Chapter IX

There was a calmness and “upliftedness” about Miss Grant’s face as she entered the dining-room that the people about that table did not understand, and it rather angered them than otherwise. She walked quietly to her accustomed chair and sat down. Nobody spoke, but she had so far forgotten her afternoon’s troubles as to be oblivious of this. Hiram was trying to think of the most sarcastic thing he could say, and so failed to say anything, while Nettie in her various revulsions of feeling did not know how to begin. Aunt Hannah herself opened the conversation in the calmest, most self-contained tone possible, as if the question she asked was one she often asked of her nephew.

“Hiram, can you tell me what time the through Philadelphia trains go?”

Hiram raised his cold, black eyes to her face in astonishment, a moment, and stared at her as much as to say, “What possible concern of yours is that?” and then dropped them to his plate again and went on eating. After a suitable pause he said freezingly, “No.” Aunt Hannah tried again.

“Isn’t there a time-table in the paper? Could you find out for me?”

“I don’t know,” said Hiram, this time without looking up. “I suppose if it’s there you can find it as well as I can.”

“What in the world do you want with the time-table, aunt Hannah?” asked Nettie, peevishly, with an undertone of anxiety in her voice. “There isn’t anything the matter with Celia, is there? I presume she has lost her place and is coming back on us. I always supposed that was the way her venture would turn out. She ought to have tried to get a place in the country for housework. It was all she was ever trained to do. Anybody might know she couldn’t get on in the city.”

“Nothing is the matter with Celia, Nettie,” answered her aunt, “except that she has written me to come to Philadelphia. She has found something there for me to do, and I have decided that it will be best for me to go at once. I shall have to start to-morrow, if possible, because I am being waited for.”

“You go to Philadelphia!” exclaimed Nettie dropping her fork. “The perfect idea! Has Celia gone crazy? Why aunt Hannah you couldn’t get along in the city. Why, you—you—wouldn’t know how to get anywhere. You don’t understand. Philadelphia is a large city and you couldn’t get across the street alone. And what could you do? You are not going to start in as a clerk in a store at your time of life, I hope. You would break down at once, and then we should have you both to care for, for I fully expect to have something happen to Celia soon, and then we should have you both to care for, and you know aunt Hannah, willing as we are, we are not able to do that.” Nettie paused for breath.

Then Hiram turned his little black eyes on her and asked contemptuously, “And who is going to pay your fare on this pleasure excursion you are going to take? You certainly can’t expect me to do it. I think I’ve done all I’m called upon to do. I understood the bargain was that you were to work for your board here.”

Hiram had never been so openly insolent before. If he had, Miss Grant would have left long ago, even though she had been obliged to walk the streets in search of work for her living. She turned her clear eyes upon him full, and said quietly with the strength of the grace the Father gave her from her communings with him:

“Yes, Hiram, that was the bargain, and I certainly have worked. I consider that I have fully earned all that I have eaten, and the amount of shelter that has been given me. As for any further assistance, I think I have never yet asked it, and I hope I may never be obliged to do so. Celia has sent me money and a ticket,—and I shall not be obliged to ask any favors of any one.”

“Celia sent you money!” Nettie fairly screamed it. “Where in the world did she get money?”

“Yes, where did Celia get money?” asked Hiram, sharply. “It seems to me there’s something pretty shady about this business. Miss Celia’ll get into serious trouble which will bring no credit to her family, if she keeps on.”

Aunt Hannah rose from her untasted supper, drew herself up to her full height and looked down upon Hiram Bartlett till he seemed to shrink beneath her glance. There comes a time when a strong sweet nature like Hannah Grant’s can be roused to such a pitch of righteous indignation that it will tower above other smaller natures and make them cower and cringe in their smallness and meanness. She had reached one of those places in her life. Nettie, as she watched her, thought to herself that aunt Hannah must have been almost handsome once when she was young.

“Hiram,” said aunt Hannah, and her voice was quite controlled and steady, “don’t you ever dare to breathe such a thought as that again about that pure-souled girl. You know in your inmost soul that what you have said would be impossible. Some time, when you stand before God, you will be ashamed of those words, as you will be ashamed of a good many of your other words and actions.” That was all she said to him. She did not lose her temper, nor say anything which she did not feel she ought to say, or which she would have taken back afterward. Then she turned to Nettie and quietly said:

“Celia has had a little estate left her from her father’s great uncle Abner. She is now quite independent as regards money, and she wishes to have me with her as soon as possible, and I intend to go to-morrow evening, if I can get ready.”

