The Red City Part 17

"Think of that, Margaret--eight thousand and--"

"For me--mine!" said the girl, rising as she spoke. "Don't speak to me, Cousin Penn. I have had too much to-day. I am troubled. I must go." No, she did not want to discuss it. She must go home. "May I not go, Friend Schmidt? If this is a joke, uncle, it is not to my taste. I must go."

"Certainly. The sleigh is at the door."

Langstroth was angry. He had had no thanks, not a word. There was some embarra.s.sment, but the women must need felicitate the unwilling winner.

She made short answers.

"The puss has her claws out," murmured Mrs. Byrd, as she heard in reply to her congratulations: "I think it is a misfortune--a--a--what will my mother say? I must go." She was a child again. Mrs. Penn, understanding the girl, went out with her, saying kind things, and helping her to put on her over-wrap.

"d.a.m.n the fool!" said her uncle, who had followed her into the hall, and to whom she would not speak.

The gentlemen were silent, not knowing how to sympathize with a misfortune so peculiar. Schmidt, tranquil and undisturbed, made the usual formal adieus and followed her out of the room. He tucked in the furs with kindly care, and through the early evening dusk they drove away across the snow, the girl silent, the man respectful of her mood.

X

It was after dark when Schmidt left Margaret at her home. As he was about to drive away to the stable, he said, "Those are wild girls, but, my dear child, you were so very pretty, I for one almost forgave them."

"Oh, was I?" she cried, shyly pleased and a little comforted. "But the lottery prize; I shall hear about that, and so will my mother, too. I never gave it a thought when uncle spoke of it long ago."

"It is a small matter, Pearl. We will talk about it later. Now go in and quit thinking of it. It is shrewd weather, and nipping."

Margaret knew very well that she had good cause to be uneasy. Friends had been of late much exercised over the evil of lotteries, and half of Langstroth's satisfaction in this form of gambling was due to his love of opposition and his desire to annoy the society of which he still called himself a member. Although, to his anger, he had long ago been disowned, he still went to meeting once or twice a year. He had had no such sacrificial conscience in the war as made Clement Biddle and Wetherill "apostates," as Friends called them. He was by birthright a member of the society, and stood for King George, and would pay no war tax. But when the vendue-master took his old plate and chairs, he went privately and bought them back; and so, having thus paid for the joy of apparent opposition, drank to the king in private, and made himself merry over the men who st.u.r.dily accepting loss for conscience's sake, sat at meals on their kitchen chairs, silently unresistant, but, if human, a little sorrowful concerning the silver which came over with Penn and was their only material reminder of the Welsh homes their fathers had left that they might worship G.o.d in their own simple way.

The one person Langstroth loved was his great-niece, of whose attachment to the German he was jealous with that keen jealousy known to those who are capable of but one single love. He had meant to annoy her mother; and, with no least idea that he would win a prize for her child, was now vexed at Margaret's want of grat.i.tude, and well pleased with the fuss there would be when the news got out and Friends came to hear of it.

When Pearl threw herself into the mother's arms and broke into tears, sobbing out the double story, for a moment Mrs. Swanwick was silent.

"My dear," she said at last, "why didst thou let them dress thee?"

"I--I could not help it, and--and--I liked it, mother. Thou didst like it once," she added, with a look of piteous appeal. "Don't scold me, mother. Thou must have liked it once."

"I, dear? Yes, I liked it. But--scold thee? Do I ever scold thee? 'T is but a small matter. It will be the talk of a week, and Gainor Wynne will laugh, and soon it will be forgotten. The lottery is more serious."

"But I did not do it."

"No."

"They will blame thee, mother, I know--when it was all my uncle's doing.

Let them talk to him."

The widow smiled. "Nothing would please him better; but--they have long since given up Josiah for a lost sheep--"

"Black, mother?" She was a trifle relieved at the thought of an interview between Friend Howell, the gentlest of the gentle, and Josiah.

"Brown, not black," said the mother, smiling. "It will someway get settled, my child. Now go early to bed and leave it to thy elders. I shall talk of it to Friend Schmidt."

"Yes, mother." Her confidence in the German gentleman, now for five years their guest, was boundless.

"And say thy prayers with a quiet heart. Thou hast done no wrong. Good night, my child. Ask if Friend de Courval wants anything. Since her son went away, she has been troubled, as who would not be. Another's real cause for distress should make us feel how small a matter is this of ours." She kissed her again, and the girl went slowly up-stairs, murmuring: "He went away and never so much as said good-by to me. I do not think it was civil."

Meanwhile the mother sat still, with only the click, click of the knitting-needles, which somehow seemed always to a.s.sist her to think.

She had steadily refused help in money from Uncle Josiah, and now, being as angry as was within the possibilities of a temper radiant with the sunshine of good humor, she rejoiced that she owed Josiah nothing.

"He shall have a piece of my mind," she said aloud, and indeed a large slice would have been a sweetening addition to his crabbed sourness.

