Jims tried the door of the blue room. Yes, it was locked. He had hoped
Aunt Augusta _might_ have forgotten to lock it; but when did Aunt
Augusta forget anything? Except, perhaps, that little boys were not
born grown-ups--and _that_ was something she never remembered. To be
sure, she was only a half-aunt. Whole aunts probably had more
convenient memories.
Jims turned and stood with his back against the door. It was better
that way; he could not imagine things behind him then. And the blue
room was so big and dim that a dreadful number of things could be
imagined in it. All the windows were shuttered but one, and that one
was so darkened by a big pine tree branching right across it that it
did not let in much light.
Jims looked very small and lost and lonely as he shrank back against
the door--so small and lonely that one might have thought that even
the sternest of half-aunts should have thought twice before shutting
him up in that room and telling him he must stay there the whole
afternoon instead of going out for a promised ride. Jims hated being
shut up alone--especially in the blue room. Its bigness and dimness
and silence filled his sensitive little soul with vague horror.
Sometimes he became almost sick with fear in it. To do Aunt Augusta
justice, she never suspected this. If she had she would not have
decreed this particular punishment, because she knew Jims was delicate
and must not be subjected to any great physical or mental strain. That
was why she shut him up instead of whipping him. But how was she to
know it? Aunt Augusta was one of those people who never know anything
unless it is told them in plain language and then hammered into their
heads. There was no one to tell her but Jims, and Jims would have died
the death before he would have told Aunt Augusta, with her cold,
spectacled eyes and thin, smileless mouth, that he was desperately
frightened when he was shut in the blue room. So he was always shut in
it for punishment; and the punishments came very often, for Jims was
always doing things that Aunt Augusta considered naughty. At first,
this time, Jims did not feel quite so frightened as usual because he
was very angry. As he put it, he was very mad at Aunt Augusta. He
hadn't _meant_ to spill his pudding over the floor and the tablecloth
and his clothes; and how such a little bit of pudding--Aunt Augusta
was mean with desserts--could ever have spread itself over so much
territory Jims could not understand. But he had made a terrible mess
and Aunt Augusta had been very angry and had said he must be cured of
such carelessness. She said he must spend the afternoon in the blue
room instead of going for a ride with Mrs. Loring in her new car.
Jims was bitterly disappointed. If Uncle Walter had been home Jims
would have appealed to him--for when Uncle Walter could be really
wakened up to a realization of his small nephew's presence in his
home, he was very kind and indulgent. But it was so hard to waken him
up that Jims seldom attempted it. He liked Uncle Walter, but as far as
being acquainted with him went he might as well have been the
inhabitant of a star in the Milky Way. Jims was just a lonely,
solitary little creature, and sometimes he felt so friendless that his
eyes smarted, and several sobs had to be swallowed.
There were no sobs just now, though--Jims was still too angry. It
wasn't fair. It was so seldom he got a car ride. Uncle Walter was
always too busy, attending to sick children all over the town, to take
him. It was only once in a blue moon Mrs. Loring asked him to go out
with her. But she always ended up with ice cream or a movie, and
to-day Jims had had strong hopes that both were on the programme.
"I hate Aunt Augusta," he said aloud; and then the sound of his voice
in that huge, still room scared him so that he only thought the rest.
"I won't have any fun--and she won't feed my gobbler, either."
Jims had shrieked "Feed my gobbler," to the old servant as he had been
hauled upstairs. But he didn't think Nancy Jane had heard him, and
nobody, not even Jims, could imagine Aunt Augusta feeding the gobbler.
It was always a wonder to him that she ate, herself. It seemed really
too human a thing for her to do.
"I wish I had spilled that pudding _on purpose_," Jims said
vindictively, and with the saying his anger evaporated--Jims never
could stay angry long--and left him merely a scared little fellow,
with velvety, nut-brown eyes full of fear that should have no place in
a child's eyes. He looked so small and helpless as he crouched against
the door that one might have wondered if even Aunt Augusta would not
have relented had she seen him.
