appealingly at her. But she had moved to a rock a little away from
them and now sat on it, her face turned toward the road, leaning on
her pale pink parasol: she did not catch the glance.
"What became of the Babe?" Caroline suggested suddenly.
"Babe? She's--her name's Margaret--at school now. She's growing
awfully pretty."
"And is she going to live at the place, too?" queried the young lady
sharply.
"Babe's going to capture a corporation or trust or something, and
have oceans of money and build on a wing and a conservatory and make
Italian gardens, I believe," he answered, pleasantly enough.
"But I'd just as soon she left the gardens alone," he went on, "the
rest of us like 'em the way they are. There was one separate one on
the west side, just for Uncle Robert's chrysanthemums. He used to
work all the morning there and then read in the afternoon. He'd sit
on the side porch with his pipe and Bismarck--he was an old
collie--and he did tell the bulliest yarns. He helped us with
lessons, too. I don't know what we'd have done without Uncle Rob.
Father was so busy--he had a big country practice and he used to get
terribly tired--and we went to Uncle Rob for everything. He got us
out of more scrapes, Ridge and me--
"There were tiger lillies in the south garden and lots of clumps of
peonies. Grandmother put those there. And fennel and mint. Mother
used to like dahlias--it seems as if she must have had a quarter of
a mile of dahlias, but of course she didn't--all colors. That garden
ran right up against the house, and directly next to the bricks was
a row of white geraniums. They looked awfully well against the red.
It's a brick house and the date is in bricks over the door--1840. Of
course it's been rented for ten years now, but we have our things
stored in the attic and the people are careful and--well they love
the old place, you know, and they keep up the gardens. They wanted
to buy when father died and again after mother--
"But Ridge and I just hung on and leased it from year to year. We
always hoped to get it back. And now to think that I should be the
one to do it!"
"How are you the one?" Brother inquired practically.
"Why Uncle Wesley that ran away to sea--I used to have his room,
just over the kitchen, and many a time I've climbed down the side
porch just as he did, and run away fishing--Uncle Wesley died in
England, last year, and left me considerably more than he'd ever
have made if he'd minded grandmother and studied to be a parson. It
seems Uncle Rob knew where he was all the time, and wrote him,
before he was sick himself, to leave the money to the family, and by
George, he did.
"Lots of the old stuff is there--the sideboard and the library table
and grandfather's old desk mother kept the preserves in.
"I used to lie on an old sofa in the dining-room on hot afternoons,
waiting for it to get cool, reading some travel book, eating summer
apples, and listening to Win and Thea practicing duets in the
parlor. Lord, I can hear 'em now! I'd look out at the brick walls,
hot, you know, in the sun, and the pear tree, with the nurse rocking
Babe under it, and old Annie shelling peas by the kitchen door, and
it all seemed so comfortable--"
His eyes were half closed. The children listened dreamily, huddled
against him; low red rays crept down from the west-bound sun and
struck the little pond to copper, the nickel dishes to silver, the
lady's skirt to a peach-colored glory; a little sudden breeze set
the red bottle tinkling between the stones. But to the group
entranced with memories so vivid that reality blurred before them,
the peach and copper glories were ripe fruit against an old brick
wall, the tinkle echoed from an old piano in a dim, green-shuttered
parlor, and the soft snoring of the General, asleep on the silk
motor coat, was the drowsy breathing of a contented little fellow in
knickerbockers dreaming in a window seat.
"Did you ever go to Atlantic City?"
The lady's voice woke them as a gong wakes a sleeper. "Now that's my
idea of the country!"
He stared at her vaguely.
"But--but that's no place for children," he protested. He had hardly
grown up at that moment, himself.
She shrugged her shoulders.
"It's not exactly necessary to have six children, you know," she
said, "and then you needn't be worried over a place for them, and
can afford to think a little about the place you'd like for
yourself."
The sun was in her eyes and she missed the look in his as he jumped
up from the astonished group and seized her wrist.
"Christine, you simply shan't talk that way!" he said. "I don't
know what's the matter with you to-day--why are you so different?
Are you trying to tease me? Because I might as well tell you right
now that you're succeeding a little too well."
The pink parasol dropped between them. Her eyes met his squarely,
though her voice shook a little.
"Let my wrist go, Mr. Armstrong," she said, "you hurt me. I assure
you I'm not different at all. If you really want to know what the
matter with me is, let me ask you if you saw anything out of the way
before your friends there interfered?" she pointed to the little
group he had left. "We seemed to be getting on very well then."
