Or, the Heart of a Country Girl
By Percy Simple [H. P. Lovecraft]
Chapter I.
A Simple Rustic Maid
Ermengarde Stubbs was the beauteous blonde daughter of Hiram Stubbs, a
poor but honest farmer-bootlegger of Hogton, Vt. Her name was
originally Ethyl Ermengarde, but her father persuaded her to drop the
praenomen after the passage of the 18th Amendment, averring that it
made him thirsty by reminding him of ethyl alcohol, C[2]H[5]OH. His own
products contained mostly methyl or wood alcohol, CH[3]OH. Ermengarde
confessed to sixteen summers, and branded as mendacious all reports to
the effect that she was thirty. She had large black eyes, a prominent
Roman nose, light hair which was never dark at the roots except when
the local drug store was short on supplies, and a beautiful but
inexpensive complexion. She was about 5^ft 5.33...^in tall, weighed
115.47 lbs. on her father’s corn scales—also off them—and was adjudged
most lovely by all the village swains who admired her father’s farm and
liked his liquid crops.
Ermengarde’s hand was sought in matrimony by two ardent lovers. ’Squire
Hardman, who had a mortgage on the old home, was very rich and elderly.
He was dark and cruelly handsome, and always rode horseback and carried
a riding-crop. Long had he sought the radiant Ermengarde, and now his
ardour was fanned to fever heat by a secret known to him alone—for upon
the humble acres of Farmer Stubbs he had discovered a vein of rich
GOLD!! “Aha!” said he, “I will win the maiden ere her parent knows of
his unsuspected wealth, and join to my fortune a greater fortune
still!” And so he began to call twice a week instead of once as before.
But alas for the sinister designs of a villain—’Squire Hardman was not
the only suitor for the fair one. Close by the village dwelt
another—the handsome Jack Manly, whose curly yellow hair had won the
sweet Ermengarde’s affection when both were toddling youngsters at the
village school. Jack had long been too bashful to declare his passion,
but one day while strolling along a shady lane by the old mill with
Ermengarde, he had found courage to utter that which was within his
heart.
“O light of my life,” said he, “my soul is so overburdened that I must
speak! Ermengarde, my ideal [he pronounced it i-deel!], life has become
an empty thing without you. Beloved of my spirit, behold a suppliant
kneeling in the dust before thee. Ermengarde—oh, Ermengarde, raise me
to an heaven of joy and say that you will some day be mine! It is true
that I am poor, but have I not youth and strength to fight my way to
fame? This I can do only for you, dear Ethyl—pardon me, Ermengarde—my
only, my most precious—” but here he paused to wipe his eyes and mop
his brow, and the fair responded:
“Jack—my angel—at last—I mean, this is so unexpected and quite
unprecedented! I had never dreamed that you entertained sentiments of
affection in connexion with one so lowly as Farmer Stubbs’ child—for I
am still but a child! Such is your natural nobility that I had feared—I
mean thought—you would be blind to such slight charms as I possess, and
that you would seek your fortune in the great city; there meeting and
wedding one of those more comely damsels whose splendour we observe in
fashion books.
“But, Jack, since it is really I whom you adore, let us waive all
needless circumlocution. Jack—my darling—my heart has long been
susceptible to your manly graces. I cherish an affection for
thee—consider me thine own and be sure to buy the ring at Perkins’
hardware store where they have such nice imitation diamonds in the
window.”
“Ermengarde, me love!”
“Jack—my precious!”
“My darling!”
“My own!”
“My Gawd!”
[Curtain]
Chapter II.
And the Villain Still Pursued Her
But these tender passages, sacred though their fervour, did not pass
unobserved by profane eyes; for crouched in the bushes and gritting his
teeth was the dastardly ’Squire Hardman! When the lovers had finally
strolled away he leapt out into the lane, viciously twirling his
moustache and riding-crop, and kicking an unquestionably innocent cat
who was also out strolling.
“Curses!” he cried—Hardman, not the cat—“I am foiled in my plot to get
the farm and the girl! But Jack Manly shall never succeed! I am a man
of power—and we shall see!”
Thereupon he repaired to the humble Stubbs’ cottage, where he found the
fond father in the still-cellar washing bottles under the supervision
of the gentle wife and mother, Hannah Stubbs. Coming directly to the
point, the villain spoke:
“Farmer Stubbs, I cherish a tender affection of long standing for your
lovely offspring, Ethyl Ermengarde. I am consumed with love, and wish
her hand in matrimony. Always a man of few words, I will not descend to
euphemism. Give me the girl or I will foreclose the mortgage and take
the old home!”
“But, Sir,” pleaded the distracted Stubbs while his stricken spouse
merely glowered, “I am sure the child’s affections are elsewhere
placed.”
