Chapter XII: Hephzibah Turns the Tables

Hephzibah Diggs was prompt. As the grandfather's clock in the hall struck three, Agatha advanced to the French window opening on the porch, and said in her natural voice, "She's here, Mr. Forbes."

Forbes smiled approval. "Send her around, please, Miss Kent." His manner suggested that the difficulties in the way of his philanthropic plan were now a thing of the past.

The clumping footsteps that presently announced the approach of his visitor took him back a trifle. There was no particular reason why Hephzibah should not be an ordinary clumsy country girl, in heavy shoes that clattered noisily as she moved, but somehow he had not expected it. He rose and stood awaiting her.

The voice was more unexpected than her heavy tread. It made him wince. He remembered that Warren likened it to the melodious notes of a guinea fowl and he appreciated the aptness of the comparison. There was no reason why Hephzibah Diggs should not talk through her nose, and in a harsh, strident, generally unpleasant tone. But the fact that she did so, though he had been abundantly forewarned, took him by surprise.

"Miss Kent says you've got something to say to me."

Thus Hephzibah announced her presence. And Forbes, hastily summoning a smile, and resolutely excluding his pain from his voice, extended a cordial hand.

"I'm very glad to meet you, Miss Hephzibah. Won't you sit down? I think there's a chair near."

"I'll wait on myself, don't you bother none." A grating noise indicated that a chair was being dragged across the floor of the porch into convenient nearness to his own. A plumping sound gave evidence that Hephzibah had seated herself.

The picture in the rustic chair deserved a more appreciative audience than a blind man. Hephzibah wore a costume best described as a medley, since garments originally the property of Miss Finch and Howard, as well as her own, contributed to the startling effect. A pair of Howard's outgrown shoes accounted for her clumsy tread. She wore a little bonnet which Miss Finch had discarded after some dozen years of service, and which seemed genuinely scandalized at finding itself atop Agatha's brazenly assertive mass of hair. A very short calico skirt, also the property of Miss Finch, and a sky-blue silk waist, evidently designed for festive wear, completed the grotesque costume. Just why it should have given Agatha confidence in playing her rôle, she knew as little as any one.

Forbes commented pleasantly on the weather as some such preliminary skirmishing seemed necessary before coming to the point. He had resolved on establishing a friendly understanding between Hephzibah and himself, before making the offer which, he realized, might readily arouse the suspicion of a girl who knew by bitter experience that men are not always to be trusted. He was inclined to suspect Warren of lacking tact, startling her by his failure to employ _finesse_. He did not take himself into his own confidence fully enough to admit that he was also sparring for time in the effort to recover his poise. It was singular that he had received so different an impression of Hephzibah in the brief, bewildering interview which had opened by his clasping her in his arms, and ended by her refusal to tell her name. He had to remind himself that on the springy turf her clumsy tread would be soundless, and that the gasping whisper in which she spoke gave him no clue as to the quality of her voice. Still, if Warren's letter had not expressly assured him that Hephzibah was his mysterious rescuer, he would have felt sure that he had been mistaken.

Hephzibah was in full accord with his favorable opinion of the weather. She expressed her agreement so heartily that he winced again, and conquered an impulse to tell her that it was unnecessary to speak so loud.

"I suppose," he began, deciding that after all it would be better to waive further introductory remarks, "that you must have wondered why I wanted to see you."

"I didn't bother about that none," replied Hephzibah. "I've had a lot to do with sick folks, and I know they're likely to take 'most any sort of notion into their heads."

Forbes reddened smartly. He felt as if he had been slapped. Clearly tact was not in Hephzibah's line.

"I've heard a good deal about you, first and last," he assured her pleasantly. "And of course my interest in you was increased by what happened near Indian Rock the other afternoon. I'm not going to talk about that for I know you would rather I wouldn't."

"Oh, don't mind me," Hephzibah returned comfortably. "You can say anything you like. You can't make me mad."

Forbes hesitated. There is no doubt that on the moment he acquitted Miss Kent of a certain charge to which she had been given no chance to plead guilty. He realized that women sometimes understood one another better than a mere man might hope to do. But he had put his hand to the plow with the intention of proving Warren's unfitness in matters requiring diplomacy, and he had no intention of turning back.

