"I hope, Elsie, your friend wasn't in pain?" Mr. Middleton inquired
with concern shortly after they were established in the train for
Enderby.
"Oh, no," the girl assured him, trying, but vainly, to add "Uncle John."
"I thought she might be suffering from toothache or neuralgia, wearing
that scarf about her face on such a warm day--particularly as she
frowned and screwed her mouth in a rather distressed way," he explained.
Elsie smiled. Indeed she almost laughed, partly because she was
herself struck by the humor of it, partly because it would so amuse
Elsie Moss when she wrote her about it.
"Oh, no," she repeated. "Oh, no, Uncle John"--resolutely--"she was
just--well--she was acting, I suppose. She wants very much to go on
the stage."
"And doesn't lose any opportunity for practice?" He smiled, but rather
ruefully. "Poor child! Somehow, of all ambitions, there seems to be
more tragedy, more pitifulness, underlying that than any other. Where
one succeeds, so many fail--go down into darkness and obscurity. Your
mother had the fever at one time as a very young girl, Elsie. As a
matter of fact, she had some little talent in that direction, but
fortunately we were able to persuade her to give up the idea entirely."
He sighed. "She was so tender-hearted and affectionate that she could
have been induced to give up far more precious things than an ambition
of that sort."
Elsie was gazing out of the window. He pointed out a country club and
several fine estates at a distance, then asked:
"What is your friend going in for, Elsie, comedy or tragedy?"
Elsie didn't know. She explained that while Miss M-Marley seemed like
an old friend, she had only met her on the train as they had left
Chicago.
"Ah, that's just like your mother!" he exclaimed. "She was just that
way, quick to make friends, and yet as loyal and true as any slower and
more cautious person could be."
Again he sighed; then added in a lighter tone: "_She_ wanted to play
tragic parts--youth is apt to--but of course with those dimples she
would have been doomed to comedy, if not farce."
He gazed reminiscently at her.
"Your baby pictures had her dimples in small, but I see that as you
have grown thin you have lost them. You scarcely resemble her at all,
and yet already I see how very like her you are."
Elsie could think of no response, and fearing that he was awaking
painful feelings, Mr. Middleton changed the subject by inquiring kindly
after her stepmother. Elsie replied according to instructions that she
was quite well and much gratified to have secured her former position
in one of the San Francisco high schools for the coming year.
As he went on to ask about her journey and to exhibit points of
interest along the way, he was so chivalrous and thoughtful that the
girl realized that she would be considered and cared for as she never
would have been with Cousin Julia, and was genuinely relieved. Then
her thoughts flew back to those hours with Elsie Moss between Chicago
and Boston, which seemed to her the happiest she had ever known. It
came to her that if she could have the other girl's companionship,
could see her every day, she didn't know that she would greatly care
where she was. Perhaps she could even endure hardship. How serious
Elsie Moss had been about her motto, "Per aspera ad astra." For all
her gayety, she felt she could go through hardship bravely. Ah, she
was a rare person! For the first time in her life Elsie Marley was
homesick--and for a stranger!
Happily, there was that about Mr. Middleton which reminded her of his
niece. She glanced at him from under her long, pale lashes. A man of
fifty, he was tall and thin, with a fine florid face set off by a mass
of thick, white hair. His eyes were brown and youthful, full of
serenity and kindliness, with a shadow of the idealism that
characterized his whole face. His voice was good, his speech elegant,
appealing particularly to one accustomed to the tones and inflections
of the West. Looking forward to meeting his wife, who would probably
be equally pleasing, Elsie felt that in any event she should be as
happy between visits as it would be possible to be anywhere without
Elsie Moss.
A short drive through the quiet, shady streets of what seemed to be an
old, historic town brought them to the parsonage, one of a group of
handsome, rather stately buildings near and about a green common. Of
colonial style, built of brick, it had a portico with great Corinthian
pillars, window-frames and cornices of wood painted white, and stood
far back from the street with a beautiful lawn studded by great elms
and a glimpse of a garden in the rear.
The driveway led to a side entrance under a porte-cochère. As the
carriage drew up, Mr. Middleton glanced eagerly toward the door. His
face fell.
