But Timothy wrote that he was sorry, but he could not come.
He thought that Arethusa's letters home had lately been almost too full
of a person by the name of Bennet, and torn between a curiosity to
observe this person for himself in the flesh, and a disinclination to
place himself in a position that should give her the opportunity to
express her preference in public, the latter won.
Arethusa stormed and raged, as was quite to be expected.
It was so stupid of him to refuse! He would spoil the whole Party if he
did not come! She almost cried with vexation as she read his letter at
the breakfast-table.
"He's just got to come, that's all! Nasty thing! And I'll just bet he
waited till right now to write so it would be too late for me to write
to him again! That would be just like him! He's had that invitation two
whole weeks! Oh, I just hate him for acting this way!"
"I shouldn't think you would be so anxious to have a person you hated
at your Party," remarked Ross.
"Of course I want Timothy to come," replied Arethusa, with decision.
"More than anyone else except you and Mother."
"More than Mr. Bennet even?" asked her father, wickedly.
No reply of any kind was made to this sally.
But why couldn't Timothy come? Why did he want to be so horrid for? And
she expressed herself with many more ejaculations of a like nature,
until finally Ross suggested that it might be a wise plan to send
Timothy a telegram of urgency.
Arethusa seized with pleasure on this idea.
When she learned that he would receive it this very morning, if it was
started immediately, she left the breakfast-table to get her hat and
coat, telling George to notify Clay that she wanted the machine right
away. She insisted on personal attention to this important affair,
refusing to trust the telephone, although Elinor assured her it would
go just as surely. Her own handwriting, said Arethusa, would have far
more effect on Timothy than the handwriting of any stranger. She knew
very little about telegrams.
So Ross gave her all the details of the sending of one, and told her
where it might be done, and Arethusa departed gaily with Clay, who had
been called from his breakfast to serve her. She explained to him on
the ride down-town how very important it all was, and just how
necessary that Timothy receive this message with despatch, so that
Clay, being a sensible person, could not help but feel it more vital
than his breakfast.
The telegraph operator at the Patterson Hotel where Ross had told her
to go, was an obliging youth at all times, and he felt still more
obliging when Arethusa's vivid face appeared before him and her eager
voice announced that she wanted to send a telegram; and was this the
right place?
It was. He informed her further that she could send ten words for fifty
cents.
Ten words was a great many; she could say almost twice as much as she
wanted to in ten words.
Her first attempt went something on this order....
"Dear Timothy--I will never speak to you again as long as I live
if you don't come to my party. You just must come.
"ARETHUSA."
Arethusa read it in triumph. It expressed just what she wanted to
express to Timothy. Then she counted the words she had written, and her
facial expression changed radically. She leaned over the counter toward
the operator.
"Does it have to be ten words?"
"If it's a telegram, Miss, unless you want to pay the charges for the
extra words. It might be a day letter," he suggested.
"Is a telegram quicker?"
It was.
Then it must be a telegram.
She counted the words over again, but they remained considerably more
than ten.
"But I've got to say all that," she said, aloud, "I've just got to!"
She tried once more, and once more after that. The capacity of ten
words for expressing what one wished to say seemed to decrease with
each trial to write the telegram. The operator volunteered his
professional help, after he had watched her spoil several blanks. He
smiled slightly as he read the one she handed him, gratefully accepting
his kind offer.
"You've never sent one before, have you, Miss?"
Arethusa propped her elbows on the high counter, and rested her chin on
them so she could regard his work. "No, I haven't," and she smiled down
at him so charmingly he could almost have franked that telegram
through. "But I thought ten words was oceans."
"No, Miss, it isn't very many." He scratched out the "Dear Timothy,"
she had written "You don't generally say that."
"You don't! Why, how do you know who it's for?"
"You have the address and that doesn't cost you anything."
Arethusa stood on tip-toe and leaned far over the counter to see what
he was doing. She was as close to him as it was possible for her to get
with a large piece of furniture in between them.
"Let's see it?" she asked, breathlessly, when he had finished writing.
It read, in the operator's version:--
"Must come to party, very displeased if you do not.
"ARETHUSA."
Her face clouded. "But I wanted to tell him that I wouldn't speak to
him again if he didn't come. I know he won't, unless I do. Let me come
around where you are, can't I? And can't you say that, that I won't
speak to him?"
