NABBY GIFFORD did not serve her employer’s breakfast next morning. Ellen Dooley, the red-cheeked Irish “second maid,” did that. Nabby cooked the breakfast, of course, and she made it a point to pass through the library after the meal was over. Foster Townsend was seated in the leather easy-chair reading the Item, a copy of which was included in the mail handed him by Millard Clark at the post office the previous evening. Mrs. Gifford lingered by the hall door and the captain looked up at her over his spectacles.
“Well, Nabby,” he inquired, “what is it?”
Nabby affected surprise at the question.
“Why, nothin’,” she said. “I was just goin’ upstairs a minute and I come this way ’cause ’twas the shortest. That’s all.”
“Yes, yes, I know. That’s all—but what is the rest?”
“Well—I was goin’ to tell you that the minister was here last night right after you left.”
“I know he was. I met him downtown and he told me he called. What else?”
“Nothin’ else—except— Well, I was wonderin’ if you’d thought over what I said to you last night about—” She finished the sentence with a wink and a jerk of the head in the direction of the dining room, where Ellen was clearing the table. At that moment the second maid departed to the kitchen with a double handful of dishes and Nabby seized the opportunity to come close to the easy-chair.
“She never got home from that Odd Fellers’ ball till one o’clock this mornin’,” Nabby announced, in an indignant whisper. “Quarter past one ’twas when she come up the back stairs. Any self-respectin’ Christian is sound asleep at that ungodly time of night, and thinks I—”
“Wait a minute. How did you know it was quarter past one?”
“Because I looked at my alarm clock and see ’twas, that’s how. And I woke up Varunas and he see it, too.”
“Humph! I always thought you were a Christian, Nabby.”
“Eh? Well, I am. Anyhow I hope I am. Who said I wasn’t?”
“You just told me that every self-respecting Christian was asleep at that hour.... Oh, never mind! Did Varunas behave like a Christian when you woke him up?”
Mrs. Gifford’s face expressed horrified consternation. “My soul!” she exclaimed. “Don’t tell me you could hear what he said away off in the front of the house, Cap’n Foster!”
“All right, Nabby. You leave Ellen to me. If I decide to take your advice and keep only one girl I’ll let you know. If I don’t we’ll go on as we are. And I may have a surprise for you pretty soon, anyway. Where’s Varunas now?”
“Out in the barn, I suppose. He’s there from mornin’ till night. Yes, and when it’s neither mornin’ nor night, too. That’s another thing, Cap’n Foster. That man of mine has been gettin’ up at four o’clock for the last two, three mornin’s, and he won’t tell me what he’s doin’ it for, neither. I asked him this very mornin’—five minutes of four by the clock, ’twas—and all he done was look foolish and laugh. ‘Early to rise makes you healthy and wealthy and wise,’ he says. ‘Ain’t you never heard that, Nabby?’ I told him, says I, ‘Humph!’ I says, ‘maybe I have heard it, but I never heard anybody call you wealthy; and as for bein’ wise!’”
Townsend lifted a hand. He rose from the chair.
“All right, Nabby,” he broke in. “I shouldn’t wonder if Varunas was wise for once in his life. At least I’m hoping he is wiser just now than some other folks who think they are.”
The great barn, towered and cupolaed in corresponding magnificence with the house, was situated at the rear of the yard, the vegetable garden at one side and the flower beds, beloved by the late Arabella Townsend, upon the other. Behind the barn were hen yards, pigsties, and, beyond these, the rolling acres of Townsend pastures, meadows and pine groves.
In the white painted stables beyond the carriage house the captain found Mr. Gifford seated upon an overturned bucket. Upon his shriveled little face was an expression of huge satisfaction. His puckered lips widened in a grin as Townsend came in.
“Been waitin’ for you, Cap’n Foster,” he announced. “Ain’t touched a thing. Left the whitewashin’ job just as ’twas for you to see. You stay right where you be and I’ll fetch him out.”
He moved down the row of stalls, where polished flanks and carefully brushed tails indicated the care bestowed upon each occupant, and from one led out a horse with a white forehead and a ring of white encircling one of its legs.
“There!” crowed Varunas. “There we be!... No, no! Don’t come no closer, Cap’n Foster. Just stand where you are and get a gen’ral view. Looks enough like Claribel to fool a nigh-sighted person on a dark mornin’, don’t he? He, he!”
