Molly Brown's Orchard Home, Page 4

  CHAPTER IV.

  WHAT MOLLY OVERHEARD.

  It had grown quite dark. The passengers were evidently still at dinner.A man loomed up close to her and then stopped, evidently unaware of herpresence. Leaning over the rail and gazing into the black depths ofwater, he emitted a sigh that seemed to come from his soul. Suddenly awoman joined him. Molly was still half asleep, thinking of the orchardat Chatsworth and of what Professor Green's bungalow would look likeamong the apple trees. Her thoughts came back to the ship with a bouncewhen she heard the woman say:

  "Tom, why do you avoid me? Can't you let bygones be bygones?"

  "That is exactly what I am doing, Mrs. Huntington: letting bygones bebygones. It seems a useless thing for us to rake up the past."

  "'Mrs. Huntington' sounds very cold and formal coming from your lips."

  "Well, I gathered you did not think much of the name of Lizzie since youhave changed your daughter's to Elise."

  "Oh, Tom, you are cruel!"

  "Now see here, Mrs. Huntington, I do not want to be rude to you. I havelived in total ignorance of you and your affairs for twenty-five years,and since by chance we meet on a steamer, you cannot make me feel thatwhat I do or say is of the slightest importance to you. You made theyoung Tom Kinsella about as miserable as a man could be, but the old Tomis immune from misery, thank God, and there is no use in trying to get aflame from the dead ashes of the past. I am very glad to see you againand especially glad to make the acquaintance of the daughter of my oldfriend, George O'Brien."

  "You forgive George but do not forgive me."

  "I have nothing to forgive George, and you know it. He was the soul ofhonor and had no idea of there being an engagement between us, when hemarried you. I am as sure of this as though George himself had told me.In those good old days in Paris when we were all of us art students,George and I were great chums. I could read him like a book and therenever lived a more honest fellow.

  "When my father died and his foundry at Newark seemed in a fair way tobe on its last legs for want of management and the family income was indanger of being decidedly lessened, you persuaded me, in fact, you putit up to me, to give you up or give up art and go to work and pull thefoundry out of the hole.

  "Art meant a lot to me, but at the time you meant a lot more. Youremember you would not let me announce our engagement to our friends,not even to George.

  "I went back to America and piled into a work, entirely uncongenial, butdetermined to win out. Things were in an awful mess because of myfather's long inability to attend to business. My brother Pierce wasstill in college and could be of no assistance to me. I had to masterthe business from the beginning, learning every detail before I couldput it on the efficiency basis that I knew it must attain before I couldbe satisfied.

  "I wrote you rather discouraged letters, I will admit, but I felt Icould pour out my soul to you and you alone. I knew it would be two orthree years before it would be expedient for us to marry, but my faithin you was supreme and it never entered my head you would not wait forme.

  "When the goal was in sight, you may imagine the shock it gave me when acasual acquaintance, recently returned from Paris, spoke of having hadsuch a gay time at your wedding breakfast, given in old George's studio(the one I used to share with him) by his fellow students.

  "Not a word from you; later on a letter from George, full of happinessand your charms and explaining to me how it came about he could marry.He had been one of the poorest among a lot of fellows, where poverty wasthe rule and not the exception; but his uncle, the Brooklyn politician,had died and left him a hundred thousand dollars. That seemed immensewealth to the Latin Quarter, and there was rejoicing in all of theateliers where George O'Brien was a general favorite and Lizzie Peck wasknown as the prettiest American girl in the Quarter.

  "The shock was so great I was like a dead man for weeks, but I nevertold a soul of my pitiful love affair. I got over the loss of you assoon as I could pull myself together enough to think that if you werethe kind who could do as you did, I was well out of it; and George hadmy pity and not my envy. But my Art--my Art--nothing can ever make up tome for giving it up. I could not go back to it, as I had plunged toodeeply into the foundry affairs to pull out, and one cannot servebusiness and Art at the same time. Art is too jealous a mistress toshare her lover's time with anything else. I went on with the work andcame out very well.

  "This is the first real holiday I have had for many years, but I amdetermined to have a good time and am not going to let regret prey uponme."

