CHAPTER XX.
“ZOSE ANGEL BELLS.”
As soon as the boys had departed, Susan went round the lower part of the house, and shut and fastened all the lower doors and windows. Then leaving the house in charge of Jenny, with injunctions to that young person to lock the back door after her, and not to open it or any other until she returned, the vigilant housekeeper went down to the barn, locked and bolted all the doors there and in the stables, and then walked over to the little house where Joel’s mother lived, and, finding this old woman all right, she came back to the house.
About an hour later, she sat down by the dining-room window to rest a little after her morning’s work. Her reflections were not very pleasant, for her mind was much troubled by the present state of affairs. She knew the want of money, and the threatened legal proceedings, and she was afraid there were other troubles which neither she nor Phil knew anything about. She was always a loyal woman to her employers, and she took a deep interest in this family and its prosperity, but she was very jealous of her own position and prerogatives, and it had been a hard thing for her to change her allegiance from Mr. Godfrey to a mere boy like Phil; but in a moment of excitement she had done it, and now she was glad of it, especially since there was danger of another boy getting at the head of affairs.
She bitterly hated that French boy. True, she had not intended he should be killed when she gave Phil the gun at the time of the quarrel, and she had good reasons for knowing that nothing of the kind would occur, but she wanted to frighten Emile, and was rejoiced to think how thoroughly she had succeeded. It would be a dreadful thing, she thought, for this estate to pass into the hands of those French people. If she had the money, she would gladly pay the interest on the mortgage, or whatever was necessary to save the property, and would have been certain it would be paid back to her.
As for Mr. Godfrey’s going away at such a time, she did not know what to think of it. She had liked him very much ever since as a young man he used to come to visit his father. She believed him to be just and honorable, and she was very much afraid that he must have gone crazy before he could do a thing like this. He was always a very queer person, not at all like other people.
These rather doleful thoughts were interrupted by the sound of wheels, and looking through the half-open Venetian shutters, she saw the grocer’s buggy approaching. When she recognized Emile as the driver, her heart fell within her.
“Why on earth should he come here?” she exclaimed,—“especially to-day.”
She did not go to the front door to receive him, but stayed where she was.
In a few moments the voice of Emile was heard outside, loudly calling for some one to take his horse, but Susan did not move.