Chapter XVI
Lady-Like!
AS I looks back on it now, after the passing of two weeks or so, it seems to me I never traveled so fast and covered so much ground in all my born days as I did on the next day following immediately along after this here night before. For awhile you just naturally couldn't see me for the dust.
In the first place, right after breakfast-time, I glides out and I scoots up-town and I puts up ten dollars for security and thereby I borrows the loan of one of his extra spare revolvers off of a yellow-complected person named Snake-Eye Jamison, which it is his habit to go round the colored districts recommending himself as the coroner's friend and acting very gunnery towards parties that he gets dissatisfied with. I don't know how many folkses he's killed in his life, but he must bury his dead where they falls, because I ain't never had none of the gravestones pointed out to me. But, anyway, he goes heeled on both hips at all times. But I makes him onload her before he turns her over to me, because I is not taking no chances on having that thing going off accidental and maybe crippling somebody. I totes this here large and poisonous-looking chunk of dark-blue hardware back to the apartment and stores it in a safe place where I can put my hand upon it on short notices.
Then I waits till Mr. Dallas is in the bathroom with the water running so as to hide the sound of my voice, and I goes to the telephone and I calls up Miss Bill-Lee's[3] number over on Riverside Drive.
She must've rose early so as to have her complexion laid on so it'll get set good before she goes out for the day; because it's her which answers my call instead of the maid. I tells her it's me on the wire and I asks her, as a special favor, can I run over to her flat as soon as it's agreeable, to speak to her on a very important matter? She says yes, so eager-like it must be she's expecting I'm fetching a present from Mr. Dallas same as I has done quite often before this. She says I can come at ten o'clock.
Ten o'clock and I'm at the door. She's in her sitting-room waiting for me. She looks sort of disappointed when she sees I ain't brought along no flowers nor no candy nor no jewelry-box nor nothing with me; but she welcomes me very kindly. I don't lose no time getting going.
"Miss DeWitt," I says, making my voice as winning as I can, "now 'at you an' Mr. Dallas is fixin' to git married to one 'nother I been wonderin' 'bout what's goin' become of me in the shuffle. I 'preciates 'at he laks me fuss-rate; but he idolizes you so deeply 'at I knows he wouldn't keep on keepin' me nur nobody else round him widout he wuz shore 'at you laked 'em, too. Tha's what's been worryin' me—the question whether you felt disposed agreeable to me? An' so, after broodin' over the matter fur goin' on it's nearly a week, I finally has tuck the liberty of comin' to speak to you 'bout it. Yassum!"
"Jefferson," she says kind of indifferent and yet not hostile, "I have nothing against you—in fact I rather like you. If your services are satisfactory to Dallas I shall have not the slightest objection to his keeping you on as his servant."
"Thanky, ma'am," I says, "hearin' you say 'at frum yore own lips su'ttinly teks a big load offen my mind. I strives ever to please. 'Sides, I got a mighty winnin' way wid chillen. I'll come in handy w'en it comes to he'pin' out wid the nursin' an' all lak 'at."
She sets up straight from where she's been kind of half-laying down and some of that chain-gang jewelry of hers gives a brisk rattle.
"Children!" she says, plenty startled. "What in the world are you talking about?"
I answers back like I'm expecting of course she'll understand.
"W'y," I says, "the chillen w'ich enshores 'at Mr. Dallas don't lose out none in the final cuttin' up of the estate," I says.
By now she's rose bolt upright on her feet. All that languidsome manner is fled from her, and her voice is sharper than what I ever has heard it before.
"What's that?" she says, quite snappy. "What's that you are saying? Do you mean to tell me that Dallas has been married before—that he has a child, or more than one child, hidden away somewhere?"
"Oh, nome," I says, very soothing, "nuthin' lak 'at. 'Course Mr. Dallas ain't never been married—up 'twell now he's practically been heart-whole an' fancy-free. Yassum! I wuz merely speakin'—ef you'll please, ma'am, 'scuse me—of the chillen, w'ich natchelly 'll be comin' long ez purvided fur onder the terms of the ole gen'elman's will, you know. Tha's all I meant."
"Will!" she says. "What will? Whose will? Here, you, give me the straight of this thing! I haven't the faintest idea what it's all about."
"Now!" I says, acting like I'm overcome with a sudden great regret. "Ain't that jes' lak me, puttin' my big foot in it, gabblin' 'bout somethin' w'ich it ain't none of my affairs? Most doubtless, Mr. Dallas, he's been savin' it all up ez a happy surprise fur you. An' now, in my innocence an' my ign'ence, I starts blabbin' it fo'th unbeknowst. Lemme git out of yere, please ma'am, 'fore I gits myse'f in any deeper 'en whut already I is in!"
She comes sailing across the floor right at me. Them big floating black eyes of hers seems to get smaller and sharper until they bores into me the same as a pair of sharp gimblets.
"You stay right where you are," she says, commanding as a major's-general. "You don't leave this room until I get this mystery straightened out."
"Please, ma'am, I'd a heap ruther you spoke to Mr. Dallas 'bout it," I says, pretending to be pleading hard. "No doubt in due time he'll confide to you all 'bout the way the property is tied up an' 'bout his paw's views ez 'spressed in the will, an' also 'bout the way the matter stands betwixt him an' his twin brother, Mr. Clarence, an' all the rest of it."
"Twin brother!" she says, and by now she's been jolted so hard she's mighty near to the screeching point. "Where is this twin brother? I never heard of him—never dreamed there was such a person. Say, are you crazy or am I?"
"W'ich 'at do settle it!" I says, very lamentful. "Ef Mr. Dallas ain't told you 'bout his twin brother neither, it suttinly is a shore sign to me 'at he wuz aimin' to purserve ever'thing ez a precious secret frum you fur the time bein'. I 'spects he'll jest more'n snatch me ball-haided fur this, Miss DeWitt. Please, ma'am, don't say nothin' to him 'bout my havin' give you the tip, will you?"
"I don't want tips," she says, "I want facts. And I'm going to have them here and now—and from you! If you want to get out of here with a whole skin you'll quit your vague mumblings about wills and children and estates and twin brothers that I never heard of before, and you'll tell me in plain words the entire story, whatever it is, that has been held back from me so carefully. You tell it beginning to end!"
"Yassum," I says, "jest ez you wishes, ma'am." I tries to make my voice sound like I'm scared half to death, which it don't call for no great amount of putting-on on my part neither, because she has done shed all her laziness and all her silkiness and all her smoothness same as a blue-racer sheds his skin in the spring of the year, and she's done bared her real het-up dangersome self before me. "Jest ez you wishes," I says, "only I do trus' an' pray at you'll purtec' me frum Mr. Dallases' wrath w'en he finds out I done spilt ever'thin' so premanture-lak."
"Forget it!" she says. "It strikes me I'm the one who needs protection if anybody does. Now, without any more dodging or ducking you give me the truth, understand? No original embroidery of your own, either—the cold truth, all of it! And if I find out afterwards that you've been holding back a single detail from me——!"
With that she stops short and pins me with them eyes of hers. I can't hardly keep from flinching back from before her. If she was a hornet it'd be high time to start one of the hands off to the nearest drugstore after the soothing ointments, because somebody certainly would be due to get all stung up. Rejoiceful though I is inside of me to see how nice she's grabbed at all the hints which I has flung out to her like fishing-baits, one after another, I'd be almost as glad if I was outside that room talking to her through the keyhole. But it's shore dependent on me to set easy and keep on play-acting and not make no slips. Things is going well, but they has got to go still better yet if she's to swallow down the main dose.