REACTION
In the darkness of the summer midnight Georgiana descended from the
"owl" train, the only passenger, as it happened, to alight at the small
station. She had hoped to slip away unobserved for the half-mile walk
home, but the station master was too quick for her. He was a young
station master, and he had known Georgiana Warne all his life--from
afar.
"Well, I certainly did think I'd seen a ghost," said he, confronting
her. "I thought you'd gone to Europe. Get a message to come back? Your
father ain't took sick, has he?"
"No, I hope not. I--something happened to make it best for me to come
back."
"Well, that's too bad, sure," said he, curiously regarding her. "Say,
wait five minutes and I'll walk down the road with you. It's pretty late
for you to be out alone."
"Thank you, Mr. Parker; I don't mind a bit, and I'm anxious to get on.
I've only this small bag to carry, and it's bright moonlight. No, truly,
please don't come. Good-night, and thank you."
Could this really be herself, Georgiana Warne, she wondered, as she made
her escape and walked rapidly away down the road under the high arches
of the elms. How had it come about? Why was she here, she who had
expected to be out on the first reaches of the great deep when midnight
came this night? As she passed silent house after silent house, familiar
and yet somehow strangely unfamiliar in the light of what might have
been, it was hard enough to realize that she had had this wonderful
chance to stay away for two happy months from the sober little old
place, and had herself relinquished it.
Before she knew it she was nearing her home, the old white house
standing square and stern in the moonlight--she had been seeing it all
the way in the train. She loved it dearly, no doubt of that, but it had
been no attack of homesickness which had brought her back to it.
As she came up the path she saw, past the sweeping branches of the great
trees which surrounded the house, that Mr. Jefferson's windows were
still alight. This was no surprise, for she knew he had often worked
till late hours before she began to help him; and it looked as if, now
that he had to continue alone, he meant to keep up the rate of advance
by working overtime.
Georgiana stole upon the porch and tried the door. It was bolted as
usual. She slipped around the house, and tried the side and rear doors
in turn, to find them fast. She had had no plan as to how to make an
undisturbing entrance at this hour, but had counted on being able to
discover some unguarded point. She and her father had never been careful
as to thorough locking of the house in a neighbourhood where thefts were
almost unknown, but evidently their boarder, accustomed to city ways and
chances of trouble, had taken pains to make all fast.
There seemed to be only one thing to do, and Georgiana did it. After
all, it was probably better that somebody should know of her return, in
case she had to go about the house and make any betraying sounds. She
stooped to the gravel path, and scooping up a handful of pebbles flung
them up at one of the lighted windows, where they rattled like small
bird shot upon the wire netting of the screen.
It took a second fusillade before the absorbed worker within was
attracted and appeared at the window, a black figure against the yellow
radiance of the oil lamp.
"It's some one who belongs here," Georgiana called softly. "Please come
down very quietly and let me in."
"Wait a minute," returned the voice above.
In less than that minute the door swung softly open, and the tall
figure, clad in loose shirt and trousers, the former open at the neck
and revealing a sturdy throat, stood before the applicant for admission.
There was no light upon Georgiana, for the moonlit yard was behind her.
"What can I do for you?" Mr. Jefferson was beginning in a pleasant tone,
as of one not at all disturbed by being summoned at this hour, when a
voice he had heard many times before said, with an odd thrill in it, as
if it struggled between tears and laughter:
"You can let me in and try not to consider me an idiot. I got my father
on my mind and couldn't sail, so I came back. That's absolutely all
there is of it."
"My dear girl!" Mr. Jefferson put forth a hand and took hers, as he came
out upon the porch. "Of course, I beg your pardon," he added, releasing
her hand after one strong pressure, "if you consider that my rather
natural surprise isn't apology enough. But--you can't mean that the
ship--and the party--have sailed without you?"
"Just that. Is--is my father as well as he was this morning?"
"He was quite as well, apparently, at bedtime. The heat has been trying,
but he has borne it without complaint."
"I don't know what I expected," confessed Georgiana rather faintly; "but
I don't think I expected that. I'm very thankful. I'll come in and slip
upstairs. Thank you for coming down."
