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Mary E. Wilkins Freeman - The Debtor

M >> Mary E. Wilkins Freeman >> The Debtor




"It is such a beauty, dear," she said. "Look at it and take comfort
in it, darling."

"Yes, it is a beauty," sobbed Ina. "I never saw such a pearl except
that one of poor papa's, the one he has in his scarf-pin that
belonged to that friend of his who died, you know."

"Yes, dear," said Charlotte, "I know. It is another just such a
beauty. Don't cry any more, honey. Think how happy you are to have
it."

But Charlotte herself, after she had gone to bed in her own little
room, had sobbed very softly lest her sister should hear her, until
Ina was asleep. Her sister's remarks had brought a suspicion to her
own mind. "Poor papa!" she kept whispering softly, to herself. "Poor
papa!" It seemed to her that her heart was breaking with
understanding of and pity for her father.

Charlotte's own gift to Ina had been some pieces of embroidery. She
was the only one in the family who excelled in any kind of
handicraft. "Ina will like this better than anything," she had told
her aunt Anna, "and then it will not tax poor papa, either. It will
cost nothing."

Her aunt had looked at her a minute, then suddenly thrown her arms
around her and kissed her. "Charlotte, you little honey, you are the
best of the lot!" she had said.

Charlotte herself, the night of the wedding, was looking rather pale
and serious. Many observed that she was the least good-looking of the
family. Several Banbridge young men essayed to make themselves
agreeable to her, but she did not know it. She was very busy. Besides
their one maid there were the waiters sent by the caterer, and Eddy
was exceedingly troublesome. He was a nervous boy, and unless
directly under his father's eye, almost beyond restraint when
impressed, as he was then, with an exaggerated sense of his own
importance. His activities took especially the form of indiscriminate
and superfluous helping the guests to refreshments, until the waiters
waxed fairly murderous, and one of them even appealed to Anna
Carroll, intimating in Eddy's hearing that unless the young gentleman
left matters to them the supply of salad would run short.

"Why didn't we have more, then?" inquired Eddy, quite audibly, to the
delight of all within ear-shot. "I thought we were going to have
plenty for everybody this time."

"Eddy dear," whispered Charlotte, taking his little arm, "come with
me into the hall and help me put back some roses that have fallen out
of the big vase. I am afraid I shall get some water on my gown if I
touch them, and I noticed just now that some one had brushed against
them and jostled some out."

"Charlotte, why didn't we have salad enough?" persisted Eddy, as he
followed his sister, pulling back a little at her leading hand.

"Hush, dear; we have enough, only you had better leave it to the
waiters, you know."

"Everybody has taken it that I have passed it to," said Eddy. "I have
given that gentleman over there four plates heaped up."

"Oh, hush, Eddy dear!" whispered Charlotte, in an agony.

By this time they were in the hall, and Eddy, still full of
grievances, was picking up the scattered roses. "I suppose there
won't be enough salad for my friend and his mother when they come,"
said he, further.

"Who are your friend and his mother, darling?"

"Mr. Anderson and his mother," declared Eddy, promptly. "He is the
best man in this town, and so is his mother."

"Mr. Anderson, dear?"

"Yes. You know who I mean. You ought to know. He always lets us have
all we want out of his store. He and his mother are the nicest people
in this town except us."

Charlotte looked at her little brother and her face flushed softly.
"But, dear," she whispered, "they did not have any invitations to the
reception."

"Yes, they did," declared Eddy, triumphantly.

"Why, who sent them?"

"I did," said Eddy.

Charlotte regarded her little brother with a curious expression. It
was amused, and yet strangely puzzled, but more as if the puzzle were
in her own mind than elsewhere. It was as if she were trying to
remember something.

"Don't you think he is a nice man?" asked Eddy, looking sharply at
her.

"Yes, dear, I think so. I don't know anything to the contrary."

"Don't you think he is handsome?"

