The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Old Chester Secret, by Margaret Deland This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: An Old Chester Secret Author: Margaret Deland Illustrator: F. Walter Taylor Release Date: March 27, 2010 [EBook #31792] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN OLD CHESTER SECRET *** Produced by Suzanne Shell, Emmy and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net Cover AN OLD CHESTER SECRET BOOKS BY MARGARET DELAND AN OLD CHESTER SECRET THE PROMISES OF ALICE THE AWAKENING OF HELENA RICHIE THE RISING TIDE AROUND OLD CHESTER THE HANDS OF ESAU OLD CHESTER TALES AN ENCORE DR. LAVENDAR'S PEOPLE PARTNERS THE IRON WOMAN THE VOICE WHERE THE LABORERS ARE FEW ———— HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK Established 1817 [See p. 18 "WHAT! INSULT THIS LADY BY ASKING FOR A 'PROMISE'?" AN OLD CHESTER SECRET By MARGARET DELAND Author of "OLD CHESTER TALES" "THE IRON WOMAN" "AROUND OLD CHESTER" ETC. Illustrations by F. WALTER TAYLOR T Emblem HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON AN OLD CHESTER SECRET ———— Copyright, 1920, by Harper & Brothers Printed in the United States of America Published October, 1920 To Lorin— for this book, too, is his. Kennebunkport August 12, 1920 ILLUSTRATIONS "WHAT! INSULT THIS LADY BY ASKING FOR A 'PROMISE'?" Frontispiece "I WILL NOT GIVE ANY OF MY APPLES BACK. THEY'RE MINE" Facing p. 32 "IF I SAW HIM ONCE I MIGHT WANT TO SEE HIM AGAIN" " 56 "HEARTS DON'T ANSWER WHEN REASON WHISTLES TO THEM," HE SAID " 104 AN OLD CHESTER SECRET CHAPTER I HERE was not a person in Old Chester less tainted by the vulgarity of secretiveness than Miss Lydia Sampson. She had no more reticence than sunshine or wind, or any other elemental thing. How much of this was due to conditions it would be hard to say; certainly there was no "reticence" in her silence as to her neighbors' affairs; she simply didn't know them! Nobody ever dreamed of confiding in Lydia Sampson! And she could not be reticent about her own affairs because they were inherently public. When she was a girl she broke her engagement to Mr. William Rives two weeks before the day fixed for the wedding—and the invitations were all out! So of course everybody knew that. To be sure, she never said why she broke it, but all Old Chester knew she hated meanness, and felt sure that she had given her William the choice of being generous or being jilted—and he chose the latter. As she grew older the joyous, untidy makeshifts of a poverty which was always hospitable and never attempted to be genteel, stared you in the face the minute you entered the house; so everybody knew she was poor. Years later, her renewed engagement to Mr. Rives, and his flight some ten minutes before the marriage ceremony, were known to everybody because we had all been invited to the wedding, which cost (as we happened to know, because we had presented her with just exactly that amount) a hundred dollars! At the sight of such extravagance the thrifty William turned tail and ran, and we gave thanks and said he was a scoundrel to make us thankful, though, with the exception of Doctor Lavendar, we deplored the extravagance as much as he did! As for Doctor Lavendar, he said that it was a case of the grasshopper and the ant; [1] [2] "but Lydia is a gambling grasshopper," said Doctor Lavendar; "she took tremendous chances, for suppose the party hadn't scared William off?" So, obviously, anything which was personal to Miss Lydia was public property. She simply couldn't be secretive. Then, suddenly, and in the open (so to speak) of her innocent candor, a Secret pounced upon her! At first Old Chester didn't know that there was a secret. We merely knew that on a rainy December day (this was about eight months after William had turned tail) she was seen to get into the Mercer stage, carrying a carpetbag in one hand and a bandbox in the other. This was surprising enough—for why should Lydia Sampson spend her money on going to Mercer? Yet it was not so surprising as the fact that she did not come back from Mercer! And even that was a comparative surprise; the superlative astonishment was when it became known that she had left her door key at the post office and said she didn't know when she would return! "Where on earth has she gone?" said Old Chester. But only Mrs. Drayton attempted to reply: "It certainly looks very strange," said Mrs. Drayton. It was with the turning of her front-door key that Miss Lydia made public confession of secrecy—although she had resigned herself to it, privately, three months before. The Secret had taken possession of her one hazy September evening, as she was sitting on her front doorstep, slapping her ankles when a mosquito discovered them, and watching the dusk falling like a warm veil across the hills. The air was full of the scent of evening primroses, and Miss Lydia, looking at a clump of them close to the step, could see the pointed buds begin to unfurl, then hesitate, then tremble, then opening with a silken burst of sound, spill their perfume into the twilight. Except for the crickets, it was very still. Once in a while some one plodded down the road, and once, when it was quite dark, Mr. Smith's victoria rumbled past, paused until the iron gates of his driveway swung open, then rumbled on to his big, handsome house. He was one of the new Smiths, having lived in Old Chester hardly twenty years; when he came he brought his bride with him—a Norton, she was, from New England. A nice enough woman, I suppose, but not a Pennsylvanian. He and his wife built this house, which was so imposing that for some time they were thought of, contemptuously, as the rich Smiths. But by and by Old Chester felt more kindly and just called them the new Smiths. Mrs. Smith died when their only child, Mary, was a little girl, and Mr. Smith grew gradually into our esteem. The fact was, he was so good-looking and good-humored and high-tempered (he showed his teeth when he was in a rage, just as a dog does) Old Chester had to like him—even though it wished he was a better landlord to Miss Lydia, to whom he rented a crumbling little house just outside his gates. In matters of business Mr. Smith exacted his pound of flesh—and he got it! In Lydia's case it sometimes really did represent "flesh," for she must have squeezed her rent out of her food. Yet when, after her frightful extravagance in giving that party on money we had given her for the rebuilding of her chimney, Mr. Smith rebuilt it himself, and said she was a damned plucky old bird.