The Scarlet Feather Part 7

"What, another?"

"Yes. It'll pay, won't it, to get fifty dollars a year more, and save me two hundred on the outdoor staff, eh?"

The woman made no answer, but crossed the room softly, and closed the door. When she was on the other side of it, she shook her fist at him.

"You old wretch! If I had my way, I'd smother you. You spoil your own life, and you're spoiling my man. He won't be fit to live with soon."

The sunlight streamed into the bedroom, and Herresford, drawing the curtains of his ebony bedstead, lay blinking in their shadow, looking out over his garden, and noting every beauty with the keen pleasure of an ardent lover of horticulture--his only hobby. As advancing age laid its finger more heavily upon him, he had become increasingly irritable and impossible. Every human instinct seemed to have shriveled up and died--all save the love of money and his pa.s.sion for flowers. His withered old lips almost smiled as he moved the field-gla.s.ses slowly, bringing into range the magnificent stretch of soft turf, with its patchwork of vivid color.

The face of the old man on the bed changed as he clutched the field-gla.s.ses and brought them in nervous haste to his eyes, and a muttered oath escaped him. A woman had come through one of the archways in the hedge that surrounded the herb garden. She walked slowly, every now and then breaking off a flower. As she tugged at a trail of late roses, sending their petals in a crimson stream upon the turf, Herresford dragged himself higher upon the pillows, his lips working in anger, and his fingers clawing irritably at the coverlet.

"Leave them alone, leave them alone!" he cried. "How dare she touch my flowers! I'll have her shut out of the place, daughter or no daughter.

What does she want here? Begging again, I suppose. The only bond between us--money. And she sha'n't have any. I'll be firm about it."

He was still muttering when Mrs. Swinton came into the room, bringing with her the sheaf of blossoms she had gathered as she came along.

"Who gave you permission to pick my flowers?" the old man snarled, taking no notice of her greeting. "I allow no one to rob my garden. You are not to take those flowers home with you--do you understand? They belong to me."

The daughter did not reply. She walked across the room very slowly, and rang the bell, waiting until a maid appeared.

"Take these flowers to Mrs. Ripon, and tell her to have them arranged and brought to Mr. Herresford's room. And now," she added, as the girl closed the door behind her, "we must have a little talk, my dear father. I want some money--in brief, I must have some. d.i.c.k is going, and his kit must be got ready at once. I must have a thousand dollars."

"Must, must, must! I don't know the meaning of the word. You come here dunning me for money as though I were made of it. Do you know what you and your husband have cost me? I tell you I have no money for you, and I won't be intruded upon in this way. Your visits are an annoyance, madam, and they'd better cease."

"Yes, I know, I know. And I should not have come here to-day unless our need had been great. My dear father, you simply must come to my aid. We haven't a hundred dollars, and d.i.c.k's honor is pledged. He must go to the war, and he must have the money to go with. If I could go to anybody else and borrow it, I would; but there is no one. If you will let me have a check for the amount, I will promise that you hear nothing more of me--as long as you like. Come, father, shall I write out a check? You played a jest with me the other day, and only gave me two dollars."

Herresford lay with his eyes closed and his lips tightly pressed together. He hated these encounters with his daughter, for she generally succeeded in getting something out of him; but he was determined she should have nothing this morning. He took refuge in silence, his only effectual weapon so far as Mrs. Swinton was concerned.

"Well?" she queried, after waiting for some minutes, and turning from the window toward the bed. "Well?" she repeated. "If it's going to be a waiting game, we can both play it. I sha'n't leave this room until you sign d.i.c.k's check, and you know quite well that I go through with a thing when my mind is made up. It's perfectly disgusting to have to insist like this, but you see, father, it's the only way."

She had spoken very quickly, yet very deliberately. She walked over to a table which stood in one of the windows, carefully selected a volume, and, drawing a chair to the side of her father's bed, sat down.

Herresford had watched her from under his screwed-up eyelids, and, as she commenced to read, he sighed irritably.

"If you'll come back this evening," he whined, after a long pause, "I'll see what I can do. I'm expecting Notley, my lawyer, this morning, and I don't want to be worried. I've a lot of figures to go through. Now, run away, Mary, and I'll think it over."

