Hills of the Shatemuc Part 116

"Mr. Winthrop says everybody can be of use."

"Then go and try; I don't want you; and stay as long as they would like to have you."

"When will I go, Mis' Landholm?"

"What?"

"I asked Mis' Landholm, when will I go."

"What do you mean, Clam!"

"You said call you any name I liked -- and I like that 'bout as well as any one," said Clam st.u.r.dily.

"But it isn't my name."

"I wish 'twas," said Clam; -- "no, I don' know as I do, neither; but it comes kind o' handy."

"Make some other serve your turn," said Elizabeth gravely. "Go up this afternoon, and say I don't want you and shall be most happy if you can be of any service to Miss Winifred."

"Or Mr. Winthrop --" said Clam. "I'll do all I can for both of 'em, Miss 'Lizabeth."

She was not permitted to do much. She went and stayed a night and a day, and served well; but Winifred did not like her company, and at last confessed to Winthrop that she could not bear to have her about. It was of no use to reason the matter; and Clam was sent home. The answer to Elizabeth's note came just before her handmaiden, by some other conveyance.

"Little South St. Dec. 21, 1821.

"Your note, Miss Haye, has put me in some difficulty, but after a good deal of consideration I have made up my mind to allow the 'right' you claim. It is your right, and I have no right to deprive you of it. Yet the difficulty reaches further still; for without details, which you waive, the result which you wish to know must stand upon my word alone. I dislike exceedingly it should so stand; but I am constrained here also to admit, that if you choose to trust me rather than have the trouble of the accounts, it is just that you should have your choice.

"My brother's owing to Mr. Haye, for which he is held responsible, is in the sum of eleven hundred and forty-one dollars.

"I have the honour to be, with great respect,

"Winthrop Landholm."

Elizabeth read and re-read.

"It is very polite -- it is very handsome -- nothing could be clearer from any shadow of implications or insinuations -- no, nor of anything but 'great respect' either," she said to herself. "It's very good of him to trust and understand me and give me just what I want, without any palaver. _That_ isn't like common people, any more. Well, my note wasn't, either. But he hasn't said a word but _just_ what was necessary. -- Well, why should he? --"

She looked up and saw Clam.

"What's brought you back again?"

"I don' know," said Clam. "My two feet ha' brought me, but I don' know what sent me."

"Why did you come then?"

"'Cause I had to," said Clam. "Nothin' else wouldn't ha' made me. I told you it was good livin' with him. I'd stay as long as I got a chance, if I was anybody!"

"Then what made you come home?"

"I don' know," said Clam. "He wouldn't let me stay. He don't stop to make everything clear; he thinks it's good enough for him to say so; and so it is, I suppose; and he told me to come."

"I am afraid you didn't do your duty well."

"I'd like to see who wouldn't," said Clam. "I did mine as well as he did his'n."

"How is Winifred?"

"She's pretty bad. I guess he don't think he'll have much more of her, and he means to have all he can these last days. And she thinks she's almost in Paradise when he's alongside of her."

Elizabeth laid her face down and asked no more questions.

But she concerned herself greatly to know how much and what she might do in the premises, to shew her kind feeling and remembrance, without doing too much. She sent Clam once with jellies; then she would not do that again. Should she go to see Winifred herself? Inclination said yes; and backed its consent with sundry arguments. It was polite and kind; and everybody likes kindness; she had known Winifred, and her brother, long ago, and had received kindness in the family, yes, even just now from Winthrop himself; and though his visiting had so long been at an end, this late intercourse of notes and business gave her an opening. And probably Winifred had very few friends in the city to look after her. And again inclination said "Go." But then came in another feeling that said "Go not. You have not opening enough. Mr. Landholm's long and utter cessation of visits, from whatever cause, says plainly enough that he does not desire the pleasure of your society; don't do anything that even looks like forcing it upon him. People will give it a name that will not please you." "But then," said inclination on the other hand, "my going could not have that air, to him, for he knows and I know that in the existing state of affairs it is perfectly impossible that he should ever enter the doors of my father's house -- let me do what I will." "People don't know as much,"

said the other feeling; "err on the safe side if at all, and stay at home." "And I don't care much for people," -- said Elizabeth.

It was so uncommon a thing for her to find any self-imposed check upon what she wished to do, that Miss Haye was very much puzzled; and tried and annoyed out of all proportion by her self-consultations. She was in a fidget of uneasiness all day long; and the next was no better.

"What _is_ the matter, Lizzie?" said Rose, as she busily threaded her netting-needle through mesh after mesh, and Elizabeth was patiently or impatiently measuring the length of the parlour with her steps. "You look as if you had lost all your friends."

"Do I?"

"Yes. Why do you look so?"

"What is the difference between losing all one's friends, and having none to lose?"

"Why -- haven't you any?"

"Whom have I?"

"Well, you might have. I am sure _I_ have a great many."

"Friends!" said Elizabeth.

"Well -- I don't know who you call friends," said Rose, breaking her silk with an impatient tug at a knot, -- "There! -- dear! how _shall_ I tie it again? -- I should think you needn't look so glum."

"Why shouldn't I?"

"Why -- because. You have everything in the world."

"Have I?" said Elizabeth bitterly. "I am alone as I can be."

"Alone!" said Rose.

"Yes. I am alone. My father is buried in his business; I have nothing of him, even what I might have, or used to have -- _you_ never were anything to me. There is not a face in the world that my heart jumps to see."

"Except that one?" said Rose.

"'That one,' as you elegantly express it, I do not see, as it happens."