A Pasteboard Crown.

by Clara Morris.

CHAPTER I

THE LAWTONS ARRIVE

It was on a Monday, the 30th of April, that the boys with the grocers'

and butchers' delivery wagons, the gray-uniformed postmen behind their bony, always-tired horses, and the blue-coated, overfed mounted policemen began to circulate the report that the old White house had found a tenant; and every soul that listened made answer: "Impossible!

No one could live in that old rookery!" and then, with incredible inconsistency, ended with: "Who's taken it?"

At first no answer could be given to that question, but later in the day a man who strung telegraph wires won a brief importance through overhearing a conversation between two men standing below him and beside the pole he was mounted on. One man was Jacob Brewer, who now owned the old White estate, and the other he ascertained, by careful listening, to be John Lawton; and he learned that Mr. Lawton was to take possession of the old house the next day, which would be May 1st, the conventionally correct day for moving.

Through the usual suburban channels this bit of information was put into circulation and swiftly reached every householder in the village--to say nothing of outlying farmhouses. And everywhere women with towels about their heads--sure sign that the house-cleaning microbe is abroad in the land--could be seen talking over back fences to neighbors whose fingers were still puckered from long immersion in the family wash-tub, and the name Lawton and such disjointed exclamations as: "Who?" "Why--how many do you suppose?" and "Did you ever hear of such a thing?" filled the warm air, even as the frail, inconsequent little May-flies filled it.

The telegraph lineman over his noon beer told many times what old Brewer had called the stranger: "Lawton--yes, John Lawton--was the name, and he was coming up the next day; yes, come to think of it, he had said _they_ were coming--so there was a family of some sort." The letter-carrier, in leaving the mail, paused a moment to catch these last words, and at his next stopping-place he was enabled to leave with a letter the information that "John Lawton, who had taken that roofless old sheebang, had a family coming with him"; and the lady informed made sure "he would not have a family very long, if he tried to keep them in that mouldering old ruin." Doctors hearing the news exchanged jests as they met on the roads, one opining that "some business was coming their way and that quinine would soon be in demand," while another, always a pessimist, said that "any one that was poor enough to take the White house to live in was too hard up to pay a doctor."

But really, no one knowing anything about the old place could help having a feeling of amazement at hearing of a tenant being found for it.

It was that saddest, most uncanny thing--a deserted house. A great, big, Colonial-like frame structure, it stood high on the hillside, showing white and ghostly between the too-closely set evergreens and conifers before it. That money had been lavished upon the place in the distant past was evident even in these very trees, which were the choicest of their kind. He who had planted them must have been a melancholy man.

Drooping, mournful trees seemed particularly to appeal to him, for the very rare weeping hemlock, like a black fountain, was there as well as the weeping larch, with its small cones; and a veritable army of white pines, Norway spruces, balsam firs, and the red cedar that in its blackish stateliness is so like the Irish yew. A solemn company at the best of times, when properly s.p.a.ced and trimmed, but now with unpruned branches intertwining, the trees that were killing one another in their struggle for light were positively lugubrious. And behind that screen of matted, many-shaded evergreen the pallid, bony old house stood trembling under high winds, while its upper windows stared blankly down upon that Broadway that, escaping from the hurrying city with its millions of restless feet, here pa.s.sed calmly on, by woodland and green meadows, toward distant Albany.

The cruel roadway had swept away with it all the footsteps that had used to make life in the old house. Two great gates were let into the stone wall. One was locked so securely that even a burglar might have failed to solve the combination of a ten years' twisted leafy growth of woodbine; but whenever anyone wished to enter the grounds he went to the second gate, which was easily opened by the simple process of throwing it down and walking over it. Gra.s.s grew in tufts down the old carriage drive, and all about the lower part of the house were curious stains that looked as though little green waves had washed up against it, while on the north side the long streaks of green beneath the windows painfully suggested tear-marks on its white old face. A melancholy and unwholesome place for people to seek a home in, and yet the morning's report proved reliable, for Jacob Brewer's handy man had been over to the old White house, as people would call it, because Peter White had lived and died there years ago, and had cleared up a bit; had secured two or three hanging shutters, put a swing-door in the kitchen and a bolt on the front door, and had tacked on to the mighty body of an ancient willow--a landmark for miles about that grew directly by the unhinged gate--a strip of black painted tin, bearing in gold letters the word "Woodsedge"--and lo! the old house was ready for the new tenant.

