Part 38 (1/2)
”Since I think about it, perhaps I was,” murmured Rita. ”I know I have often turned hot all over because of several things I did; but I cared so much for him. I was so young and ignorant. That was over two years ago. I cared so much for him and was all bewildered. Nothing seemed real to me during several months of that time. Part of the time it seemed I was in a nightmare, and again, it was like being in heaven. A poor girl is not a responsible being at such times. She doesn't know what she does nor what she wants; but it's all over now. I ... don't ...
care anything ... about ... him now. It's all over.” Such a mournful little voice you never heard, and such a mournful little face you never saw. Still, it was all over.
Miss Tousy softly kissed her and said: ”Well, well, we'll straighten it all out. There, don't cry, sweet one.” But Rita did cry, and found comfort in resting her head on Miss Tousy's sympathetic bosom.
The letter Sue Davidson had found altered Rita's feeling toward Sukey; but it left untouched Dic's sin against herself, and she insisted that she did not care for him, and never, never would forgive. With all her gentleness she had strong nerves, and her spirit, when aroused, was too high to brook patiently the insult Dic had put upon her. Miss Tousy's words had not moved her from her position. Dic was no longer Dic. He was another person, and she could love no man but Dic. She had loved him all her life, and she could love none other. With such poor sophistry did she try to convince herself that she was indifferent. At times she succeeded beyond her most sanguine hope, and tried to drive conviction home by a song. But the song always changed to tears, the tears to anger, anger to sophistry, and all in turn to a dull pain at the heart, making her almost wish she were dead.
Meanwhile the affairs of Fisher and Fox were becoming more and more involved. Crops had failed, and collections could not be made. Williams, under alleged imperative orders from Boston, was pressing for money or security. Tom had ”overdrawn” his account in Williams's office; and, with the penitentiary staring him in the face, was clamoring for money to make good the overdraft. At home he used the words ”overdraft” and ”overdrawn” in confessing the situation. Williams, when speaking to Tom of the shortage, had used the words ”embezzlement” and ”thief.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”MISS TOUSY SOFTLY KISSED HER AND SAID, ... 'THERE, DON'T CRY, SWEET ONE.'”]
Rita's illness had prevented Williams's visits; but when she recovered, he began calling, though he was ominously sullen in his courts.h.i.+p, and his pa.s.sion for the girl looked very much like a mania.
One evening at supper table, Tom said: ”Father, I must have five hundred dollars. I have overdrawn my account with Williams, and I'll lose my place if it is not paid. I _must_ have it. Can't you help me?”
”What on earth have you been doing with the money?” asked Tom, Sr. ”I have paid your tailor bills and your other bills to a sufficient amount, in all conscience, and what could you have done with the money you got from Williams and your salary?”
Tom tried to explain, and soon the Chief Justice joined in: ”La, father, there are so many temptations in town for young men, and our Tom is so popular. Money goes fast, doesn't it, Tom? The boy can't tell what went with it. Poor Tom! If your father was half a man, he'd get the money for you; that's what he would. If your sister was not the most wicked, selfish girl alive, she could settle all our troubles. Mr. Williams would not press his brother-in-law or his wife's father. I have toiled and suffered and worked for that girl all my life, and so has her father, and so have you, Tom. We have all toiled and suffered and worked for her, and now she's too ungrateful to help us. Oh, 'sharper than a serpent's tooth,' as the Immortal Bard of Avon truly says.”
Rita began to cry and rose from her chair, intending to leave the room, but her mother detained her.
”Sit down!” she commanded. ”At least you shall hear of the trouble you bring upon us. I have been thinking of a plan, and maybe you can help us carry it out if you want to do anything to help your father and brother.
As for myself, I don't care. I am always willing to suffer and endure.
'Blessed are they that suffer, for they shall inherit the kingdom of heaven.'”
Tom p.r.i.c.ked up his ears, Tom, Sr., put down his knife and fork to listen, and Rita again took her seat at table.