How that window at the far end of the room rattled! It sounded
terribly as if somebody--or _something_--were trying to get in. Jims
looked desperately at the unshuttered window. He must get to it; once
there, he could curl up in the window seat, his back to the wall, and
forget the shadows by looking out into the sunshine and loveliness of
the garden over the wall. Jims would have likely have been found dead
of fright in that blue room some time had it not been for the garden
over the wall.
But to get to the window Jims must cross the room and pass by the bed.
Jims held that bed in special dread. It was the oldest fashioned thing
in the old-fashioned, old-furnitured house. It was high and rigid, and
hung with gloomy blue curtains. _Anything_ might jump out of such a
bed.
Jims gave a gasp and ran madly across the room. He reached the window
and flung himself upon the seat. With a sigh of relief he curled down
in the corner. Outside, over the high brick wall, was a world where
his imagination could roam, though his slender little body was pent a
prisoner in the blue room.
Jims had loved that garden from his first sight of it. He called it
the Garden of Spices and wove all sorts of yarns in fancy--yarns gay
and tragic--about it. He had only known it for a few weeks. Before
that, they had lived in a much smaller house away at the other side of
the town. Then Uncle Walter's uncle--who had brought him up just as he
was bringing up Jims--had died, and they had all come to live in Uncle
Walter's old home. Somehow, Jims had an idea that Uncle Walter wasn't
very glad to come back there. But he had to, according to
great-uncle's will. Jims himself didn't mind much. He liked the
smaller rooms in their former home better, but the Garden of Spices
made up for all.
It was such a beautiful spot. Just inside the wall was a row of aspen
poplars that always talked in silvery whispers and shook their dainty,
heart-shaped leaves at him. Beyond them, under scattered pines, was a
rockery where ferns and wild things grew. It was almost as good as a
bit of woods--and Jims loved the woods, though he scarcely ever saw
them. Then, past the pines, were roses just breaking into June
bloom--roses in such profusion as Jims hadn't known existed, with dear
little paths twisting about among the bushes. It seemed to be a garden
where no frost could blight or rough wind blow. When rain fell it must
fall very gently. Past the roses one saw a green lawn, sprinkled over
now with the white ghosts of dandelions, and dotted with ornamental
trees. The trees grew so thickly that they almost hid the house to
which the garden pertained. It was a large one of grey-black stone,
with stacks of huge chimneys. Jims had no idea who lived there. He had
asked Aunt Augusta and Aunt Augusta had frowned and told him it did
not matter who lived there and that he must never, on any account,
mention the next house or its occupant to Uncle Walter. Jims would
never have thought of mentioning them to Uncle Walter. But the
prohibition filled him with an unholy and unsubduable curiosity. He
was devoured by the desire to find out who the folks in that tabooed
house were.
And he longed to have the freedom of that garden. Jims loved gardens.
There had been a garden at the little house but there was none
here--nothing but an old lawn that had been fine once but was now
badly run to seed. Jims had heard Uncle Walter say that he was going
to have it attended to but nothing had been done yet. And meanwhile
here was a beautiful garden over the wall which looked as if it should
be full of children. But no children were ever in it--or anybody else
apparently. And so, in spite of its beauty, it had a lonely look that
hurt Jims. He _wanted_ his Garden of Spices to be full of laughter. He
pictured himself running in it with imaginary playmates--and there was
a mother in it--or a big sister--or, at the least, a whole aunt who
would let you hug her and would never dream of shutting you up in
chilly, shadowy, horrible blue rooms.
"It seems to me," said Jims, flattening his nose against the pane,
"that I must get into that garden or bust."
Aunt Augusta would have said icily, "We do not use such expressions,
James," but Aunt Augusta was not there to hear.
"I'm afraid the Very Handsome Cat isn't coming to-day," sighed Jims.
