CHAPTER XX

THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL

It must be true that the love of money is the root of all evil; the mere possession of it, whether one loves it or not, seems to distract humanity. Sue Ambrose's acclaimed fortune of forty thousand dollars made 'Liphalet miserable; nor did it seem to do Miss Sue herself very much good.

Miss Sue's tastes were naturally simple. She had begun to dress much better than formerly, as soon as she had received the legacy from her anti-suffragist relative. But good clothes on a careful body like Sue Ambrose last a long time. She had seldom renewed her apparel during these past ten years.

There was one gown, a silver-gray poplin, laid away in lavender in her chest that Miss Sue never saw without a tear and a sigh. She had never worn it. It had been purchased immediately on the lawyers having paid over to her the legacy which had made such a difference in her quiet life. She had bought it for a certain occasion, and to her modest surprise that occasion had never arisen.

Miss Sue retained her peace of mind and her sweetness of temper by always being busy. If not about her brother's house and office, then in various good works in the community. As chairman of the Christmas entertainment committee of the Mariner's Chapel she had her hands more than full these days. Doubtless, if 'Liphalet Truitt had followed her lead at this season as he had on similar occasions for the past ten years, he would not have had time to become the misanthrope he now was.

With Cap'n Jonah's aid, having forced Sarah Petty to say that Pearl could help in trimming the chapel for Christmas, Miss Sue hurried away to round up other helpers. She did not see 'Liphalet stubbing up the Shell Road toward home and had no idea, of course, that he had seen her apparently making a personal call on Cap'n Jonah. But she did meet Joe Helmford coming toward the Petty place, and halted him.

"You have time to help our committee, I am sure, Mr. Helmford," she said to the man from the fish hatchery. She explained what was needed and told him the day on which the decorating was to be done.

"I'll be there, Miss Ambrose," the young man said heartily. "You say Pearl--Miss Holden--will help?"

She smiled up at him with such a sweet, shy knowledge of his unintentional revelation, that Joe Helmford's cheeks flooded with sudden red. "You can come over with her," Miss Sue said demurely. "Then you will be sure to be on time."

He murmured an assurance that he would be present, and left her in some confusion. If people were going to discover so easily what he had heretofore denied to himself, he must have a care!

"Am I in love with her--with Pearly?" he asked himself forty times a day. "What is the root of the influence she has with me? Am I so strongly attracted to her just because she is beyond my reach? If she is to be Cap'n Jonah Hand's heir, according to all I hear, she will some day possess a hundred thousand dollars or more."

The Helmfords were a large family, and after his education was given him there was no money in the family exchequer for Joe Helmford. He must earn all he ever expected to have; and for his work as Government expert in ichthyology he was not generously paid.

Had the girl been just what she seemed to be when Helmford first obtained a better understanding of her character and its possibilities for development, he might have safely considered attempting the winning of Pearl Holden. She was a poor girl then and would not expect too much of a young man just beginning to climb the scientific ladder.

But along had come Cap'n Jonah with his phenomenal fortune (phenomenal for this simple community) and if it was understood that Pearl was to benefit largely by the old sea captain's will any man who approached her in a sentimental way would be decried as a fortune hunter. The same situation that confronted 'Liphalet Truitt with Miss Sue faced Joe Helmford, as he supposed, regarding Pearl Holden.

Tom Petty had been unable, in spite of his mother's commands, to keep the story of the strong box from the bank and Cap'n Jonah's securities to himself. He had related with much detail the story of his helping "Uncle Jonah tot up his fortune"--as Cap'n Jonah was quite sure he would despite his warning to the contrary--at the store, and Helmford had been present to hear it all.

It would be too bald a thing, the latter told himself, now, to pay court to a girl who was the accredited heiress of such a fortune. But Joe Helmford fought these thoughts down--would not admit his growing interest in the girl, save at a time like this when Miss Sue's intuition had penetrated his guard.

The repeated story of Cap'n Jonah's fortune buzzed through the neighborhood. It was whispered that there was much treasure in precious stones and hard cash in the box besides the securities. Everybody watched the next day for the return of Perry Baker, the expressman, for the strong box. It was known far and wide that Cap'n Jonah's valuables were to go back to the safety deposit vaults under the Paulmouth National Bank.

