Kitabı oku: «The Girl from Sunset Ranch: or, Alone in a Great City», sayfa 10
CHAPTER XX
OUT OF STEP WITH THE TIMES
“No,” Sadie told Helen, afterward, “I am very sure that poor Lurcher man doesn’t drink. Some says he does; but you never notice it on him. It’s just his eyes.”
“His eyes?” queried Helen, wonderingly.
“Yes. He’s sort of blind. His eyelids keep fluttering all the time. He can’t control them. And, if you notice, he usually lifts up the lid of one eye with his finger before he makes one of his base-runs for the next post. Chee! I’d hate to be like that.”
“The poor old man! And can nothing be done for it?”
“Plenty, I reckon. But who’s goin’ to pay for it? Not him – he ain’t got it to pay. We all has our troubles down here, Helen.”
The girls had come down from the home of Sadie again, and Helen was preparing to leave her friend.
“Aren’t there places to go in the city to have one’s eyes examined? Free hospitals, I mean?”
“Sure! And they got Lurcher to one, once. But all they give him was a prescription for glasses, and it would cost a lot to get ’em. So it didn’t do him no good.”
Helen looked at Sadie suddenly. “How much would it take for the glasses?” she asked.
“I dunno. Ten dollars, mebbe.”
“And do you s’pose he could have that prescription now?” asked Helen, eagerly.
“Mebbe. But why for?”
“Perhaps I could – could get somebody uptown interested in his case who is able to pay for the spectacles.”
“Chee, that would be bully!” cried Sadie.
“Will you find out about the prescription?”
“Sure I will,” declared Sadie. “Nex’ time you come down here, Helen, I’ll know all about it. And if you can get one of them rich ladies up there to pay for ’em – Well! it would beat goin’ to a swell restaurant for a feed – eh?” and she laughed, hugged the Western girl, and then darted across the sidewalk to intercept a possible customer who was loitering past the row of garments displayed in front of the Finkelstein shop.
But Helen did not get downtown again as soon as she expected. When she awoke the next morning there had set in a steady drizzle – cold and raw – and the panes of her windows were so murky that she could not see even the chimneys and roofs, or down into the barren little yards.
This – nor a much heavier – rain would not have ordinarily balked Helen. She was used to being out in all winds and weathers. But she actually had nothing fit to wear in the rain.
If she had worn the new cheap dress out of doors she knew what would happen. It would shrink all out of shape. And she had no raincoat, nor would she ask her cousins – so she told herself – for the loan of an umbrella.
So, as long as it rained steadily, it looked as though the girl from Sunset Ranch was a sure-enough “shut-in.” Nor did she contemplate this possibility with any pleasure.
There was nothing for her to do but read. And one cannot read all the time. She had no “fancy-work” with which to keep her hands and mind busy. She wondered what her cousins did on such days. She found out by keeping her ears and eyes open. After breakfast Belle went shopping in the limousine. There was an early luncheon and all three of the Starkweather girls went to a matinée. In neither case was Helen invited to go – no, indeed! She was treated as though she were not even in the house. Seldom did either of the older girls speak to her.
“I might as well be a ghost,” thought Helen.
And this reminded her of the little old lady who paced the ghost-walk every night – the ex-nurse, Mary Boyle. She had thought of going to see her on the top floor before; but she had not been able to pluck up the courage.
Now that her cousins were gone from the house, however, and Mrs. Olstrom was taking a nap in her room, and Mr. Lawdor was out of the way, and all the under-servants mildly celebrating the free afternoon below stairs, Helen determined to venture out of her own room, along the main passage of the top floor, to the door which she believed must give upon the front suite of rooms which the little old lady occupied.
She knocked, but there was no response. Nor could she hear any sound from within. It struck Helen that the principal cruelty of the Starkweathers’ treatment of this old soul was her being shut away alone up here at the top of the house – too far away from the rest of its occupants for a cry to be heard if the old lady should be in trouble.
“If they shut up a dog like this, he would howl and thus attract attention to his state,” muttered Helen. “But here is a human being – ”
She tried the door. The latch clicked and the door swung open. Helen stepped into a narrow, hall-like room, well furnished with old-fashioned furniture (probably brought from below stairs when Mr. Starkweather re-decorated the mansion) with one window in it. The door which evidently gave upon the remainder of the suite was closed.
