Into Mischief and Out

Auckland Star, Volume XXI, Issue 288, 6 December 1890, Page 1 (Supplement)

Into Mischief and Out

A COLLEGE STORY. SI ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS. CHAPTER XXL—(Continued.)

The new maid (a pretty girl, probably distasteful to Perkins because she preferred the coachman), let her master into his mother's boudoir. The old nurse, Maria, who greeted him familiarly, having admitted him to that room in short trousers and long curls, preceded him across the familiar dazzle of the blue and gold drapery, bric-a-brao, and mirrors, to the shaded bedroom where the invalid, in a foam of lace and sachets, lay upon an Oriental couch of many colours, examining samples of black crape. •Good-morninjJi mother. said the boy, struggling with himself. 'I hopo you feel a little belter ?'

For answer, the Rick woman burst into a flood of tears, and for soms moments sobbed convulsively.

'He was my soul's other half!' she wailed. • I am bereft of all that I ever loved or lived for!'

Now Donald had a certain impression that his father and mother had never been romantically attached to each other, at least since his acquaintance with them, and that the most harmonious sympathy was hardly familiar sx their relation. He therefore heard his mother's passionate outcry with some surprise, bub was wise enough to gay nothing about it.

' Except, of course, my son,' added the invalid, as an afterthought, • you are my all in all now, Donald.'

'Thank you, mother,' said Don, with trembling lip. Ib ivas a pallid form of homelove ; bub he felt profoundly, at that moment, that it was all he had, and that he must live for ifc dutifully and faithfully. • I shall try to be as much comforb as I can, mother,' he added, looking with real tenderness ab her haggard face. 'You must teach me. You must tell mo all I can do for you. I hope I shall be a better son than I used to be. , 'Your uncle is keeping something back,' said JUra Marcy, abruptly. ' What about ?' asked Don. He had had no conversation with his uncle yet, except about the details of his father's death. They were few enough. In the height of the panic he had dropped, at a little past two o'clock, just leaving Wall-sfcreat to come home. He was quite dead when they picked him up. The doctor called it heart) disease, and if anybody said anything more, Don had never heard it. •Ifsmy belief, , said Mrs Marcy, ' fcbab yonr father has losfc very heavily.' Donald had nob thought of euch a thing, and he said so, starting with surprise. ' 1 never was well enough fro discuss businees,' sobbed the widow. ' Your father never confided in me. Bub my intuitions are very keen. I am not to be deluded, Don. You will find there have been losses. It is very unfortunate—in my state. My ways of living are merely the condition of existence to me—no more. Remove them, and I should die in three months. , 'It can't be very serious, mother,' urged Donald, not without a secret anxiousness perfectly new to him. 'Don't distress yourself. I will see Uncle Francis to-night, and talk it all over. Never foar, mother. You shall bo looked after, ab all events. I'll take care of you !' 'i shall have to go to Newport, any way,' wept Mra Matey. ' know I g.bpuld not livfe the summer out, in any other air. Then there's Dr. Hellingpfeiffer's annual fee —the sum yonr father always has paid him, gives mo a claim, a priority. I secure his services by the year, and he is always to be had when my attacks come on. Ifc would be impossible to economise on the Doctor. Oh, what will become of me f. she wailed.

' Don't cry, mother. Don't you fear. I'll look afte/ you,' repeated Donald manfully. But his eye, warned by sudden new intelligence, travelled around the sickroom, whose luxurious appointments were so much a matter of course to him thab he had never given a thought to them before, in all hia life. The heavy velveb carpet; the expensive patent springs on the doora to prevent a slam, or jar, or creak ; the long satin draperies, hanging from the great plate-glass window, like bhe trains of princesses ; the exquisite shades for shielding tho eyes ; tho fold upon fold of satin and • real' laco covering the bed, the pillows, the couch, and the night-dress of the invalid, which showed becomingly beneath her embroidered sack; the eider-down robes, silk-covered, used as freely as less wealthy people use blankets; the inlaid invalid's tray and table; the high-waged figure of Maria in the doorway; the new maid in the other room, dusting a stabuebte by a fashionable sculptor, wibh a brush of peacock's feathers. At these things Donald looked with a sick sinking ab bhe heart. Whab did ib all mean ? How bad waa ib ? And whab worse was to come ? Hβ waited restlessly for hie uncle, who camo affter dinner, and locking the library door, and lighting a cigar, began at once, with the manner of a man who haa a hard job on hand, and means to get ib over with. Mr Francis Marcy was a genblemanly man, polished, cold, calm, hard of face, and unmoved ia manner.

