CHAPTER XLI
OLD MULLEN'S WILL
Peter Mixon was safely bestowed beneath the sod before Patty remembered the pocket-book which he had confided to her care. One afternoon when she chanced to be alone in the house, she came upon it, and, opening it, began idly enough to examine the contents. There was little of importance except a bulky document which proved to be a will, although, so little accustomed was she to legal phraseology, it was some time before the reader comprehended the full import of the instrument. Slowly she realized that the paper to which Peter Mixon had clung so tenaciously, and which Frank Breck had wished to obtain was a will executed by old Mr. Mullen; and that in it he bequeathed real estate and personal property, without reserve, to Mrs. Smithers. With the will in her hand, Patty sat pondering on the consequences of its discovery. Her thoughts turned first to the legatee, and she pictured to herself Mrs. Smithers as mistress of Mullen House and its splendors. She would hardly have been human, and certainly would not have been a woman, had she not bitterly hated one who had robbed her of security in her faith of her lover. What she believed of Putnam's relations with his tenant, Patty hardly knew. She had heard scandals concerning this woman and the late owner of Mullen House; and the character of Mrs. Smithers, even charity could scarcely call doubtful. She was still, in spite of her thirty-five years and her turbulent life, remarkably handsome; and her daughter, whom the lawyer had followed to Boston, was more beautiful still. Patty refused to believe absolute evil of Tom, but jealousy and doubt cast their blighting shadows over her heart.
From considering Mrs. Smithers, thought naturally turned to the present occupants of Mullen House. In regard to Miss Mullen, Patty was little troubled; but for Ease she was perplexed and grieved. She sat confused and excited by the complex thoughts and feelings which crowded upon her. Suddenly the door-bell rang, and its echoes sounded through the empty house. At this moment of all others, a carriage had come with a message from Miss Mullen, requesting Miss Sanford to come to her on important business. The strangeness of the summons struck Patty. There was no one at home with whom to advise. She hesitated a moment, but ended by deciding to go; and, with the will she had just read in her pocket, she was driven towards Mullen House.
During the past few weeks the inner life at Mullen House had been stormy enough. Miss Tabitha had daily pressed upon her niece, with increased vehemence, the suit of Frank Breck. As she met with constant resistance, however, the proud woman began to melt from command into entreaty; but, while Ease could not but be moved by this change, it is possible that it defeated itself. There is in the gentlest human breast a trace of selfish pride, which takes pleasure, often half-unconsciously, in the humiliation of authority. When tyranny condescends to supplication, it confesses its power broken, and for its fall there is little respect or pity. In vain did Miss Tabitha – not explaining the secret of Breck's power, however – picture the ruin of the family honor, the calamity of the lapsing of Mullen House into the hands of strangers. Ease had learned to lean upon Will Sanford in her perplexity; and, with the trusting faith of a girl's first love, she believed that for all evils her lover would somehow find a remedy.
Miss Tabitha herself was moved chiefly by the prospect of abandoning her place in Montfield society. She had posed so long upon her semi-theatrical elevation that she dreaded worse than death a descent to the level of commonplace life. In addition to the usual evils attendant upon the loss of property, the whole habit of her existence, her methods of thought, the narrowness of the circle of her interests, bound her yet more strongly to the old régime. In her accustomed orbit she moved with dignity and precision, but she lacked the broad strength of character needful for adjustment to new and unfavorable conditions. In her struggle to induce Ease to marry Frank Breck, she felt as if it was for life itself she were fighting; and the latter was clever enough to take advantage of this feeling, even while not wholly understanding it.
Breck was no histrionic villain in sable cloak and drooping plume, or even in gaiters and slouched hat. He was simply an unscrupulous young man, sensuous, and morally weak, inheriting from his father that selfishness which is so nearly akin to the relentless instinct of self-preservation in animals. Self-gratification was the essential law of his being.
Breck and Miss Mullen met upon the common ground of need. His expensive tastes made poverty as intolerable to him as it was bewildering and abhorrent to her. When he assured the mistress of Mullen House that he would save her from ruin only at the price of the hand of Ease, Miss Tabitha was ready to consent to any sacrifice on the part of her niece sooner than to encounter the loss of home and fortune. It was as a last desperate effort that she had sent for Patience, being urged to the step by Frank, who showed in this case more zeal than discretion.
CHAPTER XLII
BOLD PLAY
When Patience reached Mullen House, she was shown into the drawing-room, where she found Miss Mullen alone. The room was in keeping with its stately mistress. Its furniture was massive, and black with age, its draperies heavy and rich. Miss Tabitha evidently made an especial effort to appear gracious, coming forward to meet her guest with an effusive greeting very unlike her usual reserve.
