1111 COURT STREET, BOSTON, MASS., _Nov._ 12, 1890.
_Mr. Francis B. Ellesworth, University Club, Boston, Mass.:_
MY DEAR FRANK, I am sorry to inform you that the Benson note is still uncollected. The party writes that he will try to pay it soon. Our correspondent in Sunshine, S. C., considers the Benson security in Cherokee first-class. As this is the only S. C. mortgage that has slipped up so far on our hands, I should advise you to be patient a few more days. Perhaps you had better give the party leeway up to Dec. 1, if necessary, as it is his first default since you took the papers, three years ago. However, if you are impatient and wish to settle the matter, send me down the trust deeds and notes. Run in any time. I shall be glad to see you.
Very truly yours, JOSEPH TODD.
Young Ellesworth carefully deposited his cigar in the bronze ashreceiver on the polished table by his side, and pulled out from hisbreast pocket a notebook which he consulted. After a few moments heseemed to satisfy himself as to the identity of his mortgager Benson;put his papers up, and sank back into a reverie.
The gray November day seemed to have contented itself with monopolizingthe streets and the faded Common, and the poor tenements, and the raggedstragglers, and to have passed by the windows of Beacon Street, and theluxurious smoking-room of the new University Club. Francis Ellesworthsprawled listlessly in the deep chair by the window, and vaguelycongratulated himself that he did not have to earn his supper. It waslucky that he did not have to, for any tyro of a physiognomist couldhave seen at a glance that the delicate features, the sallow complexion,brightened by red spots upon his cheeks, the gentle black eyes and thestraight black hair, did not belong to a robust New England body.
The trouble with Ellesworth was, not that he was rich enough not to haveto work, but that he was born at all. He considered it only a faircompensation for this insult that three years ago he had fallen heir toseventy-five thousand dollars, which he had successfully invested andreinvested ever since. This occupation, and the clubs and a few othernecessary amusements formed his life.
He was not handsome, but just interesting looking enough not to passunnoticed. He was not vulgar; that is to say, he did not drink too much,did not swear, and was not the kind of a fellow who compromises a womanby his attentions. He was neither clever nor stupid. Thousands of youngmen in our great cities are of this type, unimportant to men of intent,and a missionary field to women of character.
He needed an electric shock either to kill him or make a man of him. Butperhaps, after all, Ellesworth was not wholly to blame for not trying tomake his mark; for he was not so strong as other men, as I said before,and had, besides, so thoroughly coddled himself into that belief thatuseful activity was struck off of his list of possibilities.
Now it happened that this Benson mortgage was the first which he hadtaken out under his inheritance; it had a certain special interest tohim for that reason; it had netted him eight per cent. clear, and heconsidered his fifteen hundred dollars well invested. His Harvardclassmate, Todd, a good judge, had selected the mortgage for him, andaltogether it seemed to the young property-holder quite an important, ifnot to say a public, financial affair that this first of October passedwithout producing sixty dollars from Benson. He didn't know who Bensonwas; nor did he care. How many a capitalist in the East knows the sturdysettler whose hard-earned home he holds in his relentless safe! Thedrought comes, the crops wither away; the cyclone sweeps the land; theonly horse that does the ploughing dies; the mother is sick and thefather tends the babies instead of the wheat--a hundred catastrophesmenace the farmer, but whatever happens, the semi-annual dividend mustbe paid or the nightmare of his life comes to pass--the terriblecapitalist in the East, less compassionate than the cyclone or theinundation or the drought, takes the home as a matter of course, just ashe takes his dinner. Who would dare complain? Not Benson surely, thoughtEllesworth, with the smile of a man who holds a "full hand."
"Work Benson for all he is worth," wrote Ellesworth on some blueclub-paper, "and give him until the first of December."
The first of December came, but no South Carolina interest. FrancisEllesworth was greatly annoyed and told Todd so plainly.
"He is sick," explained Todd. "Somebody else wrote for him. The lettercame the other day. But he signed it. He asks for another fifteen days."
Ellesworth frowned.
"I'm deuced hard up just now," he said, "Christmas is coming on. Thatwould just settle my flower bill. Halvin has sent me three confoundedlygentlemanly bills. That's the worst of it. Write and tell Benson I'llgive him until the fifteenth of December--not another day."
"Just as you say," answered Todd. "It's all safe enough, but it willtake some time to realize. Cherokee isn't exactly booming, but he's gotfifty acres and one half cleared, the other half is heavy yellow pine.The timber is worth the whole amount, my correspondent assures me,besides the house and out-buildings. You won't lose, not a cent, I'llguarantee; but it's annoying, I will admit."