•Well, Donald, I have purposely put off this interview till the funeral was over. Ifc was more decent, for one thing. Then I didn't care to worry you until ifc became necessary. Ib has now become bo. You observe that there has been "no will read. It is customary not to read the will till after the aeivices. , •I didn't know that, sir. I didn'b know much about—such things. I never—nobody ever died that I cared about before.' His voice faltered. His uncle bowed slightly, as if he should say : ' Very proper. Aα appropriate filial sentiment:' but all that he really did say was this : 'Your father left no will. He had nothing to will. He has left no property.' Donald started with a low, horrified cry. • Oh, is it so bad as that ? Poor mother ! 'It is worse than that, sir ! Your father speculated. He scattered it to the four winds. He has been deep in for two years. This panic simply ruined him. He died of the shock—and he died a beggar—and he knew it. Poor Thomae, added Mr Francis Marcy, bringing his short, sharp sentence round to a decorous sigh, ' was always a schemer and a dreamer. He dared too much. It was his way.. He lacked business matters. Bub de mortuis—VooT Thomae has gone. You and your mother are left. You have not got, at this moment, sir, a hundred dollars to your name.' ' But, my mother ?' gasped Don. The house? The—the maid? The doctor? Where can my mother live ?' 'The house is mortgaged over ite eaves,' replied Uncle Francis. 'The Newport estate may be deeded to her—but I doubt it; I haven't found any euch papers yet. Your father left certain papers to my charge. I should have been administrator, if there had been anything to administer upon, There isn't. , .' I must leave college, Uncle Francis, faltered Donald. * I must leave college,' he, repeated, decisively. 'I muab go right to work. I must support my mother and myself.' ,' . 'I don'b see any other Mr Francii Marcy. ' I'm 6orry f ' Donald, he added, politely. * What in the world can I dor ga§pea

Donald. * I never earned any money in my life. I thought—when I-had graduated—l should enter the bar. I meant to. be a distinguished lawyer, Uncle Francis.' 'Well, , said his uncle, slowly knocking the ashes from his half-burnt cigar lightly into an antique Egyptian cup, that served for an ash-receiver, upon the carved oak mantel, • there are different views about that. 11l tell you what mine are, if you care to hear them.'

CHAPTER XXII. ' I WILL WAIT.' It was a July day in Vermont. The sun had been far too hot for comforb a.ll the morning, and until well past noon ; and when the long shadows from Mount Tipton Btole, with purple feet, across the valloy, the village drew breath, and began fco pub on its afternoon dresses, and was glad ir. Tho farmhouses — prisons when winter-bound—were palaces of life in the heart of summer. To them was given auch pomp of the shadow-chaeed hills, and such glory of the clover-crimHoned fields, and such splendour of tho throbbing ekiea as the stifling towns panted for, and paid nhe beeb of prices to procure. Each of these desolate homes was now a thriving house of entertainment, where the daughters of tho houso stood no more breathing the frosb off the windows to see a stranger pass, but blossomed in the criepeab of coloured cotton-satine gowns, with fresh crimps and white aprons, to wait on the supper-tablo of a busy, chattering, laughing house. The most popular beardtnghouse in town was Mrs Joe Jouncey's, of toboggan memory, and Lamentations took the lady boarders out every day up and down tho fern-clad banks of the mountain-troufc brooks, ab fifty cents an hour.

Mr Jasper, the proprietor of The Hack, was much exercised in his mind that afternoon. The minister had a guest that morning, arrivod by the night express, who had declined to patronise the Hack.

' He said he couldn't afford it, , complained Mr Jasper to the posb-mistress. ' A likely story ! Him nob aflfordin' anything. He walked all the way up, on his two legs; just as if he'd growed here.'

