"Huh! Say, what"s you name?"
"My name is Bostwick," was the composed reply. "You did not mention yours, did you?"
"_Bostwick?_"
"They call me Ida May Bostwick," said Sheila, demurely smiling, and even then without a suspicion of the vortex into which she was being drawn.
"_Ida May Bostwick!_"
The visitor rose out of her seat as though a spring had been released under her. Her eyes flattened, distended, and sparked like micaceous rock in the dark. Her hands clenched till the pointed, highly polished nails bit into the palms.
"What do you say? _You_ are Ida May Bostwick?"
At that moment Sheila Macklin saw the light. It smote upon her brain like a shaft from a great searchlight; a penetrating, cleaving beam that might have laid bare her very soul before the accusing stranger. She staggered, retreating, shrinking, but only for a moment.
The pallor that had come into her face left it. Color rose softly under the exquisite skin and there came a haughty uplift of her chin. She stared back into the blazing, greenish-brown eyes of the other, her own eyes unafraid, challenging.
"Do you doubt me?" she demanded, with as much composure as though a secure position and a conscience quite at ease were hers. "Who are you? In what way are you interested in my name or in my ident.i.ty?"
"Why, you--you--" The visitor was for the moment stricken speechless. But it was the speechlessness of rage--of wild and uncontrollable fury. Then she caught her breath. "You dirty cheat, you! You stand there and tell me you are Ida Bostwick? You"ve got gall--you certainly _have_ got gall!
"I"d like to know who the devil you are? Comin" right here, wormin"
your way into a place that don"t belong to you, gettin" on the soft side of my aunt an" uncle, I s"pose, and thinkin" to grab all they got when they die. Oh, I know _your_ kind, miss!
"But I"ll show you up. I"ll let "em know what"s what and who"s who.
They must be precious soft to take a girl like you in and think she"s Ida Bostwick. How _dare_ you?"
She stamped her foot. She advanced upon the other threateningly. But the girl she had accused did not retreat. The flush of outrage and that haughty expression were still upon her countenance. She spoke very firmly but in a voice so low that it contrasted the more sharply with the enraged squall of her opponent. She asked:
"Who are _you_, if you please?"
"You"ve cheek to ask me. I"d ought to spit on you, so I had! But I"ll tell you who I am--and it"ll hold you for a while, I guess. I am Ida May Bostwick. You know full and well you are makin" out to these rich relations of mine that you are me. I"ll show you up, miss! I"ll have you whipped--or jailed--or something. The gall of you!"
The other girl heard her with unchanging face. Somehow, that steady, unshrinking look gave Ida May Bostwick pause. It was she who recoiled.
CHAPTER XX
THE LIE
The girl who had seized upon the chance of becoming Ida May Bostwick, and so escaping the horror and despair that enshrouded Sheila Macklin like a filthy mantle, stood after the first blast as firm as a rock under the torrent of vituperation and rage which poured from the other girl"s lips.
The real Ida May--weak, save in venomous hate, unstable as water, as shallow as a pool of gla.s.s--could have joined issue in a hair-pulling, face-scratching brawl. She was of that breed and up-bringing.
Sheila Macklin"s very dignity held Ida May Bostwick at arm"s length.
With all right and t.i.tle to the name and place Sheila had usurped, the new arrival was awed by the impostor"s look. Following that first--and merely instantaneous--expression of horrified surprise at Ida May"s announcement of her ident.i.ty, this girl, who was so secure in the confidence of the b.a.l.l.s and the community, proceeded to look down at the claimant of her achieved position with utter calmness.
It made the real Ida May almost afraid. Certain as she was of her own name and the a.s.sertion of her own personality, the bold and unshaken opposition confronting her in the very look of the impostor abashed Ida May Bostwick. After her first outbreak she was silenced.
"Do you really know what you are saying?" the girl in possession asked. "Are you aware that I am Ida May Bostwick? There certainly cannot be two girls of the same name, both related to Mrs. Prudence Ball. That is too ridiculous."
The other gasped. Though red and white by turn, from impotence and rage, her fury was quelled under the look of the more composed young woman.
"There are twenty people almost within call who know me and who can swear to my name and my a.s.sertions that I am Miss Bostwick," went on Sheila, with a calmness which both frightened and daunted the other.
"Just why you should come here and make such a preposterous claim I cannot understand. Where do you come from? Who are you--really?"
Ida May stared, flaccid, helpless. For the time being all her rage, her rudeness, her amazement, even, drained out of her. For this impostor to face her down in this way; for her to claim Ida May"s name and ident.i.ty with such utter calm--such sangfroid; for Sheila to stand before her and deliberately declare that what Ida May had known to be her own all her life long--her name and distinctive character--was actually another"s--all this was so monstrous a thing that Ida May was stunned.