Then they fell to talking about the Yale foot-ball victory. Of coursethey talked late and Ellesworth walked to his apartments in a heavyshower.
That night, one of the catastrophes which prove demons or angels to ourlives, occurred to the young man. He was taken suddenly and violentlyill. Of the three physicians summoned by the excited janitor, toprescribe for the sickness, one called the case pneumonia; anotherpreferred malaria; and the third, having just delivered an originalpaper on the subject, suggested brain grippe. In only one respect thethree wise men agreed--their patient must spend the winter in theSouth. Oddly enough, they recommended Sunshine, South Carolina; and asSunshine is a fashionable resort, with plenty of hotels and tennis andgirls, Ellesworth found no difficulty in obeying the medical counsel.Thus in ten days he found himself in the land of the palmetto and thejaponica. It was an abrupt change, and therefore all the more naturalfor that. The other day an invalid started for India on an eighteenhours' notice.
Ellesworth's illness and the journey had entirely driven the Bensonmatter out of his mind. He had drawn upon an emergency fund for histrip, and the fact that he was sixty dollars short had escaped his easymemory. Therefore the further announcement from Todd that Benson couldnot pay at the date agreed upon came to him as a new shock. Todd hadwritten a formal letter to his classmate, merely stating the fact andasking for instructions. As Ellesworth read it, he had a vague feelingthat there was something behind that was not told. But he had just losta game of billiards to an inferior player, and felt cross.
"Confound that Benson!" he ejaculated. Then he sat down and wrote:"Foreclose at once. My attorneys, Squeeze & Claw, will give you theBenson trust deeds on presentation of this. Hurry it through as soon asyou can."
He heaved a sigh of relief, and lighted a cigar with Todd's letter.
There are critics who assert that the modern story fails of its missionunless it deals in extraordinary characters embedded like the rarecrystals of Hiddenite, in an extraordinary matrix; and that the public,tired to suffocation of its own commonplaces, has a right to expectsomething out of the usual run. If such a _dictum_ were final FrancisEllesworth is in nowise a fit hero for a "penny-dreadful," nor was iteven an extraordinary circumstance that made him inquire how farCherokee Garden was from Sunshine.
"You can go by railroad," answered the Northern clerk, "or you can gohorseback. It's only eight miles by road through the pines. It's a verypretty ride to take before dinner."
Ellesworth had two reasons for amusing himself by an easy trip toCherokee. He had a vague feeling of remorse which often follows thedecree of justice. Lincoln was made ill by being obliged to refuse apardon. The greater the power the heavier it hangs upon the heart.Ellesworth, as he entertained himself in the conventional way, everspending, never earning, began to feel that he had done a brutal thing,without even looking into the circumstances, to order a man's home soldover his head, because he had failed to pay interest for the firsttime. If Benson's f
arm were only eight miles away why did he not see himbefore he sent the command to foreclose? There was an atonement owing,and this feeling, rising like a mist in the mind of the young man, whoknew much of pleasure and little of misery, drew him to the mortgagedplantation. And then, if Benson did prove a shiftless fellow, he wantedto see what kind of a place he might be soon forced to own. He mightmake it his winter resort and come down there every year. The moreselfish thought reinforced the generous one, and piqued his curiosity,as he rode slowly into the wilderness, leaving Sunshine and itsfashionable savor behind.
It was a December morning. To one not used to the tropics, the sun, theheat, the greenness, the exhilaration were magical. Under what coldcomforter was Boston Common shivering on this winter day! What pneumonicgales roared up Beacon Street and gnashed through Commonwealth Avenue,seeking whom they might devour, and having not a great way to go! Howblue the street vendors looked--the Italian boys who gilded statuetteson Tremont Street, and the man under the old courthouse who offers toclean your gloves of the unpardonable sin--for five cents! How thefellows shivered as they stamped the snow off in the club vestibule!The wonder that New England is not depopulated when there is such anEden in which to spend the devastating winter! So Ellesworth thought ashe jogged along the uneven, sandy road, congratulating himself withevery deep breath, and sitting straight and straighter in the saddle. Hehad never felt so happy and so free as he did this December morning.Passing slowly by a deserted orchard, he could see the yellow larksflying from tree to tree, and could hear the robins and the cat-birdscalling each other names, and mocking each other merrily. Now and thenhe stopped his horse to watch a couple of quails leisurely hoppingacross the road, and strained his ears to hear their thrum as they werestartled in the thicket. The very air seemed happy. Care and illnessslipped away as the sunshine slipped on the faces of the leaves. It wasDecember? No, it was summer with something thrown in that is neverpresent in our Northern June.
