A GATHERING IN THE ATTIC
When Bonnie May went down-stairs and learned that Mrs. Baron had gone
out calling, she entered her own room and pushed her door partly shut,
so that she would be invisible to any one passing.
Her most earnest wish, for the moment, was to see her two friends next
door. Of course, she would see them before long, but she did not like
to leave the matter to chance.
There was no reason why she should not simply go to their front door,
and knock and ask for them. No reason; but undoubtedly a prejudice.
The Barons wouldn’t approve of such a thing. She really hadn’t been
aware of the existence of the house next door until now. She realized
that there were worlds between the people who lived over there and
the people who lived in the mansion. So far as she was concerned, the
Barons were a Family, while Heaven only knew what those other people
were.
Well, she would think of some way of getting at Clifton and Jack some
other time. Something would happen. And in the meantime, Mrs. Baron
was gone and there were various things which might be done now which
couldn’t be done at any other time.
Rummaging among her possessions in search of an inspiration she came
upon a hat covered with little silk butterflies.
She had the liveliest appreciation of the silk butterflies, though she
did not quite approve of the shape of the hat upon which they were
bestowed. On the other hand, there was a hat of adorable shape which
had an insufficient decoration in the form of a spray of roses which
were not of the right color, and which were in too advanced a stage of
development.
In another moment a small pair of scissors was travelling over one of
the hats with a snipping sound and a startlingly destructive effect.
The snipping was not suspended until voices, subdued and confidential,
arose in the near-by sitting-room.
Baron had come down-stairs, too, and was talking to Flora.
“The thing for us to do,” Baron was saying, “is to go places, and let
him know about it beforehand. Any place at all. For a walk in the park,
or to the theatre. I wouldn’t be in the way. I would know what to do.
And after--that is to say, when.... What I mean is that in the course
of time you could just tell mother that you’ve made up your mind, and
that it’s your business, and not hers. The thing is absurd. She’s got
no reasons. We’ve no right to let her have her own way entirely in
such a case.”
Bonnie May dropped the hat into her lap, and paid no attention to
the shower of butterflies and roses which fell to the carpet. Quite
stealthily she went out into the hall. A moment of indecision--and then
she descended the stairs to the first floor.
“There’s _that_ to be attended to, too,” she was reflecting.
She went to the telephone immediately. She had noiselessly closed the
dining-room door, so she wouldn’t be heard. And after very little delay
she had Mr. Addis on the other end of the wire.
“It’s Bonnie May,” she said in response to Addis’s greeting. “I called
you up to tell you that you’re wanted here this afternoon. It’s really
important. I think, honestly, you ought to come. Can you?”
“Why, yes, certainly!” came back the vigorous and pleasant voice of
Addis. “Yes, I’ll come right away.”
In the hall she paused, thrilled by the contemplation of a good,
forbidden deed. Then the warm sunlight, finding its way in through the
ground-glass door, enticed her, and she went out into the vestibule.
There she stood looking out on the street.
Clearly, fate was on her side.
Almost immediately two immaculately dressed gentlemen, moving with
superb elegance, passed the gate.
Bonnie May ran down the steps, calling to them. “Clifton!” was the word
that penetrated the chaos of street noises, and “Oh, Jack!”
The two gentlemen turned about, and at the sight of the child they
became far less correct in their general deportment. Happiness made
them quite unconscious of self.
Very shortly afterward a little girl was sitting between two altogether
presentable gentlemen on the top step in front of the Baron mansion.
“Of course we shouldn’t,” admitted Bonnie May. “We never sit on the
front steps. I mean, the Family. But nobody will know. And, besides, I
don’t see how we can help ourselves.”
“We don’t mind at all,” Clifton assured her. He looked inquiringly over
his shoulder, into the vestibule. “What is it?--an old ladies’ home?”
“Not exactly. It’s one old lady’s home, and you couldn’t get in without
a jimmy or a letter of introduction. She used to be a Boone.”
“Of course that explains it,” said Clifton. “What are you doing here?
Does she give private theatricals?”
“Not intentionally. No, I’m the little daughter of the house--a kind
of Little Eva, without any dogs or fiddles, and I have to go to bed at
nine o’clock, and take lessons. It’s really a wonderful place. When
we all sit down to the table it--it sticks. When I get across with
anything neat nobody whistles. Far from it.”
Clifton and Jack accepted all this as quite definitely informative.
