At Last Part 19

shaking her tartan turban with a portentous groan, her chin almost sc.r.a.ping the hearth, as she stooped to blow into the crater of fiery coals.

Mabel was too well versed in the customs of the race and cla.s.s to take alarm at the mysterious invocation. She watched the old woman's movements in a sort of pensive amus.e.m.e.nt at the recollection of an incident of her childhood, brought vividly to her mind by the servant's air and exclamation.

She was playing in the yard one day, when "Mammy" emerged from her cottage-door, and came toward her, with a batch of sweet cakes she had just baked for her nursling.

In crossing the gravel walk leading to the "house," she struck her toe against the brick facing of this, and the cakes flew in all directions.

"Good Lord! my poor toe and my poor chile's cakes!" was her vehement interjection; and as she bent to gather up the cookies, she grunted out the same adjuration, coupled with "my poor ole back!"--a negress' stock subject of complaint, let her be but twenty years old and as strong as an ox.

"Mammy!" said the privileged child, reprovingly, "I thought you were too good a Christian to break the commandments in that way. You shouldn't take the Lord's name in vain."

"Gracious! Sugar-pie! how you talk! Ef I don't call 'pon Him in time of trouble, who can I ask to help me?" was the confident reply.

With no thought of any more formidable cause of outcry than a cramp in the much-quoted spine, Mabel dreamed on sketchily and indolently, enjoying the sight of the once-familiar process of building a wood-fire, until the yellow serpents of flame crept, red-tongued through the interstices of the lower logs, and the larger and upper began to sing the low, drowsy tune, more suggestive of home-cheer and fireside comfort than the shrill, monotonous chirp of the famous cricket on the hearth.

The pipe-clayed bricks on which the andirons rested were next swept clean; the hearth-brush hung up on its nail, and the architect of the edifice stepped back with a satisfied nod.

"I have often wished for a glimpse of one of your beautiful fires, Mammy, since I have been in Albany," said Mabel, kindly. "Our rooms and halls are all heated by furnaces. An open fireplace would be a novelty to Northerners, and such a roaring, blazing pile of hard wood as that, be considered an unpardonable extravagance."

"Humph! I never did have no 'pinion of them people." Phillis tossed her turban and c.o.c.ked her prominent chin. "It's all make money, and save!

save! If I was 'lowed to go with you, I'll be bound I'd see you have sech things as you've been 'customed to. The new folks, them what comed from nothin' and nowhar, and made every dollar they can call their own with their own hands, don't know how to feel for and look after real ladies."

"You are wrong about that, if you mean that I have not every comfort I could ask. My house is warm in the bitterest weather, and far more handsomely furnished than this. And I have many kind friends. I like the Northern people, and so would you, if you knew them well."

"They send dreadful poor samples down this way, then," muttered Phillis, significantly. "And, some as pertends to be somebody is n.o.body, or wuss, ef the truth was known. Don't talk to me 'bout 'em, Miss Mabel, darling!

'Twas a mighty black day for us when one on 'em fust laid eyes upon Mars' Winston. You've hearn, ain't you, that my house is to be tore down, and I'm to go into the quarters 'long with the field hands and sich like common trash? So long as our skins is all the same color, some folks can't see no difference in us."

"I had not heard it. I am sorry."

Mabel spoke earnestly, for "Mammy's house," a neat frame cottage a story-and-a-half high, embowered in locust-trees, and with a thrifty, although aged garden--honeysuckle clambering all over the front, was to her one of the dearest pictures of her early days. She could see herself, now--the motherless babe whom Aunt Rachel and Mammy had never let feel her orphanage--sitting on the door-step, bedecking her doll with the odorous pink-and-white blossoms in summer time, and in autumn with the light-red berries.

"Why is that done?" she asked.

"I spiles the prospect, honey!" fiercely--ironical. "Northern folks has tender eyes, and I hurts 'em--me and my poor little house what ole marster built for me when Mars' Winston was a baby, and your blessed ma couldn't be easy 'thout I was near her--WE spiles the prospect! So, it must be knocked down and carted away for rubbish to build pig-pens, I 'spose, and me sent off to live 'mong low-lived n.i.g.g.e.rs, sech as I've always held myself above. She ain't never put it into Mars' Winston's head to cut down the trees that shets off the "prospect" of the colored people's burying-ground from her winder. There's some things she'd as lief not see. I oughtn't to mind this so much, I know, for I ain't got long for to stay here nohow, but I did hope to die in my nest!" sobbing behind her ap.r.o.n.