Suddenly Charlotte saw Anderson's face in her thoughts for the first
time very plainly. "Yes," she said, "of course. Let us go in the
other room, Eddy, and see if Amy doesn't want anything." She led Eddy
forcibly into the parlor.

"It is so late, I am afraid he won't come," the little boy said,
disappointedly, when the clock on the mantel struck eleven just as
they entered.

It was not long after that when the company began to disperse. The
bride and groom were to take a midnight-train, and the bride and her
sister stole away up-stairs for the changing of the bridal for the
travelling costume.

Charlotte unfastened her sister's wedding-gown, and she was striving
her best to keep the tears back. Ina, on the contrary, was gayer than
usual.

"It is very odd," said she, as Charlotte hooked the collar of her
gray travelling-gown, "how a girl looks forward to getting married,
all her life, and thinks more of it than anything else, and how,
after all, it is nothing at all. You can remember that I said so,
Charlotte, when you come to get married. You needn't dread it as if
it were some tremendous undertaking. It isn't, you know."

"You speak exactly as if you had died, and were telling me not to
dread dying," said Charlotte. She laughed, and the laugh was almost a
sob.

"What an idea!" cried Ina, laughing. "Of course I am very sad at
leaving home and you all, you darling, but the getting married is not
so much, after all. You will find that I am right."

"I shall never get married," said Charlotte.

"Nonsense, honey! 'Deed you will."

"No, I shall not. I shall stay with papa."

"Yes, you will. Say, honey, Robert"--Ina said Robert quite easily and
prettily now--"Robert has a stunning cousin, young enough to be his
son. His name is Floyd--Floyd Arms. Isn't that a dear name? And his
father has just died, and he has the next place to ours."

"Don't be foolish, dear."

"Robert says he is a fine fellow."

"I know all about him. I have seen Floyd Arms," said Charlotte,
rather contemptuously.

"Oh, so you have! He was home that last time you were in Acton,
wasn't he? You spoke of him when you came home."

"Yes, the last term I was at school," said Charlotte. "Let me pin
your veil, sweetheart."

"Don't you think he was handsome?"

"No, I don't, not so very," said Charlotte.

"Oh, Charlotte, where did you ever see a handsomer man, unless it was
papa or Robert?"

"I have seen much handsomer men," declared Charlotte, firmly, as she
carefully pinned her sister's veil.

"Well, I would like to know where? Not in this town?"

"Yes, in this town."

"Who?"

"Mr. Anderson."

"The grocer?"

"Yes," said Charlotte, defiantly. The veil was pinned, and Ina turned
and looked at her, a rosy vision behind a film of gray lace. "You
look lovely," said Charlotte, who had a soft pink in her cheeks.

"I think this hat is a beauty," said Ina. "Wasn't it lucky that New
Sanderson milliner was so very good, and did not object to giving
credit? Why, Mr. Anderson is the grocer! That is the man you mean,
isn't it, honey?"

"Yes," replied Charlotte, still with defiance.

"Oh, well, that doesn't count," said Ina, turning for a last view of
herself in the glass. "This dress fits beautifully."

"I don't see what that has to do with it," said Charlotte, as they
left the room. She felt, even in the midst of parting, and without
knowing why, a little indignation with her sister.

On the threshold, Ina paused suddenly and flung her arms around the
other girl. "Oh, honey," she said, with a half-sob--"oh, honey, how
can we talk of who is handsome and who isn't, whether he is the
butcher, the baker, or the candlestick-maker, when, when--" The two
clung together for a minute, then Charlotte put her sister gently
away.

"You will muss your veil, dearest," said she, "and it is almost time
to go, and Amy and papa will want the last of you."

