Kitabı oku: «Dorothy», sayfa 11
CHAPTER XVII
A SUNDAY DRIVE
Mrs. Cecil was extremely restless. She had been so ever since her visit to Kidder & Kidder. She would roam from room to room of her great house, staying long in none, finding fault with everybody and everything, in a manner most unusual. For though she was sharp of speech, at times, the times were fortunately at intervals, not incessant; but now she had altered and her dependents felt it to be for the worse.
"I declar' my soul, Ephraim, looks lak ouah Miss Betty done got somepin' on her min', de way she ca'y on erbout nottin er tall. Jus' cayse cook, she done put sallyratus in dem biscuits, stidder raisin' 'em yeas' cake way, she done 'most flung 'em offen de table. All de time fussin' wid some us boys an' girls, erbout some fault er nother; an' I lay out it's her own min' is all corrodin' wid wickedness. What's yo' 'pinion now, Ephraim, boy?"
The old colored man pushed away his plate and scratched his white wool. He was loyalty itself to his Miss Betty, but in his heart he agreed with Dinah that the house of Calvert had fallen upon uncomfortable times. Fortunately, he was saved the trouble of a reply, by the sharp ringing of the stable bell.
"What now!" cried Dinah, hurrying away.
Dinner had been served as usual. As usual Mrs. Cecil had attended service at old St. Paul's, but had felt herself defrauded because the rector had invited a stranger to occupy the pulpit: "when he knows as well as I do that this is my last Sunday in Baltimore, before the autumn, and should have paid me the respect of preaching himself," she had confided to her next-pew neighbor. Whereupon that other old member had felt herself also aggrieved, and had left the edifice for her carriage in a most unchristian state of mind. As usual, the one church-going and the stately dinner over, the household had settled into a Sunday somnolence. Ephraim had a comfortable lounge in the carriage-house loft and was ready for his afternoon nap. Cook was already asleep, in her kitchen rocker; and having finished her own grumble, Dinah was about to follow the universal custom, and seek repose in the little waiting-room beyond her mistress's boudoir, while that lady enjoyed the same within. For that stable bell to ring at this unwonted hour was enough to startle both old servants, and to send Dinah speeding to answer it.
"Bless yo' heart, Miss Betty, did you-all done ring dat bell? Or did dat Methusalem done it, fo' mischievousness?"
"I rang it, Dinah. Tell Ephraim to harness his horses. I'm going out for a drive."
Dinah delayed to obey. Drive on Sunday? Such a thing was unheard of, except on the rare occasion of some intimate friend being desperately ill. Instantly the maid's thought ran over the list of her mistress's intimates, but could find none who was ailing, or hardly one who was still in town.
"Lawd, honey, Miss Betty, who-all's sick?"
"Nobody, you foolish girl. Can't I stir off these grounds unless somebody is ill? I'm going to drive. I've no need to tell you, you've no right to ask me – but one must humor imbecility! I – am – going – to – drive! I – I'm not sleeping as well as usual, and I need the air. Now, get my things, and don't stare."
"Yas'm. Co'se. Yas'm. But year me, Miss Betty Somerset, if yo' po' maw was er libin' you-all wouldn't get to go no ridin' on a Sunday ebenin', jus' if yo' didn' know no diff'rent. Lak dem po' no-'count folks what doan' b'long to good famblies. You-all may go, whuther er no, cayse yo' does most inginerally take yo' own way. But I owes it to yo' maw to recommind you-all o' yo' plain, Christian duty."
With that Dinah felt she had relieved herself of all obligation either to duty or tradition, and proceeded with great dignity to bring out her lady's handsome wrap and hat: while down deep in that old gentlewoman's breast fluttered a feeling of actual guilt. It was a lifelong habit she was about to break; a habit that had been the law of her parents in the days of her youth. When one was a privileged person of leisure, who could take her outings on any week-day, she should pay strictest honor to the Sabbath.
However, Miss Betty had made up her mind to go and Miss Betty went. Not only thus endangering her own soul but those of Dinah and Ephraim as well; and once well out of city limits and the possible observation of friends, the affair began to have for all three the sweet flavor of stolen fruit.
