Chapter 11

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_ Chapter XI

"Beside this stone wall I want flowers," Lydia was saying to her landscape-gardener, as she persisted in calling Jim Dodge. "Hollyhocks and foxgloves and pinies--I shall never say peony in Brookville--and pansies, sweet williams, lads' love, iris and sweetbrier. Mrs. Daggett has promised to give me some roots."

He avoided her eyes as she faced him in the bright glow of the morning sunlight.

"Very well, Miss Orr," he said, with cold respect. "You want a border here about four feet wide, filled with old-fashioned perennials."

He had been diligent in his study of the books she had supplied him with.

"A herbaceous border of that sort in front of the stone wall will give quite the latest effect in country-house decoration," he went on professionally. "Ramblers of various colors might be planted at the back, and there should be a mixture of bulbs among the taller plants to give color in early spring."

She listened doubtfully.

"I don't know about the ramblers," she said. "Were there ramblers--twenty years ago? I want it as nearly as possible just as it was. Mrs. Daggett told me yesterday about the flower-border here. You--of course you don't remember the place at all; do you?"

He reddened slightly under her intent gaze.

"Oh, I remember something about it," he told her; "the garden was a long time going down. There were flowers here a few years back; but the grass and weeds got the better of them."

"And do you--remember the Boltons?" she persisted. "I was so interested in what Mrs. Daggett told me about the family yesterday. It seems strange to think no one has lived here since. And now that I--it is to be my home, I can't help thinking about them."

"You should have built a new house," said Jim Dodge. "A new house would have been better and cheaper, in the end."

He thrust his spade deep, a sign that he considered the conversation at an end.

"Tell one of the other men to dig this," she objected. "I want to make a list of the plants we need and get the order out."

"I can do that tonight, Miss Orr," he returned, going on with his digging. "The men are busy in the orchards this morning."

"You want me to go away," she inferred swiftly.

He flung down his spade.

"It is certainly up to me to obey orders," he said. "Pardon me, if I seem to have forgotten the fact. Shall we make the list now?"

Inwardly he was cursing himself for his stupidity. Perhaps he had been mistaken the night before. His fancy had taken a swift leap in the dark and landed--where? There was a sort of scornful honesty in Jim Dodge's nature which despised all manner of shams and petty deceits. His code also included a strict minding of his own business. He told himself rather sharply that he was a fool for suspecting that Lydia Orr was other than she had represented herself to be. She had been crying the night before. What of that? Other girls cried over night and smiled the next morning--his sister Fanny, for example. It was an inexplicable habit of women. His mother had once told him, rather vaguely, that it did her good to have a regular crying-spell. It relieved her nerves, she said, and sort of braced her up....

"Of course I didn't mean that," Lydia was at some pains to explain, as the two walked toward the veranda where there were chairs and a table.

She was looking fair and dainty in a gown of some thin white stuff, through which her neck and arms showed slenderly.

"It's too warm to dig in the ground this morning," she decided. "And anyway, planning the work is far more important."

"Than doing it?" he asked quizzically. "If we'd done nothing but plan all this; why you see--"

He made a large gesture which included the carpenters at work on the roof, painters perilously poised on tall ladders and a half dozen men busy spraying the renovated orchards.

"I see," she returned with a smile, "--now that you've so kindly pointed it out to me."

He leveled a keen glance at her. It was impossible not to see her this morning in the light of what he thought he had discovered the night before.

"I've done nothing but make plans all my life," she went on gravely. "Ever since I can remember I've been thinking--thinking and planning what I should do when I grew up. It seemed such a long, long time--being just a little girl, I mean, and not able to do what I wished. But I kept on thinking and planning, and all the while I _was_ growing up; and then at last--it all happened as I wished."

She appeared to wait for his question. But he remained silent, staring at the blue rim of distant hills.

"You don't ask me--you don't seem to care what I was planning," she said, her voice timid and uncertain.

He glanced quickly at her. Something in her look stirred him curiously. It did not occur to him that her appeal and his instant response to it were as old as the race.

"I wish you would tell me," he urged. "Tell me everything!"

She drew a deep breath, her eyes misty with dreams.

"For a long time I taught school," she went on, "but I couldn't save enough that way. I never could have saved enough, even if I had lived on bread and water. I wanted--I needed a great deal of money, and I wasn't clever nor particularly well educated. Sometimes I thought if I could only marry a millionaire--"

He stared at her incredulously.

"You don't mean that," he said with some impatience.

She sighed.

"I'm telling you just what happened," she reminded him. "It seemed the only way to get what I wanted. I thought I shouldn't mind that, or--anything, if I could only have as much money as I needed."

A sense of sudden violent anger flared up within him. Did the girl realize what she was saying?

She glanced up at him.

