From Sand Hill to Pine Part 12

A ring at the front doorbell startled her; without waiting for the servant to answer it, she stepped out on the veranda, and saw a boy whom she recognized as a waiter at the hotel kept by Piney's father. He was holding a note in his hand, and staring intently at the house and garden. Seeing Cissy, he transferred his stare to her. s.n.a.t.c.hing the note from him, she tore it open, and read in Piney's well-known scrawl, "Dad won't let me come to you now, dear, but I'll try to slip out late to-night." Why should she want to come? She had said nothing about coming NOW--and why should her father prevent her? Cissy crushed the note between her fingers, and faced the boy.

"What are you staring at--idiot?"

The boy grinned hysterically, a little frightened at Cissy's straightened brows and snapping eyes.

"Get away! there's no answer."

The boy ran off, and Cissy returned to the drawing-room. Then it occurred to her that the servant had not answered the bell. She rang again furiously. There was no response. She called down the bas.e.m.e.nt staircase, and heard only the echo of her voice in the depths. How still the house was! Were they ALL out,--Susan, Norah, the cook, the Chinaman, and the gardener? She ran down into the kitchen; the back door was open, the fires were burning, dishes were upon the table, but the kitchen was empty. Upon the floor lay a damp copy of the "extra." She picked it up quickly. Several black headlines stared her in the face. "Enormous Defalcation!" "Montagu Trixit Absconded!" "50,000 Dollars Missing!" "Run on the Bank!"

She threw the paper through the open door as she would have hurled back the accusation from living lips. Then, in a revulsion of feeling lest any one should find her there, she ran upstairs and locked herself in her own room.

So that was what it all meant! All!--from the laugh of the Secamp girls to the turning away of the townspeople as she went by. Her father was a thief who had stolen money from the bank and run away leaving her alone to bear it! No! It was all a lie--a wicked, jealous lie! A foolish lie, for how could he steal money from HIS OWN bank? Cissy knew very little of her father--perhaps that was why she believed in him; she knew still less of business, but she knew that HE did. She had often heard them say it--perhaps the very ones who now called him names. He! who had made Canada City what it was! HE, who, Windibrook said, only to-day, had, like Moses, touched the rocks of the Canada with his magic wand of Finance, and streams of public credit and prosperity had gushed from it! She would never speak to them again! She would shut herself up here, dismiss all the servants but the Chinaman, and wait until her father returned.

There was a knock, and the entreating voice of Norah, the cook, outside the door. Cissy unlocked it and flung it open indignantly.

"Ah! It's yourself, miss--and I never knew ye kem back till I met that gossoon of a hotel waiter in the street," said the panting servant.

"Sure it was only an hour ago while I was at me woorrck in the kitchen, and Jim rushes in and sez: 'For the love of G.o.d, if iver ye want to see a blessed cint of the money ye put in the masther's bank, off wid ye now and draw it out--for there's a run on the bank!'"

"It was an infamous lie," said Cissy fiercely.

"Sure, miss, how was oi to know? And if the masther HAS gone away, it's ownly takin' me money from the other divils down there that's drawin' it out and dividin' it betwixt and between them."

Cissy had a very vague idea of what a "run on the bank" meant, but Norah's logic seemed to satisfy her feminine reason. She softened a little.

"Mr. Windibrook is in the parlor, miss, and a jintleman on the veranda,"

continued Norah, encouraged.

Cissy started. "I'll come down," she said briefly.

Mr. Windibrook was waiting beside the piano, with his soft hat in one hand and a large white handkerchief in the other. He had confidently expected to find Cissy in tears, and was ready with boisterous condolement, but was a little taken aback as the young girl entered with a pale face, straightened brows, and eyes that shone with audacious rebellion. However, it was too late to change his att.i.tude. "Ah, my young friend," he said a little awkwardly, "we must not give way to our emotions, but try to recognize in our trials the benefits of a great lesson. But," he added hurriedly, seeing her stand still silent but erect before him, "I see that you do!" He paused, coughed slightly, cast a glance at the veranda,--where Cissy now for the first time observed a man standing in an obviously a.s.sumed att.i.tude of negligent abstraction,--moved towards the back room, and in a lower voice said, "A word with you in private."

Without replying, Cissy followed him.

"If," said Mr. Windibrook, with a sickly smile, "you are questioned regarding your father's affairs, you may remember his peculiar and utterly unsolicited gift of a certain sum towards a new organ, to which I alluded to-day. You can say that he always expressed great liberality towards the church, and it was no surprise to you."

Cissy only stared at him with dangerous eyes.

"Mrs. Windibrook," continued the reverend gentleman in his highest, heartiest voice, albeit a little hurried, "wished me to say to you that until you heard from--your friends--she wanted you to come and stay with her. DO come! DO!"

Cissy, with her bright eyes fixed upon her visitor, said, "I shall stay here."

"But," said Mr. Windibrook impatiently, "you cannot. That man you see on the veranda is the sheriff's officer. The house and all that it contains are in the hands of the law."

Cissy's face whitened in proportion as her eyes grew darker, but she said stoutly, "I shall stay here till my popper tells me to go."

