Chapter XXII: What Followed

Mrs. Tracy went into violent hysterics, which brought Celine and Mrs. Taylor and Sarah, and at last Mr. Taylor and Jeff, to her room, her sobs were so loud, amounting almost to screams.

“What has happened? Is mademoiselle dead?” Celine asked, and her mistress replied, “Worse than dead! She is married to Mark Hilton! Going to New York was a trick to deceive us. And your precious clerk, whom you trusted so implicitly, has taken my diamonds. Open the safe.”

The last part of the remark was addressed to Mrs. Taylor, who hurried to the office, followed by the entire party.

“Well, I’ll be dumbed if I thought that of Mark,” he gasped. “There must be some hereditary in him after all, and I’d of swore there wasn’t. Eloped! Run away, did you say, and took them diamonds with him? I’ll be dumbed! Yes, marm, I will.”

He could scarcely stand as he began fumbling at the safe, trying to unlock it, but it baffled all his efforts.

“I ain’t used to the pesky thing. Mark always attended to it, and I’ll be dumbed if I can budge it.”

The sweat was pouring off his face as he got up from his knees and looked helplessly round.

“Let me try. You know I opened it once,” Jeff said.

No one objected, and the door was soon open, Uncle Zach and Jeff bumping their heads together to look in.

“Jerusalem crickets! They are gone!” Jeff said.

“So they be. That is,—one of the boxes; here’s t’other,” Uncle Zach rejoined in a choking voice, as he took out the box which contained the cross. “I feel like a thief myself. Yes, marm, I do. Can they arrest me as an——I dunno what you call it,—knowin’ to it is what it means? Where’s Dot? Seems ’sif the bottom had fell out; Mark gone off and got married and took the diamonds, too!”

The little man felt the need of some one to lean on in the calamity which had overtaken him and naturally turned to his wife. She was attending to Mrs. Tracy, who, when sure the diamonds were gone, went into a fit of hysterics worse than the first, and was taken to her room, where Mrs. Taylor, Celine and Sarah were busy fanning her, holding salts to her nose, bathing her face in alcohol and cologne and loosening her dress which was in danger of being ruined with all the liquids spilled upon it. Only Jeff was left to comfort Uncle Zach.

“’Rest you? No. I’d laugh. You’ve done nothin’. Sarah took up the letter when Miss Tracy was at the worst and read a few lines, and I heard her say Miss Helen told Mark to bring ’em ’cause they were hern. Nobody’s stole ’em, and if I’se you, or anybody, I wouldn’t talk about ’em. Who’s to be your clerk, sir, now Mark is gone?”

“Oh, land if I know. I can’t think of nothin’ but the trick Mark has served me, and I liked him as I would of liked Johnny if he had lived,” Mr. Taylor replied, while the tears rolled down his face.

“Don’t cry. Take my handkerchief and wipe up. We’ll get along. How would _I_ do to help you till somebody turns up? I know what Mark did, and I’ll do my best,” Jeff said.

The boy had grown old within an hour, and Mr. Taylor felt the comfort of his helpful nature. He took the handkerchief offered him,—a rather soiled one, with a bit of gum sticking to it,—but it was better than none to wipe away his tears, which he said he didn’t want the women folks to see. There was no danger, as they were still with Mrs. Tracy, who had gone into a chill and whom they were putting to bed with hot water bottles and hot drinks and whatever else they thought would warm her. Uncle Zach was glad of Jeff’s companionship and clung to him as if he had been a man instead of a boy of twelve.

“It’s a good idea your helpin’ me till I find somebody,” he said. “Better lock up the safe and shut them blinds. The sun hurts my eyes. If anybody comes you know what to charge for meals and feedin’ horses and stayin’ all night.”

“Yes, sir, and I can make change most as quick as Mark and add up, too,” Jeff said, whistling cheerily as he shut the blinds and brought out the register and the account books as he had seen Mark do.

He was not greatly surprised at what had happened. He had seen it coming and had felt a pleasurable excitement in watching its progress. But why run away, as in one sense they had? This puzzled him, as he went about his work. Stopping suddenly he turned to Mr. Taylor and said, “There’s a letter here for Miss Tracy. It came yesterday. I b’lieve it is from Mr. Mason, and there’s one from her, I guess, to him. It is the same handwriting as the one to her mother. Do you think there was anything between them? You know he rode with her a good deal, but she sparked the most with Mark. I seen ’em.”

“Oh-h, I did think so one spell, but it can’t be; that would be wust of all,” Mr. Taylor groaned.