Townsend smiled. “Good work, Varunas!” he grunted. “Well? How did it go?”
Mr. Gifford winked. “He went fine,” he declared. “Done that Circle in jig time, he did, and I was hangin’ back on him at that. I give you my word I never realized Hornet had it in him. Why, when I see—”
“Never mind. It is what Seth Emmons saw that interests me just now. Was Seth on hand at the Circle this morning?”
Varunas winked again. “I have a suspicion he was,” he chuckled. “’Twas dark and kind of foggy after the rain, and a body that wan’t up to snuff, or hadn’t been tipped off same as I was, would have swore there wan’t another soul within a half mile. But—well, you know that old fish shanty over at the fur side of the Circle, on the rise next the beach? Um-hum. Well, when Hornet and me went past that shanty the first time round it looked to me as if the door was open just a crack. When we went round the second time the crack was wider. It might have been the wind that blowed it open—only there wan’t any wind. He, he, he!”
He slapped his knee in gleeful triumph. Townsend’s smile became a grin.
“All right, Varunas,” he said. “How was the betting the last time you heard?”
“There ain’t much—or there wasn’t yesterday. There might be a little more to-day. Some of them Bayporters might drift over and begin to loosen up; ’specially if Sam and Seth spread the news that Claribel couldn’t do no better’n he done this mornin’.”
“If they do you might let me know.”
“You bet you I will! I’ll let myself know, too, about seven or eight dollars’ worth.... Say, Cap’n, don’t for mercy sakes tell Nabby I said that. She’s death on bettin’ anyhow; and—” with aggrieved indignation, “if I won she’d make me hand her over the heft of the money. The only way for me to keep my winnin’s is to spend ’em quick. I’ve learned that much.”
Foster Townsend left the house soon afterward and strolled, as was his morning custom, about the place, his hands in the pockets of his coat, the soft hat at the back of his head, and his after-breakfast cigar between his teeth. He lingered by the poultry yards, looked at the hogs in their pens, made mental notes of a section of fence which needed repair, decided that the strip of lawn on the left-hand side of the drive should be plowed and reseeded in the spring. His tour of inspection was leisurely, for he enjoyed it. He loved every inch of his domain. It was his. He had earned it. It represented success, the prize at the top of the ladder which he had climbed unaided. He had been a poor boy; now he was a rich man. In his youth the aristocrats of his native town scarcely deigned to notice him; now he was the aristocrat and his was the voice of authority. He had fought his way up from cabin boy to captain of a ship, from captain to owner, from that, through keen trading and daring speculation, to the day when he could afford to retire from active business. The break with his partner, Elisha Cook, and the lawsuit which followed the break, had threatened disaster time after time, but during the years of expensive and worrisome litigation he had never lost his nerve. If Cook won and was awarded even the greater part of the sum for which he was suing, it meant ruin to Townsend, but the risk but made the battle more enjoyable. And Cook had not won. True, the latter and his lawyers had not openly conceded the Townsend victory, but their talk of further fighting was but talk. Foster Townsend’s luck had held, as it had held before, and “luck”—as he saw it—was but the wage of foresight, good judgment, and the courage to back one’s convictions to the limit of safety—yes, and sometimes beyond that limit. He considered himself entitled to the rewards which were his and he enjoyed their possession, the money and the power—particularly the power.
His walk that morning was as satisfactory as usual for a time. It was only when he reached the lattice frame enclosing the flower garden that his complacency departed. The sight of the neat beds and the dead stalks in those beds brought with it a staggering shock. His wife had set out many of those plants with her own hands. She had superintended the setting out of all. Those flowers and that garden were her joy. From early summer until fall she had filled the rooms with blossoms. She would never do it again. She had left that garden and the mansion and him forever and all his money and authority were useless in the face of that irrevocable fact. His loneliness came over him once more, as it had come so often during the week since her funeral. He felt a savage resentment. He was accustomed to having his own way, to forcing his will against all obstacles. Now he—Foster Townsend—was as helpless against this stroke of Fate as the weakest-willed creature in the world.
