WHEN, the next morning, pale and heavy-eyed, she was making a pretense of breakfasting, Nabby came in from the kitchen with an announcement.
“Esther,” she said, “your Aunt Reliance Clark is here at the side door. She wants to see you, she says. I told her you was eatin’ your breakfast, but she said never mind, she’d wait till you got done. Pretty early in the mornin’ to come callin’, seems to me.”
Esther rose from the table.
“Aunt Reliance!” she exclaimed. “Why, that is odd. Ask her to come into the library, please, Nabby.”
Nabby lingered. “Say,” she whispered, “you don’t cal’late she’s come to talk about what Millard went to Denboro along with Cap’n Foster for, do you? Well, if that is it, I hope she’ll tell the rest of us. My heavens to Betsy!” with a sudden burst of candor; “I ain’t had anything plague me so for I don’t know when. And neither has Varunas.... Yes, yes! I’ll fetch her right in.”
Esther was in the library awaiting her aunt, when the latter appeared. Reliance’s greeting was cheerful and, so long as Mrs. Gifford remained in the room, her manner was composed. But after Nabby, having lingered as long as she dared, departed, that manner changed.
“Esther,” she said, hurriedly, “I’ve come here to have a talk and it’s likely to be a long talk. Can’t we go somewhere where we can be sure nobody will hear us?”
Esther nodded. “Come right up to my room,” she said. “Nobody will disturb us there.”
Upstairs, in the pink room, she turned to her visitor.
“Auntie,” she said, “it’s odd that you should have come here to see me this morning. I was just on the point of going down to see you.”
Reliance looked at her quickly and keenly.
“You were?” she asked. “Why?”
“Because—well, because I felt that I must see you. I have heard— Oh, I learned some things yesterday afternoon that—that— Aunt Reliance, I doubt if I slept an hour all night. I was coming to you for advice—and help. Oh, I am so glad you are here.”
She was on the verge of tears. Reliance put her arm about her shoulder.
“I don’t know what you’ve heard, dearie,” she said. “But if it is a patch on what I have heard—and found out—since ten o’clock last night, then I don’t wonder you haven’t slept.... Your Uncle Foster is away, of course?”
“Yes. He is coming back from Boston on the eleven o’clock train. I wish he was here,” she added, with a sudden change of tone. “I want to see him even more than I do you.”
Reliance bent forward to look into her face.
“Esther,” she asked, “have you and your uncle had a fallin’ out?”
“No ... not yet.”
“Not yet?... Esther, what does that mean?”
“It means— Oh, never mind what it means! Perhaps I will tell you by and by. I shall—because I had made up my mind to. But you came here to tell me something. What is it?”
Her aunt’s answer was prefaced by a troubled shake of the head.
“I came here to have a talk with you,” she said. “Yes, and to tell you something—a lot of things. But if already you have heard something which makes you feel bitter towards your Uncle Foster, I—well, I don’t know. I almost wish I had waited until he was here and told you both together.”
“Aunt Reliance, whatever you have to tell me won’t make any difference in my feeling toward him. If what I have heard is true—and I am afraid—yes, I am sure it is—then it is a matter between him and me. And one other. Don’t ask me about it now. Tell me what you came to tell. You have found out something about what happened that night, after the ‘Pinafore’ performance, between Seymour Covell and—and Bob. Of course you have. Well, so have I.”
Reliance was startled. “You have found out—!” she cried. “But how could you?”
“Bob told me. I went to see him at his studio yesterday afternoon.”
“You went there! Oh, dear me! That was a risky thing to do, Esther. There will be more talk.”
“I don’t think any one saw me; but never mind if they did. I had to go.”
“And did he tell you—everything?”
“No; but he told me a good deal. He admitted that he met Seymour on the lower road that morning, that they had high words, and how the accident happened. He would not tell me why Seymour was there, with uncle’s horses, at such a time. Nor why they quarreled. Oh, Aunt Reliance, if you do know more than that, please tell me. Can’t you see I must know?”
Reliance still hesitated.
“Before I do, dearie,” she said gently, “will you answer another question? Do you—do you really care for this Mr. Covell?”
Esther stepped back. “Care for him?” she repeated. “Care for him?... No,” emphatically, “I do not.”
Reliance seemed to find the answer satisfactory. She nodded.
“I see,” she said slowly. “You poor child! Yes, yes, I see. You must have had a dreadful time the last few days. I will tell you. I learned a lot last night before I went to bed. This morning I made it my business to learn the rest. Esther, where do you suppose I’ve been—just now, before I came here?”
“Why—I don’t know.”