”Billy Little has plenty of money,” continued Mrs. Margarita, addressing her daughter. ”The old skinflint has refused to lend it to your father or Tom, but perhaps he'll not refuse you if you ask him. I believe the old fool is in love with you. What they all want with you I can't see, but if you'll write to him--”
”Oh, I can't, mother, I can't,” cried Rita, in a flood of tears.
I will not drag the reader through another scene of heart failure and maternal raving. Rita, poor girl, at last surrendered, and, amid tears of humiliation, wrote to Billy Little, telling of her father's distress, her mother's commands, and her own grief because she was compelled to apply to him. ”You need not fear loss of your money, my friend,” she wrote, honestly believing that she told the truth. ”You will soon be repaid. Mr. Williams is demanding money from my father and Uncle Jim, and I dislike, for many reasons well known to you, to be under obligations to him. If you can, without inconvenience to yourself, lend this money, it will help father greatly just at this time, and will perhaps save me from a certain frightful importunity. The money will be repaid to you after harvest, when collections become easier. If I did not honestly believe so, even my mother's commands would not induce me to write this letter.”
Rita fully believed the money would be paid; but Billy knew that if he made the loan, he would be throwing his money away forever.
After making good Dic's loss of twenty-six hundred dollars,--which sum, you may remember, went to Bays,--Little had remaining in his strong-box notes to the amount of two thousand dollars, which, together with his small stock of goods and two or three hundred dollars in cash, const.i.tuted the total sum of his worldly wealth. He had reached a point in life where he plainly saw old age staring him in the face--an ugly stare which few can return with equanimity. The small bundle of notes was all that stood between him and want when that time should come ”sans everything.” But Williams was staring Rita in the face, and if the little h.o.a.rd could save her, she was welcome to it.
Billy's sleep the night after he received Rita's letter was meagre and disturbed, but next morning he took his notes and his poor little remainder of cash and went to Indianapolis. He discounted the notes, as he had done in Dic's case, and with the proceeds he went to the store of Fisher and Bays. Fisher was present when Billy entered the private office and announced his readiness to supply the firm with twenty-three hundred dollars on their note of hand. The money, of course, being borrowed by the firm, went to the firm account, and was at once applied by Fisher upon one of the many Williams notes. Therefore Tom's ”overdrafts” remained _in statu quo_; likewise the penitentiary.
The payment of Billy Little's twenty-three hundred dollars upon the Williams debt did not help matters in the least. The notes owed by the firm of Fisher and Bays to the Williams house aggregated nearly fourteen thousand dollars, and Billy's poor little all did not stem the tide of importunity one day, although it left him penniless. The thought of his poverty was of course painful to Billy, but he rode home that evening without seeing Rita, happy and exultant in the mistaken belief that he had helped to save her from the grasp of Williams.
That same evening at supper Tom, Sr., told of Billy Little's loan, and there was at once an outburst of wrath from mother and son because part of the money had not been applied to Tom's ”overdraft.”
”The pitiful sum of twenty-three hundred dollars!” cried Tom. ”The old skinflint might as well have kept his money for all the good it will do us. Do you think that will keep Williams from suing us?” In Tom's remarks Mrs. Bays concurred, saying that she ”always knew he was a mean old miser.”
Rita tried to speak in her friend's defence, but the others furiously silenced her, so she broke down entirely, covered her face with her hands, and wept bitterly. She went through the after-supper work amid blinding tears, and when she had finished she sought her room. Without undressing she lay down on the bed, sobbing till the morning light shone in at her window. Before she had lost Dic her heart could fly from every trouble and find sweet comfort in thoughts of him; but now there was no refuge. She was alone in the world, save for Billy Little. She loved her father, but she knew he was weak. She loved Tom, but she could not help despising him. She loved her mother, but she feared her, and knew there was no comfort or consolation for her in that hard heart. Billy had not come to see her when he brought the money, and she feared she had offended him by asking for it.
Such was the situation when Dic received Miss Tousy's letter inviting him to call upon her.
Miss Tousy greeted Dic kindly when he presented himself at her door, and led him to the same cosey front parlor wherein Rita had imparted the story of her woes and of Dic's faithlessness. She left her guest in the parlor a moment or two, while she despatched a note to a friend in town.