  Molly had been a forced listener to this long speech, but she could notfool herself into thinking she had been an unwilling one. She wasthrilled to the soul by Mr. Kinsella's history. No wonder he was so sadlooking and occasionally so bitter! She was glad he had not truckled tothe spoiled Mrs. Huntington, but had let her know exactly where hestood. It was not so very chivalrous of him, but she needed a goodmental and moral slap and Mr. Kinsella had administered it as gently aspossible, no doubt.

  What was Molly to do now? To let them know she was there would make ithorribly embarrassing for all concerned, and still she felt she hadalready heard more than she had any business to know.

  "I'll have to pretend I am asleep and never divulge to a soul, (exceptMother, of course,) that I have overheard this tremendously interestingconversation."

  Mrs. Huntington was silenced for a few moments by Mr. Kinsella'sharangue, but finally spoke:

  "Tom, you are hard on me. I was very young at the time and had alwaysbeen so poor."

  "That is so, Lizzie. It was hard on you to be so poor; but you were notso very young. You must have been about the age your daughter is now,and I fancy you would not excuse much in her because of her youth. Youwere two years older than I was in those days."

  "Brute!"

  "Mind you, I said 'in those days.' I do not mean you are still two yearsolder than I am."

  Molly was sorry that Mr. Kinsella was pushing the poor lady so far. Shemade a quick calculation from the evidence in hand and realized thatMrs. Huntington must be about forty-nine. "Almost as old as Mother! Andjust look at her hair and clothes! She looks much younger, and I know itis hard on her to give up her youth. I do wish Mr. Kinsella had not saidthat to her about being two years older than he is! It was not verykind, even if she did jilt him. It seems a small revenge to me. I wish Icould have made my presence known and then I should not have heard Mr.Kinsella belittle himself, which I certainly think he did."

  Poor Mrs. Huntington swallowed her resentment as best she could andcontinued the conversation: "There is one thing I should like to ask ofyou as a favor, Tom, and that is: please do not tell Elise that herfather and I ever studied art. Not that I ever studied very hard, butGeorge was certainly much interested and it took a deal of managing topersuade him to give it up and go into politics. You see, his uncle'sinfluence was still hot and there were many plums waiting for him. I wastoo ignorant in those days to know that it did not necessarily followthat political jobs brought social success.

  "George was very successful and doubled his inheritance, but we had noposition at all. He changed a great deal. You would hardly have knownhim in his last years. You remember how gay and light-hearted andgood-tempered he always was. Well, he lost it all and became morose andbitter. Elise was the only person who had any influence on him at all.We had to live in Brooklyn and how I did hate it!"

  "How long has George been dead?"

  "Oh, ten years or so. Elise was a mere child and George never spoke toher of having wished to become an artist. It seemed best to me for herto live in ignorance of the fact as she is already ridiculously fond oftrying to paint; and if she knew there were any hereditary reasons forit, there is no telling what stand she would take. I hate the Bohemianlife that artists lead, and now that I have made so many sacrifices forher to place her in the best society, I have no idea of allowing her todrop out.

  "We are received in the most exclusive houses in New York and Newport,and while our means do not permi
t us to entertain very largely, ourat-homes are most popular with the Four Hundred.

  "Elise is very stubborn. She has had several excellent offers butrefuses to consider anyone whom she does not love. George O'Brien wasvery sentimental and she has inherited that from him, along with herlove for dabbling."

  Mr. Kinsella had maintained a grim silence during this heartless speech;but he now asked: "What sacrifice have you made for your daughter'swelfare, you poor put-upon lady?"

  "Why, I married Ponsonby Huntington! He had not a _sou_ to his name buthe had the _entree_ into all the fashionable homes in the East. He was agreat expense, but it fully repaid me, as he lived long enough toestablish Elise and me in that society for which we are eminentlyfitted. I am deeply grateful to him and his family and do not begrudgethe money, now that he is dead.

  "I was keen enough not to let him go into my principal very largely. Iam an excellent business woman, Tom, and have managed my affairswonderfully well."

