_In Which a Princess Serving Finds That the Motto of Kings is
Meaningless._
TOBY, safe and snug behind the kitchen stove, was keenly alive to the
fact that supper was being served. He had had his own supper, so that his
interest was purely impersonal.
Mrs. Bower cooked, and her daughter Beulah waited on the table. The
service was not elaborate. Everything went in at once, and Peter helped
the women carry the loaded trays.
Anne Warfield ate usually with the family. She would have liked to sit
with the Old Gentlemen at their genial gatherings, but it would not, she
felt, have been sanctioned by the Bowers. Their own daughter, Beulah,
would not have done it. Beulah had nothing in common with the jovial
hunters and fishers. She had her own circle of companions, her own small
concerns, her own convictions as to the frivolity of these elderly
guests. She would not have cared to listen to what they had to say. She
did not know that their travels, their adventures, their stored-up
experience had made them rich in anecdote, ready of tongue to tell of
wonders undreamed of in the dullness of her own monotonous days.
But Anne Warfield knew. Now and then from the threshold she had caught
the drift of their discourse, and she had yearned to draw closer, to sail
with them on unknown seas of romance and of reminiscence, to leave behind
her for the moment the atmosphere of schoolhouse, of small gossip, of
trivial circumstance.
It was with this feeling strong upon her that to-night, when the supper
bell rang, she came into the kitchen and asked Mrs. Bower if she might
help Beulah. She had no feeling that such labor was beneath her. If a
princess cared to serve, she was none the less a princess!
Secure, therefore, in her sense of unassailable dignity, she entered the
dining-room. She might have been a goddess chained to menial tasks--a
small and vivid goddess, with dusky hair. Richard Brooks, observing her,
had once more a swift and certain sense of her fineness and of her
unlikeness to those about her.
The young man with the black ribbon on his eye-glass also observed her.
Later he said to Mrs. Bower, "Can you give me a room here for a month?"
"I might. Usually people don't care to stay so long at this time of
year."
"I am writing a book. I want to stay."
Beside Richard Brooks at the table sat Evelyn Chesley. With the
Dutton-Ames, and Philip Meade, she had come down with Richard and his
mother to speed them upon their mad adventure.
Evelyn had taken off her hat. Her wonderful hair was swept up in a new
fashion from her forehead, a dull gold comb against its native gold. She
wore a silken blouse of white, slightly open at the neck. On her fingers
diamonds sparkled. It seemed to Anne, serving, as if the air of the long
low room were charged with some thrilling quality. Here were youth and
beauty, wit and light laughter, the perfume of the roses which Evelyn
wore tucked in her belt. There was the color, too, of the roses, and of
the cloak in which Winifred Ames had wrapped her shivering fairness. The
cloak was blue, a marvelous pure shade like the Madonna blue of some old
picture.
Even Richard's mother seemed illumined by the radiance which enveloped
the rest. She was a slender little thing and wore plain and simple
widow's black. Yet her delicate cheeks were flushed, her eyes were
shining, and her son had made her, too, wear a red rose.
The supper was suited to the tastes of the old epicures for whom it had
been planned. There were oysters and ducks with the juices following the
knife, hot breads, wild grape jelly, hominy and celery.
The fattest Old Gentleman carved the ducks. The people who had come on
the train were evidently his friends. Indeed, he called the little lady
with the shining eyes "Cousin Nancy."
"So you've brought your boy back?" he said, smiling down at her.
"Oh, yes, yes. Cousin Brin, I feel as if I had reached the promised
land."
"You'll find things changed. Nothing as it was in your father's time.
Foreigners to the right of you, foreigners to the left. Italians,
Greeks--barbarians--cutting the old place into little farms--blotting out
the old landmarks."
"I don't care; the house still stands, and Richard will hang out my
father's sign, and when people want a doctor, they will come again to
Crossroads."
"People in these days go to town for their doctors."
Richard's head went up. "I'll make them come to me, sir. And you mustn't
think that mother brought me back. I came because I wanted to come. I
hate New York."
The listening Old Gentlemen, whose allegiance was given to a staid and
stately town on the Patapsco, quite glowed at that, but Evelyn flamed:
"You might have made a million in New York, Richard."
"I don't want a million."
"Oh," she appealed to Brinsley Tyson, "what can you do with a man like
that--without red blood--without ambition?"
And now it was Richard who flamed. "I am ambitious enough, Eve, but it
isn't to make money."
"He has some idea," the girl proclaimed recklessly to the whole table,
"of living as his ancestors lived; as if one _could_. He believes that
people should go back to plain manners and to strict morals. His mission
is to keep this mad world sane."
A ripple of laughter greeted her scorn. Her own laughter met it. The slim
young man at the other end of the table swung his eye-glasses from their
black ribbon negligently, but his eyes missed nothing.
"It is my only grievance against you, Mrs. Nancy," Eve told the little
shining lady. "I love you for everything else, but not for this."
"I am sorry, my dear. But Richard and I think alike. So we are going to
settle at Crossroads--and live happy ever after."
Anne Warfield, outwardly calm, felt the blood racing in her veins. The
old house at Crossroads was just across the way from her little school.