“She must be mine!” sternly snapped the sinister ’squire. “I will make
her love me—none shall resist my will! Either she becomes muh wife or
the old homestead goes!”
And with a sneer and flick of his riding-crop ’Squire Hardman strode
out into the night.
Scarce had he departed, when there entered by the back door the radiant
lovers, eager to tell the senior Stubbses of their new-found happiness.
Imagine the universal consternation which reigned when all was known!
Tears flowed like white ale, till suddenly Jack remembered he was the
hero and raised his head, declaiming in appropriately virile accents:
“Never shall the fair Ermengarde be offered up to this beast as a
sacrifice while I live! I shall protect her—she is mine, mine, mine—and
then some! Fear not, dear father and mother to be—I will defend you
all! You shall have the old home still [adverb, not noun—although Jack
was by no means out of sympathy with Stubbs’ kind of farm produce] and
I shall lead to the altar the beauteous Ermengarde, loveliest of her
sex! To perdition with the crool ’squire and his ill-gotten gold—the
right shall always win, and a hero is always in the right! I will go to
the great city and there make a fortune to save you all ere the
mortgage fall due! Farewell, my love—I leave you now in tears, but I
shall return to pay off the mortgage and claim you as my bride!”
“Jack, my protector!”
“Ermie, my tootsie roll!”
“Dearest!”
“Darling!—and don’t forget that ring at Perkins’.”
“Oh!”
“Ah!”
[Curtain]
Chapter III.
A Dastardly Act
But the resourceful ’Squire Hardman was not so easily to be foiled.
Close by the village lay a disreputable settlement of unkempt shacks,
populated by a shiftless scum who lived by thieving and other odd jobs.
Here the devilish villain secured two accomplices—ill-favoured fellows
who were very clearly no gentlemen. And in the night the evil three
broke into the Stubbs cottage and abducted the fair Ermengarde, taking
her to a wretched hovel in the settlement and placing her under the
charge of Mother Maria, a hideous old hag. Farmer Stubbs was quite
distracted, and would have advertised in the papers if the cost had
been less than a cent a word for each insertion. Ermengarde was firm,
and never wavered in her refusal to wed the villain.
“Aha, my proud beauty,” quoth he, “I have ye in me power, and sooner or
later I will break that will of thine! Meanwhile think of your poor old
father and mother as turned out of hearth and home and wandering
helpless through the meadows!”
“Oh, spare them, spare them!” said the maiden.
“Neverr . . . ha ha ha ha!” leered the brute.
And so the cruel days sped on, while all in ignorance young Jack Manly
was seeking fame and fortune in the great city.
Chapter IV.
Subtle Villainy
One day as ’Squire Hardman sat in the front parlour of his expensive
and palatial home, indulging in his favourite pastime of gnashing his
teeth and swishing his riding-crop, a great thought came to him; and he
cursed aloud at the statue of Satan on the onyx mantelpiece.
“Fool that I am!” he cried. “Why did I ever waste all this trouble on
the girl when I can get the farm by simply foreclosing? I never thought
of that! I will let the girl go, take the farm, and be free to wed some
fair city maid like the leading lady of that burlesque troupe which
played last week at the Town Hall!”
And so he went down to the settlement, apologised to Ermengarde, let
her go home, and went home himself to plot new crimes and invent new
modes of villainy.
The days wore on, and the Stubbses grew very sad over the coming loss
of their home and still but nobody seemed able to do anything about it.
One day a party of hunters from the city chanced to stray over the old
farm, and one of them found the gold!! Hiding his discovery from his
companions, he feigned rattlesnake-bite and went to the Stubbs’ cottage
for aid of the usual kind. Ermengarde opened the door and saw him. He
also saw her, and in that moment resolved to win her and the gold. “For
my old mother’s sake I must”—he cried loudly to himself. “No sacrifice
is too great!”
Chapter V.
The City Chap
Algernon Reginald Jones was a polished man of the world from the great
city, and in his sophisticated hands our poor little Ermengarde was as
a mere child. One could almost believe that sixteen-year-old stuff.
Algy was a fast worker, but never crude. He could have taught Hardman a
thing or two about finesse in sheiking. Thus only a week after his
advent to the Stubbs family circle, where he lurked like the vile
serpent that he was, he had persuaded the heroine to elope! It was in
the night that she went leaving a note for her parents, sniffing the
familiar mash for the last time, and kissing the cat goodbye—touching
stuff! On the train Algernon became sleepy and slumped down in his
seat, allowing a paper to fall out of his pocket by accident.
Ermengarde, taking advantage of her supposed position as a bride-elect,
picked up the folded sheet and read its perfumed expanse—when lo! she
almost fainted! It was a love letter from another woman!!
