Brenda's Ward Part 44

"I want to go over and identify him; I know he's our burglar, and that, of course, makes him Miguel Silva, who took Miss Brenda's money."

"But you would better wait until you are sent for. You may be needed as a witness."

"Oh, I don't know about that. The law is slow, they say, so I want to go now and look at him, and shake my fist at him, and tell him that I am Angelina Rosa, and then, please, I am going on in the trolley to Boston.

I had a letter from my mother. She'd like to see me, and I want to tell her about Miguel Silva."

"Would you leave us now, with no one to help us?"

Mrs. Stratford spoke sharply. Martine was too surprised to speak.

"I am sorry, of course," said Angelina, "the place isn't hard, and you've been like a mother to me. But it's very quiet for me at York. You see we're not exactly in things, and I think I'd better be nearer home.

My trunk is all packed, and I'll get the express to call to-day."

"Very well," said Mrs. Stratford, turning away with a dignity that gave Angelina no chance to reply.

"Maggie would never have done this, and I am surprised at you,"

remonstrated Martine as Angelina bade her good-bye.

"I am sorry you feel so," rejoined Angelina, "for I haven't a fault to find with you and Mrs. Stratford. I have heard of a wash-lady that would come in by the day, and I'll stop at her house on the way."

"Oh, no, we can look out for ourselves."

"It isn't that it hasn't been pleasant here," continued Angelina; "I've had a real good time almost always, but I'm homesick, and I have a duty to my family, and I think I'd better go while Miguel Silva is where I can get at him; for after to-day they might lock him up where I couldn't see him, and I want him to know what I think. There's only one thing I want to confess, Miss Martine. You remember when the cook went away last winter,--so unexpectedly, you know, before your dinner? Well, it was I who discharged her. I told her you wanted her to go, and I paid her for the rest of the week. I was so anxious to have things all to myself, so I could show what I could do. But it didn't do me much good,--after the expense of paying her,--for you kept getting cooks that wouldn't let me meddle. But I hope you'll think kindly of me, Miss Martine, and so now good-bye."

After this extraordinary speech, Angelina tripped gayly down the path in the direction of the cars.

"It's frightful ingrat.i.tude!" said Martine. "I feel as if I should never wish to do anything for any one again."

"Angelina has earned her money," responded Mrs. Stratford. "She has worked pretty faithfully. As I have studied her character, I have sometimes wondered that she should stay so contentedly with us, when we have given her so little opportunity to indulge in her favorite gossip."

"But what shall we do now? That is the question, mamma. Of course I will help all I can, but I am feeling tired, and you are not strong enough, and we must stay here."

"There, there, Martine, do not borrow trouble. To-day will take care of itself, and as for to-morrow--"

"To-morrow," cried Clare, suddenly coming upon them, "will be the best day for our Portsmouth excursion, and mamma has sent me over to invite you, Mrs. Stratford, to spend the day with her."

"There, Martine, to-morrow is provided for. Tell your mother, Clare, that I am only too happy to accept her invitation. I must leave you now, while Martine relates the story of Angelina."

As her mother turned toward the house, Martine told Clare of Angelina's departure.

"You must find some one to take her place," said Clare. "You are thinner than when you came to York, and if you don't mind my saying so, you look tired."

To Clare's great surprise, her friend, instead of replying, shed a tear or two. But the tears were followed by smiles, as Martine exclaimed:

"There, I am almost as bad as Priscilla."

"But do you suppose that Angelina was right about the burglar? I wonder if your friend Balfour Airton has heard--"

"Oh, if the burglar has been caught, I am sure Balfour knows all about it. He was really very anxious himself to discover the fellow. If he is off duty, he will probably come over to see us this evening--at least if he has anything to tell."

CHAPTER XXIV

PORTSMOUTH AND AFTERWARD

It was not until they were on their way to Portsmouth, that Clare and Martine had their first good chance to talk to Balfour about the burglar.

"It is really true," said Balfour, "that the fellow has been arrested for entering a Portsmouth shop. I was pretty sure of him, and when this shop was entered, I told the police about this man. He was wearing a pair of topaz sleeve-links, and you said, I remember, that these were the only things missing from Miss Elinor's trunk."

Balfour spoke modestly. From him the girls could get no idea of the many hours he had put into the case until he had a.s.sured himself that this was the very man wanted by the police of more than one city.

"How excited Angelina will be if she really identifies him as the man who took her mother's money long ago."

"Yes," added Martine, "if she is only called in court as a witness, she will be perfectly happy."

At Kittery, as on the day they went to the Shoals, Balfour was left with his car on the Kittery Sh.o.r.e.

"I believe this will be the pleasantest of all our excursions," said Martine to Clare as the two strolled about. "A crowd would seem out of place in these quiet old streets."

"Is there anything you especially care to see before we go to Cousin Mary's?" asked Clare. "You know she expects us there to luncheon, and she always has any number of stories to tell."

"I'd like to see Strawberry Bank," replied Martine. "It sounded so attractive when I came across it in my History as the first name of Portsmouth."

"I fear there are no strawberries there now, though the first settlers are said to have built the Great House in the centre of ground covered with wild strawberry-vines. There's little to see there now, though you have enough imagination to picture where the Great House stood in the time of Mason."

So they went down on Water Street, and thence to the substantial little house where Washington's secretary, Tobias Lear, lived. Here Washington himself called on Madame Lear when he visited Portsmouth soon after his inauguration.

As they turned back toward the statelier mansions of Congress and Pleasant Streets, Clare tried to fit the things she had heard about old Portsmouth to the right persons and people.

"I remember that some distinguished French n.o.bleman described the Langdon House as elegant and well furnished. Washington, too, called it the handsomest house in Portsmouth, and when Louis Philippe was in exile here, he lived for some time in this house. But I like this old Wentworth House better because I really remember one of the romantic stories connected with it."

"Tell me, please."

"Oh, this is simply about Frances Wentworth who jilted her cousin John because he was too poor. John went to England, and Frances married Theodore Atkinson, who was rich and amiable and delicate. In the course of time John Wentworth returned from London as governor of the Province, and when two years later the husband of Frances died, she mourned only ten days, and then became the bride of her cousin John. But here we are at Cousin Mary's, and I ought to have left this story for her. She can tell it so dramatically."

Cousin Mary lived near the old Warner house, and she had much to say to the girls about a former owner of this historic dwelling, whom her mother remembered as one of the last of the townsmen to wear a c.o.c.ked hat and knee-breeches. After luncheon she took her young visitors to call at the Warner mansion, where they saw the curious wall paintings that no one had known about, until the removal of several layers of paper brought the paintings to the light a few years ago.

"You can see how little this house has been changed," said the owner, proudly. "It is really an eighteenth century house of the best type."

"Such as Amy Wentworth dwelt in," added Martine, reciting.

"'With stately stairways worn By feet of old Colonial knights, And ladies gentle-born.

And on her from the wainscot old Ancestral faces frown, And this has worn the soldier's sword, And that--the judge's gown?'

"You did not know I could quote Portsmouth poetry?" asked Martine, turning mischievously to Clare, "but I caught the habit from Amy last summer, as she had a ballad or a story for every place we visited."