She would stay for no more; it seemed to her that she could bear no
further explanations to-night. As if he understood her, Mr. Jefferson
was silent as he followed her in, bolted the heavy door, and took from
her the handbag she carried. He deposited this at the door of her room
upstairs, and spoke under his breath in the darkness relieved only by
the rays which shone from the open door of his own room at the front of
the hall:
"Good-night--and welcome back!"
It was almost daylight when she fell asleep, and she wakened again at
the first sound of Mrs. Perkins's footsteps in the kitchen below her.
She dressed slowly, her heart heavy with the sense of having made a
probably needless sacrifice. With the waking in the familiar old room,
all the realization of that which she had lost had come heavily upon
her. Why was not the sunlight pouring in through portholes, bearing the
refreshing breezes from the sea, instead of beating in over the hot tin
roof of the ell upon which her windows looked? Was it merely as Aunt
Olivia had warned her, the hysteria of the inexperienced traveler? Why
had she not at least accepted Miles Channing's eminently reasonable
suggestion that she make the voyage, giving her emotions time to cool?
At the longest, if she made an immediate return, she would have been
absent but little more than a fortnight.
But she dressed with unusual care none the less, and when she descended
the back stairs she was looking as fresh and trim as ever in her life.
She encountered the good Mrs. Perkins in the kitchen and had it out with
her, receiving the first encouragement she had felt that somebody would
think her rational in her return.
"Well, I must say," declared that lady, standing still, as if she had
been struck, in an attitude of astonishment, "while I'm more than sorry
for you to lose your trip, Georgie, I shall feel safer now you're back.
Your father cert'nly does look awful peaked to me and kind of weak-like,
more so than I ever noticed before. Perhaps it's just because I felt the
responsibility settlin' down on my shoulders the minute you was out of
the house. And I guess he was goin' to miss you pretty awful much;
though, of course, he wouldn't say so."
Georgiana took in her father's tray when it was ready, quite as usual,
her heart beating fast as she entered and beheld the white face against
the propped-up pillows. After the first gasp of surprise she saw the
unwonted colour flow into the pale cheeks.
"My dear, dear child," he said, as she set down the tray and flew to
clasp him in her arms, "this is--this is almost more than I can grasp.
What has happened Is the sailing of your ship deferred?"
"My sailing on it is deferred," she told him. "I couldn't leave you,
Father Davy; that's the simple truth. Your daughter is an
infant-in-arms."
She did not try to make it clear to him; but let him guess the most of
her reason for returning, and was rewarded by his fervent: "Well, dear,
it was a very wonderful thing for you to do. But you should not have
done it. You should have trusted the good Lord to take care of me, as I
bade you. You must do it yet. We will arrange for you to follow your
Uncle Thomas's party on the next boat. I cannot have you lose so much
just for me."
"It's no use," she asserted, her eyes studying the blue veins so clearly
outlined on the fair forehead. "I've made my decision; I ought to have
made it that way in the beginning. So long as you need me I shall not
leave you."
At the breakfast table she met Mr. Jefferson. It was only twenty-four
hours since she and he had breakfasted together, but somehow it seemed
to Georgiana as if at least a week had gone by. Mr. Warne was seldom
present at the first meal of the day, and it had come to seem very
natural to Georgiana to sit down with her boarder and pour his coffee
and talk with him. This morning, however, there was a curious constraint
in the girl's manner. After the first interchange of observations on
the promise of even more extreme heat than on the preceding day and the
possibilities of dress and diet to suit the trying conditions, the talk
flagged.
"I am strongly tempted," said Mr. Jefferson, as he rose after making an
unusually frugal meal of fruit and coffee, "to let up on work till there
comes a change in the weather. I believe I shall try how it feels to
idle a little. You surely will indorse that, Miss Warne, as far as you
are concerned?"
"No," she said quickly, sure that this plan was the result of
consideration for herself; "as far as I am concerned I should much
prefer to work. I am sure you can give me something to do, even if you
are not working yourself."
"Do you mean that? Then if you do, I shall be with you, though I think
it would be good for you to rest. This last week has been pretty full
for you, even though you haven't been with me on the book."
She shook her head. "I want to go on with it," she insisted; and he
agreed.