Deliberately and with carefully chosen words, Forbes explained to Hephzibah the plan he had evolved for her regeneration. He went more into detail than Warren had done. He traced her future years from the present modest start, up to the time when she should bear the stamp of culture, and be able to hold her own in the best society. The picture that he drew seemed to him an attractive one. He showed himself not altogether lacking in a knowledge of the opposite sex, by the emphasis he placed upon the friend of Warren's to whom had been assigned the responsibility of selecting a suitable wardrobe for Hephzibah.

He did not pause till he was pleasantly confident that he had done the subject justice. He turned his sightless eyes upon her expectantly. Hephzibah said nothing. There was a chilling quality in her protracted silence.

"Well?" questioned Forbes, and though he had been so favorably impressed by his putting of the case, he spoke a little anxiously. "What do you think of it all?"

Hephzibah laughed unmusically.

"Well, I let you go on, just so's to get it off your chest. There ain't nothing to it, not so far as I can see. The clothes would be nice enough, but if I had to study all the time and have some dame bossing me my days off and all, I'd pay for 'em dear."

"But wouldn't you like to be educated?"

"Laws, no. I never hankered to be a school-teacher. I'd rather cook any day in the week."

By this time Forbes was convinced that Miss Kent was right. Something was lacking in Hephzibah. He realized that he himself had been influenced more than he knew by Warren's extravagance, and Warren, it was apparent, had been swept off his feet by the girl's fresh beauty. Just how to explain the impression he himself had formed of her that day when she swung her lithe body between him and mortal peril, Forbes did not know. She had said little, and that with difficulty, because of her breathless condition, and yet the impression he had formed of her was infinitely removed from the truth. He felt now that he had made a mistake, and that Hephzibah was not of the fiber to take on polish readily. He would show his gratitude in some more appropriate way than by attempting her education. But since he had blundered into this rather absurd situation, there was nothing left but to go through with it.

"You do not have to use your education in teaching school, unless you wish to," he explained patiently. "But it will fit you for a better social position." He realized that this was over her head and kindly simplified it. "I mean that the more you learn, the nicer friends you will have and the more things you will find to interest you."

"I know enough now," Hephzibah insisted calmly, "for anybody that ain't a teacher. When I went to district school I learned to read and write and figure, and I 'most always stood up till near the last when we had spelling matches. Oh, I've got an education all right."

"Possibly, my child, it would be better to rely on the judgment of some one else." His manner was patiently paternal.

Hephzibah Diggs shuffled her feet noisily. "I guess I know enough to 'tend to my own affairs," she said, her tone truculent.

"I'm not so sure about that, Hephzibah. I think you would do much better to take advice."

"How'd you like it yourself if folks you didn't know came butting in, telling you how to manage your business?"

"If it was meant kindly, I should be grateful."

"Oh, very well." He could hear that she was breathing hard. "Then I'll tell you that for a sensible man you're making as big a botch of your affairs as anybody I ever knew of."

Forbes was unfeignedly astonished. "Why, Hephzibah, you don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't I, though. I know about that girl of yours, and what a fool she's making of you."

Forbes caught his breath. Then he realized that it was beneath his dignity to be angry. "I think it is hardly necessary," he said stiffly, "to discuss that subject, Hephzibah."

"Oh, no! you can stick your finger into my pie all you want to. You can tell me I ought to go to some place I never heard of, with somebody I never knew, and do everything I hate for years and years, but when I say one thing about your girl, it's hardly necessary to discuss that subject."

The last words were given with what he realized was an excellent imitation of his own air of dignified aloofness. This amused him and had the additional effect of mollifying his irritation. "But I am interfering in your affairs, because I have your interests at heart," he said very kindly.

"Same here. I hate like the mischief to see a nice gentleman made a fool of by a vain, silly girl with about as much brains as a cockroach, and as much heart as a pancake."

This description of Julia, though he would have indignantly denied that it had the remotest resemblance to truth, roused him to the realization that this uncouth young woman knew more of his personal affairs than she had any right to know.