Ellesworth galloped along until his horse stumbled into a mud-hole.Before him, in a hollow, a stream had to be forded in the usual Southernway. Above and beyond, a cabin could be seen from whose outside chimneysmoke arose in a perpendicular column. Cocks crew in the distance, andthere was every indication that the outskirts of Cherokee wererepresented in the hut before him. As Ellesworth halted in the deepestpart of the brook, allowing his horse to drink, he saw clusters ofmistletoe on the tops of slender trees. The dark green of this romanticparasite set against the gray of the trees and their moss formed a newpicture for the Northerner. The glistening mistletoe with its whiteberries recalled scenes that he had read about. Ellesworth had playedtoo lightly with life to have ever been seriously in love. Theflirtation of a few weeks or months and the solemn tenderness of devotedlove are not allied. The one passes into the other as seldom as siliconpasses into the cells of a fallen tree. Ellesworth had never gone beyondconventional devotion: and this he had so far discreetly given tomarried women. This emblem of Christmas troth actually growing beforehis eyes, and seen by him in its native state for the first time,produced a vague longing upon the young New Englander. He remembered aprecise and beautiful Boston girl, rich enough and all that, whom he hadvainly tried to consider in the light of a possible wife. What well-bredsurprise would she have poured upon him if he had attempted to claim theright of the mistletoe branch! He had waited in order to give andreceive spontaneous, unconventional tokens of affection. He had dreamedof walking in the fields by the side of the phantom he loved, claspingher hand and swinging it with his, just like children in Arcadia. Hewanted no wife who would accept her husband's kiss as a matter ofnecessity. He had seen them, and cynically watched the husband castingfurtive, longing looks at her who swore to cherish him unto death.
Thus spoke the chaste, the alluring mistletoe to his heart. Thesethoughts surprised him, and he hurried along in vague discomfort overthe little slope (the natives called it a hill) and up to the stragglingvillage, called in his papers of description Cherokee Garden for noearthly reason whatever.
"Is this Cherokee Garden?" he asked of the wrinkled white woman sittingin the doorway of the solitary suburban residence.
"This ain't the hull of it, young man," she answered severely, takingher corn-cob pipe out of her mouth and looking at Ellesworth as if hehad cast an aspersion upon a city. "Ye kin ride down the road a rightsmart bit until ye come to the kyars. The post office is on the otherside o' the track." This she said with an accent of resentment.
"Do you know where a man called William Benson lives, whom I understandhas a--a farm here somewhere?"
When Ellesworth had finished his question the old woman got up and,supported by her stick, tottered to his side, and peered up into hisface.
"Air ye any kin ter Bill Benson? Air ye an'thin' to him?"
"No, no," stammered Ellesworth, taken aback. "I only wanted to call onhim. Why?"
"Ye'll hev'ter go right smart ways to find Bill Benson," replied the oldwoman, grimly.
She peered up into his face again, and shook her head. Ellesworth,wondering whether his creditor had "skipped to Cuba to avoid payment,"awaited information.
"Bill Benson" (she stopped to take a whiff, and then proceeded with atone of awe caught from Methodist preachers) "hez gone to glory!"
"Where?" asked Boston, ignorant of the longitude and latitude of thatstrange place.
"To glory, young man!" repeated the old woman, impressively. "ElderJones buried Bill in Tantallon buryin' ground, four mile from hyar downthe track," added the woman, severely.
Her voice dropped to a whisper on the last words, and she looked to seetheir effect upon the horseman. The red handkerchief, tied over her headand under her chin, had fallen down behind her neck and revealed a baldhead. The cock crew from the step of the hut.
Benson dead! This, then, accounted for the note so long overdue. Bensonhad been sick, and could not pay. Why had Ellesworth not known thisbefore? He reddened with self-reproach. This was the first tragedy whichhe had stumbled upon, and how much of it was his own doing! The oldwoman looked at him suspiciously.
"When did he die?" he asked softly.
The woman counted backwards on her fingers with the stem of her pipe."Right smart onto two weeks," she answered after much calculation. Thenshe shot this question at him with a scowl, "Ye hain't no Northerner,air ye?"
Taken off his guard, Ellesworth hesitated, and then forswore hissection.
"I--I am living at--eh--Sunshine."
Her face lighted.
