CHAPTER XXVIII
"HOME, SWEET HOME"
On the high-street of the little town of Plainton, Maine, stood the neatwhite house of Mrs. Cliff, with its green shutters, its porchless frontdoor, its pretty bit of flower-garden at the front and side, and its neatback yard, sacred once a week to that virtue which is next to godliness.
Mrs. Cliff's husband had been the leading merchant in Plainton, andhaving saved some money, he had invested it in an enterprise of a friendwho had gone into business in Valparaiso. On Mr. Cliff's death his widowhad found herself with an income smaller than she had expected, and thatit was necessary to change in a degree her style of living. Thehospitalities of her table, once so well known throughout the circle ofher friends, must be curtailed, and the spare bedroom must be lessfrequently occupied. The two cows and the horse were sold, and in everyway possible the household was placed on a more economical basis. She hada good house, and an income on which, with care and prudence, she couldlive, but this was all.
In this condition of her finances it was not strange that Mrs. Cliff hadthought a good deal about the investments in Valparaiso, from which shehad not heard for a long time. Her husband had been dead for three years,and although she had written several times to Valparaiso, she hadreceived no answer whatever, and being a woman of energy, she had finallymade up her mind that the proper thing to do was to go down and see afterher affairs. It had not been easy for her to get together the money forthis long journey,--in fact, she had borrowed some of it,--and so, tolessen her expenses, she had taken passage in the _Castor_ from SanFrancisco.
She was a housewife of high degree, and would not have thought ofleaving--perhaps for months--her immaculate window-panes and her spotlessfloors and furniture, had she not also left some one to take care ofthem. A distant cousin, Miss Willy Croup, had lived with her since herhusband's death, and though this lady was willing to stay during Mrs.Cliff's absence, Mrs. Cliff considered her too quiet and inoffensive tobe left in entire charge of her possessions, and Miss Betty Handshall, aworthy maiden of fifty, a little older than Willy, and a much moredetermined character, was asked to come and live in Mrs. Cliffs houseuntil her return.
Betty was the only person in Plainton who lived on an annuity, and shewas rather proud of her independent fortune, but as her annuity was verysmall, and as this invitation meant a considerable reduction in herexpenses, she was very glad to accept it. Consequently, Mrs. Cliff hadgone away feeling that she had left her house in the hands of two womenalmost as neat as herself and even more frugal.
When Mrs. Cliff left Edna and Ralph in San Francisco, and went home,nearly all the people in the little town who were worth consideringgathered in and around her house to bid her welcome. They had heard ofher shipwreck, but the details had been scanty and unsatisfactory, andthe soul of the town throbbed with curiosity to know what had reallyhappened to her. For the first few hours of her return Mrs. Cliff was ina state of heavenly ecstasy. Everything was so tidy, everything was soclean, every face beamed with such genial amity, her native air was sointoxicating, that she seemed to be in a sort of paradise. But when herfriends and neighbors began to ask questions, she felt herself graduallydescending into a region which, for all she knew, might resemblepurgatory.
Of course, there was a great deal that was wonderful and startling torelate, and as Mrs. Cliff was a good story-teller, she thrilled thenerves of her hearers with her descriptions of the tornado at sea and theRackbirds on land, and afterwards filled the eyes of many of the womenwith tears of relief as she told of their escapes, their quiet life atthe caves, and their subsequent rescue by the _Mary Bartlett_. But it wasthe cross-examinations which caused the soul of the narrator to sink. Ofcourse, she had been very careful to avoid all mention of the gold mound,but this omission in her narrative proved to be a defect which she hadnot anticipated. As she had told that she had lost everything except afew effects she had carried with her from the _Castor_, it was naturalenough that people should want to know how she had been enabled to comehome in such good fashion.
They had expected her to return in a shabby, or even needy, condition,and now they had stories of delightful weeks at a hotel in San Francisco,and beheld their poor shipwrecked neighbor dressed more handsomely thanthey had ever seen her, and with a new trunk standing in the lower hallwhich must contain something.
Mrs. Cliff began by telling the truth, and from this course she did notintend to depart. She said that the captain of the _Castor_ was a justand generous man, and, as far as was in his power, he had reimbursed theunfortunate passengers for their losses. But as every one knows therichest steamship companies are seldom so generous to persons who may becast away during transportation as to offer them long sojourns at hotels,with private parlors and private servants, and to send them home indrawing-room cars, with cloaks trimmed with real sealskin, the questionsbecame more and more direct, and all Mrs. Cliff could do was to standwith her back against the captain's generosity, as if it had been a rock,and rely upon it for defence.
But when the neighbors had all gone home, and the trunk had to be opened,so that it could be lightened before being carried up-stairs, the remarksof Willy and Betty cut clean to the soul of the unfortunate possessor ofits contents. Of course, the captain had not actually given her thisthing, and that thing, and the other, or the next one, but he had allowedher a sum of money, and she had expended it according to her owndiscretion. How much that sum of money might have been, Willy and Bettydid not dare to ask,--for there were limits to Mrs. Cliff'sforbearance,--but when they went to bed, they consulted together.
If it had not been for the private parlor and the drawing-room car, theywould have limited Captain Horn's generosity to one hundred dollars. But,under the circumstances, that sum would have been insufficient. It musthave been nearly, if not quite, two hundred. As for Mrs. Cliff, she wentto bed regretting that her reservations had not been more extended, andthat she had not given the gold mound in the cave more company. She hatedprevarications and concealments, but if she must conceal something, sheshould have concealed more. When the time came when she would be free totell of her good fortune, even if it should be no more than she alreadypossessed, then she would explain everything, and proudly demand of herfriends and neighbors to put their fingers on a single untruth that shehad told them.
