Chapter 24

Immediately after dinner Margaret went to her room, got into a negligé, and sitting down to her writing-desk, began a letter to Walter.

She stated the case of the Leitzel coal lands under the guise of Western gold mines and asked her brother-in-law to give her all possible light on the legality of the case for the benefit of the "grandmother."

"If the laws governing such a case differ greatly in the different states," she wrote, "please give me all the general information on the subject that you can. This is a very important matter to me, Walter, though I can't tell you why; nor can I explain to you why I consult you rather than Daniel on a question of law. The fact is, I am preparing a little surprise for Daniel."

At this point in her letter she paused, resting her elbow on her desk and her head on her hand. "Walter will see right through my disguises and subterfuges," she reflected. "He will understand perfectly what the surprise is that I am preparing for Daniel. And in his reply he will undoubtedly tell me what the law of Pennsylvania is governing such a case as I've outlined. Well," she drearily sighed, "I can't help it if he does see through it, I can't be a party to defrauding that old woman, as I would be if I consented to live here on money that ought to be hers."

She took up her pen again and dipped it into her ink, but the bedroom door opened and Daniel entered.

She looked so pretty in the dainty pink negligé which she wore, and with her abundant dark hair hanging in two heavy braids down her back, that Daniel, despite the coldness which had prevailed at dinner, came to her side, put his bony arm about her shoulders and patted her bare arm.

"Writing to Walter, I see," he remarked; and quickly she covered her letter with a blotter.

"Yes," she answered.

"Glad you are. I've not yet got an answer out of him. Are you, my dear, repenting of your unwifely behaviour and writing to him what I want you to?"

"I'm doing what I consider my wifely duty, yes."

"Good! I knew I'd get my sweet girl back again! Let me see what you've written. All this!" he exclaimed, reaching across the desk to pick up her letter; but Margaret, looking at him in startled amazement, held him off.

"I haven't said you could read my letter, Daniel."

"Do you have secrets from me, Margaret?"

"Do you have any from me, Daniel?"

"That's neither here nor there. Come, let me see your letter, my dear!"

"I don't wish to. Why do you want to?"

"You are writing something to your brother-in-law you don't want me to know about?" he accused her, his narrow gaze piercing her.

Margaret quickly decided to resort to guile.

"Daniel," she smiled upon him, "I'm preparing a little surprise for you."

"A surprise?" he repeated suspiciously.

"Yes. Now, while I am finishing my letter, I want you to do something for me. Will you?"

"What?"

"Is there any way of finding out by telephone or telegraph," she asked, her eyes big and sad, her lips drooping, "whether your poor mother is by this time safe at home? I shan't sleep a wink to-night from worrying over that half-mile walk she had to take after dark!"

"She didn't have to take the half-mile walk. I arranged for that. I gave her a quarter to pay for a 'bus ride from the station to her house and I 'phoned to Abe Schwenck to meet her train with the 'bus. Could I have done more?"

"You really did all that?" she asked, her face lighting up with relief.

"I did all that. So you see I'm not 'cruel' and hard-hearted. I did all that for one who is no relation to me and has no claim on me."

"The claim of gratitude?" Margaret suggested; "or of mere humanity?"

"As for gratitude, haven't we repaid her for her ten years' service for us by our thirty years of taking care of her?"

"Taking care of her?"

"We've never charged her a cent of rent for the only home she has had for thirty years."

"Why wouldn't you let her stay here to-night?"

"Because we don't want to start that kind of thing, or she'd be here on our hands all the time. Once we take her in, we'll never be able to shake her off, and we don't want her."

"I see."

"Of course you see. Now give me a kiss, and promise me you will turn over a new leaf and not be so stubborn about the care of the babies and about Catherine Hamilton and about all the other little matters in which you tease me so that I've got indigestion!" he said fretfully.

"I act only as I must, Daniel," said Margaret sadly. "It gives me worse than indigestion!"

"Look at Hiram's Lizzie! She never antagonizes the girls the way you do!" he complained, genuine anxiety in his voice.

"She doesn't live with them."

"Well, but don't you see that's where we have the advantage over Hiram? They'll get more attached to our children because they'll see more of them. If you acted toward my sisters as you should, as your duty to me and to your children requires that you should, they might leave nearly all they have to our children, giving Hiram's children merely small bequests."