"I never meant to tell any one about that part of it," she said hurriedly. "And--it wasn't necessary, after all; I got the money another way."

He bit off the point of a pencil he had been sharpening with laborious care.

"I should probably never have had a chance to marry a millionaire," she concluded reminiscently. "I'm not beautiful enough."

With what abominable clearness she understood the game: the marriage-market; the buyer and the price.

"I--didn't suppose you were like that," he muttered, after what seemed a long silence.

She seemed faintly surprised.

"Of course you don't know me," she said quickly. "Does any man know any woman, I wonder?"

"They think they do," he stated doggedly; "and that amounts to the same thing."

His thoughts reverted for an uncomfortable instant to Wesley Elliot and Fanny. It was only too easy to see through Fanny.

"Most of them are simple souls, and thank heaven for it!"

His tone was fervently censorious.

She smiled understandingly.

"Perhaps I ought to tell you further that a rich man--not a millionaire; but rich enough--actually did ask me to marry him, and I refused."

"H'mph!"

"But," she added calmly, "I think I should have married him, if I had not had money left me first--before he asked me, I mean. I knew all along that what I had determined to do, I could do best alone."

He stared at her from under gathered brows. He still felt that curious mixture of shame and anger burning hotly within.

"Just why are you telling me all this?" he demanded roughly.

She returned his look quietly.

"Because," she said, "you have been trying to guess my secret for a long time and you have succeeded; haven't you?"

He was speechless.

"You have been wondering about me, all along. I could see that, of course. I suppose everybody in Brookville has been wondering and--and talking. I meant to be frank and open about it--to tell right out who I was and what I came to do. But--somehow--I couldn't.... It didn't seem possible, when everybody--you see I thought it all happened so long ago people would have forgotten. I supposed they would be just glad to get their money back. I meant to give it to them--all, every dollar of it. I didn't care if it took all I had.... And then--I heard you last night when you crossed the library. I hoped--you would ask me why--but you didn't. I thought, first, of telling Mrs. Daggett; she is a kind soul. I had to tell someone, because he is coming home soon, and I may need--help."

Her eyes were solemn, beseeching, compelling.

His anger died suddenly, leaving only a sort of indignant pity for her unfriended youth.

"You are--" he began, then stopped short. A painter was swiftly descending his ladder, whistling as he came.

"My name," she said, without appearing to notice, "is Lydia Orr Bolton. No one seems to remember--perhaps they didn't know my mother's name was Orr. My uncle took me away from here. I was only a baby. It seemed best to--"

"Where are they now?" he asked guardedly.

The painter had disappeared behind the house. But he could hear heavy steps on the roof over their heads.

"Both are dead," she replied briefly. "No one knew my uncle had much money; we lived quite simply and unpretentiously in South Boston. They never told me about the money; and all those years I was praying for it! Well, it came to me--in time."

His eyes asked a pitying question.

"Oh, yes," she sighed. "I knew about father. They used to take me to visit him in the prison. Of course I didn't understand, at first. But gradually, as I grew older, I began to realize what had happened--to him and to me. It was then I began to make plans. He would be free, sometime; he would need a home. Once he tried to escape, with some other men. A guard shot my father; he was in the prison-hospital a long time. They let me see him then without bars between, because they were sure he would die."

"For God's sake," he interrupted hoarsely. "Was there no one--?"

She shook her head.

"That was after my aunt died: I went alone. They watched me closely at first; but afterward they were kinder. He used to talk about home--always about home. He meant this house, I found. It was then I made up my mind to do anything to get the money.... You see I knew he could never be happy here unless the old wrongs were righted first. I saw I must do all that; and when, after my uncle's death, I found that I was rich--really rich, I came here as soon as I could. There wasn't any time to lose."

She fell silent, her eyes shining luminously under half closed lids. She seemed unconscious of his gaze riveted upon her face. It was as if a curtain had been drawn aside by her painful effort. He was seeing her clearly now and without cloud of passion--in all her innocence, her sadness, set sacredly apart from other women by the long devotion of her thwarted youth. An immense compassion took possession of him. He could have fallen at her feet praying her forgiveness for his mean suspicions, his harsh judgment.

The sound of hammers on the veranda roof above their heads appeared to rouse her.

"Don't you think I ought to tell--everybody?" she asked hurriedly.

He considered her question in silence for a moment. The bitterness against Andrew Bolton had grown and strengthened with the years into something rigid, inexorable. Since early boyhood he had grown accustomed to the harsh, unrelenting criticisms, the brutal epithets applied to this man who had been trusted with money and had defaulted. Even children, born long after the failure, reviled the name of the man who had made their hard lot harder. It had been the juvenile custom to throw stones at the house he had lived in. He remembered with fresh shame the impish glee with which, in company with other boys of his own age, he had trampled the few surviving flowers and broken down the shrubs in the garden. The hatred of Bolton, like some malignant growth, had waxed monstrous from what it preyed upon, ruining and distorting the simple kindly life of the village. She was waiting for his answer.