“I guess you don’t. And very few others, I hope. I have been away down to Henry Campton’s house on the lower road. I went there to see that girl of his—that Carrie.”
Esther stared in utter amazement. “You went to see Carrie Campton?” she repeated. “Why?”
“Because I judged she could fit in the pieces of the puzzle I was trying to work out. And that is what she did before she and I finished. Wait a minute, Esther. Yes, she fitted in the last pieces, but the first ones came from somebody else. You have heard the story that has been going around—that about some man or other who saw Covell and Griffin that night? But of course you have. Abbie Makepeace told me she was kind enough to repeat it to you. Well, I told her one or two things when I learned what she had done. She scarcely speaks to me now, but that is a great deal harder trial for her than it is for me. Esther, I know now who that man was. He—oh dear! I hate to tell you his name. I am ashamed to.”
Esther smiled, faintly. “Perhaps you don’t need to,” she said. “It was Uncle Millard, wasn’t it?”
And now it was Miss Clark who was amazed.
“My soul!” she gasped. “How did you know that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I guessed it. It came to me last night, while I was lying awake, thinking. I knew—Nabby told me—that he had been here to see Uncle Foster several times on what he called important business. And Varunas heard a little of what he said to uncle on the station platform yesterday. And this ‘business’ of his was so important that Uncle Foster took him as far as Denboro on the train in order to hear it. I wondered—and wondered—and then—I guessed.”
“My—my—my! Well,” with a sigh, “you guessed right. I don’t think I should have guessed. For one thing I wouldn’t have believed the scamp could keep a secret from me so long— Humph! I rather think he is sorry he kept this one. And he’ll be sorrier still before I get through with him. Yes, he was the man.... And now, dearie, I want you to sit down in that chair, and just listen, and be a brave girl, while I tell you the whole story, every last scrap of it.”
The eleven o’clock train was an hour late that day and Foster Townsend’s temper was not improved by the delay. He had had a wearisome, trying session since leaving home the previous afternoon, the culmination of a week of trial and worry. Millard Clark’s “important business” had come as a new and most disturbing shock to his mind. The greater part of the mystery concerning the accident to Seymour Covell was a mystery no longer, but there were some points still unexplained. He knew now how Covell had been hurt and where, but he did not know—nor could Clark tell him—why his guest had driven the Townsend span to that spot at that hour. That troubled him. Any reason which his imagination could furnish was not reassuring. Then, too, his meeting with Covell, Senior, in Boston was not altogether a pleasant memory. The Chicago man had not breathed a word of reproach or blame, but Townsend felt himself to blame nevertheless. The young fellow had been put in his charge; he had, in a way, assumed responsibility for his safety and his actions. The accident was bad enough, but if behind it was something disreputable—why, that was worse.
And, beside this was the question of the obligation owing Bob Griffin. The hints and rumors concerning Bob’s part in the happenings of that night were whispered everywhere. He, himself, had heard no direct accusations, but they were certain to be made. He could prevent them by telling the truth, and compelling Millard to tell it, but that would not stifle curiosity, merely headed in other directions. The two young men were fighting—but why? And, more than all, why was Covell there? Scandal, scandal, and more scandal! And his niece’s name sure to be coupled with it.
How much should he tell Esther? Or should he tell anything—yet? These were his chief perplexities at the moment. He had believed, his own desire prompting the belief, that Esther had broken with Griffin for good and all and that if she had ever cared for him she did so no longer. But, as she had heard the rumors—he knew, from her own lips, that she had—if he should tell her as much of the truth as he now knew, Elisha Cook’s grandson would immediately become, in her eyes, a martyr. Perhaps a dangerously fascinating martyr, unjustly accused and sacrificing himself to shield some one else. And, convinced of that, she might— Oh, who could tell what a romantic girl of her age might do!
He reached a determination and the Harniss station at the same time. He would tell her nothing for a while. Griffin was leaving for Europe almost immediately. After he had gone—was out of the way and beyond recall—then he could tell, and he would.
Varunas and the span were waiting at the platform and Varunas had a telegram in his hand. It, the telegram, was not a sedative for Foster Townsend’s nerves or temper. It was from his lawyers requesting his presence at a very important meeting in their Ostable office that afternoon. He must attend; his presence was necessary.
He jammed the telegram into his pocket and swore aloud. Varunas heard him and turned on the driver’s seat.
“Eh?” he queried. “Did you speak, Cap’n Foster?”
“No.”
“Didn’t ye? Funny! I thought I heard you say my name.”
“Humph! You flatter yourself.... You’ve got to drive me to Ostable to-day, it seems. Be ready to start right after dinner. Esther’s at home, I suppose; eh?”