As Helen listened, however, from behind this closed door came a cheerful, cracked voice – the same voice she had heard whispering the lullaby in the middle of the night. But now it was tuning up on an old-time ballad, very popular in its day:
“Wait till the clouds roll by, Jennie —
Wait till the clouds roll by!
Jennie, my own true loved one —
Wait till the clouds roll by.”
“She doesn’t sound like a hopeless prisoner,” thought Helen, with surprise.
She waited a minute longer and, as the thin yet still sweet voice stopped, Helen knocked timidly on the inner door. Immediately the voice said, “Come in, deary. ’Tis not for the likes of you to be knockin’ at old Mary’s door. Come in!”
Helen turned the knob slowly and went into the room. The moment she crossed the threshold she forgot the clouds and rain and gloominess which had depressed her. Indeed, it seemed as though the sun must be ever shining into this room, high up under the roof of the Starkweather mansion.
In the first place, it was most cheerfully papered and painted. There were pretty, simple, yellow and white hangings. The heavier pieces of old furniture had gay “tidies” or “throws” upon them to relieve the sombreness of the dark wood. The pictures on the walls were all in white or gold frames, and were of a cheerful nature – mostly pictures of childhood, or pictures which would amuse children. Evidently much of the furnishings of the old nursery had been brought up here to Mary Boyle’s sitting-room.
Helen had a glimpse, through a half-open door, of the bedroom – quite as bright and pretty. There was a little stove set up here, and a fire burned in it. It was one of those stoves that have isinglass all around it so that the fire can be seen when it burns red. It added mightily to the cheerful tone of the room.
How neat everything appeared! Yet the very neatest thing in sight was the little old lady herself, sitting in a green-painted rocker, with a low sewing-table at her side, wooden needles clicking fast in her fleecy knitting.
She looked up at Helen with a little, bird-like motion – her head a bit on one side and her glance quizzical. This, it proved, was typical of Mary Boyle.
“Deary, deary me!” she said. “You’re a new girl. And what do you want Mary to do for you?”
“I – I thought I’d come and make you a little call,” said Helen, timidly.
This wasn’t at all as she expected to find the shut-in! Instead of gloom, and tears, and the weakness of age, here were displayed all the opposite emotions and qualities. The woman who was forgotten did not appear to be an object of pity at all. She merely seemed out of step with the times.
“I’m sure you’re very welcome, deary,” said the old nurse. “Draw up the little rocker yonder. I always keep it for young company,” and Mary Boyle, who had had no young company up here for ten or a dozen years, spoke as though the appearance of a youthful face and form was of daily occurrence.
“You see,” spoke Helen, more confidently, “we are neighbors on this top floor.”
“Neighbors; air we?”
“I live up here, too. The family have tucked me away out of sight.”
“Hush!” said the little old woman. “We shouldn’t criticise our bethers. No, no! And this is a very cheerful par-r-rt of the house, so it is.”
“But it must be awful,” exclaimed Helen, “to have to stay in it all the time!”
“I don’t have to stay in it all the time,” replied the nurse, quickly.
“No, ma’am. I hear you in the night going downstairs and walking in the corridor,” Helen said, softly.
The wrinkled old face blushed very prettily, and Mary Boyle looked at her visitor doubtfully.
“Sure, ’tis such a comfort for an old body like me,” she said, at last, “to make believe.”
“Make believe?” cried Helen, with a smile. “Why, I’m not old, and I love to make believe.”
“Ah, yis! But there is a differ bechune the make-believes of the young and the make-believes of the old. You are playin’ you’re grown up, or dramin’ of what’s comin’ to you in th’ future – sure, I know! I’ve had them drames, too, in me day.
“But with old folks ’tis different. We do be har-r-rking back instead of lookin’ for’ard. And with me, it’s thinkin’ of the babies I’ve held in me ar-r-rms, and rocked on me knee, and walked the flure wid when they was ailin’ – An’ sure the babies of this house was always ailin’, poor little things.”
“They were a great trouble to you, then?” asked Helen, softly.
“Trouble, is it?” cried Mary Boyle, her eyes shining again. “Sure, how could a blessid infant be a trouble? ’Tis a means of grace they be to the hear-r-rt – I nade no preacher to tell me that, deary. I found thim so. And they loved me and was happy wid me,” she added, cheerfully.
“The folks below think me a little quare in me head,” she confided to her visitor. “But they don’t understand. To walk up and down the nursery corridor late at night relaves the ache here,” and she put her little, mitted hand upon her heart. “Ye see, I trod that path so often – so often – ”
Her voice trailed off and she fell silent, gazing into the glow of the fire in the stove. But there was a smile on her lips. The past was no time to weep over. This cheerful body saw only the bright spots in her long, long life.