"My dear father, why waste your time and mine? I told you I should not go from this room until I had the money, and I mean it--quite mean it," she added, very quietly.

"It's disgraceful that you should treat me in this way. I'll give orders that you are not to be admitted again, unless by my express instructions.

What was the amount you mentioned? Five hundred dollars? Do you realize what five hundred dollars really is?"

"Five hundred is next to useless. It is disgracefully little for an outfit and general expenses of your grandson."

"The boy is a scamp; an idle, horse-racing young vagabond--a thief, too.

Have you forgotten that horse he stole? I haven't."

"Rubbish, father. The horse belonged to d.i.c.k. You gave it to him, and it was his to sell. But we're wasting time. Shall I write the check? Ah!

here's the book," and Mrs. Swinton drew it toward her as she seated herself at the desk.

She knew his ways so well that in his increasing petulance she saw the coming surrender.

"I am going to draw a check for a thousand, father," she said with a.s.sumed indifference, and took up a pen as though the matter were settled.

"A thousand!--no, five hundred--no, it's too much. Five hundred dollars for a couple of suits of khaki? Preposterous! Fifty would be too much."

"Well, the very lowest is fifty, father," she remarked, with a sudden abandonment of irritation, and a new light in her fine eyes.

"Ah! that's more like it."

"Then, I'll make it fifty."

"Fifty!--no, I never said fifty. I said five--too much," and his fingers began to claw upon the coverlet, while his lips and tongue worked as with a palsy. "Fifty dollars! Do you want to ruin me? Make it five, and I'll sign it at once. That's more than I gave you last time."

She had commenced the check. The date was filled in, and the name of her son as the payee.

"Five, madam--not a penny more. Five!"

The inspiration vibrated in her brain. Why not repeat the successful forgery? He would miss five thousand as little as five.

She wrote "five," in letters, and lower down filled in the numeral, putting it very near the dollar-sign.

"Father, you are driving me to desperation. It's your fault if--"

"Give me the pen--give me the pen," he snarled. "If you keep me waiting too long, I shall change my mind."

She brought the blotting-pad and pen, and he scrawled his signature, scarcely looking at the check. She drew it away from him swiftly--for she had known him to tear up a check in a last access of covetous greed.

Five thousand dollars!

The same process of alteration as before was adopted. This time there was no flaw or suspicious spluttering.

The reckless woman, emboldened by her first success, plunged wildly on the second opportunity. The devil's work was better done; but, unfortunately, she made the alteration, as before, with the rectory ink, which was of excellent quality, and in a few hours darkened to an entirely different tint. The color of the writing was uniform at first; but to-morrow there would be a difference.

She was running a great risk; but she saw before her peace and prosperity, her husband's debts paid, her own dressmaker's bills for the past two years wiped out, and d.i.c.k saved from arrest.

This would still leave a small balance in hand.

And they would economize in the future.

Vain resolves! The spendthrift is always the thriftiest person in intention. The rector had understated when he declared their deficit.

Only the most persistent creditors were appeased. But their good fortune--for they considered it such--had become known to every creditor as if by magic. Bills came pouring in. If the aggressive builder of the new Mission Hall could get his money, why not the baker, the butcher, the tailor? The study table was positively white with the shower of "accounts rendered"--polite demands and abusive threats.

The rector had innocently and gratefully accepted the story of the gift of two thousand dollars, without question or surprise. His wonderful, beautiful wife always dragged him out of difficulties. He had ceased to do more than bless and thank her. He was glad of the respite, and had already begun to build castles in the air, and formulate a wonderful scheme for alleviating distress by advancing urgently needed money, to be refunded to him out of the proceeds of bazaars and concerts and public subscriptions later on.

The poor, too, seemed to have discovered that the rector was paying away money, and the most miserable, tattered, whining specimens of humanity rang his door-bell. They had piteous tales to tell of children dying for want of proper nourishment, of wives lying unburied for lack of funds to pay the undertaker.

d.i.c.k returned, ignorant of his danger of arrest, and almost at the moment when his mother had accomplished her second forgery.