Only an Irish Boy Andy Burke's Fortunes

CHAPTER XXXII MRS. PRESTON'S REVENGE

Andy Burke was pass­ing the house of Mrs. Pre­ston, with­in a month af­ter Colonel Pre­ston's death, when God­frey, who had not gone back to board­ing school, showed him­self at the front door.

“Come here!” said God­frey, in an im­pe­ri­ous tone.

Andy turned his head, and paused.

“Who are you talk­ing to?” he asked.

“To you, to be sure.”

“What's want­ed?”

“My moth­er wants to see you.”

“All right; I'll come in.”

“You can go around to the back door,” said God­frey, who seemed to find plea­sure in mak­ing him­self dis­agree­able.

“I know I can, but I don't mean to,” said Andy, walk­ing up to the front en­trance, where God­frey was stand­ing.

“The back door is good enough for you,” said the oth­er, of­fen­sive­ly.

“I shouldn't mind go­ing to it if you hadn't asked me,” said Andy. “Just move away, will you?”

God­frey did not stir.

“Very well,” said Andy, turn­ing; “tell your moth­er you would not let me in.”

“Come in, if you want to,” said God­frey, at length, mov­ing aside.

“I don't care much about it. I on­ly came to oblige your moth­er.”

“Maybe you won't like what she has to say,” said God­frey, with a dis­agree­able smile.

“I'll soon know,” said Andy.

He en­tered the house, and God­frey called up­stairs: “Moth­er, the Burke boy is here.”

“I'll be down di­rect­ly,” was the an­swer. “He can sit down.”

Andy sat down on a chair in the hall, not re­ceiv­ing an in­vi­ta­tion to en­ter the sit­ting-​room, and wait­ed for Mrs. Pre­ston to ap­pear. He won­dered a lit­tle what she want­ed with him, but thought it like­ly that she had some er­rand or ser­vice in which she wished to em­ploy him. He did not know the ex­tent of her dis­like for him and his moth­er.

Af­ter a while Mrs. Pre­ston came down­stairs. She was dressed in black, but showed no oth­er mark of sor­row for the loss of her hus­band. In­deed, she was look­ing in bet­ter health than usu­al.

“You can come in­to the sit­ting-​room,” she said, cold­ly.

Andy fol­lowed her, and so did God­frey, who felt a ma­li­cious plea­sure in hear­ing what he knew be­fore­hand his moth­er in­tend­ed to say.

“I be­lieve your name is An­drew?” she com­menced.

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Your moth­er oc­cu­pies a house be­long­ing to my late hus­band.”

“Yes, ma'am,” an­swered Andy, who now be­gan to guess at the ob­ject of the in­ter­view.

“I find, by ex­am­in­ing my hus­band's pa­pers, that she has paid no rent for the last six months.”

“That's true,” said Andy. “She of­fered to pay it, but Colonel Pre­ston told her he didn't want no rent from her. He said she could have it for noth­ing.”

“That's a like­ly sto­ry,” said God­frey, with a sneer.

“It's a true sto­ry,” said Andy, in a firm voice, steadi­ly ey­ing his young an­tag­onist.

“This may be true, or it may not be true,” said Mrs. Pre­ston, cold­ly. “If true, I sup­pose my hus­band gave your moth­er a pa­per of some kind, agree­ing to let her have the house rent-​free.”

“She hasn't got any pa­per,” said Andy.

“I thought not,” said God­frey, sneer­ing. “You for­got to write her one.”

“Be qui­et, God­frey,” said his moth­er. “I pre­fer to man­age this mat­ter my­self. Then, your moth­er has no pa­per to show in proof of what you as­sert?”

“No, ma'am. The colonel didn't think it was nec­es­sary. He just told my moth­er, when she first came with the rent, that she needn't trou­ble her­self to come again on that er­rand. He said that she had nursed him when he was sick with the small­pox, and he'd nev­er for­get it, and that he'd bought the house ex­press­ly for her.”

“I am aware that your moth­er nursed my hus­band in his sick­ness,” said Mrs. Pre­ston, cold­ly. “I al­so know that my hus­band paid her very hand­some­ly for her ser­vices.”

“That's true, ma'am,” said Andy. “He was a fine, gen­er­ous man, the colonel was, and I'll al­ways say it.”

“There re­al­ly seems no rea­son why, in ad­di­tion to this com­pen­sa­tion, your moth­er should re­ceive a present of her rent. How much rent did she pay be­fore my hus­band bought the house?”

“Fif­teen dol­lars a quar­ter.”

“Then she has not paid rent for six months. I find she owes my hus­band's es­tate thir­ty dol­lars.”

“Colonel Pre­ston told her she wasn't to pay it.”

“How do I know that?”

“My moth­er says it, and she wouldn't tell a lie,” said Andy, in­dig­nant­ly.

