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The Debtor: A Novel, a novel by Mary E Wilkins Freeman |
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Chapter 30 |
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_ Chapter XXX Charlotte had followed her father and aunt up-stairs that night, starting up softly like a shadow from her place in the hall. She went silently behind them until they reached the open door of Anna's room; then her father turned and saw her. "You here, Charlotte?" he said. "Yes, papa," replied Charlotte, turning a pitiful but altogether stanch little face up to his. He put his arm around her, drew her head against his shoulder, tipped up her face, and kissed her. "Go to bed now, darling," he whispered. "Papa, I can't; I--" "There is nothing you can do, sweetheart; there is nothing for you to worry about. Papa will take care of you always, whatever happens. Go to bed now, and go to sleep, honey." "But, papa, I can't sleep. Let me stay and--" "No, dear. There is nothing you can do. It will only worry me to have you stay. Go to bed, and put all this out of your mind. It will all come right in the end." Carroll kissed Charlotte again, and put her gently from him, and she disappeared in her own room with a suppressed sob. "I am glad Ina is out of the way," Anna said, but with no bitterness. "So am I," Carroll agreed, simply. "I wish Charlotte had as good a man to look out for her," said Anna. Carroll straightened himself with quick pride. "I shall look out for her," he said. "You need not think I am quite out of the running yet, when it comes to looking out for my own flesh and blood." "No, of course you are not, Arthur. I did not mean to imply any such thing," Anna rejoined, hastily. "I was only-- Come into my room. Amy is fast asleep by this time, and if she is not she has a headache, and you might as well try to consult with an infant in arms as Amy with a headache. And something has to be done." "Yes, you are right, Anna," Carroll replied, with a heavy sigh. "Those people will all go when they get tired of waiting. There is no use in our bothering with them any more to-night. Come in." Anna led the way into her room, and closed the door. A lamp burned dimly on the dresser amid a confusion of laces and ribbons. The whole room looked in a soft foam of dainty disorder. Anna did not turn the light up. She stood looking at her brother in the half-light, and her face was at once angry and tender. "Well?" said she, with a sigh of desperate inquiry. "Well?" rejoined Carroll. "What next?" "The Lord knows!" "Something has to be done. We are up against a dead wall again. And for some reason it strikes me as a deader wall than ever before." Carroll nodded. "We cannot stay in Banbridge any longer?" Anna said, interrogatively. "We may have to," Carroll replied, curtly. "You mean?" "There may be a little difficulty about getting out. We could not leave the State, anyhow, and--" "And what? We can go somewhere else in the State, I suppose. I am not particularly in love with this section of the union, but it all makes little difference after one reaches a certain point." "Poor old girl!" said Carroll. Anna looked at him, and her eyes suffused and her mouth quivered. Then she smiled her usual smile of mocking courage, even bravado. "Oh, well," said she, "I have faced the situation and chewed my cud of experience for a good many years now, and I am used to it. I may even end up by tasting the sweet in the bitter." "You had as hard an experience in another line as I had. I don't know but it was harder." "No harder, I reckon," Anna replied, almost indifferently. "It was the same thing--the doll stuffed with sawdust, and all that; you with a friend, and I with a lover. Well, it is all over now." "It isn't; that is the worst of it," Carroll said, gloomily. "I don't see why." "A sequence is never over. There is even all eternity for it." "Well, the first of the sequence is over, anyhow. All we have to consider is the succeeding stages." "That is about enough." Anna laughed. "I agree with you there, dear. Well, I suppose the stage of the sequence for immediate consideration is the feasibility of emerging into the next stage. You think it is likely to be more difficult for the wandering tribe of Carroll to make their exodus with grace and dignity than usual?" "It rather looks that way now." "I suppose that promoting business, that business transacted in the New York office, got you into rather hotter waters than usual." Carroll nodded. "There _was_ an office, I suppose." Carroll nodded again, laughing a little. Anna laughed too. "One never knows," said she. "I suppose that was a delegation from the office, to-night, the two pretty girls and the winking young man." "Yes," said Carroll. Anna had flung herself into an easy-chair beside him. Carroll remained standing. She leaned her head back and crossed her hands behind her neck in a way she had. She was