Part 54 (2/2)

Of course I shall foreclose. Money is scarce here, and I shall probably be able to buy in the place at half its worth. Seems to me,”

he concluded, looking at the case from his valuation of money, ”there is not much room for choice here.”

And Mr. Crowl had been princely--for him. Mrs. Allen thought so, too, and lent herself to the scheme with all the persistent energy that she could show in these matters. But, to do her justice, she really thought she was doing what was best for Edith and all of them. She was acting in accordance with her lifelong principle of providing for her family, in the one way she believed in and understood. But sincerity and singleness of purpose made her all the more dangerous as a tempter.

In one of Edith's most discouraged moods she broached the subject and explained Mr. Crowl's offer, for he, prudent man, had left it to her.

Edith started violently, and the project was so revolting to her that she fled from the room. But Mrs. Allen, with her small pertinacity, kept recurring to it at every opportunity. Though it may seem a little strange, her mother's action did not so shock Edith as some might expect; nor did the proposition seem so impossible as it might to some girls. She had all her life been accustomed, through her mother, to the idea of marrying for money, and we can get used to almost anything.

In March their money was very low. Going to Zell and taking care of her had involved much additional expense. She found out that her mother had already accepted and used in part a loan of fifty dollars from Mr. Crowl. Laura, from the long confinement of the winter, and from living on fare too coa.r.s.e and lacking in nutrition for her delicate organization, was growing very feeble. Zell seemed in the first stages of consumption, and would soon be a sick, helpless burden. The chill of dread grew stronger at Edith's heart.

”Oh, can it be possible that I shall be driven to it!” she often groaned; and she now saw, as poor Laura said, ”the black hand in the dark pus.h.i.+ng her down.” To her surprise her thoughts kept reverting to Arden Lacey.

”What will he think of me if I do this?” she thought, with intense bitterness. ”He will tell me I was not worthy of his friends.h.i.+p, much less of his love--that I deceived him;” and the thought of Arden, after all, perhaps, had the most weight in restraining her from the fatal step. For then, to her perverted sense of duty, this marriage began to seem like an heroic self-sacrifice.

She had seen little of Arden since her return. He was kind and respectful as ever, outwardly, but she saw in his deep blue eyes that she was the divinity that he still wors.h.i.+pped with unfaltering devotion, and as she once smiled at the idea of being set up as an idol in his heart, she now began unspeakably to dread falling from her pedestal.

One dreary day, the last of March, when sleet and rain were pouring steadily down, and Laura was sick in her bed, and Zell moping with her hacking cough over the fire, with Hannibal in the kitchen, Mrs. Allen turned suddenly to Edith, and said:

”On some such day we shall all be turned into the street. You could save us, you could save yourself, by taking a kind, rich man for your lawful husband; but you won't.”

Then Satan, who is always on hand when we are weakest, quoted Scripture to Edith as he had done once before. The words flashed into her mind, ”He saved others, himself he cannot save.”

In a wild moment of mingled enthusiasm and desperation, she sprang up before her mother, and said:

”If I can't pay the interest of the mortgage--if I can't take care of you all by some kind of work, I will marry him. But if you have a spark of love for me, save, economize, try to think of some other way.”

Mrs. Allen smiled triumphantly, and tried in her grat.i.tude to embrace her daughter, saying: ”A kind husband will soon lift all burdens off your shoulders.” The burden on the heart Mrs. Allen did not understand, but Edith fled from her to her own room.

In a little while her excitement and enthusiasm died away, and life began to look gaunt and bare. Even her Saviour's face seemed hidden, and she only saw an ugly spectre in the future--Simon Crowl.

In vain she repeated to herself, ”He sacrificed Himself for others--so will I.” The nature that He had given her revolted at it all, and though she could not understand it, she began to find a jarring discord between herself and all things.

Mrs. Allen told Mr. Crowl of her success, and he looked upon things as settled. He came to the house quite often, but did not stay long or a.s.sume any familiarity with Edith. He was a wary old spider; and under Mrs. Allen's hints, behaved and looked very respectably. He certainly did the best he could not to appear hideous to Edith, and though she was very cold, she compelled herself to treat him civilly.

Perhaps many might have considered Edith's chance a very good one; but with an almost desperate energy she set her mind at work to find some other way out of her painful straits. Everything, however, seemed against her. Mr. McTrump was sick with inflammatory rheumatism. Mrs.

Groody was away, and would not be back till the last of May. On account of Arden she could not speak to Mrs. Lacey. She tried in vain to get work, but at that season there was nothing in Pushton which she could do. Farmers were beginning to get out a little on their wet lands, and various out-of-door activities to revive after the winter stagnation. Moreover, money was very scarce at that season of the year. She at last turned to the garden as her only resource. She realized that she had scarcely money enough to carry them through May.

Could she get returns from her garden in time? Could it be made to yield enough to support them? With an almost desperate energy she worked in it whenever the weather permitted through April, and kept Hannibal at it also. Indeed, she had little mercy on the old man, and he wondered at her. One day he ventured:

”Miss Edie, you jes done kill us both,” but his wonder increased as she muttered:

”Perhaps it would be the best thing for us both,” Then, seeing his panic-stricken face, she added more kindly, ”Hannibal, our money is getting low, and the garden is our only chance.”

After that he worked patiently without a word and without a thought of sparing himself.

Edith insisted on the closest economy in the house, though she was too sensible to stint herself in food in view of her constant toil. But one day she detected Mrs. Allen, with her small cunning and her determination to carry her point, practicing a little wastefulness.

Edith turned on her with such fierceness that she never dared to repeat the act. Indeed, Edith was becoming very much what she was before Zell ran away, only in addition there was something akin, at times, to Zell's own hardness and recklessness, and one day she said to Edith:

<script>