softly.
"You'll go get your father, o' course, Mr. Wortley?" Luella appeared
unconscious of the possibility of any refusal, and though he
started, scowled, and shook his head, her warning glance in
Caroline's direction checked him, and he plunged out of the door.
* * * * *
"And may God bless you both," the Reverend Mr. Andrews concluded
unofficially, noting with a certain curiosity, the impeccable riding
breeches of the groom, and the bride's looped-up linen habit--he had
never married a couple attired in precisely that manner, and he
scented romance.
"Your generosity, Mr. Wortley, to say nothing of your father--" He
paused helplessly. "Mrs. Judd knows what this will mean to us this
winter," he finished. "No, I thank you, Mr. Wortley, I thank you
sir, but I never touch liquor in any form. But I drink their health
in this excellent iced coffee, I do indeed."
Caroline slipped around to Luella, who sat mopping her eyes behind
the kitchen door.
"I wish Mr. Wortley--Mr. Grumpy Wortley--wouldn't kiss me any more,
Luella," she complained, "it prickles my face dreadfully. I don't
see why I can't go with 'em as far as the Mountain Road--I'd love to
ride on his horse. I was bridesmaid--why can't I? Do you think my
mother'll let me keep this pin? What did you cry for, Luella? What
was it he said to you? He's going to drive me down to the village to
write some telegrams to New York with him, after they've started.
And then he'll speak to mother about the pin, but we have to get the
telegrams written first. Why do they always put it into the papers
the first thing, Luella? When you were married, were there telegrams
about it in the papers, up here?"
Luella tied on her checked apron and attacked the soiled dishes
heaped on the kitchen table; her cheeks were deeply flushed and her
hands trembled a little. She smiled affectionately at Caroline.
"I'll drive down with you, I guess, an' stop off at your ma's," she
answered.
"No, it wasn't telegraphed 'round much when I was married, but
then," with a humorous twinkling of her deep-set eyes, "I hadn't
never studied into the marryin' question so thorough as some!"
VI
HIS FATHER'S HOUSE
Caroline stopped abruptly at the edge of the little pine-encircled
glade that edged the pond-lily pond and waved her hand in warning.
"Hist! there are human creatures there!" she whispered loudly.
It would be evident to anyone not absolutely stone blind that she
was a fairy. A lace-edged, snowy nightgown was caught up by a sky
blue ribbon about her hips, trailing gloriously behind her over the
grass; two large wings artfully constructed of wrapping-paper
flopped behind her surprisingly bare shoulders--the nightgown was
decidedly _décolleté_, and had been made for a person several sizes
larger than Caroline.
"Hooma keecha da!" crooned the General. His conversation was
evidently based on the theory that the English language is a dark
mystery, insoluble by system, but likely to be blundered into
fortuitously, at any moment, if the searcher gabble with sufficient
steadiness and persistence. His costume, consisting merely of the
ordinary blue denim overalls of commerce, would have been positively
commonplace were it not for the wings of bright pink tissue paper,
which he wore with a somewhat confusing obstinacy, pinned firmly to
his chest. Miss Honey assisted his wavering footsteps rather
sulkily; she longed for the white and lacy draperies in front of her
and regarded her ballet skirts of stitched newspaper with bare
tolerance. It is true she wore a crown of tinfoil and carried a wand
made of half a brass curtain rod; but her laced tan boots, stubbed
and stained, showed with disgusting plainness, and nobody would take
the trouble to make her a newspaper bodice.
"If you don't stop tickling me with that arrow, Brother Washburn,
I'll go back!" she declared, snappishly.
The fourth member of the crew, whose bathing trunks and jersey,
fitted with surprisingly life-like muslin wings, pointed to Puck,
though the quiver slung across his shoulder woke conflicting
memories of Diana, chuckled guiltily and took a flying leap
from the big boulder into the center of the glade. His wings
stiffened realistically, and as he landed, poised on one
classically sandalled foot with arms outspread, the picnic
party before him started violently, and one of them clutched
the other's sleeve with a little cry.
"What the--oh, it's all right! He's the real thing, isn't he, now?"
The young man patted the girl's shoulder reassuringly and chuckled
as the rest of the crew emerged from the pines and peered over the
boulder.
"They're only children," he said.
She dropped her eyes and tightened her fingers around the shining
drinking cup.
"Why, yes, they're only children," she repeated carelessly.