'In this blazing sun !' reproved the poetmistress. ' That boy, who never had a stroke of hardship in his life ! And pop'lat as ho was in Tipbon ! I sh'd like to know why you let him, Jasper, J should !' ' Why, I never thought on't !* gasped the proprietor of The Hack. •Ib never came into my head to offer him The Hack. I don'b believe he'd have pub foob in her, more'n if I'd horsewhipped him. He had thab look. I wouldn'b ha' darsfc.'

It was now well on in the afternoon, arid Donald and Fay were, for the tirsb time, alone together. They had chatted with the family, of surface things, all day. Don had not said much about his circumstances or his plans. Nobody had felt like asking for what he did not offer. He had pefcbed bhe cannibal cab, and shaken hunds with the little maid, and inquired after her elbows ; and had gone out to feed Old William; and he had wandered about, and thought how delightful the parsonage was without wood-boxes ; and he had gone upstairs to his old room, and gloriedab the absence of tho air-bighfc stove, and felt dazed at the transformation from the frozen wafcerpifceher to the English violets on the toiletbablo ; from the frosted to the window, from all bhe austerities and sberilifciee of the Vermont winter to the tenderness and the warm, rich, abundant life of the mountain midsummer.

Then he had come down and looked at the new books in Dr. Fleet's study a. little whiie, and sat by Mrs Fleet's sewing-chair, ab her feet, like a son, while she mended a rip in a glove he felfc he could nob afford bo throw away; and everybody had been bender as ' own folks ' to him ; t bub no. one had intruded oh his sorrows or his ahxiebie'e, and they had talked a good deal about Jamie, and wished that he were there, and Don had said thab J. 's letters had been the greatest comfort of his Jife since—since— but there he had broken off, and asked Fay, abruptly, if she felt like walking down into the orchard with him. And here, ab last, they were. Fay was charming that day—she was, simply charming. There is, perhaps,, nobetter or more womanly word to toll the kind of sweetness, of delighbfulnesa, bhafc belongs bo a girl like Fay. She was-eo quieb —in deference bo Don's sorrow— yat she was so oheerfnl to pun him ab his ease ; she was so modest, yebshe was so frank and friendly ; she had sash girlish cheeks, yet she had such deep, intelligent eyes.; she laughed so, and yet she looked so—Donald felb as if he were caughb in an undertow of Fay, and carried off his feet. She had on a white dress. How divine she was in that whiba dress. It was thin, but nob too thin ; her round arais just gleamed through the sheer sleeves; the lace came modestly to her soft throat; eho wore wide, blue ribbons ab the neck and waist, and little loops of narrow blue tied fchowaisfc, and tossed wifch the wearer's light breath. Don had never seen her in the halo of summer robes before; she eoemed to shine and melb before him like something from a finer world than his.

Fay sat down on an old apple-stump, carved by Jamie into a rustic seat, and Donald threw himself upon the grass at her feet. The sunlight came through the apple leaves, a flickering, fluttering sheen, like moving water, and played upon the two young people—over the girl's white dress, over the boy's earnest, upturned face. Ifc had grown older, that handsome faco ; it had grown five years older since Fay saw it last, five years ago. ' Now,' she said, in her decided voice, ' tell me all about ib.' J Well,' answered Donald, ' ib s coop told, Miss Fay. It is just as I wrote you, only worse. "Father didn't leave ft. cent—of all his money. It's gone. It's all gone. I am as poor as the bootblack in- the depot. 1 have a sick and expensive mother.. I've gpt to support her and myself, and I-ve cob to do it right away, That's the uprfiob of ib. Of course, I've got to leave Harle. J. bats the worst of it.' • Gruel!' cried Fay, impulsively. t ' Oh no !' The grave, sweet smile of his new maturity lighted the face of the thoughtless lad. 'It's hard, bub its only what lots of other fellows have to do. 1 ye never had anything before—anything to do, or bear, or be. I've always gob whtttl wanted. I've had plenty of moa,ey. I never knew what ib was to be thwarted in anything I cared about, before. Ib had gob to come. It's life' said the young map, stoutly. ' I'm only beginning to'find ib out. I can get along-but I declare, Mies Fay, x don't see how under the heavens I am going to provide for mother. Poor mother ! She needs so many things. She's go-so-sbe a so extravagantly sick. Nob that I blame my mother,' he added, loyally. 'She canto helD it. She's always had them. She suffers a great deal. It takes the maid, and the nurse, and the doctor to keep her up, anyhow.' ~'._. ' Good gracious !' cried Fay. ' It can't be helped, , said the young man, dully. A desperate look came over his uplifted'eyes ; he turned them away from her. 'It is going to be a terrible pull, and a long one,' he said significantly. Fay fluehed slightly. ~ . i • 'Never mind,' she said, aoftly; *ebe is your mother. Do your best. Yon won * be-sorry. Why in the world-doesn't your uncle help you?' 5 He has offered me a place on the paper, I wrote you, didn't I ? He saye that's all he can do. , ' Are you - going to take it ? •I haven't decided. I came up-here to decide:; I wanted your advice. I spent fifteen of the lasfc thirty dollar* I have in the world to get here. I don't dare let Uncle/Francis know I'm here. Bub I bad to come. Lord knows when I shall ever