That night, after the bridal pair had departed and everybody else had
gone to bed, Anna Carroll and her brother had a little conference in
the parlor amid the debris of the wedding splendor. The flowers and
greens were drooping, the room and the whole house had that peculiar
phase of squalidness which comes alone from the ragged ends of
festivities; the floors were strewn with rice and rose leaves and
crumbs from the feast; plates and cups and saucers or fragments stood
about everywhere; the chairs and the tables were in confusion. Anna,
who had been locking up the silver for the night, had come into the
parlor, and found her brother standing in a curious, absent-minded
fashion in the middle of the floor.

"Why, Arthur!" said she. "I thought you had gone to bed."

"I am going," said he, but he made no move.

Anna looked at him, and her expression was weary and a little bitter.
"Well, it is over," said she.

Carroll nodded. "Yes," he said, with a half-suppressed sigh.

Anna glanced around the room. "This house is a sight for one maid to
wrestle with," said she; and her brother, beyond a glance of the
utmost indifference around the chaotic room, did not seem to notice
her remark at all. However, that she did not resent. Indeed, she
herself was so far from taking the matter to heart that she laughed a
little as she continued to survey the ruins.

"Well, it went off well; it was a pretty wedding," said she, with a
certain tone of pleasure.

Carroll turned to her quite eagerly. "You think Ina was pleased?" he
said. "It was all as she wished it to be?"

"What could a girl have wished more?" cried Anna. "Everything was
charming, just as it should be. All I think about is--"

"What?" asked her brother.

"We have danced," said Anna. "What I want to know is, is the piper to
be paid, or shall we have to dance to another tune by way of
reprisal."

"The piper is paid," replied Carroll, shortly. He turned to go, but
his sister stepped in front of him.

"How?" she said.

Carroll looked down at her.

"Yes, you are quite right, Arthur," said she. "I am afraid. You are,
or may reasonably be, rather a desperate man. You have never taken
quite kindly to straits. If the piper is paid, I want to know how,
for my own peace of mind. By the piper I mean the creditors for all
this"--she glanced around the room--"the wedding flowers and feast
and carriages."

"I earned enough honestly," replied Carroll. He had a strangely
straightforward, almost boyish way of meeting her sharp gaze.

"How?"

"You had better not press the matter, Anna."

"I do. I am afraid." She responded to his look with a certain bitter,
sarcastic insistence. "I have reason to be," said she. "You know I
have, Arthur Carroll. We are all on the edge of a precipice, but I,
for one, do not intend to let you drag me over, and I do not intend
that Amy and the children shall go, either, if I can help it. I want
to know where you got the money to pay for the wedding expenses, and
I want to know where you got that pearl ring you gave Ina. It never
cost a cent under three hundred dollars."

Carroll, looking at her, smiled a little sadly.

"It was then," said she, "Hart Lee's pearl that he left you when he
died--your scarf-pin."

Carroll smiled. Anna's face changed a little.

"I noticed that you had not worn it lately," said she.

"Sooner or later it would have been the child's. It might as well be
sooner," said Carroll, with a slightly annoyed air.

"Eddy should have had it," Anna said, with a jealous air.

"That child?"

"When he was older, of course."

"That is a long way ahead," said Carroll. He moved to go, but again
Anna stood before him.

"Arthur," said she, solemnly, "I am living with you and doing all I
am able. I am giving my strength for you and yours. You know that
as well as I do. You know upon whom the brunt here falls. I do not
complain. The one who has the best strength should bear the burden,
and I have the strength, such as it is. None of us Carrolls need brag
of strength, God knows. But I want to know how you came by that
money. Yes, I suspect, and I am not ashamed. I have a right to
suspect. How did you get that money?"

"I sang and danced for it in a music-hall, blackened up as a negro,"
said Arthur Carroll.

"Then that was you, Arthur!" gasped Anna.

"Yes. It was the one thing I could do to get that money honestly and
pay the bills, and I did it. I would not let Arms pay."

"I should think not," cried Anna. "We have not fallen quite so low as
that yet. But you--"

"Yes, I," said Carroll. "Now let us go to bed, Anna."

