GOSSIP OVER THE TEACUPS.
The gloom that had been hanging over Wellington since Professor Green's
illness gradually lifted as the young man steadily improved. Each
morning Molly received the latest news from one of the nurses. Miss
Grace was never visible. She was sitting up at night with her brother
and slept during the day. One morning Molly encountered not the day
nurse but Miss Alice Fern in the hall of the infirmary. She was dressed
in white linen and might have been taken for a post-graduate nurse
except that she wore no cap. Miss Fern had a cold greeting for Molly,
and for Judith Blount, also, who presently joined them.
"Edwin is much better," she informed them.
"He is seeing people now, isn't he?" asked Judith eagerly.
Miss Fern stiffened.
"No," she answered, "only me--and his brother and sister, of course."
She added this as an afterthought. "It will be many weeks before he is
allowed to see any of the Wellington people. The doctor is particularly
anxious for him not to be reminded of his work. Excitement would be very
dangerous for him."
"Is that what the doctor says or is it your verdict, Alice?" put in
Judith, who had small liking for the Professor's cousin on the other
side of the family.
"I'm in entire authority here," answered Miss Fern in such a hostile
tone that Molly felt as if they had been accused of forcing their way
into the sick room. "I am nursing during the day in conjunction with the
infirmary nurse."
"Why don't you wear a cap, Alice?" asked Judith tauntingly. "It would
make you look more like the real thing."
With a hurried excuse, Molly hastened out of the hall. It went against
her grain to be involved in the quarrels of Alice Fern and Judith
Blount. She was walking rapidly toward the village when she heard
Judith's voice behind her calling.
"Wait, and I'll walk with you. I see you're going my way. I had to stay
and give a last dig to that catty Alice Fern," she added breathlessly,
catching up with Molly.
Molly smiled. She didn't know but that she agreed with Judith, but it
was not her way to call people "cats."
"I'm so glad you arranged to take the post-grad., Judith," she began as
they started down the avenue.
"Isn't it great?" answered Judith exultantly. "It's all Madeleine's
doing, you know. We've had a wonderful summer, Molly. Almost the first
summer I can remember when I wasn't bored."
"What have you two been up to?" Molly asked with some curiosity. The
cloak of enthusiasm was a new one for Judith to wear and it was very
becoming to her, Molly thought.
"We've been making money," Judith announced with sparkling eyes. "I've
made almost enough to carry me through another year here."
"Goodness," Molly thought, "how the world does change. Think of the
proud Judith working and then telling me about it, me whom she used to
detest!"
"It's been jolly fun, too, and I didn't mind the work a bit."
"I hope you made a great deal," remarked Molly, not liking to ask too
many questions but burning to know how money had been made by a girl who
had once stamped her foot and declared she would never work for a
living.
"A friend of brother Richard's, an actor, lent him his bungalow on the
coast for the summer, and Mama and Madeleine and I spent four months in
it, with Richard down for the week-ends. It was a pretty bungalow with a
big living-room and a broad piazza at the back looking right out to sea,
and Madeleine conceived the notion of opening a tea-room there. Richard
was willing and so was Mama and we started in right away. Madeleine had
all sorts of schemes for advertising in the post office and at the
general store, and at last we had a sign painted and hung out in front
on a post. The coast road goes by the house and streams of automobiles
are passing all day long, so that we began to have lots of customers
immediately. I don't know how it happened, but it was a sort of
fashionable meeting place for all the people in the neighborhood. Pretty
soon we had to buy dozens of little blue teapots and crates of cup and
saucers and plates. Even Mama helped with the sandwiches and Richard,
too, when he could come down. But you should have seen Madeleine. Every
afternoon she put on a cap and apron and turned waitress. She served
everybody. She was the neatest, quickest, prettiest little waiting maid
you ever saw. Mama and I worked in the kitchen filling orders. Sometimes
the sandwiches would give out and then Mama and I and Bridget, our
Irish maid who has stayed with us through everything, would slice bread
like mad. Madeleine knew dozens of different ways of making sandwiches.
We used to make up dishes of fillings ahead of time and keep them on
ice. Sometimes at night we were so tired we'd simply fall into bed, but
we succeeded beyond our wildest dreams and we had a splendid time in
spite of the hard work."
"I think you are wonderful," cried Molly. "I should never even have
hoped to make anything like that go."
"It's Madeleine who is the wonder," broke in Judith loyally. "She has
the brains and energy of a real genius."
"Are you down at O'Reilly's this winter? I haven't seen either one of
you to speak to before."
"Oh, yes, we have the same old rooms. I'm working up in two or three
different subjects and taking a course in physical culture with a view
to teaching it. You know, we are going to open a school, Madeleine and
I?"
"Where?" demanded Molly, filled with interest in her old-time enemy's
schemes.
"We don't know yet. It may be in the South. Madeleine has two more years
here. I shall go to Paris next year for a course at the Sorbonne, so
that I shall be up in French by the time we are ready to start."
