Her cheeks blazed, her head went up, and something ran like a vivifying flame over her face. It was a pity Austen did not see her then. He demanded beauty in a woman. He should have seen his young niece angry. Then she turned and went up to her room and wrote her mother to come. But, the letter written, she leaned upon the desk and broke into wild and pa.s.sionate crying.

CHAPTER FIVE

Alexina for several years had been made partially acquainted with her affairs.

The evening her uncle chose to go over the whole with her, Alexina, in the midst of it, put a hand timidly on his. "I am grateful, Uncle Austen, you know that," she said.

The matter of the mother was fresh between them. "I have been paid, as any one else, for my services," he answered.

She drew her hand back.

The books were a clear record of what had been done year by year.

"Cowan Steamboat Mortgage," read Alexina from a page of early entries. "What was that?"

"A mortgage held for you on a boat built at the Cowan shipyards."

"What was the name of the boat?" Alexina's voice sounded suddenly strained and odd.

"The 'King William,'" said Austen. "The boat never paid for itself, and the mortgage was foreclosed and the boat sold."

The girl's eyes narrowed with curious intentness. As she listened she pushed her hair back with the hand propping her head as if its weight oppressed her. "And then?" she asked. "Here are more entries."

"I bought the boat in at a figure a little over the mortgage; river affairs were down. Later, a couple of years--you'll find it there--the boat sold for double the price."

She closed the book. "That's enough, I believe," she said, "for one evening." But it is doubtful if he was at all aware of anything strange in her tone.

She tripped on her skirts, so impetuous was her flight up the stairs, and, in her room, flung herself upon the bed. Her hands even beat fiercely as she cried, but there was no doll Sally Ann to be gathered in for comfort now.

They had loved her, they had been good to her. Mrs. Leroy had rocked her, the Captain had held her on his knee.

She sprang up and went to bathe her eyes. If she knew where they were, or how to find them, she would go--

She wondered if Emily or her mother had known about this.

She went to the Carringfords' the next afternoon. She liked to go over to the little brown house and she liked Emily's strong-featured, outspoken mother; there was a certain homely charm even in the clear-starched fresh calico dresses she wore.

Mrs. Carringford was drawing large loaves of golden-brown bread from the oven as Alexina came in by way of the kitchen door. The smell of it was good.

"Wait a moment, Alexina," she said, as she rose and turned the loaves out onto a clean crash towel spread upon the table. "I want a word with you before you go up-stairs. It's about Emily; you know, I suppose, that your uncle is coming over right often to see her?--That big hat looks well on your yellow hair, Alexina--And I'm going to be plain: it's bad for Emily; she's discontented with things now, she always has been."

Alexina's eyes dilated. "Coming to see Emily? Does--does Emily want him to come?"

"Alexina," called Emily down the stairs; "aren't you coming up?"

Alexina went up to the room which Emily shared with her two little sisters. It was hard on her. There were various attempts to have it as a girl fancies her room. The airiness of Swiss muslins, however cheap, the sheen of the colour over which the airiness lies, the fluttering of ruffled edges--these seem to be expressions of girlhood. But Emily's little sisters shared the room with her. They were there when Alexina entered.

"Now go out," Emily told them; "we want to be alone."

The little girls looked up. Miss Alexina was tall and fair and friendly, she wore lovely dresses, she went to b.a.l.l.s, and they adored her. She felt the flattery and liked it too. "Oh," she interceded, "no, don't, Emily."

"Yes," said Emily; "we want to talk. Go on, Nan--Nell; don't you hear?"

The little sisters gathered up books and slates with some show of resentment; it was their room too. Emily shut the door behind them.

The breadths of a light-hued silk dress were lying about the room.

Emily was ripping on the waist. "It's a dress Miss Harriet gave mother for a quilt while you were away, but I told her it would be no such thing if I could devise it otherwise."

She frowned, then threw the waist down. "Not that I don't hate it--the devising, the scheming."

"I wouldn't do it," said Alexina bluntly.

"Which is easy for you to say," retorted Emily, her eyes sweeping Alexina from top to toe. Harriet Blair knew how to dress the girl.

"Yes," said Alexina; "I suppose that's true." It was part of her hold on Emily, her fairness. "But you're welcome to anything of mine; I've reason somehow to hate 'em all."

The colour heightened on Emily's face and she looked eager. Pa.s.sion expresses itself variously. The stern old grandfather abased and denied the physical and material needs. Emily exulted in the very sheen of rich fabric, in the feel of satin laid to cheek. Was the grandchild but fulfilling the law of reaction? The soul of Emily and the soul of the old preacher saw each other across a vast abyss.

"It's for the Orbisons' I need a dress," said Emily. "Of course, I know it's because I have a voice I'm asked."

Yet, knowing that for herself she never would have been asked, there was exultation in Emily's tone.

Alexina got up suddenly. Somehow she didn't want to discuss the Leroys with Emily after all.

Down-stairs she stopped again in the spotless, shining kitchen, the clean odour where soft-soap is used always lingering. Alexina liked it; all her knowledge of the dear homely details of life she was familiar with, she had gotten here.

"You remember the Leroys?" she asked Mrs. Carringford.

"Why, yes; I sent them milk twice a day."

"Did you know why they went away?"

"Wasn't it because they had put everything into that--er--" She stopped.

"Boat?" suggested the girl.

"Boat"--Mrs. Carringford accepted the word--"and so had to, after it was--er--"

"Sold," supplied Alexina. "Did you--did people know who it was held the mortgage?"

The plain-spoken Mrs. Carringford looked embarra.s.sed. "Well, Alexina, you know how it is in a neighbourhood."

"Then you knew the boat was bought in for me?"

"Why, yes; I did."