“Why, no, she ain’t. She’s gone down to Reliance Clark’s. Reliance, she was up to our house most of the forenoon and then Esther went back along with her. Said she didn’t know whether she’d be home to dinner or not.”
Somehow this announcement ruffled the Townsend feelings still more. For his niece to treat thus carelessly so important an event as his return was irritating as well as most unusual.
“That’s queer,” he growled. “She knew I would be at home for dinner, didn’t she? Yes, of course she did.”
“Um-hum. She knew. Nabby reminded her of it just as she and Reliance were goin’ out the door, but she didn’t make no answer. Looked awful sober and—and kind of strange, so Nabby thought.”
Townsend ate a lonely dinner and enjoyed it little. Just as he was finishing his pie Esther came in at the front door and went up the stairs to her room. He called to her, but if she heard she did not heed. He called again. Then he put down his fork, rose from the table, and followed her.
She was in her room; the door was open, and he entered without knocking.
“Well,” he demanded, in a tone half jocular and half serious. “What’s all this? Clear out just when you know I’m due at home, let me eat my dinner all by myself, and then, when you do come in, march upstairs without so much as a hail. What’s the matter? Aren’t sick, are you?”
She was standing by the mirror, removing her hat. She spoke over her shoulder.
“No, Uncle Foster,” she said. “I’m not sick.”
“Humph! I am glad of that much, anyhow. Well, I haven’t seen you for a whole day. How about a kiss? That’s been the usual custom between you and me, unless my memory’s gone adrift.”
She turned then and came towards him. He kissed her. Then he noticed how pale she was.
“Why, good Lord!” he exclaimed. “You’re white as a sheet.”
He was holding her face between his hands and the light from the window fell upon it. Her eyes were red.
“Good Lord!” he cried, in alarm. “You look sick, whether you are or not.”
“Do I? Yes, perhaps I do.”
“What is it? What’s the matter?”
She stepped back, although he tried to detain her.
“Uncle Foster,” she said, “I am glad you came up here. I hoped you would. Will you please close the door?”
“Eh? Shut the door? Why?... Humph! Well, all right, it’s shut. Now then— Say, for heaven’s sake, what is up, Esther? What’s all this privacy?”
“And will you please sit down and listen to what I have to say?”
He moved toward a chair. Then he hesitated.
“’Twon’t take you long, will it?” he asked, glancing at his watch. “Those blasted lawyers are expecting me over at Ostable this afternoon. Goodness knows I don’t want to go, but I guess I’ve got to.”
She did not answer. He sat down. She did not sit, but stood facing him. He was smiling, but she was not and, as he met her look his own smile faded. It was a most peculiar look. He began to feel uneasy.
She did not keep him waiting. “Uncle Foster,” she said, “I want you to tell me now just how much you know about the accident to Mr. Covell. All that you know.”
His brows drew together. The demand was not entirely unforeseen, of course. This was the only subject of great importance in her mind and his just now and he had expected her to refer to it. But answering required consideration. How much did she, herself, know? That, he thought, was the all-important question.
He crossed his legs. “Well,” he said, slowly, “that will be kind of hard to tell, won’t it, Esther? When you say ‘know’ I judge you mean know and not guess! I know some things, and I have heard a lot more.”
“But what do you know?”
“We-ll,” still temporizing, “I know—I know— But there! I don’t see any use of going over all this again now. I ought to be on the way to Ostable this minute. I’ll be back late to-night. Anyhow I’ll be on hand all day to-morrow. Why can’t it wait till then, when we have plenty of time?”
He would have risen, but the tone of her next speech caused him to remain seated.
“I don’t wish it to wait,” she said. “I want to hear it now.”
“But I can’t stop, Esther. Don’t you see? I am in a hurry. This lawyer thing is important.”
Her eyes flashed and her tone changed. “Important!” she repeated, scornfully. “Does that mean it is more important than clearing the name of—of some one who is gossiped about and lied about and accused of—of—oh, of attempted murder, very likely? Is your miserable lawsuit more important than that? It isn’t to me, I can tell you.”
“Why, Esther—”
“Uncle Foster, you were going away this afternoon without telling me anything. I know you were. All through this dreadful affair you have kept secrets from me, and hidden the truth from me. You didn’t intend telling me one word of what Uncle Millard— Oh, I won’t call him that! I hate him!—of what he told you in the train yesterday. You were going to hide that from me, too.”
Foster Townsend leaned forward. His interview with Millard Clark had taken place only the previous afternoon. Clark had given his oath that he had told no one the details of what he had seen and heard that night on the lower road. He had, under threats of bodily harm if he ever told any one else, repeated that oath. And now, within a few hours.... Townsend leaned slowly back in the chair.
