The Debtor Part 52

Her nerves were completely unstrung. She was not a strong girl, and she had, in fact, been through a period of mental torture which might have befitted the Inquisition. She could still see the man's evil face; her brain seemed stamped with the sight; terror had mastered her. She was for the time being scarcely sane. The terrible imagination of ill which had possessed her, as she sat there gazing at the sleeping terror, still held her in sway. She was not naturally hysterical, but now hysterics threatened her.

Anderson put his arm around her again and drew her head to his shoulder. "You must not mind," he said, in a grave, authoritative voice. "You are ill and frightened. You must not mind. Keep your head on my shoulder until you feel better. You are quite safe now."

Anderson's voice was rather admonis.h.i.+ng than caressing. Charlotte sobbed wildly against his shoulder, and clung to him with her little, nervous hands. Anderson sat looking down at her gravely. "Is your mother at home?" he asked, presently.

"No," sobbed Charlotte; "they have all gone to drive."

"n.o.body in the house?"

"Only Marie."

Anderson reflected. He was much nearer his own home than hers, and there was a short-cut across the field; they would not need to strike the road at all. He rose, with a sudden resolution, and raised the weeping girl to her feet.

"Come," said he, in the same authoritative voice, and Charlotte stumbled blindly along, his arm still around her. She had an under-consciousness that she was ashamed of herself for showing so little bravery, that she wondered what this man would think of her, but her self-control was gone, because of the too tense strain which had been put upon it. It was like a spring too tightly compressed, suddenly released; the vibrations of her nerves seemed endless. She tried to hush her sobs as she was hurried along, and succeeded in some measure, but she was still utterly incapable of her usual mental balance. Once she started, and clutched Anderson's arm with a gasp of fear.

"Look, look!" she whispered.

"What is it?" he asked, soothingly.

"The man is there. See him?"

"There is nothing there, child," he said, and hurried her over the place where her distorted vision had seen again the object of her terror, in his twisted sleep in the gra.s.s.

Anderson began to be seriously alarmed about the girl. He did not know what consequences might come from such a severe mental strain upon such a nervous temperament. He hurried as fast as he dared, almost carrying her at times, and finally they emerged upon the garden at the right of his own house. The flowers were thinning out fast, but the place was still gay with marigolds and other late blossoms. As he pa.s.sed the kitchen door he was aware of the maid's gaping face of stupid surprise, and he called out curtly to her: "Is my mother in the house?"

"Yes, sir. She's in the sitting-room," replied the maid, with round eyes of curiosity upon the pair. Charlotte was making a desperate effort to walk by herself, to recover herself, but Anderson was still almost carrying her bodily. She wondered dimly at the strange trembling of her limbs, at the way the bright orange and red of the marigolds and nasturtiums swam before her eyes, and once again she saw quite distinctly the evil face of the man peer out at her from among them; but this time she said nothing, for her subconsciousness of delusion was growing stronger.

Anderson went around to the front of the house, and his mother's wondering face gazed from a window, then quickly disappeared. When he reached the door she was there, filling it up with her large figure in its voluminous white draperies.

"What--" she began, but Randolph interrupted her.

"Mother, this is Miss Carroll," he said. "She is not hurt, but she has had a terrible fright and shock. Her people are all away from home, and I brought her here; it was nearer. I want her to have some wine, and rest, and get over it before she goes home."

Mrs. Anderson hesitated one second. It was a pause for the gathering together of wits suddenly summoned for new and surprising emergencies; then she rose to the occasion. She had her faults and her weaknesses, but she was one of the women in whom the maternal instinct is a power, and this girl appealed to it. She stretched forth her white-clad arms, and she drew her away almost forcibly from her son.

"You poor child!" said she, in a voice which harked back to her son's babyhood. "Come right in. You go and get a gla.s.s of that port-wine,"

said she to Randolph, and she gave him a little push. She enveloped and pervaded the girl in a voluminous embrace.

Charlotte felt the soft panting of a mother's bosom under her head as she was led into the house. "You poor, blessed child," a soft voice cooed in her ear, a soft voice and yet a voice of strength.

Charlotte's own mother had never been in the fullest sense a mother to her; a large part of the spiritual element of maternity had been lacking; but here was a woman who could mother a race, if once her heart of maternal love was awakened.

