The Little Red Chimney Part 14

Mrs. Pennington, pacing uneasily back and forth, glanced at the music on the piano rack.

"Oh, stay at home, my heart, and rest, Home-keeping hearts are happiest,"

it admonished her. In this disarming atmosphere she began to feel herself the victim of some wretched dream. Yet here in her bag was Margaret Elizabeth's note, found awaiting her on her return from Chicago an hour ago.

In it her niece apologised contritely for the inexcusable manner in which she had spoken, and continued: "It makes me unhappy, dearest Aunt Eleanor, to think of disappointing you, for you have been the kindest aunt in the world, but I have discovered in the last few days what I ought to have known all along, that I cannot marry Mr.

McAllister. The reason is there is some one else. He is neither rich nor of distinguished family, but there are things that count for more, at least to me. I shall see you very soon, and explain more fully.

In the meantime think kindly, if you can, of your niece,

MARGARET ELIZABETH."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MRS. GERRARD PENNINGTON]

This as it stood was bad enough, wrecking her dearest hopes at the moment when they had seemed most secure; but taken in connection with a story related in artless innocence by her travelling companion of yesterday, Teddy Brown, to use one of that gentleman's cherished phrases, it spelled tragedy.

The Reporter had not been bent on mischief. Far from it. He was merely grappling bravely with the task of being agreeable to the great lady.

Surely it was but natural that in the course of a long conversation the Candy Man's curious resemblance to Augustus should suggest itself as a topic; and given a gleam of something like interest in his companion's eyes, it was easy to continue from bad to worse.

He lived in the same apartment house as Virginia, and from her he had heard of the Christmas tree, and the Candy Man's presence on the occasion; also of that old accident on the corner in which the Candy Man had figured as Miss Bentley's rescuer. No wonder those intuitions regarding a person who was not Augustus should have risen to torture Mrs. Pennington. All this circ.u.mstantial evidence was very black against Margaret Elizabeth, seemingly so honest and frank. No wonder Mrs.

Pennington was distraught.

Meanwhile, wherever her heart might be, Margaret Elizabeth herself was out. Uncle Bob, coming in, paper in hand, to greet the visitor cordially, could not imagine where she had gone, and peered around the room as if after all she might have escaped their notice. If she wasn't in, he was confident she would be, in the course of a few minutes, which confidence was not a logical deduction from known facts, but merely an untrustworthy inference, born of his surprise at finding her out at all.

Placing a chair for Mrs. Pennington, he took one himself and regarded her genially. Some minutes of polite conversation followed, in the course of which Mrs. Pennington, concealing her agitation, spoke of her journey to Chicago in quest of colonial furnishings. Mr. Vandegrift in his turn brought forward Florida and orange groves.

But Margaret Elizabeth delayed her coming, and Mrs. Pennington could stand it no longer. "Mr. Vandegrift," she began, after the silence that followed the last word on oranges, "I regret that my niece is not here, yet it may be as well to speak to you first. I may say, to make an appeal to you. You are, I am sure, fond of Margaret Elizabeth." She played nervously with the fastening of her shopping bag.

Uncle Bob looked at her in surprise, then at the toe of his shoe. "I think I may safely admit it," he owned, crossing his knees and nodding his head.

"Then, Mr. Vandegrift, I beseech you, with all the feeling of which I am capable, to unite with me in saving this misguided girl." At this point all her intuitions and fears rallied around Mrs. Pennington, and gave a quiver to her voice.

Uncle Bob was astonished at her tone, and said so.

"I a.s.sure you, Mr. Vandegrift, I have her own word for it." She produced a note from her bag.

"Her word for what?" he asked.

"Why, for--oh, Mr. Vandegrift, let us not waste time in futile fencing.

You must know that Margaret Elizabeth has deceived me; has been guilty of base ingrat.i.tude; has been meeting clandestinely a person--a mere adventurer. I can scarcely bring myself to say it. My brother Richard's daughter!" Mrs. Pennington had recourse to her handkerchief.

Uncle Bob uncrossed his knees and sat bolt upright. "Madame," he exclaimed, "I am sorry for your distress, whatever its cause, but let me a.s.sure you, you are under some grave mistake. My niece has met no one clandestinely, and is incapable of deceit and treachery."

"Do I understand then that it was with your connivance?"

"I have connived at nothing, Madame, and I know of no adventurer." Uncle Bob took his penknife from his pocket and tapped on the table with it.

His manner was legal in the extreme. He was enjoying himself.