For the next day or two, Mrs. Cliff's joy in living again in her own homebanished all other feelings, and as she was careful to say nothing toprovoke more questions, and as those which were still asked becameuncertain of aim and scattering, her regrets at her want of reticencebegan to fade. But, no matter what she did, where she went, or what shelooked at, Mrs. Cliff carried about with her a millstone. It did not hangfrom her neck, but it was in her pocket. It was not very heavy, but itwas a burden to her. It was her money--which she wanted to spend, butdared not.
On leaving San Francisco, Edna had wished to give her the full amountwhich the captain had so far sent her, but Mrs. Cliff declined to receivethe whole. She did not see any strong reason to believe that the captainwould ever send any more, and as she had a home, and Ralph and Edna hadnot, she would not take all the money that was due her, feeling that theymight come to need it more than she would. But even with this generousself-denial she found herself in Plainton with a balance of somethousands of dollars in her possession, and as much more in Edna's hands,which the latter had insisted that she would hold subject to order. Whatwould the neighbors think of Captain Horn's abnormal bounteousness ifthey knew this?
With what a yearning, aching heart Mrs. Cliff looked upon the littlepicket-fence which ran across the front of her property! How beautifulthat fence would be with a new coat of paint, and how perfectly well shecould afford it! And there was the little shed that should be over theback door, which would keep the sun from the kitchen in summer, and inwinter the snow. There was this in one room, and that in another. Therewere new dishes which could exist only in her mind. How much domesticgratification there was within her reach, but toward which she
did notdare to stretch out her hand!
There was poor old Mrs. Bradley, who must shortly leave the home in whichshe had lived nearly all her life, because she could no longer afford topay the rent. There had been an attempt to raise enough money bysubscription to give the old lady her home for another year, but this hadnot been very successful. Mrs. Cliff could easily have supplied thedeficit, and it would have given her real pleasure to do so,--for she hadalmost an affection for the old lady,--but when she asked to be allowedto subscribe, she did not dare to give more than one dollar, which wasthe largest sum upon the list, and even then Betty had said that, underthe circumstances, she could not have been expected to give anything.
When she went out into the little barn at the rear of the house, and sawthe empty cow-stable, how she longed for fresh cream, and butter of herown making! And when she gazed upon her little phaeton, which she had notsold because no one wanted it, and reflected that her good, brown horsecould doubtless be bought back for a moderate sum, she almost wished thatshe had come home as poor as people thought she ought to be.
Now and then she ordered something done or spent some money in a way thatexcited the astonishment of Willy Croup--the sharper-witted Betty hadgone home, for, of course, Mrs. Cliff could not be expected to be able toafford her company now. But in attempting to account for theseinconsiderable extravagances, Mrs. Cliff was often obliged to contentherself with admitting that while she had been abroad she might haveacquired some of those habits of prodigality peculiar to our Westerncountry. This might be a sufficient excuse for the new bottom step to theside door, but how could she account for the pair of soft, warmCalifornian blankets which were at the bottom of the trunk, and which shehad not yet taken out even to air?
Matters had gone on in this way for nearly a month,--every day Mrs. Cliffhad thought of some new expenditure which she could well afford, andevery night she wished that she dared to put her money in the town bankand so be relieved from the necessity of thinking so much aboutdoor-locks and window-fastenings,--when there came a letter from Edna,informing her of the captain's safe arrival in Acapulco with the cargo ofguano and gold, and inclosing a draft which first made Mrs. Cliff turnpale, and then compelled her to sit down on the floor and cry. The letterrelated in brief the captain's adventures, and stated his intention ofreturning for the gold.
"To think of it!" softly sobbed Mrs. Cliff, after she had carefullyclosed her bedroom door. "With this and what I am to get, I believe Icould buy the bank, and yet I can only sit here and try to think of someplace to hide this dangerous piece of paper."
The draft was drawn by a San Francisco house upon a Boston bank, and Ednahad suggested that it might be well for Mrs. Cliff to open an account inthe latter city. But the poor lady knew that would never do. Abank-account in Boston would soon become known to the people of Plainton,and what was the use of having an account anywhere if she could not drawfrom it? Edna had not failed to reiterate the necessity of keeping thegold discovery an absolute secret, and every word she said upon thispoint increased Mrs. Cliff's depression.
"If it were only for a fixed time, a month or three months, or even sixmonths," the poor lady said to herself, "I might stand it. It would behard to do without all the things I want, and be afraid even to pay themoney I borrowed to go to South America, but if I knew when the day wascertainly coming when I could hold up my head and let everybody know justwhat I am, and take my proper place in the community, then I might wait.But nobody knows how long it will take the captain to get away with thatgold. He may have to make ever so many voyages. He may meet with wrecks,and dear knows what. It may be years before they are ready to tell me Iam a free woman, and may do what I please with my own. I may die inpoverty, and leave Mr. Cliff's nephews to get all the good of the draftand the money in my trunk up-stairs. I suppose they would think it camefrom Valparaiso, and that I had been hoarding it. It's all very well forEdna. She is going to Europe, where Ralph will be educated, I suppose,and where she can live as she pleases, and nobody will ask her anyquestions, and she need not answer them, if they should. But I must stayhere, in debt, and in actual want of the comforts of life, making believeto pinch and to save, until a sea-captain thousands and thousands ofmiles away shall feel that he is ready to let me put my hand in my pocketand spend my riches."