He had no suspicion of the real truth, nor had any one except Mrs. Tracy, who kept the knowledge to herself. If possible she would spare her daughter, and Craig, too, that notoriety and talk. She knew he had telegraphed to Helen that he would return that day, but she did not know on what train, nor did she speak of him to any one. She was in too collapsed a state to talk and kept her bed, crying continually and occasionally going off into a hysterical spasm as the remembrance of her trouble came over her afresh. No one thought of Craig, who at four that afternoon took his seat in the express train for Worcester where he was to change for the accommodation to Ridgefield. He had in his satchel several costly rings of different shapes and sizes for Helen to choose from. He had a Harper and Scribner for her and a daintily bound volume of Browning’s Poems, containing Pauline, Paracelsus and Sordello, the poems which were associated intimately with her, because he believed she cared so much for them. He had also a box of beautiful hothouse roses, and he thought many times as the train sped swiftly on how Helen’s eyes would brighten when he gave them to her and how glad she would be to see him. He was very happy and his happiness had been increasing ever since he left Ridgefield and had talked with his mother.

He was sure she did not quite approve of Helen, and believed it was because she did not understand her as he did. When he told her of his engagement she was taken by surprise, for although she had seen the growing intimacy she had tried to think that nothing would come of it, and had hoped that on Helen’s side it was only a flirtation, which would end as many others had done.

“Are you sorry?” Craig asked, as she did not speak at once.

She could not tell him she was sorry when he seemed so happy, and she replied evasively, “Mothers are always sorry to give their sons to another woman. But I shall try and love your wife whoever she may be. I shall not be a disagreeable mother-in-law. Helen is the most beautiful girl I have ever seen, and I hope you will be very happy with her. When is it to be?”

She was talking easily and naturally, and a load was lifted from Craig, who told her of his plans and asked her advice with regard to the rings which she helped him select, and then went with him to look at a house on Commonwealth Avenue which was for sale and of which he secured the refusal. He wanted Helen to see it before he decided, and proposed to his mother to invite Mrs. Tracy and her daughter to Boston for a few days after they left Ridgefield. He had spoken of this in his last letter to Helen, which she was never to see. It had occurred to him that it would be a proper thing to telegraph her of his safe arrival, and then it occurred to him after the telegram had gone that a letter would be still better. He could write what he had not put into words. He had written twice,—once on Monday, and again on Thursday. He felt that he had been rather cold in his love-making, and he told her so in both letters and said that he meant to make up for it in the future. Had Helen read the letter she received she might not have sat so still in the Haunted House and listened to Mark Hilton. But she did not read it, and she was now Mark’s wife, and Craig was standing on the steps of the rear car in Ridgefield, ready to jump off the moment it stopped. He had his satchel in one hand and his box of roses in the other, and both were taken from him before he was aware who the boy was thus relieving him. It was Jeff, the _soi disant_ head clerk of the Prospect House.

When it was decided that he was to stay in the office until some older person was found he had scrubbed his face and hands, put on his Sunday clothes, combed and brushed and parted his hair, as Mark wore his, and felt himself quite equal to the emergency. Knowing that Craig was expected that day he had looked for him on the noon train, and when he didn’t come, was sure he would arrive on the six.

“Can I go down in the ’bus with the mail and meet Mr. Mason, or anybody else who happens to be stopping off? You know there’s a little hotel opened on Elm Street, and they are trying to git your custom,” he said to Mr. Taylor, who, pleased to find him with such an eye to business, assented readily.

The ’bus started from the post office, and Jeff went there to take it, and climbing to the box with the driver lighted a cigarette, when sure he was out of sight of the Prospect House. He had been sent supperless to bed twice when bits of cigarettes had been found in his pocket, and it would never do for a similar indignity to be offered to him now. He was a hotel clerk and he smoked on serenely till the station was reached and Mr. Mason alighted from the train.

“I’ll take your bag and box. Will you walk or ride?” he said to Craig, who, realizing who it was that had taken possession of him, said pleasantly, “Hallo, Jeff, is it you? How are you?”

“First rate, but there’s high old Jinx at the hotel, and I’m the clerk now!” Jeff replied, with quite an air of importance.

“You the clerk! And high old Jinx? What do you mean?” Craig asked, and Jeff, who was bursting to tell the news, began: “Mr. Hilton has gone off,—run away,—eloped with Miss Helen, and took the diamonds. They was married Thursday in New York and started last night for Chicago, and Miss Tracy screeched so you could hear her across the street. She’s in bed now with water bags and flat irons and things, and I’m the clerk _pro tem_. That’s what Sarah said. What does _pro tem_ mean?”