"It's delightful. It's such a perfect day. 'Twould be more sinful to waste it indoors, asleep, than to be out here on the highway, passing through such loveliness. We'll —We'll come again, some other Sunday, Dinah," observed Mrs. Cecil, when they had already traveled some few miles.
But it was Dinah's hour for sleep, and having been prevented from indulging herself at home in a proper place and condition, she saw no reason why she shouldn't nod here and now. The carriage was full as comfortable as her own easy-chair, and she had been ordered to ride, not to stay awake.
So, finding her remarks unheeded, Mrs. Cecil set herself to studying the landscape; and she found this so soothing to her tired nerves that when the coachman asked if he should turn about, she indignantly answered:
"No. Time for that when I give the order. It's my carriage, as I often have to remind you, Ephraim."
"Yas'm. Dat's so, Miss Betty. But dese yere hosses, dey ain' much usen to trabelin' so fur, cos' erspecially not inginerally on a Sunday."
"Do them good, boy, do them good. They're so fat they can hardly trot a rod before they're winded. When we get into the country, and they have to climb up and down those hills of the highlands, they'll lose some of their bulk. They're a sight now. I'm fairly ashamed of them. Touch them up, boy, touch them up. See if they can travel at all. They had a good deal of spirit when I bought them, but you'd ruin any team you shook the reins over, Ephraim. Touch them up!"
Ephraim groaned, but obeyed; and, for a brief distance, the bays did trot fairly well, as if there had come to their equine minds a memory of that past when they had been young and frisky. Then they settled down again to their ordinary jog, quite unlike their mistress's mood, which grew more and more excited and gay the longer she trespassed upon her old-time habits.
Nobody, who loved nature at all, could resist the influence of that golden summer afternoon – "evening" as southerners call it. To Mrs. Cecil as to little Dorothy, hours before, came the sweet, suggestive odor of honeysuckle; that brought back old memories, touched to tenderness her heart, and to an undefinable longing for something and somebody on which to expend all that stored-up affection.
"Tu'n yet, Miss Betty? Dat off hoss done gettin' badly breathed," suggested Ephraim, rudely breaking in upon Mrs. Cecil's reflections.
"Oh, you tiresome boy! One-half mile more, then turn if you will and must. For me – I haven't enjoyed myself nor felt so at peace in – in several days. Not since that wretched plumber came to Bellevieu and stirred me all up with his – gossip. I could drive on forever! but, of course, I'm human, and I'll remember you, Ephraim, as well as my poor, abused horses! One mile – did I say a half? Well, drive on, anyway."
It was at the very turn of the road that she saw them.
A long, lanky lad, far worse winded than her fat bays, skulking along behind the honeysuckle hedge-rows, as if in hiding from somebody. As they approached each other – she in her roomy carriage, he on his bruised and aching feet – she saw that he was almost spent; that he carried a girl on his back; and that the desperation of fear was on both their young faces. Then looking forward along her side of the hedge, down the road that stretched so smooth and even, she saw two men on horseback. They were riding swiftly, and now and then one would rise in his stirrups and peer over the hedge, as if to keep in sight the struggling children, then settle back again into that easy lope that was certain of speedy victory.
Mrs. Cecil's nerves tingled with a new – an old – sensation. In the days of her girlhood she had followed the hounds over many a well-contested field. Behold here again was a fox-hunt – with two human children for foxes! Whatever they might have done, how deserved re-capture, she didn't pause to inquire. All her old sporting blood rose in her, but – on the side of the foxes!
"Drive, drive, Ephraim, drive! Kill the horses – save those children!"
Ephraim had once been young, too, and he caught his lady's spirit with a readiness that delighted her. In a moment the carriage was abreast the fleeing children on that further side the hedge, and Mrs. Cecil's voice was excitedly calling:
"Come through! Come through the hedge! We'll befriend you!"