The very obliging youth indicated a little gate at one side where she
might find a way in, and Arethusa joined him in consultation over the
message. Two heads are always better than one.
In its final form, the telegram read:--
"Will never speak to you again if you don't come.
"ARETHUSA"
Which proved to be perfectly satisfactory, and lived up to all the good
reputations of telegrams; for it fetched Timothy.
Arethusa met him herself, at the station, when he came the morning of
the Party. She was so Glad to see him! She flung both arms around his
neck and more than one soft kiss was pressed warmly against his cheek:
Timothy all unresisting.
"Oh, Timothy! Timothy!! _Timothy!!!_"
It was a far more enthusiastic greeting than he had dared let himself
expect he would have. He returned her many soft kisses with one very
vigorous osculation that landed near one eyebrow as she bobbed up and
down beside him, and which was immediately rubbed off with the back of
Arethusa's glove.
"You're always so awfully rough. But.... _Oh, Timothy!_"
She grabbed him firmly by one arm, as if she really feared he might
escape her and the Party even now, though actually in Lewisburg, and
led him to where Clay waited for them with the big red automobile. To
Clay, she introduced her charge with the simple announcement, "He
really came, Clay." But no other was needed, for the chauffeur knew who
it was with Arethusa, and all about him. Timothy's fame had gone before
him; Arethusa had not made a single warm friend since she had left the
Farm who had not at least heard of Timothy.
She pushed him into the car and banged the door. Then she seated
herself close to him, and bounced up and down on the cushions happily.
"Say right away what a wonderful automobile you think this is,
Timothy!"
Timothy was perfectly obedient.
"I can run it, all by myself. You don't believe it, but I can. I'll
show you some day, maybe to-morrow. Oh, Timothy, I'm so awfully,
awfully glad you came! How is Aunt 'Senath and all of them? How is Miss
Johnson? Oh, I would never forgive you if you hadn't! That's a new suit
you have on!" suddenly leaning forward to pounce on the portion of the
trouser leg that showed from under his overcoat, "And it's a new
overcoat, too! Why, Timothy!"
Timothy pleaded guilty to both accusations.
"You look awfully nice!" Arethusa gave him a very violent hug most
unexpectedly. "Oh, but it was so dear of you to come! And, Timothy,
we're going to have a perfectly wonderful Party!"
Timothy longed to give Arethusa a hug in return for this one, but he
really did not dare. She would probably have called him rough again,
for his way of hugging. He looked at her a trifle sadly. She seemed to
Timothy such a far-away Arethusa, in spite of all this enthusiasm. And
after that look, he felt her more unapproachable than at first. He
could not tell exactly what it was; perhaps, her clothes.
Arethusa caught his glance at her furs and saucy little hat, with its
fly-away feather, and preened herself just a bit.
"How do you like me? My new things? Aren't they darling?"
"Yes," replied Timothy, but there was not very much warmth in his tone.
"And I like you in anything; but I believe I like you better in what
Miss 'Titia makes you."
"In what Aunt 'Titia makes me!" she exclaimed, horrified at Timothy's
poor taste. "Of course you don't! You can't!" But she added, quickly,
for her loyal heart felt that something was not quite right about the
sound of that speech. "Aunt 'Titia's clothes look better at home, on
the Farm! They wouldn't do at all for town! But she's a Dear to make
them for me, and I love them! They're perfectly all right in the
country!"
"That's where I like you better," replied Timothy decidedly, and very
briskly and warmly this time. "On the Farm! And in the country!"
"Oh, Timothy, don't begin and gloom now! Please don't! That's a dear!"
Arethusa clasped her hands imploringly. "Please, please, don't gloom!
I'm not going to fuss with you once while you're here, not once! I
promise, honest! So there!"
This should have been very cheering news. But Timothy merely remarked
with calmness that she shouldn't have time to do much fussing, anyway,
since he was going home on the morning train.
"Why, Timothy Jarvis!"
Yes, he repeated, the early morning train was the train he fully
intended to take.
"No, you're not!"
Arethusa was very firm about it, but then so was he. And a quarrel
seemed most imminent, in spite of Arethusa's earnest promise, had they
not very fortunately arrived at the house in Lenox Avenue just in time
to prevent the disagreement from becoming disagreeable.
Ross liked Timothy immensely. He liked his bigness, and his honest
youngness, and his clean-heartedness, written all over him. Elinor
liked him too. And the boy had not been in the house five minutes
before Ross and Elinor both had read his story in his blue eyes. Those
blue eyes never once left Arethusa.