"Till your popper tells you to go!" repeated Mr. Windibrook harshly, dropping his heartiness and his handkerchief in a burst of unguarded temper. "Your papa is a thief escaping from justice, you foolish girl; a disgraced felon, who dare not show his face again in Canada City; and you are lucky, yes! lucky, miss, if you do not share his disgrace!"

"And you're a wicked, wicked liar!" said Cissy, clinching her little fists at her side and edging towards him with a sidelong bantam-like movement as she advanced her freckled cheek close to his with an effrontery so like her absconding father that he recoiled before it.

"And a mean, double-faced hypocrite, too! Didn't you always praise him?

Didn't you call him a Napoleon, and a--Moses? Didn't you say he was the making of Canada City? Didn't you get him to raise your salary, and start a subscription for your new house? Oh, you--you--stinking beast!"

Here the stranger on the veranda, still gazing abstractedly at the landscape, gave a low and apparently unconscious murmur, as if enraptured with the view. Mr. Windibrook, recalled to an attempt at dignity, took up his hat and handkerchief. "When you have remembered yourself and your position, Miss Trixit," he said loftily, "the offer I have made you"--

"I despise it! I'd sooner stay in the woods with the grizzlies and rattlesnakes?" said Cissy pantingly. "Go and leave me alone! Do you hear?" She stamped her little foot. "Are you listening? Go!"

Mr. Windibrook promptly retreated through the door and down the steps into the garden, at which the stranger on the veranda reluctantly tore himself away from the landscape and slowly entered the parlor through the open French window. Here, however, he became equally absorbed and abstracted in the condition of his beard, carefully stroking his shaven cheek and lips and pulling his goatee.

After a pause he turned to the angry Cissy, standing by the piano, radiant with glowing cheeks and flashing eyes, and said slowly, "I reckon you gave the parson as good as he sent. It kinder settles a man to hear the frozen truth about himself sometimes, and you've helped old Shadbelly considerably on the way towards salvation. But he was right about one thing, Miss Trixit. The house IS in the hands of the law. I'm representing it as deputy sheriff. Mebbe you might remember me--Jake Poole--when your father was addressing the last Citizen's meeting, sittin' next to him on the platform--I'M in possession. It isn't a job I'm hankerin' much arter; I'd a lief rather hunt hoss thieves or track down road agents than this kind o' fancy, underhand work. So you'll excuse me, miss, if I ain't got the style." He paused, rubbed his chin thoughtfully, and then said slowly and with great deliberation: "Ef there's any little thing here, miss,--any keepsakes or such trifles ez you keer for in partickler, things you wouldn't like strangers to have,--you just make a little pile of 'em and drop 'em down somewhere outside the back door. There ain't no inventory taken nor sealin' up of anythin' done just yet, though I have to see there ain't anythin'

disturbed. But I kalkilate to walk out on that veranda for a spell and look at the landscape." He paused again, and said, with a sigh of satisfaction, "It's a mighty pooty view out thar; it just takes me every time."

As he turned and walked out through the French window, Cissy did not for a moment comprehend him; then, strangely enough, his act of rude courtesy for the first time awakened her to the full sense of the situation. This house, her father's house, was no longer hers! If her father should NEVER return, she wanted nothing from it, NOTHING! She gripped her beating heart with the little hand she had clinched so valiantly a moment ago. Suddenly her hand dropped. Some one had glided noiselessly into the back room; a figure in a blue blouse; a Chinaman, their house servant, Ah Fe. He cast a furtive glance at the stranger on the veranda, and then beckoned to her stealthily. She came towards him wonderingly, when he suddenly whipped a note from his sleeve, and with a dexterous movement slipped it into her fingers. She tore it open. A single glance showed her a small key inclosed in a line of her father's handwriting. Drawing quickly back into the corner, she read as follows: "If this reaches you in time, take from the second drawer of my desk an envelope marked 'Private Contracts' and give it to the bearer." There was neither signature nor address.

Putting her finger to her lips, she cast a quick glance at the absorbed figure on the veranda and stepped before the desk. She fitted the key to the drawer and opened it rapidly but noiselessly. There lay the envelope, and among other ticketed papers a small roll of greenbacks--such as her father often kept there. It was HIS money; she did not scruple to take it with the envelope. Handing the latter to the Chinaman, who made it instantly disappear up his sleeve like a conjurer's act, she signed him to follow her into the hall.

"Who gave you that note, Ah Fe?" she whispered breathlessly.

"Chinaman."

"Who gave it to him?"

"Chinaman."

"And to HIM?"

"Nollee Chinaman."

"Another Chinaman?"

"Yes--heap Chinaman--allee same as gang."

"You mean it pa.s.sed from one Chinaman's hand to another?"

"Allee same."

"Why didn't the first Chinaman who got it bring it here?"

"S'pose Mellikan man want to catchee lettel. He spotty Chinaman. He follee Chinaman. Chinaman pa.s.see lettel nex' Chinaman. He no get.

Mellikan man no habe got. Sabe?"

"Then this package will go back the same way?"

"Allee same."

"And who will YOU give it to now?"

"Allee same man blingee me lettel. Hop Li--who makee washee."

An idea here struck Cissy which made her heart jump and her cheeks flame. Ah Fe gazed at her with an infantile smile of admiration.