"I beg pardon for sending for you," she said; "but I wanted to see you alone. Take this chair: it is easier than that one. I hope you are very well."
Patty met the advances of her hostess somewhat coldly; but the latter determinedly ignored this, and talked lightly of indifferent things, until the guest cut her short by asking somewhat abruptly why Miss Mullen wished for her. Then that lady became somewhat embarrassed, and found it difficult to introduce the delicate business of the interview.
"It is about Ease," she said, after some preliminary skirmishing; "about Ease and – and myself. I sent for you because you have so much influence over her. You have such a strong character, Patty! And, besides, this concerns indirectly a member of your family."
Patty sat silent, beginning to surmise vaguely what was coming.
"I must tell you a family secret," the elder lady went on. "It isn't fit for me to tell, or you to hear; but you cannot understand our trouble if I don't. My father – perhaps you have heard the scandals, the stories about that Smithers woman."
The other assented silently.
"My father," Miss Mullen continued desperately, "was completely imposed upon by that miserable creature. He even wanted to marry the vile thing; and she succeeded in extorting from him a paper which gave her Mullen House after his death."
"A will," Patty said.
"Yes," the other admitted, – "a sort of a will, I suppose. I never saw it, but Mr. Breck called it so."
"Mr. Breck!"
"Yes. He had far more to do with that vile woman than my father, though, of course, they kept it hid, so as to get money from father; and Mr. Breck had this paper."
"How did he get it?"
"She says he got somebody to steal it. The miserable creature came here once, and threatened to turn me out of the house. And O Patty! she could do it if she had that paper."
"But where is it now?"
"Frank Breck has it."
"Ah!" Patty said, light breaking in upon her. In an instant she comprehended the bold game Frank had been playing. Pretending to have the paper which he had failed to obtain from Mixon, and which lay at that moment in her pocket, he had demanded the hand of Ease as its price.
"He declares," poor Miss Mullen said, "that, unless Ease marries him, he will ruin us; and he can do it."
"He is contemptible enough to do it," Patty returned with curling lip. "He'd do any thing for his own ends. But what has all this to do with me?"
"O Patty! you've so much influence with Ease: she admires you so much! You couldn't see us turned out of house and home! If you would talk to her, and persuade her, and show her how much depends upon her. You could bring her to it, I'm sure. She won't listen to me. And if you'd get your brother to go away a while" —
"Stop!" Patty exclaimed, starting to her feet. "How dare you talk to me in that way! I shall tell Ease, that, if she consents to marry Frank Breck, she will be too contemptible for honest people to speak to."
The proud mistress of Mullen House caught Patty's hand, even fell on her knees to her, weeping, and begging her to pity her gray hairs.
"Get up," said Patty, chilled and repelled by the intense selfishness which every word displayed. "You care nothing for Ease; but she is safe, at least. I have your father's will here: Peter Mixon gave it to me before he died."
Miss Mullen gave a cry, and fell back into a sitting posture, white and staring; while from the embrasure of a window behind whose curtain she had concealed him that he might overhear the interview, sprang Frank Breck.
"That will belongs to me," he said. "Peter Mixon got it from Mrs. Smithers for father, and never delivered it to him. Give it to me!"
"It belongs to Mrs. Smithers," Patty returned, standing at bay. "I shall give it to its rightful owner."
"No, no!" cried Miss Mullen, seizing again the hand of her guest. "No, no! She could turn us into the street the minute she got it. Oh, for pity's sake, Patience, give it to me! I shall die of shame if Mullen House gets into her hands. Oh, for the love of God, let me have it! Think of Ease. You love her. Will shall marry her. I'll give them my part in all the property – but just enough to live on. I'll do any thing, any thing, any thing, if only you'll give me that will. Don't rob us of our home and all we have!"
"It isn't I that rob you," Patty said sadly.
"By God!" Frank cried, grasping roughly, in his turn, the hand which Patty freed from the convulsive clasp of Miss Mullen, "you shall give it to me. You shall never take it out of this house, if I have to kill you!"
Patty uttered a scream which rang through the dusky old room, and by a strong and sudden effort wrenched herself free, throwing her assailant to his knees; then she turned, and darted out of the room and out of the house. As she gained the long avenue, she heard Breck in pursuit, and she ran as she had never run before in the most hoydenish days of her girlhood. He overtook her just as she reached the great gate, but not before she had seen the figure of a man in the street.
"Help, help!" she cried.
In another instant Tom Putnam stood between her and his nephew. The lawyer looked from one to the other in amazement; while Patty, panting and breathless, thrust into his hands the will, but could not speak. Frank attempted to snatch the precious document, but his uncle held him off.
"What is this?" he asked. "What does this mean, Frank?"
"It means that between you, you are making a devilish mess," the young man said in a rage; "and I wash my hands of it. – I wish you joy of what you have done."
He cast a scowling look at Patty, as he addressed to her the last words, and, not heeding his uncle's voice, strode off down the street.
"Will you tell me what all this is about?" Tom asked, unfolding the will.
"You can see for yourself," she answered. "It is about that – about your tenant."
"My tenant?"
"Yes," she said coldly, – "Mrs. Smithers."
She turned away, and walked in the direction of her home. She felt the bitterest humiliation in speaking to the man she loved the name of the woman of his relations to whom she dared not think.
"Wait," he said: "I am going with you."
A quick step placed him at her side; but she had averted her face. He laid his hand upon her arm.
"Don't touch me!" she exclaimed, shaking off his fingers. "I will not bear it. Take that will to her, and give her your congratulations."
"What?" he cried. "You have heard, – but you cannot have believed" —
"Believed!" she retorted fiercely. "I believe nothing but that she told me" —
"What?" he demanded.
Before she could answer, Dr. Sanford's buggy rolled along towards them.
"Take me home, father," cried poor Patty.
And a moment later Tom Putnam was left alone.
CHAPTER XLIII
CLARENCE IS ANSWERED
The week which Patty had asked of Clarence Toxteth had expired; and that young lady was in her chamber, giving the last touches to her toilet before going down to the parlor to meet her suitor. The days seemed to her to have passed with flying feet. She had occupied herself much more in thinking how short a space she had for deliberation than in considering the important question she was now to answer. She therefore found herself no nearer a conclusion when Clarence called than when she had dismissed him a week earlier.
Her toilet completed, the girl leaned her face upon her hands, and regarded herself in the mirror.
"I must decide," she mused. "I must give him an answer. I never can say yes. Suppose he should want to touch me, or to kiss me. Ugh! I should die! How red my face is! It must be because I hurried so. The color is becoming, though. I ought to go down, but it will do him good to wait a while; and I must think.
"Oh, I wish a woman was independent as a man is! Then I needn't be engaged to anybody. But I never can care for anybody as I did for Tom. How could Tom be so – how could he act so! I must be engaged to Clarence to show Tom that I'm not heart-broken for him. Oh, how I hate Tom Putnam! – at least I hate the way he acts. Hate makes more matches than love, I dare say. What nonsense! Let me think: I must think. I'm sure Clarence is nice. He has so refined personal habits! And then his wife could have any thing money could buy. Wife? There's time enough to think of that: this is only the engagement, and I dare say one gets fond of any man by being engaged to him long enough. Perhaps I should get to be willing to be Mrs. Toxteth. I'm sure I hope so. This comb is certainly in a little bit too high. There! I am pretty, but a girl is despised forever that will own she thinks herself so. Dear me! I must go down stairs and see that horrid Clarence. I'm sure I don't see why he need be forever bothering me for an answer. How unhappy I am! and I'm afraid I deserve it. I wonder if he wouldn't give me a week longer. No, I don't think I quite dare to ask for that: I've treated him shamefully now. But I'll make amends: I'll say yes, but I do hate to awfully."
And down stairs swept the young lady to meet the suitor to whom she had decided to plight her troth. He rose to meet her, uttering some polite commonplace, and she began to rattle on about the gossip of Montfield. She dreaded the question he had come to ask; yet soon she began to experience an irritated desire that he would speak, and end this suspense. She carried that fatal yes as a burden of which she would fain be rid as quickly as possible. At last the question came.
"Have you thought that the week you asked is up?" Clarence inquired.
"I remembered it," she answered, dropping her eyelids.
"You haven't given me my answer."
"Did you expect me to come to you with it?" she asked, fencing to gain time.
"Of course not; but I have come for it."
"I am not worth so much trouble," she said.
"Is that my answer?"
"Certainly it isn't," she replied. "But why must you be in such haste about it?"
"Haste about it!" he repeated. "I should think I had waited long enough. If I am not worth answering, I cannot be worth marrying."
His indignation influenced Patty in his favor; but alas! his last word made her shudder.
"Oh! It isn't that," she ambiguously exclaimed.
"But do you mean to say yes, or no?" Clarence demanded with some irritation.
Patty looked at him with dilated eyes.
"It must come," she thought, "and then I shall be engaged to him, and he'll have the right to kiss me; but I must say it."
She opened her lips to give the fatal assent.
"No," they said, it seemed to her entirely without her volition.
"What!" he exclaimed.
"I said 'no,'" she repeated, feeling as if amare had been removed from her breast. "I like you very much, Clarence; but I don't think we are quite suited for each other."