Helen loved to hear her talk. And soon she and Mary Boyle were very well acquainted. One thing about the old nurse Helen liked immensely. She asked no questions. She accepted Helen’s visit as a matter of course; yet she showed very plainly that she was glad to have a young face before her.
But the girl from Sunset Ranch did not know how Mrs. Olstrom might view her making friends with the old lady; so she made her visit brief. But she promised to come again and bring a book to read to Mary Boyle.
“Radin’ is a great accomplishment, deary,” declared the old woman. “I niver seemed able to masther it – although me mistress oft tried to tache me. But, sure, there was so much to l’arn about babies, that ain’t printed in no book, that I was always radin’ them an’ niver missed the book eddication till I come to be old. But th’ foine poethry me mistress useter be radin’ me! Sure, ’twould almost put a body to slape, so swate and grand it was.”
So, Helen searched out a book of poems downstairs, and the next forenoon she ventured into the front suite again, and read ta Mary Boyle for an hour. The storm lasted several days, and each day the girl from the West spent more and more time with the little old woman.
But this was all unsuspected by Uncle Starkweather and the three girls. If Mrs. Olstrom knew she said nothing. At least, she timed her own daily visits to the little old woman so that she would not meet Helen in the rooms devoted to old Mary’s comfort.
Nor were Helen’s visits continued solely because she pitied Mary Boyle. How could she continue to pity one who did not pity herself?
No. Helen received more than she gave in this strange friendship. Seeking to amuse the old nurse, she herself gained such an uplift of heart and mind that it began to counteract that spirit of sullenness that had entered into the Western girl when she had first come to this house and had been received so unkindly by her relatives.
Instead of hating them, she began to pity them. How much Uncle Starkweather was missing by being so utterly selfish! How much the girls were missing by being self-centred!
Why, see it right here in Mary Boyle’s case! Nobody could associate with the delightful little old woman without gaining good from the association. Instead of being friends with the old nurse, and loving her and being loved by her, the Starkweather girls tucked her away in the attic and tried to ignore her existence.
“They don’t know what they’re missing – poor things!” murmured Helen, thinking the situation over.
And from that time her own attitude changed toward her cousins. She began to look out for chances to help them, instead of making herself more and more objectionable to Belle, Hortense, and Flossie.
CHAPTER XXI
BREAKING THE ICE
As for Floss, Helen had already got a hold upon that young lady.
“Come on, Helen!” the younger cousin would whisper after dinner. “Come up to my room and give me a start on these lessons; will you? That’s a good chap.”
And often when the rest of the family thought the unwelcome visitor had retired to her room at the top of the house, she was shut in with Flossie, trying to guide the stumbling feet of that rather dull girl over the hard places in her various studies.
For Floss had soon discovered that the girl from Sunset Ranch somehow had a wonderful insight into every problem she put up to her. Nor were they all in algebra.
“I don’t see how you managed to do it, ’way out there in that wild place you lived in; but you must have gone through ’most all the text-books I have,” declared Flossie, once.
“Oh, I had to grab every chance there was for schooling,” Helen responded, and changed the subject instantly.
Flossie thought she had a secret from her sisters, however, and she hugged it to her with much glee. She realized that Helen was by no means the ignoramus Belle and Hortense said.
“And let ’em keep on thinking it,” Flossie said, to herself, with a chuckle. “I don’t know what Helen has got up her sleeve; but I believe she is fooling all of us.”
A long, dreary fortnight of inclement weather finally got on the nerves of Hortense. Belle could go out tramping in it, or cab-riding, or what-not. She was athletic, and loved exercise in the open air, no matter what the weather might be. But the second sister was just like a pussy-cat; she loved comfort and the warm corners. However, being left alone by Belle, and nobody coming in to call for several days, Hortense was completely overpowered by loneliness.
She had nothing within herself to fight off nervousness and depression. So, having caught a little, sniffly cold, she decided that she was sick and went to bed.
The Starkweather girls did not each have a maid. Mr. Starkweather could not afford that luxury. But Hortense at once requisitioned one of the housemaids to wait upon her and of course Mrs. Olstrom’s very carefully-thought-out system was immediately turned topsy-turvy.
“I cannot allow you, Miss, to have the services of Maggie all day long,” Helen heard the housekeeper announce at the door of the invalid’s room. “We are not prepared to do double work in this house. You must either speak to your father and have a nurse brought in, or wait upon yourself.”
“Oh, you heartless, wicked thing!” cried Hortense. “How can you be so cruel? I couldn’t wait upon myself. I want my broth. And I want my hair done. And you can see yourself how the room is all in a mess. And – ”
“Maggie must do her parlor work to-day. You know that. If you want to be waited upon, Miss, get your sister to do it,” concluded the housekeeper, and marched away.
“And she very well knows that Belle has gone out somewhere and Flossie is at school. I could die here, and nobody would care,” wailed Hortense.
Helen walked into the richly furnished room. Hortense was crying into her pillow. Her hair was still in two unkempt braids and she did need a fresh boudoir cap and gown.
“Can I do anything to help you, ’Tense?” asked Helen, cheerfully.
“Oh, dear me – no!” exclaimed her cousin. “You’re so loud and noisy. And do, do call me by my proper name.”
“I forgot. Sure, I’ll call you anything you say,” returned the Western girl, smiling at her. Meanwhile she was moving about the room, deftly putting things to rights.
“I’m going to tell father the minute he comes home!” wailed Hortense, ignoring her cousin for the time and going back to her immediate troubles. “I am left all alone – and I’m sick – and nobody cares – and – and – ”
“Where do you keep your caps, Hortense?” interrupted Helen. “And if you’ll let me, I’ll brush your hair and make it look pretty. And then you get into a fresh nightgown – ”
“Oh, I couldn’t sit up,” moaned Hortense. “I really couldn’t. I’m too weak.”
“I’ll show you how. Let me fix the pillows —so! And so! There – nothing like trying; is there? You’re comfortable; aren’t you?”
“We-ell – ”
Helen was already manipulating the hairbrush. She did it so well, and managed to arrange Hortense’s really beautiful hair so simply yet easily on her head that the latter quite approved of it – and said so – when she looked into her hand-mirror.
Then Helen got her into a chair, in a fresh robe and a pretty kimono, while she made the bed – putting on new sheets and cases for the pillows so that all should be sweet and clean. Of course, Hortense wasn’t really sick – only lazy. But she thought she was sick and Helen’s attentions pleased the spoiled girl.
“Why, you’re not such a bad little thing, Helen,” she said, dipping into a box of chocolates on the stand by her bedside. Chocolates were about all the medicine Hortense took during this “bad attack.” And she was really grateful – in her way – to her cousin.
It was later on this day that Helen plucked up courage to go to her uncle and give him back the letter he had written to Fenwick Grimes.
“I did not use it, sir,” she said.
“Ahem!” he said, and with evident relief. “You have thought better of it, I hope? You mean to let the matter rest where it is?”
“I have not abandoned my attempt to get at the truth – no, Uncle Starkweather.”
“How foolish of you, child!” he cried.
“I do not think it is foolish. But I will try not to mix you up in my inquiries. That is why I did not use the letter.”
“And you have seen Grimes?” he asked, hastily.
“Oh, yes.”
“Does he know who you are?”
“Oh, yes.”
“And you reached him without an introduction? I understand he is hard to approach. He is a money-lender, in a way, and he has an odd manner of never appearing to come into personal contact with his clients.”
“Yes, sir. I think him odd.”
“Did – did he think he could help you?”
“He thinks just as you do, sir,” stated Helen, honestly. “And, then, he accused you of sending me to him at first; so I would not use your letter and so compromise you.”
“Ahem!” said the gentleman, surprised that this young girl should be so circumspect. It rather startled him to discover that she was thoughtful far beyond her years. Was it possible that – somehow – she might bring to light the truth regarding the unhappy difficulty that had made Prince Morrell an exile from his old home for so many years?
Once May Van Ramsden ran in to see Belle and caught Helen going through the hall on her way to her own room. It was just after luncheon, which she and Belle had eaten in a silence that could be felt. Belle would not speak to her cousin unless she was obliged to, and Helen did not see that forcing her attentions upon the other girl would do any good.
“Why, here you are, Helen Morrell! Why don’t I ever see you when I come here?” cried the caller, shaking Helen by both hands and smiling upon her heartily from her superior height. “When are your cousins going to bring you to call upon me?”
Helen might have replied, truthfully, “Never;” but she only shook her head and smilingly declared: “I hope to see you again soon, Miss Van Ramsden.”