—"Looks like a wet hen," said Mr. Smith, "but plucky! plucky!"—After that, our liking for him became quite emphatic. Not that Old Chester liked his epithets or approved of his approval of Miss Lydia's behavior (she bought kid gloves for her party, if you please! and a blue-silk dress; and, worse than all, presents for all Old Chester, of canary birds and pictures and what not, all out of our hundred dollars!)—we did not like the laxity of Mr. Smith's judgments upon the Grasshopper's conduct, but we did approve of his building her chimney, because it saved us from putting our hands in our own pockets again. In the brown dusk of the September evening, Miss Lydia, watching her landlord roll past in his carriage, gave him a friendly nod. "He's nice," she said, "and so good-looking!" Her eyes followed him until, in the shadows of the great trees of the driveway, she lost sight of him. Then she fell to thinking about his daughter, a careless young creature, handsome and selfish, with the Smith high color and black eyes, who was engaged to be married to another handsome young creature, fatter at twenty-three than is safe for the soul of a young man. Miss Lydia did not mind Carl's fat because she had a heart for lovers. Apparently her own serial and unhappy love affair had but increased her interest in happier love affairs. To be sure, Mary's affair had had the zest of a little bit of unhappiness—just enough to amuse older people. The boy had been ordered off by his firm in Mercer, at a day's notice, to attend to some business in Mexico, and the wedding, which was to have been in April, had to be postponed for six months. Carl had been terribly down in the mouth about it, and Mary, in the twenty-four hours given them for farewells, had cried her eyes out, and even, at the last minute, just before her young man started off, implored her father to let them get married—which plea, of course, he laughed at, for the new Mr. Smith was not the sort of man to permit his only daughter to be married in such hole-and- corner fashion! As it happened, Carl got back, quite unexpectedly, in September—but his prospective father-in-law was obdurate. "It won't hurt you to wait. 'Anticipation makes a blessing dear!' December first you can have her," said the new Mr. Smith, much amused by the young people's doleful sentimentality. Miss Lydia, now, slapping the mosquitoes, and thinking about the approaching "blessing," in friendly satisfaction at so much young happiness being next door to her, hugged herself because of her own blessings. "I don't want to brag," she thought, "but certainly I am the luckiest person!" To count up her various pieces of luck (starting with the experience of being jilted): She had a nice landlord who looked like Zeus, with his flashing black eyes and snow-white hair and beard. And she had so many friends! And she believed she could manage to make her black alpaca last another winter. "It is spotted," she thought, "but what real difference does a spot make?" (Miss Lydia was one of those rare people who have a sense of the relative values of life.) "It's a warm skirt," said Miss Lydia, weighing the importance of that spot with the expense of a new dress; "and, anyway, whenever I look at it, it just makes me think [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] of the time I spilled the cream down the front at Harriet Hutchinson's. What a good time I had at Harriet's!" After that she reflected upon the excellent quality of her blue silk. "I shall probably wear it only once or twice a year; it ought to last me my lifetime," said Miss Lydia. . . . It was just as she reached this blessing that, somewhere in the shadows, a quivering voice called, "Miss Sampson?" and out of the darkness of the Smith driveway came a girlish figure. The iron gates clanged behind her, and she came up the little brick path to Miss Lydia's house with a sort of rush, a sort of fury; her voice was demanding and frightened and angry all together. "Miss Lydia!" Miss Lydia, startled from her blessings, screwed up her eyes, then, recognizing her visitor, exclaimed: "Why, my dear! What is the matter?" And again, in real alarm, "What is it?" For Mary Smith, dropping down on the step beside her, was trembling. "My dear!" Miss Lydia said, in consternation. "Miss Sampson, something—something has happened. A—a—an accident. I've come to you. I didn't know where else to go." She spoke with a sort of sobbing breathlessness. "You did just right," said Miss Lydia, "but what—" "You've got to help me! There's nobody else." "Of course I will! But tell me—" "If you don't help me, I'll die," Mary Smith said. She struck her soft clenched fist on her knee, then covered her face with her hands. "But you must promise me you won't tell? Ever—ever!" "Of course I won't." "And you'll help me? Oh, say you'll help me!" "Have you and he quarreled?" said Miss Lydia, quickly. Her own experience flashed back into her mind; it came to her with a little flutter of pride that this child—she was really only a child, just nineteen—who was to be married so soon, trusted to her worldly wisdom in such matters, and came for advice. "She hasn't any mother," Miss Lydia thought, sympathetically. "If you've quarreled, you and he," she said, putting her little roughened hand on Mary's soft, shaking fist, "tell him you're sorry. Kiss and make up!" Then she remembered why she and her William had not kissed and made up. "Unless"—she hesitated—"he has done something that isn't nice?" ("Nice" was Miss Lydia's idea of perfection.) "But I'm sure he hasn't! He seemed to me, when I saw him, a very pleasing young man. So kiss and make up!" The younger woman was not listening. "I had to wait all day to come and speak to you. I've been frantic—frantic— waiting! But