COUSIN AND COZ
Winding in and out of wooded drives and tree tunneled roads, as they
went from the station, Nancy sensed something of the luxury she had so
wondered about.
Yes, it was wonderful to cover distance that way, and the distance
itself was wonderful, because Craggy Bluff was one of those works of
Nature varied in detail from the finest ferns to the shaggiest giant
oaks, and the very craggiest gray granite rocks to the daintiest pearl
pebbles that studded the silvery beach.
“Oh, such glorious trees!” Nancy would exclaim as the car tore holes in
the sunset’s shadows.
“Trees! If you like trees, Nance, just wait until daylight, and I
show you huge black forests,” declared Rosalind, kindling merrily to
Nancy’s enthusiasm.
“And when Uncle Frederic and Aunt--his wife,” Nancy corrected herself,
“go away, will you be here all alone?”
“All alone! I wish I could be,” replied Rosalind, “then we could have
sport; just you and I and, of course, a few servants. But, Nance, I
never can get away from Margot, my old nurse, you know. Darling mother,
my own mother, trusted her always, because she herself had been ill
so long, so, of course, Margot’s sort of bossy yet. She’s as good as
gold, but one doesn’t want gold bands around one’s neck all the time,”
laughed Rosalind, as the car drew up to the broad veranda.
Even in the dusk, for it was now quite dark under the heavy foliage,
Nancy could easily discern the massive outline of the big country
house. She knew its story; how her Uncle Frederic had bought it from
some old New England family just because it offered a seeming refuge
for the first Mrs. Fernell, Rosalind’s mother, whose early invalidism
had ended in leaving the girl so much alone among servants and wealth.
Aunt Katherine had loved the big house which she had called Fernlode,
because the ferns grew in paths and veins almost unbroken in their
lines, and also because Fern was a part of their old family name.
“Here we are, Margot!” called out Rosalind, as a big woman came up
smiling to that call.
She greeted Nancy happily, and at once the visitor understood why she
was considered bossy, for she directed the man to take the bags and to
do several other things all at the same time.
“Rosalind dear, you should have worn a sweater. See how cool it is--”
“A blessing, Margot dear. Haven’t we been roasting for days? Sweater!
I just want to feel comfortable for a little while. Come on, Nance, I
always run upstairs. Helps me reduce--”
And the puffing Rosalind executed a series of jumps, in lieu of
running, which seemed too much to expect of her, and this bore out the
fat girl’s good intentions.
“I do every earthly thing I can, you know,” confessed Rosalind, as they
stood before an open door, “but I can’t see that it does one bit of
good. I’m--hoping--you may have--a secret--recipe--” Breath giving out,
Rosalind gave in, and sank down on a big chintz covered chair.
“I don’t see why you worry about being fat, Rosa,” said Nancy with real
sincerity. “Here I’m too thin and mother keeps worrying about that all
the time--”
“Oh, what an idea!” chuckled Rosalind. “We can be the Before and
After sign--fat and thin, you know. Wouldn’t that be great?” and as
she laughed Nancy remembered another familiar sign. It was to do with
laughing and growing fat!
“Shall I change for dinner?” Nancy asked when the gale of mirth
subsided and Rosalind stood before a mirror patting her turbulent hair.
“No-o-o!” drawled Rosa. “Just put a ribbon around your head and that’ll
be all you need to do. Dad won’t be home tonight--he’s in Boston, and
Betty” (she whispered this) “is never home when Dad’s away. So a ribbon
will fool Margot, and after dinner--” A queerly pulled face, that made
a pincushion out of Rosa’s features, finished the sentence. Evidently
she had some important plans for after dinner.
As they “fussed up” Nancy noticed how really pretty Rosalind was. Her
eyes were always laughing and they were blue, her mouth was always
smiling and it was scalloped, and her hair was “gorgeous,” being a
perfect mop of brown curls rather short but not bobbed. It was this
head of hair that from baby hood had distinguished Rosalind, for her
“lovely curls” were a matter of family pride to all but herself.
Her weight, however, could not be denied, even by one so favorably
prejudiced as Nancy, for Rosalind Fernell was decidedly fat, as
has been said before. She wore just now a one-piece dress of very
brightly colored summer goods, with the figures so mixed up that Nancy
remembered her brother Ted’s calling this style “circus clothes.”
Nancy, disregarding Rosalind’s suggestion for a ribbon around her
head to make up a dinner costume, had managed to slip into the simple
white voile that her mother was so solicitous about having exactly on
top of her bag, so that she could slip into it quickly, and this with
the yellow ribbon band around her dark hair completed, rather than
composed, the costume.
“You look perfectly duckie,” declared Rosalind, giving her cousin a
frankly admiring glance. “And I’m glad you did dress up, for maybe Gar
will be over.”
“Who’s Gar?” asked Nancy.