"Ah, me!" she added, "I must not think of the money; but how easy it would make things!" Not even Schmidt had been permitted to pay more than a reasonable board. No, she would not repine; and now madame, reluctantly accepting her son's increased wages, had insisted that his room be kept vacant and paid for, and was not to be gainsaid about the needed fur-lined roquelaure she bought for her hostess and the extra pay for small luxuries.

"May G.o.d forgive me that I have been unthankful for His goodness," said Mary Swanwick, and so saying she rose and putting aside her thoughts with her knitting, sat down to read a little in the book she had taken from the library, to Friend Poulson's dismay. "Thou wilt not like it, Mary Swanwick." In a minute of mischief young Mr. Willing had told her of a book he had lately read--a French book, amusing and witty. He had left her wishing he could see her when she read it, but self-advised to stay away for a time.

She sat down with antic.i.p.ative satisfaction. "What hard French!" she thought. "I must ask help of madame," as she often called her, Friend Courval being, as she saw plainly, too familiar to her guest. As she read, smiling at the immortal wit and humor of a day long pa.s.sed, suddenly she shut the book with a quick movement, and set it aside.

"What manner of man was this Rabelais? Friend Poulson should have been more plain with me; and as for Master Willing, I shall write to him, too, a bit of my mind." But she never did, and only said aloud: "If I give away any more pieces of my mind, I shall have none left," and turned, as her diary records, to the "Pilgrim's Progress," of which she remarked, "an old book by one John Bunyan, much read by Friends and generally approved, ridiculed by many, but not by me. It seems to me good, pious wit, and not obscene like the other. I fear I sin sometimes in being too curious about books." Thus having put on paper her reflections, she went to bed, having in mind a vague and naughty desire to have seen Margaret in the foolish garb of worldly folk.

Margaret, ashamed, would go nowhere for a week, and did more than the needed housework, to Nanny's disgust, whose remembrances were of days of luxury and small need for "quality folks" to dust rooms. The work over, when tired of her labor, Margaret sat out in the winter sunshine in the fur-lined roquelaure, madame's extravagant gift, and, enraptured, read "The Mysteries of Udolpho," or closing the book, sailed with the _Marie_, and wondered what San Domingo was like.

Meanwhile the town, very gay just now with dinners Mr. John Adams thought so excessive, and with sleigh-riding parties to Belmont and Cliveden, rang with wild statements of the dressing scene and the lottery. Very comic it was to the young bucks, and, "Pray, Mrs. Byrd, did the garters fit?" "Fie, for shame!" "And no stays, we hear," wives told their husbands, and once in the London Coffee-house, in front of which, long ago, Congo slaves were sold and where now men discussed things social, commercial, and political, Schmidt had called a man to stern account and exacted an apology. The gay girls told their Quaker cousins, and at last Friends were of a mind to talk to Mary Swanwick, especially of the lottery.

Before graver measures were taken, it was advisable that one should undertake to learn the truth, for it was felt not to be desirable to discipline by formal measures so blameless a member where clearly there had been much exaggeration of statement.

Ten days after the dinner at Landsdowne, John Pemberton was met in the hall of the Swanwick house by Mr. Schmidt, both women being out. The German at once guessed the errand of this most kindly of Quaker gentles, and said, "Mr. Pemberton, you are come, I suppose, to speak for Friends of the gossip about these, my own friends. Pray be seated. They are out."

"But my errand is not to thee, who art not of the Society of Friends."

"I am of the society of these friends. I know why you are come. Talk to me."

"I am advised in spirit that it may be as well to do so. Thou art a just man. I shall speak."

On this he sat down. It was a singular figure the German saw. The broad, white beaver hat, which the Quaker gentleman kept on his head, was turned up in front and at the back over abundant gray hair. A great eagle nose overhanging a sharp chin, brought near to it by the toothless jaws of age, gave to the side face a queer look of rapacity, contradicted by the refinement and serene kindliness of the full face now turned upon the German.

"Friend Schmidt," he said, "our young friend, we are told, has been unwise and exhibited herself among those of the world in unseemly attire. There are those of us who, like Friend Logan, are setting a bad example in their attire to the young. I may not better state how we feel than in the words of William Penn: 'Choose thy clothes by thine own eye, not by another's; the more simple and plain they are the better; neither unshapely nor fantastical, and for use and decency, not for pride.' I think my memory serves me."

"I shall not argue with you, sir, but being in part an eye-witness, I shall relate what did occur," and he told very simply of the rude jest, and of the girl's embarra.s.sment as he had heard it from the mother.

"I see," said Pemberton. "Too much has been made of it. She will hear no more of it from Friends, and it may be a lesson. Wilt thou greet her with affectionate remembrance from an old man and repeat what I have said?"

"I will do so."

"But there is a matter more serious. We are told that she bought a lottery-ticket, and has won a great prize. This we hear from Josiah Langstroth."

"Did he say this--that she bought a ticket?"

"We are so advised."

"Then he lied. He bought it in her name, without asking her."

"Art thou sure? Thy language is strong."