of fashion, and I'd like Hester to taste their flavor. She's a good
girl, is Hester; she'll see their beauty. And now, come, my dear Rob,
you brave little Casabianca; I'm going to take you home to rest and
have a good time. But first I'm going to take you to lunch. Upon my
word, we've neither of us tasted food! Why, Rob, you must be starving!
And see how interested I have been! That's the first time I've
forgotten my lunch-hour since I don't know when--probably not since my
base-ball days!"
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ITS RESCUE
Rob followed Mr. Baldwin and her suit-case from the Sixth Avenue
elevated station at Seventy-second Street northward a block, and then
westward two blocks on Seventy-third Street, followed hanging back a
little, and dreading the encounter with his wife and daughter which lay
before her. But Mr. Baldwin drew her up the steps close to his side,
with a reassuring gesture of protection, and before he could get his
key fully into the lock, the door flew open, and a beautiful little
woman, exquisitely gowned, stood before them, while over her shoulder
peered a girl of Rob's age, but taller than she was.
"I am glad you came straight to us, my dear," said Mrs. Baldwin, with
such quiet sincerity and informality that Rob drew a long breath of
relief. "I am sure you are too tired to be as glad to see us as we are
to see you, though. Hester, this is Roberta; take her to her room, and
don't let Virginie bother her--you must be her maid to-night. Hester is
delighted to have you here, my dear."
Rob returned the sweet woman's welcoming kiss with all the gratitude
of her lonely, timid heart, and laid her hand in Hester Baldwin's. The
two girls gave each other a penetrating look, and then moved at the
same instant to kiss each other, as if the scrutiny had been mutually
satisfactory. Hester was not pretty, but she had a keenly intelligent
face, and one could see that she was going to make a noble-looking
woman.
"We shall dine in half an hour," she said, in a rich alto voice. "Come
with me, and I'll help you get ready. The maid will bring your case,"
she added, as Rob, accustomed to wait on herself, lifted and hastily
set down, at Hester's suggestion, her former burden.
"We were pleased when father telephoned that he was bringing you here,"
Hester continued. "It is very nice to have a girl about; I never had
an intimate friend, because I never went to school, and that separates
a girl a good deal from others--makes her not fit in when she is with
them. Father said you had lots to tell me that was wonderful, all about
your beautiful life, and your little grey house, and that you weren't
like the general run of girls of our age either. Please try to like
me--father wants you to; I can see that."
"See it over the telephone?" laughed Rob, rather embarrassed by this
appeal. "I'd do harder things for your father than that, after to-day!
He has been heavenly kind, and made me believe I have been right, and
brave, and wise when I was half frightened to death lest my obstinacy
had ruined my family."
"That sounds mysterious, and positively thrilling," Hester declared.
"But as to father, he is fine--you can't imagine how I love him!"
"Yes, I can," said Rob, with a quiver in her voice that brought a flush
to Hester's cheeks.
"Oh, I beg your pardon--I didn't mean to speak of father to you," she
cried. "But he told me you had been your father's comfort and help, and
were now the only one to understand and fulfil his desires--save his
reputation, I think he said. Now, maybe you are more fortunate than I,
for I am no use at all, and I never shall do anything for my father in
all my life, probably. I think that is worse than your sorrow."
"You can't help doing for him if you love him," said Rob, rather at
a loss to answer this morbid speech, yet recognizing the tactful
kindness prompting it. "It is all he wants, to know that you are good
and love him. Patergrey loved my love for him more than my help on the
machine. But it does comfort me to know I did help, and if your father
really thinks I'm saving the day for dear Patergrey's invention now I
shall almost learn after a while not to be sorry, but half glad that
he is happy, and that I did something for him when he couldn't do it
himself."
"Oh, yes," cried Hester, with conviction. "I think I shouldn't feel
badly if I were you--I don't mean I shouldn't miss him, but you have
been your father's comfort. It is perfectly dreadful to be of no use."
"Everybody is of use, I guess," said Rob. "And the best ones don't know
it. What a lovely room!"
"Is it?" said Hester. "I don't care much for it--I'd like a little
house in the country. I think maybe I shall go into a college
settlement when I'm old enough."
"Dear me," thought Rob, "what a queer girl! She ought to do housework,
and bother about money for a while, and then she'd find out!" But she
only said: "You'd like the little grey house, then. It's old-fashioned,
and not a bit handsome, but it is dear, and Fayre is a small
place--country enough."