Jeff had told his story in a breath, but was not prepared for the effect it had on Craig, who turned as white as the paper box which held the roses, and grasped Jeff’s shoulder to steady himself and keep from tottering, if not falling outright. It was as if a heavy blow had been dealt him in his stomach, nauseating and making him faint and dizzy, and for a moment he hardly knew where he was.

“Going to ride?” the ’bus driver called to him.

Craig looked up and saw in the ’bus a woman who he knew lived in the town. He could not face her with that terrible trouble on his mind.

“I’ll walk,” he said, and the ’bus drove off, leaving him alone with Jeff, who was looking curiously at him.

“Are you sick?” he asked; and Craig replied, “I think so. Isn’t there a short cut across the fields to the hotel?”

“Yes, I’ll show you the way. You or’to have rode. You look awful white and queer,” Jeff said, starting up the path he always took when going to the river from the hotel.

Craig followed slowly, scarcely seeing where he was going, or realizing anything except that something had happened to him, taking away his strength and sense. When half way up the hill they came to a stone wall where there was a gap with some big boulders for steps, making a kind of stile. Here Craig sat down to rest, while Jeff stood before him puzzled to know what had effected him so suddenly.

“He seemed chipper as could be when he jumped off the train. Mabby he broke something inside,” he thought, just as Craig said to him, “Sit down here, boy, and tell me exactly how it was. Don’t add nor subtract. I want the whole truth; all you know about it from first to last. The marriage, I mean. It was not gotten up in a day.”

Jeff had no suspicion of Craig’s real interest in the matter. He meant to be loyal to Mark, but did not care for Helen, or how much blame he put on her. He liked to talk, and if Craig wanted the truth he should have it. Crossing one foot over the other, he began:

“Well, sir, you shall have the truth. Would you mind my smoking a cigarette?”

Craig looked up in some surprise, knowing that such things were tabooed by the Taylors.

“I don’t mind the odor, if that is what you mean,” he replied. “But I would not do it if I were you. It is a bad habit, and Mrs. Taylor would not like it.”

“All right,” Jeff replied, and threw the cigarette away. “Now then,” he continued, “I’m going to tell you how it was. I’ve had my eyes open, and I thought for a spell ’twas _you_, as you and Miss Helen rode together so much and sat so much on the north piazza, and talked about them books she didn’t care a cent for, only pretended she did to please you.”

“What do you mean?” Craig asked a little sharply, and Jeff replied, “Them books you used to read out loud sometimes. I was waiting for Miss Alice once, and I heard Miss Helen say she hated it like pisen, but she’d got to make b’lieve, you was so _daft_ on him. What does _daft_ mean?”

Craig did not answer, but closed his eyes and leaned his head against a projecting stone in the wall. Jeff was lifting the veil and letting in the light, and it hurt him cruelly.

“Do you feel worse?” he asked, and Craig replied, “Yes,—no. No matter how I feel. Go on, and never mind the reading.”

“I’s only tellin’ you to show how things was, and that if there was any seducin’ it was Miss Helen who did it. Mark was some to blame, of course, but she was most. She is not an atom like t’other one,—Miss Alice. Oh, but she is a dandy, and true as steel. Miss Helen is the handsomest, and when she turns her eyes on you and smiles, you are a goner. And she rolled her eyes at Mark until he didn’t know what he was about, and when she was talkin’ to him in the office, as she did by the half hour when nobody was there, I’ve called him two or three times before he heard me. She used to sit on the piazzer with him after you’d gone to bed, and once she staid there so late her mother called her and asked what she was doin’.

“‘Been talkin’ to Mr. Mason,’ she said, and she spoke the _been_ low so her mother couldn’t hear it, and the ‘talkin’ to Mr. Mason’ high, so she could hear. I was lyin’ in the grass and heard her say, laughin’ like, ‘’Tain’t a fib. I have been talking to Mr. Mason.’ I tell you, she’s a clipper.”

