Cynthia Wakeham's Money Part 21

"Tell me more about the case that is interesting you. Supposing you found Harriet Smith or her children?"

"I would show them the will and put them in the way of securing their fortune."

"_I_ should like to see that will."

"Would you?"

"Yes, it would interest me."

"You do not look very interested."

"Do I not? Yet I am, I a.s.sure you."

"Then you shall see it, or rather this newspaper copy of it which I happen to have in my pocket-book."

"What, that little slip?"

"It is not very large."

"I thought a will was something ponderous."

"Sometimes it is, but this is short and very much to the point; it was drawn up in haste."

"Let me take it," said she.

She took it and carried it over to the lamp. Suddenly she turned about and her face was very white.

"What odd provision is this," she cried, "about the heir being required to live a year in the house where this woman died?"

"Oh," said he, "that is nothing; any one who inherits this money would not mind such a condition as that. Mrs. Wakeham wanted the house fitted up, you see. It had been her birthplace."

Hermione silently handed him back the slip. She looked so agitated that he was instantly struck by it.

"Why are you affected by this?" he cried. "Hermione, Hermione, this is something to _you_!"

She roused herself and looked calmly at him, shaking her head.

"You are mistaken," she declared. "It is nothing to me."

"To some one you know, then,--to your sister?"

"How could it be anything to her, if not to me?"

"True; I beg your pardon; but you seem to feel a personal disappointment."

"You do not understand me very well," said she, and turned towards the door in welcome of her sister, who just then came in. She was followed by Doris with a tray on which were heaped ma.s.ses of black and white cherries in bountiful profusion.

"From our own trees," said Emma, as she handed him a plate.

He made his acknowledgments, and leaned forward to take the cherries which Doris offered him.

"Sir," whispered that woman, as she pushed into view a little note which she held in her hand under the tray, "just read this, and I won't disobey you again. It's something you ought to know. For the young ladies' sakes do read it, sir."

He was very angry, and cast her a displeased look, but he took the note.

Hermione was at the other end of the room, and Emma was leaning over her aunt, so the action was not seen; but he felt guilty of a discourtesy for all that, and ate his cherries with a disturbed mind. Doris, on the contrary, looked triumphant, and pa.s.sed from one to the other with a very cheerful smile.

When Frank arrived home he read that note. It was from Doris herself, and ran thus:

"Something has happened to the young ladies. They were to have had new dresses this month, and now they say they must make the old ones do. There is less too for dinner than there was, and if it were not for the fruit on our trees we would not have always enough to eat. But that is not the worst; Miss Emma says I shall have to leave them, as they cannot pay me any longer for my work. As if I would leave them, if I starved! Do, do find out what this means, for it is too much to believe that they are going to be poor with all the rest they have to endure."

Find out what it meant! He knew what it meant; they had sacrificed their case, and now they must go hungry, wear old clothes, and possibly do their own work. It made him heart-sick; it made him desperate; it made him wellnigh forget her look when she said: "Our friendship must not grow into love, _must not_, I say, for both our sakes. It would be fatal."

He resolved to see Hermione the next morning, and, if possible, persuade her to listen to reason, and give up a resolve that endangered both her own and her sister's future comfort.

XIV.

IN THE NIGHT WATCHES.

Meantime in the old house Hermione sat watching Emma as she combed out her long hair before the tiny mirror in their bedroom. Her face, relieved now from all effort at self-control, betrayed a deep discouragement, which deepened its tragic lines and seemed to fill the room with gloom. Yet she said nothing till Emma had finished her task and looked around, then she exclaimed:

"Another curse has fallen upon us; we might have been rich, but must remain poor. Do you think we can bear many more disappointments, Emma?"

"I do not think that I can," murmured Emma, with a pitiful smile. "But what do you mean by riches? Gaining our case would not have made us rich."

"No."

"Has--has Mr. Etheridge offered himself? Have you had a chance of _that_ happiness, and refused it?"

Hermione, who had been gazing almost sadly at her sister as she spoke the foregoing words, flushed, half angrily, half disdainfully, and answered with sufficient bitterness in her voice:

"Could I accept any man's devotion _now_! Could I accept even _his_ if it were offered to me? Emma, your memory seems very short, or you have never realized the position in which I stand."

Emma, who had crimsoned as painfully as her sister at that one emphasized word, which suggested so much to both sisters, did not answer for a moment, but when she did her words came with startling distinctness.

"You do me wrong; I not only have realized, to the core of my heart, your position and what it demands, but I have shared it, as you know, and never more than when the question came up as to whether we girls could marry with such a shadow hanging over us."

"Emma, what do you mean?" asked Hermione, rising and confronting her sister, with wide open, astonished eyes. For Emma's appearance was startling, and might well thrill an observer who had never before seen her gentleness disturbed by a pa.s.sion as great as she herself might feel.

But Emma, at the first sight of this reflection of her own emotions in Hermione's face, calmed her manner, and put a check upon her expression.

"If you do not know," said she, "I had rather not be the one to tell you. But never say again that I do not realize your position."

"Emma, Emma," pursued Hermione, without a change of tone or any diminution in the agitation of her manner to show that she had heard these words, "have _you_ had a lover and I not know it? Did you give up that _when_----" The elder sister choked; the younger smiled, but with an infinite sadness.