His face fell, and she went on more quickly and with less controlled
tones.
"You are the one that is different! I have always been just the
same--just exactly the same! Ask anybody if I've changed--ask aunty!
'Tina has the best temper of any girl I know,' aunty always says.
But its just as she warned me. Aunty always knows--she's seen lots
and lots of people and plenty of swells, too--it isn't as if you
were the only one, Mr. Armstrong!"
He looked curiously at the flushed, lovely face; curiously, as
though he had never really studied it before.
"Perhaps--perhaps it _is_ I," he said slowly, "I--maybe you're
right. And of course I know--" he smiled oddly at the pretty picture
she made--"that I'm not the only one."
Something in his tone irritated her; she unfurled the rosy parasol
angrily.
"Aunty said from the beginning you'd be hard to get on with," she
flashed out. "She said the second time you came to the house with
Mr. Walbridge for his sister's fitting and asked Kitty and I for a
ride in the machine, 'I'm perfectly willing you girls should go, for
they're both all right and I think the dark one's serious, but--"
"You discussed me with your aunt, then?"
She looked at him in amazement.
"Discussed you with aunty? Why certainly I did. Why shouldn't I? How
do you suppose I'm to get anywhere, placed as I am, Mr. Armstrong,
unless I'm pretty careful? I've nothing but my looks--I know that
perfectly well--and I can't afford to make any mistakes. And aunty
said, 'I think the dark one's serious, Tina, but I don't know,
somehow, I'd keep in with Walbridge. He may not have so much money,
but he'll be easier to manage. Armstrong seems like any other gay
young fellow, and for all I know he is--he's certainly generous--but
I'd rather have you Mrs. Walter Walbridge and lose the family
custom, than have you tied up to an obstinate man."
"And--excuse me, but I'm really interested," he asked, "could you be
Mrs. Walter Walbridge?"
"Yes, I could," she answered, "he asked me when he lent you the
machine. I suppose he thought you might," she added simply.
He drew a long breath.
"And you answered--"
"I said I'd think it over," she said softly. "I--are you really
angry with me, Rob? We're friends, aren't we? Friends--"
Her eyes lifted to his. "You see, Rob," she went on, still softly,
"a girl like me has to be awfully straight and pretty careful. It's
not easy to go to theaters and suppers and out with the machines and
keep your head--you can't always tell about men. And I've cost
aunty quite a lot, though of course, my clothes were the cheapest,
really, all made in the house. I had two good offers to go on the
stage, but she wouldn't have it. And even if Mr. Walbridge's mother
did make a fuss, she can't help his getting the money. Of course I
told him I'd think it over, but I always liked--"
"And now you've thought it over," he interrupted quickly, "and
you've found out that your remarkably able aunt was right. You're a
wise little girl, Tina, for if I know Walter, he _will_ be easier to
manage! He's a lucky fellow--always was. But he'll never get his car
at six to-night."
He plucked out his watch and strapping up the tea basket began to
push the things hastily into it.
She stared ahead of her, her chin shaking a little, her eyes a
little dim and most beautiful.
"I--you don't--you're not angry, Rob?" She leaned over him.
"Tina, if you look like that I'll kiss you, and Walter will call me
out!" he said lightly. "Of course I'm not angry--we're as chummy as
you'll let me be. Come on and find the choo-choo car!"
He slipped his arm through the basket handle and made for his coat.
The children scrambled off it apologetically; they were not quite
certain where they stood in the present crisis. But he smiled at
them reassuringly.
"We'll have to meet again," he called, already beyond them, "and
have some more of those little cakes! Good-by till next time!"
"Good-by! Good-by!" they called, and Miss Honey, eyeing the pink
parasol longingly, ventured, "Good-by, Miss Tina!"
The lady did not answer, but walked slowly after the young man,
shaking out her billowy skirts. Soon he was behind the big boulder;
soon she had followed him.
"Yady go!" the General announced.
"They had a quarrel, didn't they?" Miss Honey queried. "But they
made up, so it was all right."
Caroline shook her head wisely.
"We--ell," she mused, "they made it up, but I don't believe he
changed his mind, just the same."
Something puffed loudly in the road, whirred down to a steady growl,
and grew fainter and fainter.
"There they go!" Brother cried.
He picked up a bit of bark and tossed it into the little pool.
"I bet you Ridge will be glad to get back to the Place," he said.
