Chapter 35. The Dorcas On Guard

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_ CHAPTER XXXV. The Dorcas on Guard

Miss Port had not been home very long and was up in her bedroom, which looked out on the street, when she heard the sound of many feet, and, hurrying to the window, and glancing through the partly open shutters, she saw that a company of women were entering the gate into her front yard. She did not recognize them, because she was not familiar with the tops of their hats; and besides, she was afraid she might be seen if she stopped at the window; so she hurried to the stairway and listened. There were two great knocks at the door--entirely too loud--and when the servant-maid appeared she heard a voice which she recognized as that of Mrs. Faulkner inquiring for her. Instantly she withdrew into her chamber and waited, her countenance all alertness.

When the maid came up to inform her that Mrs. Faulkner and a lot of ladies were down-stairs, and wanted to see her, Miss Port knit her brows, and shut her lips tightly. She could not connect this visit of so many Glenford ladies with anything definite; and yet her conscience told her that their business in some way concerned Captain Asher. He had had time to see them, and now they had come to see her; probably to induce her to relinquish her claims upon him. As this thought came into her mind she grew angry at their impudence, and, seating herself in a rocking-chair, she told the servant to inform the ladies that she had just reached home, and that it was not convenient for her to receive them at present.

Mrs. Faulkner sent hack a message that, in that case, they would wait; and all the ladies seated themselves in the Port parlor.

"The impudence!" said Miss Port to herself; "but if they like waitin,' they can wait, I guess they'll get enough of it!"

So Maria Port sat in her room and the ladies sat in the parlor below; and they sat, and they sat, and they sat, and at last it began to grow dark.

"I guess they'll be wantin' their suppers," said Maria, "but they'll go and get them without seein' me. It's no more convenient for me to go down now than when they first came."

There had been, and there was, a great deal of conversation down in the parlor, but it was carried on in such a low tone that, to her great regret, Miss Port could not catch a word of it.

"Now," said Mrs. Pilsbury, "I must go home, for my husband will want his supper and the children must be attended to."

"And so must I," said Mrs. Barney and Mrs. Sloan. They would really like very much to stay and see what would happen next, but they had families.

"Ladies," said Mrs. Faulkner, "of course, we can't all stay here and wait for that woman; but I propose that three of us shall stay and that the rest shall go home. I'll be one to stay. And then, in an hour three of you come back, and let us go and get our suppers. In this way we can keep a committee here all the time. All night, if necessary. When I come back I will bring a candlestick and some candles, for, of course, we don't want to light her lamps. If she should come down while I am away, I'd like some one to run over and tell me. It's such a little way."

At this the ladies arose, and there was a great rustling and chattering, and the face of Miss Maria, in the room above, gleamed with triumph.

"I knew I'd sit 'em out," said she; "they haven't got the pluck I've got." But when the servant came up and told her that "three of them ladies was a-sittin' in the parlor yet and said they was a-goin' to wait for her," she lost her temper. She sent down word that she didn't intend to see any of them, and she wanted them to go home.

To this Mrs. Faulkner replied that they wished to see her, and that they would stay. And the committee continued to sit.

Now Miss Port began to be seriously concerned. What in the world could these women want? They were very much in earnest; that was certain. Could it be possible that she had said more than she intended to Captain Asher, and that she had given him to understand that she would use any of these women as witnesses if she went to law? However, whatever they meant, she intended to sit them out. So she told her maid to make her some tea and to bring it up with some bread and butter and preserves, and a light. She also ordered her to be careful that the people in the parlor should see her as she went up-stairs. "I guess they'll know I'm in earnest when they see the tea," she said. "I've set out a mess of 'em, and it won't take long to finish up them three!"

She partook of her refreshments, and she reclined in her rocking-chair, and waited for the hungry ones below to depart. "I'll give 'em half an hour," said she to herself.

Before that time had elapsed she heard another stir below, and she exclaimed: "I knew it" and there were steps in the hallway, and some people went out. She sprang to her feet; she was about to run down-stairs and lock and bolt every door; but a sound arrested her. It was the talking of women in the parlor. She stopped, with her mouth wide open, and her eyes staring, and then the servant came up and told her that "them three had gone, and that another three had come back, and they had told her to say that they were goin' to stay in squads all night till she came down to see them."

Miss Port sat down, her elbows on the table, and her chin in her hands. "It must be something serious," she thought. "The ladies of this town are not in the habit of staying out late unless it is to nurse bad cases, or to sit up with corpses." And then the idea struck her that probably there might be something the matter that she had not thought of. She had caused lots of mischief in her day, and it might easily be that she had forgotten some of it. But the more she thought about the matter, the more firmly she resolved not to go down and speak to the women. She would like to send for a constable and have them cleared out of the house, but she knew that none of the three constables in town would dare to use force with such ladies as Mrs. Faulkner and the members of the Dorcas Society.

