"Well, I mustn't stay here and keep you from 'redding' up your kitchen, as you call it," said Elsie, rather neatly as she believed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Well, I mustn't stay here and keep you from 'redding'

up your kitchen, as you call it."]

"Oh, there's plenty of time for that," Kate a.s.sured her cheerfully; "if not to-day, why there's another comin'."

CHAPTER XVIII

The kitchen wasn't _redd up_ that day nor the next. It remained, indeed, a sight to make a good housekeeper weep, and closets, cupboards, clothes-presses, and the celebrated servants' parlor remained untidy conglomerations of rubbish; but the general appearance of the place continued to improve. Kate's grat.i.tude for the regular receipt of her wages was continual and practical. A chance visitor now could enter any room in the front of the house at any hour, and there was much comment among the people upon the change.

It was generally agreed that Elsie Moss must have been very carefully trained by her stepmother to bring about such a marvel. And presently some of the creditors of the household began to wonder if her influence couldn't be extended. One and another began to drop hints to Elsie which became so broad that even one quite unaccustomed to any such thing could not fail to understand. The butcher's wife, the grocer's sister, and the draper's head bookkeeper had all but informed her in so many words that unless their respective relatives or patrons were paid in full by the 1st of November, they would present their bills to Mr.

Middleton, if they had to do so in the vestibule of the church.

And they were only three out of a number that seemed legion. Others spoke more plainly to Kate, and Elsie began to dread seeing certain people enter the library during her hours there. The days being shorter, the Howe baby went to bed at five o'clock, and little Mattie, who had taken a violent fancy to Elsie, used to run to the library the moment he was off her hands, remaining until six to walk home with her.

And Elsie, who was devoted to the child and never tired of her company, was also relieved because her presence protected her from any but veiled hints.

The situation wore upon her, and finally she decided to have a frank talk with Mrs. Middleton. She wasn't, it is true, on terms of frankness with her, and in a sense it wasn't her place to interfere.

But she knew that Mrs. Middleton wouldn't want the bills presented to her husband any more than Kate did--nor, indeed, than Elsie herself.

Not that she would have cared, except for Mr. Middleton's sake. It would serve Mrs. Middleton right to be brought up short, but she dreaded the thought of his being so distressed; she didn't want him to give up the few little comforts he allowed himself, and she knew it would hurt him cruelly to have to retrench in his giving.

She wrote to Mr. Bliss, her lawyer, asking him to send her five hundred dollars, mailing the letter to the other Elsie to be forwarded from New York. That seemed to her inexperience a large sum and able to work wonders. But before her letter had reached New York she began to feel as if it wouldn't be sufficient to make everything straight for a new start; and before there was time for an answer from San Francisco, she was sadly convinced that it would be only a drop in the bucket.

Whereupon she decided that if Mr. Bliss sent it to her without comment, and didn't evidently consider it a very large sum, she would ask him to duplicate it.

With a certain relief, she put off the frank talk with Mrs. Middleton until she should have received the money. It did not arrive so soon as she expected it, and she was still waiting when Kate came to her in excitement one morning saying that the iceman wouldn't leave any ice unless he were paid cash. Elsie produced her portemonnaie.

"Oh, Miss Elsie, I hate to take your money," protested Kate with tears in her eyes. "I wouldn't 'a' come to you only I'm strapped myself, what with buyin' the hat with all them plumes, and the missus after borrowin' my last five-dollar bill."

"Katy Flanagan, what made you let her have it?" cried the girl almost fiercely.

"Well, Miss Elsie, the truth is, I couldn't resist her. There's something about her, you know--a-askin' so airy like, and forgettin'

how--goodness, the man'll clear out with his ice if I don't fly."

Thereafter, Elsie paid also for the ice and the milk, leaving, out of her allowance and the money she received for the library work, barely enough for postage. But she didn't mind that; it was really a slight sacrifice. She cared so much for the work at the library that she would have paid for the privilege of doing it; and she had come so well provided with all the accessories of clothing that she hadn't even to buy gloves for another year.

Looking forward, she began to speculate on the possibility of starting anew after finances were once straightened out. It appeared doubtful, she being herself more ignorant than Kate, but presently a happy suggestion presents itself to her. One afternoon she asked Mrs. King, a kind, motherly, grey-haired lady who taught domestic science at the high school and came to the library frequently, whether there were any book to teach one how much to spend each week on different articles for a household.

"Oh, Miss Moss, I'm so glad you spoke, for I've been wanting to tell you about our seniors in domestic science this year at the high school.