Arethusa's tongue certainly seemed swung in the middle during the rest
of this day. But then there were two whole months and over to make up.
They came within really dangerous hailing distance of an affray several
times, sad to relate, when Timothy planted himself in one position,
immovable, and she firmly entrenched herself in another. He did not
seem to be able to approve of a single thing she had to tell him about
the various and sundry occupations with which she filled her days in
Lewisburg. But a person in so supremely felicitous a mood as Arethusa
was in at the prospect of her very own Party, could not actually
quarrel with anybody, however obstinate he might be; so the hours sped
happily by, and the pitfalls were somehow avoided.
"Doesn't Timothy look just perfectly heavenly when he has on a dress
suit?"
Arethusa asked this pointed question very proudly of her parents when
she led him into the library that evening after dinner, to show them
how nice he looked, just before the Party came. She held him by one
hand, quite as if she had been a fond mother exhibiting an only child
whose toilette was solely of her personal making. One could easily have
imagined her actually responsible for the cut and fit of Timothy's
suit.
But he did look well, undeniably. Ross said that Baldur the Beautiful
might have looked just like him, if they had ever worn dress suits in
Valhalla, with his wavy blonde head and his sea blue eyes, and his
splendid bigness. Although Arethusa knew no myths of the Northland,
something about Ross's compliment to Timothy pleased her; she was proud
to show him off as such a handsome creature.
But Timothy very nearly spoiled matters by inquiring who sent her the
flowers she wore at her belt, as they stood together in front of the
library fire, in such an "I-have-a-right-to-know" manner, that she
slapped him and told him to mind his own business. And so the Party,
after all, began for Timothy with unhappiness.
Arethusa was wearing a white dress on this Occasion, but it was a
glorified White Dress, of such beauty, that some other name would
surely have to be found for Miss Letitia's loving effort; it would be
clearly impossible to speak of them both as "white dresses." Her hair
was piled high on her head in a way that Timothy had never seen her
wear it, and that he vaguely did not like, because it made her look so
much older. And in her low-necked gown and wearing the flowers another
man had sent her, she seemed to Timothy more than ever of a world
apart. She was like an Arethusa met for the first time. He wished
intensely that he could gather her up and carry her back to the country
where he considered she so indisputably belonged, to be the old
Arethusa once more. He looked gloomily down the length of the library,
which had been cleared for dancing of all its furniture, and that
presented an expanse of shining floor on which the firelight danced and
gleamed enticingly, and wished another wish. He wished that he himself
had stayed at home. Why had he gone contrary to the dictates of his
common sense and come in answer to that telegram? Arethusa did not
really want him; did not really care, now that he was here. She was
altogether changed; and, thought Timothy, rather soberly, his head
resting on one hand as he leaned against the mantel-shelf and stared
down into the fire, it was not at all for the better.
But Timothy was to be still more unhappy before the evening had got
fairly started. For in Arethusa's transparent face and her eyes lifted
adoringly to the Wonderful Mr. Bennet, the very first time he saw her
dance with him, poor Timothy read his Certain Doom. As he had predicted
before she had ever left the Farm, so it had come to pass.
Timothy left his station by the tall library mantel and wandered across
the room to an inconspicuous corner, where he propped his manly form up
against the wall and followed Arethusa with his eyes, totally
unregardful of anything else in their line of vision, as she swayed and
dipped like a snow fairy in her airy white gown, about the room. He was
no great adept in the concealment of his feelings; his tragedy was
visible so that all they who ran might read, even the swiftest.
He refused to dance. And he could have danced, knowing how very well.
Was not Arethusa's present proficiency some evidence of this fact? But
Timothy was sure that his heart was broken; and how could he dance with
a broken heart? So he sulked in his corner and the moments of the Party
sped by joyfully and all too quickly, for everybody else. Arethusa's
guests, with the sole exception of Timothy, seemed to be having the
very best of times.
She was far too happy herself to notice his unhappiness very much,
although she did fly over to him once or twice to beg him to behave and
stop being such an awful gloom. And she made him dance with her, one
single one-step; a rite which was performed by Timothy promptly at her
request, but in a stony silence on his part. When it was over, he
discovered that somebody had pre-empted his little corner, a very silly
couple were giggling foolishly in the spot which had been sacred to
sorrow all evening long; so he betook himself to the doorway into the
hall, and propped himself up against the jamb, where he continued his
unhappy observation of Arethusa's proceedings.