When the important Perry drove up the Petty lane he had an ancient sawed-off shotgun on the seat beside him! He was taking no chances, as he frankly admitted to the assembled Petty family.

"A feller axed a lift of me, comin' over from the station this mornin'," he said in a hushed tone. "I didn't know him. Stranger to me. Several suspicious looking characters 'round these parts lately. Make b'lieve they work in the cranberry bogs; but ye can't most always sometimes tell.

"I borried this gun of Sile Peckham. It's loaded to the muzzle with slugs. I reckon on doin' some damage to airy highwayman that tries to hold me up, I vow to man!"

"If it ever goes off at your shoulder, it'll prob'bly kick you across the road," remarked Cap'n Jonah, paying the expressman's fee. "Looks to me as though that gun had busted once, already. That's where Peckham had it strapped--see? You better give it to the highwayman, if you meet any. 'Twill prob'bly do more harm at the tail end than it does at the muzzle."

No one could tell Perry Baker anything he did not want to know. He drove away with the strong box hidden under a blanket in the bottom of his wagon, and the old shotgun lying across his lap.

"Talk about the Wild West," chuckled Helmford to Pearl, "the Wild East--meaning Cape Cod--is wilder! Cardhaven puts it all over Crimson Gulch."

At the Petty house there really was another topic of conversation discussed besides Cap'n Jonah's fortune. The Heaths and the Pettys to whom Sarah had written were coming to stay over Sunday with the branch residing on the Shell Road. They would arrive in two days--Solon Petty and his wife; Enoch Petty and his wife, and the twins, Apollo and Perseus Heath, and their wives. Four couples--and Sarah was just as busy as a hen on a hot griddle (so Orrin said) preparing for the influx of guests.

Cap'n Jonah's being billeted in the front room made the entertainment of the guests possible. Tom and Orrin were relegated to the room the old sea captain had occupied for a few weeks over the kitchen, while Sarah was to sleep on the sitting-room sofa.

For the nonce she would have been glad had Helmford been out of the house. She desired to "eat her cake and have it, too." She wanted the man's board money just as much as ever; but she wished she might put Solon Petty, the member of the Massachusetts Legislature, and his wife in the best bedroom.

Pearl was not required to give up her room. In the first place it was a cramped little chamber behind the attic stairs. And, in addition, Sarah Petty had no intention of giving Cap'n Jonah any further excuse for making the girl his heiress.

Besides, if worse came to worst, and it was necessary for Tom to marry Pearl to keep Cap'n Jonah's fortune in the family, Sarah wished the guests to observe how nicely she treated her daughter-in-law to be.

There was looming an incident, however, that Sarah Petty did not foresee. It was something that was to relieve her of Joe Helmford's presence, whether she wanted him to go or not.

Helmford, no matter what he admitted in secret to himself regarding Pearl, was scrupulously careful to display no extraordinary interest in her before the family. He had ever in his mind the several occasions on which he had observed what he supposed to be the expression of Tom's half-formed attachment for the girl. He could not understand how Pearl could endure the lout; but he knew that here on the Cape the "chief end of woman" is marriage of some kind, no matter what may be the "chief end of man" in the Catechism.

He saw the hypocrisy of the Petty family in the sudden change in their treatment of Pearl. It was to be expected, if she was to be Cap'n Jonah's heir. They loved money more than they loved anything else in the world. It was not strange at all that Tom should try to win Pearl--and the money.

The boarder, however, found it impossible to ignore Pearl or to completely withstand her charm. When they were together he found himself drawn to speak to her and to discuss matters of mutual interest, as he had heretofore. He could not be rude to her.

Unless he actually ran away from her they were bound to be thrown often into each other's company. Pearl had no reason, Helmford supposed, to suspect his secret perturbation. She eagerly conversed with him whenever she could.

Was he in Cap'n Jonah's room playing a game of checkers with the old man and she came in on an errand, Pearl was sure to linger. Cap'n Jonah seemed to encourage her to talk, much as his mind might be given to the intricacies of the game on the board.

At meal time Helmford sat opposite to the girl at table. If he raised his eyes from his plate there were her dark eyes pouring all the sweet sincerity of their gaze into his. They could not stare dumbly at each other without attracting the family's attention.

