Astra (15 page)

“All the last quarter’s allowance! You see I had just cashed it and paid my board out of it, having in mind the possibility of going away, perhaps coming here, and also getting some Christmas gifts for friends. But when I got back to my room after bidding my cousins good-bye, I found someone had been in my room and taken it.”

“Do you suspect anyone?”

“Yes, but I would have no proof whatever, and I decided, since I was coming away, I would rather not do anything about it. It would embarrass my cousins very much if I should try to do anything about it, and it wasn’t any of the servants I am sure, for they are trusted servants, and wouldn’t have to steal.”

“But do you think it is right to let a thief go free?”

“No. But in this case, it would be better for me not to be the one who tells. It may come out without me. In any event, I could not prove it.”

“Well,” said the lawyer, studying the girl’s sweet face earnestly, “I suppose it must have been one of the family, probably that young cousin, whom I seem to feel is a hateful piece, and if that is the case, I can see how you feel. I suppose I can understand why you are willing to let it go if that is it, though I’m not saying you are right. However, I can’t see how you had money to come away, lacking all that installment, unless you had saved a lot.”

Astra’s cheeks had crimsoned, and she lifted honest eyes to the lawyer’s, but she did not deny what he had suggested, and in a minute more he asked amusedly, “Just how did you manage your journey, my dear?”

Astra smiled grimly.

“Well, I had a few things I could sell, some bits of jewelry, old gold and silver. They didn’t bring much, but every little counts. I had bought a few clothes that I really didn’t need, and I found I could return them and get the money back. And for the rest, I pawned some books that I didn’t want to lose entirely. I can send for them as soon as more money comes in.”

“Well, you certainly were resourceful. But now we’ll end that matter once for all.”

He swung around to his desk, wrote a check, and handed it to her.

“Will that see you through till we can have a settlement?”

She glanced at it, and her cheeks flushed.

“Oh yes, I don’t need so much now. Just a little would help me out.”

“That’s all right. We’ll fix it up when the time of settlement comes. And don’t forget that if you need any help in any way, just call on me till Mr. Sargent comes home. You’ll be glad to know that I had word today that he is decidedly better, and I shall soon be able to tell him about your coming and get things straightened out. Now, are you anticipating any further trouble with that western cousin? Do you think you’ll be entirely safe till I get back from Ohio?”

“Oh, I’m sure I will be.”

“Well, if you need me, just call me. I’ll leave you my address and telephone number. And don’t stop because you think it’s expensive. Remember, I’m responsible for you now till Mr. Sargent gets back. Now, don’t forget to call me before five thirty. Take that check down to the old bank and start an account. You remember where the bank is, don’t you?”

“Oh yes,” said Astra happily, and, thanking him, she hurried away. The air was clear and bright, the snow dazzling, a real before-Christmas Day. God was in His heaven and smiling down upon her. Her own money in the bank, not borrowed. It almost seemed as if things were getting right in her world. And she was going to an orchestra concert tonight. The thought danced before her mind like a bright star.

After she put her check in the bank, she took a bus out to Willow Haven, thinking, trying to plan as she went. Suppose she took one of her own two houses. She couldn’t live absolutely alone. Her father had been insistent about that. If she was older it might be all right, but a young girl had no business living alone in the world, he said. For one thing, although she might be in a perfectly safe place so far as harm that could come to her was concerned, it didn’t look well. He couldn’t approve of girls going out into the world alone. They could always go to a reputable place where there were respectable people. It looked much better.

But of course she would love to have her own house, and Mr. Lauderdale had seemed to think she could afford it, if she preferred that way of living. He had even spoken as if she could afford to pay for some sort of housekeeper who would be on the order of a companion. Would Tilly do for that? Was Tilly able to work, and would she want to go back into service again? How old was Tilly anyway?

These were things she would have to find out before she committed herself.

As the bus swung into town and drew up half a block from the little stone dwelling where Tilly lived, Astra glanced at her watch to note how long it had taken her to get there. A little over an hour. No, that was too far from town for her to live. She wanted to be near enough to go to concerts and meetings and to church evenings alone sometimes, and she wanted to be where there was taxi service, at least for the present. Sometime maybe she might have a car, but that something she would not plan for. A girl alone had no place in the country, unless she meant to stay at home the rest of her life.

The country was white with snow now. In some places along the road they had come there was no place for the pedestrian except in the road, dodging among traffic, of which there seemed to be plenty, even so far from the city. There was a continual procession of great trucks, coal trucks and oil trucks and produce trucks of every kind and description. She saw herself making her way on foot along this highway alone at night, with snow underfoot and snow coming down from heaven, and while she wasn’t a coward in any sense and was ready to do what had to be done, she knew her father would never have wanted her to locate herself where loneliness would be her continual lot. So the little stone house, pretty as it was, and attractive in many ways, was out of the question for a home for her. Neither was old Tilly likely to be the right companion for her days.

But she walked up to the door and knocked, and after quite a long minute the door was opened by an old woman with very red eyes who was tying on a clean apron and trying to keep her faced in shadow so her red eyes would not be noticed.

“Is this Tilly Dager?” cried Astra, her heart stirred by memories, as she recalled how often when as a little girl she had seen Tilly hurrying to get her clean apron tied before opening the front door.

The old woman looked up keenly at the girl, and then her fumbling fingers dropped the strings of the apron and it fell to the floor between them while old Tilly put up her hands in startled recognition.

“Why, it’s Miss Aster! It really is, isn’t it? Oh Miss Aster, wherever did you come from? Oh, come in, come in! Ef I’d only knowed you was coming, I’d uv hed the house as fine as a new pin. But it’s all upset, an’ I’m ashamed. Come in, come in, and set down, and please excuse.”

