CHAPTER XV

“Let us be calm,” said Uncle Benjamin. “Let us be perfectly calm.”

“Calm!” Mrs. Frederick wrung her hands. “How can I be calm—how could anybody be calm under such a disgrace as this?”

“Why in the world did you let her go?” asked Uncle James.

“Let her! How could I stop her, James? It seems she packed the big valise and sent it away with Roaring Abel when he went home after supper, while Christine and I were out in the kitchen. Then Doss herself came down with her little satchel, dressed in her green serge suit. I felt a terrible premonition. I can’t tell you how it was, but I seemed to know that Doss was going to do something dreadful.”

“It’s a pity you couldn’t have had your premonition a little sooner,” said Uncle Benjamin drily.

“I said, ‘Doss, where are you going?’ and she said, ‘I am going to look for my Blue Castle.’”

“Wouldn’t you think that would convince Marsh that her mind is affected?” interjected Uncle James.

“And I said, ‘Valancy, what do you mean?’ And she said, ‘I am going to keep house for Roaring Abel and nurse Cissy. He will pay me thirty dollars a month.’ I wonder I didn’t drop dead on the spot.”

“You shouldn’t have let her go—you shouldn’t have let her out of the house,” said Uncle James. “You should have locked the door—anything——”

“She was between me and the front door. And you can’t realise how determined she was. She was like a rock. That’s the strangest thing of all about her. She used to be so good and obedient, and now she’s neither to hold nor bind. But I said everything I could think of to bring her to her senses. I asked her if she had no regard for her reputation. I said to her solemnly, ‘Doss, when a woman’s reputation is once smirched nothing can ever make it spotless again. Your character will be gone for ever if you go to Roaring Abel’s to wait on a bad girl like Sis Gay.’ And she said, ‘I don’t believe Cissy was a bad girl, but I don’t care if she was.’ Those were her very words, ‘I don’t care if she was.’”

“She has lost all sense of decency,” exploded Uncle Benjamin.

“‘Cissy Gay is dying,’ she said, ‘and it’s a shame and disgrace that she is dying in a Christian community with no one to do anything for her. Whatever she’s been or done, she’s a human being.’”

“Well, you know, when it comes to that, I suppose she is,” said Uncle James with the air of one making a splendid concession.

“I asked Doss if she had no regard for appearances. She said, ‘I’ve been keeping up appearances all my life. Now I’m going in for realities. Appearances can go hang!’ Go hang!”

“An outrageous thing!” said Uncle Benjamin violently. “An outrageous thing!”

Which relieved his feelings, but didn’t help any one else.

Mrs. Frederick wept. Cousin Stickles took up the refrain between her moans of despair.

“I told her—we both told her—that Roaring Abel had certainly killed his wife in one of his drunken rages and would kill her. She laughed and said, ‘I’m not afraid of Roaring Abel. He won’t kill me, and he’s too old for me to be afraid of his gallantries.’ What did she mean? What are gallantries?”

Mrs. Frederick saw that she must stop crying if she wanted to regain control of the conversation.

“I said to her, ‘Valancy, if you have no regard for your own reputation and your family’s standing, have you none for my feelings?’ She said, ‘None.’ Just like that, ‘None!’”

“Insane people never do have any regard for other people’s feelings,” said Uncle Benjamin. “That’s one of the symptoms.”

“I broke out into tears then, and she said, ‘Come now, Mother, be a good sport. I’m going to do an act of Christian charity, and as for the damage it will do my reputation, why, you know I haven’t any matrimonial chances anyhow, so what does it matter?’ And with that she turned and went out.”

“The last words I said to her,” said Cousin Stickles pathetically, “were, ‘Who will rub my back at nights now?’ And she said—she said—but no, I cannot repeat it.”

“Nonsense,” said Uncle Benjamin. “Out with it. This is no time to be squeamish.”

“She said”—Cousin Stickles’ voice was little more than a whisper—“she said—‘Oh, darn!’”

“To think I should have lived to hear my daughter swearing!” sobbed Mrs. Frederick.

“It—it was only imitation swearing,” faltered Cousin Stickles, desirous of smoothing things over now that the worst was out. But she had never told about the bannister.

“It will be only a step from that to real swearing,” said Uncle James sternly.

“The worst of this”—Mrs. Frederick hunted for a dry spot on her handkerchief—“is that every one will know now that she is deranged. We can’t keep it a secret any longer. Oh, I cannot bear it!”

“You should have been stricter with her when she was young,” said Uncle Benjamin.

“I don’t see how I could have been,” said Mrs. Frederick—truthfully enough.

“The worst feature of the case is that that Snaith scoundrel is always hanging around Roaring Abel’s,” said Uncle James. “I shall be thankful if nothing worse comes of this mad freak than a few weeks at Roaring Abel’s. Cissy Gay can’t live much longer.”

“And she didn’t even take her flannel petticoat!” lamented Cousin Stickles.

“I’ll see Ambrose Marsh again about this,” said Uncle Benjamin—meaning Valancy, not the flannel petticoat.

“I’ll see Lawyer Ferguson,” said Uncle James.

“Meanwhile,” added Uncle Benjamin, “let us be calm.”