"Well; I guess she"s too old to play with;" David consoled himself; "she"s nineteen."
"I must speak to Maggie about the dinner," Helena said dully. But when she talked to the woman, interest came back again; this time he should not complain of his food! Maggie smiled indulgently at her excitement,
"My, Mrs. Richie, I don"t believe no wife could take as good care of Mr. Pryor--and you just his sister!"
For the rest of that glowing afternoon, Helena was very happy. She almost forgot that uncomfortable scene with Sam Wright. She talked eagerly of Mr. Pryor to David, quite indifferent to the child"s lack of interest. She had many anxious thoughts about what she should wear.
If it was a very hot day, how would her white dimity do? Or the thin sprigged blue and white? it was so pretty--bunches of blue flowers on a cross-barred muslin, and made with three flounces and a bertha. She was wandering about the garden just before tea, trying to decide this point, when David came to say that a gentleman wanted to see her.
David did not know his name;--he was the old tangled gentleman who lived in the big house on the hill.
"_Oh!_" Helena said; she caught her lip between her teeth, and looked at David with frightened eyes. The child was instantly alert.
"I"ll run and tell him to go home," he said protectingly.
But she shook her head. "I"ve got to see him--oh, David!"
The little boy took hold of her skirt, rea.s.suringly; "I"ll not let him hurt you," he said. She hardly noticed that he kept close beside her all the way to the house.
Mr. Benjamin Wright was sitting on the lowest step of the front porch.
His trembling head was sunk forward on his breast; he did not lift it at her step, but peered up from under the brim of his dusty beaver hat; then seeing who it was, he rose, pushing himself up by gripping at the step behind him and clutching his cane first in one hand, then in the other. His face like old ivory chiselled into superb lines of melancholy power, was pallid with fatigue. On his feet, with exaggerated politeness, he took off his hat with a sweeping bow.
"Madam, your very obedient!"
"Good afternoon," she said breathlessly.
Benjamin Wright, tottering a little, changed his cane from his left to his right hand, and chewed orange-skin fiercely. "I have called, madam--"
But she interrupted him. "Won"t you come in and sit down, sir? And pray allow me to get you a gla.s.s of wine."
"Come in? No, madam, no. We are simple rustics here in Old Chester; we must not presume to intrude upon a lady of such fashion as you. I fear that some of us have already presumed too much"--he paused for breath, but lifted one veined old hand to check her protest--"too much, I say!
Far too much! I come, madam, to apologize, and to tell you--" Again he stopped, panting; "to tell you that I insist that you forbid further intrusion--at least on the part of my grandson."
"But," she said, the color hot in her face, "he does not intrude. I don"t know what you mean. I--"
"Oh, madam, you are too kind, I am sure you know what I mean; it is your excessive kindness that permits the visits of a foolish boy-- wearying, I am sure, to a lady so accustomed to the world. I will ask you to forbid those visits. Do you hear me?" he cried shrilly, pounding the gravel with his cane. "Gad-a-mercy! Do you hear me? You will forbid his visits!"
"You are not very polite, Mr. Old Gentleman," said David thoughtfully.
"David!" Helena protested.
Benjamin Wright, looking down at the little figure planted in front of her, seemed to see him for the first time.
"Who is this! Your child?"
"A little boy who is visiting me," she said. "David, run away."
Benjamin Wright made a sneering gesture. "No, no; don"t dismiss him on my account. But that a child should visit you is rather remarkable. I should think his parents--"
"Hush!" she broke in violently, "Go, David, go!"
As the child went sulkily back to the garden, she turned upon her visitor. "How dare you! Dr. Lavendar brought him to me; I will not hear another word! And--and I don"t know what you mean, anyhow. You are a cruel old man; what have I ever done to you? I have never asked your grandson to come here. I don"t want him. I have told him so. And I never asked you!"
Benjamin Wright cackled. "No; I have not been so far honored. I admit that. You have kept us all at arm"s length,--except my boy." Then, bending his fierce brows on her, he added, "But what does Lavendar mean by sending a child--to you? What"s he thinking of? Except, of course, he never had any sense. Old Chester is indeed a foolish place.
Well, madam, you will, I know, _protect yourself,_ by forbidding my grandson to further inflict his company upon you? And I will remove my own company, which is doubtless tiresome to you."
He bowed again with contemptuous ceremony, and turned away.
The color had dropped out of Helena"s face; she was trembling very much. With a confused impulse she called to him, and even ran after him for a few steps down the path. He turned and waited for her. She came up to him, her breath broken with haste and fear.
"Mr. Wright, you won"t--" Her face trembled with dismay. In her fright she put her hand on his arm and shook it; "you won"t--?"
As he looked into her stricken eyes, his own suddenly softened. "Why-- "he said, and paused; then struck the ground with his stick sharply.
"There, there; I understand. You think I"ll tell? Gad-a-mercy, madam, I am a gentleman. And my boy Sam doesn"t interest you? Yes, yes; I see that now. Why, perhaps I"ve been a trifle harsh? I shall say nothing to Lavendar, or anybody else."