Anna stood aside, but as her brother turned to pass her she suddenly
put up her arms, and as he stooped she kissed him. He felt her cheek
wet against his. "Good-night, Arthur," she said, and all the
bitterness was gone from her voice.



Chapter XXII


It was a week to a day after the wedding, and Anderson had been to
the office for the morning mail, and was just returning to the store
when a watching face at a window of Madame Griggs's dress-making
establishment opposite suddenly disappeared, and when Anderson was
mounting the steps of the store piazza he heard a panting breath and
rattle of starched petticoats, and turned to see the dress-maker.

"Good-morning," she gasped.

"Good-morning, Mrs. Griggs," returned Anderson.

"Can I see you jest a minute on business? I have been watching for
you to come back from the office. I want to buy a melon, if it ain't
too dear, before I go, but I want to see you jest a minute in the
office first, if you ain't too busy."

"Certainly. Come right in," responded Anderson; but his heart sank,
for he divined her errand.

The dress-maker followed him into the office with a nervous teeter
and a loud rattle of starched cottons. That morning she was clad in
blue gingham trimmed profusely with white lace, and her face looked
infinitesimal and meagre in the midst of her puffs of blond frizzes.

"I should think that woman was dressed in paper bags by the noise she
makes," Sam Riggs remarked to the old clerk when the office door had
closed behind her.

"I should think it would kinder take her mind off things she starts
out to do," remarked Price. The rattle of the oscillating petticoats
had distracted his own mind from a nice calculation as to the amount
of a bill for a fractional amount of citron at a fractional increase
in the market-price. The old clerk was about to send a cost slip with
some goods to be delivered to a cash customer.

"Yep," responded Sam Riggs. "I should think she'd git rattled with
sech a rattlin' of her petticoats." The boy regarded this as so
supernaturally smart that he actually blushed with modest
appreciation of his own wit, and tears sprang to his eyes when he
laughed. But when he glanced at his fellow-clerk, Price was
calculating the cost of the citron, and did not seem to have noticed
anything unusual in the speech. Riggs, who was easily taken down,
felt immediately humiliated, and doubtful of his own humor, and
changed the subject. "Say," he whispered, jerking his index-finger
towards the office door, "you don't suppose she is settin' her cap at
the boss, do you?"

"Well, I guess she'd have to take it out in settin'," replied the old
clerk, in scorn. He had now the price of the citron fixed in his
head, and he trotted to the standing desk at the end of the counter
to enter it.

"I guess so, too," said Riggs. "Guess she'd have to starch her cap
stiffer than her petticoats before she'd catch him." Again Riggs
thought he must be funny, but, when the other clerk did not laugh,
concluded he must have been mistaken.

The conference in the office was short, and Price had hardly gotten
the slip made out when Madame Griggs emerged. Indeed, she had not
accepted Anderson's proffer of a chair.

"No," said she, "I can't set down. I 'ain't got but a minute. Two of
my girls is went on their vacation, an' I 'ain't got nobody but
Bessie Starley, an' I've promised Mis' Rawdy she should have her new
silk skirt before Sunday to wear to Coney Island. Mr. Rawdy has made
so much on hiring his carriages for the weddin' that he has bought
his wife a new black silk dress, an' now he is goin' to take her to
Coney Island Sunday, and hire the Liscom boy to take his place
drivin'. Now what I come in here for was--" Madame Griggs lowered her
voice; she drew nearer Anderson, and her anxious whisper whistled in
his ear. "What I want to know is," said she, "here's Mr. Rawdy, an' I
hear the caterer, were paid in advance, an' Blumenfeldt was paid the
day after the weddin', an' I ain't, an' I wonder if I'm goin' to be."

"Have you sent in your bill yet?" inquired Anderson.

"No, I 'ain't, but Captain Carroll asked Blumenfeldt for his bill an'
he paid the others in advance, an' he 'ain't asked for my bill."

"I do not see why you distress yourself until you have sent in your
bill," Anderson said, rather coldly.

"Now, don't you think so?"

