Jessie Graham Part 8

"What can you mean?" and the old lady's salts were brought into frequent use, while William, in his peculiar way, told her of Walter Marshall, who he said "was undoubtedly presuming enough to aspire to Jessie's hand."

"What, that boy that Richard educated?" Mrs. Bartow asked, growing very red and very warm withal.

"Yes," returned William; "but the fact of his being a charity student is not the worst feature in the case. It pains me greatly to talk upon the subject, but duty requires me to tell you just who Walter is," and a.s.suming a half-reluctant, half-mortified tone, Will told Mrs. Bartow how Walter was connected with himself and the "terrible disgrace" of which she had written to Jessie in her last letter.

For a moment the old lady fancied herself choking to death, but she managed at last to scream:

"You don't say that he has dared to think of Jessie, the daughter of a millionaire, and the granddaughter of a--"

She was too much overcome to finish the sentence, and she sank back in her chair, while her cap-strings floated up and down with the rapid motion of her fan.

"I'll go for her at once," she said, when at last she found her voice.

"I'll see this Mr. Impudence for myself. I'll teach him what is what.

Oh, I hope Mrs. Reeves won't find it out. Don't tell her, Mr.

Bellenger."

"I am as anxious to conceal the fact as you are," he replied, "for he, you know, is a relative of mine, although our family do not acknowledge him." And having done all he came to do, the nice young man departed, while the greatly disturbed lady began to pack her trunk preparatory to a start for Deerwood.

In the midst of her preparations she was surprised by the unexpected return of Mr. Graham, to whom she at once disclosed the cause of her distress, asking him "if he wished his daughter to marry Walter Marshall, whose father was a--"

She didn't quite know what, for William had not made that point very clear.

"I do not wish her to marry any one as yet," returned Mr. Graham, at the same time asking if Walter had proposed, or shown any signs of so doing.

"Of course he's shown signs," returned Mrs. Bartow, "but I trust Jessie has enough of the Stanwood about her to keep him at a proper distance."

"Enough of the what?" asked Mr. Graham, with the least possible smile playing about his mouth.

"Well, enough of the Bartow," returned the lady. "The very idea of receiving into our family a person of his antecedents!"

In a few words Mr. Graham gave her his opinion of Walter Marshall, adding:

"I do not say that I would like him to marry Jessie,-very likely I should not,-and still, if I knew that she loved him and he loved her, I should not think it my duty to oppose them seriously, though I would rather, of course, that the unfortunate affair of his father's had never occurred."

This was all the satisfaction Mrs. Bartow could gain from him, and doubly strengthened in her determination to remove Jessie from Walter's society, she started the next morning for Deerwood, reaching there toward the close of the day succeeding Jessie's interview with Walter in the pines.

"Not this tumble-down shanty, surely?" she said to the omnibus driver when he stopped before the gate of the farm-house.

"Yes'm, this is Deacon Marshall's," he replied, and mounting his box again he drove off, while she went slowly up the walk, casting contemptuous glances at the well-sweep, the smoke-house, the bee-hives, the hollyhocks, poppies and pinks, which, in spite of herself, carried her back to a time, years and years and years ago, when she had lived in just such a place as this, save that it was not so cheerful or so neat.

Aunt Debby was the first to spy her, and she called to her niece:

"Why, Mary, just look-a-here! There's a lady all dressed up in her meetin' clothes, a-comin' in. I wish we had mopped the kitchen floor to-day. There, she's gone to the front door. I presume the gals has littered the front hall till it's a sight to behold."

Mrs. Bartow's loud knock was now distinctly heard, and as Mrs. Howland had not quite finished her afternoon toilet, Aunt Debby herself went to answer the summons. Holding fast to her knitting, with the ball rolling after her, and Jessie's kitten running after that, she presented herself before her visitor, courtesying very low, and asking if "she'd walk into the t'other room, or into the kitchen, where it was a great deal cooler."

Mrs. Bartow chose the "t'other room," and taking the Boston rocker, asked "if Miss Graham was staying here?"

"You mean Jessie," returned Aunt Debby. "It's so cool this afternoon that she's gone out ridin' hossback in the mountains with Walter and Ellen. Be you any of her kin?"

"I'm her grandmother, and have come to take her home," answered the lady, frowning wrathfully at the idea of Jessie's riding with Walter Marshall.

"I want to know!" returned Aunt Debby. "We'll be desput sorry to lose her jest as Walter has come home, and he thinks so much of her, too."

Mrs. Bartow was too indignant to speak, but Aunt Debby, who was not at all suspicious, talked on just the same, praising first Walter, then Ellen, then Jessie, and then giving an outline history of her whole family, even including Seth, who she said "allus was a good boy."

