Part 14 (2/2)
”This is my home.” The girl's voice trembled despite her efforts to control it. ”Mammy has told me she won't turn me out.”
”Turn you out, my baby!”
”Yes, I'm the baby you took in, Mammy, and I want to stay on here now with you. Don't send me away! Ellen,” she called into the kitchen, ”come in, won't you?”
Ellen appeared at the doorway and all three turned to her expectantly: Mr. Merryvale, tall, quiet; Mammy, tearful, bewildered; and Hertha with the new excited look upon her face. ”Ellen,” she cried again, ”don't let them take me from my only home!”
The colored girl put down the dish that she was carrying and said to the gentleman who stood looking at her so pleasantly and yet with such a gently persistent manner: ”Hertha is very tired, Mr. Merryvale, I think she had better eat a little supper and then go right to bed. She looks like she hadn't slept a wink last night, and to-day's news is enough to get any one crazy! You'll excuse her, I know, if she doesn't go back with you.”
”You're a right good woman, Ellen,” Mr. Merryvale replied, ”and likely you'll understand. We want Hertha to be with us very much.”
The white girl moved to where Ellen stood and, clasping her erstwhile sister by the arm, pressed close to the strong figure as though nothing should draw her away.
”Hertha is over twenty-one,” Ellen remarked, ”I suppose that gives her the right to do as she likes.”
Mr. Merryvale looked at the two young women and then addressed himself directly to Hertha. He seemed very impressive as he stood before her clad in his long coat. His voice was more serious than usual, and he spoke gently, with deliberation.
”Everybody in Merryvale has heard of your good fortune, Hertha,” he said, ”and I reckon the earth won't be a day older before everybody knows it up and down the river. It's a wonderful story and if you lived in the city the newspaper men would be rus.h.i.+ng in and taking your picture, and they only know what foolishness they might say. For a little time you'll be a person of prominence. Now, I understand there isn't anything your mammy wouldn't do for you, but right now she can't help you, you need the protection of my home. Everybody's wondering if it's true, and asking themselves and others all sorts of questions. If you come with me the questions will stop, and you will be Hertha Ogilvie to all the world. Miss Patty would have come herself,” he added, ”but she didn't feel rightly that she could walk so far.”
”Of course not,” Hertha a.s.sented, her affection for her mistress at once a.s.serting itself, ”she never walks as far as this.”
”Don't you think then that you had better come with me like a wise young lady? Mammy and Ellen will know that your affection for them has not changed, and they will be glad to have you escape any gossip or unkind talk. It isn't like we were strangers to you. You love my sister and she loves you and will be glad to advise you regarding the new place you will take in the world. Maggie,” he said, turning to the older woman, ”you understand, and I think Ellen is beginning to. I leave it to you both to convince Hertha that she will do best by coming with me. Your chickens look likely this year,” he said with apparent irrelevance, ”I'm going out to see them;” and with a slow step he left the room.
Ellen was the first to speak. ”Look after the supper, Mammy,” she said, ”while Hertha comes with me.” And she led the girl into Tom's bedroom.
”Is there a special reason why you don't want to go?” she asked; and then, as Hertha did not answer, in a lower tone, ”Has it anything to do with Mr. Lee Merryvale?”
Still Hertha did not speak.
”Hertha!”
”Oh, you needn't worry.” The girl looked up quickly. ”Nothing has happened. Only,” and she spoke with bitterness, ”I found out he despised me.”
”Well,” Ellen observed after a pause, ”you're a white girl now, you can despise him.”
”Yes,” Hertha answered, but her tone did not carry conviction.
Ellen looked at the delicate face, at the slender hands, at the shy figure, and swallowed hard. ”Sister,” she said authoritatively, ”the time has come for you to hold up your head. You've got to make your own way. You'll be lonely and frightened and you'll miss home, but you've got to do it. As for Mr. Lee, I'm pretty sure he won't bother you if you let him see you don't like it. He'll have to take a little time to find his bearings, now he knows you're white.”
”I don't want him around.”
”If he wants to be around he can see you one place as well as another.
You can't stay forever in these few rooms.”
”Then you send me away?” Hertha turned to her former sister, her head up.
”You're going to your lawyer, you're taking the name of Hertha Ogilvie, you're coming into two thousand dollars from your grandfather's estate; isn't that so?”
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