AN INVITATION AND A WARNING.
Mabin’s sprained ankle was a more serious affair than she had
supposed. For a month she never left the house, and for another she
went out in a wheel-chair, or hopped about on a pair of crutches.
And during all that time she caught no glimpse of the pretty neighbor
who had done her such eminent service at the time of the accident. In
vain she had hung about the road outside “The Towers” looking up at
the west side of the house, which was built into the wall alongside
the road, trying to distinguish the fair, blue-eyed face at one of the
windows which peeped sombrely out of the ivy.
Dreary the place looked, Mabin thought, as she pondered over the
mystery surrounding the lady in black. The lowest window visible from
the road was about three feet above the girl’s head; and all she could
see was a pair of crimson moreen curtains, which, she thought,
harmonized ill with what she had seen of the tenant of the gloomy
house. The house had long been “To let, Furnished.” But why had not
dainty Mrs. Dale improved away those curtains?
Mabin did not usually trouble her head about such trifles as
furniture; but she had enshrouded the figure of the pretty widow in
romance; and she felt that her fairy queen was not living up to her
proper standard in contenting herself with crimson moreen.
“What are you looking at so intently?”
Mabin, who, leaning on her crutches, was gazing up at that
mysteriously interesting window, started violently as she saw a white
hand, glistening with diamonds, thrust suddenly out through the ivy in
the midst of a space which she had taken for blank wall.
And, parting the close-growing branches, Mrs. Dale peeped out, pink
and fair and smiling, from a window at the same level as the one Mabin
had been watching, but so thickly covered with ivy that the girl had
not suspected its existence.
“I--I was looking for you. I was hoping to see you,” stammered Mabin.
“And now that you have seen me, won’t you please condescend to see a
little more of me?” asked Mrs. Dale. “I won’t eat you up if you come
into my den. Look, here is another inhabitant whom I have entrapped.
But there are strawberries enough for three.”
Mabin hesitated; not from any scruples about the propriety of visiting
the lady about whom so much gossip was talked, certainly, but because
she was shy, and because the thought of a meeting and a talk with her
ideal heroine and a stranger seemed rather formidable.
But Mrs. Dale would not allow her time to refuse.
“I will send the other inhabitant down to let you in,” said she.
And the ivy closed again, and Mabin could hear the lady’s voice giving
some directions to some person within. She moved mechanically, on her
crutches, toward the high closed gates. And by the time she reached
them they were opening, and Rudolph was holding them back for her.
The girl could not repress a slight exclamation of astonishment.
Rudolph reddened.
“You are surprised to see me,” said he, rather bashfully. “I hope you
won’t refuse to come in because I am here? I will go away rather than
that.”
Mabin hesitated. She was not very worldly-wise, but it seemed to her
that there was something rather strange about his presence in the
house where the rest of the Vicar’s family were not allowed to enter.
And at the same moment she remembered Mrs. Dale’s apparent horror at
the idea of the young fellow’s admiration for her.
Rudolph’s color deepened still more.
“Why are you always so rude to me, Mabin, or I suppose I ought to
say--Miss Rose?” asked he quickly. “Doesn’t it seem rather unfair,
when you come to think of it? We were great chums once, you know?
Weren’t we?”
“When we were children, yes,” replied Mabin stiffly.
“And why not now?”
The blood rushed to the girl’s forehead.
“How can you ask?” she said, indignantly. “When I owe my lameness to
you?”
Rudolph stared at her, as if uncertain whether he heard aright.
“To me?”
“Why, yes. Surely you don’t pretend it was not you who threw the stone
which knocked my bicycle over?”
The stiff haughtiness with which she said this melted suddenly into
apologetic alarm when she saw by the change to fierce indignation in
Rudolph that she had made another, and most absurd blunder. At first
he could only stare at her in speechless anger and amazement.
“Do you take me for a street-urchin?” he asked at last.
Mabin recovered herself a little, and refused to be withered up. “Your
brothers do it,” she said below her breath.
“Then I’ll give the little beggars a good hiding the first time I
catch them at it,” said Rudolph sharply. “But I should have thought
you could distinguish the difference between a man and a schoolboy,
and not have visited their sins upon me.”