even get the money to see your face again!'

The poor boy pulled his hat over his eyes, and turned his face over on the grass, with a groan.

• I didn't take a parlour car.' ha pleaded, ' nor the sleeper. And I walked everywhere. I never travelled so in all my life. I wouldn't want you to think I wasted money to get here. I took a luncheon from home—cold mutton. I didn't buy a single thing !' he said earnestly. ' Why doesn't your uncle keep you ab college one year more, till you can graduate? , demanded Fay, with the hob tears in her eyes. Donald shook his head. 4He did not offer to. Hβ has a family— my cousins—all girls ; they are an expensive lot. He hasn't offered to do anything else for me but to give mo this place I told you of. It's no soft berth, I can tell you ! Bub I don't mind that. If I couldonly earn enough to live.'

' What will you earn ? What will you have to do 1 What's your position V ' Oh, I'm to begin as a reporter ; night work—up till four a.m.—police courts, and dog fights, and thab kind of literature. If I am extraordinarily euccossful, I may make two or three hundred dollars the first year.

. . . I wish you could see the lace on my mother's pillows ! Why, the curtains at two of her windows cost five hundred dollars ! Her doctor has been paid a regular salary of six thousand a year, just for her case alone.'

Fay, to whom such facts and figures were as foreign ac the best parsonage mothod of hashing a three days' old roast were to Donald, opened her black eyes wide with appalled wonder. For the moment she was simply silenced.

'I oughfc to say,' proceeded Donald, * in justice to my uncle, that ho said he would provide for mother till the year is out—till January. He has found a place for her on the Continent coast, a little cheap box, about such as we use for a porter's lodge at Newport. The Newport place is sold. It had to go. Everything was left everyhow. Father was terribly in debt. My poor mother — after such a life as hers — has gob to live in a way her own maid would turn up her noso at. She says it will kill her.' ■

' I don't believe ifc, , said Fay, cheerfully, shaking her pretty head.

' Well, anyhow, she's in an awful state over it now. The maid had to go ; bub Maria stays by her. Uncle said that was reasonable. Hβ said she would really have to keep Maria. He suggested taking her to his house at Capo May, to save expense. But tho girls wouldn't hear of ib. They're a gay lofc. Cousin Amelia said she WOUldn'b have thoir house turned into a hospital: so uncle gob this shanty I speak of, and packed mother and Maria off down there laat week. She took ib terribly. I'm all fagged out with ib. .

' Well, its something,' suggested Fay, hopefully, ' if your uncle will do so much. How do yon know, Mr Don, he doesn't mean to support your mother bill you really can—only he doesn't moan to tell you so ?' 'Perhaps' said Don, brightening. 'I never thought of that. Uncle ia a queer follow. Ho has all sorts of views and theories about hardship, and making your own way, and what he calls Life. Great goodness ! as if life didn'b tackle a fellow hard enough anyhow you pub ib. Why. I used to think—l really used to think—life was a pleasant thing !' cried the ldd, sitting up straight, and looking ab Fay with a half-funny, half-pafchotic seriousness. 'You will again,' nodded bhe young lady, sedately—'you will think so again, some time. You haven't come to the ond of it.'