VII
THE PRETENDERS
Midsummer dust lay ankle-deep in the road, white and hot. The
asphalt sidewalk baked in the noon sun, the leaves hung motionless
from the full trees; only the breathless nasturtiums flickered like
flames along the fences, for the other flowers wilted in the glare.
Caroline, hatless and happy as a lizard in the relentless heat, spun
along on her bicycle, the only bit of movement on all the long
stretch of the road. The householders had all retired behind their
green blinds; even New England yielded to August's imperious
_siesta_, and it might have been a deserted village, empty and
mysterious, through which she glided.
By little and little she grew to feel this; her feet moved more and
more slowly on the pedals, her brows knitted as the great idea grew.
Her lips moved, inaudibly at first, but soon began the sing-song
murmur so well known to those who crept upon her unawares.
"I am all alone; the rest have gone--where have they gone!--where
_could_ they go? Oh, they're dead. Murdered! No, the town was
besieged, and we made ropes with our hair, and bowstrings.... And
they all marched out, and they closed the city gates...." Slower and
slower the pedals moved: Caroline was pushing uphill. "So then the
Mayor said: 'No, this sacrifice is too great--I can not allow you to
make it, my brave children. Death--and worse--await you beyond these
walls. Let us die here together.'" Her chin quivered. At the summit
of the hill she paused.
"'Then _die_! Die like the dogs you are!' cried the Captain"--with
feet perched high she swooped down the slope, her heart pounding
with excitement, narrowly escaping collision at the bottom with an
empty van, crawling through the heat, manned by a somnolent, huddled
driver. Its hollow, cumbrous rattling pointed sharply the loneliness
of the silent road, almost bare now of houses, for they were on the
very outskirts of the village, and in a flash Caroline knew it for
what it was, and shuddered.
"It's the Tumbrel!" she murmured softly, and to her awed fancy the
graceful, slim-necked figures in flowered gowns drooped dreadfully
or stiffened in a last pathetic defiance as they rolled by.
"Courage, my sister, courage!" whispered the brave gentleman, while
the hoarse crowd shouted.... "_And I am Marie Antoinette!_" cried
Caroline in a burst of inspiration.
Dismounting, she walked proudly beside her wheel; scornfully she
held her head above that vulgar, cruel mob; the driver, poor in
illusions, drowsed stupidly in front of the baleful wagon-load he
knew not of, and clattered down the hill. To the ill-fated Queen,
who followed the curving line of the twelve-foot iron fence that had
sprung up at her side, ten minutes seemed but one. Lost in tragic
musing, she wandered swiftly on; had you, meeting her suddenly,
asked her where she was going, there is little doubt that she would
have told you she was escaping to her palace. And all at once, as
she halted a moment opposite a clear space in the shrubbery and
thickly planted trees that followed the inside line Of the iron
fence, she beheld the palace, high on a terraced knoll. It was of
clean-cut gray stone, rising into a square tower at one corner, from
which the flag drooped in bright folds of red and blue. The windows
shone like mirrors; trim, striped awnings broke the severe angles of
the long building; brilliant flower-beds gleamed from the smooth
turf and bordered the neat walks of crushed gray stone. It stood
massively above its terraces, a very castle of romance to Caroline,
who had never before seen it so polished and beflagged. Wonderingly
she tried the great wrought-iron gate, but it was securely locked,
and a new sign was attached to it:
PRIVATE PROPERTY!
ALL TRESPASSERS ARE WARNED
FROM THE PREMISES!
VISITORS PLEASE RING AT THE LODGE.
Caroline stared at it vaguely. So delicate are the oscillations of
the imaginative imp, that it is hard to say just where he swings his
slaves into determined self-delusion. If you had shaken Caroline
severely and demanded of her in the character of an impatient adult
the name of her castle, she would undoubtedly have informed you that
it was Graystone Tower, a long deserted mansion, too expensive
hitherto for any occupants but the children who roamed every inch of
it for the first spring flowers and coasted down its terraces in
winter. But no one was there to shake her, and so with parted lips
and dreamy eyes she speculated as to whether they would fire the
cannon on her arrival and whether she would scatter coins among her
loyal servants or merely order an ox roasted whole in honor of her
safe return.