I couldn't have anybody see me come. They would have wondered. If you don't help me—" "But I will, Mary, I will! Don't you love him?" "Love him?" said the girl. "My God!" Then, in a whisper, "If I only hadn't loved him—so much. . . . I am going to have a baby." It seemed as if Miss Lydia's little friendly chirpings were blown from her lips in the gust of these appalling words. Mary herself was suddenly composed. "They sent him off to Mexico at twenty-four hours' notice; it was cruel— cruel, to send him away! and he came to say good-by— And. . . . And then I begged and begged father to let us get married; even the very morning that he went away, I said: 'Let us get married to-day. Please, father, please!' And he wouldn't, he wouldn't! He wanted a big wedding. Oh, what did I care about a big wedding! Still—I never supposed— But I went to Mercer yesterday and saw a doctor, and—and found out. I couldn't believe it was true. I said I'd die if it was true! And he said it was. . . . So then I rushed to Carl's office. . . . He was frightened—for me. And then we thought of you. And all day to-day I've just walked the floor—waiting to get down here to see you. I couldn't come until it was dark. Father thinks I'm in bed with a headache. I told the servants to tell him I had a headache. . . . We've got to manage somehow to make him let us get married right off. But—but even that won't save me. It will be known. It will be known—in January." Miss Lydia was speechless. "So you've got to help me. There's nobody else on earth who can. Oh, you must—you must!" "But what can I do?" Miss Lydia gasped. "Carl and I will go away somewhere. Out West where nobody knows us. And then you'll come. And you'll take —It. You'll take care of it. And you can have all the money you want." "My dear," Miss Lydia said, trembling, "this is very, very dreadful, but I—" The girl burst into rending crying. "Don't you—suppose I know that it's—it's—it's dreadful?" "But I don't see how I can possibly—" "If you won't help me, I'll go right down to the river. Oh, Miss Lydia, help me! Please, please help me!" [9] [10] [11] [12] "But it's impos—" Mary stopped crying. "It isn't. It's perfectly possible! You'll simply go away to visit some friends—" "I haven't any friends, except in Old Chester—" "And when you come back you'll bring—It with you. And you'll say you've adopted it. You'll say it's the child of a friend." Miss Lydia was silent. "If you won't help me," Mary burst out, "I'll—" "Does anybody know?" said Miss Lydia. "No." "Oh, my dear, my dear! You must tell your father." "My father?" She laughed with terror. Then Miss Lydia Sampson did an impossible thing—judging from Old Chester's knowledge of her character. She said, "He's got to know or I won't help you." Mary's recoil showed how completely, poor child! she had always had her own way; to be crossed now by this timid old maid was like going head-on into a gray mist and finding it a stone wall. There was a tingling silence. "Then I'll kill myself," she said. Miss Lydia gripped her small, work-worn hands together, but said nothing. "Oh, please help me!" Mary said. "I will—if you'll tell your father or Doctor Lavendar. I don't care which." "Neither!" said the girl. She got on her feet and stood looking down at little shabby Miss Lydia sitting on the step with her black frizette tumbling forward over one frightened blue eye. Then she covered her face with those soft, trembling hands, all dimpled across the knuckles. "Carl wanted to tell. He said, 'Let's tell people I was a scoundrel—and stand up to it.' And I said, 'Carl, I'll die first!' And I will, Miss Lydia. I'll die rather than have it known. Nobody must know—ever." Miss Lydia shook her head. "Somebody besides me must know." Then very faintly she said, "I'll tell your father." There was panic in her voice, but Mary's voice, from behind the dimpled hands, was shrill with panic: "You mustn't! Oh, you promised not to tell!" Miss Lydia went on, quietly, "He and I will decide what to do." "No, no!" Mary said. "He'll kill Carl!" "I shouldn't think Carl would mind," said Miss Lydia. The girl dropped down again on the step. "Oh, what shall I do—what shall I do—what shall I do? He'll hate me." "He'll be very, very unhappy," said Miss Lydia; "but he'll know what must be done. I don't. And he'll forgive you." "He won't forgive Carl! Father never forgives. He says so! And if he won't forgive Carl he mustn't forgive me!" She hid her face. There was a long silence. Then she said, in a whisper, "When will you . . . tell him?" "To-night." Again she cringed away. "Not to-night! Please not to-night. Oh, you promised you wouldn't tell! I can't bear— Let me think. I'll write to Carl. No! No! Father mustn't know!" "Listen," said Lydia Sampson; "you must get married right off. You can't wait until December. That's settled. But your father must manage it so that nobody will suspect—anything. Understand?" "I mean to do that, anyway, but—" "Unless you tell a great many small stories," said little, truthful Miss Lydia, "you can't manage it; but your father will just tell one big story, about business or something. Gentlemen can always tell stories about business, and you can't find 'em out. The way we do about headaches. Mr. Smith will say business makes it necessary for him to hurry the wedding up so he can go away to—any place. See?" Mary saw, but she shook her head. "He'll kill Carl," she said again. [13] [14] [15] [16] "No, he won't," said Miss Lydia, "because then everything would come out; and, besides, he'd get hanged." Again there was a long silence; then Mary said, suddenly, violently: "Well—tell him." "Oh, my!" said Miss Lydia, "my! my!" But she got up, took the child's soft, shrinking hand, and together in the hazy silence of the summer night they walked —Miss Lydia hurrying forward, Mary holding back—between the iron gates and up the driveway to the great house. Talk about facing the cannon's mouth! When Miss Sampson came into the new Mr. Smith's library he was sitting in a circle of lamplight at his big table, writing and smoking. He looked up at her with a resigned shrug. "Wants something done to