Mabin felt miserable. She blushed, she stammered when she tried to
speak; and the tears came into her eyes.
“I--I’m sorry!” she said in a constrained voice. “I--I see, I might
have known. But you know--you were rude to me--that very day--when I
saw you at Seagate!”
“Ah! I remember! I asked you to have a cigarette. It was injudicious,
not rude. You should have made a distinction again.”
There was an awkward silence. Rudolph was still resentful; but when he
saw the downcast eyes, and the tears which were beginning to fringe
the long black lashes, he found himself softening. And, putting her
hand too hastily into her pocket for the handkerchief to wipe away her
tears, Mabin dropped one of her crutches.
“Let me help you along,” said he in a gentle voice, as he picked up
the fallen crutch. “I don’t like to see a girl using those things.”
And, without waiting for her permission, he thrust the crutch under
one arm, and insisted on supporting the unwilling girl with the other.
And as they crossed the broad gravelled space to the portico, in the
shade of the trees, Mabin felt a curious sensation of peace and of
pleasure, and suddenly looked up at her companion with a frank smile.
“I’m very glad we’re friends again,” said she.
And he, smiling too, but with a little more malice, a little more
guile, than she, answered readily:
“Why, so am I. But I must remind you that it is your fault, not mine,
that we have ever been anything else.”
Mabin hung her head, feeling rather guilty, but with yet more
enjoyment of the present reconciliation than remorse for the past
estrangement. Instead of taking her straight in, Rudolph led her
across the gravel to a flower-border, where, in a little open patch of
sunlight, a rosebush grew. It was a “Mrs. John Lang,” and the huge
pink blossoms were in their full beauty and fragrance.
“I’ve brought you here,” he said didactically, “to read you a moral
lesson. Here we have a rose, full of beauty and sweetness to every
one, but without any thorns. While _some_ Roses I know----”
“Are all thorns to everybody, and are without any beauty,” finished
Mabin for him, laughing, “and without any sweetness.”
“No, no, not at all. But they seldom let you come near enough to
admire the beauty, and they are rather chary of their sweetness. Now I
hope you’ll profit by this lesson.”
“To be sure I--shan’t!” replied Mabin with a rather doleful smile. “I
do try to be less--less objectionable--sometimes,” she added with
seriousness which made Rudolph smile. “But it doesn’t seem to be very
successful. I think I’m going to give up the effort and accept the
fate of ‘an awful example’ as serenely as I can.”
Rudolph tried not to let his smile grow too broad for politeness.
“You are an odd girl,” he said at last. “Or is it another insult to
tell you so?”
Mabin shook her head.
“If it’s an insult,” answered she, “it is one that I’m used to.”
“One is almost as much afraid of saying anything complimentary to you
as of giving you what you call insults,” he began cautiously.
“Otherwise I would tell you that I like ‘odd’ people, people who don’t
always say and do the right thing, that is.”
“Then you ought to appreciate me,” retorted Mabin quickly. “For
everybody says I always do and say the _wrong_ thing!”
“I do appreciate you.”
Mabin laughed and blushed.
“I only said that in fun,” she said awkwardly.
“Well, I said what I did in earnest.”
“Mrs. Dale will be wondering what has become of us,” said Mabin.
She was not at all anxious to go in; but the pleasure she felt in this
talk with Rudolph had grown rather alarming to her reserve. She began
to fear that she would spoil it all by one of her far-famed blunders
of speech. And so she chose to cut short the enjoyment while it could
remain a recollection of unalloyed delight.
Rudolph, on his side, was in no hurry to go in; although he took a
step obediently toward the portico.
From a feeling of perversity which she could not have accounted for,
Mabin chose to talk about Mrs. Dale as they went slowly toward the
house.
“I have been longing to see her ever since my accident,” she said.
“But although I have been always hovering about the place, wishing she
would come out, to-day is the very first time I have caught sight of
her.”
“That is exactly my own experience,” said Rudolph. “She seems to have
given up driving about the place, and to have shut herself up in this
dreary old house just like a nun.”
“Oh!” said Mabin, feeling quite relieved to hear that he had not, as
she had supposed, been in the society of the beautiful widow
constantly since the day of the accident.
