The Debtor Part 31

"Prospering like the wicked in the psalms. There was one respect in which you showed will and self-control, Arthur--that you didn't shoot him!"

"I was a fool," said Carroll.

"He wasn't worth hanging for," said the major, shortly.

"I'd hang five times over if I could get even with him," said Carroll.

"I don't wonder you feel so."

"Feel so! You asked me just now how I stood this sort of life. I believe my hate for that man keeps me up like a stimulant. I believe it keeps me up when I see other poor devils that I--"

Suddenly Arms reached out his hand and grasped Carroll's. "Good G.o.d!

old fellow, I'm sorry for you!" he said. "You are too good for the dogs."

"Yes, I know I am," said Carroll, calmly.

The two men returned to the house and sat on the porch with the ladies. About half-past ten Anna Carroll said good-night, then Mrs.

Carroll. Then Charlotte rose, and Ina also followed her up-stairs.

"Ina," cried Charlotte, in a sort of angry embarra.s.sment, when they had reached her chamber, "you've got to go back; indeed you have."

"I suppose I ought." Ina was blus.h.i.+ng furiously, her lip quivered.

She was twisting a ring on her engagement-finger.

"You have even kept the stone side in, so n.o.body could see that beautiful ring he brought you. You are mean--mean!" said Charlotte.

"You just imagine that," said Ina, feebly. As she spoke she held up her hand, and a great diamond flashed rose and green and white.

"No, I don't imagine it. I have not seen it once like that. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You must go straight back down-stairs.

People when they are engaged always sit up alone together. You are not doing right coming up here with me."

"What are you scolding me for? Who said I was not going back?"

returned Ina, with resentful shame.

"You know you were not."

"I was."

"Well, good-night, honey," said Charlotte, in a softer tone.

"Good-night."

Charlotte kissed her sister, and saw her leave the room and go down to her lover with a curious mixture of pity and awe and wrath and wistful affection. It almost seemed to her that Ina was happy, although afraid and ashamed to be, and it made her seem like a stranger to the maiden ignorance of her own heart.

Chapter XVII

There was a good deal of talk in Banbridge when Ina Carroll's wedding-invitations were out. There were not many issued. When it came to making out the list, the number of persons who, from what the family considered as a reasonable point of view, were possible, was exceedingly small.

"Of course we cannot ask such and such a one," Mrs. Carroll would say, and the others would acquiesce simply, with no thought of the possibility of anything else.

"There's that young man who goes on the train every morning with papa," said Charlotte. "His name is Veazie--Francis Veazie. He has called here. They live on Elm Street. His father is that nice-looking old gentleman who walks past here every day, on his way to the mail, a little lame."

"Charlotte, dear," said Ina, "don't you remember that somebody told us that that young man was a floor-walker in one of the department stores?"

"Oh, sure enough," said Charlotte, "I do remember, dear."

"There are really very few indeed in a place like Banbridge whom it is possible to invite to a wedding," said Mrs. Carroll.

Banbridge itself shared her opinion. Those who were bidden to the wedding acquiesced in their selectedness and worthiness; those who were not bidden, with a very few exceptions of unduly aspiring souls, acquiesced calmly in their own ineligibility. Banbridge, for a village in the heart of a republic, had a curious rigidity of establishment and content as to its social conditions. For the most part those who were not invited would have been embarra.s.sed and even suspicious at receiving invitations. But they talked. In that they showed their inalienable republican freedom. They moved along as unquestioningly as European peasants, in their grooves, but their tongues soared. In speech, as is the way with an American, they held nothing sacred, not even the inst.i.tutions which they propped, not even themselves. They might remain unquestioningly, even preferredly, outside the doors of superiority, but out there they raised a clamor of self-a.s.sertion. Their tongues wagged with prodigious activity utterly unleashed. In the days before Ina Carroll's wedding all Banbridge seethed and boiled like a pot with gossip, and gossip full of malice and sneer, and a good deal of righteous indignation.

Anderson heard much of it. Neither he nor his mother was asked to the wedding. The Carrolls had not even considered the possibility of such a thing. Mrs. Anderson spoke of it one evening at tea.