Suppose--suppose something had really happened to her mind? People did go mad, Ida May had heard. She had rather a vague idea as to what insanity was like, but she felt her mind slipping.
The sure and unafraid expression of the other girl"s countenance gave Ida May no help at all. She was sure that her opponent had not lost her mind. She was just a wicked, bad, horrid girl who had somehow got something that belonged to Ida May Bostwick, and meant to keep it if she could.
Self-pity filled the visitor"s mind in place of the fury she had expended in her first outburst. She dared not attack the other with tooth and nail, for she saw now that this girl was as much her superior in physical strength as she was in strength of character.
Therefore, Ida May fell back upon tears. She blubbered right heartily, and, being really weary after her walk from the port, she fell back into the spring rocker, which squeaked almost as protestingly as she did, put her beringed hands before her face, and gave herself to grief.
Sheila Macklin"s expression did not change. She revealed no sympathy for Ida May Bostwick. If she felt sympathy, it was for that girl who had been persecuted, unfairly accused of stealing, sent to a place worse than prison, afterward branded with the stigma of "jailbird"; that girl whom Tunis Latham had befriended, had rescued from a situation which she could not think of now without a feeling of creeping horror.
Was she going to give over without a fight to this new claimant a place which had been and still was her only refuge? It could not be expected that she would do this. She had had no warning of this catastrophe. There had been no opportunity to prepare for a situation which must have shocked her terribly in any case. But if she had only had time--
Time? Time for what? To run away? Or to prepare the b.a.l.l.s, for instance, for the coming of this new claimant? And who knew this girl who said she was Ida May Bostwick? Sheila Macklin was fully aware of the history of Sarah Honey, of her marriage which had quite cut her off from her Cape Cod friends, and of the little that was known at Big Wreck Cove about her daughter, who, since babyhood, had never been seen here.
How was one to be sure if this were really the right Ida May? If one girl could make the claim and carry it through so easily, why not another? How could this girl, crying in the rocking-chair, prove her statement that she was Mrs. Ball"s niece?
These thoughts seethed in Sheila Macklin"s brain. She must keep cool! She must hold herself down, keep control of her own mind, and keep the whip hand of this girl before her.
And, then, there was Tunis to think of. The appearance of the real Ida May Bostwick wrecked all her happiness, of course, with Tunis.
Sheila could not let him continue his a.s.sociation with her. Yet what course should she pursue to save him? That suddenly became the first consideration in Sheila Macklin"s mind.
How to do this? How to save Tunis from being overwhelmed by the result of his own ill-considered deed? Impulse and love on Tunis Latham"s part had brought about this terrible situation. Not that the girl blamed him in the least. Her thought was to protect the captain of the _Seamew_ from being sucked into the whirlpool which she clearly beheld beside her path.
Save Tunis! It must be done. This little, inconsequential, weak-minded, loose-lipped girl must not be allowed to wreck Tunis Latham"s life. If people came to accept as true the tale the girl could relate, Tunis" reputation would be smirched utterly in the opinion of all Big Wreck Cove folk.
Much as Sheila Macklin felt that her own happiness with Tunis was now impossible--a flash of Aunt Lucretia made this realization the more poignant--he must be sheltered from any folly regarding this thing. She knew well his impulsive, generous nature. Who had a fuller knowledge of it than she?
She must think and act for herself, without any conference with Tunis. But she must do the only thing, after all, that would balk this wretched girl from the city--for a time, at least.
The real Ida May Bostwick had no friends here and no acquaintances among the people of Big Wreck Cove. It would be no easy matter for her to establish either credit or the fact of her ident.i.ty in the community. It would take time and perhaps be very difficult for Ida May to bring forward conclusive evidence that would convince the b.a.l.l.s, or anybody else, of her real personality and prove that the girl in possession was an impostor.
All the latter had to do was to maintain her already-accepted standing, deny the true Ida May"s claim, and demand that the latter show proof of her apparently preposterous statement. At least, some considerable delay must ensue through Sheila"s course before the girl could convince anybody that she only claimed what was her own.
Nor need the battle end there. Ida May Bostwick might find it very difficult to prove to the satisfaction of all concerned that she was the actual niece of Prudence Ball. The very fact that Tunis had brought Sheila and introduced her as the girl he had been sent for was proof so strong that it could not be lightly denied.
That phase of the matter--that Tunis was as deep in the conspiracy as she was herself--made Sheila Macklin desperate. She grasped at this only salvation--straw as it was!--for his sake more than for her own.