“Yes,” he went on. “I was passing by only half an hour ago, when I
glanced up at the windows, and Mrs. Dale stopped me to ask if I had
heard how you were. And then she asked me in, saying she felt lonely.
And so should I, so would any one, in that mouldy old house all
alone.”
“Poor lady! I am so sorry for her!” said Mabin.
Rudolph looked at her quickly.
“Do you feel like that about her too?” said he earnestly. “All the
other people one meets are either jealous of her beauty, or envious of
her handsome turnout, or angry with her for not wanting to make their
acquaintance.”
“I am very sorry for her,” answered the girl gravely. “I feel certain
that she has had some very great sorrow--”
“Why, yes, her husband’s death,” suggested Rudolph.
“Oh, yes, that of course,” assented Mabin, surprised to find that the
universal doubts whether Mrs. Dale really was a widow had infected her
also. “But something even more than that, I should think. I have an
idea that there is something tragic in her story, if one only knew
it.”
Rudolph said nothing to this, but he looked at his companion with a
quick glance of surprise, as if he himself shared her opinion, and was
astonished to find it echoed.
They were under the portico now, and as their footsteps sounded on the
stone, they saw through the open door into the dark hall and heard
Mrs. Dale’s soft voice calling to them.
“It takes ever so much longer to get a thing done than to do it one’s
self!” she exclaimed brightly, with a sigh, as she came out of the
room on the left, and invited them to go in. “I could have brought
Miss Rose in in half the time, even if she had fought to get away. Did
she fight?” went on Mrs. Dale with arch innocence.
They were in the room by this time, and Mabin, coming in out of the
glare of the sun, stood for a few seconds without seeing anything.
Then her hands were gently taken, and she found herself pushed into a
low chair.
“Bring her some strawberries, Mr. Bonnington,” said Mrs. Dale. “By the
by, I may as well remark that I don’t intend to call you Mr.
Bonnington very long. I shall drop into plain ‘Rudolph’ very soon, if
only to give a fresh shock to the neighborhood, to whom I am Shocker
in ordinary.”
“The sooner the better. I can’t understand anybody’s being Mr.
Bonnington but my father. Now he looks equal to the dignity, while I
don’t. I always feel that there is a syllable too many for me, and
that people despise me in consequence.”
Mabin, who had recovered the use of her eyes, felt rather envious. The
quick give and take of light talk like this was so different from the
solemn conversations carried on at home, where her father laid down
the law and everybody else agreed with him, that she felt this levity,
while pleasant and amusing, to be something which would have caused
the good folk at home to look askance.
“And how have you been, child, since that unhappy day when I saw you
last?”
And Mrs. Dale came to the next chair, and piled sugar on the
strawberries.
“Oh, I’ve been getting on all right, but it is tiresome not to be able
to walk without those things. And it has made me in everybody’s way,”
sighed Mabin.
“How is that?”
“Papa could have let the house to go abroad, as he wanted to, when the
accident happened. Only I couldn’t well be moved then. And now that I
could go, he has lost the house he had heard of at Geneva, and one
which he could have now is too small for us. So that I feel I am in
the way again.”
“Do you mean,” asked Mrs. Dale quite eagerly, “that they could go if
only they could dispose of you?”
“Yes. There is one room short.”
Little Mrs. Dale sprang up, and the color in her cheeks grew pinker.
“Do you think,” she asked, after a moment’s pause, “that your parents
would allow you to stay with me? If you would come?” she finished with
a plaintive note of entreaty on the last words.
“Oh, I am sure they would, and I am sure I would!” cried Mabin, with
undisguised delight.
And then quite suddenly the face of the black-robed lady grew ashy
gray, and she sank down into her chair trembling from head to foot.
“No. I--I mustn’t ask you,” she said hoarsely.
And there was a silence, during which both her young hearers cast down
their eyes, feeling that they dared not look at her. It was Mabin who
spoke first. Putting her hand between the two white hands of Mrs.
Dale, she said gently:
“Is it because you are lonely you want me to come?”
She did venture to look up then, startled by the shiver which
convulsed Mrs. Dale as she spoke. And in the blue eyes she saw a look
of terror which she never forgot.