"I hear they are going to have quite a wedding at those new people's," said she; "a wedding in the church, and reception afterwards at the house. Miss Josie Eggleston and Agnes and Mrs.

Monroe were in here this afternoon, and they were speaking about it.

They said the young lady was having her trousseau made at Mrs.

Griggs's, and everybody thought it rather singular. They are going to the wedding and reception. They inquired if we were going, and I said that we had not been invited, that we had not called. I have been intending to call ever since they came, but now, of course, it is out of the question until after the wedding." Mrs. Anderson spoke with a slight regret. A mild curiosity was a marked trait of hers. "I suppose we could go to the church even if we had no invitation; I suppose many will do that," she said, a little wistfully, after a pause.

"Do you think it wise, without an invitation?" asked Anderson, rather amusedly.

"Why, I don't know, really, dear, that it could do any harm--that is, lower one's dignity at all. Of course it is not as if we had called.

If we had called and then received no invitation, the slight would have been marked. But of course we were not invited simply because we had not called--"

"Still, I think I should rather not go, under the circ.u.mstances, mother," Anderson said, quietly.

"Well, perhaps you are right, dear," said his mother. "It seems to me that you may be a trifle too punctilious; still, it is best to err on the safe side, and, after all, these are new people; we know very little about them, after all." Nothing was further from Mrs. Anderson than the surmise that, even had she called, no invitation would have come from these unknown new people to the village grocer and his mother. Mrs. Anderson, even with her secret and persistent dissent to her son's giving up his profession and adopting trade, never dreamed of any possible loss of social prestige. She considered herself and her son established in their family traditions beyond possibility of shaking by such minor matters. Anderson did not enlighten her.

"Mrs. Monroe said that she had heard that the Carrolls were owing a good deal," said she, presently. "She said she heard that Blumenfeldt said he must have cash for the flowers for the decorations. They have ordered a great many palms and things. She said she heard that Captain Carroll told him that the money would be forthcoming, and scared him out of his wits, he was so high and mighty, and the florist just gave right in and said he should have all he wanted. She said Mr. Monroe was in there and heard it. I hope Mrs. Griggs will get her pay. They don't owe you, I hope, dear?"

"Don't worry about me, mother?" Randolph replied, smiling. However, she had placed a finger upon a daily perplexity of his. The Carrolls indeed owed him, and every day the debt was increasing. He felt that his old clerk regarded him with wonder at every fresh entry on the books. That very day he had come into the office to inform him, in a hushed voice, that the Carrolls had sent for a pail of lard and a box of b.u.t.ter, besides a bag of flour, and to inquire what he should do about supplying them.

"The girl hasn't brought any money," said he, further, in an ominous whisper.

Anderson, glancing out, saw the small, st.u.r.dy, and smiling face of the Hungarian girl employed by the Carrolls. She was gazing straight through at him in the office with a shrewd expression in her untutored black eyes. "Send the order," Anderson replied, in a low voice.

"But," began the clerk.

"It's all right," said Anderson. He dipped his pen in the ink and went on with the letter he was writing. The clerk retreated with a long, anxious, wondering look, which the other man felt.

The Hungarian girl plodded smiling forth with the promise to have the groceries sent at once. Stepping flat-footedly and heavily through the door, she caught her cotton skirt on a nail, and, lo! a rent. The boy, who was a gallant soul for all femininity in need, hurried to her aid with some pins gathered from the lapel of his gingham coat.

Little Marie, with a coquettish shake of her head and a blush and smile began repairing the damage.

"It is the cloth that is easy broke," explained she, when she lifted her suffused but still smiling face, "and I a new one will have when I haf my money, my vage." With that Marie was gone, her poor gown scalloping around her heavy, backward heels, her smiling glance of artless coquetry over her shoulder to the last, and the boy and the old clerk looked at each other. The boy whistled.

Just then the delivery-wagon drove up in front of the store. The driver, who was a young fellow in the first stages of pulmonary consumption, got down with weakly alacrity from the seat and came in to get the new orders. He coughed as he entered, but he looked radiant. He was driving the delivery-wagon in the hope of recovering his health by out-of-door life, and he was, or flattered himself that he was, perceptibly gaining.

"Where's the next delivery?" he inquired, hoa.r.s.ely.