Then he brightened up; the Very Handsome Cat was coming across the
lawn. He was the only living thing, barring birds and butterflies,
that Jims ever saw in the garden. Jims worshipped that cat. He was jet
black, with white paws and dickey, and he had as much dignity as ten
cats. Jims' fingers tingled to stroke him. Jims had never been allowed
to have even a kitten because Aunt Augusta had a horror of cats. And
you cannot stroke gobblers!
The Very Handsome Cat came through the rose garden paths on his
beautiful paws, ambled daintily around the rockery, and sat down in a
shady spot under a pine tree, right where Jims could see him, through
a gap in the little poplars. He looked straight up at Jims and winked.
At least, Jims always believed and declared he did. And that wink
said, or seemed to say, plainly:
"Be a sport. Come down here and play with me. A fig for your Aunt
Augusta!"
A wild, daring, absurd idea flashed into Jims' brain. Could he? He
could! He would! He knew it would be easy. He had thought it all out
many times, although until now he had never dreamed of really doing
it. To unhook the window and swing it open, to step out on the pine
bough and from it to another that hung over the wall and dropped
nearly to the ground, to spring from it to the velvet sward under the
poplars--why, it was all the work of a minute. With a careful,
repressed whoop Jims ran towards the Very Handsome Cat.
The cat rose and retreated in deliberate haste; Jims ran after him.
The cat dodged through the rose paths and eluded Jims' eager hands,
just keeping tantalizingly out of reach. Jims had forgotten everything
except that he must catch the cat. He was full of a fearful joy, with
an elfin delight running through it. He had escaped from the blue room
and its ghosts; he was in his Garden of Spices; he had got the better
of mean old Aunt Augusta. But he _must_ catch the cat.
The cat ran over the lawn and Jims pursued it through the green gloom
of the thickly clustering trees. Beyond them came a pool of sunshine
in which the old stone house basked like a huge grey cat itself. More
garden was before it and beyond it, wonderful with blossom. Under a
huge spreading beech tree in the centre of it was a little tea table;
sitting by the table reading was a lady in a black dress.
The cat, having lured Jims to where he wanted him, sat down and began
to lick his paws. He was quite willing to be caught now; but Jims had
no longer any idea of catching him. He stood very still, looking at
the lady. She did not see him then and Jims could only see her
profile, which he thought very beautiful. She had wonderful ropes of
blue-black hair wound around her head. She looked so sweet that Jims'
heart beat. Then she lifted her head and turned her face and saw him.
Jims felt something of a shock. She was not pretty after all. One side
of her face was marked by a dreadful red scar. It quite spoilt her
good looks, which Jims thought a great pity; but nothing could spoil
the sweetness of her face or the loveliness of her peculiar soft,
grey-blue eyes. Jims couldn't remember his mother and had no idea what
she looked like, but the thought came into his head that he would have
liked her to have eyes like that. After the first moment Jims did not
mind the scar at all.
But perhaps that first moment had revealed itself in his face, for a
look of pain came into the lady's eyes and, almost involuntarily it
seemed, she put her hand up to hide the scar. Then she pulled it away
again and sat looking at Jims half defiantly, half piteously. Jims
thought she must be angry because he had chased her cat.
"I beg your pardon," he said gravely, "I didn't mean to hurt your cat.
I just wanted to play with him. He is _such_ a very handsome cat."
"But where did you come from?" said the lady. "It is so long since I
saw a child in this garden," she added, as if to herself. Her voice
was as sweet as her face. Jims thought he was mistaken in thinking her
angry and plucked up heart of grace. Shyness was no fault of Jims.
"I came from the house over the wall," he said. "My name is James
Brander Churchill. Aunt Augusta shut me up in the blue room because I
spilled my pudding at dinner. I hate to be shut up. And I was to have
had a ride this afternoon--and ice cream--and _maybe_ a movie. So I
was mad. And when your Very Handsome Cat came and looked at me I just
got out and climbed down."
He looked straight at her and smiled. Jims had a very dear little
smile. It seemed a pity there was no mother alive to revel in it. The
lady smiled back.
"I think you did right," she said.