Now, each of these picnic people had said the same words, but it was
entirely obvious to their fascinated audience that the words meant
very different things. For this reason they sidled around the young
lady impersonally, avoiding with care the edges of her pale-tinted
billowy skirts, and lined up confidently beside the young gentleman.
Not that he controlled the picnic. It was spread out in front of
her, bewitching, intimate, in its suggestion of you--and--I; two
shiny plates, two knives, two forks, two fringed and glossy napkins.
A dark red bottle was propped upright between two stones, a pile of
thin, triangular sandwiches balanced daintily on some cool lettuce
leaves, and a fascinating object that glistened mysteriously in the
sun, held the platter of honor in the middle.
"The Honorable Mr. Puck," suggested the young man, in the tone of
one continuing an interrupted conversation, "is figuring out how the
chicken got into the jelly without busting it--am I not right?"
Brother grinned, and Caroline moved a little nearer. Miss Honey
stared at the young lady's fluted skirts and glistening yellow waves
of hair, at the sweeping plume in her hat, and her tiny high-heeled
buckled slippers.
"I am obliged to admit," the young man went on, slicing into the
quivering aspic, "that I don't know myself. I never could find out.
Perhaps the young person in the--the not-too-long skirts, waved her
wand over the bird and he jumped in and the hole closed up?" He
slipped a section of the bird in question upon the lady's plate and
held the red bottle over her cup.
"There was hard-boiled eggs stuck on those jelly things at our
wedding," Brother remarked, "on the outside, all around. But they
were bigger than yours."
"I don't doubt it for a moment," the young man assured him politely.
"Have you been married long, may I ask? And which of these ladies--"
"Brother doesn't mean that _he_ was married," Miss Honey explained,
"it was his oldest sister. She married a lawyer. I was flower girl."
"Ima fow guh," murmured the General, thrusting out a fat and
unexpected hand and snatching from a hitherto unperceived box a tiny
cake encased in green frosting.
"Oh, dear, it's got the pistache!" said the yellow-haired lady
disgustedly.
Miss Honey fled after the General, who, though he was obliged to
wear whalebone braces in his shoes on account of youth and a
waddling and undeveloped gait, scattered over the ground with the
elusive clumsiness of a young duckling. Brother blushed, but scorned
to desert his troop.
"He's awfully little, you know--he doesn't mean to steal," he
explained.
"Twenty-two months," Caroline added, "and he does go so fast." She
smiled doubtfully at the lady, who selected a cake covered with
chocolate and looked at the young man.
"Don't forget that Mr. Walbridge wants to use the car at six," she
said, "and you have to allow for that bad hill."
He looked a little uncomfortable. "Don't you want to speak to the
children, Tina, dear?" he asked, dropping his voice; he sat very
close to her.
"They have both spoken directly to you, you see, and children feel
that so--not being noticed. They're trying to apologize to you for
the cake."
She bit her lip and turned to Miss Honey, who arrived panting, with
the General firmly secured by the band of his overalls. An oozy
green paste dripped from his hand; one of the pink wings
intermittently concealed his injured expression.
"That's all right," she said, "don't bother about the cake, little
girl, the baby can have it."
Miss Honey sniffed.
"I guess you don't know much about babies if you think they can eat
cake like that," she answered informingly.
"Hush, now, General, don't begin to hold your breath? Do you want a
nice graham cracker! It's _so_ nice!"
"_So_ nice!" Caroline repeated mechanically, with a business-like
smile at the General, helpfully champing her teeth.
The General wavered. He allowed one sticky paw to be cleaned with a
handful of grass, but his expression was most undecided, and he was
evidently in a position to hold his breath immediately if necessary.
Miss Honey nodded to Caroline. "You've got 'em, haven't you?" she
asked.
Caroline fumbled at the interior of the nightgown and produced a
somewhat defaced brown wafer.
"General want it?" she said invitingly. There was another moment of
disheartening suspense. Brother assisted gallantly.
"They're fine, General!" he urged, "try one!" And he, too, nodded
and chewed the empty air. Instinctively the strange young gentleman
did the same.
The General looked around at them cautiously, noted the strained
interest of the circle, smiled forgivingly, and reached out for the
brown wafer. Peace was assured.
"If you could only see how ridiculous you looked," the young lady
remarked, wiping her shining pink finger nails carefully, "you'd
never do that again, Rob. Have a cake?"
He laughed, but blushed a little at her tone.