I think I have the nicest cla.s.s I've ever had. We meet three times a week at eleven o'clock, and I have wondered if you might not like to join? Knowing that your aunt is an invalid, I thought you might want to take the care off her shoulders, and I feel sure our course would help you. You know all the girls, I think, and I should be more than pleased to help you make up what they have been over already."

Elsie could scarcely express her delight. She spoke to Mr. Middleton that evening. He had no idea of her ultimate purpose; indeed, he did not realize the confusion in which he lived, and was rather amused at the idea, but considered it an excellent method of getting better acquainted with the young people, and was pleased at her eagerness.

She entered the cla.s.s at once, found the study delightful and very helpful, and the days fairly flew by. She was, after all, only sixteen, and extraordinarily immature in many ways; and it was not perhaps remarkable that after a few lessons, with extra help from Mrs.

King, she began to feel quite capable of shouldering the housekeeping at the parsonage. But the more ready she felt, the less did she desire to propose it to Mrs. Middleton.

Such a step was not made easier by the fact that the latter took a keen interest in her lessons at the school. She endeavored, not always successfully, to draw the girl out upon the subject, questioning her with some felicity, praising her ambition, and taking it for granted that she was an unusual pupil and a great addition to the cla.s.s. And she constantly bemoaned the fact that it had been necessary for Elsie to go outside for the instruction that she would herself have delighted to give her, had her strength permitted. Nothing could have gratified her more, she declared, clasping her hands and raising her eyes to the ceiling, but she didn't even dare allow herself to dwell upon it. For she had just enough strength to manage her own household (as every lady should do), and she hadn't the moral right to use it for other purposes.

Meantime, three weeks had pa.s.sed since Elsie had written to ask her lawyer for the five hundred dollars, and she began to feel troubled.

Of course, she had to allow for letter and answer going through Elsie Moss's hands, but three weeks should have covered that. She watched the mails anxiously. As she returned from the library on the twenty-fourth day since she had sent her request, she decided that unless she should hear that night, she would have Elsie Moss telegraph from New York. For the end of October approached, and she felt she couldn't face the crisis of the 1st of November, without the aid and the moral support of the money.

She was surprised to see the doctor's motor-car standing at the door, and startled when Kate, wild-eyed and dishevelled, met her at the threshold.

"Uncle John? Has anything happened?" she faltered.

"No, it ain't him. He's in the city, pore lamb, and it's myself is thankful you'll be here to tell him. It's her. Riggs was here a-dunnin' me for his money soon after you left, and nothin' would do but that I should go up to her whiles he waits in the kitchen. And a lucky thing it was, too, for there he was to go for the doctor--we both forgot clean about the telephone."

"But what is it?" cried Elsie.

"I found her on the floor like a log, Miss Elsie. She ain't dead at all, but she ain't come to, and maybe won't from taking of too many of them headache-powders as I knew was no good but didn't think no harm of."

On a sudden, without warning, Kate dropped her head upon Elsie's shoulder and began to sob wildly.

"Oh, Katy, don't," begged Elsie, truly distressed. "You and I must keep up for the sake of----"

"Of himself, miss, I know," sobbed Kate, "but, oh, I feel as if it was my own mother--or my own baby, I don't know which."

CHAPTER XIX

Elsie Moss's school was quite unlike her expectations, and her companions not at all like those of her eager dreams. Just as at art school one begins, she knew, with the study and copying of the antique, so the girl had supposed that in studying for the stage, one would approach it through the masterpieces of the drama. On the contrary, she didn't so much as hear the name of Shakespeare or of any other dead or cla.s.sic dramatist during the first two months; and though she had to work as hard as she had expected to do, it sometimes seemed as if it were practice that didn't really count. The drill seemed to be all in the way of suppleness of limb and facility of facial expression without intellectual stimulus; indeed, it almost seemed as if the whole tendency of the school was rather narcotic than stimulating.

Further, the girls with whom she came in contact shared her ideals as little as their pasts had anything in common with hers. Many of them were not older in years, but one and all were incomparably older in other ways and painfully sophisticated. Pretty in a coa.r.s.e way, painted and powdered, bold and often vulgar, they were almost without exception girls whose whole lives had been spent in the atmosphere of the stage, and that in its cheaper and poorer aspects. One or both parents, brother, sister, aunt, or uncle had figured in shows or exhibitions of some sort, and they had fallen into the profession in that manner. None had, like Elsie, chosen it as a calling.