"It would seem so much more honest," she said in a tired voice. "Now they can only think me eccentric, foolishly extravagant, lavishly generous--when I am trying-- I didn't dare to ask Deacon Whittle or Judge Fulsom for a list of the creditors, so I paid a large sum--far more than they would have asked--for the house. And since then I have bought the old bank building. I should like to make a library there."

"Yes, I know," he said huskily.

"Then the furniture--I shall pay a great deal for that. I want the house to look just as it used to, when father comes home. You see he had an additional sentence for trying to escape and for conspiracy; and since then his mind--he doesn't seem to remember everything. Sometimes he calls me Margaret. He thinks I am--mother."

Her voice faltered a little.

"You mustn't tell them," he said vehemently. "You mustn't!"

He saw with terrible clearness what it would be like: the home-coming of the half-imbecile criminal, and the staring eyes, the pointing fingers of all Brookville leveled at him. She would be overborne by the shame of it all--trampled like a flower in the mire.

She seemed faintly disappointed.

"But I would far rather tell," she persisted. "I have had so much to conceal--all my life!"

She flung out her hands in a gesture of utter weariness.

"I was never allowed to mention father to anyone," she went on. "My aunt was always pointing out what a terrible thing it would be for any one to find out--who I was. She didn't want me to know; but uncle insisted. I think he was sorry for--father.... Oh, you don't know what it is like to be in prison for years--to have all the manhood squeezed out of one, drop by drop! I think if it hadn't been for me he would have died long ago. I used to pretend I was very gay and happy when I went to see him. He wanted me to be like that. It pleased him to think my life had not been clouded by what he called his _mistake_.... He didn't intend to wreck the bank, Mr. Dodge. He thought he was going to make the village rich and prosperous."

She leaned forward. "I have learned to smile during all these years. But now, I want to tell everybody--I long to be free from pretending! Can't you see?"

Something big and round in his throat hurt him so that he could not answer at once. He clenched his hands, enraged by the futility of his pity for her.

"Mrs. Daggett seems a kind soul," she murmured. "She would be my friend. I am sure of it. But--the others--"

She sighed.

"I used to fancy how they would all come to the station to meet him--after I had paid everybody, I mean--how they would crowd about him and take his hand and tell him they were glad it was all over; then I would bring him home, and he would never even guess it had stood desolate during all these years. He has forgotten so much already; but he remembers home--oh, quite perfectly. I went to see him last week, and he spoke of the gardens and orchards. That is how I knew how to have things planted: he told me."

He got hastily to his feet: her look, her voice--the useless smart of it all was swiftly growing unbearable.

"You must wait--I must think!" he said unsteadily. "You ought not to have told me."

"Do you think I should have told the minister, instead?" she asked rather piteously. "He has been very kind; but somehow--"

"What! Wesley Elliot?"

His face darkened.

"Thank heaven you did not tell him! I am at least no--"

He checked himself with an effort.

"See here," he said: "You--you mustn't speak to any one of what you have told me--not for the present, anyway. I want you to promise me."

Her slight figure sagged wearily against the back of her chair. She was looking up at him like a child spent with an unavailing passion of grief.

"I have promised that so many times," she murmured: "I have concealed everything so long--it will be easier for me."

"It will be easier for you," he agreed quickly; "and--perhaps better, on the whole."

"But they will not know they are being paid--they won't understand--"

"That makes no difference," he decided. "It would make them, perhaps, less contented to know where the money was coming from. Tell me, does your servant--this woman you brought from Boston; does she know?"

"You mean Martha? I--I'm not sure. She was a servant in my uncle's home for years. She wanted to live with me, so I sent for her. I never spoke to her about--father. She seems devoted to me. I have thought it would be necessary to tell her--before-- He is coming in September. Everything will be finished by then."

His eyes were fixed blankly on the hedge; something--a horse's ears, perhaps--was bobbing slowly up and down; a faint rattle of wheels came to their ears.

"Don't tell anyone, yet," he urged, and stepped down from the veranda, his unseeing gaze still fixed upon the slow advance of those bobbing ears.

"Someone is coming," she said.

He glanced at her, marveling at the swift transition in her face. A moment before she had been listless, sad, disheartened by his apparent disapproval of her plans. Now all at once the cloud had vanished; she was once more cheerful, calm, even smiling.

She too had been looking and had at once recognized the four persons seated in the shabby old carryall which at that moment turned in at the gate.

"I am to have visitors," she said tranquilly.

His eyes reluctantly followed hers. There were four women in the approaching vehicle.

As on another occasion, the young man beat a swift retreat. _

Read next: Chapter 12

Read previous: Chapter 10

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