Mrs. Pennington looked over her handkerchief. "But she says, herself----"

"Says she has been guilty of deceit and treachery? Has been meeting an adventurer clandestinely? Pardon me, but this is incredible."

"What is incredible, Uncle Bob?" came a voice from the half-open door, unmistakably that of the accused. "I'll be there as soon as I get off my raincoat," it added.

"It is hopeless to try to make you understand," Mrs. Pennington almost sobbed, the while sounds from the hall indicated that some one beside Margaret Elizabeth was removing a raincoat. A horrible dread suddenly smote her, lest it be that person. A sleepless night and her distress had unnerved her. She felt herself unequal to the encounter.

She glanced about helplessly for a way of escape, but there was none.

"Tell him not to come in. I cannot see him now," she begged tragically of Uncle Bob, who, honestly mystified now, stood between her and the door, looking from it to her.

"She says not to come in," he repeated to Margaret Elizabeth's companion, who was following her in.

"Why, Aunt Eleanor, I didn't know it was you! They told me your train was late. And oh, what is the matter? What are you crying about? Is it I?" Margaret Elizabeth, with raindrops on her hair, knelt beside her aunt and embraced her, pressing a cool cheek against that lady's fevered one.

Mrs. Pennington, her face hidden in her hands, continued to murmur, "I cannot see him. I cannot see him."

"In the name of heaven, Eleanor, why can't you see me? Why must I not come in?" demanded a familiar voice which brought her to with a shock.

"Gerrard!" she cried, in her surprise revealing a sadly tear-stained countenance.

Uncle Bob beat a retreat into the hall, where he paused, chuckling to himself.

"Certainly it is I. Who should it be?" said her husband, taking a seat beside her. "Why are you making such a sight of yourself, my dear? When I telephoned out to know if you had arrived, they said you had and had gone out again immediately, no one knew where. I came out to talk over some business with William Knight, and when I was leaving I saw your car over here, and thought I'd join you; but if my presence is unbearable, I will withdraw." Mr. Pennington smiled at Margaret Elizabeth.

"Don't be silly, please, I have had a most trying day. I don't expect you to understand."

Mrs. Pennington was recovering her poise. There was something irresistibly steadying in her husband's matter-of-fact statement, and in the sight of her niece sitting back on her heels and looking up at her with lovely, solicitous eyes. Treachery and deceit became meaningless terms in such connection.

"You haven't given us a chance to understand, Eleanor. What is the trouble?" Mr. Pennington demanded.

"Uncle Gerry, I am afraid it is I," said Margaret Elizabeth, picking up the note from the floor where it had fallen. "I am sorry, you know I am, that I can't do as she wishes, but you understand that I can't. Tell her, please, that I did honestly try to think I could, but it wasn't of any use."

"Oh, come now, Eleanor, if that is it, of course we wanted Margaret Elizabeth up at the Park; but the young people of this generation like to manage their own affairs, as we did before them." Mr. Pennington looked quizzically at his niece. "She's been getting up a bit of melodrama for our benefit, that's all. If you will pardon the suggestion, my dear, I think possibly it is you who do not understand."

Margaret Elizabeth, rising from her lowly position, threw him a kiss over her aunt's head.

"How can I be expected to, with everything shrouded in mystery?" cried Mrs. Pennington. "Why have I never heard of this person before? Why was I left to be told dreadful things by a reporter?"

"A reporter!" cried Margaret Elizabeth, in her turn aghast.

"Nonsense! If you heard anything dreadful you know Margaret Elizabeth well enough to know it was not true. But how in the world could a reporter have got hold of it?"

"You speak so confidently, Gerrard, tell me, what do you know about this man?" Mrs. Pennington looked from her niece to her husband. "Margaret Elizabeth seems to have completely won you to her side," she added.

"It is really a very strange story, Eleanor, and to begin at the end of it, we have quite sufficient evidence, in my opinion, to prove that he is the son of my old comrade, Robert Waite."

Mrs. Pennington fixed surprised eyes upon her husband. Margaret Elizabeth sat down and folded her hands in her lap.

"You recall how Rob disappeared, without a word to any of his friends?

It was not till some years after the general's death that I had the least clue to it; then William Knight came to me to know if I could give any help in tracing him. He owned that there had been some trouble between General Waite and Robert, and that the latter had been unjustly treated. I couldn't give him any a.s.sistance, and I never discussed it with him again. Knight was always close-mouthed, and it was only the other day that I learned what the trouble was. It seems the general suspected his nephew of taking a large sum of money from the safe in his library. It was one of those cases of complete circ.u.mstantial evidence.