Charlotte was not led; that did not seem to be the action. She felt as if she were borne along by sustaining wings spread under her weakness into a large, cool bedroom opening out of the sitting-room.

Then her dress was taken off, in what wise she scarcely knew; she was enrobed in one of Mrs. Anderson's large, white wrappers, and was laid tenderly in a white bed, where presently she was sipping a gla.s.s of port-wine, with Mrs. Anderson sitting behind her and supporting her head.

"No, you can't come in, Randolph," she heard her say to her son, and her voice sounded almost angry. After Charlotte had swallowed the wine, she lay back on the pillow, and she heard Mrs. Anderson talking softly to her in a sort of delicious dream, caused partly by the wine, which had mounted at once to her head, and partly by the sense of powerful protection and perfect peace and safety.

"Poor lamb!" Mrs. Anderson said, and her voice sounded like the song of a mother bird. "Poor lamb; poor, blessed child! It was a shame she was so frightened, but she is safe now. Now go to sleep if you can, dear child; it will do you good."

Charlotte smiled helplessly and gratefully, and after a happy stare around the room, with its scroll-work of green on the walls, reflecting green gloom from closed blinds, and another look of childish wonder into the loving eyes bent over her, she closed her own. Presently Mrs. Anderson tiptoed out into the sitting-room, where Randolph was waiting, standing bolt-upright in the middle of the room staring at the bedroom door. She beckoned him across the hall into the opposite room, the parlor. The parlor had a musty smell which was not unpleasant; in fact, slightly aromatic. There were wooden shutters which were tightly closed, all except one, through an opening in which a sunbeam came and transversed the room in a shaft of glittering motes.

"What scared her so?" demanded Mrs. Anderson. She had upon her a new authority. Anderson felt as if he had reverted to his childhood. He explained. "Well," said his mother, "the poor child has had an awful shock, and she is lucky if she isn't down sick with a fever. I don't like to see anybody look the way she did. But I'm thankful the man didn't see her."

"He might have been harmless enough," said Anderson.

Mrs. Anderson sniffed. "I don't see many harmless-looking ones round here," said she. "An awful-looking tramp came to the door this morning. I shouldn't wonder if it was the same one. I guess she will be all right now. She looked quieted down, but she had an awful shock, poor child."

"I wonder when I ought to take her home," said Anderson.

"Not for two hours," said his mother, decidedly. "She is going to stay here till she gets rested and is a little over it."

"Perhaps she had better," said Anderson; "her folks may have gone on a long drive, too."

"Did you know her before?" asked his mother, suddenly, and a sharp expression came into her soft, blue eyes.

"I have seen her in the store," replied Anderson, and he was conscious of coloring.

"She knew you, then?" said his mother.

"Yes. She was in the store this morning."

"It was lucky you were there."

"Oh, as for that, she was in no danger," said Anderson, coolly. "The tramp had gone."

"If you hadn't been there, I believe that poor little thing would have fainted dead away and lain there, n.o.body knows how long. It doesn't do anybody any good to get such a fright, and she is a thin, delicate little thing."

"Yes, she had quite a fright," said Anderson, walking over to the window with the defective shutter. "This shutter must be fixed," said he.

"I think she is prettier than the one that got married, but it is a pity she belongs to such a family," said Mrs. Anderson. "Mrs.

Ferguson was just in here, and she says it is awful, that they are owing everybody."

"That is not the girl's fault," Anderson rejoined, with sudden fire.

"No, I suppose not," said Mrs. Anderson, with an anxious look at him.

"Only, if she hasn't been taught to think it doesn't matter if debts are not paid."

"Well, I don't think that poor child is to be blamed," Anderson said.

"Do they owe you?"

"She came in and paid me this morning."

"Oh, I'm glad of that!" said his mother, and Anderson was conscious of intense guilt at his deception. Somehow half a lie had always seemed to him more ign.o.ble than a whole one, and he had told a half one. He turned to leave the room, when there came a loud peal of the door-bell.

"Oh, dear, that will wake her up!" said his mother.

Anderson strode past her to the door, and there stood Eddy Carroll.

He was breathless from running, and his pretty face was a uniform rose.

"Say," he panted, "is my sister in here?"