Molly was almost too amazed over the change Madeleine had wrought in
Judith to comment politely on the glowing future Judith mapped out for
herself. She recalled how Judith had once insulted the little Southern
girl at a Sophomore ball, and she remembered how Madeleine had said: "I
shall make a friend of her, yet. You'll see."
"I wish I could make plans and stick to them," Molly thought. "How can I
ever get anywhere when I don't even know where I want to get? If I am
not to teach school, then what am I to do?"
Many times a day Molly asked herself this question. There were times
during the summer when she heard the call still infinitely far away to
write, and on hot afternoons when the others were napping she would
steal down to the big cool parlor with a pencil and pad. Here in the
quiet of the darkened room, with strained mind and thoughts on tiptoe
for inspiration, she would try to write, but the stories were crude and
childish. Sometimes she would read over Professor Green's letter of
advice about writing. "Be as simple and natural as if you were writing a
letter," he had said, and her efforts to be natural and simple were
invariably elaborately studied and self-conscious.
"I don't see why I want to do what I can't do," she would cry with
despair in her heart, and then the next day perhaps she would try it
again.
So it was that Molly had a feeling of unrest that was quite new to her.
It was like entertaining a stranger within the gates to admit this
unfamiliar spirit into her mind. And now, as she parted with Judith
with a friendly handclasp, she felt the dissatisfaction more keenly than
ever before.
Her errand in the village that afternoon was really to call on Mrs.
Murphy, who, you will recall, was once housekeeper for Queen's. For many
months the good soul had been laid up with rheumatism and for the sake
of old times the Queen's girls plied her with attentions. The Murphys
now lived in a small cottage near the depot and they were exceedingly
poor, since the office of baggage-master brought in only a small pay.
But Mrs. Murphy, crippled as she was, her fingers knotted at the joints
like the limbs of old apple trees, managed to keep her rooms shining
with neatness.
"And it's glad I am to see you, Miss," exclaimed the good woman, much
aged since the days at Queen's.
She led Molly through a little hallway into the kitchen opening upon a
small garden now bright with rows of cosmos, graceful and delicate in
color, and brilliant masses of vari-colored, ragged chrysanthemums.
"It's the little Japanese lady that's tended my garden for me all
summer, Miss. She may be a haythen, but she's as good as gold. Our
Blessed Mother herself could not have been kinder."
Molly's heart was filled with admiration for Otoyo, who instead of
moping about by herself all summer had been making herself useful.
"I'm ashamed," she thought. "Madeleine and Judith and Otoyo all make me
feel awfully ashamed."
In the meantime, Mrs. Murphy had spread a cloth on the little kitchen
table and laid out her best cups and saucers. It was her heart's delight
to drink tea with the young ladies.
"And how is the poor gintleman, Mr. Edwin, I mean?"
"He's getting better every day, Mrs. Murphy."
"And I'm that glad to hear the news. It would have been a sad day for
the poor young lady if she had lost him--though, may the Howly Mother
forgive me for saying it, she's not good enough for the loikes of him,
I'm thinkin'."
"Let me pour the tea for you, Mrs. Murphy," Molly interposed, taking the
blue teapot out of Mrs. Murphy's crippled hands after it had been filled
with boiling water. "What young lady did you say it was?" she asked
presently, her eyes on a tea leaf swirling round and round in her cup.
"'Tis Miss Fern, the gintleman's cousin, and they do say they're to be
married before spring. I'm not for sayin' she ain't pretty, Miss. She's
prettier than most and she's kind to the gintleman. Oh, you may be sure
but she's got a different set of manners for him! And the day she had
tea here with little Miss Sen and the Professor, she was all graces, to
be sure. But another day she was here to meet him and little Miss Sen
brought the message he could not come. It was a regular spitfire she
was that day, Miss, and no mistake."
So that was why the Professor had wanted the blue paper weight. Perhaps
there was some reason in his delirium after all.
"Have you seen her, Miss?" asked Mrs. Murphy.
"Oh, yes," answered Molly. "I think she is very pretty. May I look at
your garden, Mrs. Murphy? Dear little Otoyo, I can see her working out
here in the flowers. Don't you just love her, Mrs. Murphy?"
But the Irish woman had gone into the next room to get an old pair of
shears.
"I'll take it as a favor, Miss Molly, if you'll cut two bunches, one for
yourself and one for the Professor, God bless him and the Saints
preserve him for strength and happiness; though I ain't sayin' I wish
him to be preserved for Miss Alice Fern, pretty though she be."
When Molly appeared at the hospital some half an hour later she made a
picture the infirmary nurse would not soon forget.
"These are for Professor Green from Mrs. Murphy," Molly said, giving the
nurse the largest half of the bunch.
The nurse gave her a long quizzical look. She was new at Wellington and
not familiar with the girls.
"Are you Miss Molly Brown?" she asked suddenly.
"Why, yes," answered Molly, surprised.
"I thought so," said the nurse, and departed before the astonished Molly
could say another word.