An Alabaster Box Part 45

"You pretend to love me," Bolton was saying. "Why don't you do what I want you to?"

"If you'd like to go away from Brookville, father, I will go with you. You need me!"

"That's where you're dead wrong, my girl: I don't need you. What I do need is freedom! You stifle me with your fussy attentions. Give me some money; I'll go away and not bother you again."

Whereat Lydia had cried out--a little hurt cry, which reached the ears of the watcher outside.

"Don't leave me, father! I have no one but you in all the world--no one."

"And you've never even told me how much money you have," the man went on in a whining voice. "There's daughterly affection for you! By rights it all ought to be mine. I've suffered enough, G.o.d knows, to deserve a little comfort now."

"All that I have is yours, father. I want nothing for myself."

"Then hand it over--the control of it, I mean. I'll make you a handsome allowance; and I'll give you this place, too. I don't want to rot here.... Marry that good-looking parson and settle down, if you like. I don't want to settle down: been settled in one cursed place long enough, by gad! I should think you could see that."

"But you wanted to come home to Brookville, father. Don't you remember you said--"

"That was when I was back there in that h.e.l.l-hole, and didn't know what I wanted. How could I? I only wanted to get out. That's what I want now--to get out and away! If you weren't so d.a.m.ned selfish, you'd let me go. I hate a selfish woman!"

Then it was that Jim Dodge, pressing closer to the long window, heard her say quite distinctly:

"Very well, father; we will go. Only I must go with you.... You are not strong enough to go alone. We will go anywhere you like."

Andrew Bolton got nimbly out of his chair and stood glowering at her across its back. Then he burst into a prolonged fit of laughter mixed with coughing.

"Oh, so you'll go with father, will you?" he spluttered. "You insist--eh?"

And, still coughing and laughing mirthlessly, he went out of the room.

Left to herself, the girl sat down quietly enough before the fire.

Her serene face told no story of inward sorrow to the watchful eyes of the man who loved her. Over long she had concealed her feelings, even from herself. She seemed lost in revery, at once sad and profound. Had she foreseen this dire disappointment of all her hopes, he wondered.

He stole away at last, half ashamed of spying upon her lonely vigil, yet withal curiously heartened. Wesley Elliot was right: Lydia Orr needed a friend. He resolved that he would be that friend.

In the room overhead the light had leapt to full brilliancy. An uncertain hand pulled the shade down crookedly. As the young man turned for a last look at the house he perceived a shadow hurriedly pa.s.sing and repa.s.sing the lighted window. Then all at once the shadow, curiously huddled, stooped and was gone. There was something sinister in the sudden disappearance of that active shadow. Jim Dodge watched the vacant window for a long minute; then with a muttered exclamation walked on toward the village.

Chapter XXVI

In the barroom of the Brookville House the flaring kerosene lamp lit up a group of men and half-grown boys, who had strayed in out of the chill darkness to warm themselves around the great stove in the middle of the floor. The wooden armchairs, which in summer made a forum of the tavern's side piazza, had been brought in and ranged in a wide semicircle about the stove, marking the formal opening of the winter session. In the central chair sat the large figure of Judge Fulsom, puffing clouds of smoke from a calabash pipe; his twinkling eyes looking forth over his fat, creased cheeks roved impartially about the circle of excited faces.

"I can understand all right about Andrew Bolton's turning up," one man was saying. "He was bound to turn up sooner or later. I seen him myself, day before yesterday, going down street. Thinks I, 'Who can that be?' There was something kind of queer about the way he dragged his feet. What you going to do about it, Judge? Have we got to put up with having a jailbird, as crazy as a loon into the bargain, living right here in our midst?"

"In luxury and idleness, like he was a captain of industry," drawled another man who was eating hot dog and sipping beer. "That's what strikes me kind of hard, Judge, in luxury and idleness, while the rest of us has to work."

Judge Fulsom gave an inarticulate grunt and smoked on imperturbably.

"Set down, boys; set down," ordered a small man in a red sweater under a corduroy coat. "Give the Jedge a chance! He ain't going to deliver no opinion whilst you boys are rammaging around. Set down and let the Jedge take th' floor."

A general sc.r.a.ping of chair legs and a shuffling of uneasy feet followed this exhortation; still no word from the huge, impa.s.sive figure in the central chair. The oily-faced young man behind the bar improved the opportunity by washing a dozen or so gla.s.ses, setting them down showily on a tin tray in view of the company.

"Quit that noise, Cholley!" exhorted the small man in the red sweater; "we want order in the court room--eh, Jedge?"

"What I'd like to know is where she got all that money of hers,"

piped an old man, with a mottled complexion and bleary eyes.

"Sure enough; where'd she get it?" chimed in half a dozen voices at once.

"She's Andrew Bolton's daughter," said the first speaker. "And she's been setting up for a fine lady, doing stunts for charity. How about our town hall an' our lov-elly library, an' our be-utiful drinking fountain, and the new shingles on our church roof? You don't want to ask too many questions, Lute."

"Don't I?" cried the man, who was eating hot dog. "You all know _me!_ I ain't a-going to stand for no grab-game. If she's got money, it's more than likely the old fox salted it down before they ketched him.

It's our money; that's whose money 'tis, if you want to know!"

And he swallowed his mouthful with a slow, menacing glance which swept the entire circle.

"Now, Lucius," began Judge Fulsom, removing the pipe from his mouth, "go slow! No use in talk without proof."

"But what have you got to say, Jedge? Where'd she get all that money she's been flamming about with, and that grand house, better than new, with all the latest improvements. Wa'n't we some jays to be took in like we was by a little, white-faced chit like her? Couldn't see through a grindstone with a hole in it! Bolton House.... And an automobile to fetch the old jailbird home in. Wa'n't it love-ly?"

A low growl ran around the circle.

"Durn you, Lute! Don't you see the Jedge has something to say?"

demanded the man behind the bar.

Judge Fulsom slowly tapped his pipe on the arm of his chair. "If you all will keep still a second and let me speak," he began.

"I want my rights," interrupted a man with a hoa.r.s.e crow.

"Your rights!" shouted the Judge. "You've got no right to a d.a.m.ned thing but a good horsewhipping!"

"I've got my rights to the money other folks are keeping, I'll let you know!"

Then the Judge fairly bellowed, as he got slowly to his feet:

"I tell you once for all, the whole d.a.m.ned lot of you," he shouted, "that every man, woman and child in Brookville has been paid, compensated, remunerated and requited in full for every cent he, she or it lost in the Andrew Bolton bank failure."

There was a snarl of dissent.

"You all better go slow, and hold your tongues, and mind your own business. Remember what I say; that girl does not owe a red cent in this town, neither does her father. She's paid in full, and you've spent a lot of it in here, too!" The Judge wiped his red face.

"Oh, come on, Jedge; you don't want to be hard on the house,"

protested the man in the red sweater, waving his arms as frantically as a freight brakeman. "Say, you boys! don't ye git excited! The Jedge didn't mean that; you got him kind of het up with argufying....

Down in front, boys! You, Lute--"

But it was too late: half a dozen voices were shouting at once. There was a simultaneous descent upon the bar, with loud demands for liquor of the sort Lute Parsons filled up on. Then the raucous voice of the ringleader pierced the tumult.