It had been a weary, weary race. Although her foot had been so carefully bandaged by Daniel St. John, it was not fit to be used and Dorothy's suffering could not be told in words. Jim had done his best. He had comforted, encouraged, carried her; at times, incessantly, but with a now fast-dying hope that they could succeed in evading these pursuers, so relentlessly intent upon their capture.
"It's the money, Dorothy, they want. They mustn't get it. That's your folkses' – do try – you must keep on! I'll – they shan't – Oh, pshaw!"
Wheels again! again added to that thump, thump, thump of steel-shod hoofs along the hard road! and the youth felt that the race was over – himself beaten.
Then he peered through a break in the honeysuckle and saw a wonderful old lady with snow-white hair and a beautiful face, standing up in a finer vehicle than he had known could be constructed, and eagerly beckoning him to: "Come! Come!"
He stood still, panting for breath, and Dorothy lifted her face which she had hidden on his shoulder and – what was that the child was calling?
"Mrs. Cecil! Mrs. Cecil! Don't you know me? John Chester's little girl? 'Johnnie' – postman 'Johnnie' – you know him – take me home!"
The two horsemen came riding up and reined in shortly. There was bewilderment on their faces and disappointment in their hearts; for behold! here were five hundred dollars being swept out of their very grasp by a wealthy old woman who didn't need a cent!
And what was that happy old creature answering to the fugitive's appeal but an equally joyful:
"Dorothy C.! You poor lost darling – Dorothy C.! Thank God you're found! Thank Him I took this ride this day!"
Another moment and not only Dorothy but poor Jim Barlow, mud-stained, unkempt, as awkward a lad as ever lived and as humble, was riding toward Baltimore city in state, on a velvet-covered cushion beside one of its most aristocratic dames!
This was a turn in affairs, indeed; and the discomfited horsemen, who had felt a goodly sum already within their pockets, followed the equipage into town to learn the outcome of the matter.
Dorothy was on Mrs. Cecil's own lap; who minded nothing of the soiled little garments but held the child close with a pitying maternity, pathetic in so old and childless a woman.
But, oddly enough, she permitted no talk or explanation. There would be time enough for that when the safe shelter of Bellevieu was reached and there were no following interlopers to overhear. Even Dinah could only sit and stare, wondering if her beloved "honey" had suddenly lost her wits; but Ephraim comprehended that his mistress now meant it when she urged "Speed! speed!" and put his fat bays to a run such as they had not taken since their earliest youth.
Through the eagle-gateway, into the beautiful grounds, around to that broad piazza where Dorothy had made disastrous acquaintance with the two Great Danes, and on quite into the house. But there Jim would have retreated, and even Dorothy looked and wondered: saying, as she was gently taken in old Dinah's arms and laid upon the mistress's own lounge:
"Thank you, but I won't lie down here, if you please. I love you so much for bringing me back, but home – home's just around the corner, and I can't wait! Jim and I will go now – please – and thank you! thank you!"
Yet now, back in her own home, it was a very calm and courteous old gentlewoman – no longer an impulsive one – who answered:
"For the present, Dorothy C., you will have to be content with Bellevieu. John Chester and his wife have gone to the country. To a far-away state, and to a little property she owns. Fortunately, I am going to that same place very soon and will take you to them. I am sorry for your disappointment, but you are safe with me till then."
CHAPTER XVIII
CONCLUSION
Mr. Kidder, of Kidder & Kidder, had by request waited upon the lady of Bellevieu. He was prepared to explain some uncertain matters to her and had delayed his own removal to his country place for that purpose. The heat which had made Baltimore so uncomfortable had, for the time being, passed; and there was now blowing through the big east-parlor, a breeze, redolent of the perfumes of sweet brier and lily-of-the-valley; old-fashioned flowers which grew in rank luxuriance outside the wide bay-window.
Presently there entered the mistress of the mansion, looking almost youthful in a white gown and with a calm serenity upon her handsome features. She walked with that graceful, undulating movement – a sort of quiet gliding – which had been the most approved mode of her girlhood, and the mere sight of that was restful to the old attorney, who detested the modern, jerky carriage of most maidens.