"Mebbe ye'r raised in Charleston. Ye look like a South Carolinian."
Ellesworth was drawn to it by some occult power, and nodded assent. Theold woman's manner was now totally different, and she approached himconfidentially, and offered him the use of her tin snuff-box, which hecourteously declined.
"Ye haint heerd, so Colonel Tom Garvin told me, that a dum Northernerhez got a holt on Bill's place; and there ain't none left now 'ceptGeorgy and Mrs. McCorkle as is a widder nigh on ten year. Colonel Tom iskin to her mother's second cousin, and he says thet thet dum Yankee hedbetter not show up 'round these parts, for he'd get plugged if he triesto take Bill's place away from Georgy, poor, innercent thing that sheis." The old woman's cracked voice thrilled with the passion andtenderness of her kind; but Ellesworth did not look at her as shefinished. He felt a little frightened, and he bent over his horse tofleck a bit of bark with his whip to conceal it.
"How far do they live from here?" he asked after a pause, which sheinterpreted as actuated by sympathy.
"'Tain't no fur at all. Ye take the next turn to yer left. It's thefirst plantation ye come to. I reckon ye'll see Georgy a dustin' andsweepin'. She's almighty pertikler, she is, poor creetur."
Ellesworth thanked the old woman dreamily and rode in the directionwhich she pointed out.
Ellesworth had never thought of this view of the subject. It neveroccurred to him that he would be an object of hatred in Cherokee Garden.He glanced around furtively, as if he expected to see an enemy hidingbehind the
trees. At any rate, so far, he was not known. He made up hismind that he should not be. Benson's daughter was undoubtedly a sallow,withered young girl, with a hot temper and a deep sense of injury; and,if she found out his identity would probably call the country to armsagainst him. But the Yankee had no idea of giving up his rights. Hishands tightened on reins and whip. He meant to see the plantation thatwas mortgaged in his name at any cost. But about one thing he was nowcertain. Cherokee would never be a winter resort for him.
He walked his horse to the cross-road, to the left, about a thousandyards or so, until he came in front of a house. He halted and looked atit long and critically. It was a two-story house, built of yellow pine,that had not been painted. In spite of this, it did not look neglected.It had an air of scrupulous neatness and care. Around the house ran asimple fence, made to keep the chickens and the pigs that swarmed abouthim, from the garden and the piazza. A huge rose-bush covered one wholeside of the house, while in the garden and on the veranda red and whitejaponicas were in flower. Flanking the walk from the gate to the house,high azalea bushes were pushing forth their buds for the springblooming, and little borders of box protected with wooden boards, andbunches of holly intersected the little garden. It was more than ahome-like looking place: it was fascinatingly cozy, with its roses andcamellias and azaleas and a single protecting palmetto, andover-towering live oaks, and majestic pines. It was just the placeEllesworth had dreamed of possessing. It was luxuriant; it was tropical.The air, semi-spiced with odors of gum and blooms mounted to his brainlike a narcotic. He sat upon his horse and looked about. His eyes roamedpast the house and caught the contrast of the unkempt fields with theneatness within the enclosure. He noted the olive fingers of the highpines beyond the ploughed land.
It was a fair and a sad sight--William Benson was not there to enjoy hishome.
With a sigh of longing and of self-reproach he turned his face towardthe house again. Before him, with one hand on the gate, stood a woman.She was looking at him. Questions were in her eyes. Ellesworth stared ather in amazement, and only superlatives crowded into his mind; for shewas the most glorious woman he had ever seen. She was tall, almost tohis own height, and with a proportional figure. Dressed withoutornament, without ruffle, or frill or white at the throat, in plainblack, her face revealed itself on the green background as if it wereupon a canvas by Bastien Lepage. It was a face in which there seemed tobe many nationalities blended: Italian eyes, Spanish coloring of thecheeks, black Indian hair, rich Mexican lips,--these cooerdinated intothe most startling type he had ever seen, through a quick, sensitive,high-spirited intelligence, the inheritance of Southern blood. He couldnot analyze this beauty; he could only gasp at it.
Francis B. Ellesworth was, as has been intimated, not a captivating man_per se_; but as he sat upon his horse, with the flush of excitementupon his face, and a certain refinement in his carriage that looked asmuch out of place in Cherokee Garden as the face of the girl before him,he was not an unattractive fellow. Now, as the two were not over fifteenfeet apart, and were both looking at each other, one of them had tospeak. She waited for him to do so. He simply couldn't. So she spokefirst.
"Have you lost your way, sir?"