"You don't!" he retorted, smarting with wounded love and vanity. "Then why couldn't you say so at once, and not keep me making a fool of myself for nothing all summer?"
"I own I've treated you horridly," she said humbly. "And I beg your pardon; but I didn't know my own mind."
"You ought to have known," he continued, becoming more angry as she grew more yielding. "You may go farther and fare worse, Patty Sanford. I might have known you were leading me on. I always thought you were a flirt, but I did think you'd treat an old friend decently. Thank Heaven, I needn't go to the world's end for a wife!"
"Indeed!" Mistress Sanford said, drawing herself up with fine dignity. "I congratulate you on your escape from the snare into which I have been leading you. I might have known your penetration was too keen not to see through the wiles of a mere flirt."
"I – that is" – he stammered in confusion.
"I am very sorry I have taken so much of your time," she continued. "But then, as you just remarked so happily, it isn't as if you had to go to the world's end to find a wife."
"I didn't mean" began he, thoroughly abashed, – "I didn't mean" —
"Very likely not," she interrupted. "I didn't either. I beg your pardon," she added more calmly. "Did I show you those views aunt Shasta sent us from Paris last week?"
"Yes – I don't know," Clarence replied. "I must be going."
"I am very glad you called," Patty said. "I have enjoyed it very much. You must be neighborly. You know the Brecks are gone; and Flossy is so absorbed in Burleigh that I am sure to be lonesome."
And she bowed out the rejected suitor, who went home with a tingling sensation about his ears.
"I might have known," he muttered to himself; "but her mother was so sure she'd have me. Confound it! It isn't safe to trust anybody's opinion of a woman but your own, and it's best to be d – d doubtful of that."
As for Patty, she went back to her chamber bitterly ashamed of herself, yet happier than she had been for many a long day.
CHAPTER XLIV
WILL AND EASE
Meanwhile Mrs. Smithers had begun proceedings for obtaining the property willed her by Mr. Mullen. The days which followed at Mullen House were gloomy ones. Mr. Wentworth came down only to spend the larger part of his time and strength in cursing and fuming, which added little to the comfort of his client or her niece. To Ease, leaving the homestead could not be what it was to her aunt, who had no life apart from its theatrical stateliness. But Miss Mullen was too energetic to fold her hands. In less than a week from the time Mrs. Smithers put in a claim for the property, Miss Tabitha announced that she had made arrangements to take up her abode with a cousin residing in Boston.
"But what am I to do?" Ease asked in dismay.
"I was wondering this morning what you intended," her aunt said coolly. "As you have been the means of our losing all we have, I supposed you must have some plans. I hope you won't disgrace the family. If your father hadn't been a spendthrift, you'd have as much as I have to live on."
The sisters had each inherited a small property from their mother, and upon this Miss Tabitha had now to depend. Mrs. Apthorpe's portion had been expended in the last illness of her husband, who lingered between life and death five tedious years, during which Mr. Mullen had refused the slightest aid to his heart-broken daughter.
In these dark days, when Miss Tabitha was showing a spirit equally hard, Ease turned for comfort to Will Sanford. Accustomed to lean upon others, she found his presence and help a necessity. He had but one solution for her difficulties, – that of matrimony.
"But we are not even engaged," Ease protested.
"Oh! it isn't necessary to be engaged before you are married," he answered. "That can be attended to afterward quite as well."
Still, to marry on nothing a year is a delicate matter; and Will consulted his father in his perplexity.
"Married?" the doctor said. "What have you to live on?"
The son drew from his pocket a handful of silver, which he eyed doubtfully.
"That is about the extent of my available capital."
"Not a very substantial basis upon which to acquire a family," his father said.
"I wish," exclaimed Will, rattling the coins he held, "that I had as much money as I could lift; and oh, wouldn't I lift!"
"No doubt," Dr. Sanford assented grimly. "But you haven't; and it takes money to support a wife. Young love is delightful company, but a great eater."
"But there are two sides to the question," said Will. "Ease must be thought of. That old tabby-cat Tabitha has deserted her, and I can't stand by and see her turned out of house and home. And there's no other way I can help her. I might go to teaching school to support myself; but in the long-run I can make more at my profession. Now, will you lend me the money I need till I can pay my way?"
"My dear boy, debt is a pestilence which walketh at noonday, and doesn't lie quiet at night, nor let you."
"But I must endure that rather than let Ease suffer."
"But don't fancy I should forgive you the debt."
"I should hope not," Will said, unconsciously drawing himself up. "I didn't mean to beg a living."
"That strikes fire," his father said, laughing. "I think you had better arrange the matter with Ease as soon as you can, and have things settled. I am proud of your choice too."
"I" – Will began; but, instead of speech, he wrung his father's hand, and was off for Mullen House.