Chapter VI: Pay-Day

Miss Elinor sat alone in her pleasant parlor, bending over her bit of embroidery, and setting her needle into the dainty fabric in a manner plainly indicating a mind ill at ease. And for a lady of her temperament, Miss Elinor was a good deal disturbed. During the past week her brother had spent four evenings at the white house on the hill, and though she had unreservedly given him her opinion of the young lady Adelaide, he persisted in saying she was the most agreeable and intelligent girl in Oakland. It was in vain that she told him of the wristband, saying she had no doubt they sewed secretly for a living.

He only smiled incredulously, telling her, however, that he should like Adelaide all the better if he found she was skillful in shirt-making.

In short, Miss Elinor began to have some wellfounded fears that she should yet have an opportunity of making the house uncomfortable, both to herself and the wife her brother might bring there and it was this reflection which made her so nervous, that pleasant March afternoon.

“I would rather he married little Alice Warren—blind father and all,” she thought, just as the door opened softly, and “little Alice Warren” stood within the room.

She had been to the store to see Mr. Howland, she said, and as he was not there she had come to the house, hoping to find him, for she would rather give the money into his hand and know there was no mistake.

“What money, child?” asked Miss Elinor, and Alice replied that “it was pay-day,” at the same time opening the little box and showing the pieces of money she had saved from her earnings.

Miss Elinor did not know of the receipt lying in her brother’s writing-desk, but she resolved that not a penny should be taken from that box, and bidding Alice be seated on a little stool at her feet, she told her to wait until her brother came. Then when she saw how languid and tired Alice seemed, she put her head upon her lap, smoothing the long brown curls until the weary girl fell asleep, dreaming that it was her mother’s hand which thus so tenderly caressed her hair.

For half an hour she slumbered on, and then Mr. Howland came, treading carefully and speaking low, as his sister, pointing to the sleeping girl, bade him not to wake her.

“Look at her, though. Isn’t she pretty?” she whispered, and Mr. Howland, gazing upon the fair, childish face, felt that he had seldom seen a more beautiful picture.

In a few words Miss Elinor told why she was there, adding, in conclusion:

“But you won’t take it, of course. You are rich enough without it, and it will do them so much good.”

“I never intended to take it,” Mr. Howland replied, and going to his library, he soon returned with the receipt, which he laid within the box.

Just then a new idea presented itself to the mind of Miss Elinor. They would change the silver, she said, into a bill, which they could roll up with the receipt and put in Alice’s pocket while she slept. This plan met with her brother’s approval, and when at last Alice awoke, the box was empty, while Mr. Howland, to whom she told her errand, blushing deeply to think he had found her sleeping, replied indifferently:

“Yes, I found it there, and I like your promptness.”

At that moment Miss Elinor left the room, and when she returned, she bore a basket of delicacies for the blind man, who, even then, was standing in the open door at home and listening anxiously for the footsteps which did not often linger so long. He heard them at last, and though they were far down the street, he knew they were Alice’s, and closing the door he passed his hands carefully over the tea-table, which he himself had arranged, feeling almost a childish joy as he thought how surprised Alice would be.

“Oh, father!” she exclaimed, when at last she came bounding in, “how could you fix it so nicely? and only think, Miss Elinor has sent you so many good things—here’s turkey, and cranberry sauce, and pie, and cheese, and jelly-cake, and white sugar—and everything. I mean, for once, to eat just as much as I want,” and the delighted girl arranged the tempting viands upon the table, telling her father, the while, how pleased Mr. Howland was at her promptness.

“He gave you a receipt, I suppose?” Mr. Warren said, and Alice replied:

“Why, no, I never thought of a receipt. I’m so sorry,” and in her confusion she hit her hand against the hissing teapot she had just placed upon the table.

The slight burn which she received, made her handkerchief necessary, and, in feeling for it, she touched the little roll which Miss Elinor had put in her pocket. Drawing it forth, and examining its contents, she experienced, for an instant, sensations similar to those which Benjamin’s brothers may be supposed to have felt when the silver cup was found in their possession.

“What does it mean?” she exclaimed, reading aloud the receipt and examining the bill, which amounted exactly to the quarter’s rent.

The blind man knew what it meant, and, bowing his white head upon his bosom, he silently thanked God who had raised them up friends in their sore need. Upon Alice the surprise produced a novel effect, moving her first to laughter and then to tears, and, notwithstanding her intention of “eating as much as she liked,” she forgot to taste many of the delicacies spread out so temptingly before her. In her estimation they were almost rich again, and never, perhaps, came sleep to her more sweetly than on that night, when she knew that the contents of the little box was theirs to do with as they pleased.

Several evenings after this they were surprised by a call from Mr. Howland, who had not visited them before since the night he had found Adelaide Huntington there. Thoughts of Alice, however, as she lay sleeping on his sister’s lap, had haunted him. She was innocent of wrong, he was sure, and he had come to see her. It was hard, too, to believe there was aught of evil in that old man with the snow white hair and truthful looking face, and, after receiving their thanks for his generosity, he resolved to question them a little of the past, so he commenced by asking Alice if she had been intimately acquainted with Adelaide Huntington.