Soon she reached the smaller gate, but before she tried the handle
the sign warned her that it would be useless. She frowned: no one
could keep up the spirit of a royal home-coming under these
disadvantages. Suddenly her eyes brightened, she tossed her head,
and following what was apparently a little blind alley of shrubbery,
she plunged into a tangle of undergrowth and disappeared. Only her
bicycle, resting against the fence, showed that some one had passed
that way. Working herself through the screen of leaves, she emerged
into a fairly cleared path that her accustomed feet followed to its
logical climax--a deep depression scooped out under the sharp,
down-pointed iron prongs, worn smooth by the frequent pressure of
small bodies. The fence had lost its shiny blackness by now and the
grass grew rank and untended around the mouth of the gap. Wriggling
through, Caroline straightened herself and strolled unconcerned
toward the castle, not so near her now. Soon she reached a newly
rolled tennis court; farther on two saddled horses pawed beside a
little summer-house, impatient for the start; an iridescent fountain
tossed two gleaming balls high into the air. Caroline moved like one
in a dream; her fancy, grown so overwhelmingly real, dazzled her,
fairly. But it was like the court of the Sleeping Beauty--no one
came or called.
At length, wandering on, she came upon a gardener in a neat gray
livery, clipping with a large, distorted pair of scissors the velvet
edge of a flower-bed. He resembled so undeniably the gardeners in
that ageless chronicle of Alice that Caroline smiled approvingly
upon him.
"You are one of my gardeners, I suppose," she said regally.
"Yes, Miss," he replied, respectfully, touching his banded cap, "I
am that."
"You garden very well," said Marie Antoinette, dizzy with delight at
his manner.
"Yes, Miss; thank you, Miss, I'm sure," and the cap came off.
She walked on superbly. At last it had happened, and she, Caroline
in the flesh, had fought her way through the prickly hedge of
every-day appearance and won into the garden of romance, where
dreams were true and anything might happen.
At that moment there came to meet her from behind a great beech tree
a slender little lady. She had gray hair puffed daintily and
fancifully about her small, pale face, and knots of pale blue
ribbon, woven in and out of her lacy, trailing gown, repeated the
color of her mild, round eyes. Half consciously Caroline muttered:
"Here is one of my ladies-in-waiting," when the little lady rushed
at her, smiling delightedly.
"Are you a queen, then?" she cried in a high, sweet voice. "How very
pleasant. Dear me, how _very_ pleasant!"
Caroline smiled with equal delight. Very few persons of this little
lady's age had such quick sense; mostly they had to be taught the
game.
"Yes," she answered, "I am. I am Queen Marie Antoinette."
The little lady fell back a step. Her blue eyes clouded and she
pouted like a big baby.
"Why--why, how _can_ you be?" she demanded, fretfully, "when that is
who I am, myself!"
For a moment Caroline scowled; such flexibility was almost
disconcerting. Then her natural good-humor and the training
resulting from many summers with Miss Honey, who claimed all the
best roles at once and shifted often, prompted her generous reply:
"All right. I'll be Mary Queen of Scots, then--I like it about as
well."
The little lady beamed again.
"That will be very pleasant," she said, "I trust your majesty is
quite well?"
"Yes, indeed," Caroline assured her, adding airily; "How well the
castle is looking this morning! I think I'll have the flag out every
day, now that I'm back."
Marie Antoinette flushed angrily and pouted once more.
"You! _You!_" she mimicked. "What have you to do with my flag? That
goes up by my orders, let me inform you! Here, gardener--" and she
waved her little parasol at the man in gray, who was already walking
rapidly towards them--"is that flag in my honor or not?"
"Yes, Miss," he said promptly. "Sure it is, Miss," and he nodded
politely at them both. For a moment the rival queens confronted each
other fiercely, then her Majesty of France smiled at Scottish Mary.
"You see," she said, in her high, bright voice; "you see, I was
right. But then, I always am. I shall have to leave your Royal
Highness now, for I see one of my subjects coming whom I don't care
for at all--she is not very pleasant."
Sweeping a low courtesy, the little lady glided away with a
graceful, dipping motion; the white hand that lifted her trailing
skirts was covered with turquoises.
Caroline looked where her royal sister had pointed, and saw a tall,
handsome young woman hurrying toward her. She was dressed plainly
in black, but with a rich plainness that could not have escaped the
youngest of womankind. Opposite Caroline she paused, her hand on her
heart.
"John! Oh, John! This--this is a child!"
"Yes, Miss; sure it is," said the gardener politely.
"But how did she get here? Surely no children come here?" Her hands
were trembling.
"Yes, Miss, many of 'em--sure they do," he said pleasantly, with a
good Irish smile.
But it was plain that his good-nature did not please the handsome
lady. She bit her lip angrily.
"You know very well, John, that you are not to talk to me in that
idiotic way," she said decidedly. "You know that there is no
necessity for it as well as I do."
