The Debtor Part 68

"I told Eddy that you could not be left alone with n.o.body to cook for you, and he must get on the train and not make any fuss, and tell the others, and be a good boy, and he said he would. I saw him safely on the train."

"How did you get here from Lancaster, child?"

"I took the trolley," Charlotte said. "There is a trolley from Lancaster to New Sanderson, you know, papa."

Charlotte did not explain that the trolley from Lancaster to New Sanderson was not running, and that she had walked six miles before connecting with the trolley to Banbridge. "I got the meat in New Sanderson," said she. "I got some other things, too. You will see. We have a beautiful supper, papa."

Carroll looked at her, and she answered the question he was ashamed to ask. "Aunt Catherine sent me a little money," she said. "She sent me twenty-five dollars in a post-office order. She wrote me a letter and sent me the money for myself. She said the shops were not very good down there--you know they are not, papa--and I might like to buy some little things for myself in New York before coming. I said nothing about the money to Amy or the others, because I had this plan. I even let Amy take that extra money and buy me the hat. I was afraid I was mean, but I could not tell her I had the money, because I wanted to carry out this plan, and I did not see how I could get back or do anything unless I kept it, for I had no money at all before. I have written a letter to Aunt Catherine, and she will get it as soon as they get there. I don't think she will be angry; and if she is, I don't care." Charlotte's voice had a ring of charming defiance. She looked gayly at her father. "Come, papa," said she, "the beefsteak is hot. Sit right up, and I will bring in the tea and toast. There are some cakes, too, and a salad. I have got a beautiful supper, papa. I never cooked any beefsteak before, but just look how nice that is. Come, papa."

Carroll obediently drew his chair up to the table. It was daintily set; there was even a little vase of flowers, rusty red chrysanthemums, in the centre on the embroidered centrepiece.

Charlotte spoke of them when she brought in the tea and toast. "I suppose I was extravagant, papa," she said, "but I stopped at a florist's in New Sanderson and bought these. They did not cost much--only ten cents for all these." She took her seat opposite her father, and poured the tea. She put in the lumps of sugar daintily with the silver tongs. Her face was beaming; she was lovely; she was a darling. She looked over at her father as she extended his cup of tea, and there was not a trace of self-love in the little face; it was all love for and tender care of him. "Oh, I am so glad to be home!" she said, with a deep sigh.

Carroll looked across at her with a sort of adoration and dependence which were painful, coming from a father towards a child. His face had lightened, but he still looked worn and pale and old. He was become more and more conscious of the chloroform in his pocket, and the shame and guilt of it.

"Why did you come back, honey?" he asked.

"I didn't want to go," Charlotte said, simply. "I wasn't happy going away and leaving you alone, papa. I want to stay here with you, and if you have to leave Banbridge I will go with you. I don't mind at all not having much to get along with. I can get along with very little."

"You would have been more comfortable with the others, dear," said Carroll. He did not begin to eat his supper, but looked over it at the girl's face.

"You are not eating anything, papa," said Charlotte. "Isn't the beefsteak cooked right?"

"It is cooked beautifully, honey; just right. All is. I am glad to see you come back. You don't just know what it means to me, dear, but I am afraid--"

Charlotte laughed gayly. "I am not," said she. "Talk about comfort--isn't this comfort? Please _do_ eat the beefsteak, papa."

Carroll began obediently to eat his supper. When he had fairly begun he realized that he was nearly famished. In spite of his stress of mind, the needs of the flesh rea.s.serted themselves. He could not remember anything tasting so good since his boyhood. He ate his beefsteak and potatoes and toast; then Charlotte brought forward with triumph a little dish of salad, and finally a charlotte-russe.

"I got these at the baker's in New Sanderson," said she. She was dimpling with delight. She looked very young, and yet the man continued to have that sense of dependence upon her. She exulted openly over her supper, her cooking, and her return. "I don't know but I was very deceitful, papa," she said, but with glee rather than compunction. "Amy and Anna had no idea that I did not mean to go with them to Aunt Catherine's, and oh, papa, what do you think I did? What do you?"

"What, dear?"

"My trunk was packed with, with--some old sheets and blankets and newspapers--and all my clothes are hanging in my closet up-stairs."

Charlotte laughed a long ring of laughter. "I knew I was deceitful,"

she said again, and laughed again.

Carroll did not laugh. He was thinking of the Hungarian girl in Charlotte's red dress, but Charlotte thought he was sober on account of her deceit.

"Do you think it was very wrong, papa?" she asked, with sudden seriousness, eying him wistfully. "I will write and tell Amy to-night all about it. I couldn't think of any other way to do, papa."

"I met Marie as I was coming home from the station this morning,"

Carroll said, irrelevantly.

Charlotte looked at him quickly, blushed, and raised her teacup.

"I thought at first, though I knew it could not be, that I saw you coming," said he; "something about her dress--"

"Papa," said Charlotte, setting down her cup, and she was half-crying--"papa, I had to. Marie was so shabby, and she said that her lover had deserted her because she was so poorly dressed; and though of course he could not be a very good man, nor very loyal to desert her for such a reason as that, yet those people are different, perhaps, and don't look at things as we do; and Marie has got another place; but--but she--didn't have any money, you know, and she didn't really have a dress fit to be seen, and that dress I gave her I did not need at all--I really did not, papa. I have plenty besides, and so I gave it to her, and my little Eton jacket, and I told her she would certainly have every cent we owed her, and she seemed very happy. She is going to a party to-night and will wear that dress. She thinks she will get her lover back. Those Hungarian men must be queer lovers. Marie said he would not marry her, anyway, until she had some money for her dowry, but she thinks she may be able to keep him until then with my red silk dress, and I told her she should certainly have it all in time." Charlotte's voice, in making the last statement, was full of pride and confidence without a trace of interrogation.