The tremor of the dimple in her chin and the marked effort which shemade to steady her voice, showed that she was much agitated. Had she notbeen expecting the man who was to take away her home for a paltry sum ofunpaid money? She had looked upon the Yankee who held her fathers notesas little more than a thief. And now that her father had died, sheseriously considered him in the light of a murderer. She thought of hisagent as his "minion," whom it was clearly due her dignity to resist.The case had been the talk of the scraggly village, and the judge of thedistrict, who was reputed to know the intricacies of all the law thatever was tabulated, asserted vehemently in her presence that to ejecther from her home was an outrage that could not and would not bepermitted as long as the able-bodied men of Cherokee could carry a gun.This testimony of Southern chivalry the girl fully believed.
And now the invader had come at last. She clutched the gate andcollected herself to meet him.
"No, miss, that is--is this William Benson's?--I mean----" Ellesworthhalted, remembering that his debtor was no more, and not wishing toremind her of the fact. "_Was_ this his place?"
The magnificent girl looked at him over that fence and measured him.Yes, the worst had come at last, and an uncalled-for insult with it. Howthe stranger gloated over the fact that the place was _not_ herfather's! She drew herself to her full height; her black eyes blazed;her cheeks became carmine. She could hardly control her voice fromindignation.
"You mistake, sir. This _is_ his place, and I think, sir, it will remainso."
She looked at him fiercely and waited to let that sentiment fructify inthe young man's soul.
"Indeed, I--I hope so," ventured Ellesworth.
Disregarding this as a feeble attempt at apology, she asked,--
"What is your name, sir? Do you come from _him_? Or are you _he_?"
The contempt which she cast into the personal pronouns had a markedeffect upon Ellesworth. The mere fact that a woman, for whom at firstsight he felt a greater admiration than he had ever bestowed elsewhere,should be so antagonistic to him at the start, made his heart contractwithin him. Yet he managed to pull himself together and say, withadmirable feint,--
"Excuse me. You must labor under a mistake. I am a total stranger here.I am--eh--merely looking about. I am staying at Sunshine, for myhealth."
He noted with satisfaction a look of relief stealing over her face, anda slight touch of spontaneous sympathy, too, at his last statement.Ellesworth immediately followed the lead up.
"Yes," he said, "I am an invalid, and was ordered South for my lungs. Ihave heard so much about Southern hospitality, would it be asking toomuch for me to rest here awhile? I am a trifle tired after this longride."
He heaved a sigh and tried to look utterly fagged out as he noticed howadmirably that tack succeeded.
"Oh, I beg your pardon, sir," said the girl impulsively. "I thought youwere a lawyer or a sheriff, or perhaps a man from--_Boston_." She couldhardly pronounce the name of the cultured city. It stuck in her throat.
"I?" he asked in a tone of reproach. "Not at all," he answered,laughing. "I told you that I have come from Sunshine," he added,blandly.
The girl, taking his negative as a reply to all her doubts, now openedthe gate hospitably.
"Forgive my rudeness, sir, and come in and sit awhile," she said, asprettily as a woman could. "I'll ask Aunt McCorkle to getyou--something. Would you take a glass of milk?"
She blushed as she remembered her empty wine cellar. With awell-feigned, languid air, which he could hardly maintain, soboisterously the blood surged through his veins, Ellesworth walked up tothe piazza and sat down.
He looked about him in a bewildered way. The passionless white camelliablooming by his side seemed singularly out of place. He thought of theintoxicating Jacqueminot roses he used to order at Halvin's for thatchilly Boston girl he tried to love and couldn't. The red camellia hadmore of this splendid Southern creature's color, but that too, with itswaxen, expressionless petals, had no business there either. Itexasperated him. It looked at him coolly and sarcastically as if thatwhich happens to a man but once in his life had not come to him.
Aunt McCorkle appeared with the glass of milk. She was a vague Southerngentlewoman, gentle and faded and appealing. She was just what heexpected the daughter of William Benson to be. He thought of themiddle-aged and elderly Boston dames with their strong profiles and keeneyes and decisive opinions of reforms and literature and charity. Anyone of them might have put out her arms and have taken Mrs. McCorkle upin her lap and trotted her to sleep. Yet Ellesworth liked the Southernlady. Already he felt a queer movement of the heart toward GeorgiellaBenson's "relations."
"Is it lung trouble?" inquired Aunt McCorkle sympathetically. The girlcame out of the house at this moment and sat down on the veranda underthe white camellia. Sh
e glanced at her guest with interest.