“Perfidious deceiver!” she whispered at the sleeping Algernon, “so this
is all that your boasted fidelity amounts to! I am done with you for
all eternity!”
So saying, she pushed him out the window and settled down for a much
needed rest.
Chapter VI.
Alone in the Great City
When the noisy train pulled into the dark station at the city, poor
helpless Ermengarde was all alone without the money to get back to
Hogton. “Oh why,” she sighed in innocent regret, “didn’t I take his
pocketbook before I pushed him out? Oh well, I should worry! He told me
all about the city so I can easily earn enough to get home if not to
pay off the mortgage!”
But alas for our little heroine—work is not easy for a greenhorn to
secure, so for a week she was forced to sleep on park benches and
obtain food from the bread-line. Once a wily and wicked person,
perceiving her helplessness, offered her a position as dish-washer in a
fashionable and depraved cabaret; but our heroine was true to her
rustic ideals and refused to work in such a gilded and glittering
palace of frivolity—especially since she was offered only $3.00 per
week with meals but no board. She tried to look up Jack Manly, her
one-time lover, but he was nowhere to be found. Perchance, too, he
would not have known her; for in her poverty she had perforce become a
brunette again, and Jack had not beheld her in that state since school
days. One day she found a neat but costly purse in the park; and after
seeing that there was not much in it, took it to the rich lady whose
card proclaimed her ownership. Delighted beyond words at the honesty of
this forlorn waif, the aristocratic Mrs. Van Itty adopted Ermengarde to
replace the little one who had been stolen from her so many years ago.
“How like my precious Maude,” she sighed, as she watched the fair
brunette return to blondeness. And so several weeks passed, with the
old folks at home tearing their hair and the wicked ’Squire Hardman
chuckling devilishly.
Chapter VII.
Happy Ever Afterward
One day the wealthy heiress Ermengarde S. Van Itty hired a new second
assistant chauffeur. Struck by something familiar in his face, she
looked again and gasped. Lo! it was none other than the perfidious
Algernon Reginald Jones, whom she had pushed from a car window on that
fateful day! He had survived—this much was almost immediately evident.
Also, he had wed the other woman, who had run away with the milkman and
all the money in the house. Now wholly humbled, he asked forgiveness of
our heroine, and confided to her the whole tale of the gold on her
father’s farm. Moved beyond words, she raised his salary a dollar a
month and resolved to gratify at last that always unquenchable anxiety
to relieve the worry of the old folks. So one bright day Ermengarde
motored back to Hogton and arrived at the farm just as ’Squire Hardman
was foreclosing the mortgage and ordering the old folks out.
“Stay, villain!” she cried, flashing a colossal roll of bills. “You are
foiled at last! Here is your money—now go, and never darken our humble
door again!”
Then followed a joyous reunion, whilst the ’squire twisted his
moustache and riding-crop in bafflement and dismay. But hark! What is
this? Footsteps sound on the old gravel walk, and who should appear but
our hero, Jack Manly—worn and seedy, but radiant of face. Seeking at
once the downcast villain, he said:
“’Squire—lend me a ten-spot, will you? I have just come back from the
city with my beauteous bride, the fair Bridget Goldstein, and need
something to start things on the old farm.” Then turning to the
Stubbses, he apologised for his inability to pay off the mortgage as
agreed.
“Don’t mention it,” said Ermengarde, “prosperity has come to us, and I
will consider it sufficient payment if you will forget forever the
foolish fancies of our childhood.”
All this time Mrs. Van Itty had been sitting in the motor waiting for
Ermengarde; but as she lazily eyed the sharp-faced Hannah Stubbs a
vague memory started from the back of her brain. Then it all came to
her, and she shrieked accusingly at the agrestic matron.
“You—you—Hannah Smith—I know you now! Twenty-eight years ago you were
my baby Maude’s nurse and stole her from the cradle!! Where, oh, where
is my child?” Then a thought came as the lightning in a murky sky.
“Ermengarde—you say she is your daughter. . . . She is mine! Fate has
restored to me my old chee-ild—my tiny Maudie!—Ermengarde—Maude—come to
your mother’s loving arms!!!”
But Ermengarde was doing some tall thinking. How could she get away
with the sixteen-year-old stuff if she had been stolen twenty-eight
years ago? And if she was not Stubbs’ daughter the gold would never be
hers. Mrs. Van Itty was rich, but ’Squire Hardman was richer. So,
approaching the dejected villain, she inflicted upon him the last
terrible punishment.
“’Squire, dear,” she murmured, “I have reconsidered all. I love you and
your naive strength. Marry me at once or I will have you prosecuted for
that kidnapping last year. Foreclose your mortgage and enjoy with me
the gold your cleverness discovered. Come, dear!” And the poor dub did.
THE END.
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