Dorothy attended her hostess and she, too, was in white. Indeed Mrs. Cecil considered that to be the only suitable home-wear for either maid or matron, after the spring days came; and looking critically upon the pair, the old lawyer fancied he saw a faint resemblance.
Each had large brown and most expressive eyes; each had a hand and foot, fit subject for feminine pride, and each bore herself with the same air of composed self-sufficiency. Well, it was a fine experiment his client was trying; he could but hope it would not end in disappointment.
She seemed to know his thoughts without his expressing them; and as she sat down, she bade Dorothy lay aside her cane and sit beside her. The injured foot had received the best of medical treatment since the child's arrival at Bellevieu and was now almost well, though some support had still to be used as a safeguard against strain.
"This is the child, Mr. Kidder. I think she has intelligence. A fine intelligence," began the lady, as if Dorothy had not ears to hear. Then feeling the girl's eyes raised inquiringly, added rather hastily: "It's on account of 'Johnnie,' you understand, Mr. Kidder. He was one of the most faithful persons I ever knew. That was why he was selected. Why I am going to take his little Dorothy C. back to him as fast as to-morrow's train will carry us. Have you learned anything?"
"Yes, Madam. I came prepared – but – " He paused again and glanced at the girl, whom her hostess promptly sent away. Then he proceeded:
"It is the same man I suspected in the beginning. He was a clerk in my office some years ago, at the time, indeed, when I first saw your ward. He listened at a keyhole and heard all arrangements made, but – did not see who was closeted with me and never learned your identity until recently. That is why you have escaped blackmail so long; and he is the author of the letters you sent me – unopened. He had his eye upon Dorothy C. for years, but could use her to no advantage till he traced – I don't yet know how, and it doesn't matter – the connection between yourself and the monthly letters. He has been in scrapes innumerable. I discharged him almost immediately after I hired him, and he has owed me a grudge ever since. But – he'll trouble Baltimore people no more. If he recovers from the dangerous illness he is suffering now he will be offered the choice of exile from the state or a residence in the prison. By the way, isn't it a case of poetic justice, that he should be thus innocently punished by the child he stole?"
"It is, indeed. As to the boy, James. 'Jim,' Dorothy calls him. He seems to be without friends, a fine, uncouth, most manly fellow, with an overpowering ambition 'to know things'! To see him look at a book, as if he adored it but dared not touch it, is enough – to make me long to throw it at him, almost! He is to be tested. I want to go slow with him. So many of my protégés have disappointed me. But, if he's worth it, I want to help him make a man of himself."
"The right word. Just the right, exact word, Madam. 'Help him to make a man of himself.' Because if he doesn't take a hand in the business himself, all the extraneous help in the world will be useless. Well, then I think we understand each other. I have all your latest advices in my safe, with duplicate copies in that of my son.
"You leave to-morrow? From Union Station? I wish you, Madam, a safe journey, a pleasant summer, and an early return. Good-morning."
On the very evening of Dorothy's arrival at Bellevieu, now some days past, she had begged so to "go home," and so failed to comprehend how her parents could have left it without her, that Mrs. Cecil sent for the plumber and his wife to come to her and to bring Mabel with them.
"Why, husband! I fair believe the world must be comin' to an end! Dorothy found, alive, and that rich woman the one to find her! Go! Course we'll go – right off."
Mr. Bruce was just as eager to pay the visit as his wife, but he prided himself on being a "free-born American" citizen and resented being ordered to the mansion, "on a Sunday just as if it were a work-day. If the lady has business with us, it's her place to come to Brown Street, herself."
"Fiddle-de-diddle-de-dee! Since when have we got so top-lofty?" demanded his better half with a laugh. "On with your best duds, man alive, and we'll be off! Why, I – I myself am all of a flutter, I can't wait! Do hurry an' step 'round to 77 an' get Mabel. She's been to supper with her aunt, an' Jane'll be wild to hear the news, too. Tell everybody you see on the block – Dorothy C. is found! Dorothy C. is found! An' whilst you're after Mabel, I'll just whisk Dorothy's clothes, 'at her mother left with me for her, into a satchel an' take 'em along. Stands to reason that folks wicked enough to steal a child wouldn't be decent enough to give her a change of clothing; and if she's wore one set ever sence she's been gone – My! I reckon Martha Chester'd fair squirm – just to think of it!"