"Hephzibah," he said sternly, "I don't understand where you could have secured information about any friends of mine. Surely Miss Kent--"

For all her faults, Hephzibah was capable of magnanimity. On one critical occasion Miss Kent had sacrificed Hephzibah's reputation to save herself, and Hephzibah was under no obligation to spare hers. Yet without hesitation she threw herself into the breach. "I listened," she explained quickly.

"You mean when Miss Kent was reading me my letters?" His flushed face told that he was not disposed to belittle her eavesdropping.

"Yes, and when you talked things over. I heard enough to know that you'd better use the brains the Lord gave you to manage your own affairs. Why don't you put it up to that girl of yours that she can take you or leave you?"

"Really, Hephzibah--"

"Oh, it's all right for you to come along and pry into my business, and tell me what _I'm_ to do. But when I turn the tables you squirm. Funny what a difference it makes whose foot the shoe's on."

Forbes subsided. Under his feeling of bewilderment was a vague suspicion that perhaps there was something in Hephzibah's point of view.

"In the first place," continued this intrepid young woman, "she showed she was no good when she throwed you down like she did. She was going to marry you, wasn't she? And if she cared enough about you for that, it was up to her to stand by you when trouble came. Pretty kind of wife she'd have made if she turned her back the minute hard luck struck you."

Forbes remembered vaguely that Miss Kent had once said something similar. He wondered that two human beings so unlike should have the same view-point.

"You got off easy," Hephzibah continued. "You might have married her. When she showed herself up for what she was, you'd ought to have got down on your marrow-bones and thanked the Lord. But look at you! Instead, you keep on telling her how much you love her and that a yellow streak don't matter--in a woman."

Forbes suddenly realized that he could endure no more. He could not listen longer to these preposterous statements. But underneath his panic of anger, something whispered that he shrank from listening longer to Hephzibah's frantic speech, not because she was uttering slanders against Julia, but because what she said was true.

He struck the arm of his chair with his clenched fist. "Stop!" he said in a voice unlike his own. "I won't listen."

"All right," said Hephzibah Diggs. "But what's sauce for the goose--"

She stopped, starting to her feet. The blow from Forbes' fist had loosened the arm of the chair in which he sat. It had bounced out of place and then slipped back again, catching his finger as it returned to base. It was his sudden startling pallor that checked Hephzibah's fluency.

"Can you help me a little--Hephzibah?" Forbes' voice was faint, his lips blue. "My hand--seems caught."

Hephzibah's clattering haste was too late to save him from ignominious faintness. He had not been well since his trip to the city, and the shock of the pain was too much for his nerves. She caught the arm of the chair and wrenched it savagely away, just as his head fell over against her shoulder. She released the imprisoned hand, and slipping her arm about him kept his limp body from sliding to the floor. Upon his white face, she saw, conscience-stricken, there seemed to rest an expression of piteous bewilderment.

Forbes reviving found himself indoors. He was stretched on the couch in the living-room. The odor of camphor was much in evidence and his hair felt damp, as if he had been taking a dip in the surf. Some one was chafing his hand. "Hephzibah," he said faintly.

The voice of Miss Kent answered him, speaking in a muffled fashion, as if she had a cold in her head.

"She's gone. That horrible girl is gone. She shall never come near you again."

Even after his late experience the adjective seemed to indicate prejudice. But he did not press the point, as there was another matter he wished cleared up.

"Did I frighten you terribly?"

"Yes--I was frightened." Her voice shook as if she wanted to cry again. "You're not so strong as I thought. I shall have to take better care of you. I blame myself--terribly."

This was unreasonable, but he did not stop to argue the case. "Was that why you kissed me?" he asked. "I didn't seem to come to all at once; consciousness came in waves and receded, you know, and once I felt sure some one kissed my cheek, and a big tear splashed down--"

Miss Kent spoke hastily. "Oh, that was only part of your dreaming. Fainting people often have such fancies."

"Very likely," Forbes agreed. "You see, I don't know much about fainting. It never happened to me but once before." He turned his head on his damp pillow and lapsed into silence. It was the part of discretion, perhaps, to leave Miss Kent under the impression that the kiss was an illusion, due to his semi-conscious state, but he knew better. It was as real as music, or flame, or electricity. It had certain characteristics of all three.

It must have been Hephzibah.