“I have noth­ing to say as to that,” said Mrs. Pre­ston. “I am now man­ag­ing the es­tate, and the ques­tion rests with me. I de­cide that your moth­er has been suf­fi­cient­ly paid for her ser­vices, and I shall claim rent for the last six months.”

Andy was silent for a mo­ment. Then he spoke:

“It may be so, Mrs. Pre­ston. I'll speak to the doc­tor, and I'll do as he says.”

“I don't know what the doc­tor has to do with the mat­ter,” said Mrs. Pre­ston, haugh­ti­ly.

“He wants to get an ex­cuse for not pay­ing,” said God­frey, with a sneer.

“Mind your busi­ness,” said Andy, ex­cus­ably pro­voked.

“Do you hear that, moth­er?” said God­frey. “Are you go­ing to let that beg­gar in­sult me be­fore your very face?”

“You have spo­ken very im­prop­er­ly to my son,” said Mrs. Pre­ston.

“He spoke very im­prop­er­ly to me at first,” said Andy, stur­di­ly.

“You do not ap­pear to un­der­stand the re­spect due to me,” said Mrs. Pre­ston, with em­pha­sis.

“If I've treat­ed you dis­re­spect­ful­ly, I'm sor­ry,” said Andy; “but God­frey mustn't in­sult me, and call me names.”

“We have had enough of this,” said Mrs. Pre­ston. “I have on­ly to re­peat that your moth­er is in­debt­ed to me for six months' rent--thir­ty dol­lars--which I de­sire she will pay as soon as pos­si­ble. One thing more: I must re­quest her to find an­oth­er home, as I have oth­er plans for the house she oc­cu­pies.”

“You're not goin' to turn her out of her house, sure?” said Andy, in some dis­may.

“It is not her house,” said Mrs. Pre­ston; though it oc­curred to her that it might have been, if she had not sup­pressed the will. But, of course, Andy knew noth­ing of this, nor did he sus­pect any­thing, since nei­ther he nor his moth­er had the faintest idea of be­ing re­mem­bered in Colonel Pre­ston's will, kind though he had been to them both in his life.

“I know it isn't,” said Andy; “but she's got used to it. I don't know any oth­er place we can get.”

“That is your look­out,” said Mrs. Pre­ston. “I have no doubt you can get in some­where. As I said, the house is mine, and I have oth­er views for it.”

“Can't we stay till the end of the quar­ter, ma'am?”

“No; I wish to fin­ish my busi­ness here as soon as pos­si­ble, and then shall go to Boston.”

“How long can we stay, then?”

“Till the first of the month.”

“That's on­ly three days.”

“It is long enough to find an­oth­er place. That is all I have to say,” and Mrs. Pre­ston turned to go.

Andy rose, and fol­lowed her, with­out a word. He saw that it would be of no use to ap­peal for more time. Her tone was so firm and de­ter­mined that there ev­ident­ly was no mov­ing her.

“What will we do?” thought Andy, as he walked slow­ly and silent­ly along the road.

He felt the need of con­sult­ing some­body old­er and more ex­pe­ri­enced than him­self. Just in the nick of time he met Dr. Town­ley, in whose friend­ship he felt con­fi­dence.

“Can you stop a minute, Dr. Town­ley?” he said. “I want to speak to you about some­thing.”

“I can spare two min­utes, if you like, Andy,” said the doc­tor, smil­ing.

Andy ex­plained the case.

“It is quite true,” said the doc­tor. “Colonel Pre­ston in­tend­ed your moth­er to pay no rent--he told me so him­self; but, as your moth­er has no writ­ten proof, I sup­pose you will have to pay it. Shall I lend you the mon­ey?”

“No need, doc­tor. We've got mon­ey enough for that. But we must move out in three days. Where shall we go?”

“I'll tell you. I own the small house oc­cu­pied by Grant Melton. He sets out for the West to-​mor­row, with his fam­ily. I'll let it to your moth­er for the same rent she's been pay­ing.”

“Thank you,” said Andy, grate­ful­ly. “It's bet­ter than the house we've been liv­ing in. It's a good change.”

“Per­haps you won't like me for a land­lord so well as Mrs. Pre­ston,” said the doc­tor, smil­ing.

“I'll risk it,” said Andy.

Two days af­ter­ward the trans­fer was made. Mrs. Pre­ston was dis­ap­point­ed, and God­frey still more so, to find their mal­ice had done the wid­ow Burke no harm.

By ad­vice of the doc­tor, Andy de­ferred pay­ing the thir­ty dol­lars claimed as rent, avail­ing him­self of the twelve months al­lowed for the pay­ment of debts due the es­tate of one de­ceased.

“If it was any­body else, I'd pay at once,” said Andy; “but Mrs. Pre­ston has treat­ed us so mean­ly that I don't mean to hur­ry.”

The de­lay made Mrs. Pre­ston an­gry, but she was ad­vised that it was quite le­gal.