Disappointed as she was, disheartened utterly at moments, the girl hugged her cla.s.s motto to her breast and struggled on. So deep was her purpose, so strong her interest, that she not only pressed doggedly on, but forced a certain amount of satisfaction out of the struggle. How it might have been had she not possessed in Miss Pritchard a solace and refuge, it would be difficult to say. Elsie herself hardly knew how much courage and strength she gained during the evenings and other fragments of time spent with her. Looking forward to that companionship gave her patience to endure many a difficult hour which perchance she had not endured otherwise. But with that always before her, despite the hardships that were so different from those for which she had been prepared, she was nevertheless wonderfully happy--perhaps, happier than she had ever been before.

Sometimes, when the day had been unusually trying, she would greet Miss Pritchard at night with a warmth that almost frightened the latter, clinging to her as if she would never let her go. But she never confessed any of her troubles connected with the school. She talked much of it, but it was always of the most interesting occurrences and of amusing incidents. For her heart was in the matter as much as ever, and Miss Pritchard wasn't so favorably inclined toward it as to make it prudent to let her know of the disadvantages.

But it was terribly hard for one of her nature to have no one in whom to confide, and she longed for Elsie Marley. If she could have talked things over with Elsie Marley it would have made it easier. Simply to unburden her heart would mean much. Ever since she had been in New York she had longed to see Elsie again; and with this added reason, and a desire to learn more of her life in Enderby than she could gather from her stiff and rather non-committal letters, she began to feel, about the time that she forwarded a letter to Elsie's lawyer in San Francisco, that she must induce her to come to New York for a visit.

A letter from her stepmother seemed to render it almost imperative.

Mrs. Moss, who was devoted to Elsie and missed her sadly, was greatly troubled by the irregularity of the girl's letters and hurt by their want of frankness. Knowing that John Middleton had not approved of Elsie's father marrying her, she began to fear lest he be trying to turn his niece against her. Now she had written to protest against the perfunctory letters, which, instead of allowing her to share in any way in Elsie's life, shut her out.

Elsie was deeply moved and full of compunction. She loved her stepmother dearly and thought of her constantly, faithful soul that she really was. She was always wondering how _auntie_ would take this or view that; but the very topics she was moved to enlarge upon in her letters were those which circ.u.mstances forbade her to mention. All her interests were connected with Miss Pritchard, of whose very existence Mrs. Moss was unaware, with the school, and less directly with Elsie Marley, whose name she was masquerading under. Leaving all these out of consideration, and depending almost wholly upon the fragments she received concerning life in the parsonage at Enderby, a brief letter once in three or four weeks was the utmost the girl could compa.s.s.

Immediately upon receipt of her stepmother's letter, she determined to ask Miss Pritchard if she might invite her friend Elsie Moss to come on for a week or a fortnight. As she waited for Miss Pritchard to come from the office that night, however, it suddenly occurred to her to wonder if it would be quite safe. Despite her enthusiastic admiration of Elsie Marley, which had not in the least abated, and despite the unfavorable impression she had of the Pritchards, which only deepened as the days pa.s.sed, she had come to feel that in personal appearance and somewhat in manner her friend must resemble her kinsfolk.

In which case it would be as dangerous for the well-being of the one as of the other for her to be brought in contact with Miss Pritchard.

For, stiff as were her letters and non-committal, Elsie knew that there was little difference in the strength of attachment that held the wrong Elsie to the place she had usurped in either instance. Whatever she might do, therefore, she mustn't bungle or err in that respect.

The Pritchard estate was not yet settled. The house had been sold and such personal effects and heirlooms as were to be kept for Elsie Marley put in storage for the time in San Francisco. Elsie Moss understood this, and knew that Miss Pritchard did so; but she felt that the latter wondered that she had no relics or keepsakes with her. She had had to confess one day that she had no photographs of her family she would be willing to show, leaving Miss Pritchard to make such inference as she would.

That evening at the dinner-table--she felt it would be easier to approach the matter in semi-public--Elsie asked her if she happened to have any old Pritchard photographs.

"Yes, dear, I have an old alb.u.m in the chest by the window that has pictures of Aunt Ellen, Cousin Ellen, and Cousin Augusta. There are half a dozen, I think, of Cousin Ellen, and three or four of your mother, but no baby picture of you, nor any other, if that's what you're looking for. After my father died we began to lose connection with one another, and after that visit I made when you were a baby, all communication ceased. So I got no photographs after that."