"The doctors think I shall come out all right if I am careful of myself," replied Ellesworth, evasively.
"It is hard to be sick," said Georgiella sincerely. Illness and deathhad touched her so lately and so cruelly that she could not help feelingsorry for the sick young man.
"I have just ridden over from Sunshine, where I am living now,"explained Ellesworth again, although his conscience gave him a twinge.He hurried on: "You see, I'm looking for a quiet place to board in." Hemade a diplomatic pause. "The Sunshine Hotel is too noisy, what withbilliards and bowling and late dances; so I rode over here to lookabout, and an old lady with a pipe told me you lived here."
"That was Aunt Betsey," said the girl decisively. "But we never tookboarders," with a stately drawing up of her head, "why should she sendyou here?"
"My dear," protested Mrs. McCorkle mildly, "the Randolphs of Sunshinetook boarders last winter; and I suppose we could get Aunt Betsey tocook." She rose to carry away Ellesworth's glass, and beckoned to thegirl to follow her. Evidently the two poor ladies whispered together inthe hall, consulting upon the awful problem suddenly presented to theirempty pockets and plethoric pride. They came out on the veranda again,and Mrs. McCorkle asked him point blank what his name was. Withoutperceptible hesitation he replied:
"Bigelow, madam. Frank Bigelow." The unimagined value of a middle namesuddenly presented itself to the young man's mind, and his conscienceslipped behind the camellias and made no protest. A very irreligiousbaby, black in the face from howling, had been indeed baptized FrancisBigelow in King's Chapel, twenty-nine years ago--and had since bought amortgage on the Benson property.
"Couldn't you take me? It's a case of charity," he pleaded, turning tothe girl beside him. "It's so noisy at the hotel, I can't sleep."
This last shot went straight to the mark. Sympathy and need are powerfulpartners, and they worked together for Ellesworth's case in the heartsof the two poor, lonely women.
It is only in the South that one can find women--ladies, and who dresslike ladies, and who hardly have ten dollars in cash the year round. Themystery of the maintenance of their existence is not solved outside thewalls of their own homes. Proud, refined and shy, they divulge nothing.Who is a boarder that he should think to comprehend the patheticingenuity of their eventless lives?
"Are you connected with the Bigelows of Charleston?" asked Mrs.McCorkle, softly.
"I think we must be another branch," replied Ellesworth, boldly.
"I will--I would pay you," added Ellesworth, blushing, "just what theywould charge me at the Sunshine Hotel, if that would be satisfactory."
"How much is that, Mr. Bigelow?" inquired Mrs. McCorkle, reddening too.
"Twenty-five dollars a week."
"That is too much. We should think that enough for a month," said thegirl, turning her wonderful face upon her visitor.
"I could not think of giving less," he insisted. Still he did not lookat her.
"Perhaps," admitted Mrs. McCorkle with a sigh, "we might take you, sir,seeing that you are one of the Bigelow family--on trial."
"I will come," returned Ellesworth, quickly, looking straight atGeorgiella, "I will come next Monday--on trial.
"You won't look upon me as a sheriff, will you?" he added, as he mountedat the gate, to ride back to his hotel.
The girl shook her head, as he looked down at her quizzically.
"That was very stupid of me. My mind has been full of my trouble. I havedreamed about it, and hate the man who holds that mortgage.
"Please do not think of it any more. And when you come, sir, perhaps youcan advise us what to do."
Ellesworth looked at her gravely. What would the following week, and thenext, and the winter bring forth?
"Perhaps," he said in a whisper that might have come from the Delphianoracle; and then he cantered away.
For the first time since her father's death, Georgiella sang thatafternoon as she walked about the garden teasing her plants to bloom.
* * * * *
It was Monday, the fifteenth of December. Mrs. McCorkle usheredEllesworth upstairs into his own room in the cottage mortgaged in hisown name. The sun poured into it like a living blessing. The rose-bushenveloped the windows, and when the sash was raised, delicate tendrilsinsinuated themselves within, as if, in Southern fashion, they would"shake howdy." The room was dainty and home-like. It flashed acrossEllesworth as he sank into the cushioned rocking-chair with a longbreath of content, that it might have been Georgiella's. It was in thedreamy part of the day. The sun was dipping under the high branches ofthe pines. Then the luxury of leaning out of the window in December! Hecould not help but think of it as _his_ sun, and _his_ garden and _his_trees. And now Georgiella came out, bareheaded, and swept the pineneedles and leaves from the narrow box-bordered path, and snipped deadbranches from the shrubs, and then before she went to feed the chickensshe cast up at him a shy glance that made his heart leap within him. Hedid not leave his room until he was called to supper. His fancy wasfeverish, and kept picturing his mortgaged girl in a Bostondrawing-room, thrilling all the people he knew with her beauty. Hecalled it carmine beauty; but he was young and ardent.