a thing of lithe grace in her soft red silk. The dim light obliterated all the worn lines in her face. Carroll regarded her even in the midst of the distressful stress of affairs with a look of admiration. It was an absent-minded regard, very much as a mourner might notice a stained-glass window in a church while a funeral was in progress. It was the side-light of grace on affliction involuntarily comprehended, from long training, by the exterior faculties. Carroll even said, half perfunctorily: "You look well to-night. That red gown suits you, honey." "The gown that that poor little beggar of a dress-maker is not paid for," said Anna. Carroll frowned. "I did not have enough for that," he said. "It was impossible. I paid the other bills." "All dressmakers have to be cheated," said Anna. "I never knew one that wasn't. I may as well reap the benefit of a universal law of cause and result, as some other woman." Her voice rang hard, but she looked up affectionately at her brother. Suddenly she reached out her hand, caught his, and kissed it. "There is one thing we Carrolls pay in full, and never run in debt for, and that is our affection for and belief in one another," said she. "We have our hearts full of one coin, anyway." "I suppose the world at large would prefer our pockets full of the coin of the realm," answered Carroll, but he looked fondly down at his sister. "I suppose so. If I had not worn this dress, I should send it back to that dressmaker." "But you have worn it." "Oh yes. Of course it is out of the question now. It is very pretty. Well, Arthur, if we go back far enough we are not responsible for this dress. We are responsible for none of the disasters which follow in our wake. That man down in Kentucky precipitated the whole thing. Arthur, you do look like a fiend whenever I mention that man!" "I feel like one," Carroll replied, coolly. "Well, that man was directly responsible for the whole wreck--the general wreck, I mean. My own wreck is an individual matter, and, after all, I never fairly lowered my sails for that especial gale. I never will own to it." "You were a brave girl, Anna." "But the other wreck, the whole wreck, that man of yours is responsible for. And we were not half a bad lot, Arthur." "Maybe not; but when the ship breaks up, it does not make so much difference what the timbers were, nor how she was built." "I suppose you are right. Well, what is to be done with the old masts and sails and things?" "I know what is to be done with a part of it." "What part of it?" "Well, to depart from similes, the female contingency." "The female contingency?" "Yes, and the juvenile. You and Amy and Charlotte and Eddy." "What do you mean, Arthur?" "You are going down to Kentucky to the old place, to spend the winter with Aunt Catherine." "Aunt Catherine wrote you?" "Yes." "When?" "I got the letter day before yesterday." "She invited us?" "Yes, honey." "Not you?" "There was no reason why she should invite me." "Aunt Catherine never had any feeling for you." "Perhaps she has had as much as I deserve. You know I have, to put it frankly, rather broken the record of an honorable family for--" "For what?" "For honor, dear." Then Anna broke out, passionately. "I don't care! I don't care!" she cried. "I don't care what she thinks; I don't care what anybody thinks! I don't care what you do or don't do, you are the best man that ever lived, Arthur." She began to weep suddenly, feeling blindly for her handkerchief. Carroll pulled her head against his shoulder. "Dear," he whispered, "don't; you must not, darling, you are worn out. You are not well." "Arthur, are you sure--are you sure that you have not rendered yourself liable? Arthur, are you sure that they cannot arrest you for anything you have done this time?" "Quite sure, Anna." "You have looked out for that?" "Yes." "They can't arrest you?" "No. Anna, you are nervous." "Martin was impudent yesterday, when you were out, about his pay. He talked about going to a lawyer." Carroll made an impatient movement. "If he does not stop coming to you about it--" "He is afraid of you. Then Maria came and cried. She says she has lost her lover, because she did not have decent clothes to wear." "Anna, they shall not trouble you again. Don't, dear. Why, I never knew you to fret so before!" "I never did. I never minded it all so much before. I think I am ill. There is a dull pain all the time in the back of my neck, and I do not sleep at all well. Then my mental attitude seems suddenly to have changed. I was capable of defiance always, of seeing the humor in the situation, even if it was such an oft-repeated joke, and such a mighty poor one; but now, even if I start with a glimpse of the funny side of it, suddenly I collapse, and all at once I am beaten." Carroll stroked her graceful, dark head. "There is nothing for it but you must go, honey." "Arthur, I will not. It may be better for the others, but as for me, I will