Ross watched him with amusement.
"It is woefully apparent," he remarked to Elinor, "just what is eating
our friend, Timothy."
He looked around for Mr. Bennet, and he found him dancing with Arethusa
at the moment; then he looked back at Timothy once more, and he could
easily tell that Timothy's somber blue eyes had seen just exactly what
he had seen; Arethusa and Mr. Bennet so obviously enjoying each other's
company.
"Shall I go over there and tell him, do you think, that he is giving
himself most unnecessary pain over my daughter's present state of mind,
which is only a phase? Or do you believe, my Fount of all Wisdom, that
I had best let matters stand as they are?"
"I'd really let him alone, Ross, about that, I think. For he wouldn't
believe a single word you could say to him. He has right now what he
considers conclusive evidence, what his own eyes have told him. He and
Arethusa are a pair of the youngest things I ever saw, bless their
hearts! But please do go talk to him about something, Ross, because I
cannot bear to see him follow that child around any longer with that
utterly hopeless expression."
So Ross, as a dutiful spouse, sauntered over to Timothy in his doorway
and made a most noble, and really commendable effort, considering the
total lack of real response he received, which is so dampening to all
such efforts, to interest him in conversation. Timothy answered with
all the politeness due to Mr. Worthington, but without the slightest
zeal for pursuit of any one of the subjects which were introduced, in
succession, as each one seemed to fail to arouse animation. Elinor's
real intention in sending her husband to fill this breach was not a
complete success, for the boy's eyes never once rested upon his
interlocutor; they still remained fixed wherever Arethusa was.
Timothy adhered to his announced intention of leaving on the following
morning, much to Arethusa's fury.
She tried coaxing and threats of future silence, and even tears; all to
no avail. Timothy's resolution was absolutely unshaken. His "Good-bye,
Arethusa!" was of the very essence of tragedy. Ross found it necessary
to look hastily in another direction.
"Please stay, Timothy," pleaded Arethusa for about the hundredth time,
even after this "Good-bye!" "Please stay!" Then as a supreme inducement
and a last resort.... "Mr. Bennet said last night that if you would, he
would get you an invitation to the January Cotillion next week.
Everybody is crazy for them; they give so awfully few away. But he can
get you one, and he said he'd be very glad to, too. He's a Governor,"
proudly.
She had been holding tight to Timothy's hands all this while in her
effort to induce him to prolong his visit; but now he rudely wrenched
them loose and drew himself to the very tallest of his tall self.
"I wouldn't go anywhere that man was," he exclaimed fiercely, "if he
paid me a million dollars a minute! Not unless it was to his funeral,
and I'd attend that with the greatest pleasure, and even pay for the
privilege of getting into the cemetery!"
"Timothy Jarvis! Aren't you ashamed of yourself? Mr. Bennet said he
liked you! He was being kind!"
"Well, he needn't be kind to me, for I certainly don't want any of his
kindness! I can get along a great deal better without it! You can tell
him that from me, if you please! And _I_ most certainly didn't like
_him_! He's a four-flusher, for fair, if ever _I_ saw one!"
And before Arethusa had even begun to recover from the Awfulness of
this Speech, Timothy of the Sore Heart had run on down the steps, was
safe in the automobile, and Clay had driven away with him.
Arethusa could not possibly follow.
But Ross would have stopped her if she had even tried, for he had
promised Timothy he might go to the station absolutely alone. Timothy
had asked him before breakfast. For once, Arethusa's wishes had been
over-ridden; she had made all sorts of loud objections to the carrying
out of this idea. But Ross knew, as well as if Timothy had given him
his reason for making this request, that the miserable boy who was so
sure he was leaving his Life's Happiness, forever, would far rather say
a farewell to that Happiness in the presence of folks that he knew to
help him keep a grip on himself than to wait until the last moments at
the station; those moments when a parting is so surely at hand, that it
brings a breaking-down even to those who would be strongest, sometimes.
It was so like Timothy to have the last word and then run away, that
after Arethusa got over her violent anger with him for the Words of
Blasphemy he had spoken of the Wonderful Mr. Bennet, she laughed and
laughed at the thought. How many times he had done the very same thing!
Then came what Ross had called the "Real Event of the Season"--that
long looked-forward-to January Cotillion.