"I suppose so," he admitted. "No, thanks, I'll pass up the cake.
Isn't there enough to go 'round, perhaps?"
He examined the box.
"By George, there are exactly three left!" he said delightedly.
"Will the fairy queen hand one to her brother--the big brother--and
one to--to the angel?"
Caroline moved firmly to the front. "I am the Queen," she explained,
"but I let Miss Honey take the crown and the wand, or she wouldn't
be anything. Brother isn't her brother--that's just his name.
Brother Washburn. The General's her brother. I'll take that
strawberry one. We're much obliged, thank you."
The cakes vanished unostentatiously and the young gentleman filled
his cup and disposed of it before anyone spoke.
"We were such a big family, you see," he explained to the pursed red
mouth beside him, "and I know just how it is. You never get enough
cake, and never that dressy kind. It's molasses cake and cookies,
mostly."
Brother moved nearer and nodded.
"Well, but you can have all the cake you want, now, thank goodness,"
said the lady, glancing contentedly at the tea basket, complete with
its polished fittings, at the big box of bonbons beside her, and the
handsome silk motor coat that was spread as a carpet under her
light dress.
"Oh, yes, but now I don't want it," he assured her, "I want--other
things." He flashed a daring glance from two masterful brown eyes,
and she smiled indulgently at him for a handsome, spoiled boy.
"Am I going to get them?" he persisted.
She laughed the light little laugh of the triumphant woman.
"My dear Bob," she said, "anybody who can buy all the cake he wants
can usually get the--other things!"
His face clouded slightly.
"I hate to hear you talk like that, Christine," he began, "it's not
fair to yourself--"
"How'd you know I was Puck?" Brother inquired genially. He made no
pretense of including the lady in the conversation; for him she was
simply not there.
"Oh, I'm not so ignorant as I look," the young man replied. "I don't
believe you could stump me on anything you'd be likely to be--I've
probably been 'em all myself. We were always rigging up at home.
Didn't you use to do that, Tina?"
The lady shook her head decidedly.
"If I'd ever got hold of a--well, if I'd had a chance of things as
nice as that biggest one's dragging through the dirt there, I'd have
been doing something very different with it, I can assure you, Mr.
Armstrong! I'd have been saving it."
"But at that age--" he protested.
"Oh, I knew real lace from imitation at that age, all right," she
insisted.
"But you don't think of those things--you go in for the fun," he
urged.
"It wasn't exactly my idea of fun."
"No?" he queried, "why, I thought all children did this sort of
thing. We had a regular property room in the attic. We used to be
rigged out as something-or-other all day Saturday, usually."
"What were you?" Brother demanded eagerly. Unconsciously he dropped,
hugging his knees, by the side of the young man, and Caroline,
observing the motion, came over a little shyly and stood behind
them. The young lady raised her eyebrows and shot a side glance at
her host, but he smiled back at her brightly.
"Well, we did quite a little in the pirate line," he replied. "I had
an old Mexican sword and Ridgeway--that was my cousin--owned a pair
of handcuffs."
"Handcuffs!" Brother's jaw dropped.
"Yes, sir, handcuffs. It was rather unusual, of course, and he was
awfully proud of them. An uncle of his was a sheriff out in
Pennsylvania somewhere, and when he died he left 'em to Ridge in his
will. That was pretty grand, too, having it left in a will."
Caroline nodded and sat down on an old log behind the young man. A
long smear of brown, wet bark appeared on the nightgown, and one end
of the blue ribbon dribbled into a tiny pool of last night's shower,
caught in a hollow stone.
"It was a toss-up who'd be pirate king," the young man went on,
smiling over his shoulder at Caroline, "because I was older than he
was, handcuffs or not, and after all, a sword is something. This one
was hacked on the edge and every hack may have meant--probably
did--a life."
He paused dramatically.
"I bet you they did!" Brother declared, clapping his hands on his
knees.
"Weren't there any girls?"
Caroline slipped from the log and sprawled on the pine needles.
"Dear me, yes," said the young man, "I should say so. Four of them.
Winifred and Ethel and Dorothea and the Babe--about as big as your
General, there, and dreadfully greedy, the Babe was. Winifred had
the brains and she made up most of the games; I tell you, that girl
had a head!"
"Just like Caroline," Brother inserted eagerly.
"Probably," the young man agreed. "She was pretty certain to be
Fairy Queen, too, I remember. But Thea sewed the clothes and begged
the things we needed and looked after the Babe."
