unknown the most unfavorable influences
were at work against them. The Sunday hangerson
of a tavern have their points of contact with
the better classes, and gossip is a commodity
always in demand, whoever brings it to market.
Therefore the scenes in the dining and bar-rooms
in which Mrs. Allen's “friends” had played so
prominent a part were soon portrayed in hovel
and mansion alike, with such exaggerations and
distortions as a story inevitably suffers as passed
along. The part acted by the young men was
certainly bad enough, but rumor made it much
worse. Then this stream of gossip was met by
another coming from the wife of the good man,
evening, but pained at the nature of the Allens,
associations, had gone lamenting to his wife, and
she had gone lamenting to the majority of the
elder ladies of the church. These two streams
uniting, quite a tidal wave of “I want to knows,”
and “painful surprises,” swept over Pushton,
and the Allens suffered wofully through their
friends. They had already received some reconnoitering
calls, and a few from people who wanted to
be neighborly. But the truth was the people of
Pushton had been somewhat perplexed. They
did not know where to put the Allens. The fact
that Mr. Allen had been a rich merchant, and
lived on Fifth Avenue, counted for something.
But then even the natives of Pushton knew that
all kinds of people lived on Fifth Avenue, as elsewhere,
and that some of the most disreputable
were the richest. A clearer credential than that
was therefore needed. Then again there was
another puzzle. The fact that Mr. Allen had
failed, and that they lived in a little house indicated
poverty. But their style of dressing and ordering
from the store also suggested considerable
property left. The humbler portion of the community
doubted whether they were the style of
people for them to call on, and the rumor of Rose
Lacey's treatment getting abroad in spite of Arden's
injunction to the contrary, confirmed these
doubts, and alienated this class. The more wealthy
and fashionably inclined, doubted the grounds for
minds whether they could take the Allens into
their exclusive circle. So thus far Mrs. Allen and
her daughters had given audience to a sort of middle
class of skirmishers and scouts representing no
one in particular save themselves, but from a penchant
in that direction went out and obtained information,
so that the more solid ranks behind could
know what to do. In addition, as we have intimated,
there were a few good kindly people who said,—
“These strangers have come to live among us,
and we must give them a neighborly welcome.”
But there was something in their homely honest
heartiness that did not suit Mrs. Allen's artificial
taste, and she rather snubbed them.
“Heaven deliver us soon from Pushton,” she
said, “if the best people have no more air of quality
than these outlandish tribes. They all look and act
as if they had come out of the ark.”
If the Allens had frankly and patiently accepted
their poverty and misfortunes, and by close economy
and some form of labor had sought to maintain
an honest independence, they could soon through
this latter class, have become en rapport with, not
the wealthy and fashionable, but the finest people
of the community; people having the refinement,
intelligence, and heart to make the best friends we
can possess. It might take some little time. It
ought to. Social recognition and esteem should
be earned. Unless strangers bring clear letters of
credit, or established reputation, they must expect
of simple sincerity and dignity, and especially one
of great prudence, they are sure to find the right
sort of friends, and win the social position to which
they are justly entitled. But let the finger of
scandal and doubt be pointed toward them, and
all having sons and daughters will stand aloof on the
ground of self-protection, if nothing else. The
taint of scandal, like the taint of leprosy, causes a
general shrinking away.
The finger of doubt and scandal in Pushton was
now most decidedly pointed toward the Allens.
It was reported around,—
“Their father was a Wall street gambler who
lost all in a big speculation and died suddenly or
committed suicide. They belonged to the ultra
fast fashionable set in New York, and the events
of the past Sabbath show that they are not the
persons for self-respecting people to associate with.”
Some of the rather dissipated clerks and semiloafers
of the village were inclined to make the acquaintance
of such stylish handsome girls, but the
Allens received the least advance from them with
ineffable scorn.
Thus within the short space of a month Mrs.
Allen had, by her policy, contrived to isolate her
family as completely as if they had a pestilence.
Even Mrs. and Rose Lacey were inclined to pass
from indignation to contempt, for Mr. Lacey was
present at the scene in the bar-room, and reported
that the “two young bucks were friends of their
all Sunday-night because they darsn't go back to
town.”
“Well,” said Rose, “with all their airs, I haven't
got to keeping company with that style of men
yet.”
“Cease to call yourself my sister if you ever do
knowingly,” said Arden sternly. “I don't believe
Edith Allen knows the character of these men.
They would not report themselves, and who is to
do it?”
“Perhaps you had better,” said Rose maliciously.
Arden's only answer was a dark frowning look.
A severe conflict was progressing in his mind. One
impulse was to regard Edith as unworthy of another
thought. But his heart pleaded for her, and
the thought that she was different from the rest,
and capable of developing a character as beautiful
as her person, grew stronger as he dwelt upon it.
Like myself she is related to others that drag
her down, he thought, and she seems to have no
friend or brother to protect or warn her. Even if
this over-dressed young fool is her lover, if she
could have seen him prostrate on the bar-room
floor, she would never look at him again. If so I
would never look at her.
His romantic nature became impressed with the
idea that he might become in some sense her unknown
knight and protector, and keep her from
marrying a man that would such to what his father
could in hope that there might be some opportunity
of seeing her.
To poor Edith, troubles thickened fast, for as
we have seen, the brunt of everything came on her.
Early on the forenoon of Monday the carpenter
appeared asking with a hard determined tone, for
his money, adding with satire,—
“I suppose it's all right of course. People who
want everything done at once must expect to pay
promptly.”
“Your bill is much too large—much larger than
you gave us any reason to suppose it would be,'
said Edith.
“I've only charged you regular rates, Miss, and
you put me to no little inconvenience besides.”
“That's not the point. It's double the amount
you gave us to understand it would be, and if you
should deduct the damage caused by your delay,
it would greatly reduce it. I do not feel willing
that this bill should be paid as it stands.”
“Very well then,” said the man, coolly rising.
“You threatened me with a lawyer, I'll let my
lawyer settle with you.”
“Edith,” said Mrs. Allen majestically, “bring
my check-book.”
“Don't pay it, mother. He can't make us pay
such a bill in view of the fact he left our roof open
in the rain.”
“Do as I bid you,” said Mrs. Allen impressively.
“There,” she said to the chuckling builder, in
were dirt. “Now leave the presence of ladies
whom you don't seem to know much about.”
The man reddened and went out muttering
that “he had seen quite as good ladies before.”
Two days later a letter from Mrs. Allen's bank
brought dismay by stating that she had overdrawn
her account.
The next day there came a letter from their
lawyer saying that a messenger from the bank had
called upon him—that he was sorry they had spent
all their money—that he could not sell the stock
he now held at any price—and they had better sell
their house in the country and board.
This Mrs. Allen was inclined to do, but Edith
said almost fiercely,—
“I won't sell it. I am bound to have some
place of refuge in this hard pitiless world. I hold
the deed of this property, and we certainly can get
something to eat off of it, and if we must starve, no
one at least can disturb us.”
“What can we do,” said Mrs. Allen, crying and
wringing her hands.
“We ought to have saved our money and gone
to work at something,” answered Edith sternly.
“I am not able to work,” whined Laura.
“I don't know how to work, and I won't starve
either,” cried Zell passionately. “I shall write to
Mr. Van Dam this very day and tell him all about
it.”
“I would rather work my fingers off,” retorted
marry me out of charity, finding me as helpless as
if I were picked up off the street, and on the street
we would soon be without shelter or friends if we
sold this place.”
And so the blow fell upon them and such the
spirit with which they bore it.
| CHAPTER XIV.
WE CAN'T WORK. What can she do? | |