her confounded house!" he thought. But he put down his cigar, got on his feet, and said, in his genial, wealthy way: "Well, my good neighbor! How are you?" Miss Lydia could only gasp, "Mr. Smith—" (there was a faint movement outside the library door and she knew Mary was listening). "Mr. Smith—" "Sit down, sit down!" he said. "I am afraid you are troubled about something?" She sat down on the extreme edge of a chair, and he stood in front of her, stroking his white beard and looking at her, amused and bored, and very rich—but not unkind. "Mr. Smith—" she faltered. She swallowed two or three times, and squeezed her hands together; then, brokenly, but with almost no circumlocution, she told him. . . . There was a terrible scene in that handsome, shadowy, lamplit room. Miss Lydia emerged from it white and trembling; she fairly ran back to her own gate, stumbled up the mossy brick path to her front door, burst into her unlighted house, then locked the door and bolted it, and fell in a small, shaking heap against it, as if it barred out the loud anger and shame which she had left behind her in the great house among the trees. While Mary had crouched in the hall, her ear against the keyhole, Miss Lydia Sampson had held that blazing-eyed old man to common sense. No, he must not carry the girl to Mercer the next day, and take the hound by the throat, and marry them out of hand. No, he must not summon the scoundrel to Old Chester and send for Doctor Lavendar. No, he must not have a private wedding. . . . "They must be married in church and have white ribbons up the aisle," gasped Miss Lydia, "and—and rice. Don't you understand? And it isn't nice, Mr. Smith, to use such language before ladies." It was twelve o'clock when Miss Lydia, in her dark entry, went over in her own mind the "language" which had been used; all he had vowed he would do, and all she had declared he should not do, and all Mary (called in from the hall) had retorted as to the cruel things that had been done to her and Carl "which had just driven them wild!" And then the curious rage with which Mr. Smith had turned upon his daughter when she cried out, "Father, make her promise not to tell!" At that the new Mr. Smith's anger touched a really noble note: "What! Insult this lady by asking for a 'promise'? Good God! madam," he said, turning to Miss Sampson, "is this girl mine, to offer such an affront to a friend?" At which Miss Lydia felt, just for an instant, that he was nice. But the next moment the thought of his fury at Mary made her feel sick. Remembering it now, she said to herself, "It was awful in him to show his teeth that way, and to call Mary—that." And again, "It wasn't gentlemanly in him to use an indelicate word about the baby." Miss Lydia's mind refused to repeat two of the new Mr. Smith's words. The dreadfulness of them made her forget his momentary chivalry for her. "Mary is only a child," she said to herself; "and as for the baby, I'll take care of the little thing; I won't let it know that its own grandfather called it—No, it wasn't nice in Mr. Smith to say such words before a young lady like Mary, or before me, either, though I'm a good deal older than Mary. I'm glad I told him so!" (Miss Lydia telling Zeus he wasn't "nice"!) This September midnight was the first Secret which pounced upon Miss Lydia. The next was the new Mr. Smith's short and terrible interview with his prospective son-in-law: "You are never to set foot in this town." And then his order to his daughter: "Nor you, either, unless you come without that man. And there are to be no letters to or from Miss Sampson, understand that! I am not going to have people putting two and two together." Certainly no such mental arithmetic took place at the very gay Smith wedding in the second week in September—a wedding with white ribbons up the aisle! Yes, and a reception at the big house! and rice! and old slippers! But when the gayety was over, and the bride and groom drove off in great state, Miss Lydia waved to them from her front door, and then stood looking after the carriage with strange pitifulness in her face. How much they had missed, these two who, instead of the joy and wonder and mystery of going away together into their new world, were driving off, scarcely speaking to each other, tasting on their young lips the stale bitterness of stolen fruit! After the carriage was out of sight Miss Lydia walked down the road to the rectory, carrying, as was the habit of her exasperatingly generous poverty when calling on her friends, a present, a tumbler of currant jelly for Doctor Lavendar. But when the old man [17] [18] [19] [20] remonstrated, she did not, as usual, begin to excuse herself. She only said, point-blank: "Doctor Lavendar, is it ever right to tell lies to save other people?" Doctor Lavendar, jingling the happy bridegroom's two gold pieces in his pocket, said: "What? What?" "Not to save yourself," said Miss Lydia; "I know you can't tell lies to save yourself." Doctor Lavendar stopped jingling his gold pieces and frowned; then he said: "Miss Lydia, the truth about ourselves is the only safe way to live. If other folks want to be safe let them tell their own truths. It doesn't often help them for us to do it for 'em. My own principle has been not to tell a lie about other folks' affairs, but to reserve the truth. Understand?" "I think I do," said Miss Lydia, faintly, "but it's difficult." Doctor Lavendar looked at his two gold pieces thoughtfully. "Lydia," he said, "it's like walking on a tight rope." Then he chuckled, dismissed the subject, and spread out his eagles on the table. "Look at 'em! Aren't they pretty? You see how glad Mary's young man was to get her. I'll go halves with you!" Her recoil as he handed her one of the gold pieces made him give her a keen look; but all she said was: "Oh no! I wouldn't touch it!" Then she seemed to get herself together: "I don't need it, thank you, sir," she said. When she went away Doctor Lavendar, looking after her, thrust out his lower lip. "Lydia not 'need' an eagle?" he said. "How long since?" And after a while he added, "Now, what on earth—?" Old Chester, too, said, "What on earth—?" when, in December, Miss Lydia turned the key in her front door and, with her carpetbag and bandbox, took the morning stage for Mercer. And we said it again, a few weeks later, when Mrs. Barkley received a letter in which Miss Lydia said she had been visiting friends in Indiana and had been asked by them to take care of a beautiful baby boy, and she was bringing him home with her, and she hoped Mrs. Barkley would give her some advice about taking care of babies, for she was afraid she didn't know much—("'Much'?" Mrs. Barkley snorted. "She knows as much about babies as a wildcat knows about tatting!")