"_You_ wouldn't shut a little boy up if you had one, would you?" said
Jims.
"No--no, dear heart, I wouldn't," said the lady. She said it as if
something hurt her horribly. She smiled again gallantly.
"Will you come here and sit down?" she added, pulling a chair out from
the table.
"Thank you. I'd rather sit here," said Jims, plumping down on the
grass at her feet. "Then maybe your cat will come to me."
The cat came over promptly and rubbed his head against Jims' knee.
Jims stroked him delightedly; how lovely his soft fur felt and his
round velvety head.
"I like cats," explained Jims, "and I have nothing but a gobbler. This
is such a Very Handsome Cat. What is his name, please?"
"Black Prince. He loves me," said the lady. "He always comes to my bed
in the morning and wakes me by patting my face with his paw. _He_
doesn't mind my being ugly."
She spoke with a bitterness Jims couldn't understand.
"But you are not ugly," he said.
"Oh, I _am_ ugly--I _am_ ugly," she cried. "Just look at me--right at
me. Doesn't it hurt you to look at me?"
Jims looked at her gravely and dispassionately.
"No, it doesn't," he said. "Not a bit," he added, after some further
exploration of his consciousness.
Suddenly the lady laughed beautifully. A faint rosy flush came into
her unscarred cheek.
"James, I believe you mean it."
"Of course I mean it. And, if you don't mind, please call me Jims.
Nobody calls me James but Aunt Augusta. She isn't my whole aunt. She
is just Uncle Walter's half-sister. _He_ is my whole uncle."
"What does he call you?" asked the lady. She looked away as she asked
it.
"Oh, Jims, when he thinks about me. He doesn't often think about me.
He has too many sick children to think about. Sick children are all
Uncle Walter cares about. He's the greatest children's doctor in the
Dominion, Mr. Burroughs says. But he is a woman-hater."
"How do you know that?"
"Oh, I heard Mr. Burroughs say it. Mr. Burroughs is my tutor, you
know. I study with him from nine till one. I'm not allowed to go to
the public school. I'd like to, but Uncle Walter thinks I'm not strong
enough yet. I'm going next year, though, when I'm ten. I have holidays
now. Mr. Burroughs always goes away the first of June."
"How came he to tell you your uncle was a woman-hater?" persisted the
lady.
"Oh, he didn't tell me. He was talking to a friend of his. He thought
I was reading my book. So I was--but I heard it all. It was more
interesting than my book. Uncle Walter was engaged to a lady, long,
long ago, when he was a young man. She was devilishly pretty."
"Oh, Jims!"
"Mr. Burroughs said so. I'm only quoting," said Jims easily. "And
Uncle Walter just worshipped her. And all at once she just jilted him
without a word of explanation, Mr. Burroughs said. So that is why he
hates women. It isn't any wonder, is it?"
"I suppose not," said the lady with a sigh. "Jims, are you hungry?"
"Yes, I am. You see, the pudding was spilled. But how did you know?"
"Oh, boys always used to be hungry when I knew them long ago. I
thought they hadn't changed. I shall tell Martha to bring out
something to eat and we'll have it here under this tree. You sit
here--I'll sit there. Jims, it's so long since I talked to a little
boy that I'm not sure that I know how."
"You know how, all right," Jims assured her. "But what am I to call
you, please?"
"My name is Miss Garland," said the lady a little hesitatingly. But
she saw the name meant nothing to Jims. "I would like you to call me
Miss Avery. Avery is my first name and I never hear it nowadays. Now
for a jamboree! I can't offer you a movie--and I'm afraid there isn't
any ice cream either. I could have had some if I'd known you were
coming. But I think Martha will be able to find something good."
A very old woman, who looked at Jims with great amazement, came out to
set the table. Jims thought she must be as old as Methusaleh. But he
did not mind her. He ran races with Black Prince while tea was being
prepared, and rolled the delighted cat over and over in the grass. And
he discovered a fragrant herb-garden in a far corner and was
delighted. