CHAPTER IV

While Lorna Percy was in Susan Redding’s kitchen acting as a witness to the compact that placed Lem Redding in pawn to his aunt for a period that seemed likely to be extended indefinitely, another lady had come down the front stairs, and after greeting the young woman on the front porch, had occupied one of the chairs. This was Miss Henrietta Bates.

“I thought Lorna was here,” she said, as she seated herself. “Did n’t I hear her voice?”

“Miss Susan called her into the kitchen,” said the other. “I think she will be out in a moment.” Miss Henrietta held up an envelope.

“See what I’ve got?” she said, smiling.

“Not another letter from Bill?”

“Just that,” said Henrietta. “And the dearest letter! There’s a part I want to read to you and Lorna. I don’t bore you with my Bill, do I, Gay?”

“Bore? What an idea!”

“Sometimes I’m afraid I do. If it wasn’t that his letters are so intelligent. They don’t seem to me like ordinary love-letters. They don’t seem to you like the common wishy-washy stuff men write, do they?”

“Well, you know I have no experience in love-letters – ”

“Poor Gay!” said Miss Bates, and laughed. “But I do think I’m fortunate in having a man like Bill choose me, don’t you? I do wish he could come East this summer. I wish you and Lorna could meet him. He’s so – so different from the men here.”

The three, who had become close friends, were school teachers, and that was how two of them happened to be boarding at Miss Redding’s, which was an exceptionally pleasant boardinghouse. This was the third year Lorna Percy had boarded with Miss Redding. Miss Bates had a year more to her credit. Gay Loring lived at home, across the street, with her parents.

In their quiet, small-town lives the love-letters of Henrietta’s William Vane had been important events. William was the first and only man to propose to any one of the three, and although Gay and Lorna had never seen him they had seen his portrait and they had heard a vast amount about him. Henrietta spoke of her William Vane most frankly. She was evidently deeply in love with him.

Gay and Lorna were unequivocally glad on Henrietta’s account. Of Gay and Lorna it is enough to say here that they were still young and fresh and attractive. Of Henrietta it may be said that she was no longer quite young, but that she was still fresh and attractive. In many ways she was livelier than her two friends, and had as youthful manners. Although she was at least forty, she had never taken to the type of garb that a woman dons when she is willing to advertise the fact that her youth has fled. Nor had Henrietta Bates any great reason to advertise that. She was still vigorous and bright-eyed, not a gray hair was to be seen on her head, and her face was full and her complexion clear and pleasing.

When Lorna came from the kitchen, bringing young Lem, she noticed immediately the square envelope held by Henrietta.

“What, another?” she exclaimed eagerly. “Henrietta, you are the luckiest girl! What does Billy say this time?”

“I’m going to read part of the letter to you,” said Henrietta. “Sit down and be a good girl and listen. Who is the young man? Isn’t it Lemuel?”

“Yes, mam,” said Lem shyly. “I’m Lem.”

“He is going to live here now, too,” said Lorna gayly, “are n’t you, Lem?”

“Yes, mam.”

“So you see!” said Lorna, seating herself on the steps and drawing Lem down beside her. “You may not be the only one with a sweetheart, Henrietta. Lem is going to be mine, are n’t you, Lem?”

“I don’t know,” said Lem, with a boy’s diffidence.

“Oh, you must not say that. You must say, ‘I’d love to, Miss Percy.’ Only you must say, ‘I’d love to, Lorna.’ My name is Lorna. I’ll call you Lem and you ‘ll call me Lorna. Will you?”

“I don’t care.”

Gay erupted from her chair in a protesting billow of white and seated herself at Lem’s other side.

“Now, I’ll not stand for this at all, Lorna Percy!” she complained. “You shan’t kidnap him all for yourself. I have as much right to him as you have. You’ll be my sweetheart, too, won’t you, Lem?”

“Yes’m, I guess so.”

“There, you mean thing!” Gay laughed at Lorna. “You see! He’s as much mine as he is yours.”

It was pretty play and Lem did not mind it much. He had a boy’s deep-grounded belief that all girls were silly, and these were only older girls.

“In this letter Bill says – ” said Henrietta Bates.

Gay and Lorna turned their heads.

“Oh, excuse me, Henrietta!” Gay cried. “We are truly just crazy to hear what your Bill says, but having a really, truly sweetheart of our own is such a new experience – ”

“Come down on the steps and be comfy,” added Lorna.

“No, I’ll read it here,” said Henrietta, and she opened the letter. “Well – there’s part I can’t read to you – ”

“Of course.”

“And then he says, ‘I thought of you a hundred times while on my fishing trip. Some day you must learn to cast a fly so we can make some of these trips together. You would be the best of companions. And now, dearest girl, I want to ask you the most important question of all. Do you think you can make your preparations so that we can be married in August?’”

“In August!” cried Gay. “I thought it was going to be impossible before next year, Etta?”

“It is a change in his plans,” said Henrietta. “Shall I read the rest?”

“Do, please,” said Gay, and “Yes, indeed,” said Lorna.

“‘I’m asking this, dear,’ he goes on,” said Henrietta, “‘because I have just had most wonderful news. I’m to be sent to Africa. A big job’ – the biggest I ever had. It is wonderful country and I want you to enjoy it with me. It is too far to go without you. So it must be an August wedding because we have to sail in September!’”

“Henrietta! How grand!” Gay cried.

“Isn’t it?” Henrietta agreed. “Africa, girls! Just think of it! Am I not the luckiest thing?”

“Think of it, young Lemuel,” Lorna said.

“Her sweetheart is going to marry her and carry her off to Africa, where the lions are. You see what I shall expect of you, young man. The very least you can do is to get ready to carry me off to Europe.”

