Part 38 (1/2)
”Amos Judson is my best friend; I'll tell him you said he's one of the two worst men in this town,” Lettie cried.
”It's a waste av time; he knows it himself. Now, a girl who visits in lonely cabins at dead hours av the night, with men she knows is dangerous, oughtn't to ask why some folks are so precious. It's because they keep their bodies and souls sacred before Almighty G.o.d, and don't sell aither. You've accused me of tryin' to protect Phil, and of keepin'
Marjie's name out of everything, and that I've been spyin' on you. Good G.o.d! Lettie, it's to keep you more 'n them. I was out after my own business, after things other folks ought to a' looked after and didn't, things strictly belongin' to me, whin I run across you everywhere, and see your wicked plan to ruin good names and break hearts and get money by blackmail. Lettie, it's not too late to turn back now. You've done wrong; we all do. But, little girl, we've knowed each other since the days I used to tie your ap.r.o.n strings when your short little fat arms couldn't reach to tie 'em, and I know you now. What have you done with Marjie's letter that you stole before it got to Phil?” His voice was kind, even tender.
”I'll never tell you!” Lettie blazed up like a fire brand.
”Aren't you willing to right the wrongs you've done, and save yourself, too?” His voice did not change.
”I'm going to leave here when I get ready. I'm going away, but not till I am ready, and--” She had almost yielded, but evil desire is a strong master. The spirit of her low-browed father gained control again, and she raised a stormy face to him who would have befriended her. ”I'm going to do what I please, and go where I please; and I'll fix some precious saints so they'll never want to come back to this town; and some others'll wish they could leave it.”
”All right, then,” O'mie replied, as Lettie flung herself out of the door, ”if you find me among those prisent when you turn some corner suddenly don't be surprised. I wonder,” he went on, ”who got that letter the last night the miserable Melrose girl was here, or the night after.
I wonder how she could reach it when she couldn't get the other one.
Maybe the hole had something in it, one of Phil's letters to Marjie, who knows? And that was why that letter did not get far enough back from her thievin' fingers. Oh, I'm mighty glad Kathleen Morrison give me the mitten for Jess Gray, one of them Red Range boys. How can a man as good and holy as I am manage the obstreperous girls? But,” he added seriously, ”this is too near to sin and disgrace to joke about now.”
CHAPTER XX
THE CLEFT IN THE ROCK
And yet I know past all doubting truly, A knowledge greater than grief can dim, I know as he loved, he will love me duly, Yea, better, e'en better, than I love him.
--JEAN INGELOW.
While O'mie and Lettie were acting out their little drama in the store that afternoon, Judson was up in Mrs. Whately's parlor driving home matters of business with a hasty and masterful hand. Marjie had slipped away at his coming, and for the second time since I had left Springvale she took the steep way up to our ”Rockport.” Had she known what was going on at home she might have stayed there in spite of her prejudices.
”It's just this way, Mrs. Whately,” Judson declared, when he had formally opened the conference, ”it's just this way. With all my efforts in your behalf, your business interest in the store has been eaten up by your expenditures. Of course I know you have always lived up to a certain kind of style whether you had the money or not; and I can understand, bein' a commercialist, how easy those things go. But that don't alter the fact that you'll have no more income from the store in a very few months. I'm planning extensive changes in the Winter for next Spring, and it'll take all the income. Do you see now?”
”Partly,” Mrs. Whately replied faintly.
She was a sweet-spirited, gentle woman. She had been reared in a home of luxury. Her own home had been guarded by a n.o.ble, loving husband, and her powers of resource had never been called out. Of all the women I have ever known, she was least fitted to match her sense of honor, her faith in mankind, and her inexperience and lack of business knowledge against such an unprincipled, avaricious man as the one who domineered over her affairs.
Judson had been tricky and grasping in the day of his straightened circ.u.mstances, but he might never have developed into the scoundrel he became, had prosperity not fallen upon him by chance. Sometimes it is poverty, and sometimes it is wealth that plays havoc with a man's character and leads an erring nature into consummate villainy.
”Well, now, if you can see what I'm tellin' you, that you are just about penniless (you will be in a few months; that's it, you will be soon), then you can see how magnanimous a man can be, even a busy merchant, a--a commercialist, if I must use the word again. You'll not only be poor with n.o.body to support you, but you'll be worse, my dear woman, you'll be disgraced. That's it, just disgraced. I've kept stavin' it off for you, but it's comin'--ugly disgrace for you and Marjory.”
Mrs. Whately looked steadily at him with a face so blanched with grief only a hard-hearted wretch like Judson could have gone on.
”I've been gettin' you ready for this for months, have laid my plans carefully, and I've been gradually puttin' the warnin' of it in your mind.”
This was true. Judson had been most skilfully paving the way, else Mrs.
Whately would not have had that troubled face and burdened spirit after each conference. The intimation of disaster had grown gradually to dreaded expectation with her.
”Do tell me what it is, Amos. Anything is better than this suspense.
I'll do anything to save Marjie from disgrace.”
”Now, that's what I've been a-waitin' for. Just a-waitin' till you was ready to say you'd do what's got to be done anyhow. Well, it's this.
Whately, your deceased first husband”--Judson always used the numeral when speaking of a married man or woman who had pa.s.sed away--”Whately, he made a will before he went to the war. Judge Baronet drawed it up, and I witnessed it. Now that will listed and disposed of an amount of property, enough to keep you and Marjie in finery long as you lived.
That will and some other valuable papers was lost durin' the war (some says just when they was taken, but they don't know), and can't nowhere be found. Havin' entire care of the business in his absence, and bein'