Concerning Sally Part 57

"He was, Horry. You don't know what a brick he was." She sighed lightly and then she laughed. "Whatever did you do with your jacket?"

"M--m--most s--set th--the h--house af--f--fire w--with it. I--it w--w--was a p--pretty n--n--new j--j--j--th--there!--c--coat, and m--m--moth--ther c--c--couldn't b--b--bear to th--throw it aw--w--way, s--so sh--sh--she k--k--kept it l--lying ar--r--round 'n--n--ntil w--w--winter. Th--then sh--she t--t--told m--me t--to p--p--put it in--n--to th--the f--f--furnace. M--m--most s--set th--the h--house af--f--f--fire. F--f--full o' o--o--oil, y' kn--n--now. H--h--hor--rid sm--sm--smoke."

Ollie and Sally were chuckling in little bursts.

Horry sighed. "Th--those t--t--times w--were f--f--fun, th--though,"

he said; "g--great--t--test f--f--fun th--that e--ever w--was.

N--never c--c--come ag--g--gain, w--will th--they, Ol--Ollie?"

"Oh," Ollie replied lazily, grinning, "I don't know. I'd like to run 'em again, right now."

"You boys had better not," Sally remarked, with a shake of the head.

"Those barrels belong to the firm, you know. You'd be the losers, as well as I--and the Hazen Estate."

"'T--t w--w--would b--be m--m--more f--f--fun th--than s--some th--things I kn--n--now ab--b--bout," Horry observed cryptically, "an' l--l--less ex--x--xpen--s--sive."

Ollie looked at him and they both grinned and went back to their desks.

As may have been inferred, Horry Carling and Ollie Pilcher were, if not members of the firm of John Hazen, Inc., at least stockholders.

Harry Carling would have liked to enter the Law School; but being debarred, for obvious reasons, from practising law, he had chosen engineering. Which, it may be remarked in pa.s.sing, having been chosen rather from reasons of expedience than because he had any natural taste or apt.i.tude in that direction, may not have been a wise choice.

Horry, who had gone into what he liked the best and wanted the most, stood a much better chance of making a success of his life. Had not his grandfather been a great ship captain almost all the days of his life? And Ollie's grandfather, too? It was in their blood. If the salt is in a man's blood--or a boy's--it must come out, sooner or later, or engender a ferment which will trouble that man as long as he lives.

And Horry and Ollie, having the natural taste for what they were doing and having had a pretty fair training for it all through their boyhood, fitted into the new firm of John Hazen, Inc., like new parts into a machine. It needed only a little polishing by wear for that machine to run as smoothly as it had been running for fifty years.

Sally worked hard at her new business. She had compounded with her conscience by not giving up her teaching yet--definitely. She would teach one more year, at least. Then, she said to herself, if she still felt as she did now, it would not be right for her to keep on with it.

Meanwhile, she would have some time every afternoon, and, with Horry and Ollie,--really, it was going pretty well, much better than she had sometimes feared. And at this point she would sigh and smile and fall to looking out of the window at the yards of the ships--_her_ ships, she liked to think, although, of course, they were not all hers, but they belonged to the stockholders in John Hazen, Inc., according to their holdings, and that list included Patty and d.i.c.k and Horry Carling and Ollie Pilcher and some others; but she liked to look out at the vessels and imagine that they were all hers. And she saw the rows of oil-barrels and the black dust of the road, which was kept pretty well stirred up by the feet of the horses which dragged the heavy trucks in an almost continuous procession. At any rate, she could call the dust hers,--if she wanted to,--for it would not have been stirred up if it had not been for her, but would have lain quietly there until it ceased to be dust at all and became no more than the surface of a street that was almost abandoned; baked hard by the sun and gullied by the rain and somewhat gra.s.s-grown. Then she would laugh and decide that she did not want the dust anyway; she had quite enough of that. As for her method of compounding with her conscience, it pleased her better than it pleased Mr. MacDalie, who did not share her misgivings.

Sally's efforts were not enough to induce Charlie to spend his vacation slaving in an office. Every one might not call the occupation of Horry and Ollie slaving. Sally mildly suggested that view of the matter.

"If I owned some stock in it, the matter would have a different aspect, no doubt," Charlie replied sarcastically. "As it is, I should be nothing but a clerk."

He was lucky to have the chance to start with that, Sally pointed out.

It was possible that he was not fitted to be more than office boy.