—and she was, as ever, Mrs. Barkley's affectionate Lyddy. The effect of this letter upon Old Chester can be imagined. Mrs. Drayton said, "What I would like to know is, whose baby is it?" Mrs. Barkley said in a deep bass: "Where will Lyddy get the money to take care of it? As for advising her, I advise her to leave it on the doorstep of its blood relations!" Doctor Lavendar said: "Ho, hum! Do you remember what the new Mr. Smith said about her when she gave her party? Well, I agree with him!" Which (if you recall Mr. Smith's exact words) was really a shocking thing for a minister of the gospel to say! Mrs. William King said, firmly, that she called it murder, to intrust a child to Miss Lydia Sampson. "She'll hold it upside down and never know the difference," said Mrs. King; and then, like everybody else, she asked Mrs. Drayton's question "Whose baby is it?" There were many answers, mostly to the effect that Lydia was so scatterbrained—as witness her "party," and her blue-silk dress, and her broken engagements, etc., etc., that she was perfectly capable of letting anybody shove a foundling into her arms! Mrs. Drayton's own answer to her question was that the whole thing looked queer—"not that I would imply anything against poor Lydia's character, but it looks queer; and if you count back—" Miss Lydia's reply—for of course the question was asked her as soon as she and the baby, and the bandbox and the carpetbag got off the stage one March afternoon—Miss Lydia's answer was brief: "A friend's." She did emerge from her secrecy far enough to say to Mrs. Barkley that she was to receive "an honorarium" for the support of the little darling. "Of course I won't spend a cent of it on myself," she added, simply. "Is it a child of shame?" said Mrs. Barkley, sternly. Miss Lydia's shocked face and upraised, protesting hands, answered her: "My baby's parents were married persons! After they—passed on, a friend of theirs intrusted the child to me." "When did they die?" Miss Lydia reflected. "I didn't ask the date." "Well, considering the child's age, the mother's death couldn't have been very long ago," Mrs. Barkley said, dryly. And Miss Lydia said, in a surprised way, as if it had just occurred to her: "Why, no, of course not! It was an accident," she added. [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] D "For the mother?" "For both parents," said Miss Sampson, firmly. And that was all Old Chester got out of her. "Well," said Mrs. Drayton, "I am always charitable, but uncharitable persons might wonder. . . . It was last May, you know, that that Rives man deserted her at the altar." "Only fool persons would wonder anything like that about Lydia Sampson!" said Mrs. Barkley, fiercely. . . . But even in Old Chester there were two or three fools, so for their especial benefit Mrs. Barkley, who had her own views about Miss Sampson's wisdom in undertaking the care of a baby, but who would not let that Drayton female speak against her, spread abroad the information that Miss Lydia's baby's parents, who had lived out West, had both been killed at the same time in an accident. "What kind?" "Carriage, I believe," said Mrs. Barkley; "but they left sufficient money to support the child. So," she added, "Old Chester need have no further anxiety about Lydia's poverty. Their names? Oh—Smith." She had the presence of mind to tell Lydia she had named the baby, and though Miss Lydia gave a little start—for she had thought of some more distinguished name for her charge—"Smith," and the Western parents and the carriage accident passed into history. CHAPTER II URING the first year that the "Smith" baby lived outside the brick wall of Mr. Smith's place, the iron gates of the driveway were not opened, because business obliged Mr. Smith to be in Europe. (Oh, said Old Chester, so that was why Mary's wedding had to be hurried up?) When he returned to his native land he never, as he drove past, looked at the youngster playing in Miss Lydia's dooryard. Then once Johnny (he was three years old) ran after his ball almost under the feet of the Smith horses, and as he was pulled from between the wheels his grandfather couldn't help seeing him. "Don't do that tomfool thing again!" the old man shouted, and Johnny, clasping his recovered ball, grinned at him. "He sinks Johnny 'f'aid," the little fellow told Miss Lydia. A month or two afterward Johnny threw a stone at the victoria and involuntarily Mr. Smith glanced in the direction from which it came. But, of course, human nature being like story books, he did finally notice his grandson. At intervals he spoke to Miss Lydia, and when Johnny was six years old he even stopped one day long enough to give the child a quarter. Mr. Smith had aged very much after his daughter's marriage—and no wonder, Old Chester said, for he must be lonely in that big house, and Mary never coming to see him! Such behavior on the part of a daughter puzzled Old Chester. We couldn't understand it—unless it was that Mr. Smith didn't get along with his son-in-law? And Mary, of course, didn't visit her father because a dutiful wife always agrees with her husband! A sentiment which places Old Chester chronologically. The day that Mr. Smith bestowed the quarter upon his grandson he spoke of his daughter's "dutifulness" to Miss Lydia. Driving toward his house, he overtook two trudging figures, passed them by a rod or two, then called to the coachman to stop. "I'll walk," he said, briefly, and waited, in the dust of his receding carriage until Miss Lydia and her boy reached him. Johnny was