The great man jingled the change in his pocket. “It’s just this,” he replied. “I realize, of course, that Esther has been here with you, Reliance, so long that you’re about the same as a mother to her. She would miss you—at first, anyhow—and, for the matter of that, I suppose she ought to have a woman to talk to. I never had a girl of my own to bring up, or a boy either, so far as that goes—I wish to God I had—and there are some things a woman can advise her about better than a man. If I didn’t know you had sense, Reliance—as well as the stubbornness of a balky horse—I shouldn’t think of saying what I am going to say. I want you to shut up this house here. It is mine and I can sell it, I guess; or rent it, anyhow. And if I can’t do either I can afford to let it stand empty. Shut it up and come along with Esther to my place. There’s room enough there, too much room. I’ll make a home for you and pay your bills. Yes, and I’ll guarantee you’ll be more comfortable there, and have less care, than you ever had in your life. That’s the other half of my offer. Think it over.”
During this blunt statement of an astonishing proposal the face of Millard Fillmore Clark might have been worth looking at, had any one dreamed of doing such a thing. At first it had expressed eagerness and overwhelming curiosity. Then, when Foster Townsend extended the invitation—or delivered the command, for it was quite as much an order as a request—to his half-sister, the curiosity was superseded by joyful excitement. And now, when the speech from the rocking-chair throne had ended without mention of his own name, or even acknowledgment of his connection with the household, all symptoms of the aforementioned emotions were superseded by those of anxiety and alarmed indignation.
“Here! hold on!” he protested, springing to his feet. “What’s that you’re sayin’, Cap’n Foster? You’re cal’latin’ to take Reliance and—and Esther to—to live along with you and—and—” Reliance lifted a hand. “Ssh!” she said.
“No, I won’t ssh neither! He—he says he wants to—to take you and her away and shut up this house and—and— What about me?” his voice rising to a falsetto. “Where am I goin’? Eh! Who’s goin’ to—”
Townsend, even then, did not take the trouble to turn and look at him, but he did speak over his shoulder. “All right, all right,” he broke in, with careless contempt. “You can come, too. There’ll be a room for you and Varunas can find something for you to do around the stables, I guess. You’ll be looked after, don’t worry. Have to take the tail with the hide, I realize that,” he added, philosophically. “... Well, Esther,” turning to his niece, “how does it sound to you, now you’ve heard the whole of it?”
The girl, thus addressed, looked at him in faltering hesitancy. She turned to her aunt as if seeking the latter’s help in a situation too hopelessly impossible to be met without it.
“Well?” repeated her uncle.
Esther looked at Reliance, but the latter was looking at the captain, not at her. The girl turned back, to meet the searching scrutiny of the eyes beneath the heavy brows. The look in those eyes was not unkindly, in fact, it was the opposite, but she was frightened. This was the man who had quarreled with her father, whose prideful arrogant self-will was responsible, so Eunice Townsend had always declared, for the poverty and privation of their lives since his death. This was the man she had been taught to hate. And now he was bidding her come to live with him! She couldn’t do such a thing—of course she couldn’t—and yet, if her aunt came also, she—even then she was beginning to realize a little of the marvelous possibilities of that invitation.
The look in her uncle’s eyes was still kindly, but insistent. He had asked a question and he was expecting an answer. She must say something. She caught her breath, almost with a sob.
“Oh, oh, I don’t know!” she cried, desperately. “I don’t know! It doesn’t seem as if—but—oh, please don’t ask me—not now! I don’t know what to say.”