With this shot, which may have been unduly hard upon Charlie, Sally turned away. Charlie, at any rate, thought it unduly hard, and felt much injured. Sally was always hard on him; unfair. What could she know against him? And, having procured a horse at a livery stable,--the liveliest young horse they had, with the most stylish rig, which, by the way, Sally would have the privilege of paying for,--Charlie took his way out to Doctor Sanderson's to see Patty and to be consoled and, incidentally, with the secret hope that Patty had a few dollars to spare for a deserving and much misunderstood boy. For Patty managed to save up a few dollars for that purpose now and then, although d.i.c.k had greatly curtailed her sources of supply. No, they were _his_ sources of supply which had been curtailed by d.i.c.k, Charlie said to himself. d.a.m.n d.i.c.k anyway! What right had he to do such a thing? Where should he, Charlie, get money in time of need? Where should he, indeed? d.a.m.n d.i.c.k! And Charlie gave the lively young horse a cut with the whip, as if the horse were responsible. The lively young horse resented cuts with the whip and proceeded to run; which gave Charlie so much occupation that he forgot, for the moment, about d.i.c.k.

Charlie was getting more and more into the habit of getting rigs at the livery stable, as the summer went on,--rigs which were invariably charged to Sally, she having made no objection to previous charges of a like nature--and of going out to see Patty. Doctor Sanderson's place was so indecently far out anyway that you had to have a horse or an automobile. He couldn't be expected to walk it, and, of course, he had to see Patty occasionally. You wouldn't have him so ungrateful as not to go to see her at all, would you? He supposed Sally would have to pay for the rigs, for _he_ hadn't any of Uncle John's money, had he?

The fact that this was not strictly true did not seem to occur to him; and the fact that Patty had put the stout horse at his disposal made no difference, so far as the livery stable was concerned.

They--meaning Sally--might consider themselves lucky that he did not get an automobile to make the journey of two miles and a half. He couldn't be expected to drive a horse that was thirty years old and was only fit for the bone-yard, now, could he? You could make it in five minutes with an auto and he thought that they--meaning Sally again--might save money if he did get one. Of course he wasn't going to. He would defer to their absurd prejudice on that point. And more to the same effect.

It was no wonder that Sally turned away without speaking. She was afraid to answer; afraid of what she might be led to say. And she would go down to the office and sit looking out of the window and wondering what was to become of Charlie and what she could do about it; wondering what it was that he did in college that it seemed to have such an unfortunate influence on him; wondering whether it would not be better for him, after all, to come out and be made to go to work. She almost decided that it would. Then she remembered that she had not the only word to say about that. There were others who would have something to say and the attempt would raise a storm. Sally was not afraid of storms, but--well--and she would look up to find Horry staring at her as if he wanted to tell her something.

"What is it, Horry?" she would ask, smiling.

Horry would be distinctly embarra.s.sed. He always was: and he always made the same reply. "N--no--noth--th-thing, S--S--Sally," he would say, with a sigh. "I--i--it's n--n--noth--th--thing, o--only I h--h--hate t--to s--s--see you s--so b--b--both--thered ab--b--b--bout an--n--nyth--th--thing. Ch--er--n--n--n.o.b--body's wo--worth it."

That was as much as she could get out of him, although, to tell the truth, she did not try very hard. She only asked her question for his sake, he seemed to want so much to tell something. It did not occur to her that what Horry wanted to say he wanted to say for her sake; and it was for her sake that he did not say it, although it trembled on the very tip of his tongue. Perhaps it trembled too much. Perhaps, if he had found speaking an easier matter, he would have told what he seemed to be on the point of telling.

Toward the last of August, Henrietta and d.i.c.k came back. Henrietta, of course, did not have much time, but she did manage to come and see Sally at the office, one afternoon, on which occasion she completely upset the business of John Hazen, Inc., and all the members of the firm, both present and prospective, fluttered about her and gave her their undivided attention. Naturally, this state of affairs pleased Henrietta, but it embarra.s.sed her, too, for you can't--or a girl who has been recently married can't--speak out freely concerning the secrets which burden her bosom before two unmarried young fellows,--not that the fact of their being unmarried made any difference, of course,--but before two young fellows whom she had never seen before in her life. But Henrietta made an effort to see Sally alone, and on the occasion of that effort, which was successful, she talked a steady stream about d.i.c.k, to all of which Sally a.s.sented with a smile and with as much enthusiasm as even Henrietta could wish.