"How pretty it is, calling the house 'the little grey house'! It is
because your name is Grey, isn't it?" asked Hester.
"Both reasons--we're Grey, and the house is all
time-and-weather-stained grey, too," Rob answered, shaking her hair out
over the dressing-sacque Hester laid over her shoulders. "I haven't
anything to put on, except clean collars and cuffs."
"It doesn't matter; we're alone, and black is always full dress and
full undress," said Hester. "If I had your hair I shouldn't care about
dresses. Are your sisters pretty, too?"
"They are very pretty. Wythie--Oswyth--is older than I, a year, and
she's just sweetness--looks, and character, and all. And Prue, the
youngest, is a beauty," said Rob, proudly.
"To think of having two sisters!" sighed Hester, laying out Rob's fresh
little hemstitched "turnover" collar.
At dinner Rob's shyness returned, but the Baldwins were most kind, and
spared her the necessity of more conversation than was required to make
her feel thoroughly welcome. The beautifully appointed dining-room, the
perfect service, brought before Rob's eyes in a new light the little
grey house, the patient cheerfulness of the dear Grey Mardy through all
the past years of drudgery and petty economies, the perfect breeding
of the mistress of the little house, and the careful training of its
daughters, in spite of adverse circumstances. For the first time Rob
realized the difference between wealth and poverty, and that there were
hundreds of people who had never felt the wheels of life jar. And for
the first time, though she had always worshipped her mother, she fully
realized what that hidden, unselfish life had accomplished in keeping
life in the little grey house on the plane on which she and Wythie and
Prue had been taught to live and think. She caught her breath in a
wordless prayer that her mission might not be vain, and that, in the
midst of grief, her brave mother might be set free of her long struggle.
Mr. Baldwin and his wife left the girls to themselves after dinner,
sitting across the room from their elders, and soon Rob was telling
Hester, with more detail and far more humor than she had shown her
father, all that there was to tell of Fayre, the river, the little grey
house, the Rutherfords and Frances, Cousin Peace and Aunt Azraella,
Kiku-san, Wythie and Prue, her mother, their queer adventures in
economy, her story-telling, Mr. Flinders and Polly, and all the sorrows
and joys which she saw, from this distance and in this beautiful home,
in a totally new and impersonal light.
Hester went off into such peals of laughter that she grew hysterical,
and her father and mother came over to share the fun. Rob did not mind
them; she had got so excited over her own narrative, and so interested
in it, that she could have told the story to the President.
"Why, it's like the nicest sort of a girls' story, Rob," cried Hester.
"How perfectly lovely to live such adventures! And here am I all alone!"
"And here are you seeing plays, studying whatever you like, going to
concerts, and doing all kinds of things!" retorted Rob. "It's funny
enough to tell, but let me assure you, Miss Hester Baldwin, there are
times when the mercury gets pretty low in the little grey house."
"It's going to climb, and stay up," said Mr. Baldwin. "And now, Hester,
take Rob to bed--she is more tired than she realizes. And to-morrow,
while I set in motion the wheels which are to prove the wheel of
fortune to her, you show Rob all of New York you can crowd into a
day. I suppose we mustn't try to keep you a moment longer than can be
helped, Bobs bahadur?"
"No, please, Mr. Baldwin," said Rob. "I should be happy here, and you
are all only too good to me, but they are troubled at home, and need
me."
"I can believe they need you, my dear, in joy or sorrow," said Mrs.
Baldwin, affectionately giving Rob her good-night kiss.
* * * * *
"Oh, you're up, are you, Rob?" cried Hester, trailing into Rob's room
in her pale blue, eiderdown wrapper. "I came to call you. If you're
strong enough, I'm going to take you from Dan to Beersheba to-day--or
at least from Nellie to Columbia. Nellie's the seal down in the
Aquarium, and----"
"Please, Hester, don't tell me Columbia is the college, because even in
Fayre we've heard of Columbia College," interrupted Rob. "I'm strong,
and shall be ready soon."