trudging along, pulling his express wagon, which was full of apples picked up on the path below an apple tree that leaned over the girdling wall of the Smith place. As Miss Lydia approached her landlord her heart came up in her throat; it always did when she saw him, because she remembered the Olympian thunders he had loosed on that awful night six years ago. "How do?" said Mr. Smith. His dark eyes under bristling, snow-white eyebrows blazed at her. He didn't notice the little boy. "How do you do?" said Miss Lydia, in a small voice. She looked tousled and breathless and rather spotted, and so little that Mr. Smith must have felt he could blow her away if he wanted to. Apparently he didn't want to. He only said: "You—ah, never hear from—ah, my daughter, I suppose, Miss Sampson?" "No, sir," said Miss Lydia. "She doesn't care to visit me without her husband, and I won't have him under my roof!" His lip lifted for an instant and showed his teeth. "I see her when I go to Philadelphia, and she writes me duty letters occasionally, but she never mentions—" "Doesn't she?" said Miss Lydia. "I don't, either. But I just want to say that if you ever need any—ah, extra—" [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] "I WILL NOT GIVE ANY OF MY APPLES BACK. THEY'RE MINE" "I don't, thank you." Then, reluctantly, the flashing black eyes looked down at Johnny. "Doesn't resemble—anybody? Well, young man!" "Say, 'How do you do?' Johnny," Miss Lydia commanded, faintly. "How do?" Johnny said, impatiently. He was looking over his apples and, discovering some bruised ones, frowned and threw them away. "Where did you get your apples?" said Mr. Smith. "On the road," said Johnny; "they ain't yours when they drop on the road." "Say 'aren't,' Johnny," said Miss Lydia. "It isn't nice to say 'ain't.'" "Why aren't they mine?" said the old man. He was towering up above the two little figures, his feet wide apart, his hands behind him, switching his cane back and forth like a tail. "'Cause I've got 'em," Johnny explained, briefly. "Ha! The nine-tenths! You'll be a lawyer, sir!" his grandfather said. "Suppose I say, 'Give me some'?" "I won't," said Johnny. "Oh, you won't, eh? You'll be a politician!" Mr. Smith said. "It isn't right to say, 'I won't,'" Miss Lydia corrected Johnny, panting. Mr. Smith did not notice her nervousness; the boy's attitude, legs wide apart, hands behind him, clutching the tongue of his express wagon, held his eye. "He's like me!" he thought, with a thrill. "Isn't it right to say, 'I won't say I won't'?" Johnny countered. "Jesuit!" Mr. Smith said, chuckling. "The church is the place for him, Miss Sampson." "Anyway," Johnny said, crossly, "I will not give any of my apples back. They're mine." "How do you make that out?" said Mr. Smith. (And in an undertone to Miss Lydia, "No fool, eh?") "Because I picked 'em up," said Johnny. "Well, here's a quarter," said his grandfather, putting his hand in his pocket. Johnny took the coin with an air of satisfaction, but even as he slid it into his pocket he took it out again. "Looky here," he said. "I thought I'd buy a pony with it, but I don't mind paying you for your apples—" And he held out the quarter. Mr. Smith laughed as he had not laughed for a long time. "You're a judge of horseflesh!" he said, and walked off, switching his tail behind him. The story-book plot should begin here—the rich grandfather meets the unacknowledged grandchild, loves him, and makes him his heir— and, of course, incidentally, showers his largess upon the poor and virtuous lady who has cared for the little foundling; so everybody lives happy and dies wealthy. This intelligent arrangement of fiction might have been carried out if only Miss Lydia had behaved differently! But about two years later her behavior— "She's put a spoke in my wheel!" Mr. Smith told himself, blankly. It was when Johnny was eight that the spoke blocked the grandfather's progress. . . . He had gradually grown to know the boy very well, and, after much backing and filling in his own mind, decided to adopt him. He did not reach this decision easily, for there were risks in such an arrangement; resemblances might develop, and people might put two and two together! However, each time he decided that the risk was too great, a glimpse of Johnny—stealing a ride by hanging on behind his grandfather's victoria, or going in swimming in deeper water than some of the older boys were willing to essay, or, once, blacking another fellow's eye—such a glimpse of his own flesh and blood gave him courage. Courage gained the day when his grandson had scarlet fever and William King, meeting him after a call at Miss Lydia's, happened to say that Johnny was a pretty sick child. The new Mr. Smith felt his heart under his spreading white beard contract sharply. [31] [32] [33] "Sick! Very sick? Good God! the wet hen won't know how to take care of him!" His alarm was so obvious that Doctor King looked at him in surprise. "You are fond of the little fellow?" "Oh, I see him playing around my gate," Mr. Smith said, and walked off quickly, lest he should find himself urging more advice, or a nurse, or what not. "King would wonder what earthly difference it could make to me!" he said to himself, in a panic of secrecy. It made enough difference to cause him to write to his daughter: "I hear the child is very sick and may die. Congratulations to Robertson." Mary, reading the cruel words and never guessing the anxiety which had dictated them, grew white with anger. "I will never forgive father!" she said to herself, and went over to her husband and put her soft hands on his shoulders and kissed him. "Carl," she said, "the—the little boy is sick"; his questioning look made her add, "Oh, he'll get well"—but she must have felt some unspoken recoil in her husband, for she cried out, in quick denial, "Of course I don't want anything to— to happen to him!" They did not speak of Johnny's illness for two or three days; then Mary said, "If anything had happened, we should have heard by this time?" And Carl said, "Oh, of course." When Johnny was well again his grandfather's fear that Doctor King might "wonder," ebbed. "It's safe enough to take him," he said to himself; "he doesn't look like anybody. And if I adopt him I can see that he's properly educated— and it will scare Robertson to death!" he added, viciously, and showed his teeth. He even discussed adopting his grandchild with Doctor Lavendar: "Mary hasn't done her duty," he said. "I've no grandchildren! I've a great mind to adopt some youngster. I'm fond of children." "Good idea," said Doctor Lavendar. "I've taken a fancy to that little rascal who lives just at my gate. Bright youngster. Not a cowardly streak in him! Quick-tempered, I'm afraid. But I never blame anybody for that! I've thought, once or twice, that I'd adopt him." "And Miss Lydia, too?" Doctor Lavendar inquired, mildly. "Oh, I should look after her, of course," said Mr. Smith. But it was still another six months before he really made up his mind. "I'll do it!" he said to himself. "But I suppose," he reflected, "I ought to tell Mary—and the skunk." He went on to Philadelphia for the purpose of telling Mary, but he did it when Carl was not present. Mary blenched. "Father, don't! People might—" "Damn people! I like the boy. You're a coward, Mary, and so is—Robertson." "No! He isn't! Carl isn't. I am." "I won't compromise you," he ended, contemptuously. "Tell Robertson I mean to do it. If he has anything to say he can say it in a letter." Then he kissed her perfunctorily and said, "Goo'-by—goo'-by," and took the night train for Mercer. He lost no time when he got back to Old Chester in putting his plan through. The very next afternoon, knowing that Johnny would be at Doctor Lavendar's Collect Class, he called on Miss Lydia. Miss Sampson's little house was more comfortable than it used to be; the quarterly check which came from "some one" patched up leaky roofs, and bought a new carpet, and did one or two other things; but it did not procure any luxuries, either for Johnny or for herself, and it never made Miss Lydia look like anything but a small, bedraggled bird; her black frizette still got crooked and dipped over one soft blue eye, and she was generally shabby—except on the rare occasions when she wore the blue silk—and her parlor always looked as if a wind had blown through it. "I wouldn't touch their money for myself!" she used to think, and saved every cent to give to Johnny when he grew up. Into her helter-skelter house came, on this Saturday afternoon, her landlord. He had knocked on her front door with the gold head of his cane, and when she opened it he had said, "How do? How do?" and walked ahead of her into her little parlor. It was so little and he was so big that he seemed to fill the room. Miss Lydia said, in a fluttered voice, "How do you do?" "Miss Sampson," he said—he had seated himself in a chair that creaked under his ruddy bulk and he put both hands on the top of his cane; his black eyes were friendly and amused—"I've had it in mind for some time to have a little talk with you." "Yes, sir," said Miss Lydia. [34] [35] [36] [37] "I need not go back to—to a painful experience that we both remember." Miss Lydia put her head on one side in a puzzled way, as if her memory had failed her. "You will know that I appreciated your attitude at that time. I appreciated it deeply." Miss Lydia rolled her handkerchief into a wabbly lamplighter; she seemed to have nothing to say. "I have come here now, not merely to tell you this, but to add that I intend to relieve you of the care of—ah, the little boy." Miss Lydia was silent. "There are things I should like to give him. He says he wants a pony. And I mean to educate him. It would seem strange to do this as an outsider; it might cause—ah, comment. So I am going to take him." "Any grandfather would want to," said Lydia Sampson. Mr. Smith raised his bushy eyebrows. "Well, we won't put it on that ground. But I like the boy, though I hear he gets into fights; I'm afraid he has the devil of a temper," said Mr. Smith, chuckling proudly. "But I've watched him, and he's no coward and no fool, either. In fact, I hear that he is a wonder mathematically. God knows where he got his brains! Well, I am going to adopt him. But that will make no difference in your income. That is assured to you as long as you live. I am indebted to you, Miss Sampson. Profoundly indebted." "Not at all," said Miss Lydia. "I shall have a governess for him," said Mr. Smith; "but I hope you will not be too much occupied"—his voice was very genial, and as he spoke he bore down hard on his cane and began to struggle to his feet—"not too much occupied to keep a friendly eye upon him." He was standing now, a rather Jove-like figure, before whom Miss Lydia looked really like a little brown grasshopper. "Yes, I trust you will not lose your interest in him," he ended. "I won't," she said, faintly. "I have made all the arrangements," said Johnny's grandfather. "I simply told—ah, the people who know about him, that I was going to take him." He was standing, switching his cane behind him; it hit an encroaching table leg and he apologized profusely. "Mary was badly scared. As if I could not manage a thing like that! I like to scare—him"—the new Mr. Smith lifted his upper lip, and his teeth gleamed—"but, of course, I told her not to worry. Well, I hope you will see him frequently." "I shall," said Miss Lydia. "Of course you and I must tell the same story as to his antecedents. So if you will let me know how you have accounted for him, I'll be a very good parrot!" "I haven't told any stories. I just let people call him Smith, and I just said—to Johnny, and everybody—that I was a friend of his mother's. That's true, you know." "It is true, madam; it is, indeed!" said Mary's father. He bowed with grave courtliness. "There was never a better friend than you, Miss Sampson." "I've been very careful not to tell anything that wasn't true," said Miss Lydia. "I told Johnny his father and mother had lived out West; they did, you know, for four months. Johnny began to ask questions when he was only five; he said he wished he had a mother like other little boys. I had to tell him something, so I told him her name had been Norton. That is true, you know. Mary's middle name