He returned to the house, the easy-chair, and the paper in the library. He glanced at the clock. The time was nearly eleven. At the close of the interview in the Clark cottage the previous evening he had casually told Esther and Reliance that they might take their time in reaching a decision concerning his proposal. He had told them this, but he had meant it merely as a gracious gesture. He considered the matter settled and had expected an early call and the grateful announcement of acceptance. No one had called and no word had been sent him. He could not understand why and, in his present frame of mind, he resented the delay. What was the matter with those people? Was it possible they did not realize what his offer meant to them and their future? They had best realize it; it would not be repeated.
Dinner was a necessary nuisance to be endured and he got through with it as quickly as possible. Alone in the big dining room, waited upon by Ellen, with the chair at the other end of the table unoccupied, it was no wonder that appetite failed him. In the old days—and they were not so old—his dinner was an event. He was particular about the choice of dishes, insisted upon an abundance of everything, lingered over the dessert, smoked his cigar and listened while Mother chatted of the affairs of the household or repeated town gossip. Very often there were guests—leading politicians of the county; his lawyers down from Boston on business connected with the eternal suit; Judge Baxter and Mrs. Baxter from Ostable; other prominent—though of course less prominent—fellow townspeople like the Snows or the Taylors; on Sundays the minister and his wife. Pleasant company, in complete agreement with his opinions on all subjects, substantial people, people of consequence. They would come now if he asked them, but he had no mind to ask. With that vacant chair opposite his own, the filling of the others would be only an emphasis of his wretchedness.
Arabella had liked their niece, had more than once spoken of that liking, had even dared so far on rare occasions as to hint that a girl like Esther might be “kind of nice to have around; somebody outside of just us two old folks to take an interest in. Don’t you think so, dear?” He had refused to listen to the hints then. Freeling Townsend had chosen to follow his own road in open defiance of the brother who had lifted him out of the mire so often. Let those who were responsible for his taking that road tramp it to the end; that was his brusque ultimatum. Only since his wife’s death had he changed his mind. That conscience to which Reliance Clark had referred as having been “pushed away up-attic” had been shaken from its camphor. Perhaps he had been too hard. He had been right, of course, but even so he might have yielded, to please Mother. It would have pleased her then; if the talk which the minister and the rest so wearisomely offered him as consolation should be true it might please her now. He was a regular church-goer at the old First Meeting House on Sunday, but he was so more because it was the conservative, orthodox thing to do than from any deep-rooted religious convictions. Nevertheless—
And Esther was a Townsend. It was risky experiment, but for Mother’s sake he had decided to give it a trial. His own loneliness and the growing certainty that he could not continue to live in that house without companionship were the weights which tipped the balance.
Well; it had been tipped. He had gone as far as even Arabella could have wished. Farther, for he had offered a home to Reliance and that worthless half-brother of hers, not because he wanted to, but because he felt certain that Esther would not leave her aunt. He had gone far enough. As the afternoon passed and no answer came he began to think that he had gone too far. Confound their impudence!
By four he was pacing up and down the library in a state of mind divided between anger and alarm. He was tempted to sit down at his desk and write a curt note withdrawing his offer altogether. He did not do so because—well, because, in spite of his resentment and chagrin, he realized that such a withdrawal would leave him exactly where he was now, alone—and doomed to remain alone always. There was no one else, no one except a paid companion, and companionship of that kind would be worse than none. And, too, he had begun already to make plans for the girl, plans which were alluring as a means of occupying his own mind in their execution and had become more alluring since his meeting with their principal the previous evening. She was a pretty girl, modest and attractive; in spite of prejudice he had been forced to admit that. And she looked like a Townsend; there was scarcely a trace of Clark about her. Put a girl like that in the surroundings such as he could give her, with the opportunities and the money—why, there might be a new interest in life for him, just as Mother had suggested.
But where was she? Why hadn’t he heard from her? It was Reliance who was responsible for the delay, he was certain of that. He had known Reliance Clark ever since she was a schoolgirl and he a young sea captain. She was poor then as now, but pretty and popular, and as independent as a “hog on ice,” to use a Cape Cod simile. There was a time when she and he were very friendly indeed, but the friendship was a stormy one. Two such natures were bound to clash. She resented the slightest hint of patronizing and was as set in her way as he was in his, which is saying not a little. They had quarreled, made it up, quarreled again and drifted apart. Now he was the Harniss mogul and she was its postmistress, because he had made her so. Even in the midst of his irritation he chuckled as he remembered her astonishment when he told her that she owed her appointment to his influence. He had given her self-satisfaction one jolt, at all events.