“Lonely! Oh, child, you will never know how lonely!” burst from her
pale lips.
“Then I will come,” said Mabin. “I should like to come.”
There was another silence. Mrs. Dale had evidently to put strong
constraint upon herself to check an outburst of emotional gratitude.
Rudolph, moved himself by the little scene, was looking out of the
window. The lady in black presently spoke again, very gravely:
“I don’t think you will be very much bored, dear, and you will be
doing a great kindness to a fellow-creature. And yet--I hardly like--I
don’t feel that I ought----”
“But I feel that I must and shall,” said Mabin brightly. “You don’t
know how beautiful it would be for me to feel that at last, for a
little while, I shouldn’t be in the way!”
And the overgrown girl, who was snubbed at home, had tears in her eyes
at the remembrance of the kind touch which she had felt on the day of
her accident. Mrs. Dale was too much moved to say much more, but it
was agreed between the ladies that the suggestion should be formally
made by the tenant of “The Towers” to the heads of the household at
“Stone House” without delay, that Mabin should stay with her new
friend during the absence abroad of the rest of the Rose family.
Mabin did notice, while they talked, that Rudolph remained not only
silent but somewhat constrained; but it was not until she took her
leave of Mrs. Dale, and he followed her out, that the young girl
attached any importance to his reserve.
Once out of hearing of Mrs. Dale, who stood on the stone steps to bid
them good-by, Rudolph asked her abruptly:
“Do you think they’ll let you come?”
“Oh, yes, they’ll only be too glad to get rid of me. Why do you ask in
that tone?”
“Well, there is something I think I ought to tell you, if you are
thinking of staying with Mrs. Dale.”
“Well, what is it?”
“It is that she is being watched.”
“Watched!”
“Yes, by a stranger, a man whom I have never seen in the place before.
He hovers about this place, keeping out of range of possible eyes in
the house, at all hours of the day and even of the night.”
“But how do you know this?”
The words slipped out of her mouth, and it was not until she saw
Rudolph redden that she saw that she was too inquisitive.
“I am sure of what I say, anyhow,” said he quietly.
Mabin looked thoughtful.
“I don’t care!” she said at last.
“I thought you wouldn’t.”
“And I shan’t tell anybody anything about it.”
“I was sure you wouldn’t.”
“But I shall tell Mrs. Dale.”
Rudolph stopped and looked at her.
“I think you had better not do that,” he said.
“But why should a person watch her, except with the intention of
trying to do her some harm?”
“Well, I don’t know. But I think if you do tell her, knowing how
highly nervous she is, you will do her more harm than ever the
mysterious watcher would. Perhaps you would even drive her out of the
place, in which case most assuredly the watcher would go after her,
while if we keep her here perhaps we may manage to draw his fangs.”
Mabin felt frightened. Then, being a matter-of-fact girl, she got the
better of this feeling quickly, and looked up keenly at her companion.
“What do you exactly mean by that?” she asked.
“Only that I will get hold of the man quietly and find out what his
little game is. Though I can guess.”
“Well, you can tell me what your guess is?”
“Why, debt, of course. One can see she is inclined to be extravagant,
and very likely she has run up bills somewhere. Don’t you think that
seems likely?”
His tone was rather anxious, Mabin thought. But she answered
indignantly:
“No, I don’t. It would be very dishonorable to run away without paying
one’s debts, and I don’t think you much of a friend to poor Mrs. Dale
to suggest such a thing!”
Rudolph looked not guilty, but grave.
“Well” said he, “people don’t hang about a place, at the risk of
getting taken up ‘on suspicion of loitering, for the purpose of
committing a felony,’ without some reason.”
“Why,” cried Mabin triumphantly, “that _is_ the reason! Mrs. Dale has
some lovely diamond rings, and the loitering gentleman wants to steal
them!”
“Well, perhaps you are right,” said Rudolph doubtfully.
“I am sure of it!” retorted Mabin resolutely. And she held out her
hand. “Good-by, and thank you for your help.”
“And you will remember my parable about the Roses?” said he, as he
took her hand and thought he liked gray eyes after all better than
blue ones.
“Perhaps,” said Mabin cautiously, as she hopped away on her crutches.