"And what did Ethel do?"
"Why, now you speak of it, I don't remember that Ethel did much of
anything but look pretty and eat most of the luncheon," he said.
"She used to be Pocahontas a good deal--she's very dark--and I
usually was Captain John Smith. Ridge was Powhatan. And Ethel's
married now. Good Lord! She has twins--of all things!--and they're
named for Ridge and me."
"I'm glad General isn't twins," said Miss Honey thoughtfully,
pulling her brother back from the fascinations of the tea basket and
comforting him with the curtain-rod wand.
"Still, we could do the Princes in the Tower with him--them, I
mean," Caroline reminded her, "and then, when they got bigger, the
Corsican Brothers--don't you remember that play Uncle Joe told
about?"
The young man laughed softly.
"If that's not Win all over!" he exclaimed. "She always planned for
Ridge to be Mazeppa on one of the carriage horses, when he got the
right size, but somehow, when you _do_ get that size, you don't pull
it off."
"I did Mazeppa," said Brother modestly, "but of course it was only a
donkey. It wasn't much."
"We never had one," the young man explained. "Nothing but Ridge's
goat, and she was pretty old. But she could carry a lot of lunch."
He turned suddenly on his elbow and smiled whimsically at the lady.
"Come on, Tina, what did _you_ play?" he asked.
"Is it possible you have remembered that I still exist?" she
answered, half mockingly, half seriously vexed. "I'm afraid I'm out
of this, really. I never pretended to be anything, that I remember."
"But what _did_ you do when you were a youngster?" he persisted,
"you must have played something!"
She shook her head.
"We played jackstones," she said indulgently, after a moment of
thought, "and then I went to school, of course, and--oh, I guess we
cut out paper dolls."
Caroline looked aghast.
"Didn't you have any dog?" she demanded.
"I hope not, in a four-room flat," the lady returned with feeling.
"One family kept one, though, and the nasty little thing jumped up
on a lovely checked silk aunty had just given me, and ruined it. I
tried to take it out with gasolene, but it made a dreadful spot, and
I cried myself sick. Of course I didn't understand about rubbing the
gasolene dry then; I was only eleven."
The children looked uncomfortably at the ground, conscious of a
distinct lack of sympathy for the tragedy that even at this distance
deepened the lovely rose of the lady's cheek and softened her dark
blue eyes.
"But in the summer," the young man said, "surely it was different
then! In the country--"
"Oh, mercy, we didn't get to the country very much," she
interrupted. "You know July and August are bargain times in the
stores and a dressmaker can't afford to leave. Aunty did all her
buying then and I went with her. Dear me," as something in his face
struck her, "you needn't look so horrified! It's not bad in New York
a bit--there's something going on all the while; and then we went to
Rockaway and Coney Island evenings, and had grand times. To tell
you the truth, I never cared for the country--I don't sleep a bit
well there. Of course, to come out this way, with everything nice,
it's all very fine, but to stay in--no, thanks."
"I know what you mean, of course," he said, "but the city's no place
for children. I'm mighty glad I didn't grow up there. And I've
always had the idea the country would be the best place to settle
down in, finally. You can potter around better there when you're
old, don't you think so? I remember old Uncle Robert and his
chrysanthemums--"
"Dear me, we all seem to be remembering a good deal this afternoon!"
she broke in. "Since we're neither of us children and neither of us
ready to settle down on account of old age, suppose we stick to
town, Bob?"
There was a practical brightness in her voice, and her even white
teeth, as she smiled persuasively at him, were very pretty. He
smiled back at her.
"That seems a fair proposition," he agreed. He reached for her
hand and for a moment her soft, bright coloring, her dainty
completeness, framed in the green of the little glade, were all he
saw. Then, as his eyes lingered on the cool little pond and the
waving pine boughs dark against the blue sky, he sighed.
"But I'm sorry you don't like the country, Tina, I am, truly," he
said boyishly. "I've had such bully times in it. And I--I rather had
the idea that we liked the same things."
"Gracious!" the young lady murmured, "after the arguments we've had
over plays and actors!"
"Oh well, I suppose girls are all alike. But I mean other things--"
"Where did you do the Pirates?" Brother inquired, politely.