It was quite natural that, in all his thinking and surmising, he gave not one thought to Millard Clark. Very few people who knew him did waste thought on Millard.
Nabby Gifford’s voice sounded behind the drawn portières.
“Cap’n Foster,” said Nabby. “Cap’n Foster, you in there? If you be there’s somebody come to see you.”
Townsend was standing by the desk. He turned.
“Who is it?” he demanded. “If it is the minister tell him I’m busy.”
“’Tain’t the minister. It’s Reliance Clark.”
“What!... Humph! How did she get here? I’ve been watching the front gate.”
“She never come in that gate. Come across lots, I cal’late. She’s at the side door. I told her I wan’t sure that you could talk to her now.”
“Who is with her?”
“Eh? Why, nobody’s with her. She’s all alone. Kind of funny, her comin’, ain’t it?”
Townsend frowned. Alone? What might that mean?
“Bring her in here,” he ordered. “Light that lamp on the table. It’s getting dark.”
Nabby lighted the student lamp and hurried out. A moment later she ushered Reliance into the library.
“Good afternoon, Foster,” said Reliance, pleasantly. Townsend nodded. Then he turned to the housekeeper.
“You needn’t wait, Nabby,” he said. “You better go out in the kitchen. Yes, and shut the door after you.”
Mrs. Gifford’s reception of this blunt dismissal was characteristic. She went, but she fired a parting shot.
“The kitchen was where I was bound, so fur as that goes,” she observed, with dignity. “And I don’t need to be reminded to shut the door, neither. It ain’t me that leaves doors open in this house.”
Foster Townsend waited until a vigorous slam proved that his order had been obeyed. Then he turned to his visitor.
“Sit down,” he said, motioning toward a chair. “Better take off your things, hadn’t you?”
Reliance shook her head.
“I’ll sit down a minute,” she replied, “but I’ll keep my things on. I can’t stop very long. I must get back to the shop. I left Abbie workin’ on Jane Snow’s hat and mercy knows what she’ll do with it unless I’m there to watch her. And if that isn’t enough to make me uneasy the post office is. Millard is supposed to be attendin’ to that; ‘supposed’ is what I said.”
Townsend smiled appreciation of the sarcasm. He lowered himself into the easy-chair.
“Where is the girl?” he asked. “Why didn’t you bring her with you?”
“She is at home, getting her things together. At least I suppose she is, that is what I told her she had better do. She’ll be here to-morrow—to stay.”
Townsend’s big body relaxed against the leather cushions. His expression, however, did not change. He took pains that it did not do so. No one—least of all the astute Miss Clark—should guess the relief the blunt announcement gave him.
“Oh!” he said, carelessly. “So you’ve decided to take up with my offer, have you. You made up your minds pretty promptly, seems to me. I told you to take all the time you wanted.”
“Yes, I know you did. And I imagine you thought we wouldn’t take much. Well, you were right in one way. My mind was made up before I went to bed last night.”
“Um-hum.... And you are coming to-morrow? That is quick business, but it suits me if it does you. You can’t give up the post office as soon as that, though. You’ll have to attend to that until I can pick out somebody to take your place. It won’t take long. Once let it be known that the job is vacant and there’ll be plenty of candidates.”
“I don’t doubt it, but it isn’t goin’ to be known. I’m postmistress here at Harniss and I’m goin’ to keep the place. That is,” she added, tartly, “I am unless you or some of the rest of the smart wire-pullers work your schemes to have me put out.”
He regarded her keenly. “Now what do you mean by that?” he demanded. “Look here, Reliance, you ought to understand that if you come to my house to live you come as—well, as part of the family. You are Esther’s aunt and when you and she come here I can’t have you running back and forth to that post office. I’m figuring to take care of you and pay your bills.”
She silenced him with an impatient movement of her hand.
“There, there!” she exclaimed. “Don’t talk that way, or I shall lose my temper and say things that might just as well not be said. I haven’t yet quite got over your tellin’ me how you had me appointed to that office. You won’t have to pay my bills—no, nor Millard’s either. We aren’t comin’ to live with you.”