“Well, I guess you must!” cried the caller. “I want to hear some more of your experiences,” and she went on to meet the scowling Belle at the door of the reception parlor.
Later her eldest cousin said to the Western girl:
“In going up and down to your room, Miss, I want you to remember that there is a back stairway. Use the servants’ stairs, if you please!”
Helen made no reply. She wasn’t breaking much of the ice between her and Belle Starkweather, that was sure. And to add to Belle’s dislike for her cousin, there was another happening in which Miss Van Ramsden was concerned, soon after this.
Hortense was still abed, for the weather remained unpleasant – and there really was nothing else for the languid cousin to do. Miss Van Ramsden found Belle out, and she went upstairs to say “how-do” to the invalid. Helen was in the room making the spoiled girl more comfortable, and Miss Van Ramsden drew the younger girl out into the hall when she left.
“I really have come to see you, child,” she said to Helen, frankly. “I was telling papa about you and he said he would dearly love to meet Prince Morrell’s daughter. Papa went to college with your father, my dear.”
Helen was glad of this, and yet she flushed a little. She was quite frank, however: “Does – does your father know about poor dad’s trouble?” she whispered.
“He does. And he always believed Mr. Morrell not guilty. Father was one of the firm’s creditors, and he has always wished your father had come to him instead of leaving the city so long ago.”
“Then he’s been paid?” cried Helen, eagerly.
“Certainly. It is a secret, I believe – father warned me not to speak of it unless you did; but everybody was paid by your father after a time. That did not look as though he were dishonest. His partner took advantage of the bankruptcy courts.”
“Of – of course your father has no idea who was guilty?” whispered Helen, anxiously.
“None at all,” replied Miss Van Ramsden. “It was a mystery then and remains so to this day. That bookkeeper was a peculiar man, but had a good record; and it seems that he left the city before the checks were cashed. Or, so the evidence seemed to prove.
“Now, don’t cry, my dear! Come! I wish we could help you clear up that old trouble. But many of your father’s old friends – like papa – never believed Prince Morrell guilty.”
Helen was crying by this time. The kindness of this older girl broke down her self-possession. They heard somebody coming up the stairs, and Miss Van Ramsden said, quickly:
“Take me to your room, dear. We can talk there.”
Helen never thought that she might be giving the Starkweather family deadly offence by doing this. She led Miss Van Ramsden immediately to the rear of the house and up the back stairway to the attic floor. The caller looked somewhat amazed when Helen ushered her into the room.
“Well, they could not have put you much nearer the sky; could they?” she said, laughing, yet eyeing Helen askance.
“Oh, I don’t mind it up here,” returned Helen, truthfully enough. “And I have some company on this floor.”
“Ahem! The maids, I suppose?” said May Van Ramsden.
“No, no,” Helen assured her, eagerly. “The dearest little old lady you ever saw.”
Then she stopped and looked at her caller in some distress. For the moment she had forgotten that she was probably on the way to reveal the Starkweather family skeleton!
“A little old lady? Who can that be?” cried the caller. “You interest me.”
“I – I – Well, it is an old lady who was once nurse in the family and I believe Uncle Starkweather cares for her – ”
“It’s never Nurse Boyle?” cried Miss Van Ramsden, suddenly starting up. “Why! I remember about her. But somehow, I thought she had died years ago. Why, as a child I used to visit her at the house, and she used to like to have me come to see her. That was before your cousins lived here, Helen. Then I went to Europe for several years and when we returned the house had all been done over, your uncle’s family was here, and I think – I am not sure – somebody told me dear old Mary Boyle was dead.”
“No,” observed Helen, thoughtfully. “She is not dead. She is only forgotten.”
Miss Van Ramsden looked at the Western girl for some moments in silence. She seemed to understand the whole matter without a word of further explanation.
“Would you mind letting me see Mary Boyle while I am here?” she asked, gravely. “She was a very lovely old soul, and all the families hereabout – I have heard my mother often say – quite envied the Starkweathers their possession of such a treasure.”
“Certainly we can go in and see her,” declared Helen, throwing all discretion to the winds. “I was going to read to her this afternoon, anyway. Come along!”
She led the caller through the hall to Mary Boyle’s little suite of rooms. To herself Helen said:
“Let the wild winds of disaster blow! Whew! If the family hears of this I don’t know but they will want to have me arrested – or worse! But what can I do? And then – Mary Boyle deserves better treatment at their hands.”