“Domesticated,” explained Clifton to Jack, who nodded.
“How did you find them?” Jack wanted to know.
“They found me. There’s a Romeo in the house who’s the real thing. Love
me, love my Romeo. That’s how I feel about him. He brought me here.”
“But where----”
“You see, Miss Barry wished me onto one of the theatres here last
spring when the going got rough. Put me down and disappeared. And he
found me. I wish to goodness you and he could get acquainted. _You_
know that I was a baby only a few years back. But just because I don’t
cry for bread and milk here they seem to think I’m Mrs. Tom Thumb come
back to earth. You could tell them.”
Clifton and Jack leaned back as far as they safely could and laughed
heartily. Then they drew painfully sedate faces and sprang to their
feet. A soft yet decisive voice--the voice of a young woman--sounded
behind them.
When Bonnie May turned around she realized that she and her two friends
were standing in a line on the bottom step, looking up into the faces
of Baron and Flora, who had made their appearance in the vestibule.
Flora was smiling in a pleasantly mischievous manner. Baron was
regarding the two actors critically, yet not with unfriendliness.
“Won’t you introduce your friends?” asked Flora.
Bonnie May did so. She concluded with, “old friends of mine in the
profession.”
“If I might suggest,” said Flora, “it’s ever so much more comfortable
in the house, if you don’t mind coming in.” She turned to Baron with
slightly heightened color. Her glance seemed to say: “You can see they
are gentlemen.” Something of constraint passed from her eyes when
Baron pushed the door open and turned to the two men, who were “in the
profession,” and led the way into the house.
“Delighted,” said Clifton, mounting the steps, followed by the other
actor.
“You’re very welcome on your own account,” said Baron, “and, besides,
we all like to do anything we can to please Mrs. Tom Thumb.”
He glanced sharply at Bonnie May, who nodded in her best manner and
remarked, with delicacy of intonation: “Caught with the goods!”
The little joke paved the way for really comfortable intercourse,
and there was a highly satisfactory condition of sociability in the
sitting-room up-stairs half an hour later when the street bell rang.
It rang as if it were in the nature of a challenge. And the ring was
almost immediately repeated.
“Mrs. Shepard must be out,” said Flora. She went to respond.
It was only the McKelvey girls, after all. Bonnie May heard their gay
voices in the lower hall. And it occurred to her that there was danger
of certain complications--complications which might not be wholly
agreeable.
She turned to Baron. “You know we’ve a hundred things to talk
about--old times and old friends. Couldn’t we go up into your room
until the company goes?” She referred to herself and the actors, of
course.
In his heart Baron could have blessed her for the thought. The
McKelvey girls were on their way up-stairs, and he was not sure about
the propriety of bringing the McKelvey girls into even a fleeting
relationship with two actors whom none of them knew.
“Why, if you like,” he said, with an air of reluctance--which he fully
overcame by the promptness with which he arose and got the child and
her friends started on their way.
Flora might have decided to entertain her callers in the room
down-stairs, if she had had any choice in the matter. But the McKelvey
girls had always felt wholly at home in the mansion, and they had begun
climbing the stairs before Flora closed the street door.
Flora paused for an instant, changing from one arm to the other the
huge bundle of flowers the elder Miss McKelvey had thrust at her upon
entering. A wan, resigned smile trembled on her lips, and then she
tossed her head ever so slightly.
“Oh, what’s the difference!” she exclaimed to herself, and then she
followed the others up the broad flight of stairs.
Still, she was somewhat relieved to find no one but her brother in the
room into which the visitors led the way. She did not know just what
had happened, but she did not ask any questions. And then she heard the
murmur of voices up in the attic, and understood.
She brought a vase and put the flowers into it. “Don’t they look
beautiful?” she asked. She had to lift her voice a little, because both
of the McKelvey girls were talking at once.
“They certainly do!” came the response in a wholly unexpected voice,
and Flora turned and beheld the animated face of Mrs. Harrod, framed in
the doorway.
“Mrs. Shepard asked me to come on up,” said Mrs. Harrod. She looked
about her as if the room were empty. “Flora,” she demanded, “where’s
that child?” She had laid eager hands upon Flora’s shoulders and kissed
her flushed cheek with genuine affection. She had also taken a second
to glance at the McKelvey girls and say: “How-do, young ladies?”
“Child?” echoed Miss Baron.