He bent forward in the chair. “What’s that!” he exclaimed. “Didn’t you just tell me you were coming?”
“Of course I didn’t. I told you that Esther Townsend was comin’. She is; she will be here to-morrow. But Reliance Clark isn’t comin’. No, nor Millard—unless he does somethin’ for once on his own hook and even then he’d have to do it over my dead body. The Clarks will stay in the house they rent of you—provided you don’t order ’em out—and pay that rent and their own bills same as they always have.... Oh, don’t pretend to look so surprised!” she added, sharply. “I can’t think you ever really expected me to do anything else.”
He was surprised, however. For a moment he stared at her, his brows drawn together and his eyes fixed upon her face. He saw no wavering resolution or pretense there.
“Humph!” he grunted, leaning back slowly against the cushions. “So that’s it, eh?... I see.”
“I certainly hope you do see. I should hate to believe you ever really saw anything else. Honestly now, Foster Townsend, you never expected that I would drop my work and my self-respect and everything else of my own and move in here to live on your charity like—like a pauper goin’ to the poorhouse? You didn’t really expect me to do that? Come now!”
Whatever he expected, or had expected up to that time, he kept to himself. He thrust his hands into his trousers pockets and smiled.
“The same old Reliance, aren’t you,” he observed. “I told you last night that you hadn’t changed, and I was right. You’re just as contrary as ever.”
“Perhaps I am. I’m glad I’ve got spunk enough to be contrary when it is necessary. And it is necessary now.”
“Humph! Answer me this: Why do you suppose I asked you and your brother to come here if I didn’t expect you to come? If I hadn’t wanted you I shouldn’t have asked you. I usually know what I mean.”
“Yes, you do. So do I. That’s one thing we’ve got in common, anyhow. And—”
“Hold on! As for your coming here being like going to the poorhouse—well, I don’t know that I’d call this place a poorhouse, exactly. As for work, I told you I could find plenty of work for you to do, if you wanted it.”
“Yes, but you told me you’d have to find it. You didn’t say you needed me, because you know perfectly well you don’t. Foster, I used to know you pretty well and you haven’t changed any more than I have—except that you’ve grown rich, and mercy knows I am as poor as I ever was. When you used to come to see me and take me to ride and to parties and all the rest of it—a hundred years ago, or whenever it was—you always set out to have your own way. I must do the things you wanted done and not do the things you didn’t want.”
He was amused. “Maybe so,” he admitted, with a chuckle, “but I remember you generally did what you wanted to, in the end. And you’ve done it ever since, so far as I can make out.”
“Well, haven’t you?”
“Maybe. I’ve usually tried to have my own way—yes. But you bet I made certain that it was a good way before I started. I’ve done fairly well by having it, too, I guess.”
“I guess you have. And I have had my way and haven’t done much; that is what you’re thinkin’ and I may as well say it for you.”
“Now, now, Reliance, I wasn’t thinking any such thing. You’re wrong when you say I didn’t want you to come here along with Esther. I did.”
“Yes, you did in a way. That is, you were lonesome, and that up-attic conscience I reminded you of got to botherin’ you. You wanted somebody to keep you company and, after all, Esther was one of your own relations and you knew she was a nice girl. And Arabella always—” She paused, because of the expression upon his face. “Never mind that,” she added, hurriedly, and in a tone less sharp. “I know what Arabella was to you and I have been awfully sorry for you this past week, Foster; I truly have.... You wanted Esther and made up your mind to get her here with you; but when you got to thinkin’ of that ‘good way’ you mentioned—the surest way to have your own way about her—you thought of me. You realized a little of how much she and I were to each other and you were afraid you couldn’t coax her up to this house unless I came, too. And you couldn’t get me unless Millard was thrown into the bag. So you asked us all, hide and tail. That is the truth of it and you know it. What is the use of makin’ believe?”
He rubbed his beard and slowly shook his head.
“You are smart, Reliance,” he admitted, grudgingly. “Part of what you say is true. It isn’t all true, though. It would have been rather fun to have you around. The fights we would be bound to have would have given me something new to think about, and the way I feel just now I need it. And I can’t see any reason why you should fly up like a setting hen because I made the offer. There’s no charity about it. It is what I wanted and I can afford to have what I want.”