Now, as has been stated, in his heart the honest plumber was fully as eager to see Dorothy C., as his wife was, and long before she had finished speaking he was on his way to number 77. It was such a lovely evening that all his neighbors were sitting out upon their doorsteps, in true Baltimore fashion, so it was easy as delightful to spread the tidings; and never, never, had the one-hundred-block of cleanly Brown Street risen in such an uproar. An uproar of joy that was almost hilarious; and all uninvited, everybody who had ever known Dorothy C. set off for Bellevieu, so that even before the Bruce-Jones party had arrived the lovely grounds were full to overflowing and the aristocratic silence of the place was broken by cries of:
"Dorothy! Dorothy Chester! Show us little Dorothy, and we'll believe our ears. Seeing is believing – Show us little Dorothy!"
These, and similar, outcries bombarded the hearing of Mrs. Cecil and, for a moment, frightened her. Glancing out of the window she beheld the throng and called to Ephraim:
"Boy! Telephone – the police! It's a riot of some sort! We're being mobbed!"
But Dinah knew better. She didn't yet understand why her mistress should bother with a couple of runaway young folks, but since she had done so it was her own part to share in that bother. So she promptly lifted the girl in her strong arms and carried her out to the broad piazza, so crowded with people in Sunday attire, and quietly explained to whomsoever would listen:
"Heah she is! Yas'm. Dis yere's de pos'man's li'l gal what's gone away wid de misery in his laigs. Yas'm. It sho'ly am. An' my Miss Betty, she's done foun' out how where he's gone at is right erjinin' ouah own prop'ty o' Deerhurst-on-de-Heights, where we-all's gwine in a right smart li'l while. Won't nottin' more bad happen dis li'l one, now my Miss Betty done got de care ob her. Yas'm, ladies an' gemplemen; an' so, bein's it Sunday, an' my folks mos' tuckered out, if you-all'd be so perlite as to go back to yo' housen an' done leab us res', we-all done be much obleeged. Yas'm. Good-bye."
Dinah's good-natured speech, added to the one glimpse of the rescued child, acted more powerfully than the police whom her mistress would have summoned; and soon the crowd drifted away, pausing only here and there to admire the beautiful grounds which, hitherto, most of these visitors had seen only from outside the gates.
But the Bruce family remained; and oh! the pride and importance which attached to them, thus distinguished! Or of that glad reunion with these old friends and neighbors, when Dorothy was once more in their arms, who could fitly tell? Then while Mabel and her restored playmate chattered of all that had happened to either since their parting, Mrs. Cecil drew the plumber aside and consulted him upon the very prosaic matter of clothes – clothes for now ill-clad Jim Barlow.
"I've decided to take him with us to New York State when we go, in a very few days. I shall employ him as a gardener on my property there, but he isn't fit to travel – as he's fixed now. Will you, at regular wages for your time, take him down town to-morrow morning and fit him out with suitable clothing, plain and serviceable but ample in quantity, and bring the bill to me? I'd rather you'd not let him out of your sight, for now that Dorothy is safe, the boy has ridiculous notions about his 'duty' to that dreadful old truck-farming woman who has let him work for her during several years at – nothing a year! And anybody who's so saturated with 'duty,' is just the man I want at Deerhurst, be he old or young."
To which the plumber answered:
"Indeed, Mrs. Cecil, I'm a proud man to be selected for the job and as to pay for my time – just you settle with me when I ask you for that. Pay? For such a neighborly turn? Well, I guess not. Not till I'm a good deal poorer than I am now. And if there's anything needed for Dorothy C., my wife'll tend to that, too, and be proud."
So with that matter settled, these good friends of the rescued children departed to their home and to what sleep they might find after so much delightful excitement.