Craig felt he ought to stop the boy, whose every word was a stab, and he opened his lips to do so, then closed them with the thought, “I may as well hear the whole,” and Jeff went on: “The day you went away she talked ever so long with Mark, and right after supper they started for a walk. Miss Taylor sent me over on the North Ridgefield road on an errant to Miss Nichols, and I staid a while to play hide and coop with the boys, and then started home. As I got near the haunted house the moon was shinin’ so bright that I said to myself, ‘I mean to go in and mabby I’ll see the woman who, they say, walks there wringin’ her hands.’ I ain’t a bit afraid, and I went along the lane on the grass till I got near a window, or where one used to be. Then I heard voices very low, almost a whisper. I knew it wasn’t the ghost, and I crept up still as I could and looked in, and who do you s’pose was there?”

Craig’s eyes were riveted on Jeff, who continued: “Mr. Hilton and Miss Helen, settin’ close together with his arm round her, and she a cryin’, while he talked so low I couldn’t understand, but I could _see_, for the moon fell full on both of ’em. First, I thought I’d give a whoop and scare ’em; then concluded to let ’em alone, and tiptoed away without seeing Mark’s grandmother at all. That was Tuesday, and the next day Miss Helen took the noon train for New York. Had malary, she said, and must see her doctor. That night Mark went to New York on some business for Mr. Taylor. He didn’t come back the next day, nor she neither; nor the next day, nor she neither, and this morning there came a letter from her, sayin’ she was married to Mark Thursday, and was goin’ to Chicago last night, and Mark had brought her the diamonds. That’s why Miss Tracy screeched so and went into fits. Half the town know it now, and are talkin’ about it. A lot have been in the office askin’ me questions, but Miss Taylor told me to shet up, and I shet and said I didn’t know nothin’, but I’ve told you because you made me, and you’d hear it when you got to the hotel. You are not going to faint?” he exclaimed, as Craig leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and his hands on his face.

“No, no,” and Craig straightened up, but his pallid face frightened Jeff, who continued: “You _are_ awful sick, and you look bad. What can I do for you?”

“Nothing,” Craig answered; then asked suddenly: “Has any one mentioned _me_ in connection with this affair?”

“Why, no. Not in particular,” Jeff replied. “Some who come into the office said: ‘I thought by the looks of things ’twas the Boston chap,’ and Sarah said: ‘I guess the one who was with her last had the inside track.’ That’s before Miss Taylor told me to shet up. I said I knew all the time it was Mark.”

“Thank you, Jeff. There’s a newspaper in my coat pocket. Fan me with it, please. I am very warm,” Craig said, taking off his hat and wiping the drops of sweat from his forehead.

Jeff took the paper and fanned him, while a suspicion of something like the truth began to dawn upon him. Then, with the bluntness which characterized him, he asked: “Did you care for her, and is that what ails you?”

Twilight was coming on, but Craig could see Jeff’s sympathizing face, and, with a sudden impulse, he replied: “She had promised to be my wife.”

Jeff gave a prolonged whistle and dropped the paper with which he was fanning Craig. Then, feeling that he must give some vent to his surprise, he had recourse to his usual custom, and turned three very rapid somersaults and landed on his feet in front of Craig. Jeff’s mind had worked almost as fast as his body, and, resuming the newspaper and fanning Craig furiously, he said, “I knew Mark liked her, and I liked Mark and used to tell him where she was waitin’ for him in corners and places sly like so folks wouldn’t see her. I thought you cared for her some, but didn’t s’pose you was in so deep, and I’m sorry I’ve told you about her, but you said tell everything.”

What Jeff had told Craig, although heroic treatment, was having its effect. Still he was very sore with the suddenness of the blow, and it would take him a little time to rally. He was humiliated, too, but there was comfort in thinking that possibly no one knew of his engagement except Mrs. Tracy. “I was foolish to tell Jeff, although I believe I can trust him,” he thought.

“Jeff,” he began, “if no one knows what I have told you, will you keep it to yourself?”

“You bet!” Jeff answered, feeling that he was of more importance now that he had a secret in common with Craig than he did when he was made clerk _pro tem_.

It was time the clerk was getting home, if he would attend to his business, and he said to Craig at last: “Do you think you can go on now? Mr. Taylor may be wanting me.”

“Yes, I am better,” Craig answered.

He tried to walk steadily, but his knees shook under him, and it seemed as if his feet were each weighing a ton. Once in the steepest part of the hill he felt Jeff put his arm across his back to help him up the incline. The action touched him deeply, and there was a mist in his eyes as he said, “Thank you, Jeff; but I think I can walk alone. I am feeling better and shall be all right when I reach the hotel.”