Remembering her promise, Alice seemed much embarrassed, and answered hastily:

“We were never intimate,” while at the same time she glanced toward her father, whose voice trembled slightly as he rejoined:

“I had business transactions with Adelaide’s father, but our families seldom met.”

The next moment he was talking of something else—his manner plainly indicating that any further allusion to the Huntingtons was not desired.

“There is something wrong, or they would not be so unwilling to talk of their former life,” Mr. Howland thought, and, with his suspicions strengthened, he soon took his leave, stopping by the way to call on Adelaide, whose eyes beamed a joyous welcome as he entered the parlor, in which she received his frequent calls.

Her mother was in the way in the sitting-room, she thought, and whenever she had reason for expecting him, she made a fire in the parlor, shutting up the stove and turning down the lamp until the ringing of the bell announced his arrival; then, while old Peggy hobbled to the door, she opened the draught and turned up the lamp, so that by the time Mr. Howland was ushered in, everything looked cheerful and inviting. By this means, too, she escaped another annoyance, that of being urged to play; for, if Mr. Howland did not see the piano, he was not as likely to ask her to sing, and she had already nearly exhausted her powers of invention in excuses for her indifferent playing and the style of her music.

Ma insisted upon her taking old pieces, she said, but by and by, when she had a new piano, she should do differently.

Fortunately for her, Mr. Howland was not a musical man and was thus more easily deceived. On the evening of which we are speaking, after listening a while to her sprightly remarks, he suddenly changed the conversation by saying he had been to see Mr. Warren.

“And he told me,” said he, “that he once did business with your father.”

Turning her face away to hide its startled expression, Adelaide asked hastily:

“What else did he tell you?”

“Nothing,” returned Mr. Howland. “He would not talk of the past.”

“I should not suppose he would,” quietly rejoined Adelaide—then, after a moment, coming to his side, she continued, “Mr. Howland, I wish you would promise never to mention that subject again, either to me or those Warrens. It can do no good, and a knowledge of the truth might injure some people in your estimation. Promise me, will you?”

Her hand was laid imploringly upon his arm, her handsome, dark eyes looked beseechingly into his, and as most men under similar circumstances would have done, he promised, while Adelaide mentally congratulated herself upon the fact that his business never took him to the city where she had formerly lived, and where the name of Huntington had scarcely yet ceased to be a by-word in the street. Mr. Howland was much pleased with her, she knew, and if they could manage to keep up appearances a little longer, he might be secured. One thing, however, troubled her. Pay-day was near at hand, but alas for the wherewithal to pay.

It was not in her mother’s purse, nor yet in any other purse whence they could procure it. Still Adelaide trusted much to her inventive genius, and when she bade Mr. Howland good night, chatting gayly as she accompanied him to the door, he little dreamed how her mind was distracted with ways and means by which to dupe him still more effectually.

* * * * *

Three weeks passed away, and then, as Miss Elinor sat one evening with her brother, she asked him if Mrs. Huntington’s rent were not that day due.

“Possibly, though I have not given it a thought,” Mr. Howland answered, his voice indicating that he neither deemed it essential for himself to be particular, or his sister to be troubled, about Mrs. Huntington’s rent.

As far as dollars and cents were concerned, Miss Elinor was not troubled, though she did think it doubtful whether Adelaide would be as prompt as Alice had been. But when, as if to verify a proverb not necessary to be repeated here, Adelaide came to the door almost before her brother had ceased speaking, she began to think her suspicions groundless, and her manner was quite conciliatory toward the young lady, who, after throwing back her veil of dotted lace and fidgeting a while in her chair, managed to say:

“It is very humiliating to me, Mr. Howland, to tell you what ma says I must. She fully expected that the agent who does her business would have sent her money ere this, but as he has not, she cannot pay you to-day. Shall we pack up our things at once?” she continued, playfully, as she saw the expression on Mr. Howland’s face.

“Perhaps you had better,” he answered in the same strain, continuing in a more sober tone. “Tell your mother not to be concerned about the rent. It does not matter if it is not paid until the end of the year.”

Adelaide drew a relieved breath, while Miss Elinor dropped her embroidery and involuntarily gave vent to a contemptuous “Umph!”

The sound caught Adelaide’s ear, and thinking to herself, “Stingy old thing—afraid they will lose it, I dare say,” she made her call as brief as possible.

Nodding to her civily as she arose to go, Miss Elinor turned to her brother, saying:

“You know, Richard, you are to go with me to-night to call on Jenny Hayes.”

But Richard did not know it, and as his distressed sister saw him going down the walk with Adelaide Huntington on his arm, she muttered:

“I’d like to see the man who could make such a fool of me as that girl has made of him!”

A wish not likely to be verified, considering that she had already lived forty-five years without seeing the man.