He felt it when he first saw her, but that eventful afternoon heformulated it and repeated it over and over again until he becamedizzy--"I love her! I love her!" And then visions of work and strengthand success, and ambitions that had been stifled, began to spring withinhim like blades from watered bulbs. The electric shock had come. He knewit. He meant to spring to it like a man.
Dreamily he dressed for supper, and dreamily descended. Mrs. McCorklegreeted him with her fine, thin manner. The young man looked about himcuriously. Aunt Betsey waited on the table. He tried not to think of herhospitality in the matter of snuff. The room was worn and bare andgray; so bereft of all but the most necessary furniture that its fewornaments had a startling conspicuousness. He noticed a fat Chinese vaseset up like an idol in an old escritoire. Over the mantel was aglass-case religiously protecting some coins and ancient papers. A rustysword hung on the wall. Biographies of Lee and Jackson, flanking theChinese fat vase in the dilapidated escritoire, and a villainous crayonframed in immortelles upon the wall, that probably represented hisdeceased debtor, completed the ornamentation of the room. Miss Bensonentered when he had gone as far as this, and vivaciously exhibited thebric-a-brac of the room.
"This is a Ming." She pointed to the fat vase. "I understand there isn'tanother like it in the country. It belongs to the Ming dynasty."
Although from Boston, Ellesworth was not familiar with the Ming dynasty,but he bowed and feebly ejaculated,--
"Ah! this is a real Ming, is it?"
"And there," said the young lady, bringing him before the glass-case,"are family possessions. That is a coin of George II.; those arePine-tree shillings; those yellow papers are two copies of a continentalnewspaper, and this is the South Carolinian continental penny."
Ellesworth inspected the treasures gravely. He did his best not tosmile.
"Very remarkable!" he murmured. "How Southern!" he thought.
"Colonel Tom Garvin says there are nothing like them in the country. Isuppose they would bring a great deal if sold," she added, wistfully."But we don't like to sell them. Besides, we never saw anybody whowanted to buy them."
Acquaintance under one roof passes quickly into intimacy. Love moveswith fleet feet when two young people breakfast and dine together with avague chaperone. A tropical garden, soft evenings and youthfulimpetuosity shorten the span to experience thought necessary to precedean engagement.
Georgiella was the soul of domestic comfort--as Southern women are. Shewas a high-spirited, variable, bewitching creature. At first, theNortherner could not understand her indifference to her obligations as amortgager. Why did she not sell the Ming vase? She looked upon debt notas a disgrace, but as an inconvenience. Foreclosure proceedings wereunder way, and it never occurred to the two women to stop them with evena
part of the fifty dollars which Ellesworth paid for his board inadvance. When Ellesworth found out that this trait was not a pauper's,but like Georgiella's strange beauty, constitutional, he forbore tocriticise it. In truth, he was too much in love now to criticise thegirl at all. It is probable that if she had robbed his pocketbook hewould have merely said, "How interesting! it is her tropical way."
A day or two before Christmas he drove over to Sunshine and returnedwith a happy, tired face.
"You would take a Christmas present from me, wouldn't you?" he askedwith unprecedented humility.
"It's in a paper," he explained.
"What is it?" she asked uncomfortably, for she felt his serious lookupon her.
"It's--eh--a trifle that I think you will like," replied Ellesworthwithout a smile.
* * * * *
Christmas came cheerfully into the mortgaged house. Georgiella cried alittle for her father's sake. In spite of her bereavement, and of thefact that she was sure the sheriff would attach the house that day ofall others, she did not feel very wretched. She felt that she was wickedbecause she was so happy. There were wings in her heart.
It was not the custom to hang up stockings at the Benson's.
"My things have always been put into the Ming vase," Georgiellaexplained, "and the others went on the breakfast table."
She did not look at Ellesworth often. Her eyes dropped. Her cheeks werelike red camellias. She felt in a hurry all of the time. The young manhimself took the situation out in looking at his watch. It seemed to himas if the world were turning over too fast. He thought of what he meantto do stolidly, notwithstanding.