Did he chance to be in his room when Pearl came to clean it, he could not assume so deep an absorption in his work or study that he did not see her. They had exchanged mutual confidences at such times, and Pearl expected him to respond to her innocent advances.

He could not say to her: "You are going to be rich some day. I am a poor man and may be comparatively poor all my life. I cannot propose marriage to you--even if I wanted to--for fear of what people will say!"

Indeed, not only was the love of money the root of all evil, but it seemed that the very existence of Cap'n Jonah's fortune was to breed trouble for all whom it touched. Was the name, Jonah, after all one to conjure ill luck with?

An incident, however, brought to a conclusion Joe Helmford's uncertainties and Pearl's unfulfilled expectations.

It was prayer and conference-meeting night. Pearl had been to chapel--the sole member of the family who attended the mid-week meeting. She was returning alone along the Shell Road, when Helmford overtook her. A strong, salt-savored gale blew from the sea, and this, getting under her cape, ballooned the garment under such pressure that she was all but carried off her feet.

"To the rescue!" cried Helmford cheerfully, and seized her. She clung to him until the gust was past, and he beat down the voluminous cape, passing one arm around her slight figure to do so.

They stood there for a moment, laughing, Pearl clinging to him and Helmford half embracing her, when a burly figure burst through the hedge right beside the Petty lane.

"Hey, you! I've caught you, ain't I? I've a mind to break every bone in your body, Joe Helmford!"

Helmford wheeled to face Tom Petty. His eyes behind his big glasses sparkled angrily. He had steadied Pearl upon her feet, and now he started for the newcomer.

"You get up to the house, Pearl Holden!" cried the angry Tom. "I'll show this feller what's what. Hangin' 'round you all the time like a pilot fish around a shark. You can see what he wants, all right. He thinks Uncle Jonah is going to will you all his money, and he'd marry you for it. You can bet your sweet life, Pearly, that he'd never look twice at a longshore girl if he didn't think you was goin' to be rich."

"Oh, Tom Petty!" gasped the girl, in horror.

"That's what I say--an' I stick to it," pursued the wildly excited Tom. "And I saw you lettin' him hug you right out here in the road. I'll tell marm. She'll fix _you_ for such actions; and she'll tend to this here Helmford."

The latter flashed a sudden glance at the cowering girl.

"Yes, Miss Pearl," he said, "do go into the house. I am sorry this occurred. But I guarantee another such incident will never happen."

Tom made a dash at him. He had held a club behind his back, which neither Helmford nor the girl had perceived. Helmford ducked and the blow overreached. In coming to close quarters Helmford delivered a swift and able punch which landed solidly on Tom Petty's neck.

The youth went down upon the frozen ground like a felled ox. He was dazed by the collision of the back of his head with the hard earth. Helmford stepped over him and led Pearl away with a firm hand under her elbow. She was sobbing.

The young man felt that there was nothing he could say. After the vulgar accusation Tom Petty had made, he did not know how to address the girl.

So they reached the house without a word being spoken between them. Tom had picked himself up and was following at a distance. Pearl ran up to her room without appearing at all before the family.

Helmford waited in the kitchen with Sarah and Orrin until Tom came in. He had something to say, and he said it at last, and there was snap to it.

"This son of yours," he concluded, particularly addressing Sarah Petty, "is impossible. You abetted him on a previous occasion when you rudely entered my room and spoke as you did to a guest of mine. Now this fellow accuses me of a most vulgar interest in Miss Pearl. These outbreaks, I can plainly see, will occur with more frequency if I remain. You are paid to the end of the week, Mrs. Petty. I will go to-morrow morning."

He waited for no argument, but went up to his room. He spent half the night packing. Before breakfast he was gone, and that afternoon Perry Baker on his usual trip stopped for Mr. Helmford's trunks and boxes.

"He's got board with the Widder Weth'rel and her darters t'other side of Cardhaven," said the gossipy Perry. "Guess you be glad to see the last of him, Sarah, as you say. Them city folks is awful fussy. You've got to cater to 'em a lot, an' a body must be a purty good cook an' housekeeper to suit."

Sarah Petty was almost apoplectic, but she said not a word in reply.