CHAPTER LXIII.
THE PRICE OF A BRACELET.
Eva obeyed. Perhaps she was glad to accept the respite which Mrs. Carter offered her. Still her hands trembled as she fastened the tiny bonnet on her head, and covered her face with a veil, with a vain effort to hide all traces of the tears that still welled up to her eyes, spite of all her efforts.
“Come now, let us be off. Just keep cool, and don’t fret yourself into a fever, till we come back,” said Mrs. Carter, kissing Ruth before she went out, “and not a word to the grim—I mean nice old lady in yonder. There, there, no more sobbing—she’ll hear you.”
Bright as a sunbeam, and full of energy, which contrasted with Eva’s mournful lassitude, Mrs. Carter swept through the little yard, and for once defied Battles’ evident ill-temper.
“Drive to Carter’s office,” she said, “and be quick about it. Don’t dare to let the grass grow under them horses’ hoofs, when I’m in the carriage. Get in, my dear; don’t wait for me. There now, we are ever so comfortable—you and I.”
Away went the carriage at full speed, for Battles, not daring to disobey orders entirely, resolved to vent his ill-temper by overdoing them. At another time the sulky coachman might have terrified the good lady within, by the reckless speed with which he crashed into the carts and omnibuses on his way toward Wall Street. As it was, this hidden motive seemed nothing more than prompt obedience.
“Tell Carter to come out; I want to speak to him,” said the lady, when Battles drew up near the office-door, and the footman looked in for orders.
In a few moments, Carter came down the steps, rosy and smiling, his heavy watch-chain swinging loosely down from the pocket of his white vest, and the diamonds in his bosom glistening richly.
“Well, what is it?” he inquired, looking into the carriage, and nodding kindly to Eva. “Brought the article down for me to look at, I suppose. It is of no use; if you like it, that’s enough.”
Mrs. Carter took out her reticule-purse, opened the gold clasp, and took a scrap of paper from it.
“Just cut that in two, and give me half. I’ve changed my mind about the bracelet. It isn’t much of an affair, after all, that is, considering the price asked. I’ve made up my mind to invest in real estate. So, just cut down the check, and let me go.”
Carter laughed till the diamonds in his bosom shook off quick flashes of light.
“Well, this is a new idea. Cut down a check half, because one’s wife is going into real estate! Haven’t made so much money on one job in a week. Here, come along, you fellow.”
Beckoning joyously to the footman, Carter went into his office with the check in his hand. Directly the servant came out with the abridged paper neatly folded, which Mrs. Carter put into her purse, and gave another order regarding the route her carriage was to take on its way home. The good woman got out once or twice, leaving Eva alone, and at last came from a lawyer’s office with a folded paper in her hand, which was hurried into her pocket, when she saw Eva looking at it.
Once more Battles drew up his horses at Mrs. Laurence’s gate, and with his heavy face clouded with disgust, waited gloomily for his mistress to go into that shanty, as he was pleased to call it.
Mrs. Carter, oblivious of her servant’s discontent, bustled out of her carriage. She almost lifted Eva to the ground, and opened the gate for herself, absolutely pushing the footman on one side, and bursting her delicate mauve glove in the operation.
“Now, my dears, you can call that mother of yours! Don’t stop to take off your bonnet, Eva, but bring her in. That’s right. Here she comes, looking as if she expected a policeman. Mrs. Laurence, my dear neighbor, my darling good woman! here is something for you; just a trifle—a little mite of a present. Take it, and chuck it, neck and heels, into the hottest corner of your cooking-stove.”
Mrs. Laurence took the paper in her hand, looked at the indorsement, looked at Mrs. Carter. The color flushed into her face; tears, that imprisonment and wrong had failed to wring from her, came, drop by drop, into her hard eyes.
“Why, why this is the mortgage!” she said. “The old mortgage, that was eating up everything!”
“Exactly. Put it in the stove, and never think of it again. It is mine, and I give it to you for a nice little bonfire. Eva, dear, come and kiss me. Ruthie, why what are you crying for, child?”
Down by the invalid’s couch Mrs. Carter sank upon her knees, folded her arms around the startled girl, and began to sob like a great warm-hearted baby, as she was—God bless her!
After a little she lifted her face, all wet and smiling, like a full-blown rose, with rain trembling on it, and got up, ashamed of her own goodness, and the emotion that sprung out of it.
“You see I always was such a goose—crying when I ought to laugh, and hard as a rock when I ought to cry. Don’t let anybody know that you ever saw me like this. But I tell you, girls, it isn’t every day that one can get so much joy out of a trumpery bracelet, and save half the price too. You have no idea how much money that old paper has saved for Carter. I’ll be bound he’s chuckling over it yet.”