'Uncle has the nobion,' pursued Donald, • that craduatiug is of no importance. Ho says I've shown some ability—on the Dβ Courtney. If it hadn't bqen for tho Do Courtney I shouldn't have been allowed bhe privilege of reporting dog-fights and street; rows news on the great "Daily Telepnoho end Cable." And that reminds me—Trouncey O'Brian is dropped ! Isn't it too bad ? He was terribly cub up ab first, J. says, for he'd been quito a dig in Trouncey's way : but ho hadn't the head, you ccc,—it was no go. Well, ha was quite cut up till his father gob him a berth in a big grain business in St. Louise, and Trouncey's gone at it, squaring off just as if he were in the He expects to make.ten thousand dollars in a year. I wish I could make ten thousand dollars in twenty years !' sighed Don. 'That reminds me,' said Fay, looking mischievous. 'Mr Lee Calhoun asked Jamie if he wouldn't bring him up hore and introduce him to me.' • The—dickens he did !' growled Don. 1 And wasn't it too bad about the races? , asked Fay, going righb on, as it Mr Calhoun had been a fly whom she brushed away from the conversation. 'An awful pifcy !' said Donald. 'Harle hasn't been so beaten for ten years ! ' Didn'C they say they missed you ?' ' Why, yes ; something of the sort. There was a good deal of blow about ib. Some fellows thought it lo3t us tho race. But I couldn't help that. I couldn't go, as ifc was. , • Isn't tho " Daily Cable " a rich paper ?' asked Fay, abruptly. •Oh ! rich enough—yos.' • And ib has a fair literary department. I know ib. F. Peter Piper edits it.' •Piper is a Harle man, r observed Donald. •Now look here,' said Fay, cheerily. • I don'b see bub you sband a real chance. Perhaps your uncle is nicer than you believe. "Maybe he means to push you just as fast as you prove pushablc. How do you know but in ten years you'll be writing the leader of New York city on— say, International Law ?' • You're a good, sensible, cheerful, hopeful girl, , said Don. ' I feel fifty per cant, better since I talked with you. I was in the blue, fifty fathoms down, when I came in. I toll you one thing, Miss Fay—l'll be all I am, and if I'm anything worth two cents, it will be all owing to you, anyhow. ,

'Oh, no !' cried Fay. • Ohj don't you Bee? , cried the lad, suddenly springing from the grass, and standing before her, hat in hand. ' Don't you see why lam so desperately down ? Don't you see ifs's all because—because— , ' Ob, don't!' cried blushing Fay. ' I won't if you don't want me bo,' gasped the boy. And then he came to a dead pause. Fay cast down her eyes and her breath came a little short. The light between the apple leaves fluttered off her face, and left it in a swift, mute shadow. Donald had grown very pale. He did nob, would not speak ; bub still stood Bbaring, hat in hand. «I didn't say I—didn b want you to, admitted Fay, in "a thrilling whisper. Oh, then the boy was at her feet! Then his torrent of words poured out. Then he told her how he loved her—how he loved her. How to make hejj his dear wife, if he ever, ever could, was the only thing he cared for, or dreamed of, or lived for, in all the world ; how terrible ifc was fchab bhis had como to separate them — fchab the burdens laid so unexpectedly upon him (but too sacred to be shaken off) were going to be so heavy and so hard : that ib would be so long, at the earliest, before he could dare to hope to marry, and how unmanly he felt it to ask a noble girl like her to wait for him. ' Why, you could marry anybody! cried the lad, in a flight of rapture and despair. •Andife may be years and years before I can pay for our Mondays' dinners !' 4 1 could help, , suggested Fay, softly. ' I am to geb a good salary. I like to teach. I'd rather earn. I'd rather help. , • Ob, kiss me, Fay!' said Donald, in a low, awed voice. ' You are too srood for me; I'm not fit to touch you. Kiss me, dear, will you? Here.' He kneeled before her as if she had been the saint of his young life, and she touched her lips to his bared forehead, aud then to hie beautiful curls.

' Would you wait for me, Fay ? Would you, really?' ' I would wait for you all my life,' said Fay.

[the end.]