"If I should let them have their way with our babies, they certainly would leave all their money to Hiram's children, for there wouldn't be any babies in this house. They'd kill them off with slow torture."

"Hiram's children haven't died and Lizzie does with them as Jennie and Sadie have always advised her to do."

"Exceptions to every rule," Margaret briefly replied, perfectly willing to shield Lizzie.

"Well," said Daniel emphatically, "you keep up your present injudicious course, and the day will come when your children themselves will reproach you for having deprived them, by your sheer perversity, of what was justly their due."

"I hope to bring them up too well for that."

"And I hope to bring them up to have a little more judgment about money than you have, my dear! Well, I should say so! or they would be ill-prepared to take care of all they will inherit!"

"They will inherit a great deal, will they?" Margaret casually inquired.

"Enough to need some common sense in the management of it."

"Couldn't you spare a little from what they'll inherit to keep that dear old step-mother of yours for her remaining years?"

"Margaret!" said Daniel curtly, "I tell you again I want no interference from you in my family affairs!"

"Well, then, can you, or can you not, afford to give me more than ten dollars a month for pocket money? I find it embarrassing to be out of money so often as I am. It is my right to know what you can afford to let me have."

"If you would keep an account and submit it to me, I could judge better of the justice of your request for more. Ten dollars a month seems to me considerable money for a woman to spend on nothing, for you are not expected to buy your clothing and food with your allowance!"

Margaret, toying with her pen, her eyes downcast, did not answer.

"If I did increase your allowance, it would be just like you to pass it on to my step-mother! Positively, I believe that's what you do want to do with it!"

"You are giving me credit I don't deserve. I was asking for the money for myself. I am so often embarrassed for lack of money. I had to borrow a dollar from Catherine Hamilton yesterday to pay Mrs. Raub for washing my hair. Catherine said she'd collect it from you."

"Jennie and Sadie wash their own heads."

"My hair is so thick I can't dry it myself and, you know, it would be bad for the baby's food if I took cold."

"Adopt the rule which helped to make my success, Margaret: never let yourself get entirely out of money. And, my dear, if you'd do what I ask you to—give me power of attorney—you'd have a little income of your very own. Why, don't you feel under some obligation to do something for me, in return for all I do for you?"

"Have I done nothing for you? I have given you a son and a daughter. Can anything you ever have or ever will do for me cover that debt?"

"Well," Daniel smiled, patting her neck, "you did pretty well by me in that instance, I must admit; and I promise you this: when you can persuade Walter Eastman to do what's fair by you as to Berkeley Hill, I will increase your allowance."

Margaret lifted her eyes, grave and melancholy, to Daniel's face bent smilingly above her. "Catherine Hamilton mentioned yesterday, Daniel, when I was obliged to borrow a dollar from her, that she felt safe in lending it to me as you were a millionaire and your income was twenty times (or fifty, I forget her figures) more than you spent."

"She has no business discussing my finances!"

"She didn't discuss them. She quite casually dropped the remark (which I confess I found rather startling in view of some things) that you were a millionaire and could not begin to spend even a small part of your enormous income. Yet you let your old step-mother suffer and subject me to the embarrassment of borrowing money to pay a hairdresser!"

"It's your own bad management that obliges you to borrow at any time," Daniel coolly returned, not at all disturbed. "And your constant disregard of my wishes, my dear, would justify my cutting off your allowance altogether! But I don't do it, do I? As for Miss Hamilton, she's not the excellent clerk I took her for! She has no sort of business to discuss my income and my expenditures."

"I envy her!" Margaret suddenly cried out passionately. "She is at least independent, self-supporting, not a miserable parasite! I wish I were in her place, working honestly for wages that you would have to pay me, instead of being in the degrading position of having to ask you for money which you refuse me! I'd better have gone and worked in a factory than have done what I did!"

Her face fell on her arms and wild sobs shook her.

"Margaret!" Daniel cried in alarm and distress, his arm about her. "My dear! You'll injure yourself and Daniel Junior, if you do so! Stop going on so! Oh!" he exclaimed, "you've waked the babies with your noise!"

A little cry from the adjoining nursery brought Margaret to her feet. Daniel, infatuated quite humanly with his beautiful babies, followed her eagerly, as, forgetful instantly of her own troubles, she went to minister to her children.