They went out and gathered mistletoe in the swamps. He climbed trees andtore his hands and fell into the water with zest. They brought home abarrelful of it. He thought how he had bought it at twenty-five cents aspray on Washington street. He held a great branch of it behindGeorgiella over her head, and looked at her. She started like a wildanimal, and kept ahead of him all the way home.
On Christmas morning Ellesworth got up early--he had hardly slept; hecould not rest, and went softly downstairs. The door into thedining-room was open, and she was there before him. She stood before theMing vase. The mistletoe branch to which he had fastened his present,and which he had set into the vase to look like a little Christmas tree,lay tossed beneath her feet. The pearly white berries were scattered onthe floor. The mortgage was in her hand--trust deeds, principal notes,interest notes, insurance policy. She was turning the papers overhelplessly. She looked scared and was quite pale. Her bosom heavedboisterously. She heard him and confronted him. She managed to stammerout,--
"What, sir, does this mean?"
It required a brave man to tell her in her present mood; but he did.
"It only means that I love you," said Ellesworth point blank.
The girl went from blinding white to blazing crimson, but she stood herground. The mortgage papers shook in her hands. He thought that she wasgoing to tear them up. To gain time, for he dared not approach her, hestooped and picked up the disdained mistletoe. When he had raisedhimself she shot out this awful question, looking at him as she did whenthey first met.
"Are _you--He_?"
The young man bowed his head before her. If he had set fire to herplace, or robbed her father's grave, she could not have regarded himwith a more crushing scorn. She tried to speak again, but her passionchoked her.
"I--I give you back your home," he protested humbly. "It is mine nolonger. It is your own Don't blame me. I love you."
"My father did not bring me up to take valuable presentsfrom--Boston--gentlemen!" blazed the Southern girl.
She waved him aside, swept by him without another look, and melted outof the room. But he noticed that she took the mortgage papers with her.
In the course of the morning he threw himself upon the mercy of Mrs.McCorkle.
"I have a right," he said; "I want to make her my wife."
"Georgiella is not behaving prettily," said Mrs. McCorkle severely. "Ifa Northerner _does act like_ a gentleman, the least a Southern girl cando is to behave like a lady. I will speak to Georgiella, sir."
Georgiella came to the Christmas dinner with blazing eyes. She ate insilence, looking like an offended goddess, dressed in an old black silkgown of her mother's trimmed with aged Valenciennes lace.
But after dinner she stayed in the dining-room while Mrs. McCorkle andAunt Betsey went into the kitchen. She walked up to the Ming vase andstood before it. Ellesworth followed her.
"I have been thinking it over," she began abruptly in a quaintaffectation of a business-like tone. "I will keep the mortgage--thankyou, sir. It _is_ my home, you know," she put in pugnaciously. "But Iwill pay for it, if you please."
"_Pay for it!_" gasped Ellesworth.
"Yes, sir; I will sell you the Ming vase," returned Miss Benson calmly,"and the two Revolutionary papers, and the coin of George the Second andthe rest--" She waved her hand toward the glass-case. "You may take themto Boston with you."
These were her assets. Ellesworth looked at her for a moment, tornbetween astonishment, pity, amusement and love; but love got the betterof them all, and he answered solemnly,--
"Yes, I will take the Ming vase, and the Revolutionary papers, and theold coins and you too, my darling!"
"Well, I _do_ like you," admitted Georgiella. Suddenly she began todroop and tremble, and then to sob. Then he held her.
"You must give me a first mortgage; you must," demanded the young man."I must have everything--the whole--no other claims to come in from anyquarter of the universe. You understand. You've _got_ to be my wife!" heexploded in a kind of glorious anger.
She could not deny him, for she thought it was the Northern way ofwooing, and smiled divinely.
"And now--may I?" He took the mistletoe branch from the Ming vase andheld it over her head. Their eyes closed in ecstacy.
Mrs. McCorkle gave a funny little feminine scream of dismay. She hadheard no sound, and had come in from the kitchen to see if they werequarreling.
"And I'll put it in the trust deed," he whispered humbly, "that I willmake you happy, dear!"
When Ellesworth rode over to Sunshine for his next mail he found thefollowing letter awaiting him:
1111 COURT STREET, BOSTON, MASS., _Dec._ 22, 1890.
_Mr. Francis B. Ellesworth:_
DEAR FRANK,--What the deuce do you mean by countermanding Benson's foreclosure at this time of day? It makes a peck of trouble. In Boston we are too busy to fool with affairs this way.
Messrs. Screw & Claw desire me to enclose their little bill. Mine will keep until you get here.
Yours truly, JOSEPH TODD.