“You can’t afford to have me. Or, anyhow, I can’t afford to come. Oh, for mercy sakes, Foster! do you suppose you are the only soul on earth who has any pride? About everybody who has anything to do with you gets down on their knees and sings Psalms when you take notice of ’em. I don’t; I’m not much of a singer.... Well, well! we’ve talked enough about what was settled in the beginnin’. Esther is comin’ here to-morrow. We must talk about her in these few minutes I’ve got to spare.”
He nodded. “All right,” he agreed. “Talk about her.”
“I’m goin’ to. Her position isn’t a bit like mine; it’s just the opposite. I shouldn’t think of takin’ up with your offer. She shouldn’t think—or be let think—of anything else. She is young, and pretty, and she’s got a lot of sense for a girl of her age. With your money and your influence and the chance they will give her she can have a happy life—yes, a pretty wonderful life, and I’d be the last to say she shouldn’t have it. I’ve done my best to make her understand that and she has finally agreed to give you a trial.”
She had surprised him again and this time he showed his feeling.
“Humph!” he grunted, frowning. “So she’s going to give me a trial, is she? That’s kind of her. I had an idea it might be the other way around.”
“Yes, you would. Well, it isn’t all that way, not by a good deal. If you think that girl is goin’ to come here and wait for you to say ‘Boo’ and then say it back, like an echo off a stone wall, you don’t know her, that’s all. She’s sensitive and high strung and proud and she’s got a will of her own; she’s a Townsend, too, you mustn’t forget that. You’ve got to handle her the way you handle one of those trottin’ horses of yours, with judgment, not with a whip. You’ve got to be awfully careful, Foster Townsend.”
Not since his early days at sea had any one lectured him in this manner. Even his wife, in her few and rare moments of self-assertion, had never spoken her mind as bluntly or with so little regard for his importance. He resented it.
“Here, here!” he commanded, sharply. “We’ve had about enough of this, seems to me. I’m not begging for the girl. She doesn’t have to say yes, unless she wants to. Yes,” rising to his feet, “and you better tell her I said so. If she’s fool enough not to appreciate what I planned to do for her I don’t want her here. Call the whole thing off. I’m satisfied.”
Miss Clark did not rise. Instead she remained in her chair.
“Oh, dear!” she said, with a sigh of resignation. “It must be a dreadful thing to be bowed down to and worshiped so long that you come to believe you are the Lord of Creation. Foster, stop actin’ like a child. Esther is comin’ here to live; I’ve told you so a dozen times. It is settled that she is. What I’m tryin’ to do is to make you understand how and why she is doin’ it. She’s comin’ because I practically forced her into it; that’s the plain truth. She didn’t want to come.”
“Then she can stay where she is. You’ve said enough. It’s off, so far as I’m concerned.”
“No, it’s only begun. Use your common sense, Foster. Of course she didn’t want to come here. Perhaps in one way she did; she’s wise enough to see what a wonderful chance it was for her to have all the nice things in the world, go on with her music and all that. But so far as you are concerned—why, she hardly knows you. And what she does know, or thinks she knows, isn’t to your credit. Her mother—”
He interrupted. “That’s the meat in the nut, is it,” he growled. “I might have known it. That woman was responsible for Freeling’s going to the devil. I told him, before he married her, that she would be, and that if he did marry her he could go just there; I’d never lift my hand again to stop him. And she lied to her daughter, of course. Told her—”
“Oh, never mind what she told her. She was my half-sister and nobody knows her faults, if you can call them that, any better than I do. But so far as your brother is concerned, he was on his way to the Old Harry long before he married Eunice. She helped him up more than she pushed him down. And while we’re on the subject I might as well say the whole of it: If you hadn’t been so high and mighty and pig-headed and had lifted that hand of yours once in a while towards the last of his life he might not have failed in that little business of his. It wasn’t drink that killed him; he hadn’t touched a drop since he married Eunice. It was fightin’ to keep that business goin’ that broke him down. If he could have come to you—”
“Well, why didn’t he come to me?”
“Oh, you—you man! He didn’t come because, as you just said, you had told him never to come. You didn’t speak to him, nor his wife. And he was a Townsend, too, and as proud as the rest of ’em. And that means Esther. She is proud.”