Promptly the Lawtons arrived upon the scene the next day, preceded by a furniture van under the directorship of a very young, very rumpled, but most optimistic German maid-of-all-work, who proudly carried a large key in her hand as a symbol of authority. She had unlocked and thrown wide the creaking front door, opened the windows, made a fire in the kitchen, and had undone the bundle she had carried in her lap all the way from the city, revealing to the astonished men a small black tea-kettle.

"Oh, ja! I carry him mysel', und den I have him alretty und can make quick de tea for de mistress--right so soon as she gits here!"

And before the van had been emptied a dust-covered hack arrived, with four people inside and several boxes and a trunk sharing the top with the driver. A mounted policeman, loitering along Broadway and watching the debarkation, saw John Lawton--tall and thin and almost white-haired, a gentleman without a doubt--descending. Then an elderly lady, with surprisingly red cheeks glowing through a dotted veil, followed, and then--"Oh, by Jove!" muttered the blue-coat, as out sprang, one after the other, the two young girls, as fresh and bright and full of bubbling laughter as the day was bright and full of sunshine and bird song.

Suddenly a voice cried: "Sybil--O Sybil, take care--you've broken the package of bird seed!"

And with a laugh the girl addressed caught up her skirt to save the falling seeds, revealing as she did so a pair of pretty feet, that presently began to dance wildly about as their owner cried: "Dorothy--O Dorothy! did you see it--a robin? it's over there!"

And up went two veils, and two young faces turned eagerly toward the spot where Mr. Robin, with black cap, yellow bill, and orange-red breast, sat and looked at them with round black eyes, quite unmoved by their human beauty, as was right and proper--seeing that he was himself a bridegroom just settling in life. But the policeman suddenly put his horse to the gallop, and in an hour's time everyone in the village knew that the Lawtons had arrived, that they were gentlefolk, and that the two girls were "regular beauties." While at Woodsedge, secure in the privacy the screening evergreens provided, the Lawtons turned to and a.s.sisted the small German maid in setting up their somewhat battered household G.o.ds upon the altars that had been so long empty and cold in that sad old house.

As Mrs. Lawton crossed the sagging porch the front door was held open by Lena, who, curtseying and smiling her widest, flattest smile, told her that "She was com' at de right place und she vas velcom' alretty as anyt'ing," the dignity of this reception being somewhat marred by the fact that Lena was hooking herself up as she spoke, she having hastily exchanged her Sunday clothes for her working ones.

"Ah," moaned the welcomed mistress to her following husband and daughters, "in former years my butler and housekeeper would have received me, and with their clothes all on" (the girls choked audibly), "but," sighed Mrs. Lawton, "that was before your poor misguided father had lost everything for us!"

"Including the servants' clothes," whispered Dorothy, and with a "Poor papa!" each girl gave him a pat on the arm as, pa.s.sing him by, they took hold of their mother, and with much loving bustle got her bonnet and veil and gloves and beady mantle off and put her into the only chair yet brought into the house, where, with a soap-box beneath her feet, she could sit and comfortably give directions that no one heeded, and scold people who were unconscious that they were the objects of her wrath.

Some shades were up, two carpets were down, and a gruesome old piano stood, glooming, from one end of the sitting-room, before the girls would consent to have lunch, for, said Sybil, "That piano, that n.o.ble instrument of perfect tone and action, standing outside on the gra.s.s, was a direct challenge to Heaven to send down rain."

"My dear," mildly remonstrated Mr. Lawton, "don't be sarcastic."