“Don’t worry about the house, Tilly. I’ve come to see you and find out how you are. But what’s the matter? Tilly, you’ve been crying. Has something happened? Tell me about it.”

Astra stooped and picked up the crisp apron, and Tilly gathered it to her face and buried her tears in its clean folds.

“Oh Miss Astra, I shouldn’t be troublin’ you with my worries.” She lifted her tearstained face in an attempt to stem the tide of sorrow, but the tears continued to drip from her lashes and the end of her plain little insignificant nose.

“There, Tilly, sit down in this chair and tell me all about it,” said Astra, drawing up another chair beside the old woman. “Now, what is the trouble? Anything I can help with?”

“It’s me son-in-law!” burst forth the woman, burying her face once more in the apron for another fall of tears, and then rousing and lifting her eyes again, struggling for control. “He’s that set on having a new car that he’s determined ta get my poor little pension ta hep pay for it.”

“Oh, but he can’t do that!” said Astra.

“No, but he says he can. He says I’m ta come live with him and Matie, me daughter. That it’s extravagant fer us ta keep up two houses, and ef I’m with them I can hep worruk, and I ken stay with the childer when they goes out nights. That ud be all right ef he wasn’t sa ugly in his home. He scolds my daughter when he isn’t pleased, and he scolds the children something terrible, and he scolds me, and I can’t abide it. And me with me own little house he wants ta take away.”

“But he can’t do that, Tilly.”

“Oh, but ya don’t know! Just yester he went in town and he hunts up Mr. Lordedale the one I rents me house from, and he come back and tells me that Mr. Lordedale says I can’t rent the cottage any longer for the price I can pay. He says the rent’s raised ten dollars a month, and I’ve got ta get out next week, the end o’ the month!” And Tilly went off in another paroxysm of weeping.

“But that’s not so, Tilly!” exclaimed Astra eagerly. “I own this house, and Mr. Lauderdale didn’t raise the rent at all. I was just talking to him a little while ago. He told me you sent him word you had to leave, that your daughter’s family needed you.”

But Tilly was weeping so hard she couldn’t hear, and Astra had some trouble getting the truth across to her. But at last, after telling it over and over again, Tilly finally raised her bleared eyes, with a mingling of eagerness and unbelief.

“Do ya mean it’s your house, Miss Aster? This house b’longs ta
you
? And you mean the rent ain’t raised?”

“I certainly do, Tilly. And what’s more, I’m not going to let it be raised. Not to you. I’m going to lower it. From now on it’s going to be five dollars less a month, but don’t tell your son-in-law that or he’ll try to get you to give it to him for his car. Let him buy his own car, and you keep your little house here. It’s your right. It will be nice to have your grandchildren come and visit you. You can teach them a lot of good things the way you used to me.”

Tilly wavered out a watery smile.

“Bless yer heart, Miss Aster. You was always such a dear little good girl! But my grandchilder, they ain’t made ta mind. Their father won’t let me teach ’em, and they are growing up sassy ta me. He makes ’em despise me. And ef I went ta live with them I’d havta sleep with Kitty, the oldest girl, and she’s hateful. She takes the whole bed and kicks me in the night till I’m that black and blue I can’t rightly work the next day.”

“Well, Tilly, that’s dreadful! Now, you just tell your son-in-law you are going to stay in your home. Are you able to stay here alone, Tilly?”

“Oh, sure, I can stay here. Besides, I got a teacher staying with me. She’s young and alone, and she can’t pay me much, but it’s something.”

“Well, then you just tell your son-in-law that you are not coming! He has no right over you!”

“But Miss Aster, he says he’ll go to the pension people and tell them I have no right ta that pension, and they’ll take it away!”

“Well there! Tilly! You needn’t worry about that. Mr. Lauderdale is a lawyer, and he’ll fix that all up for you. Now don’t worry any more!”

At last she brought cheer to the worried old face and went away promising to look after the rent and the pension and to come out and see her again soon when she got located herself, for she was probably coming back to the city to live.

As she sat down in the bus returning cityward she thought it all over and decided that definitely, no, Tilly was not the one to be her only companion. Tilly had her own mission to keep her little house and make a refuge for her daughter, and the wild little grandchildren. And she, Astra, would make it her business to see that Tilly had her house and that her pension should not be disturbed, nor get into the hands of her unscrupulous relatives.

It was twelve o’clock when she got back to the city, and now she was most anxious to get to the old house where she used to live when her father was with her, so she took another bus and went her way. Presently she was walking up the stone steps of the big old house where she had been born and having a struggle to keep back the tears. Was Mrs. Albans at home, and what would the outcome here be?

J
ust about that time Rosamond Cameron and Camilla Blair were taking lunch together at the country club that was not too far from Rosamond’s home, so that she could easily get a bus back home and change for her bridge club which met that afternoon.

“So you didn’t get anywhere with my stubborn brother, you say, Cammie? I certainly am surprised, because he is usually so polite, at least, even if it’s something he doesn’t want to do.”

“Well, I wouldn’t say he was even polite,” said the aggrieved Camilla. “I told him I had something very important to talk over with him, something you and I were planning, and—”

“Oh, that’s a shame, Camilla! I ought to have told you not to mention my name. Just now I’ve been having several discussions with him, trying to get him to stay away from the stepmother, and he probably thinks this has something to do with it. I declare, he is simply maddening. I hoped if you threw yourself on his mercy and told him how bored you were staying in a strange city, he would do what you wanted. I believe you could wind him around your little finger, if you could get a start. He’s really a darling, you know, if you just get on the right side of him.”