"And, you know, Sally," she said at the end of this eulogium--and otherwise, "you know, we are in a difficulty now. It is not a very great difficulty and yet it is, too. We don't know where to live."

"How terrible!" said Sally.

"There are so few houses that are--well, dignified enough; suited to d.i.c.k's position, you know."

"Why don't you build?"

"We might, of course, but that would take a long time, and--and, to tell the truth, I've set my--we have set our hearts on an old house; not too old, you know."

"I see," said Sally; "just old enough."

"Exactly," Henrietta agreed. "Just old enough. Now there's Miss Patty's house. It's restored and the work's done."

"Well?"

"And Miss Patty doesn't seem inclined to live in it. She doesn't like to leave Fox's. I saw her and spoke about it, and she said so."

"Well, then, where is the difficulty? Patty's house is a very pleasant, homelike house. I judge that it is just old enough. Can't you rent it?"

"No," said Henrietta in accents of despair. "Patty won't rent it. She says she may want to go back at any minute. She said she'd be glad to oblige me, as Doctor Sanderson's sister, but my being Mr.

Torrington's wife changes the aspect of the matter. She seems to have some grudge against d.i.c.k."

Sally laughed. "That isn't so strange. Knowing Patty, I should think you'd better give up the idea for the present."

"That's just it," Henrietta replied hastily. "For the present. That makes it unwise for us to build, when we may be able to get that house at any time almost. Of course, d.i.c.k must not seem to force Miss Patty in any way. He had to use his authority under the will, you know. Mr.

Hazen would have expected him to and would have _wished_ him to, or why should he have made his will that way? He _had_ to--d.i.c.k, I mean, of course--d.i.c.k simply _had_ to, don't you see, Sally, when he found that Patty had been using all that money and she wouldn't tell what she had used it for--wouldn't give a hint, you know. d.i.c.k only wanted a hint, so that he could keep his accounts straight, or something of that sort. It wasn't evident at all that Patty had used it for herself--Oh!" And Henrietta suddenly clapped her hand over her pretty mouth. "Have I been telling secrets, Sally? Have I?" She looked rather scared, as people were apt to be in any matter which concerned Sally, though I can't see why. Sally was as mild as a lamb in such cases.

She was mild now, but she was gazing at Henrietta with solemn and serious eyes, as if she had discovered a new country.

"I don't know, Henrietta," she replied, "whether you are telling secrets or not. What you were telling was news to me. If you are in any doubt about it, I should think you'd better not tell any more. But you can see why Patty is not inclined to do any favor for d.i.c.k."

"Well," returned Henrietta slowly--slowly for her, "I suppose I can, although _I_ think that d.i.c.k is doing her the _greatest_ favor. As far as her house is concerned, d.i.c.k might feel at liberty to rent to any one else, but not to himself. I'm sure I hope he won't rent to anybody else, whatever he does or Patty doesn't do. He ought not to do anything that could be considered dishonorable, of course, but I can't quite see why this would be. But he simply won't."

"No," said Sally. "I should expect that of d.i.c.k."

"There doesn't seem to be anything to do about it," Henrietta continued, "unless--unless," she suggested with hesitation, "you would see Patty, Sally."

Sally smiled with amus.e.m.e.nt. "Of course I will if you want me to, Henrietta. But I'm not the one to make a successful emissary to Patty.

I'm not in favor any more than d.i.c.k. You'd much better make up to Charlie if you want anything of Patty; much better."

"That seems to be a good idea," Henrietta murmured, gazing thoughtfully at Sally the while, "and easy too. I'll do it."

CHAPTER XIX

Henrietta had no great difficulty in doing it. She made a good beginning before Charlie went back to college, although she had only a little more than a fortnight, and she continued her attentions at frequent intervals thereafter. There was nothing crude about either Henrietta or her methods. She did not let him suspect her object or, indeed, that she had an object, and Charlie did not look for one. His own attractions were enough, goodness knows, to account for any attentions that might be lavished upon him, and he accepted those attentions almost as a matter of course. But as attentions and he had become, to a certain extent, strangers,--always excepting Patty's attentions, which did not count,--Charlie was very grateful in his inmost soul and he made the most of them. He came down to Whitby more often than he had been in the habit of doing and he invariably went to the Torringtons' at the first possible moment and spent as much time there as he could. He even developed a certain shyness which was very becoming. But he avoided d.i.c.k. He had a grudge against d.i.c.k and he was resolved not to forget it. d.i.c.k had done him an injury.