A Rock in the Baltic by Robert Barr (free romance novels TXT) 📖

after a minute's silence Sabina said practically:

"All that has happened is that Miss Amhurst wishes father to present her with a ticket to the ball on the 'Consternation,' and taking that for granted, she requests mother to chaperon her, and further expresses a desire that I shall be exceedingly polite to her while we are on board the cruiser."

"Oh," cried Katherine jauntily, "the last proviso is past praying for, but the other two are quite feasible. I'd be delighted to chaperon Dorothy myself, and as for politeness, good gracious, I'll be polite enough to make up for all the courteous deficiency of the rest of the family.

'For I hold that on the seas, The expression if you please A particularly gentlemanly tone implants, And so do his sisters and his cousins and his aunts.'

Now, Dorothy, don't be bashful. Here's your sister and your cousin and your aunt waiting for the horrifying revelation. What has happened?"

"I'll tell you what is going to happen, Kate," said the girl, smiling at the way the other ran on. "Mrs. Captain Kempt will perhaps consent to take you and me to New York or Boston, where we will put up at the best hotel, and trick ourselves out in ball costumes that will be the envy of Bar Harbor. I shall pay the expense of this trip as partial return for your father's kindness in getting me an invitation and your mother's kindness in allowing me to be one of your party."

"Oh, then it isn't an elopement, but a legacy. Has the wicked but wealthy relative died?"

"Yes," said Dorothy solemnly, her eyes on the floor.

"Oh, I am so sorry for what I have just said!"

"You always speak without thinking," chided her mother.

"Yes, don't I? But, you see, I thought somehow that Dorothy had no relatives; but if she had one who was wealthy, and who allowed her to slave at sewing, then I say he was wicked, dead or alive, so there!"

"When work is paid for it is not slavery," commented Sabina with severity and justice.

The sewing girl looked up at her.

"My grandfather, in Virginia, owned slaves before the war, and I have often thought that any curse which may have been attached to slavery has at least partly been expiated by me, as foreshadowed in the Bible, where it says that the sins of the fathers shall affect the third or fourth generations. I was thinking of that when I spoke of the shackles falling from my wrists, for sometimes, Miss Kempt, you have made me doubt whether wages and slavery are as incompatible as you appear to imagine. My father, who was a clergyman, often spoke to me of his father's slaves, and while he never defended the institution, I think the past in his mind was softened by a glamor that possibly obscured the defects of life on the plantation. But often in depression and loneliness I have thought I would rather have been one of my grandfather's slaves than endure the life I have been called upon to lead."

"Oh, Dorothy, don't talk like that, or you'll make me cry," pleaded Kate. "Let us be cheerful whatever happens. Tell us about the money. Begin 'Once upon a time,' and then everything will be all right. No matter how harrowing such a story begins, it always ends with lashin's and lashin's of money, or else with a prince in a gorgeous uniform and gold lace, and you get the half of his kingdom. Do go on."

Dorothy looked up at her impatient friend, and a radiant cheerfulness chased away the gathering shadows from her face.

"Well, once upon a time I lived very happily with my father in a little rectory in a little town near the Hudson River. His family had been ruined by the war, and when the plantation was sold, or allowed to go derelict, whatever money came from it went to his elder and only brother. My father was a dreamy scholar and not a business man as his brother seems to have been. My mother had died when I was a child; I do not remember her. My father was the kindest and most patient of men, and all I know he taught me. We were very poor, and I undertook the duties of housekeeper, which I performed as well as I was able, constantly learning by my failures. But my father was so indifferent to material comforts that there were never any reproaches. He taught me all that I know in the way of what you might call accomplishments, and they were of a strangely varied order-- a smattering of Latin and Greek, a good deal of French, history, literature, and even dancing, as well as music, for he was an excellent musician. Our meager income ceased with my father's life, and I had to choose what I should do to earn my board and keep, like Orphant Annie, in Whitcomb Riley's poem. There appeared to be three avenues open to me. I could be a governess, domestic servant, or dressmaker. I had already earned something at the latter occupation, and I thought if I could set up in business for myself, there was a greater chance of gaining an independence along that line than either as a governess or servant. But to do this I needed at least a little capital.