not." "Yes, you will, Anna, honey." "Arthur Carroll!" "You must, dear. Frankly, Anna, you know how I shall feel about parting with you all, but it will be a load off my mind. If a man is not able to care for his own, it is better for him and for them that they should go where they will be cared for." "You need not speak in that way, Arthur. You have done all you could. All this would never have been if it had not been for us, and your wanting us to have everything. We have been a helpless lot. None of us have ever blamed you or complained, not even Amy, baby as she is." "I know it, dear, but it is better for you all to go." "You have done all you could, always," Anna repeated, in a curious, sullen fashion. "Well, we will leave that. If Aunt Catherine takes you all this winter, it will go hard if I do not pay her in some way later on; but the point is now, you must all go." Anna shook her head obstinately. Carroll bent down and kissed her. "Good-night, dear," he said. "Try to sleep." "I wonder if those people are all gone." "Yes, I think so. I heard Marie lock the door. Good-night." Anna rose and threw her arms around her brother's neck. "Whatever happens, you have got your old sister left," she said, with a soft sob. "Nobody is going to attach her for my debts," Carroll said, laughing, but stroking her head fondly. "No, she is not an available asset. I never will go, Arthur. The others may do as they think best. I will not go." "Not to-night, Anna, honey," Carroll said, as he went out of the room. Anna Carroll, left alone, rose languidly, unfastened her red silk gown, and let it fall in a rustling circle around her. She let down her soft, misty lengths of hair, in which was a slight shimmer of white, and brushed it. Standing before her dresser, using her ivory-backed brush with long, even strokes, her reflected face showed absolutely devoid of radiance. The light was out of it--the light of youth, and, more than the light of youth, the light of that which survives youth, even the soul itself. And yet there was in this face, so unexpectant and quiescent that it gave almost the effect of dulness, a great strength and charm which were the result of an enduring grace of attitude towards all the stresses of life. Anna Carroll carried about with her always, not for the furbishing of her hair nor the embellishment of her complexion, but for the maintenance of the grace and dignity of her bearing towards a hard and inscrutable fate, a species of mental looking-glass. She never for a minute lost sight of herself as reflected in it. She had not been a happy woman, but she had worn her unhappiness like a robe of state. She had had a most miserable love-affair in her late youth, but no one except her brother could have affirmed with any certainty that it had occasioned her a moment's pang. She was hopeless as regarded any happiness for herself in a strictly personal sense. She knew that her destiny as a woman had been unfulfilled, but she would rather have killed herself than pitied herself. She was as hard to herself and her own possible weakness as she was to anybody on earth, possibly harder. She cheated the dressmaker, she ate at the expense of others, as she would have cheated herself had she known how. It did not occur to her to go without anything which she could by any means get; not because she wanted it so keenly, as from another phase of the same feeling which had led Minna Eddy to appropriate the rug, and Estella Griggs the paraphernalia of the tea-table and the sofa-pillow. She had herself been duped in a larger sense; she was a creditor of Providence. She considered that she had a right to her hard wages of mere existence, when they came in her way, were they in the form of red silk gowns or anything else. She would admit no wrong in her brother, for the same reason, reserving only the right to condemn him at times on the boy's account. She began thinking about the boy as she went on with her preparations for bed. Her face lit up a little as she reflected upon the benefit it might be to Eddy to be in Kentucky. She thought of the dire possibility of serious complications for Arthur in this culminating crisis of his affairs. "Better for the child to be out of it," she said to herself, and that singular anger with Arthur for the sake of the boy, which was like anger with him for his own sake, came over her. She identified the two. She saw in Eddy the epitome of his father, the inheritor of his virtues and faults, and his retribution, his heir-at-large by the inscrutable and merciless law of heredity. "Yes, it is better for Eddy to be out of it," she repeated to herself, with the same reasoning that she might have used had she been proposing to separate her brother's better self from his worse. But she resolved more firmly that she would not go herself. She would urge the others' going, but she would remain. _ |
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