So she sat and waited, and listened, and grew very nervous, but was more obstinate now than ever, for she was beginning to be very fearful of what those women might have to say to her. She could "talk down one woman, but not a pack of 'em." Thus time passed on, with occasional reports from the servant until the latter fell asleep, and came up-stairs no more. There were sounds of footsteps in the street, and Miss Port put out her light, and went to the front shutters. Three women were coming in. They entered the house, and in a few minutes afterward three women went out. Miss Port stood up in the middle of the floor, and was almost inclined to tear her hair.

"They're goin' to stay all night!" she exclaimed. "I really believe they 're goin' to stay all night!" For a moment she thought of rushing down-stairs and confronting the impertinent visitors, but she stopped; she was afraid. She did not know what they might say to her, and she went to the banisters and listened. They were talking; always in a low voice. It seemed to her that these people could talk forever. Then she began to think of her front door, which was open; but, of course, nobody could come while those creatures were in the parlor. But if she missed anything she'd have them brought up in court if it took every cent she had in the world and constables from some other town. She slipped to the back stairs, and softly called the servant, but there was no answer. She was afraid to go down, for the back door of the parlor commanded all the other rooms on that floor. Now she felt more terribly lonely and more nervous. If she had had a pistol she would have fired it through the floor. Then those women would run away, and she would fasten up the house. But there they sat, chatter, chatter, chatter, till it nearly drove her mad. She wished now she had gone down at first.

After a time, and not a very long time, there were some steps in the street and in the yard, and more women came into the house, but, worse than that, the others stayed. Family duties were over now, and those impudent creatures could be content to stay the rest of the evening.

For a moment the worried woman felt as if she would like to go to bed and cover up her head and so escape these persistent persecutors. But she shook her head. That would never do. She knew that when she awoke in the morning some of those women would still be in the parlor, and, to save her soul, she could not now imagine what it was that kept them there like hounds upon her track.

It was now eleven o'clock. When had the Port house been open so late as that? The people in the town must be talking about it, and there would be more talking the next day. Perhaps it might be in the town paper. The morning would be worse than the night. She could not bear it any longer. There was now nothing to be heard in front but that maddening chatter in the parlor, and up the back stairs came the snores of the servant. She got a traveling-bag from a closet and proceeded to pack it; then she put on her bonnet and shawl and put into her bag all the money she had with her, trembling all the time as if she had been a thief: robbing her own house. She could not go down the back stairs, because, as has been said, she could have been seen from the parlor; but a carpenter had been mending the railing of a little piazza at the back of the house, and she remembered he had left his ladder. Down this ladder, with her bag in her hand, Miss Port silently moved. She looked into the kitchen; she could not see the servant, but she could hear her snoring on a bench. Clapping her hand over the girl's mouth, she whispered into her ear, and without a word the frightened creature sat up and followed Miss Port into the yard.

"Now, then," said Miss Port, whispering as if she were sticking needles into the frightened girl, "I'm goin' away, and don't you ask no questions, for you won't get no answers. You just go to bed, and let them people stay in the parlor all night. They'll be able to take care of the house, I guess, and if they don't I'll make 'em suffer. In the morning you can see Mrs. Faulkner--for she's the ringleader--and tell her that you're goin' home to your mother, and that Miss Port expects her to pull down all the blinds in this house, and shut and bolt the doors. She is to see that the eatables is put away proper or else give to the poor--which will be you, I guess--and then she is to lock all the doors and take the front-door key to Squire Allen, and tell him I'll write to him. And what's more, you can say to the nasty thing that if I find anything wrong in my house, or anything missin', I 'll hold her and her husband responsible for it, and that I'm mighty glad I don't belong to their church."

Then she slipped out of the back gate of the yard, and made her way swiftly to the railroad-station. There was a train for the north which passed Glenford at half-past twelve, and which could be flagged. There was one man at the station, and he was very much surprised to see Miss Port.

"Is anything the matter?" he said.

"Yes," she snapped, "there's some people sick, and I guess there'll be more of 'em a good deal sicker in the morning. I've got to go."

"A case of pizenin'?" asked the man very earnestly.

"Yes," said she, wrapping her shawl around her; "the worse kind of pizenin'!" Then she talked no more.

The servant-girl slept late, and there were a good many ladies in the parlor when she came down. She did not give them a chance to ask her anything, but told her message promptly. It was a message pretty fairly remembered, although it had grown somewhat sharper in the night. When it was finished the girl added: "And I'm to have all the eatables in the house to take home to my mother, and Squire Allen is to pay me four dollars and seventy-five cents, which has been owin' to me for wages for ever so long." _

Read next: Chapter 36. Cold Tinder

Read previous: Chapter 34. Miss Port Puts In An Appearance

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