She had walked in the garden every day, and now and then she had taken
the children there. They had watched the squirrels getting ready for the
winter, and had fed the belated birds with crumbs from the little lunch
baskets. And there had been the old sun-dial to mark the hour when the
recess ended and to warn them that work must begin.
She had a rapturous vision of what it might be to have the old house
open, and to see Nancy Brooks and her son Richard coming in and out.
Later, however, alone in her dull room, stripped of its holiday
trappings, the vision faded. To Nancy and Richard she would be just the
school-teacher across the way, as to-night she had been the girl who
waited on the table!
There was music down-stairs. The whine of the phonograph came up to her.
Peggy, knocking, brought an interesting bulletin.
"They are dancing," she said. "Let's sit on the stairs and look."
From the top of the stairs they could see straight into the long front
room. The hall was dimly lighted so that they were themselves free from
observation. Philip Meade and Eve were dancing, and the Dutton-Ames. Eve
had on very high shoes with very high heels. Her skirt was wide and
flaring. She dipped and swayed and floated, and the grace of the man with
whom she danced matched her own.
"Isn't it lovely," said Peggy's little voice, "isn't it lovely, Anne?"
It was lovely, lovely as a dream. It was a sort of ecstasy of motion. It
was youth and joy incarnate. Anne had a wild moment of rebellion. Why
must she sit always at the head of the stairs?
The music stopped. Eve and Philip became one of the circle around the
fireplace in the front room. Again Eve's roses and Winifred's cloak gave
color to the group. There was also the leaping golden flame of the fire,
and, in the background, a slight blue haze where some of the Old
Gentlemen smoked.
The young man with the eye-glasses was telling a story. He told it well,
and there was much laughter when he finished. When the music began again,
he danced with Winifred Ames. Dutton Ames watched them, smiling. He
always smiled when his eyes rested on his lovely wife.
Evelyn danced with Richard. He did not dance as well as Philip, but he
gave the effect of doing it easily. He swung her finally out into the
hall. The whine of the phonograph ceased. Richard and Eve sat down on a
lower step of the stairway.
The girl's voice came up to the quiet watchers clearly. "When are you
coming to New York to dance with me again, Dicky Boy?"
"You must come down here. Pip will bring you in his car for the
week-ends, with the Dutton-Ames. And I'll get a music box and a lot of
new records. The old dining-room has a wonderful floor."
"I hate your wonderful floor and your horrid old house. And when I think
of Fifth Avenue and the lights and the theaters and you away from it
all----"
"Poor young doctors have no right to the lights and all the rest of it.
Eve, don't let's quarrel at the last moment. You'll be reconciled to it
all some day."
"I shall never be reconciled."
And now Philip Meade was claiming her. "You promised me this, Eve."
"I shall have all the rest of the winter for you, Pip."
"As if that made any difference! I never put off till to-morrow the
things I want to do to-day. And as for Richard, he'll come running back
to us before the winter is over."
Richard shrugged. "You're a pair of cheerful prophets. Go and fox-trot
with him, Eve."
Left alone, the eyes of the young doctor went at once to the top of the
stairs.
"Come down and dance," he said.
"Do you mean me?" Peggy demanded out of the dimness.
"I mean both of you."
"I can't dance--not the new dances." Anne was conscious of an
overwhelming shyness. "Take Peggy."
"How did you know we were up here?" Peggy asked.
"Well, I heard a little laugh, and a little whisper, and I looked up and
saw a little girl."
"Oh, oh, did you really?"
"Really."
"Well, I can't dance. But I can try."
So they tried, with Richard lifting the child lightly to the lilting
tune.
When he brought her back, he sat down beside Anne. Shyness still chained
her, but he chatted easily. Anne could not have told why she was shy. In
the stable she had felt at her ease with him. But then she had not seen
Eve or Winifred. It was the women who had seemed to make the difference.
Presently, however, he had her telling of her school. "It begins again
to-morrow."
"Do you like it?"
"Teaching? No. But I love the children."
"Do you teach Peggy?"
"Yes. She is too young, really, but she insists upon going."
"There used to be a schoolhouse across the road from my grandfather's. A
red brick school with a bell on top."
"There is still a bell. I always ring it myself, although the boys beg to
do it. But I like to think of myself as the bell ringer."
It was while they sat there that Eric Brand came in through the
kitchen-way to the hall. He stood for a moment looking into the lighted
front room where Eve still danced with Philip Meade, and where the young
man with the eye-glasses talked with the Dutton-Ames. Anne instinctively
kept silent. It was Peggy who revealed their hiding place to him.
"Oh, Eric," she piped, "are you back?" She went flying down the stairs to
him.
He caught her, and holding her in his arms, peered up. "Who's there?"
Peggy answered. "It's Anne and the new doctor. I danced with him, and he
came on the train with those other people in there--and he has a dog
named Toby--it's in the kitchen."
"So that's his dog? It will have to go to the kennels for the night."
Richard, descending, apologized. "I shouldn't have let Toby stay in the
house, but Miss Bower put in a plea for him."
"Beulah?"