"What? Where did I--oh to be sure," he returned good-naturedly. "We
had an enormous cellar, all full of pillars, to hold it up, and
queer little rooms and compartments in it; a milk room and vegetable
bins and a workshop. You could ride on a wheel all round, dodging
the pillars. There were all kinds of places to lie in wait there,
and spring out. Win told us an awful thing out of Poe that happened
in a cellar, and Thea would never go there after four in the
afternoon.
"It was a jolly old place," he went on dreamily, "I can't keep my
mind off it this afternoon, somehow, since I've seen you fellows
rigged out the way we used to. And there was a pond back in the
Christmas Tree Lot like this one. Ridge and I built a raft out there
and stayed all day on it. It was something out of Clark Russell's
books, and Win pushed a barrel out and rescued us. She was a wonder,
that girl."
He chuckled softly to himself.
"We tried to stock that pond with oysters once, and Ridge and I
printed invitations for a clambake on our handpress, on the strength
of them, but it was a dreadful waste of money. When we found it
wasn't working, Ridge nearly killed himself diving for 'em, so we
could get some good out of 'em. There they lay at the bottom,
showing just as plain as possible, but it was no use--Poor fellow,
he'll never dive any more."
"Is he--did he--" Caroline had crawled along till her head lay
almost on the young man's knee; her eyes were big with sympathy.
"Lost his leg," he told her briefly. "Philippines. Above the knee.
He ran away from college to go. He had the fever badly, too, and
he'll never be fit for much again, I'm afraid. But he's just as
brave about it--"
"Oh, yes," Brother burst out eagerly, "I bet you he is!"
"We had such plans," he said softly, "all of us, you know, for
coming back to the old place and ending up there. Win says her kids
shall stay there if she can't."
"Where is she?"
"Oh, she's 'most anywhere. Her husband's in the Navy--Asiatic
Squadron--and she hangs about where he's likely to strike the
country next. She was in Honolulu the last I heard. So she's not
likely to do much for the place, you see."
"Where's Thea?" Miss Honey inquired.
"Wha tee?" mimicked the General, with an astounding similarity of
inflection.
The young man threw his light cap at the baby's head; it landed
grotesquely cocked over one eye, and the General, promptly sitting
upon it to protect himself from further attacks, fell into
convulsions of laughter as the young man threatened him.
"Thea's out West, on a ranch just out of Denver. She was married
first, and her boys have ponies now--broncos. Of course it's fine
for them out there, but she says she won't be happy till they can
get East for a year or two. She wants them to see the place and grow
up a little in it. She wants 'em to see the attic and poke about the
barn and the stable and climb over the rocks. You see they're on the
ranch all summer and in school in Denver all winter, and Thea says
they don't know the look of an old stone wall with an apple tree in
the corner. She says the fruit's not nearly so nice out there."
"Where is the place? Near here?"
"No, not so very. It's in the Berkshires, just out of Great
Barrington. Father's practice was there, and grandfather's, too.
Grandfather built it."
"That's where Lenox is, the Berkshires, isn't it?" the lady inquired
with a yawn.
"Heavens, its nothing like Lenox!" he assured her hastily.
"No?" she moved slightly and scowled.
"My foot's asleep! That comes of sitting here forever!"
She got up slowly and with little tentative gasps and cries stamped
her prickled feet.
"Aunty has several customers who go to Lenox"--a vicious stamp--"it
must be grand there, I think. One of them, a regular swell, too--she
thinks nothing of a hundred and fifty for a dress"--a faint stamp
and a squeal of anguish--"told her that property was going up like
everything around there. You could probably"--a determined little
jump--"sell your old place and buy a nice house right in Lenox."
The young man sat up suddenly. "Sell the place!" he repeated, "sell
the place!"
He had been watching her pretty, vexed contortions with lazy
pleasure, noticing through rings of cigarette smoke her dainty
ankles, white through the mesh of the thin silk stockings, her
straight, slim back, and the clear flush that deepened her eyes. But
now his face changed, and he stared at her in frank irritation.
"Sell the place!" echoed Brother and Miss Honey in horror, and
Caroline's lower lip pushed out scornfully.
The lady stamped again, but not wholly as a therapeutic measure.
"Well, really!" she cried, "any one would think that these children
were your friends, and I was the stranger, from the way you all
talk. What is the matter with you, anyway? What are you quarreling
about, Rob?"
He looked at her thoughtfully, appraisingly.
"I don't think we're quarreling, Tina," he said, "its only that we
look at things differently. And--and looking at things in the same
way rather makes people friends, you know."