Robert Barr - A Rock in the Baltic

“Katherine,” chided her mother, “don’t talk like that.”

“Of course, where more money is in the question, kindness does not count,” snapped the elder daughter.

Dorothy Amhurst smiled when Sabina mentioned the word kindness.

“With me, of course, it’s entirely a question of money,” she admitted.

“Dorothy, I never thought it of you,” said Katherine, with an exaggerated sigh. “I wish it were a fancy dress ball, then I’d borrow my brother Jack’s uniform, and go in that.”

“Katherine, I’m shocked at you,” complained the mother.

“I don’t care: I’d make a stunning little naval cadet. But, Dorothy, you must be starved to death; you’ve never touched your lunch.”

“You seem to have forgotten everything to-day,” said Sabina severely. “Duty and everything else.”

“You are quite right,” murmured Dorothy.

“And did you elope with the captain of the ‘Consternation,’ and were you married secretly, and was it before a justice of the peace? Do tell us all about it.”

“What are you saying?” asked Dorothy, with a momentary alarm coming into her eyes.

“Oh, I was just telling mother and Sab that you had skipped by the light of the noon, with the captain of the ‘Consternation,’ who was a jolly old bachelor last night, but may be a married man to-day if my suspicions are correct. Oh, Dorothy, must I go to the ball in a dress of print?”

The sewing girl bent an affectionate look on the impulsive Katherine.

“Kate, dear,” she said, “you shall wear the grandest ball dress that ever was seen in Bar Harbor.”

“How dare you call my sister Kate, and talk such nonsense?” demanded Sabina.

“I shall always call you Miss Kempt, and now, if I have your permission, I will sit down. I am tired.”

“Yes, and hungry, too,” cried Katherine. “What shall I get you, Dorothy? This is all cold.”

“Thank you, I am not in the least hungry.”

“Wouldn’t you like a cup of tea?”

Dorothy laughed a little wearily.

“Yes, I would,” she said, “and some bread and butter.”

“And cake, too,” suggested Katherine.

“And cake, too, if you please.”

Katherine skipped off downstairs.

“Well, I declare!” ejaculated Sabina with a gasp, drawing herself together, as if the bottom had fallen out of the social fabric.

Mrs. Captain Kempt folded her hands one over the other and put on a look of patient resignation, as one who finds all the old landmarks swept away from before her.

“Is there anything else we can get for you?” asked Sabina icily.

“Yes,” replied Dorothy, with serene confidence, “I should be very much obliged if Captain Kempt would obtain for me a card of invitation to the ball on the ‘Consternation.’”

“Really!” gasped Sabina, “and may not my mother supplement my father’s efforts by providing you with a ball dress for the occasion?”

“I could not think of troubling her, Miss Kempt. Some of my customers have flattered me by saying that my taste in dress is artistic, and that my designs, if better known, might almost set a fashion in a small way, so I shall look after my costume myself; but if Mrs. Captain Kempt were kind enough to allow me to attend the ball under her care, I should be very grateful for it.”

“How admirable! And is there nothing that I can do to forward your ambitions, Miss Amhurst?”

“I am going to the ball merely as a looker-on, and perhaps you might smile at me as you pass by with your different partners, so that people would say I was an acquaintance of yours.”

After this there was silence in the sewing room until Katherine, followed by a maid, entered with tea and cakes. Some dress materials that rested on a gypsy table were swept aside by the impulsive Katherine, and the table, with the tray upon it, was placed at the right hand of Dorothy Amhurst. When the servant left the room, Katherine sidled to the long sewing table, sprang up lightly upon it, and sat there swinging a dainty little foot. Sabina had seated herself in the third chair of the room, the frown still adding severity to an otherwise beautiful countenance. It was the younger daughter who spoke.

“Now, Dorothy, tell us all about the elopement.”

“What elopement?”

“I soothed my mother’s fears by telling her that you had eloped with the captain of the ‘Consternation.’ I must have been wrong in that guess, because if the secret marriage I hoped had taken place, you would have said to Sabina that the shackles were on your wrists instead of off. But something important has happened, and I want to know all about it.”

Dorothy made no response to this appeal, and 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.

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.”