  "So it seems," muttered Mr. Kinsella. "You have evidently satisfied allyour ideals. I am glad to tell you that I have already divulged to Elisethat her father might have become a very good painter, and wasastonished that she was ignorant of the fact that he had ever drawn aline in his life. I say that I am glad, as I want to talk to George'sdaughter about her father, and I cannot think of my old friend, GeorgeO'Brien, as anything but the gay, care-free art student, always ready togo on a lark and to share his last penny, of which he had very few, withany needy fellow-student. Don't you ever feel like painting yourself?"

  "No! I hate the sight of a paint brush, and as for adding in any way tothe ever-increasing flood of poorly painted pictures,--I can at leastclaim my innocence of that crime."

  "Perhaps you are right, but you used to be so clever at catching alikeness."

  "Elise has the same power, but I hate to see it in her and neverencourage her by the least praise. Of course you can't understand thisfeeling, but I know the girl would fly off at the slightest chance andlive in that shabby Latin Quarter. There, no doubt, she would marry somedown-at-the-heel artist, who would live on her money and go on paintingbad pictures to the end of time; and she would aid and abet him andpaint worse ones herself!"

  "Elise has money, then?"

  "The money is all hers except my pitiful third that the law allows me,and I had to go into that a little to keep Ponsonby Huntington in a goodhumor. However, Elise cannot get control of her money until she istwenty-five and I have several years yet. She is quite equal to throwingme over in spite of all I have done for her." Mrs. Huntington spoke witha rancor that was really astounding to Molly, whose own mother was sodifferent that the girl had an idea that all mothers must have some ofMrs. Brown's qualities.

  "Oh, I am sure you are mistaken in judging your daughter thus severely!She must have inherited from George some other traits along with theartistic talent."

  "That is just it. She inherited from him this very tendency to be hardon me. Was it kind or right for George to leave all the money to her;and to me, his devoted and long-suffering wife, nothing more than thelaw exacted? My only hope is that she may marry a man rich enough tomake a handsome settlement on me. One who will have money enough not toregard Elise's fortune at all, except, perhaps, to realize the necessityof turning it over to me. Now tell me: do you think the Latin Quarter alikely place for a girl to find such a husband?"

  "Oh, I don't know. You did pretty well there, and if you had waited forme, you might have done even better from a financial standpoint, as Ihave been very successful as the world takes it. Perhaps poor littleElise might have equal luck. Oh, Lizzie, Lizzie, how changed you are!You have spoken only of money and position and society; never once oflove and humanity. I can't bear to see you this way. When I think of youas a girl with your soft, sweet manner and no more worldliness than akitten, I can hardly bear to contemplate this change in you."

  "Oh la, la, Tom, you and I know that a kitten only takes a year to growinto a horrid cat, and as you so brutally and frankly put it, I have hadabout twenty-five years to grow and sharpen my claws. You struck thisnote first in our conversation. I was prepared to be as nice as you oncethought me, but I saw how cynical you had grown and I knew there was nouse in putting on; so I have rather enjoyed showing you my true self.Anyhow, you are grateful to me for throwing you over, now that you seewhat I am. Is it not so?"

  Mr. Kinsella did not answer for a moment, but finally said, changing thesubject: "There is one thing I am going to ask of you for auld lang syneand I think maybe you will grant it: let Elise put in this winter in agood studio in Paris. She is hungry for a long period of uninterruptedwork and I know it will soften her toward you instead of hardening her;and I feel sure that when the dreaded twenty-fifth birthday arrives, shewill want to settle half of the fortune on you. Do this for me, Lizzie.I guarantee it will come out well for you."

  Mrs. Huntington hesitated for a moment and then by a quick calculationcame to the conclusion that it would be a good thing, after all, andwould leave her free to go where she chose. She well knew how cheaply agirl could board in Paris when she was at work in a studio, and, as Tomsaid, there was every chance of her picking up a rich husband among thestudents. There were always some young men who were rolling in wealth,but still had the artistic bee in their bonnets.

  "I'll do it, Tom, but if it turns out badly I'll have you to thank."

  "Lizzie, now you are more like your old self and I am grateful to youfor this concession. Come, let us find Elise and tell her the goodnews."