News in a small village travels fast, and Georgiana was fully prepared
to have James Stuart appear with the first fall of dusk. He came through
the hedge at the foot of the garden, and found her on the seat under the
old apple tree which was her favourite resort. His greeting was full of
the astonishment which had been his all day.
"My word, George, but I never would have believed this! How on earth did
you come to do it?"
"I had to," she said simply and rather wearily. She had explained to at
least twenty persons that day, as well as she could explain. She was not
willing to confide to any one the incident of the flowers and the card
which had brought about the impulse to return that had hardened so
quickly into action. She had listened to all kinds of comments on the
situation, some few sympathetic, but most of them curious and critical.
Many had said to her that they never would have believed Georgie Warne
would ever change her mind about anything. Others had added that perhaps
it was a good thing, since her father certainly was pretty feeble and
nobody knew when he might take a turn for the worse. Altogether, it had
not been a happy day for the object of the village interest.
Stuart sat down beside Georgiana on the old bench which bore his
initials from one end to the other of it, the earliest ones hacked out
during his small boyhood, the later more than once coupling Georgiana's
with his own. His hand, as he settled into place, rested on one of these
very monograms.
"It seems like the natural thing to say I'm glad to see you back," he
said slowly, "but--there's a reason why I can't say it at all."
"Then don't dream of saying it." Georgiana leaned her head listlessly
against the seamy old tree trunk behind her.
"It's not that I wanted you to go; you know I was altogether too selfish
for that," he went on. "But--something happened at the last that made me
entirely reconciled to having you go. Can you guess what it was?"
"Possibly."
"But you can't. Of course I was pretty well dashed at finding Channing
booked for the trip. But--I got over that when--I made up my mind to
come, too."
"To come, too!" The head resting against the tree trunk turned quickly.
"What _do_ you mean?"
"Jeannette suggested it," said he, with something in his voice which his
listener could not quite analyze. "She put it up to me to come over
while they should be staying in Devonshire, and join their house party.
At first I said I couldn't, but the more I thought of it the more it
seemed possible to get over there for a fortnight anyhow. The plan was
not to tell you, and to surprise you by walking in on you."
Georgiana stared at him, as well as she could see him through the fervid
twilight. "Jimps! Why, how could you get away?"
"There's never a time when it's easy to get away," he admitted; "but
everything's in full sail now for the summer, and just lately I've
succeeded in getting hold of an awfully competent man who could run
things for the month well enough. Anyhow, of course I was dippy at the
thought of going and--I promised her I would if I could manage it. I've
never had the chance to travel much, and it suddenly struck me that I
didn't have to deny myself every possible thing. But, of course, now
that you're back----"
"But that makes no difference!" she cried quickly, "Why should it?
Jeannette asked you because she wanted you. Of course you must go, if
you really can get away."
"She never would have asked me if you hadn't been going. And it was only
an afterthought then. If I hadn't gone on for that last hour it wouldn't
have occurred to her."
"It occurred to her to wish it, because she said so more than once to me
the day I was there. But she didn't dream you could do it. I don't know
why we should all consider you a fixture, for your father is much
stronger than mine and it couldn't harm him at all to spare you for a
little. Of course, you must go, Jimps! When will you start?"
"Do you honestly want me to go, George?" He seemed to be scanning her
face through the dimness.
"I should be a selfish thing enough if I didn't," she protested.
He was silent for a minute; then he said: "To be frank, I wrote last
night for a berth on a ship that sails in two weeks. Jeannette warned me
not to delay, the travel is so heavy this time of year. I talked it over
with my father and he seemed pleased at the idea. You can imagine I felt
a bit dizzy this morning when I heard you hadn't sailed. I didn't
believe it at first."
"Never mind, you will go just the same--and all the more. It's a pity
somebody shouldn't carry out the plan, and you've had less fun than I,
for you've been at home longer since college. Go, Jimps, and take the
goods the gods provide."
She maintained this spirit throughout the ensuing fortnight, in spite of
his evident effort to make her acknowledge that she would feel her own
disappointment the more for his going. When he came over to say good-bye
he found her apparently in the gayest of spirits; and she gave him such
a friendly send-off that he went away marvelling in his heart at the
ways of young women, and the ways of Georgiana Warne in particular.