"John!" interrupted Mrs. Lawton, "I don't see why you should accuse the child of being sarcastic. You must remember that in about the seventies some of our greatest pianists sat before that instrument, which was one of my many wedding gifts, and Sybil very reasonably called it a piano of perfect tone and action. You should not be so ready to criticise your children, John. Oh, I do hope that tea is going to be strong, my dears, for I am positively beyond speech." A declaration which lost considerable of its force when she continued to describe the glorious past of her rosewood monster, until she was silenced momentarily by a cup of strong tea. For, camping in all the wild confusion of boxes and bundles, they proceeded to enjoy a luncheon of bread and b.u.t.ter and chipped dried beef, with the soul-reviving accompaniment of fragrant though forbidden green tea. Just as Mrs. Lawton, groaning over the thickness of the bread, was starting out to describe the transparent thinness of the slices cut by some bondwoman of the past, Lena, all smiles, came tramping in with a boiled egg in a shaving-mug:

"Youst for de mistress," she announced, and placed the mug on that lady's knee. "Dat's youst laid fresh dis minute alretty. Wat you t'ink of dat, eh?"

"But--but!" fl.u.s.tered Mr. Lawton, "that doesn't belong to us--we have no hens!"

"No," acquiesced Lena, "but dot hen she nest on us--so I tak' dot egg!"

"Well, that's dishonest!" declared Mr. Lawton.

"Nein! nein!" contradicted Lena, who always grew more German in excitement: "Uf it is tree egg--four--six egg, dot may make of de steal--but youst one eggs only pay for de use of de nest!" And Lena made a triumphant exit to the laughter of the girls and a thrill of song from the canary on the mantel-piece, who dearly loved a noise.

Meantime Mrs. Lawton, untroubled by questions of right or wrong, enjoyed the fresh egg without even a word of protest against the shaving-mug accompaniment. As she wiped her lips, she asked, suddenly: "Girls, where on earth are your dear grandparents?"

"Under the piano," promptly replied Sybil, who was worrying a tough chip of beef between her white teeth.

Dorothy giggled hysterically, while John Lawton exclaimed: "Sybil, are you absolutely without reverence?"

"Why, papa," replied the indomitable Sybil, "I'm sure the old people are better off under the piano than they would have been lying with the tables and chairs in the gra.s.s out there, a temptation to Lena's fairy footsteps. We'll hang the old people up as soon as we finish our luncheon. They had better stay in this room--don't you think so, mamma?"

And Mrs. Lawton again took up the proffered thread of direction and never laid it down till she at the same moment laid her head upon her pillow.

After that picnicky luncheon Mr. Lawton betook himself to the village to hunt up the butcher, the baker, and, if not the candle-stick maker, at least his successor, the gas man. Firmly rejecting the piece of string Mrs. Lawton wished to tie about his thumb as an a.s.sistance to his somewhat unreliable memory, he rearranged his thin locks with the aid of a pocket-comb, tightly b.u.t.toned his well-fitting, seedy old coat, and with a warm young kiss on either cheek sallied forth, pursued by his wife's warning cry: "Candles--candles! Now, John, no matter what they promise at the gas-store, gas-house--er--er, I mean office--don't I, girls? Oh, well, no matter what _anyone_ promises, _anywhere_, do you buy some candles for fear of accidents, for light we must have! Food for to-morrow is desirable, but light for to-night is an absolute necessity!

So get candles, for fear----"--then, as John disappeared, "Do you suppose your father understood?" she asked, anxiously.

"Why--er! why--er!" hesitated Sybil, as she gently rubbed the canvas that preserved Grandmamma Ba.s.sett's antique prettiness: "Dorothy--what is the condition of papa's intelligence at present?"

But Dorothy, pa.s.sing an armful of bed linen to the waiting Lena, soothingly declared: "It's no fault of yours, mamma dear, if he does not understand--I'm sure you tried hard enough," and Mrs. Lawton, bridling and important, at once followed Lena upstairs to make things interesting for that handmaiden. As soon as they were alone the girls looked ruefully at each other, and Dorothy exclaimed: "Fancy sending papa on such an errand!"