Next day, too, because the doctor called in said that Dorothy must attempt no more walking until the end of the week, Mrs. Cecil had a pony cart sent for, and Ephraim with Dinah took the child upon a round of calls to all whom she had ever known in that friendly neighborhood. Mabel was invited to accompany her, and did so – the proudest little maiden in Baltimore. They even went to their school, and Miss Georgia left her class for full five minutes to go out and congratulate her late pupil upon this happy turn of affairs. But at number 77 Dorothy would not stop; would not even look. She felt she could not bear its changed condition, for underneath all this present joy her heart ached with longing for those beloved ones who had made that little house a home.
Also, now that it was drawing certainly near, it seemed as if the day of their reunion would never come; and when some time before, old Ephraim was sent on ahead with the horses and carriages, and the great heap of luggage which his lady found necessary to this annual removal, the child pleaded piteously to go with him.
"No, my dear, not yet. Two days more and you shall. You may count the hours. I sometimes think that helps time to pass, when one is impatient. They've been telegraphed to, have known all about you ever since Sunday night. They'll have time to make ready for you – and that's all. But, Brown Eyes, a 'penny for your thoughts!' What are they, pray, to make you look so serious?"
"I was thinking you're like a fairy godmother. You seem so able to do everything you want for everybody. I was wondering, too, what makes you so kind to – to me, after that day when I was saucy to you."
It came to the lady's mind to answer: "Darling, who could be aught but kind to you!" but flattery was not one of her failings and she had begun to fear that all the attention of these past days was turning her charge's head. So she merely suggested:
"I suppose I might be doing it for 'Johnnie.' I am very fond of him."
Thus Dorothy's vanity received a possibly needful snub; for a girl who was well treated because of her father couldn't be so much of a heroine after all!
The railway journey from Baltimore to New York was like a passage through fairyland to Dorothy C. and the farm-boy Jim. The wonders of their luxurious parlor-car surroundings kept them almost speechless with delight; but when at the latter great city they embarked upon a Hudson river steamer and they were free to roam about the palatial vessel, their tongues were loosened. Thereafter they talked so fast and so much that they hardly realized what was happening as Dinah called them to listen and obey the boat-officer's command:
"All ashore what's goin'! Aft' gangway fo' Cornwall! A-l-l – A-s-h-o-o-r-e!"
Over the gangplank, into the midst of a waiting crowd, and there was Ephraim with the carriage and the bays; and into the roomy vehicle bundled everybody, glad to be so near the end of that famous journey, and Dorothy quite unable to keep still for two consecutive moments.
"Up, up, up! How high we are going! Straight into the skies it seems!" cried the girl to Jim Barlow, whom nobody who had known him on the truck-farm would have recognized as the same lad, so neat and trim he now appeared.
But he had no words to answer. The wonderful upland country through which their course lay impressed him to silence, and the strength of those everlasting hills entered his ambitious soul – making him believe that to him who dared all high achievements were possible.
"Will – we never —never get there?" almost gasped Dorothy, in the breathless eagerness of these last few moments of separation from her loved ones. But Mrs. Cecil answered:
"Yes, my child. Round this turn of the road and behold! we are arrived! See, that big place yonder whose gates stand wide open is Deerhurst, my home, to which I hope you will often come. And, look this way – there is Skyrie! The little stone cottage on a rock, half-hidden in vines, empty for years, and now – Who is that upon its threshold? That man in the wheeled chair, risking his neck to hasten your meeting? Who that dainty little woman flying down the path to clasp you in her arms? Ah! Dorothy C.! Father and mother, indeed, they have proved to you and glad am I to restore you to them, safe and sound!"
Happy, happy Dorothy! At last, at last she was in the arms whose care had sheltered her through all her life; and there, for the time being, we must leave her. Of her life at Skyrie, of its haps and mishaps, of the mystery which still surrounded her birth and parentage, another book must tell.
Or how beautiful Mrs. Cecil, gay and satisfied as that veritable fairy godmother to which Dorothy had likened her, drove briskly home to Deerhurst and its accustomed stateliness, with humble Jim Barlow too grateful for speech, already beginning his new and richer life.
All these things and more belong with Dorothy Chester at Skyrie, and of them you shall hear by and by. Till then we leave her, well content.