If Aunt Debby expected a return of confidence she was mistaken, for Mrs.

Bartow had nothing to say of her family, and after a little Aunt Debby began to question her. Was she city-born, and if not, where was she born?

"That red mark on your chin makes me think of a girl, Patty Loomis by name, that I used to know in Hopkinton," she said, and the mark upon the chin grew redder as she continued: "I did housework there once, in Squire Fielding's family, and this Patty that I was tellin' you about done ch.o.r.es in a family close by. She was some younger than me, but I remember her by that mark, similar to your'n, and because she was connected to them three Thayers that was hung in York State for killin'

John Love. There was some han'some verses made about it, and I used to sing the whole of 'em, but my memory's failin' me now. I wonder what's become of Patty. I haven't thought of her before in an age. I heard that a rich old widder took her for her own child, and that's all I ever knew. She was smart as steel, and could milk seven cows while I was milkin' three. There they come, on the full canter of course. Ellen 'll get her neck broke some day," and greatly to the relief of Mrs. Bartow she changed the conversation from Patty Loomis and the three Thayers who were hung, to the three riders das.h.i.+ng up to the gate, Jessie a little in advance, with her black curls streaming out from under her riding hat, and her cheeks glowing with the exercise.

"Why, grandma!" she exclaimed, as holding up her long skirt, she bounded into the house, and nearly upset the old lady before she was aware of her presence. "Where in the world did you come from? Isn't it pleasant and nice out here?" and throwing off her hat, Jessie sat down by the window to cool herself after her rapid ride.

"Why, grandma, you are as cross as two sticks," she said, when Aunt Debby had left the room, and grandma replied:

"That's a very lady-like expression. Learned it of Mr. Marshall, I suppose."

"No, I didn't," returned Jessie. "I learned it of Will Bellenger when he was here. It's his favorite expression. Did he bring you my note?"

"Certainly; and I've come down to see what the attraction is which keeps you here so contentedly."

"Oh, it's so nice," returned Jessie, and Mrs. Bartow rejoined:

"I should think it was. Who ever heard of a bed in the parlor now-a-days?" and she cast a rueful glance at the snowy mountain in the corner.

"That's a little out of date, I know," answered Jessie; "but the house is rather small, and they keep the spare bed in here for such visitors as you are. The sheets are all of Aunt Debby's make, she spun the linen on a wheel that treads so funny. Did you ever see a little wheel, grandma?"

The question reminded Mrs. Bartow of Patty Loomis and the three Thayers, and she did not reply directly to it, but said instead:

"What did you call that woman?"

"Aunt Debby Marshall, the deacon's sister," returned Jessie, and Mrs.

Bartow relapsed into a thoughtful mood, from which she was finally aroused by hearing Walter's voice in the kitchen.

Instantly she glanced at Jessie, who involuntarily blushed; and then the old lady commenced the battle at once, telling Jessie plainly that "she had come down to take her home before she disgraced them all by suffering a boy of Walter Marshall's reputation to make love to her."

"Walter never thought of making love to me," returned the astonished and slightly indignant Jessie; "and if he had it wouldn't have been anybody's business but mine and father's. He isn't a boy, either. He's a splendid-looking man. Pa thinks the world of him; and he knows, too, about that old affair, which wasn't half as bad as Will and Mrs. Reeves seem to think. Walter told it to me last night up in the pines, and I'll tell it to you. It wasn't murder nor anything like it. Now, even I shouldn't wish it said that any of my friends were hung."

"Hung!" repeated the old lady. "Who said anybody's friends were hung?

It's false!" and the red mark around the lip wore a scarlet hue.

"Of course it's false," answered Jessie. "That's what I said. n.o.body knows for certain that he stole, either," and forgetting her own belief, founded on her father's, Jessie tried to prove that Seth Marshall was as innocent as Walter himself had declared him to be.

"Whether he's guilty or not," returned Mrs. Bartow, "you are going home, and you're to have nothing to say to Walter. It would sound pretty, wouldn't it, for Mrs. Reeves to be telling that Jessie Graham liked a poor charity boy?"

Jessie was proud, and the last words grated harshly, but she would stand by Walter, and she replied:

"Mrs. Reeves forever! I believe you'd stop breathing if she said it was fas.h.i.+onable. I wonder who she was in her young days. Somebody not half so good as Walter, I dare say. I mean to ask Aunt Debby. She has lived since the flood, and knows the history of everybody that ever was born in New England, or out of it either, for that matter."