Part 15 (1/2)

”Please tell me--are you doing this, too, because I'm not a Pritchard, or as my guardian?”

And whether it was because the girl's heart was so set upon that particular answer, or because Julia Pritchard was so staunch and true, with such a keen instinct for the real and right--in any event she returned promptly: ”As your guardian, Elsie, Pritchard to Pritchard.”

Elsie embraced her warmly, whispering that she couldn't explain, but it was truly all right. The next day she got a post-office order and sent the money to Elsie Marley without saying that it hadn't come from the lawyer in California as the other sums she had forwarded had done.

Consequently, when a letter came from Mr. Bliss saying that he couldn't let Elsie Marley have the five hundred dollars she had asked for without an order from her guardian, she felt obliged to withhold it entirely.

It troubled her to do so, and weighed upon her mind afterward. She told herself that she would, of course, explain when she saw Elsie Marley, and meantime--it was, after all, nothing but a formal business communication, not a real letter, and of no account in that the business itself had gone through. Still, it seemed a great pity that there should be any concealment between herself and the other Elsie.

As things stood, she was sufficiently involved in concealment, to give it no worse name, without that. It had been understood that she should read all the letters that came before sending them on to Enderby; but to keep one and never mention it, necessary though it was, and demanded by circ.u.mstances, seemed somehow almost like stealing.

And the worst was that circ.u.mstances might go on making demands, and she might have to do yet more reprehensible things--things that weren't merely _almost_ like wrong-doing. Some day she might have to lie right out.

Well, as to that, what had it been when she said that her mother's name was Pritchard? That had been acting--a part of her role. And then, of course she constantly deceived Miss Pritchard, in a way, though not dishonestly. That was acting, too. She and Elsie Marley had entered into a contract, indeed, each to act the part of the other. They weren't hurting any one: each fitted into the wrong place as she couldn't have into the right. And yet in very truth it was very much like plain lying!

Elsie Moss flinched. Then she recollected how once at home some of the girls of her cla.s.s at school had been discussing a subject given in the rhetoric they studied under ”Argumentation”--”Is a lie ever justifiable?” These girls of the ”Per aspera ad astra” motto had decided the question in the affirmative. They had agreed that lying to a burglar wasn't wrong--it might prevent him from robbing a widow or one's own mother--the same with regard to a murderer, an insane person, or one sick unto death. And one and all had declared with spirit that if they lived in England and a hunting-party should come along with their cruel hounds and ask which way the fox or hare had gone, they would point in exactly the wrong direction. Elsie herself had declared that she would have said that the little creature hadn't come this way at all.

Not that that was exactly similar. The girl owned that however she might please Miss Pritchard, and Elsie Marley might gratify Uncle John, in each case it was the girl herself who benefited chiefly by the scheme, and for whom it had been arranged and carried through.

Pleasing Uncle John and Cousin Julia was what is called in chemistry a by-product.

Furthermore, there was the question as to whether Cousin Julia, in any event, would value satisfaction secured thus by indirection?

Absolutely straight-forward, as she was, mightn't she judge their action severely, label it plain deceit, and--oh, no! she couldn't refuse to have anything further to do with her! It began to seem as if even failure in what she had always considered her life-work wouldn't be so terrible as that. The girl didn't put it into so many words, but as the days pa.s.sed she seemed to have a vague sense of another life-work which might consist in growing up toward Miss Pritchard's standards of what is fine and good and worth while. But Elsie wouldn't dwell upon it, for she couldn't, of course, begin to approach any such goal--she couldn't even make a start--without confession. And confession wouldn't mean only the loss of her chance to realize her ambition; it would mean the loss of Cousin Julia herself.

CHAPTER XXI

Meantime, when the sum of money reached Enderby, Mrs. Middleton still lay unconscious--at death's door, it was said. And one whispered to another that it was, perhaps, better so, that it would be a blessing to the minister if she were to be taken away. She had been worse than a drag upon him all these years. Foolish, idle, lazy, extravagant, she had exaggerated her physical delicacy and given herself up to indolence and self-indulgence, running the household into debt until it was a disgrace to the minister and to the church. Mr. Middleton, dear saint, hadn't known order nor comfort nor companions.h.i.+p for years until his niece had come. And when all was said, she could do better for him without her aunt.

However that might be, the minister himself took his wife's sudden and terrifying illness sadly to heart. He hung over her bed and haunted her room, watching and praying for the return of consciousness and life. Not, perhaps, his peer in the first place, Mildred Middleton had not grown, had not kept pace with her husband, and she had truly of late fallen into deplorable habits for the head of a household.

Nevertheless, he believed in her; loved her for her real warmth of heart, which her veil of sentimentality did not in any degree alter for him, for her optimism, her absolutely unfailing good nature, and for an intuitive womanliness he believed to be eminently her gift.

And presently when she rallied, his heart grew light, indeed. The doctor said it might be long before she would get her strength back, but he believed it possible that when she had regained it, she would be better than she had been for years. He told the minister quietly that it was fortunate she had been stricken as she had. The headache-powders she had been taking constantly contained a drug that had been slowly poisoning her. A little longer and her heart would have been permanently affected.

Meantime, before this, while she lay unconscious, the bills had begun to pour in. Along with the domestic science, Elsie had taken up bookkeeping at the high school, and fortified by that knowledge and the possession of the five hundred dollars, she summoned her courage, went to Mr. Middleton and asked if she might take the accounts in hand this month in Aunt Milly's place.

Pleased by her thoughtfulness, he proposed that they should do them together. Elsie begged to be allowed to try them alone, just for once, but he insisted upon sharing the task, though he confessed that she would find him very rusty about such things, his wife having taken them off his hands for so many years.

Elsie's heart sank. She knew that practically every tradesman had sent a bill in full, and apprehended that the totals would be appalling.

She feared, too, that it would be awkward about the five hundred dollars. But there was nothing to do but to comply with his desire.

At his bidding, she brought the collection into the study that evening.

He got out a check-book and they sat down, Elsie at the desk, and he by the side with one of the sliding shelves drawn out.

”You and I will do better with checks, Elsie, though Aunt Milly will have none of them,” he remarked, and took up the pile of envelopes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”You and I will do better with checks, Elsie, though Aunt Milly will have none of them,” he remarked.]

”We'll begin with the top one--Mason,” he said. ”Fill in the date and name--James S.--and now, let's see the sum.”

He drew out the bill, glanced at it, then looked sharply as if it were hard to decipher.