"I certainly do not."

"Well," said she, "to tell the truth, I kinder hated to send it too
quick. I hated to have it look as if I was scart. It's a pretty big
bill, too, an' they seem like real ladies, an' the sister, the one
that ain't married, is as nice a girl as I ever see--nicer than the
other one, accordin' to my way of thinkin'. She ain't stuck up a
mite. The rest of them don't mean to be stuck up, but they be without
knowin' it. Guess they was brought up so; but Charlotte ain't. Well,
I kinder hated, as I say, to send that bill, especially as it is a
pretty big one. I made everything as reasonable as I could, but she
had a good many things, an' Charlotte had her bridesmaid's dress,
too, an' it's mounted up to considerable, an' I hated to have 'em
think I was dreadful scart. I 'ain't never been in the habit of
sendin' in a bill to nobody, not for some weeks after the things was
did, an' I didn't like to this time. But I says to myself, as long as
there had been so much talk round 'mongst folks about the Carrolls
not payin' their bills, I'd wait a week an' then I'd send it in. Now
it's jest a week ago to-day since the weddin', an' there ain't a
word. I thought mebbe they'd ask for the bill the way they did with
Blumenfeldt, an' now I want to know if you think I had better send
the bill or wait a little while longer."

Anderson replied that he thought it would do no harm, that he did not
like to advise in such a case.

The dress-maker eyed him sharply and with a certain resentment. "Now,
I want to know," said she. "I want you to speak right out and tell
me, if you think I'm imposin'."

"I don't quite understand what you mean," Anderson replied, in
bewilderment. He was horribly annoyed and perplexed, but his manner
was kind, for the memory of poor little Stella Mixter with her shower
of blond curls was strong upon him, and there was something
harrowingly pathetic about the combination of little, veinous hands
twitching nervously in the folds of the blue gingham, the painstaking
frizzes, the pale, screwed little face, and the illogical feminine
brain.

But the dress-maker's next remark almost dispelled the pathos. "I
want you to tell me right out," said she, "if it would make any
difference if I paid you. Of course I know you've given up law, an' I
'ain't thought of offerin' you pay for advice. I've traded all I can
in your store, though I always think you are a little dearer, and I
didn't know but you'd think that made it all right; but--"

"I do think it is all right," Anderson returned, quickly, "I assure
you, Mrs. Griggs, and I have never dreamed of such a thing as your
paying me. Indeed, I have given you no advice which I should have
felt justified in sending in a bill for, if I were practising my
profession."

"Well, I didn't think you had told me anything worth much," said
Madame Griggs, "but I know how lawyers tuck on for nothin', and I
didn't know but you might feel--"

"I certainly do not," said Anderson.

"Well," said Madame Griggs, "I am very much obliged to you. I'll send
the bill a week from to-day, and I feel a great deal better about it.
I don't have nobody to ask, and sometimes I feel as if I didn't have
a friend or a brother to ask whether I'd better do anything or not, I
should give up. I'm very much obliged, Mr. Anderson."

"You are very welcome to anything I have done," replied Anderson,
looking at her with a dismay of bewilderment. It was as if he had
witnessed some mental inversion which affected his own brain.
Anderson always pitied Madame Griggs, but never, after his
conferences with her concerning the Carrolls, did he in his heart of
hearts blame her husband for running away.

Madame Griggs's coquettish manner developed on the threshold of the
office. She smirked until her little, delicate-skinned face was a
net-work mask, and all the muscles quivered to the sight through the
transparent covering. She moved her thin, crooked elbows with a
flapping motion like wings as she smirked and thanked him again.

"I should think you'd like the grocery business a heap better than
law," said she, amiably, as she went out. "Oh, I want to get a melon
if they ain't too dear." She evidently expected Anderson himself to
wait upon her, and was a little taken aback that he did not follow
her. She lingered for a long time haggling with Price, with a
watchful eye on the office door, and finally departed without
purchasing.