Hester was an energetic and resolute young person. She had set out to
show Rob New York, and she rushed from one end to the other of the
long-drawn city until Rob cried her mercy. "It's a whirl of a Battery,
with imaginary old Dutchmen airing themselves by the harbor waves,
and high buildings, as modern as a minute ago, and rattling trolleys,
and rising elevated roads bending around dizzy curves, and splendid
college libraries, and impressive tombs overlooking the Palisades, and
guarding soldiers' ashes and tattered flags, and swarming Harlem flats,
and gorgeous Fifth Avenue mansions, and cathedral spires," Rob said at
last, sinking wearily down on a seat before the entrance to the Art
Museum. "I can't go in, Hester, not if all the pictures in Europe and
Michelangelo's Moses are in there. I didn't think I should give out,
but let's risk New York and I meeting again, and finishing up. If we
don't, I know one of us will be finished up this time for good."
So Hester reluctantly postponed exhibiting the remainder of her city's
glories, and took home a thoroughly tired Rob. They found Mr. Baldwin
had come home early, and was waiting them impatiently.
"Rob," he cried. "I've great news for you. I have found the very
concern which is most interested in bricquette machines, and most
ready to purchase the best thing of the sort on the market. They told
me to-day that, on general principles, if the concern represented
by Mr. Marston would give four thousand dollars for your father's
invention, it would be worth not less than ten thousand to them. I
am to take you to see them in the morning, and their representative
will probably follow you to Fayre in a few days. At least, you see, we
have undoubtedly gained a great deal by waiting, and you are already
justified in your wisdom."
Rob turned pale. "You don't know how frightened I have been. Do you
think I can go home to-morrow?" she said.
"So tired of us?" suggested Mr. Baldwin, lifting the quivering face by
its chin.
"So anxious to get back, because I know how they want me," said Rob,
simply. "And just now I cannot stay away from the little grey house.
But please don't think me dreadful--I never could tell you how I feel
about your kindness. Some day, if Hester will come to the little grey
house, all the Greys will try to give her the best time that small
edifice can hold."
"We understand, Rob, and I'm coming, just as you're coming back here,
for we're going to be friends forever," said Hester.
"And as to kindness," added Mr. Baldwin, "Sylvester sent you to me, and
I only do what he would do for my girl, if the case were reversed."
In the morning Rob left the house which she had dreaded to enter,
feeling that the beautiful woman who was its mistress, and the tall
girl with her vague dissatisfactions, but ready affection, who had
proved a friend at sight, were something that had been part of her life
for years, instead of less than forty-eight hours. She went away as she
had come, with Mr. Baldwin and her suit-case, for she meant to go back
to Fayre as soon as this formidable interview before her was over, but
she went reluctantly, and at the corner, when she turned back to wave
her hand a last time to Hester and her mother, watching her depart, she
could scarcely see them for the tears she was trying to hide from Mr.
Baldwin.
Mr. Baldwin took Rob to his office to rid themselves of her cumbersome
case, and at once carried her off again to meet the possible purchasers
of the invention.
"Stop fluttering, Robin Redbreast," said Mr. Baldwin, feeling the
girl's heart palpitating against the arm through which he had drawn her
left one, tucking her up protectingly.
"Oh, that's what Cousin Peace calls me!" cried Rob. And the home
pet-name helped to steady her.
"They won't devour robins, my dear, and they won't be too business-like
with a slip of a sixteenyear-old girl, so don't be frightened. Just
tell them as clearly as you can your recollections of the construction
and working of your father's invention, and for his sake, and the dear
Mardy's and the girls', do your best."
"I will," said Rob, bracing herself, as Mr. Baldwin felt sure she
would. "But I feel so incompetent and ridiculous."
Everything swam before Rob's eyes as Mr. Baldwin opened a door and
ushered her into an office where she dimly perceived three or four
gentlemen, and solid mahogany desks and chairs. Into one of the latter
she felt herself sink, as someone placed it for her, while Mr. Baldwin
presented her in words that seemed to be intended to set her at her
ease, but which she hardly heard.
Just what happened first Rob never knew, but she found the oldest
of these solid, business-like personages asking her questions, and
heard her own voice answering as from afar. Then before her eyes
flashed a vision. She saw the wainscoted room at home, and her
father--Patergrey--bending his thin form over the models, and saying:
"You could explain this as well as I could myself, Rob, my son."
And now there was none else to do it--she was acting for Patergrey,
saving the work of his life from being lost. She felt as though his
wistful eyes were upon her, and she knew that she must not fail him.
With that vision fear left her. Straightening herself, she leaned
slightly forward in her chair, and said, with a new note of confidence
in her voice--confidence in herself and in the machine she had come
to explain: "I think, sir, if you please, I can tell you better just
how the machine is built and how it works, if you will let me describe
it in my own way. If I do not make it clear to you, you will stop me,
please, and ask me to explain fully."