is Norton. And I said I didn't know of any cousins or uncles; and that's true. And I said 'I had been told' that his father and mother had been killed in a carriage accident. I was told so; people made it up," said Miss Lydia, simply, "so I just let 'em. I never said his parents had died that way. Well, it made Johnny cry. He used to say: 'Poor mamma! Poor mamma!' I haven't told what you'd call lies; I have only reserved the truth." "Pathetic, his 'wanting' a mother," said Mr. Smith. "Damn my son-in-law! Excuse me, madam." "It would be nice if you would forgive him," Miss Lydia suggested, timidly. He shrugged his shoulders. "I never forgive. . . . Well, I will keep up the geographical fiction and the runaway horses. And now I must not detain you further. I will take the boy to-morrow." He put out his big hand, and Miss Lydia, putting her little one into it, said: "Who is going to adopt him?" "Who?" said Mr. Smith. "Why, I! Who did you suppose was going to—Robertson? My dear Miss Sampson, reassure yourself on that point! That hound shall never get hold of him!" "Of course," Miss Lydia agreed, nodding, "Johnny's parents, or his grandfather, have a right to him." Mr. Smith was just leaving the room, but he paused on the threshold and flung a careless word back to her: "His [38] [39] [40] [41] T parents could never take him. The thing would come out." "If his grandfather takes him it will come out," said Miss Lydia, following him into the hall. "Yes, but his 'grandfather' won't take him," the old man said, with a grunt of amusement; "it is 'Mr. Smith' who is going to do that." "'Mr. Smith' can't." Her caller turned and stared at her blankly. "His 'grandfather' can have him," said Miss Lydia. "What!" "His relations can have Johnny." "But I—" "If you are a relation," Miss Lydia said—her voice was only a little whisper—"you can have him." They stood there in the hall, the big man, and the small, battling gambler of a woman, who was staking her most precious possession—a disowned child—on the chance that the pride of the man would outweigh his desire for ownership. Their eyes—misty, frightened blue, and flashing black—seemed to meet and clash. "He won't dare," she was saying to herself, her heart pounding in her throat. And Johnny's grandfather was saying to himself, very softly, "The devil!" He bent a little, as an elephant might stoop to scrutinize a grasshopper which was trying to block his way, and looked at her. Then he roared with laughter. "Well, upon my word!" he said. He put his cane under his arm, fumbled for his handkerchief, and wiped his eyes. "Miss Sampson," he said, "you are a bully. And you would be a highly successful blackmailer. But you are no coward; I'll say that for you. You are a damned game little party! I'll see to you, ma'am, I'll see to you!—and I'll get the child. But I like you. Damned if I don't!" CHAPTER III HE gambler went on her trembling legs back to her cluttered parlor and sat down, panting and pallid. The throw of the dice had been in her favor! It was curious that she had no misgiving as to what she was doing in thus closing the door of opportunity to Johnny —for of course, the new Mr. Smith's protection would mean every sort of material opportunity for him! If it had been his "grandfather's" protection which had been offered, perhaps she might have hesitated, for that would have meant material opportunity plus a love great enough to tell the truth; and Miss Lydia's own love—which was but a spiritual opportunity—could not compete with that! As it was, she tested opportunities by saying, "His grandfather can have him." Of course it was just her old method of choosing the better part. . . . All her life this gallant, timid woman had weighed values. She had weighed the reputation of being a jilt as against marriage to a man she did not respect—and she found the temporary notoriety of the first lighter than the lifelong burden of the second. She weighed values again, when she put her hundred dollars' worth of generosity on one side of the scales, and William's meanness on the other— and when generosity kicked the beam she was glad to be jilted. She had even weighed the painful unrealities of concealed poverty as against open shabbiness, and she saw that a dress she couldn't afford was a greater load to carry than the consciousness of the spot on her old skirt—especially as the spot was glorified by the memory of a friend's hospitality! So now, when the new Mr. Smith considered adopting her boy, this simple soul weighed values for Johnny: Mr. Smith—or Johnny's grandfather? Pride—or love? And pride outweighed love. Miss Lydia put her hands over her face and prayed aloud: "God, keep him proud, so I can keep Johnny!" Apparently God did, for it was only "Mr. Smith" who made further efforts to get her child. They were very determined efforts. Miss Lydia's landlord saw her again, and urged. She met what he had to say with a speechless obstinacy which made him extremely angry. When he saw her a third time he offered her an extraordinary increase in the honorarium—for which he had the grace five minutes later to apologize. He saw her once more, and threatened he would "take" Johnny, anyhow! "How?" said poor, shaking Miss Lydia. Then, as a last resort, he sent his lawyer to her, which scared her almost to death. But the interview produced, for Mr. Smith, nothing except legal assurance that he could doubtless secure the person of his grandson by appealing to the courts in the character of a grandfather—for Miss Lydia had never taken out papers for adoption. [42] [43] [44] [45] [46] "The lady has nine-tenths of the law," said Mr. Smith's legal adviser, who had been consulted, first, as to a hypothetical case, and then told the facts. "The other one-tenth won't secure a child whom you don't claim as a relative. And the law means publicity." "The hussy!" said Mr. Smith. "She's put a spoke in my wheel." "She has," said the lawyer, and grinned behind his hand. Mr. Smith glared at him. "That little wet hen!" Well! after one or two more efforts, he swallowed his defeat, and, though for nearly a year he would not recognize Miss Lydia when he met her in...