"She shall if I live, dear," said Carroll. All at once there came over him, stimulated with food for heart and body, such a rush of the natural instinct for life as to completely possess him. It seemed to him that as a short time before he had hungered for death, he now hungered for life. Even the desire to live and pay that miserable little Hungarian servant-maid was a tremendous thing. The desire to live for the smallest virtues, ambitions, and pleasures of life was compelling force.

"I have something beautiful for breakfast to-morrow morning, papa,"

said Charlotte, "and I know how to make coffee." And he felt that it was worth while living for to-morrow morning's breakfast alone. No doubt this state of mind, as abnormal in its way as the other had been, was largely due to physical causes, to the unprosaic quant.i.ty of food in a stomach which had been cheated of its needs for a number of days. The blood rushed through his veins with the added force of reaction, supplying his brain. He was not happier--that could scarcely be said--but he was swinging in the opposite direction.

Whereas he had wanted to die, because of his misery and failures, he now wanted to live, to repair them, and the thought was dawning upon him, to take revenge because of them. In this mood the consideration of the bottle of chloroform in his pocket became more and more humiliating and condemning. The sight of the girl's innocent, triumphant, loving little face opposite overwhelmed him with a stinging consciousness of it all. He felt at one minute a terrible fear lest those clear young eyes of hers could penetrate his miserable secret, lest she should say, suddenly: "Papa, what did you go to Port Willis for? What have you in your pocket?"

Charlotte went to bed early, after she had cleared away the table and washed the dishes, unwonted tasks for her, but which she performed with a delight intensified by a feeling of daring.

"Papa, I have washed the dishes beautifully; I know I have," she said, and she looked at him for praise, her head on one side, her look half-whimsical, half-childishly earnest. "I don't see why it is at all hard work to be a maid," said she.

"There are other things to do, dear, I suppose," Carroll said.

"I think I could easily learn to do the other things," said she. "I don't quite know about the was.h.i.+ng and ironing, and possibly the scrubbing and sweeping." Charlotte surveyed, as she spoke, her hands.

She looked at the little, pink palms, made pinker and slightly wrinkled by the dish-water; she turned them and surveyed the backs with the slightly scalloping joints, and the thin-nailed fingers. She shook her head. "I don't know," said she, again.

"I know," Carroll said, quickly. "Your father is going to take care of you, Charlotte. It has not yet come to that pa.s.s that he is quite helpless."

Charlotte did not seem to notice his hurt, indignant tone. She went on reflectively. "It does seem," said she, "as if there were a great many ways of being crippled besides not having all your arms and legs; as if it were really being very much crippled if you are in a place where there is work to be done, and your hands are not rightly made for doing it. Now here I am, and I can't do Marie's work as well as Marie did it, because she was really born with hands for was.h.i.+ng and ironing and scrubbing and sweeping, and I wasn't. A person is really crippled when she is born unfitted to do the things that come her way to be done, isn't she, papa?"

"There is no question of your doing such things, Charlotte," Carroll said again, and Charlotte looked at him quickly.

"Why, papa!" said she, and went up to him and kissed him. She rubbed her cheek caressingly against his, and his cheek felt wet. She realized that with a sort of terror. "Why, papa, I did not mean any harm!" she said.

"I will get a servant for you to-morrow, Charlotte," he said, brokenly. "It has not yet come to pa.s.s that you have to do such work." He spoke brokenly. He did not trust himself to look at the girl, who was now looking at him intently and seriously.

"Papa, listen to me," said she. "Really, there is no scrubbing nor sweeping nor was.h.i.+ng nor ironing to be done here for quite a time.

Marie has left the house in very good condition. There is enough money to pay for the laundry for some time, and as for the cooking, you can see that I shall love to do that. You know Aunt Catherine used to let me cook, that I always like to."

Carroll made no reply.

"Papa, you are not well; you are all worn out," Charlotte said. "Let us go into the den, and you smoke a cigar and I will read to you."

Carroll shook his head. "No, dear, not to-night," he said.

"We will have a game of cribbage."

"No, dear, not to-night. You are tired, and you must go to bed. Take a book and go to bed and read. You are tired."

"I am not very tired," said Charlotte, but therein she did not speak the entire truth. Her spirit was leaping with happy buoyancy, but she could scarcely stand on her feet, she was so fatigued with her unaccustomed labor and the excitement of it all. There was a ringing in her ears, and her eyelids felt stiff; she was also a little hoa.r.s.e. "Will you go to bed, too, papa?" said she, anxiously.

"I will go very soon, dear."

"Won't you want anything else before you go?"

"No, darling."

Charlotte stood regarding him with the sweetest expression of protection and wors.h.i.+pful affection, and withal the naivete of a child pleased with herself and what she has done for the beloved one.

"You _did_ have a good supper, didn't you, papa?" she asked.

"A beautiful supper, sweetheart."