The big man with the iron-grey hair stared at this sudden
transformation, but Mr. Baldwin understood, with instinctive sympathy,
something of what had passed in Rob's mind, and he felt a lump come
into his throat as he realized how bravely and loyally Rob loved her
father.
Without a moment's hesitation Roberta began her description. Forgetting
herself more and more in the interest of her own words, seeing not
the stately New York office, but the low-ceiled, dear old wainscoted
workroom at home, she rose to her feet, illustrating what she said with
articles borrowed from the desk and table before her. Her eyes were
dilating and flashing, her color went and came, her voice trembled, but
words never failed her, even technical words unconsciously retained
from hearing her father use them, words which she could not have used
except under the exaltation of her mood and motive.
No one interrupted her; she told her story quite to the end, not
noticing the silence in which they heard her. When she ended, and had
dropped back into her big chair, her audience stirred. "You are a
wonderful young girl, Miss Grey," said the gentleman, who evidently was
the person most concerned in the matter. "Your father was singularly
fortunate in such a daughter and assistant. We have perfectly
understood your description. The invention has important advantageous
points of difference from any machine on the market intended for this
purpose. I am speaking within bounds in saying that our firm will
certainly purchase it, if you will sell to us, and that we shall
certainly offer you a fair price, dealing honestly with you. The offer
you have received was so dishonest that it is a pity there is no law
punishing a rascal for making it, trying to take advantage of women in
their new sorrow. We will, by your permission, go to Fayre to see your
models, and will then lay before you the offer upon which we will, in
the meantime, decide. I can only repeat, Miss Grey, that we want the
machine."
Rob arose, trembling in every limb. "If you will send me word when
you're coming, I'll meet you at the station; Fayre is rather crooked,"
she said, faintly.
The gentlemen smiled, and Mr. Baldwin drew Rob's arm through his again,
and patted her hand as though she had been Hester.
"Not a bad little girl, is she?" he said, proudly. "You see, she has
done her best, and now longs to run away. I am obliged to you for your
courtesy, gentlemen, and so is Miss Roberta."
"Oh, yes; thank you ever so much for listening to me," said poor Rob,
wondering if she were going to be able to get out of that office
without crying like a baby.
"It has been the pleasantest, most interesting, most exceptional
business interview I ever had, my dear young lady," said the old
gentleman. "I shall go to Fayre myself, for I should like to see
your mother. Good-morning, and I shall be obliged to you if you will
consider the invention mine until you have refused my offer for it."
"Yes, sir," said Rob, and Mr. Baldwin, to her intense relief, bore her
away.
"Not another night, dear little Robin?" hinted Mr. Baldwin. "Couldn't
you, wouldn't you, telegraph your mother, and come back with me to
gladden Mrs. Baldwin and Hester's eyes with the sight of you, and their
hearts with our good news?"
"Oh, no; please not this time, dear, kind Mr. Baldwin," cried Rob.
"Don't you see how I must ache to get back? It was such a dreadful
thing to do, and now it's done, I must go home to my little grey house
and blessed Grey people."
"I know you must--you shall," said Mr. Baldwin. "I'll take you to
lunch, and then put you on the train myself, and speed you away to
Fayre."
At the Grand Central Station Mr. Baldwin established Rob in luxury in
the parlor-car, and held her hands fast. "I can't tell you how glad I
am you have come into our lives, Robin Bobs bahadur," he said. "You
shall not slip out again, I promise you."
"Wait till you see Wythie and Prue," said Rob, smiling through her
tears.
"Rob will do for me," said Mr. Baldwin, and, stooping, kissed her
cheek, "for her dear father, and for herself," he added, kissing the
other. And so, victorious, and with new friends, Rob set out on the
journey back to Fayre.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ITS LIBERATION
Rob watched the fields which bordered Fayre, and the splendid,
bare-boughed elms fly past the window against which she pressed her
face, eager for the first glimpse of the station. It seemed to her that
she had been gone for months; she wondered at finding them the same
fields and the same elms which she had seen on her departure--another
Rob was returning to them, who, she vaguely felt, must be welcomed by
changes in the surroundings of her childhood corresponding to those
within herself.
There was no one to meet her at the station; she had been too uncertain
of her return to announce it, and, leaving her single, but insistent,
piece of baggage at the station, she hurried to the little grey house.