"I am very sorry--more grieved than you can think!" repeated Mabel. "If I could help you in any way, I would. But I cannot!"

"Bless your heart! Don't I know that, dear! Here, you ain't got no more power nor me. But I WAS a-thinkin' that maybe you wouldn't think me too old for a nuss when you come to want one, and could manage to take me with you when you went home. I'se a heap of wear in me yit, and there ain't nothing 'bout babies I don't understand."

Mabel colored painfully.

"If I had my way"--she began--then altered her plan of reply. "I could not enter into such an arrangement without consulting Mr. Dorrance, Mammy, and I am afraid he would not think as favorably of it as you and I do. He has been brought up with different ideas, you see."

"Um-HUM!"

An interjection capable of as many and as varied meanings in the mouth of a colored woman of her stamp as was little Jean Baptiste's "altro!"

It signified now--"I comprehend a great deal more than you want me to perceive--you poor, downtrodden angel!"

"Um-HUM. I always did say he was his sister's own brother--for all they don't look a bit alike. What's born into a man never comes out!"

"Mr. Dorrance is my husband, Mammy! I shall not let you speak disrespectfully of him. He does what he believes to be right and just,"

returned Mabel, sternly.

"I ain't a-goin' to arger that with you, my sugar-plum! You're right to stand up for him. I beg your pardon ef I've seemed sa.s.sy or hurt your feelin's. And I dar' say, there mayn't be nothin' wuss 'bout him nor his outside. And that don't matter so much, ef people's insides is clean and straight in the sight of the Lord. But HER outside is all that's decent about her, ef you'll listen to me--"

"You are forgetting yourself again!" said Mabel, unable to suppress a smile. "Mrs. Aylett is your mistress--"

The woman's queer behavior arrested the remonstrance. Stepping on tiptoe to the door she locked it, and approached her young mistress with an ostentatious attempt at treading lightly, shaking her head and pursing up her mouth in token of secrecy, while she fumbled in her bosom for something that seemed hard to get at. Drawing it forth at last she laid it in Mabel's lap--a small leather wallet, glossy with use, tattered at the corners, and tied up with a bit of dirty twine.

"What is this, and what am I to do with it?"

Mabel shrank from touching it, so foul and generally disreputable was its appearance.

"Keep both your ears open, dearie, and I'll tell you all I know!"

And with infinite prolixity and numerous digressions she recounted how, in removing the sodden clothing of the unknown man who had been picked up on the lawn on that memorable stormy Christmas night, more than a year before, this had slipped from an inner breast-pocket of the coat, "right into her hand." Not caring to disturb the doctor's examination of his patient, or to tempt the cupidity of her fellow-servants by starting the notion that there might be other valuables hidden in the articles they handled so carelessly, she had pocketed it, un.o.bserved by them, guessing that it would be of service at the inquest. Her purpose of producing it then was, according to her showing, reversed by Mrs. Aylett's stolen visit to the chamber and minute inspection of garments she would not have touched unless urged to the disagreeable task by some mighty consideration of duty, self-interest, or fear.

"'Then,' thinks I"--Phillis stated the various steps of her reasoning--"'you wouldn't take the trouble to pull over them nasty, muddy close, 'thout you expected to get some good out on 'em, or was afeard of somethin' or 'nother fallin' into somebody else's hands.'

Whichsomever this mought be,'twasn't my business to be gittin' up a row and a to-do before the crowner and all them gentlemen. 'Least said soonest mended,' says I to myself, and keeps mum about the whole thing--what I'd got, and what I'd seen. But when I come to think it all over arterward, I was skeered for true at what I'd done, and for fear Mars' Winston wouldn't like it. What reason could I give him for hidin'

of the pocketbook, ef I give it up to him? Ef I tole all the truth, SHE'D be mad as a March hare, and like as not face me down that all I had said was a dream or a lie, or that I was drunk that night and couldn't see straight. I'd hearn her tell too many fibs with a smooth tongue and a sweet smile not to be sure of that! So, all I should git for my care of the repertation of my fam'ly would be her ill-will, and to be 'cused by other people of stealin', and for the rest of my days she'd do all she could to spite me. For I'm sure as I stand here, Miss Mabel, that she knew, or thought she knew, somethin' 'bout that poor, despisable wretch that died up in the garret. What else brought him a-spyin' 'round here, and what was there to make her faint when she ketched sight of him a-lookin' in at her through the winder? and what COULD a sent her upstars when everybody else was asleep, fur to haul his close about, and poke them fine white fingers of hern into his pockets, and pull his WHISKERY face over to the light so's to see it better?