Shortly after she had gone, Sam Riggs came for Anderson to inspect
some vegetables which had been brought in by a farmer. "He's got some
fine potatoes," said he, "but he wants too much for 'em, Price
thinks. He's got cabbages, too, and them's too high. Guess you had
better look at 'em yourself, Price says."

So Anderson went out to interview the farmer, sparsely bearded, lank,
and long-necked and seamy-skinned, his face ineffectual yet shrewd, a
poor white of the South strung on wiry nerves, instead of lax
muscles, the outcome of the New Jersey soil. He shuffled determinedly
in his great boots, heavy with red shale, standing guard over his
fine vegetables. He nodded phlegmatically at Anderson. He never
smiled. Occasionally his long facial muscles relaxed, but they never
widened. He was indefinably serious by nature, yet not melancholy,
and absolutely acquiescent in his life conditions. The farmer of New
Jersey is not of the stuff which breeds anarchy. He is rooted fast to
his red-clinging native soil, which has taken hold of his spirit. He
is tenacious, but not revolutionary. He was as adamant on the prices
of his vegetables, and finally Anderson purchased at his terms.

"You got stuck," Price said, after the farmer, in his rusty wagon,
drawn by a horse which was rather a fine animal, had disappeared down
the street.

"Well, I don't know," Anderson replied. "His vegetables are pretty
fine."

"Folks won't pay the prices you ought to ask to make a penny on it."

"Oh, I am not so sure of that. People want a good article, and very
few raise potatoes or cabbages or even turnips in their own gardens."

"Ingram is selling potatoes two cents less than you, and I rather
think turnips, too."

"Not these turnips."

"No, guess not. He has his from another man, but they look pretty
good, and half the folks don't know the dif."

"Well," Anderson replied, "sell them for less, if you have to, rather
than keep them. Selling a superfine article for no profit is
sometimes the best and cheapest advertisement in the world."

Anderson stood a while observing the display of vegetables and fruit
piled on the sidewalk before his store and in the store window. He
took a certain honest pleasure of proprietorship, and also an
artistic delight in it. He observed the great green cabbages, like
enormous roses, the turnips, like ivory carvings veined with purplish
rose towards their roots, the smooth russet of the potatoes. There
were also baskets of fine grapes, the tender pink bloom of Delawares,
and the pale emerald of Niagaras, with the plummy gloss of Concords.
There were enormous green spheres of watermelons, baskets of superb
peaches, each with a high light of rose like a pearl, and piles of
bartlett and seckel pears. There was something about all this
magnificent plenty of the fruits of the earth which was impressive.
It was to an ardent fancy as if Flora and Pomona had been that way
with their horns of plenty. The sordid question of market value,
however, was distinctly irritating, and yet it was justly so. Why
should not a man sell the fruits of the earth for dollars and cents
with artistic and honorable dignity as anything else? All commodities
for the needs of mankind are marketable, are the instruments of
traffic, whether they be groceries or books, boots and shoes, dishes
or furniture, or pictures; whether they be songs or sermons or corn
plasters or shaving-soap; whether they be food for the mind or the
body. What difference did it make which was dispensed? It was all a
question of need and supply. The minister preached his sermons for
the welfare of the soul; the Jew hawked his second-hand garments;
everything was interwoven. One must eat to live, to hear sermons, to
hear songs, to love, to think, to read. One must be clothed to tread
the earth among his fellows. There was need, and one supplied one
need, one another. All need was dignified by the man who possessed,
all supply was dignified if one looked at it in the right way. There
was a certain dignity even about his own need of two cents more on
those turnips, which were actually as beautiful as an ivory carving.
Anderson finally returned to his office, feeling a little impatient
with himself that, in spite of his own perfect contentment with his
business, he should now and then essay to justify himself in his
contentment, as he undoubtedly did. It was like a violinist screwing
his instrument up to concert-pitch, below which it would drop from
day to day.

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