“Well, if that mother of hers—”
“Oh, I know how you always felt about her mother.... But there, Foster, all this rakin’ up of old squabbles isn’t gettin’ us anywhere. What I set out to tell you was that Esther didn’t want to come to an uncle who had hardly noticed her all her life and who she probably believes—yes, of course she does, in spite of all I’ve been able to say—was responsible for her father and mother’s troubles, and leave me who have taken care of her for years. If I had come she wouldn’t have hesitated—much—I guess. To come alone was different. I’ve been all the forenoon arguin’ and advisin’ and it wasn’t until an hour or so ago she said yes. I left her packin’ her trunk and cryin’ into it. She doesn’t know I’m here now. I came to show you, if I could, the kind of girl she is and what a ticklish position we are all in. You’ve got to be gentle and forebearin’ with her, Foster, or you’ll have another smash in the Townsend family; that’s the plain truth.”
He was leaning against the table, his hands in his pockets. For some few minutes he had been looking at the carpet, not at her. Now he stirred impatiently.
“Well, all right,” he said, “I’ll be as decent as I can—with my limitations.”
“Now don’t get mad. You see what I mean. You’ll have to overlook some things. She’ll be homesick at first. She’ll want to run down and see me and I guess you’ll have to let her.”
“Why shouldn’t I let her? I don’t care how much she goes to see you.”
“You think you don’t, but perhaps you will. I know you pretty well. You like to have folks jump when you give an order and to stay where they are when you don’t. Be patient with her, won’t you?”
“I said I would.”
“Well, there’s another thing. She may expect me to come up here and see her, sometimes, along in the beginnin’.”
“Come ahead! I don’t care how often you come.”
“I’ll try not to be a nuisance. And she’ll forget me in a little while, of course. It will be better for her if she does. Her way of livin’ and the people she’ll have for friends won’t be my kind and she’ll be ashamed of us by and by.”
He turned and looked down at her.
“No, no, she won’t,” he protested, with a change of tone. “If she does I won’t own her. Don’t worry, Reliance. You’ll see her about as often as you always have.... It’s pretty hard for you to give her up, isn’t it? Eh?”
She rose. “Yes,” she said, “it is.”
“You needn’t do it, if you don’t want to. I won’t force either of you into it. I’m not sure,” he added, with a shrug, “that, since you’ve hammered the facts into me with a sledge hammer, I’m not taking the biggest chance of the lot.”
“I guess not. It ought to be a wonderful thing for her. And as for you—well, if you play your cards right you will have a lot of fun in the game. Esther will be here to-morrow forenoon, she and her trunk. You can send a wagon later on for any other of her things she may want to keep. Good-night.”
He walked with her as far as the front door. The early dark of a cloudy fall evening was already shrouding the yard and its surroundings. A chill, damp breeze was whining through the bare branches of the elms and silver-leaf poplars. Puddles of steely gray water, left after the rain, gleamed coldly here and there. The Winslows, his neighbors across the road, were away in Boston, so there was not even the cheer of their lighted windows to brighten the desolation. It was the most depressing hour of a gloomy day in the dreariest season of the year. And he was the loneliest man on earth, just then he was sure of it. People respected him, or pretended to; they, as Miss Clark had said, bowed down to him; they all envied him; but was there a single soul of them all who really cared for him, who would shed an honest tear if he dropped dead that moment? He did not believe there was one. And, because of his own wretchedness he felt a twinge of pity for the woman who, because she knew it was best for Esther, was giving up the companionship which meant so much to her. She was going to be as lonesome, almost, as he was now.
“Say, Reliance!” he hailed.
She turned. “What is it?” she asked.
“Oh, nothing in particular.” His tone was as gruff as usual, but it lacked a little of its customary sharp decision. “I just wanted to say that—er—well, you needn’t worry about that post-office job. You can have it as long as you want it. I’ll see that you do.”
“You won’t have to do any seein’, I guess. I haven’t heard of anybody’s plannin’ to put me out.”
“You never can tell.... Oh, and say, if you should change your mind, if you should feel, between now and to-morrow, that you—well, that you didn’t want to have Esther leave you—if you should decide you might as well come along with her, after all—why—”
“Don’t be silly. Good-night.”