Depend 'pon it, there's a bad story at the bottom of this somewhere.

I've hearn of many a sich that came of gentlemens' marrying forringers what n.o.body knowed anything about. Anyhow, I want you to take keer of this 'ere pocketbook. Ef I was to die all of a suddent, and 'twas found 'mong my things, some mischief mought be hatched out on it. It's safer in your hands nor it is in mine. Now, I'll jest light your lamp, and you can 'xamine it, and pitch it into the fire, ef you like, when you're through."

In a cooler moment Mabel would have hesitated to obey the advice of an ignorant, prejudiced person, her inferior in station and intelligence.

But in the whirl of astonishment, incredulity, and speculation created by the tale she had heard, she untied the string which formed the primitive fastening of the worn wallet, and unclosed it.

The main compartment contained four tickets, issued by as many different p.a.w.nbrokers, testifying that such and such articles had been deposited with them for and in consideration of moneys advanced by them to Thomas Lindsay; a liquor-seller's score against William Jones--unpaid; and a tavern bill, in which brandy and water, whiskey and mint-juleps, were the princ.i.p.al items charged against Edmund Jackson. This last was the only paper which bore the indors.e.m.e.nt "Rec'd payment," and this circ.u.mstance had, probably, led to its preservation. The adjoining division of the wallet was sewed up with stout black thread and Mabel had to resort to her scissors before she could get at its contents.

These were a couple of worn envelopes, crumpled and dog-eared, and stained with liquor or salt water, but still bearing the address, in a feminine hand, of "Lieutenant Julius Lennox, U. S. N." In addition to this, one was directed to Havana, Cuba; the other to Calcutta, in care, of a mercantile or banking-house at each place. A third cover bore the superscription, "CERTIFICATE," in bold characters.

The negress' watchful eyes dilated with greedy expectancy at Mrs.

Dorrance's ghastly face when this last had been examined, but she was foiled if she hoped for any valuable addition to her store of information, or anything resembling elucidation of her pet mystery.

"It will take me some time to read all these," remarked Mabel, still scanning the half-sheet she held. "You had better not wait, Mammy. They are safe with me. No one else shall see them, and no harm can come to you through them."

She promised mechanically what she supposed would soonest buy for her privacy and needed quiet, and gave no heed to the manifest disappointment of her visitor.

When she was at last alone, Mrs. Dorrance relocked the door, and bent close to the lamp, as if more light upon the surface of the doc.u.ment would tend to clear up the terrible secret thus strangely committed to her discretion and mercy. The paper was a certificate, drawn up in regular form, and signed by a clergyman, whose address was appended below, in a different hand writing--of a marriage between Julius Lennox and Clara Louise Dorrance.

"Her very name!" repeated the whitening lips. "I remember asking her once what the 'L' in her signature stood for."

But while she said it, there was a look in the reader's eye that bespoke inability or reluctance to grapple with the revelation threatened by the discovery.

"The letters may tell me more!" she added, in the same frightened whisper, refolding the certificate.

They did--for they were in the long, sloping chirography of her sister-in-law, and signed "Your ever-fond, but lonely wife." Each contained, moreover, allusions to "Ellis," to "Clermont," to "Julia,"

and to "Herbert"--all family names in the Dorrance connection; spoke gratefully of her parents' kindness to his "poor Louise" in the absence of "her beloved Julius;" and was liberally spiced with pa.s.sionate protestations of her inconsolableness and yearnings for his return. Both were dated ten years back, and the paper was yellow with time, besides being creased and thumbed as by many readings.

"What am I to do?" thought Mabel, sinking into her chair, trembling all over with terror and incert.i.tude.

If there were one sentiment in Winston Aylett's heart that equalled his haughtiness, it was love for his wife. But could it be that he had totally forgotten pride and his habitual caution in the selection of the woman who was to be the partner of his home, fortune, and reputation--possibly the mother of children who were to perpetuate the n.o.ble name he bore? By what miracle of unrighteous craft, what subornation of witnesses, what concealments, what barefaced and unscrupulous falsehoods had this adventuress been imposed upon him as unmarried, when the evidence of her former wedlock was held by a low stroller--a drunken wretch who might betray it in an unguarded or insane hour, and who, judging from his exterior, would not be averse to publis.h.i.+ng or selling the information if he could make more money by doing this than by preserving the secret. And how came he by these papers?