“That perfect little creature, who was here the last time I was. I did
hope she’d let me in again. Such angelic manners! You don’t mean to say
you’ve let her go?”
“Oh, Bonnie May! No, she hasn’t gone. She’s quite one of us now. Where
is she, Victor?”
Baron fidgeted. “She went up into the attic, I believe.”
Mrs. Harrod made for the hall immediately. “I’m sure you don’t mind,”
she said, without turning around. They heard her climbing the second
flight of stairs. “You young people won’t miss me,” she called back.
The younger Miss McKelvey suddenly sat up very straight. “What’s the
matter with you, Flora Baron?” she demanded.
“The matter?”
“The way you’re looking at Victor--yes, and the way he’s looking at
you. What’s the mystery?”
Flora listened. Up-stairs a door opened and shut, and then there was
silence. “I was wondering if Mrs. Harrod would find things just to her
liking up there,” she explained.
“Oh! Well, if she doesn’t, it will be her own fault. People who take
possession of a house can’t be too particular.”
“I suppose not,” admitted Flora thoughtfully. She was listening
intently again. There was a movement down-stairs. Mrs. Shepard was
serenely complaining to herself on the ground of many interruptions.
The street door opened and shut and Flora heard resonant, familiar
tones. Baron heard them, too.
“I’ll see,” Mrs. Shepard was heard to say, and then there was the sound
of her heavy tread on the stairs.
Again Flora and Victor looked at each other dubiously.
“What _is_ the matter with you?” demanded Miss McKelvey--the other Miss
McKelvey, this time.
Flora leaned back against the mantel almost limply and laughed--not the
laugh of Bonnie May’s lessons, but the old contralto gurgle. “Nothing,”
she said. Her cheeks flamed, her eyes were filled with a soft light.
“Mr. Addis has called to see Miss Baron,” announced Mrs. Shepard
truculently in the doorway.
“I’ll go right down,” said Flora.
“Oh!” exclaimed the elder Miss McKelvey.
“Oh!” echoed her sister.
They arose as by a common impulse and stole out into the hall. “We
don’t care if we do,” they flung back in a whisper as they tiptoed to
the stair railing. They came hurrying back with ecstatic twitterings.
“You know you never entertain company in that dark room down-stairs,
Flora Baron! You’ve got to bring him up!”
Flora gazed at them in rebellious misery.
“Well, then,” exclaimed the younger Miss McKelvey, seizing her sister’s
hand, “we’ll go up into the attic!”
And they were gone.
“Oh!” cried Flora hopelessly, “it shows what one criminal act will lead
to!”
“There was no criminal act,” retorted Baron. “Nothing is really wrong.
Have him up!” His tone seemed to say: “Assert your right! I’ll back you
up!”
He went to the head of the stairway. “Come right up, Addis,” he called.
He tried to throw a great deal of cordiality into his voice.
Flora’s hands went to her temples in a gesture of despair. “You invited
him here in mother’s absence--you know you did!” she cried.
“I didn’t. But I wouldn’t care if I had. I’d have done it if I’d had
the wit to think of it. Why shouldn’t he come?”
“I won’t have him come in this way. Until mother--” She slipped from
the room without finishing her sentence.
“What do you intend to do?” demanded Baron.
“There’s only one thing to do. I think I may be needed elsewhere just
now. I’m going up into the attic.”
But as she made her escape she glanced down the stairs. Somebody was
coming up. There was the stubborn black hair, the ruddy cheeks, and the
close-cropped black mustache----
But she was gone.
Mr. Addis mounted the stairs with the determination of one who goes
more than half-way to meet destiny.
“Come in!” called Baron. “Excuse me for not coming to meet you. You
know I’ve got a bad ankle.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Addis, whose robust presence somehow had the effect of
making all the aspects of the room effeminate and trivial. “You--were
expecting me?”
“No--that is,” bungled Baron, “we’re delighted to have you call.”
Addis reflected. “And Miss Baron?” he asked.
“She’s up in the attic just now. There are some callers, I believe.”
A dull flush mounted to the visitor’s forehead. “I’m afraid I made a
mistake,” he said. He arose, casting a keen glance at Baron.
“You didn’t. You didn’t make any mistake at all. We won’t wait for them
to come down. Come, let’s follow, if you don’t mind.”
“Follow--” said Addis.
“We’ll go up to the attic.”