She turned from the room then and went upstairs, but when she got there, instead of going to work at packing, she turned the key in the lock and knelt down by her bed, to pray first for Hiram, and second that God might overrule anything that she had said amiss.

Meantime below stairs there was astonishment and confusion. Celia as a poor shop girl, and Celia with money were two very different people. Even Hiram felt that. He retired behind his paper till a suitable time had elapsed for his wife to talk out her anger, astonishment, and humiliation, and then he began to reflect that it would be a very convenient thing to have the management of Celia’s money, even though it was not much, for he was just beginning business for himself and every little helped in the matter of capital.

“It would just serve you right, Hiram Bartlett, if Celia should turn out to be rich,” said his wife, angrily. “The way you have treated her and aunt Hannah ought to make you ashamed, but I don’t suppose it will. Now what am I to do I should like to know? Three children, and one a fretful baby, and all my housework to do all alone. If you had treated aunt Hannah nicely, she would have stayed anyway. Maybe Celia would have come here to live and taught the children. She is real good at teaching little children anything. I remember she used to be so patient with the boys at home. It would be awfully convenient to have somebody around with money.”

In the course of the evening, while aunt Hannah swiftly gathered her possessions in array preparatory to packing, Nettie knocked at her door. She wanted to ask a great many questions, and she wanted to argue with aunt Hannah and show her the inadvisability and impossibility of her thinking of such a thing as going to Philadelphia to live with Celia, when her plain duty was here with Nettie and her family. When she saw she was making no headway, she tried to work on her aunt’s strong sense of duty, and finally cried, and told her she never thought she would be left by aunt Hannah in that way, with all those children and no help, that she always knew aunt Hannah cared more for Celia than for any of them, and that it was not fair when they had offered her a home and done everything for her, and she had come there with the understanding that she would stay several years anyway. It wasn’t fair to Hiram.

When she had talked this way for some time, her aunt turned to her almost desperately. She did not want to say anything rash. But Nettie must be shown how inconsistent she was.

“Nettie,” said she, just as calmly as she had talked to Hiram, “you know that you and Hiram never wanted either me or Celia with you. You know that you consider me in the way, and that I am only good to work. I don’t say anything against that, for that may be true, but you know that you grudge me my home here, and that you are giving out to your friends that you are doing a great deal to care for me in my helpless old age, and that I am a burden. You know yourself whether that is quite fair, and whether I have not worked as hard as any woman could for my board and lodging. But that is not to the point. You have a perfect right to think so about me. It may be all true, and I cannot stop you in saying such things to outsiders, but I have a right to say whether I will be taken and disposed of as if I was a piece of goods, and cared for as if I was a baby. I am not quite so infirm yet but that I can earn my living where I shall be more welcome. I thank the Lord that a way has been opened for me to go where I am wanted, but I must honestly tell you, Nettie, that I should have gone just the same if I had not known that you felt so, for I feel that my place is with Celia, if I can be with her. She is alone in the world. You have your husband and your children. She has nobody but me. I bear you no grudge, Nettie, and I think you will be happier with me away.” Then she went on packing and Nettie retreated to talk with her husband.

The result was a proposition that they should coax Celia to come home and live with them, and Nettie said a few nice things which she hoped would patch up aunt Hannah’s feelings, but aunt Hannah was firm, and would not even delay to write to Celia. She went diligently on with her preparations.

Gradually they settled down to the inevitable, and by the next noon had so far calmed down as to be able to ask some questions about the more definite details. Aunt Hannah had started out on an expedition very early in the morning without telling them where she was going, or without seeming to remember that there was breakfast to be gotten and cleared away. She seemed to be living by faith. She certainly ate nothing that morning. She visited a certain little house in a by-street where lived an old servant, Molly by name, who had declined the most earnest solicitations of Nettie to live with her at exceedingly small pay, and preferred to earn her living by doing fine ironing. She also visited the station, the telegraph office, the bank, and the expressman’s office, and then went back to her packing again. Later in the afternoon, she went out again and made a few calls, on the minister’s wife and the doctor’s wife and a few very dear friends, bidding them a quiet good-bye, for she wished to slip away without making any more talk than was necessary. But it was at the dinner-table that Celia’s whole plan was ferreted out by Nettie.

