Hills of the Shatemuc Part 103

"And as that might happen again," said Mr. Haye, "it is just as safe, on the whole, that the person in question does not come here any more. I am glad that I have advertised his place for sale."

"_What!_" exclaimed Elizabeth and Rose both at once.

"Hush -- don't fire at a man in that way. His father's place, I should say."

"_What_ have you done to it?" said Elizabeth.

"Advertised it for sale. You don't hear me as well as you do Mr. Satterthwaite, it seems."

"How come you to have it to sell?"

"Because it was mortgaged to me -- years ago -- and I can't get either princ.i.p.al or interest; so I am taking the best way I can to secure my rights."

"But Mr. Landholm was your friend?"

"Certainly -- but I am a better friend to myself. Can't do business with your friends on different principles from those you go upon with other people, Lizzie."

Elizabeth looked at him, with eyes that would have annihilated a large portion of Mr. Haye's principles, if they had been sentient things. Rose began a running fire of entreaties that _he_ would have nothing to do with Shahweetah, for that she could not bear the place. Elizabeth brought her eyes back to her plate, but probably she still saw Mr. Haye there, for the expression of them did not change.

"_I'm_ not going to have anything to do with the place, Rose,"

said Mr. Haye -- "further than to get it off my hands. I don't want to live there any more than you do. All I want to do is to pay myself."

"Father," said Elizabeth looking up quietly, "_I'll_ buy it of you."

"_You!_" said Mr. Haye, -- while Rose went off into a succession of soft laughs.

"Do you care who does it, so that you get the money?"

"No, -- but what will you do with it?"

"Find a way, in time, of conveying it back to its right owners," said Rose. "Don't you see, Mr. Haye?"

Elizabeth favoured her with a look which effectually spiked that little gun, for the time, and turned her attention again to her father.

"Do you care who buys it of you, so that you get the money?"

"Why, no -- but you don't want such a piece of property, Lizzie."

"I want just such a piece of property."

"But my child, you can't manage it. It would be an absurd spending of _your_ money. There's a farm of two or three hundred acres -- more, -- besides woodland. What could you do with it?"

"Trust me to take care of my own. May I have it, father?"

"Mr. Haye! --" Rose put in, pouting and whimpering, -- "I wish you'd tell Lizzie she's not to look at me so! --"

"Will you sell it to me?" pursued Elizabeth.

"If you'll promise it shall not go back to the original owners in any such way as Rose hinted."

"Are those your terms of sale?" said Elizabeth. "Because, though I may not choose to submit myself to them, I can find you another purchaser."

"What do you want of a great piece of land like that?"

"Nothing; I want the land itself."

"You can't do anything with it."

"It don't signify, if it all grows up to nettles!" said Elizabeth. "Will you take the money of me and let me take the land of you?"

"Hum --" said Mr. Haye, -- "I think you have enlightened me too much this morning. No -- I'll find a more disinterested purchaser; and let it teach you to take care of your eyes as well as your tongue."

Rose bridled. Mr. Haye got up leisurely from the breakfast- table and was proceeding slowly to the door, when his path was crossed by his daughter. She stood still before him.

He might well tell her to take care of her eyes. They glowed in their sockets as she confronted him, while her cheek was as blanched as a fire at the heart could leave it. Mr. Haye was absolutely startled and stood as still as she.

"Father," she said, "take care how you drive me too far! You have had some place in my heart, but I warn you it is in danger. -- If you care for it, I warn you! -- "

She was gone, like a flash; and Mr. Haye after casting a sort of scared look behind him at his wife, went off too; probably thinking he had got enough for one morning.

No doubt Elizabeth felt so for her part. She had gone to her own room, where she put herself on a low seat by the window and sat with labouring breath and heaving bosom, and the fire in her heart and in her eyes glowing still, though she looked now as if it were more likely to consume herself than anybody else. If herself was not present to her thoughts, they were busy with nothing then present; but the fire burned.

While she sat there, Clam came in, now one of the smartest of gay-turbaned handmaidens, and began an elaborate dusting of the apartment. She began at the door, and by the time she had worked round to Elizabeth at the window, she had made by many times a more careful survey of her mistress than of any piece of furniture in the room. Elizabeth's head had drooped; and her eyes were looking, not vacantly, but with no object in view, out of the window.

"I guess you want my friend here just now, Miss 'Lizabeth,"

said Clam, her lips parting just enough to show the line of white between them.

"Whom do you mean by your friend?"

"O -- Governor Landholm, to be sure -- he used to fix everybody straight whenever he come home to Wuttle Quttle."

Elizabeth pa.s.sed over the implication that she wanted 'fixing,' and asked, "How? --"

"_I_ don' know. He used to put 'em all in order, in less'n no time," said Clam, going over and over the dressing-table with her duster, as that piece of furniture kept her near her mistress. "Mis' Landholm used to get her face straight the minute his two feet sounded outside the house, and she'd keep it up as long as he stayed; and Winifred stopped to be queer and behaved like a Christian; and n.o.body else in the house hadn't a chance to take airs but himself."

"What sort of airs did _he_ take?" said Elizabeth.

"O I don' know," said Clam; -- "_his_ sort; -- they wa'n't like n.o.body else's sort."

"But what do you mean by airs?"

"Can't tell," said Clam, -- "nothin' like yours, Miss 'Lizabeth, -- I take a notion to wish he was here, once in a while -- it wouldn't do some folks no harm."

"Didn't his coming put you in order too?"

Clam gave a little toss of her head, infinitely knowing and satisfied at the same time, and once more and more broadly shewed the white ivory between her not unpretty parted teeth.

"I think you want putting in order now," said her mistress.