Like many another man before him, Cousin Ronald was ill-served by his
own impatience. Ordway had come, intending to hand the letter over as a
gift of no importance, but being asked to name his price put ideas into
his head. He reflected. He reflected so long that Cousin Ronald grew
still more impatient.
“I have been practicing the strictest economy,” he announced. “I may say
that I have endured something not short of actual discomfort, sir, in
order that I might be in a position to meet any--er--reasonable terms--”
There was a knock at the door. It was Cousin Winnie.
“Your _dinner_!” she whispered. “It’s _ready_!”
Cousin Ronald did some quick reflecting himself. If the young man could
observe their strict economy for himself--
“Mr. Ordway, sir,” he said, “will you favor us with your company at a
very simple meal?”
“Thank you!” Ordway replied. “I’d be pleased to.”
This dinner had, in Cousin Ronald’s eyes, a sweet, old-fashioned charm.
A fire burned now upon the hearth; the board was set out with Wedgwood
and with Sheffield plate. And Cousin Ronald positively recreated Mme.
Van Der Dokjen, describing her just as she had been, here in this very
room.
But Ordway was not moved. He did not give the Wedgwood or the plate
anything like the attention he gave to the economical dinner, and the
late Mme. Van Der Dokjen was, to him, of very inferior merit to the
living Lucy. All the time Cousin Ronald discoursed, Ordway was thinking
of Lucy, deprived of electricity and of all the other privileges she so
richly deserved.
“It’s a darned shame!” he thought. “The old skinflint thinks more of
that letter than he does of his own family. A darned shame!”
When the meal ended, Cousin Ronald suggested that Lucy sing,
accompanying herself upon the spinet--an art she had recently acquired.
He believed that this would soften the heart of the rapacious young man.
It did. It did, indeed. To the sweetly jangling spinet she sang some
gentle old song. In firelight and candlelight--
The young man, watching her and hearing her, was quite as much moved as
Cousin Ronald could have desired--but in the wrong direction.
Her song ended, Cousin Ronald and Ordway withdrew to the study, Cousin
Winnie and her child to the kitchen. Twenty minutes passed; then Ordway
reappeared. With a curtsy almost old-fashioned, Lucy went with him to
the door, even across the threshold.
The wind slammed the door behind her, and for a few minutes she stood in
the porch, talking to the young man. Cousin Winnie, in the kitchen,
heard them; they were discussing a new play. Lucy said yes, she did like
the theater, but she didn’t go very often now. And she had heard “The
Maddened Brute” spoken of as a wonderful play--a really big thing.
Cousin Winnie missed a little here, owing to her duties; the next thing
she heard was Lucy saying good night to Mr. Ordway.
It had been a very brief conversation, but Ordway, as he walked to the
station in the windy dark, imagined that she had said a great deal. He
thought, somehow, that she had told him what a miserable existence she
led in the historic cottage. What a _darned_ shame!
V
Lucy was sitting at a small table by the dining room window. She had
bought a tube of cement, and with it she was mending a varied assortment
of antique china she had discovered in a cupboard. It was raining
outside, a chill, steady downpour. And the room was dim and cold, and it
was a dismal world.
“I wish I was thirty!” she thought. Because at that advanced age she
believed that one could be content to live in a historic cottage, and
not mind dullness, or rain, or anything, very much. At thirty she would
be content to devote her life to the ruined Cousin Ronald and her heroic
mother. Yet, in a way, she disliked the thought of being thirty. She
disliked all her thoughts this afternoon.
“As far as that goes,” she reflected, pursuing a certain familiar line,
“I don’t have to wait for anybody to invite me. I can take mother to see
‘The Maddened Brute’ this very Saturday, if I like. I’ve got enough
money for that. Only, mother wouldn’t like that sort of play. Anyhow, I
don’t care!”
Carefully she cemented a handle on an ancient sugar basin; then, setting
it down to dry, she looked out of the window. The postman, in a rubber
coat, was coming along the muddy road.
“I don’t care!” she said again. She was not the sort of girl who waited
with the slightest interest for letters that people had said they were
going to write a week ago. Let them write, or not write; what cared she?
The postman came up on the porch and whistled, and the door opened--like
a sort of cuckoo clock--and Cousin Winnie took in the letters. But what
a long time she was in the hall!
“I suppose she’s got another letter from a cousin,” thought Lucy. “If
there was anything for me--But I don’t care, anyhow.”
At last Cousin Winnie came into the dining room.
“A letter for you, Lucy,” she said, handed it to her child, and
vanished. With the utmost indifference Lucy opened her letter. It
contained two tickets for “The Maddened Brute” for Saturday afternoon,
an explanation of the difficulty of getting them, and a very civil
request that she and her mother meet Stephen Ordway for lunch at the
Ritz before the play.
Not yet being thirty, the girl was pleased.
“Mother!” she called. “Isn’t this nice? Listen--”
No answer. She got up and went into the kitchen, and found her mother
standing by the window--just standing, doing nothing. This was alarming.
“Mother!” she said. “What’s wrong?”
“Lucy--” said her mother. “Oh, Lucy! Oh, think of it! You can travel!
You can have really nice clothes!” She was actually in tears.
“What is the matter?” cried Lucy. And then: “_What’s this?_”
It was a check for five thousand dollars which Cousin Winnie extended in
her trembling hand.
“Your--your Cousin Peter--left it to you!”
“Cousin Peter! Who’s he?”
“You wouldn’t remember,” said Cousin Winnie. “A--a second cousin
of--your grandfather’s. Oh, Lucy! My dear, good child! Now you can go
away!”
“But the check’s made out to you, and it’s signed L. B. Grey--”
“A legal form,” Cousin Winnie explained. “I myself shall be well and
amply provided for. This check is entirely for you, Lucy.”