“And me to Asia,” said Gay.

Lem said nothing. He knew they were teasing. “And listen to this, girls,” Henrietta continued. “‘You’ll forgive me, Etta dear, for asking you to agree to such an early wedding. I know it is apt to find you unprepared and you must let your crude lover do the unconventional this once. I want you to tell me I can send you a few of my miserable dollars – ten hundred, let us say, so they may be made happy dollars by aiding your preparations.’”

Henrietta folded the letter.

“What do you think of that, Gay?” she asked. “Should I let him? Would it be right?”

“Of course! Why not, under the circumstances?” Gay answered.

“When he asked you to go so far and so soon,” said Lorna.

“I hoped you would say so,” said Henrietta. “I only wanted your approval. You know what it means to me. It will let me use what I have saved – the money I would never touch – and I can pay you both all I owe you, and what I owe Miss Susan. It makes everything so much easier and happier for me. And of course you’ll help me get ready; I’ll have so much to do!”

“As if we were n’t mad to,” said Gay. “You must write him at once, Henrietta; tell him it is all right.”

“I ‘m going right upstairs to do it this minute,” Henrietta answered, and she went into the house, humming happily.

Gay looked at Lorna quizzically. Lorna laughed.

“What do you think of it now?” Gay asked in a low tone. “Did you notice? She would not come down to the step to read the letter.”

“I did notice. And did you see the ink spot on the back of the envelope? The same spot that was on it when she read the last letter from her ‘William’ and the one before that?”

“Yes, I did notice. I’m positive it is the same envelope. I believe you are right; I believe she does write the letters to herself. Is n’t it funny? Is n’t it amazing?”

“Or sad or something?” Lorna said. “Gay, what do you think of it, really? What does it mean?”

“Did she try to borrow some money from you this morning?” Gay asked.

“Yes, twenty-five dollars, but I did not have it.”

“I did have twenty. She got that,” Gay said and giggled.

“Then you’ll see! She’ll get another present from her dear William to-morrow,” Lorna said. “Is n’t it just as I said; every time she borrows from us she gets a present from dear William? You’ll see. It will be something worth about twenty dollars. Say, Gay – ”

“Yes?”

“You know I said I did not believe her William was really engaged to her at all?”

“Yes?”

“Well, I don’t believe there is any William. I don’t believe he exists. I think Henrietta made him up entirely. I believe she invented him.”

“Oh, lovely!” Gay cooed. “Is n’t she wonderful? But why, Lorna? Why should she?”

“That’s what I’ve been wondering. Not just to get money from us, because she uses it to buy the presents she says her William sends. She has no need to buy presents for her William to send. We would believe in her William quite as easily without the presents.”

“Is n’t it exciting?” Gay cooed again.

“Well, I never knew anything like it, I’ll say that,” agreed Lorna. “When you think of the trouble she has gone to, and how she has kept it up. Gay, do you think she has any idea we don’t believe her?”

“Of course not! But isn’t it the strangest thing for anybody to do?”

“I don’t know,” said Lorna thoughtfully. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot since I first had a suspicion, and it is n’t really so strange. You know what Henrietta is like. She loves to shine. She hates to play second fiddle. Do you remember when we first heard of her dear Billy?”

“When she was at Spirit Lake, where she said she met him. She wrote about the engagement from there.”

“Yes,” said Lorna; “and do you remember what was going on here in Riverbank just before she went on vacation?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Don’t tell me you don’t remember how Carter Bruce was rushing you then!” scoffed Lorna. “I remember perfectly well that Henrietta and I agreed you and Carter would be engaged before the summer ended.”

“Oh, Carter Bruce!” admitted Gay. “Of course, he was fussing around. He is always fussing around. Or was.”

“Yes, and we thought he was going to steal you, Gay. Well – that’s the answer!”

“You mean – ”

“Of course! Henrietta just couldn’t stand having you engaged when she was not. So she invented Billy Vane while she was at Spirit Lake, and told us he had gone out to Colorado, where he would be out of the way.”

“But who writes her the letters from Colorado?”

“How do I know? She may have a brother out there. That is easy. She would have dear Bill go wherever there was some one who could write her a letter now and then. And Henrietta does the rest. It is n’t so impossible when you think of it that way, is it? After she had invented dear Bill it was natural enough that she should keep him alive and interested, when we were so interested.”

“Lorna, it is the greatest thing I ever heard of!” exclaimed Gay. “And I think you are a wizard to discover the truth.”

“No, I’m not,” said Lorna. “Just think back, Gay. The strange thing is that we did not hit on it sooner. Think! Can’t you remember a hundred things that should have made us suspicious?”

“Yes,” Gay admitted. “Especially the presents, and the way she borrows just before the presents come.”

“And never letting us see a single letter, and always moving away when we come near her when she is reading them to us, and never getting another photograph from Billy ‘ – and a thousand things.”

“Yes,” said Gay again; and then, “Are you going to do anything about it?”

“Do? No, why should I? If she enjoys it I’m sure we do. Only – we must not lend her any more, if we can help it. There’s no reason why we should lend her our hard-earned money to buy presents for herself with.”

Gay giggled.

“How much does she owe you now?” she asked.

“Almost two hundred.”

“And me over one hundred and fifty! Is n’t it rich?”

“It’s peachy!”

In her own room Henrietta Bates was looking at her comely face reflected in her mirror. She was pleased with it, and she glanced down at the three framed photographs on her dresser. One was the picture of the imaginary William Vane, the others were of her dearest friends – Gay and Lorna. To William’s portrait she gave only a careless glance. She lingered over Gay’s and Lorna’s.

“Stupid dears!” she thought. “So you have found me out? It has taken you long enough, I’m sure. I wonder what next.”