"Your Aunt Milly will be here directly," he said and ushered her in.
As she entered the beautiful hall, Elsie couldn't help feeling how
fortunate she was to escape the boarding-house.
There was no one in sight. Mr. Middleton looked about, then led her
into one of the great front rooms on either side of the wide hall and
asked her to make herself comfortable while he went to see if her aunt
were ill.
"She is not very strong, as you know, Elsie, and the excitement may
have been too much for her," he explained. "She has looked forward so
eagerly to your arrival."
Fortunately he did not await any reply. Elsie felt suddenly stunned as
by a blow. Left alone, she gazed about her in amazement that was
almost horror. The large, square, corner room lighted by four great
windows that reached from the floor to the heavy cornice was
comfortably, even luxuriously, furnished, but--the girl could scarcely
believe her eyes--it was the most untidy-looking place she had ever
been in! The heavy crimson hangings, faded by the strong summer
sunlight, lost further color by their layer of dust, quite visible even
at this distance and at first sight. There were ashes on the hearth,
though the heap of waste-paper, dust, and miscellaneous rubbish in the
fireplace showed that it hadn't been used for some time. The piano, a
baby-grand, stood open, with dust on its dingy keys and more dust on
its shining case. The centre-table held a handsome reading-lamp and
some books, but was littered with piles of old newspapers and magazines
without covers. A kitchen-apron was flung across an armchair; a dirty,
paper-covered book lay on a little table with a plate beside it covered
with cake-crumbs, and there were crumbs on the richly colored Turkish
rug and on the arm of the tapestry-covered chair on the edge of which
Elsie perched.
Surely there was some mistake, some monstrous mistake! She had somehow
been brought to the wrong house. It wasn't possible that a gentleman
like Mr. Middleton could belong to a household such as this, she was
saying incredulously to herself, when a shadow fell athwart the
threshold and she looked up to see Mrs. Middleton entering on her
husband's arm.
Mrs. Middleton was the key to the enigma, though Elsie's mind wasn't
sufficiently alert to grasp the fact at the moment. She stood beside
her tall, immaculate husband, a short, rather stout, flabby-looking
woman with a sallow face wherein keener eyes than Elsie's might have
detected traces of former prettiness, and frowsy, ginger-colored hair
that had been curled on an iron. She wore a dingy pink tea-gown
bordered with swan's-down, cut rather low and revealing a yellow,
scrawny neck. A large cameo brooch took the place of a missing frog,
and a pin in the hem disclosed missing stitches. Her hands were
covered with rings, her feet thrust into shapeless knitted boots.
She smiled, cried, "Elsie!" in a weak, sentimental manner, and opened
her arms wide as if expecting the girl to fly into them.
Elsie, who had risen, advanced stiffly and reached out her hand in
gingerly fashion. But Mrs. Middleton gathered her, willy-nilly, into a
warm embrace, holding her close against the dingy pink flannel.
Elsie could not struggle against it, as she was moved to do; she could
not burst into tears at the indignity; she could not rush out of the
house and back to the train, as she longed to do, with the sense of
outrage goading her. She was forced to sit down weakly with the others.
Mrs. Middleton gazed at her fondly.
"Dear child! Little orphan stranger!" she cried. "How I have longed
for this hour! Indeed, I so longed for it that at the last moment my
strength failed me, and when the train whistled I had to drop on my bed
in exhaustion. But enough of that. Welcome to our home and hearts!"
Murmuring some chill, indistinct monosyllable, Elsie glanced dumbly at
Mr. Middleton, who was looking at his wife as tenderly as if she had
been all that Elsie had expected her to be. Were they both mad?
"Jack, dear, you have never asked Elsie to take off her things--your
own niece!" exclaimed Mrs. Middleton reproachfully. And she turned to
Elsie with her sentimental smile.
"These men, my dear!" she said, and coming to her side begged the girl
to let her have her wraps.
Elsie wanted to cry out that she wasn't going to stay, that she was no
kin of theirs, and was going away on the next train. But she couldn't
utter a word. She removed her hat and jacket dumbly, wondering which
dusty surface they would occupy. As Mr. Middleton carried them into
the hall, she could only guess.