“Humph!” he growled. “Reliance told you, of course. The confounded lying sneak told her and she ran up hot foot to tattle to you. I’ll break that fellow’s neck next time I see him. I’d like to break hers,” he added, under his breath.
Esther ignored the threatened danger to the Clark necks. She was no longer pale; the color had returned to her cheeks.
“Yes,” she said, defiantly. “Yes, Aunt Reliance did tell me. Of course she did. But you weren’t going to tell me. You were going to hide it from me, as you have hidden all the rest.”
“How could I tell you?” impatiently. “You weren’t around when I got here. You weren’t around at dinner time. And when you did come home you came straight up here without so much as a word to me. What chance have I had to tell you anything? Come, come, girl! be fair!”
The word was an unfortunate choice. “Oh, don’t ask me to be fair!” she retorted, fiercely. “How fair have you been to me? You know you weren’t going to tell me. If you had intended to tell you would have done it the moment you entered this room. I gave you the opportunity to tell. I even asked you to. And all you did was intimate that you had ‘heard’ some things. You tried to put me off.”
This, being the exact truth, was hard to deny. Her uncle did not deny it. Instead he returned to the subject of Mr. Clark.
“The blackguard!” he snarled. “Why, Esther, do you know why he was so set on telling me his yarn? Me and nobody else? Why, because he expected to get money for it. Thought I’d pay him for keeping his mouth shut. Well, he hasn’t kept it shut and when he comes crawling around to get his price I’ll—I’ll— Oh, by the Almighty, let him come! I’ll be glad to see him.”
She paid no heed. Plainly she was not at all interested in what might happen to Millard Clark.
“What are you going to do about it?” she asked.
“Do? About what?”
“What are you going to do, now that you know Bob Griffin was not in the least responsible for Seymour Covell’s hurt? Are you going to tell every one that? You must.”
He pulled at his beard. “Why—why, yes, of course I am,” he admitted, frowning. “That is, I shall pretty soon. Now, now—hold on! There are a good many loose ends to this business. There is a lot to be considered before we do anything rash. Of course, if any one was to say out and out that Griffin was responsible I should put a stop to it. But nobody can say that because it isn’t true. They talk and guess and so on, but they are bound to do that. It doesn’t harm Griffin any, really. He is going off—to Paris—in two or three days.”
“And you would let him go—and not tell?”
“Hold on, hold on! I said I should tell, didn’t I? But we don’t know anything yet. We must think about—well, about poor Seymour for one. There he is, up in that hospital, senseless, can’t say a word—”
“Oh, stop!” scornfully. “Is that the reason why you don’t want to tell? You are so afraid his feelings or reputation may be hurt. And yet you will let Bob leave home under a cloud, while the people here lie about him as much as they like. Oh, shame on you!”
He twisted in the chair.
“Come, come, that’ll do!” he said, brusquely. “You are almighty touchy about this Griffin, I must say. I’m not defending any one in particular. I say there are things we don’t know, that’s all. We don’t know what brought Seymour down to the lower road that night. And— Here! Why do you look like that? Do you know?”
“Yes, I do. He went there to see Carrie Campton. He was in her parlor with her for more than an hour. She brought him there; or he brought her there. At any rate there he was.”
Foster Townsend sprang to his feet. “Carrie Campton!” he repeated. “Carrie Campton— Do you mean to say he went there to see her? I don’t believe it. What for?”
“Why should I know? Probably because he liked her.... Now don’t ask me more about that. It is true. She told Aunt Reliance all about it this very morning. I suppose she hasn’t told before because—well, because. Now will you tell every one the truth, all of it?”
He did not answer. He stood there, rubbing his beard, and considering what he had just heard. He had no doubt it was true. And it explained everything. But it humiliated him, made him furiously angry, not only at Covell, but at every one concerned in this disgraceful snarl entangling his—the great Foster Townsend’s—name and household. He strode to the door.
“Well, I’ll be darned!” he muttered, between his teeth.
His niece reached the door before him and stood with her back against it.
“Wait! Wait, Uncle Foster!” she ordered. “You can’t go yet. I have more to say to you.”
“I don’t want to hear it. I have heard too much already. And I am half an hour late as it is.”
“I am sorry for that, but you must hear the rest. Uncle Foster, why did you refuse to tell me what Bob said to you and what you said to him the other day at his studio?”
“Eh? What are you talking about? I didn’t refuse.”