“Celia has bought a boarding-house!” exclaimed Nettie. “What an absurd idea! What does she or you either know about keeping boarders? You’ll both let them run right over you. You’ll get in debt the very first week. Why, aunt Hannah, you have no right to encourage Celia in such a scheme. She’s too young, anyway, to be away off there in a city without a guardian. She ought to be here. Hiram could manage her money and make it double itself in time, and if she really has as much as you say, she has plenty to live quite comfortably without doing anything. You ought to tell her so.”

But aunt Hannah did not seem to be intimidated by this. Nettie tried again.

“And then think how plebeian it will be! It was bad enough to work in a store, but a boarding-house keeper, and for one who has money of her own. It is simply unheard-of. I shall be ashamed to death to have Mrs. Morgan know about it. I think I have had trouble enough without having to be ashamed of my family. Celia always did do queer things, anyway. Don’t you think it is very impractical, Hiram?”

Nettie asked his opinion as if that would settle the matter for everybody concerned, and he answered in the same manner.

“I certainly do think it is the most wild and impossible scheme I ever heard of, and one which ought not to be permitted. It will be the ruin of Celia’s property, and when that is all gone, and you and Celia are in trouble, I suppose I shall be called upon to help you out. Of course I shall do the best I can, but you must remember that I have not very much money to throw away on wild childish schemes.” He spoke with the air of a martyr, and aunt Hannah answered him cheerily. She had recovered her spirits since she had sent her telegram.

“You needn’t worry, Hiram. I don’t believe either Celia or I will ever be in need of your help. But if we are, I don’t think we shall trouble you. You know they have a good many charitable institutions in the City of Brotherly Love, and we shall surely be well cared for if the improbable happens.” Then aunt Hannah placed her nicely prepared little coals of fire in the hands of her two grand nephews and her grand niece, and went smiling upstairs. The coals were tiny paper parcels each containing a bright five dollar gold piece. She had lain awake last night, worried about the sharp words she had felt obliged to speak, and the sentence Nettie had flung out about her leaving her without help, and she wanted to show that she bore no grudge for what they had said. Celia had sent her the money to spend as she thought best, and aunt Hannah knew her girl well enough to feel she would say this was a good way to spend it. Besides, she felt sure she could run a boarding-house successfully in a financial way, as well as some others, if she had the chance, so she might by and by have more five dollar gold pieces to do with as she chose. She was beginning to be very happy, as she packed and strapped the last trunk, and smoothed her hair and tied on her grey bonnet and grey veil. At the last Hiram and Nettie behaved quite well. Those five dollar gold pieces had gone a long way toward making the bereavement of aunt Hannah’s departure felt. Hiram took her satchel down, and Nettie walked beside her carrying her umbrella and wheeling the baby, while Johnnie and Lily trotted on ahead. There was an éclat and importance attached to a sudden and first-class departure such as aunt Hannah’s was turning out to be, which could not well be carelessly neglected. They made an interesting procession down the street. More than one neighbor looked out of her window, and a few knew that Miss Hannah was going away. But they had said good-bye, and only turned their heads the other way to wipe away a tear of regret, or sigh perhaps that their good friend was not to be near any more with her cheery face and her words of comfort. When it was observed by one or two that Molly Poppleton had also passed down the street accompanied by an old colored man wheeling her ancient trunk on a wheelbarrow, and carrying a good-sized bundle, several of the good women came to their gates to look down the street, and wait till Nettie returned to ask what it all meant. And Nettie enjoyed a triumphal march back to her home. “Yes, she’s gone, we shall miss her very much.” Her nose was red with being rubbed and her eyes had a suspicious redness about them. “No, Celia isn’t ill, but she couldn’t stand it any longer without aunt Hannah. You know Celia has had a fortune left her? Oh yes, she’ll have plenty now. Yes, aunt Hannah has to go and be her chaperon. I suppose she’ll quite come out in society now she has money enough to do about as she pleases. Oh yes, she’s very generous, she always was. She sent the children each handsome presents in gold. Yes, aunt Hannah has taken old Molly for a maid. She’ll be obliged to have a maid there, you know. Funny, isn’t it, that a woman who knows how to work should need a maid? I shouldn’t like it myself, but then one has to do as other people do.” Then Nettie went home and got supper and washed up her dishes and put her three babies to bed, and sat down wearily and wished for aunt Hannah.

But aunt Hannah sat serenely in the sleeper, waiting for her berth to be made up, and thinking to herself that she also, like Jehoiachin, had had her head lifted up out of prison.