On his return, he noticed the kitchen-apron, picked it up and held it a
moment irresolutely. Then opening a door in the wainscot near the
fireplace he flung it in. Before the door went to, Elsie had a glimpse
of worse disorder--of the sort that is supposed to pertain to a
junk-shop.
"That's Katy's apron," remarked Mrs. Middleton plaintively. "Do you
know, Jack, I feel sure she sits in here when there's no one around.
Now that book on the table by the window must be hers."
"It's no harm for her to sit here when the room is not in use,"
returned Mr. Middleton kindly, "but when she goes, I wish she would
take her things along." And he picked up the novel and was about to
consign it to the same dump when his wife held out her hand for it.
"What mush!" she cried as she fingered the greasy pages, while Elsie
flinched inwardly. And unobservant as the girl naturally was, she
could not help noticing that Mrs. Middleton retained the book.
"Don't think, dear Elsie, that we're unkind to our poor but worthy
Kate," the latter remarked, sitting down next to Elsie and taking the
girl's limp hand in hers. "As a matter of fact, she has a sitting-room
of her own. This house, you know, is very old. It matches the other,
newer buildings only because they were built to suit its style. The
original owners, the Enderbys, for whom the town was renamed, had many
servants and provided a parlor for them. Of course your uncle and I
can afford to keep only one, but we gave her the parlor, hoping she
would appreciate it. But it doesn't look out front, so she doesn't
care for it and uses it as a sort of store-room."
"I wonder if Elsie wouldn't like to go to her chamber now," Mr.
Middleton suggested, remarking suddenly how tired the girl looked. He
had thought her surprisingly fresh after the long journey, but
apparently only excitement had kept her up.
Elsie looked at him gratefully. She was longing to be by herself in
order to determine what she was to do.
"Yes, Jack, that's exactly what the poor dear wants; I've been trying
to get a word in to ask her," agreed Mrs. Middleton plaintively. Elsie
rose.
"Where did you decide to put her, Milly? In the blue room?"
"Yes, dear, but I'm not perfectly sure whether Katy got it ready. Do
you mind calling her?"
He fetched the handsome, slatternly maid servant, who drew up the lower
corner of her apron crosswise to disguise its dirt, but openly and
unashamed, and only to uncover a dress underneath that was quite as
untidy.
"Katy, this is our niece, Miss Moss, who has come to live with us,"
Mrs. Middleton announced. "Have you got the blue room ready for her?"
Katy bowed low to Elsie before she replied.
"No'm, not yet," she said.
"Oh, Katy, when I told you to be sure?"
"No'm, you didn't," responded the woman pleasantly.
"Dear me! Well, I meant to; I suppose it slipped my mind."
She turned to Elsie. "I've been particularly wretched all day,
scarcely able, with all my will-power at full strain, to hold up my
head."
"It seems to me," she addressed Kate reproachfully, "you might have
done it anyhow. You knew what Mr. Middleton was going in town for."
"I'll get a place ready for her right now in no time, ma'am," Katy
assured her cheerfully. As she was leaving the room with an admiring
look at Elsie, she glanced suspiciously at Mrs. Middleton, whose hand
was hidden in a fold of her wrapper.
"Is that my story-book you've got, ma'am?" she inquired.
Mrs. Middleton drew forth the book, looked at it as if in great
surprise, and gave it to Kate, who disappeared at once. Mr. Middleton
followed with Elsie's luggage.
Elsie, who did not resume her seat, walked to the window and gazed out,
without, however, seeing anything. Mrs. Middleton began to rhapsodize
over the elms and oaks and some rooks in the distance that were really
crows. But before she had gone far, Katy appeared to say that the room
was ready. If she had not done it in no time, as she had proposed, she
had certainly spent as little time as one could and accomplish
anything. Mrs. Middleton led Elsie up-stairs, threw open the door of
the room with a dramatic gesture, kissed and fondled her, and finally
left her to get a good rest.
Elsie closed the door after her, dropped into a chair and, burying her
face in her hands, sat motionless.