"Although there had been no communication between the two brothers for many years, I had my uncle's address, and I wrote acquainting him with the fact of my father's death, and asking for some assistance to set up in business for myself, promising to repay the amount advanced with interest as soon as I was able, for although my father had never said anything against his elder brother, I somehow had divined, rather than knew, that he was a hard man, and his answering letter gave proof of that, for it contained no expression of regret for his brother's death. My uncle declined to make the advance I asked for, saying that many years before he had given my father two hundred dollars which had never been repaid. I was thus compelled, for the time at least, to give up my plan for opening a dressmaking establishment, even on the smallest scale, and was obliged to take a situation similar to that which I hold here. In three years I was able to save the two hundred dollars, which I sent to my uncle, and promised to remit the interest if he would tell me the age of the debt. He replied giving the information, and enclosing a receipt for the principal, with a very correct mathematical statement of the amount of interest if compounded annually, as was his legal right, but expressing his readiness to accept simple interest, and give me a receipt in full."

"The brute!" ejaculated Katherine, which remark brought upon her a mild rebuke from her mother on intemperance of language.

"Well, go on," said Katherine, unabashed.

"I merely mention this detail," continued Dorothy, "as an object lesson in honesty. Never before since the world began was there such a case of casting bread upon the waters as was my sending the two hundred dollars. My uncle appears to have been a most methodical man. He filed away my letter which contained the money, also a typewritten copy of his reply, and when he died, it was these documents which turned the attention of the legal arm who acted for him to myself, for my uncle had left no will. The Californian firm communicated with lawyers in New York, and they began a series of very cautious inquiries, which at last resulted, after I had furnished certain proofs asked for, in my being declared heiress to my uncle's estate."

"And how much did you get? How much did you get?" demanded Katherine.

"I asked the lawyers from New York to deposit ten thousand dollars for me in the Sixth National Bank of this town, and they did so. It was to draw a little check against that deposit, and thus learn if it was real, that I went out to-day."

"Ten thousand dollars," murmured Katherine, in accents of deep disappointment. "Is that all?"

"Isn't that enough?" asked Dorothy, with a twinkle in her eyes.

"No, you deserve ten times as much, and I'm not going to New York or Boston at your expense to buy new dresses. Not likely! I will attend the ball in my calico."

Dorothy laughed quietly, and drew from the little satchel she wore at her side a letter, which she handed to Katherine.

"It's private and confidential," she warned her friend.

"Oh, I won't tell any one," said Katherine, unfolding it. She read eagerly half-way down the page, then sprang to her feet on the top of the table, screaming:

"Fifteen million dollars! Fifteen million dollars!" and, swinging her arms back and forth like an athlete about to leap, sprang to the floor, nearly upsetting the little table, tray and all, as she embraced Dorothy Amhurst.

"Fifteen millions! That's something like! Why, mother, do you realize that we have under our roof one of the richest young women in the world? Don't you see that the rest of this conference must take place in our drawing-room under the most solemn auspices? The idea of our keeping such an heiress in the attic!"

"I believe," said Sabina, slowly and coldly, "that Mr. Rockefeller's income is--"

"Oh, blow Mr. Rockefeller and his income!" cried the indignant younger sister.

"Katherine!" pleaded the mother tearfully.


CHAPTER III


ON DECK

THROUGHOUT the long summer day a gentle excitement had fluttered the hearts of those ladies, young, or not so young, who had received invitations to the ball on board the "Consternation" that night. The last touches were given to creations on which had been spent skill, taste, and money. Our three young women, being most tastefully and fashionably attired, were in high spirits, which state of feeling was exhibited according to the nature of each; Sabina rather stately in her exaltation; Dorothy quiet and demure; while Katherine, despite her mother's supplications, would not be kept quiet, but swung her graceful gown this way and that, practising the slide of a waltz, and quoting W. R. Gilbert, as was her custom. She glided over the floor in rhythm with her chant.


"When I first put this uniform on
I said, as I looked in the glass,
'It's one to a million
That any civilian
My figure and form will surpass.'"


Meanwhile, in a room downstairs that good-natured veteran Captain Kempt was telling the latest stories to his future son-in-law, a young officer of the American Navy, who awaited, with dutiful impatience, the advent of the serene Sabina. When at last the ladies came down the party set out through the gathering darkness of this heavenly summer night for the private pier from which they were privileged, because of Captain Kempt's official standing, to voyage to the cruiser on the little revenue cutter "Whip-poor-will," which was later on to convey the Secretary of the Navy and his entourage across the same intervening waters. Just before they reached the pier their steps were arrested by the boom of a cannon, followed instantly by the sudden apparition of the "Consternation" picked out in electric light; masts, funnel and hull all outlined by incandescent stars.

"How beautiful!" cried Sabina, whose young man stood beside her. "It is as if a gigantic racket,