She put her hands over her face, and he heard a broken sound.
Instantly he reddened to his ears.
"Come! Come! You haven"t thought me harsh, have you? Why, you poor- _bird!_ It was only on my boy"s account. You and I understand each other--I am a man of the world. But with Sam, it"s different, now, isn"t it? You see that? He"s in love with you, the young fool! A great nuisance to you, of course. And I thought you might--but I ask your pardon! I see that you wouldn"t think of such a thing. My dear young lady, I make you my apologies." He put his hand out and patted her shoulder; "Poor bird!" he said. But she shivered away from his touch, and after a hesitating moment he went shuffling down the path by himself.
On the way home he sniffled audibly; and when he reached the entrance to his own place he stopped, tucked his stick under his arm, and blew his nose with a sonorous sound. As he stuffed his handkerchief back into his pocket, he saw his grandson lounging against the gate, evidently waiting for him... The dilapidation of the Wright place was especially obvious here at the entrance. The white paint on the two square wooden columns of the gateway had peeled and flaked, and the columns themselves had rotted at the base into broken fangs, and hung loosely upon their inner-posts; one of them sagged sidewise from the weight of the open gate which had long ago settled down into the burdocks and wild parsley that bordered the weedy driveway. What with the canaries, and the cooking, and the slovenly housework, poor old Simmons had no time for such matters as repairing or weeding.
Sam, leaning on the gate, watched his grandfather"s toiling progress up the hill. His face was dull, and when he spoke all the youth seemed to have dropped out of his voice.
"Grandfather," he said, when Mr. Wright was within speaking distance, "I want to go away from Old Chester. Will you give me some money, sir?"
Benjamin Wright, his feet wide apart, and both hands gripping the top of his stick, came to a panting standstill and gaped at him. He did not quite take the boy"s words in; then, as he grasped the idea that Sam was agreeing to the suggestion which he had himself made more than a month before, he burst out furiously. "Why the devil didn"t you say so, _yesterday?_ Why did you let me--you young jacka.s.s!"
Sam looked at him in faint surprise. Then he proceeded to explain himself: "Of course, father won"t give me any money. And I haven"t got any myself--except about twelve dollars. And you were kind enough, sir, to say that you would help me to go and see if I could get a publisher for the drama. I would like to go to-morrow, if you please."
"Go?" said Benjamin Wright, scowling and chewing orange-skin rapidly, "the sooner the better! I"m glad to get rid of you. But, confound you!
why didn"t you tell me so yesterday? Then I needn"t have--Well, how much money do you want? Have you told your--your mother that you are going? Come on up to the house, and I"ll give you a check. But why didn"t you make up your mind to this yesterday?" Snarling and snapping, and then falling into silence, he began to trudge up the driveway to his old house.
Sam said briefly that he didn"t know how much money he wanted, and that he had not as yet told his family of his purpose. "I"ll tell mother to-night," he said. Then he, too, was silent, his young step falling in with his grandfather"s shuffling gait.
When Mr. Wright left her, Helena stood staring after him, sobbing under her breath. She was terrified, but almost instantly she began to be angry....
That old man, creeping away along the road, had told her that he would not betray her; but his knowledge was a menace, and his surprise that she should have David, an insult! Of course, her way of living was considered "wrong" by people who cannot understand such situations-- old-fashioned, narrow-minded people. But the idea of any harm coming to David by it was ridiculous! As for Sam Wright, all that sort of thing was impossible, because it was repugnant. No married woman, "respectable," as such women call themselves, could have found the boy"s love-making more repugnant than she did. And certainly her conduct in Old Chester was absolutely irreproachable: she went to church fairly often; she gave liberally to all the good causes of the village; she was kind to her servants, and courteous to these stupid Old Chester people. And yet, simply because she had been forced by Frederick"s cruelty into a temporary unconventionality, this dingy, grimy old man despised her! "He looked at me as if I were--I don"t know what!"
Anger swept the color up into her face, her hands clenched, and she ground her heel down into the path as if she were grinding the insolent smile from his cruel old face. Horrible old man! Dirty, tremulous; with mumbling jaws chewing constantly; with untidy white hairs p.r.i.c.king out from under his brown wig; with shaking, shrivelled hands and blackened nails; this old man had fixed his melancholy eyes upon her with an amused leer. He pretended, if you please! to think that she was unworthy of his precious grandson"s company--unworthy of David"s little handclasp. She would leave this impudent Old Chester!
She would tell Lloyd so, as soon as he came. She would not endure the insults of these narrow-minded fools.
"Hideous! Hideous old wretch!" she said aloud furiously, between shut teeth. "How dared he look at me like that, as if I were--Beast! I hate--I hate--I _hate_ him." Her anger was so uncontrollable that for a moment she could not breathe. It was like a whirlwind, wrenching and tearing her from the soil of contentment into which for so many years her vanity and selfishness had struck their roots.
_"But the Lord was not in the wind."_
CHAPTER XVIII