"All right, Miss," he replied, soothingly.
"And you are lying when you say that children come here," she went
on, controlling herself with a great effort, "for they do not."
The gardener scratched his head doubtfully and walked away,
muttering to himself. The girl turned to Caroline.
"Tell me," she demanded eagerly, her voice low and hurried, "how did
you come here? Are you with friends? Where are they? What were you
saying to that queen woman?"
"I--I--we were--I was Mary Queen of Scots," Caroline stammered,
struggling, as the happy dreamer struggles, not to wake.
The girl started back from her, pale with an emotion that left her
handsome face drawn and old.
"Good Heavens!--it can't be--a child! A _child_!" she cried. Tears
stood in her dark eyes.
"How pitiful!" she said, softly, to herself. Then, forcing a smile,
she leaned coaxingly over Caroline.
"I am only too delighted to make your Majesty's acquaintance," she
said, her voice a little husky, but very sweet. "I have read of you
often. But surely your Majesty has not been here long? I do not
recall having seen you before to-day."
"N--no, you haven't," Caroline answered, a little grudgingly, "I
only just came."
"Ah!" said the girl, "and how did you come? Not through the house
surely?"
"I came under the fence," said Caroline, "the gates were locked. I
was Marie Antoinette then, but I changed after she said she was."
"Oh! Oh!" the girl groaned, covering her face with slender, ringless
hands.
"But I'd just as soon," Caroline assured her--"honestly I would.
Only you need a Bothwell for her. I only thought of Marie Antoinette
after the tumbrel went by. I suppose she's used to Marie Antoinette,
prob'ly, and so you can't get her to change."
She nodded in the direction of the little lady, now far from them,
white against the shrubbery.
The girl drew in her breath in little gasps, as if she had been
running.
"Y--yes," she assented, "she's used to being Marie Antoinette. Where
is the hole you got through? Is it big enough for--for anybody?"
"Oh, yes," said Caroline indifferently, "but nobody knows about it
but me and a few other k--prisoners, I mean; I've used it when I was
escaping before. I think it was a rabbit-hole first, and then we
made it bigger. Isn't that funny--Alice got in by a rabbit-hole,
too, didn't she? I thought of her as soon as I saw the gardener.
He's very polite, isn't he?"
The girl pressed her lips together. "They are all polite here," she
said briefly. "Do you mean that you go in and out of this hole as
you like? Do they know of it? Is it far from here?"
"It's over there," Caroline waved, vaguely. "Why? Do you want to
escape, too? Are you a queen?"
"No." The girl said it with a slight shudder. "No, I'm not.
I'm--I'm--Oh, I'm Joan of Arc! You know about her, don't you, dear?"
Caroline nodded. "Are you trying to escape?" she repeated,
interested at last.
"Yes," said the girl, "I am. But don't tell any one, will you? Don't
tell that gardener, for instance."
"Oh, no," Caroline assured her, "I won't tell. Wouldn't he help
you?"
The girl laughed, an excited, sobbing laugh.
"No, he wouldn't help me at all," she said. "Come on, walk a little.
He is watching us. Don't tell him about the hole, will you? Promise
me faithfully." She turned and seized the child's wrist. "Can you
keep a promise?" she panted.
"Of course I can."
"And if any one should ask you, could you--oh, _could_ you say you
came in by the gate?"
Caroline wriggled free.
"Of course," she said scornfully. "Do you think I'm a baby?"
"Don't be angry--don't," the girl pleaded. "I don't mean to frighten
you--your Majesty, I mean--but I am so excited, and--and I don't
quite do what I intend to do or say just what I mean. I am quite all
right now. You see, that gardener--he isn't really a gardener." She
watched Caroline narrowly, quite unprepared for the sudden delight
in her eyes.
"Oh, _he's_ pretending, too!" cried Mary of Scots joyfully. "What is
he, really?"
"He's--he's one of my jailers," said the girl somberly. "And the
first thing he would do would be to stop up your hole under the
fence."
"Oh!" Caroline stared respectfully at the gardener, not far from
them now.
"Were you ever in chains?" she said, in an awed voice.
"No," said Joan of Arc, "I never was. I wouldn't be in this--this
fortress if I had to be in chains. This is for well-behaved
prisoners."
"Is Marie Antoinette a prisoner, too?"
"Yes," said the girl, wearily, "she is. And she has kept me one. I
should not be here now but for her. She prevented my escape."
"The mean old thing!" Caroline cried, indignantly, "did she tell?"