With a great effort he tried to seem natural when he entered the house and was greeted by Uncle Zach, who plunged at once into the heart of his trouble, bewailing his disappointment in Mark and wondering where he could find one to fill his place. Craig consoled him as well as he could and kept himself in the shade, both in the office and at the supper table, where he ate very little and shrank from the eyes which he fancied were directed towards him by his fellow boarders. He had still a hard task before him,—that of meeting Mrs. Tracy, who, the moment she heard he had come, sent for him. Her hysterics had subsided, but, when she saw Craig, she came near giving way again. Controlling herself with an effort, she gave him her hand and said: “I know your pain is as great, or greater, than mine, and I am sorry for you. I assure you I had no suspicion. It came like a thunderbolt, and to think my daughter should take up with a hotel clerk, whose great-grandmother was hung, is terrible!”

She was getting excited and began a tirade against Mr. Hilton, while Craig put in now and then a word in his defense, saying he hoped the young people would be happy. He was not as crushed as Mrs. Tracy had expected him to be, and she grew a little cool towards him at the last and told him she should leave on Monday for New York and seclude herself from the society she would be ashamed to meet after Helen’s disgraceful conduct.

“Here is a letter you sent to Helen on Thursday,” she said. “Mr. Taylor brought it to me this afternoon. It is, of course, no use to her now. I shall not forward it. Take it and burn it, if you like.”

Craig took the letter, and, bidding her good night, went to his room, where he found on his dressing bureau another letter which had come for him that morning from New York, and was from Helen. Jeff had brought it up while he was with Mrs. Tracy, and was hovering near the door to speak to him.

“Do you want anything?” he asked. “A hot flat iron for your feet, perhaps? I can bring you one, if you do.”

Jeff knew that Mrs. Tracy had required water bags and flat irons, and thought it possible Craig might like something of the kind. Craig declined the offer, and Jeff went away, leaving him alone with his trouble and Helen’s letter. On opening the envelope a second letter fell out, soiled and crumpled, with tear stains upon it, but with the seal unbroken. It was the first he had sent to her, and she had returned it unread. She had written rather incoherently, as if greatly excited. She did not expect him to forgive her, she said, and she could not help doing what she had done. When Craig asked her to be his wife she had no thought of deceiving him, but she did not then know how much she loved Mr. Hilton, or that he cared for her as he did.

“I am better suited to him than to you,” she wrote. “He knows me, and you do not. I return your letter unread. I found it at the office when I started for the walk with Mark, which resulted in my throwing you over. I could not read it after that. Don’t think that what I have done has not cost me pain, for it has, but I am very happy with Mark, who knows all my faults. I have nothing to conceal from him, while with you I should have been always trying to seem what I was not and to like what I hated, and you would have found me out and been disappointed and shocked. It is better as it is,—a great deal better, and so you will think when the first wrench is over.”

“I believe she is right, but it is very hard now,” Craig said, tearing her letter in bits as he did the other and burning them in the stove in his room.

How happy he had been writing to her,—how happy all the week with thoughts of the girl who had deceived him so cruelly.

“But I will not let it wreck my life,” he said. “She is not worth it.”

Laying his head upon the table, he recalled the past as connected with Helen,—all Jeff had told him of her, all she had said herself, and his mother’s opinion, which weighed more now than it did a week ago. He was beginning to see things more clearly than when the glamour of love was over him, and he writhed for a time in bitter pain for his loss, not only of Helen, but for his loss of faith in her. Then he began to wonder why he felt so faint. The window was open, and it was not so very warm, but something oppressed him like a sweet, powerful odor. Suddenly he remembered the roses. The lid had come off as Jeff put the box on the table, and the room was full of the perfume.

“What shall I do with them?” he said, taking them in his hand and thinking how much they were like Helen, beautiful but frail, for they were already beginning to droop. “I can’t keep them in my room, and I can’t throw them from the window to be found and commented upon. I’ll burn them, as I have the letters.”

Drawing his chair to the stove, he kindled a fire with some light wood there was in a box, and, when it was well started, he burned the roses one by one, feeling a kind of satisfaction as he saw them blacken and turn to ashes. There was still the little white and gold book of poems, and over this he hesitated. He was so fond of Browning that it seemed sacrilege to burn up Sordello and Pauline. They were intimately connected with Helen, who had professed to like them so much. But her liking was all pretence, and leaf after leaf went into the stove, until the whole was consumed. There was nothing now but the rings, and these he would return. With the burning of the roses and book, Craig felt a good deal better, and, quite to his surprise, slept so soundly that he did not waken until Jeff knocked twice on his door and told him it was after eight o’clock.