“He’s my--lifeguard; I’d perish without Garfield Durand. He lives on
the next pile of rocks and he’s more fun than a troop. You’ll love Gar,
I’m sure. There’s Baldy calling dinner. Baldy is the butler, you know,
and he’s the most perfect baldy you ever gazed at. Has a head like the
crystal ball in the back yard.”
For a camp, which was really what this summer home was supposed to be,
Nancy thought everything about her most elaborate. The house was as
heavily built as any city house might be, and the big beamed ceiling
in the long dining room, made her think of an old English picture. The
butler, Thomas, called Baldy, by the irrepressible Rosalind, rather
awed Nancy at first, but, unlike the butlers in fiction, he could
smile, and he could bend and he was human, so that after her chair
had been adjusted and her water poured, Nancy presently felt quite at
ease and enjoyed, rather than feared, her surroundings. Margot sat at
Rosalind’s side and Nancy was placed opposite. After all, she thought,
one’s simple meals at home were no different from that being served,
except that at home things came more promptly and--yes--perhaps they
did taste a little better mother’s way. However, the soup was good and
the chicken easy to eat, while the dessert was piled high with cream
and Nancy ate it--to make her fat.
“Rosalind, you had better have--” Margot was objecting.
“Nop-ee, I’m going to have _this_,” interrupted Rosalind, who took the
overly rich dessert in defiance of ounces more of the much detested
fat, which were bound to follow.
“Mrs. Fred phoned that she was detained in the city and so could not be
here to greet you, Nancy,” Margot said, as Thomas pulled out her chair,
“but I’m sure Rosalind wants you all to herself, so Mrs. Fred need not
be anxious.” This little pleasantry was followed up by an effusive
reply from Rosalind, who couldn’t really seem to get close enough to
Nancy for her own affectionate satisfaction.
“Oh, we’ll be all right, Margot,” she assured the tall woman with the
unavoidable horn-rimmed glasses. “We’ve got oodles of things to talk
about, and piles of things to do. You won’t mind if I let up on the
exercise to-night, will you?”
“But you know, Rosie--”
“’Course I do, Margy,” and Rosalind coaxed prettily. “But I want to
entertain Cousin Nancy--”
The smiling assent from Margot seemed unnecessary, for Rosalind was
trooping off, with her arm around Nancy’s waist, and her laughter
bubbling like the soap-suds Ted loved to blow out of his old corn-cob
pipe.
Nancy couldn’t help thinking of her brother Ted, the boy now far away
at camp, for, somehow, she was missing him in spite of all this strange
adventure. He was always such a jolly little fellow. What a lark he
would have had in this big place and how he would contrive to turn
every little incident into a laugh or a chuckle? While Rosalind was
speaking to the butler, and while she gave some message to Margot,
Nancy had just a little time for ruminating. She wondered what her
mother was doing. And how the long summer ahead would turn out for each
of her small, intimate family.
“Come into my room,” said Rosalind at her elbow, as they once again
had mounted the broad stairs. “It’s right next to yours--I thought you
might be scary if I put you over in the guest room,” said the cousin,
considerately.
“I should much rather be near you, thanks Rosa,” replied Nancy, meaning
exactly what she said, for with real night settling down upon the
mountains, a queer loneliness amounting almost to foreboding seemed to
seize upon her.
“And you are never lonely out here?” she could not resist remarking,
for it seemed to her Rosalind’s spirits were mounting higher each
moment. She laughed at the slightest excuse, and appeared to Nancy
somewhat over excited.
“Well, of course, sometimes I have been. But not since Gar came. He was
abroad last summer, but now--why, he drives me every place when Margot
and Chet think I’m--doing something else.”
This last piece of information was almost whispered to Nancy, and it
was not difficult for her to guess that Rosalind indulged in pranks as
well as in bubbling laughter.
“But you don’t really go out without your daddy’s knowing?” Nancy
timidly asked.
“Bless the infant!” cooed Rosalind, “I do believe she’s a regular
little darling, country coz,” and another demonstration accompanied
that. “But I won’t shock you to death. I’m really quite harmless,
and you see,” her face sobered for a moment, “all that I do concerns
myself. I think I should have the privilege of enjoying myself, don’t
you?”
“Why, yes, of course. That is--” Already Nancy found herself perplexed.
What if Rosalind was as risky as she pretended to be; and if she,
Nancy, would find it difficult to keep free from responsibility?
“You know Orilla, she’s the girl who used to live here, is too smart
for words,” imparted Rosalind, as the two girls delayed in Rosalind’s
beautiful golden room. “She believes she can help me to--to get thin”
(there was wistfulness in this remark), “but Betty just can’t bear her.
So, of course, I have to do lots of things on the sly.”
Instantly there flashed before Nancy’s mind the suggestion her mother
had made concerning this girl, Orilla. And a suspicious, jealous girl
is not less dangerous just because she happens to be young. In fact,
thought Nancy, that would only make her less wise and more foolish.