"He means Anne," Peggy explained. "Her name is Warfield. It's funny you
didn't know."
"How could I?" Richard had a feeling that he owed the little goddess-girl
an explanation of his stupidity. He found himself again ascending the
stairs.
But Anne had fled. Overwhelmingly she realized that Richard had believed
her to be the daughter of Peter Bower. Daughter of that crude and common
man! Sister of Beulah! Friend of Eric Brand!
Well, she had brought it on herself. She had looked after the dogs and
she had waited on the table. People thought differently of these things.
The ideals she had tried to teach her children were not the ideals of
the larger world. Labor did not dignify itself. The motto of kings was
meaningless! A princess serving was no longer a princess!
Sitting very tense and still in the little rocking-chair in her own room,
she decided that of course Richard looked down on her. He had perceived
in her no common ground of birth or of breeding. Yet her grandfather had
been the friend of the grandfather of Richard Brooks!
When Peggy came up, she announced that she was to sleep with Anne. It was
an arrangement often made when the house was full. To-night Anne welcomed
the cheery presence of the child. She sang her to sleep, and then sat for
a long time by the little round stove with Peggy in her arms.
She laid her down as a knock sounded on her door.
"Are you up?" some one asked, and she opened it, to find Evelyn Chesley.
"May I borrow a needle?" She showed a torn length of lace-trimmed
flounce. "I caught it on a rocker in my room. There shouldn't be any
rocker."
"Mrs. Bower loves them," Anne said, as she hunted through her little
basket; "she loves to rock and rock. All the women around here do."
"Then you're not one of them?"
"No. My grandmother was Cynthia Warfield of Carroll."
The name meant nothing to Evelyn. It would have meant much to Nancy
Brooks.
"How did you happen to come here? I don't see how any one could choose to
come."
"My mother died--and there was no one but my Great-uncle Rodman Warfield.
I had to get something to do--so I came here, and Uncle Rod went to live
with a married cousin."
Evelyn had perched herself on the post of Anne's bed and was mending the
flounce. Although she was not near the lamp, she gave an effect of
gathering to her all the light of the room. She was wrapped in a robe of
rose-color, a strange garment with fur to set it off, and of enormous
fullness. It spread about her and billowed out until it almost hid the
little bed and the child upon it.
Beside her, Anne in her blue serge felt clumsy and common. She knew that
she ought not to feel that way, but she did. She would have told her
scholars that it was not clothes that made the man, or dress the woman.
But then she told her scholars many things that were right and good. She
tried herself to be as right and good as her theories. But it was not
always possible. It was not possible at this moment.
"What brought you here?" Eve persisted.
"I teach school. I came in September."
"What do you teach?"
"Everything. We are not graded."
"I hope you teach them to be honest with themselves."
"I am not sure that I know what you mean?"
"Don't let them pretend to be something that they are not. That's why so
many people fail. They reach too high, and fall. That's what Nancy Brooks
is doing to Richard. She is making him reach too high."
She laughed as she bent above her needle. "I fancy you are not interested
in that. But I can't think of anything but--the waste of it. I hope you
will all be so healthy that you won't need him, and then he will have to
come back to New York."
"I don't see how anybody could leave New York. Not to come down here."
Anne drew a quick breath.
Eve spoke carelessly: "Oh, well, I suppose it isn't so bad here for a
woman, but for a man--a man needs big spaces. Richard will be
cramped--he'll shrink to the measure of all this--narrowness." She had
finished her flounce, and she rose and gave Anne the needle. "In the
morning, if the weather is good, we are to ride to Crossroads. Is your
school very far away?"
"It is opposite Crossroads. Mrs. Brooks' father built it."
Anne spoke stiffly. She had felt the sting of Eve's indifference, and she
was furious with herself for her consciousness of Eve's clothes, of her
rings--of the gold comb in her hair.
When her visitor had gone, Anne took down her own hair, and flung it up
into a soft knot on the top of her head. Swept back thus, her face seemed
to bloom into sudden beauty. She slipped the blue dress from her
shoulders and saw the long slim line of her neck and the whiteness of her
skin.
The fire had died down in the little round stove. The room was cold. She
thought of Eve's rose-color, and of the warmth of her furs.
Bravely, however, she hummed the tune to which the others had danced. She
lifted her feet in time. Her shoes were heavy, and she took them off. She
tried to get the rhythm, the lightness, the grace of movement. But these
things must be taught, and she had no one to teach her.
When at last she crept into bed beside the sleeping Peggy, she was
chilled to the bone, and she was crying.
Peggy stirred and murmured.
Soothing the child, Anne told herself fiercely that she was a goose to be
upset because Eve Chesley had rings and wore rose-color. Why, she was no
better than Diogenes, who had fumed and fussed because Toby had taken his
straw in the stable.
But her philosophy failed to bring peace of mind. For a long time she lay
awake, working it out. At last she decided, wearily, that she had wept
because she really didn't know any of the worth-while things. She didn't
know any of the young things and the gay things. She didn't know how to
dance or to talk to men like Richard Brooks. The only things that she
knew in the whole wide world were--books!