  Molly was indeed glad to have the interview over. It was against herwhole honest nature to eavesdrop, but she felt it best for all concernedfor her to remain quiet. As soon as Mr. Kinsella and Mrs. Huntington haddisappeared, Molly beat a hasty retreat to her stateroom where hermother was looking for her, not being able to find her on deck.

  "Oh, Mother, I am so excited!" And she told Mrs. Brown all about herforced concealment during the intimate conversation between the oldlovers.

  "It is very interesting, certainly, and I hardly know how you could helpbeing a listener. Since it will go no farther, as of course neither ofus will ever mention the matter to a soul, it will do no harm. I wishyou had not had to hear it, however, as I hate for my Molly to realizethat such women as Mrs. Huntington exist, so cold and selfish andworldly. I am glad poor Elise is to be allowed to stay in Paris allwinter and work. Perhaps we can make up to her some for her mother'sheartlessness."

  So mother and daughter kissed and went to bed; Molly waked the nextmorning with no trace of seasickness, ready and eager to enjoy the restof the voyage.

  The trip was delightful to both mother and daughter. They made manyacquaintances on board, but Elise O'Brien and the two Kinsellas theycounted among their real friends. So closely were the five throwntogether on the voyage, that they often said it seemed as though theyhad known one another all their lives. Mrs. Huntington kept to herselfmuch of the time. She seemed to realize that it was policy to let Elisehave as good a time as she could with her father's old friend and hisnephew; and since the Browns seemed to have influential and wealthyfriends, they could, at least, do her daughter no harm, and might evenprove useful during the girl's sojourn in Paris.

  Elise bloomed in this congenial atmosphere and did not look like thesame girl. She had a ready wit, was quick at repartee, and after a whileher tongue lost its bitterness and her sarcastic humor became much moregenial.

  Mr. Kinsella would often say: "That is like your father. He had thekindest humor in the world and was truly Irish in his wit." But when shewas too critical or inclined to let her wit run away with her heart, hewould shake his head and look sad; and the girl began to care what herfather's friend thought of her, and tried to please him.

  She had liked Molly from the minute they clasped hands when Pierceintroduced them, and this liking grew to enthusiastic love. She had hadfew intimates and this friendship was wonderful to her. Mr. Kinsellarealized the importance of this wholesome influence on his charge, (hehad made Elise his
charge ever since he wrung from her mother thepromise to let her continue her studies in art), and he did everythingto throw the girls together and give them opportunities to talk theireager girls' talk.

  "I hate to think of the journey coming to an end," said Molly. "It hasbeen splendid; but if the trip is nearly over, our friendship has justbegun! And what times we can have in Paris! Isn't it great that you andJudy know each other and that the three of us are so congenial?"

  Elise looked sad. "Yes, it is fine, but I know you and Judy will want meout of the way. You are such old friends, and I shall always feel likean interloper."

  "Oh, Elise, Elise! You must not feel that way for an instant. Judy and Ilove each other a whole lot, but we are not a bit inclined to pair offand not make new friends. Judy is more than likely already to have beguna big affair of friendship with somebody. She will get so thick withthat one that she will have no time for anyone else; and then she willfind out the person is not the paragon she had imagined and come weepingback to me," said Molly, throwing her arm around Elise and giving her awarm hug.

  "Well, let's enjoy the few hours left to us. It seems hardly possiblethat this is the same, stupid old boat that we boarded a little overa week ago. I hated it, our stuffy stateroom, the crowded table;and then I always dread a long voyage with Mamma. She gets so crossand overbearing when she is cut off from society and amusementsand----" Elise stopped suddenly. She felt Molly's friendly arm growingslack around her waist and she realized that her new friends, the Browns,could not tolerate her impertinent remarks to and about her mother. "Oh,Molly, please excuse me. I am trying to be nicer about Mamma. It isawfully ill-bred of me to speak of her in that way, no matter how Ifeel."

  "Elise, why don't you try to feel differently and then it would beimpossible for you to speak so?"

  "Oh, Molly, I will try." And it shows she was already trying, for shedid not add what was in her heart to say, "If you only knew my motheryou would not ask that of me."