She plunged out of the carriage so hastily when she reached the office that she did not think of paying the driver;aud he had to call after her when she had got half-way up the stairs.Then she went straight to Lapham's room, with outrage in her heart.There was again no one there but that type-writer girl; she jumped to her feet in a fright, as Mrs.Lapham dashed the door to behind her and flung up her veil.
The two women confronted each other.
"Why, the good land!" cried Mrs.Lapham, "ain't you Zerrilla Millon?""I--I'm married," faltered the girl "My name's Dewey, now.""You're Jim Millon's daughter, anyway.How long have you been here?""I haven't been here regularly; I've been here off and on ever since last May.""Where's your mother?"
"She's here--in Boston."
Mrs.Lapham kept her eyes on the girl, but she dropped, trembling, into her husband's chair, and a sort of amaze and curiosity were in her voice instead of the fury she had meant to put there.
"The Colonel," continued Zerrilla, "he's been helping us, and he's got me a type-writer, so that I can help myself a little.Mother's doing pretty well now; and when Hen isn't around we can get along.""That your husband?"
"I never wanted to marry him; but he promised to try to get something to do on shore; and mother was all for it, because he had a little property then, and I thought may be I'd better.But it's turned out just as I said and if he don't stay away long enough this time to let me get the divorce,--he's agreed to it, time and again,--Idon't know what we're going to do." Zerrilla's voice fell, and the trouble which she could keep out of her face usually, when she was comfortably warmed and fed and prettily dressed, clouded it in the presence of a sympathetic listener.
"I saw it was you, when you came in the other day,"she went on; "but you didn't seem to know me.I suppose the Colonel's told you that there's a gentleman going to marry me--Mr.Wemmel's his name--as soon as I get the divorce; but sometimes I'm completely discouraged;it don't seem as if I ever could get it."Mrs.Lapham would not let her know that she was ignorant of the fact attributed to her knowledge.
She remained listening to Zerrilla, and piecing out the whole history of her presence there from the facts of the past, and the traits of her husband's character.
One of the things she had always had to fight him about was that idea of his that he was bound to take care of Jim Millon's worthless wife and her child because Millon had got the bullet that was meant for him.It was a perfect superstition of his; she could not beat it out of him;but she had made him promise the last time he had done anything for that woman that it should BE the last time.
He had then got her a little house in one of the fishing ports, where she could take the sailors to board and wash for, and earn an honest living if she would keep straight.
That was five or six years ago, and Mrs.Lapham had heard nothing of Mrs.Millon since; she had heard quite enough of her before; and had known her idle and baddish ever since she was the worst little girl at school in Lumberville, and all through her shameful girlhood, and the married days which she had made so miserable to the poor fellow who had given her his decent name and a chance to behave herself.
Mrs.Lapham had no mercy on Moll Millon, and she had quarrelled often enough with her husband for befriending her.
As for the child, if the mother would put Zerrilla out with some respectable family, that would be ONE thing;but as long as she kept Zerrilla with her, she was against letting her husband do anything for either of them.
He had done ten times as much for them now as he had any need to, and she had made him give her his solemn word that he would do no more.She saw now that she was wrong to make him give it, and that he must have broken it again and again for the reason that he had given when she once scolded him for throwing away his money on that hussy--"When I think of Jim Millon, I've got to; that 's all."She recalled now that whenever she had brought up the subject of Mrs.Millon and her daughter, he had seemed shy of it, and had dropped it with some guess that they were getting along now.She wondered that she had not thought at once of Mrs.Millon when she saw that memorandum about Mrs.M.;but the woman had passed so entirely out of her life, that she had never dreamt of her in connection with it.
Her husband had deceived her, yet her heart was no longer hot against him, but rather tenderly grateful that his deceit was in this sort, and not in that other.
All cruel and shameful doubt of him went out of it.
She looked at this beautiful girl, who had blossomed out of her knowledge since she saw her last, and she knew that she was only a blossomed weed, of the same worthless root as her mother, and saved, if saved, from the same evil destiny, by the good of her father in her;but so far as the girl and her mother were concerned, Mrs.Lapham knew that her husband was to blame for nothing but his wilful, wrong-headed, kind-heartedness, which her own exactions had turned into deceit.She remained a while, questioning the girl quietly about herself and her mother, and then, with a better mind towards Zerrilla, at least, than she had ever had before, she rose up and went out.
There must have been some outer hint of the exhaustion in which the subsidence of her excitement had left her within, for before she had reached the head of the stairs, Corey came towards her.
"Can I be of any use to you, Mrs.Lapham? The Colonel was here just before you came in, on his way to the train.""Yes,--yes.I didn't know--I thought perhaps I could catch him here.But it don't matter.I wish you would let some one go with me to get a carriage," she begged feebly.
"I'll go with you myself," said the young fellow, ignoring the strangeness in her manner.He offered her his arm in the twilight of the staircase, and she was glad to put her trembling hand through it, and keep it there till he helped her into a hack which he found for her.