“Yes, you did. Or, at any rate, you told me nothing that amounted to anything. You did not tell me that he charged you with planning my trip to Europe merely to get me away from him—and canceling it when you found he was going. You didn’t tell me that, nor that you admitted it was true. Yes,” bitterly, “and boasted of your cleverness, gloried in your trickery. You didn’t mention that.”
She had caught him again. He had no defense ready. The suddenness of the accusation left him mute and staring.
“How—how on earth did you know about that?” he gasped.
“Bob, himself, told me. I went down there to see him yesterday afternoon.”
His face, already flushed, grew redder still as this paralyzing statement forced itself upon his comprehension. He drew back slowly.
“What!” he roared. “You went down to that shanty to see that fellow?”
“Yes.”
“Good God! Why—why, what do you mean by it? Didn’t I tell you never to go near that place again?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t you promise me you wouldn’t?”
“Yes.”
“Then—then—what—”
“I broke my promise. I had to. When I heard the things they were saying about him I—I had to find out. So I went, that is all. I didn’t learn all I hoped to learn. He wouldn’t tell me why Seymour was there on that road that night, although I think he knew, or could guess. I suppose—it would be like him—he would not tell tales concerning another fellow. But he did tell me of his talk with you and—and....” Her voice broke. “Oh, Uncle,” she finished, desperately, “how could you!”
The misery in her tone, the tears in her eyes, her sudden plea for understanding, did not move him. At another time they would have done so, but not then. He offered no excuses. He did not attempt denial. The fact that she had gone, alone and in spite of his orders and her promise, to see Griffin was sufficient. All his delusions, all his conceit in the triumph of his scheming, all his silly, easy confidence that her interest in Elisha Cook’s grandson was a thing of the dead past—all these were blown away like a summer fog by that one disclosure. She had paid no attention to his wishes, his commands—she had defied him—him, Foster Townsend. If she had been a man he would have knocked her down.
“What!—” he shouted. “What’s that? How could I? How could you, you better say! Going there to see the scamp the whole town is talking about! Mixing your name up with his! Letting them talk about you now! Why—why—”
She lifted a hand. “Don’t!” she begged. “Please don’t!”
“Don’t! Don’t what? Did you expect I was going to hear a thing like that from you and—and grin? Did you expect I was going to purr and say I liked it! You—you, by the Lord! the girl I swore by and depended on—a Townsend, too—waiting until I was out of the way and then crawling on your hands and knees after that—oh, what shall I call him? The young—”
Again she stopped him. “Don’t! Don’t!” she cried once more. “You mustn’t say those things.... Uncle Foster, I am going to marry him.”
Again he was stricken speechless. He stared open-mouthed. Then he put his hand to his forehead.
“She’s gone crazy,” he muttered. “I believe she has; I swear I do! Esther, for heaven’s sake, let’s—”
“No, no, I mean it, Uncle Foster. I have made up my mind. I am going to marry Bob. That is,” with a wan smile, “if he will have me now, after all this.”
For a long instant they looked each other in the eyes. Then he drew a deep breath.
“If I thought you meant that,” he said, slowly. “If I thought for one minute you really meant it—”
He paused. Her anger seemed to have gone and her color with it, but there was no hesitation or lack of firmness in her reply.
“I do,” she said. “Oh, I know you will never forgive me. Perhaps I am ungrateful and wicked—I can’t tell. I do love you, Uncle Foster, indeed I do! In spite of the mean, deceitful tricks you have played to keep Bob and me apart and to gain your own way. I love you in spite of them, I can’t help it. But I love him more. I know now that he is more to me than all the rest of the world. And, if he will have me, I shall marry him.”
There was another interval. Then he put a hand on her arm and led her across the room to the easy-chair by the window.
“You sit down there, Esther,” he said, quietly. “You just sit there and rest and calm down. You’ve had a lot on your mind lately and you got mad with me because you thought I was hiding things from you, and—well, your nerves have gone to pieces. You just stay there for a while, or lie down and take a nap or something. When I come back to-night, if it isn’t too late, you and I will have a nice, sensible talk. If not, we will in the morning. I am going to forget all the nonsense you’ve just said and I want you to.”
“It isn’t nonsense.”
“I know, I know. Well, it will seem like nonsense by and by, after you’ve thought it over.... There, there! Be a good girl. I’ll send Nabby up with some hot tea or something. Tea is good for nerves, so folks say. Now I’m off for the lawyers. See you later.”
She called to him. He turned.
“Eh? Yes?” he queried.
She was sitting quietly in the chair, her hands in her lap, and the sunlight glistening upon her wet cheeks. She was looking at him steadily—and, it seemed to him, longingly. Yet all she said was:
“Good-by, Uncle Foster.”
“Eh? Oh, yes! Well, good-by.”