"Yes," groaned Sybil, "it _is_ funny--and oh, if he could only throw a little light on the family finances, I'd forgive him if we all lay in total darkness to-night. Dorrie! Dorrie! what are we coming to? Is not this an awful place? I would not say a word against it before poor papa--he seems so proud of his bargain. But, Dorrie, we'll all find our teeth rattling like castanets some fine morning, and chills mean quinine, and quinine means money--money!"

Dorothy sat down dejectedly on a step of the ladder and pushed her sunny brown hair back from her damp forehead. "Yes--it is dreadful! We must put mamma and papa in the driest room and see what the cellar is like, and perhaps we may find some boy about who will cut away some of those branches and let a little sunlight in on this window that I see mamma has marked for her own. A little shaking and shivering won't matter so much for us, Sybil. We are young and can stand it, but papa is not strong and fever would simply eat him up, poor dear!"

Sybil bent suddenly, and, kissing her sister's cheek: "You're a patient little soul, Dorrie," she said, "but I tell you I shall go mad presently over this never-ending mending and turning and dyeing, this wearing of each other's clothes, this mad effort to keep up appearances! Why can't we do something as other girls do--who help themselves?"

"Ah, but mamma!" interposed Dorothy. "She would never consent. We are ladies, you know, dear, and----"

"Idiots!" savagely completed Sybil, "who don't know how to do one single thing well. I can paint--a little; you can play--a little. We both can sing--a little, and we both can dance perfectly!"

And she flung her arm about Dorothy's slim waist and together they went waltzing out into the old hall, their light, swaying figures skimming swallow-like over the sunken porch and out into the sunshine, where presently a great brown root tripped them up, and they fell, a laughing heap, on the moss. Next instant two excited voices were crying: "Violets! Oh, real violets!" And with fingers trembling with haste, and eyes wide with delight, they gathered the timid little hooded darlings of the spring, forgetting their poverty, their makeshifts, and their anxieties, as G.o.d meant young things should forget at times, and only remembering that they were sisters, who loved each other and had found out there under the sky their first bed of sweet wild violets.

CHAPTER II

A POWERFUL NEIGHBOR

It was near the end of the week. Already Woodsedge seemed to have wakened, drawn a long breath, and a.s.sumed that pleasant expression so earnestly sought for by generations of photographers. In fact, the old house had taken on a homelike look, and both the girls had been sewing at break-needle speed trying to finish some muslin curtains that they wished to have put up in their own room before Sunday, as those windows were in full view of Broadway drivers, and they felt that propriety demanded muslin curtains as well as shades. And this, according to Lena, was "Friday alretty," so together they were driving d.i.c.k, the canary, nearly wild by singing against him over their work, when John Lawton, wearing an ancient alpaca coat and a mournful and repentant straw hat, appeared upon the porch clasping a left finger in a very b.l.o.o.d.y right hand; remarking, with his usual moderation of speech: "I think I have got a cut."

"Do you, indeed?" Sybil snapped, as she rushed for an old handkerchief.

"I suppose a severed artery would about convince you of the fact! Bring me a bit of thread, Dorrie! Oh, you white-faced goose, that screech of yours has brought mamma!" And mamma was followed by the ever-faithful Lena. And so it happened that Mr. Lawton's injured finger drew to his service four devoted women. Sybil, first pouring some fair water over the cut, proceeded to bandage it with a bit of old linen. Dorothy, keeping her face averted, held out a spool of white silk. Lena, with a trail of rejected cobweb in one hand and an enormous pair of shears in the other, waited to cut the thread off; while Mrs. Lawton, with eye-gla.s.ses on nose, superintended Sybil's efforts and sagely advised her that if she wound the bandage too tight it would stop circulation, and if it were too loose it would come off, and----