She opened the door and came in quietly, yet not so quietly but that
Prue heard her step, and came tumbling out of the sitting-room,
crying: "Rob, Rob! Rob's come!" in an ecstasy of joyous excitement.
Wythie nearly tripped up her mother in her haste to follow Prue, but
Rob brushed past them both, throwing her arms around her darling Mardy,
and hugging her close, crying with joy at getting back to her, and for
grief of the loneliness of finding her in her widow's black.
"Rob, my dear, precious girl, I'm so thankful you're here I can't care
how your mission ended," cried Mrs. Grey, holding Rob off at arm's
length to see her better, and folding her closer than before. "I have
seen you crushed by trolleys, lost, weary, frightened, till I could not
forgive myself for letting you go."
"Dear Mardy-goosie, you see I'm all right, and you'd better care how
my mission ended, for it's worth caring about," cried Rob. "You see I
didn't come home on my shield, so maybe you can guess who's the victor."
"Rob, have you good news?" cried Wythie.
"I have a lovely old gentleman coming up here to see the invention, and
he is positively going to make an offer for it, but he couldn't tell
how much it would be. The only thing he could say was that it would be
considerably more than Mr. Marston's offer," said Rob, busying herself
with her coat-buttons, and trying to speak demurely.
"You splendid, splendid Rob!" cried Prue, throwing herself on her
sister's neck in a rapture.
"That's because I succeeded; if I'd failed, and sticking to my guns had
lost us the first offer, without getting a second one, you'd hardly
have forgiven me, Prudy. I begin to see why this is called an unjust
world," said Rob, wisely. "But I'm ravenous, dear folkses--can't you
feed a poor wanderer, while she tells her story?"
"Rob, dear, we are devouring you so hard with our eyes and ears
and hearts we forget how tired you must be!" exclaimed Wythie,
self-reproachfully. "We made some fresh gingerbread, in case of company
from the metropolis, and we've some freshest fresh eggs from Mr.
Flinders to-day--you shall not starve long, dearie." Wythie felt as
though her sister were undefinably changed by this short absence, and
was half afraid that Rob was growing up.
"And little Polly Flinders?" asked Rob. "How's the poor mite?"
"Wonderfully well; she begged to be allowed to stay up to see if you
wouldn't come to-night," smiled Mrs. Grey.
"Let me go get her; it won't hurt her to bring her down, wrapped up
in her gown. She'll like to hear me tell my story, even if she doesn't
understand much about it." And without waiting for an objection Rob
disappeared, and came back quickly, bearing a sleepy but happy Polly
done up in a scarlet dressing-gown, who was fondling her face as she
carried her, and whom she deposited in a dining-room chair, tucking her
feet up well in the wrapper before she took the place Wythie and Prue
had hastily prepared for her at the old table.
"How thankful I am this mahogany didn't go!" sighed Rob. "We're going
to be prosperous Greys henceforth, though I don't know yet the extent
of our riches. Now, sit ye down, my bonny, bonny lassies, Mardy,
Wythie, and Prue, and I will sing the adventures of Roberta the Bold in
the Great City of Gotham. No, I don't want any more bread than this,
Mardy, but if I did I'd get it--please sit down and listen."
Prue pulled up a chair, and leaned on her elbows well over toward the
middle of the table, drawing a long breath of contented yet impatient
interest. Wythie placed her chair close to Rob's side, and laid her arm
over her sister's shoulders, while the mother Grey took her favorite
low rocker, and folded her hands, looking with eyes warm with love and
moist with tender, proud tears at her husband's "son Rob," as she told
the story of her defence of his invention.
"And that's all," ended Rob, at last, having related every incident of
her visit, from her bewilderment as she left the station, and the big
policeman's kindness, to Mr. Baldwin's fatherly parting from her in the
Grand Central. "I did hold out against you all not to take the offer,
but nothing else is due to me. It is all that blessed Mr. Baldwin, and
I only hope I can some day make him understand how grateful I am--and
to his sweet wife and Hester, too; they were like--well, you can't say
like one's own kindred, for they were more thoughtful and loving to me
than some of our kindred are."
"But my brave Rob did it all, none the less," said her mother. "I can't
thank her for her loyal courage, but I hope her Patergrey can do it for
me." And she kissed Rob with a long, clinging kiss that the girl, happy
through her tears, felt was not from her mother only.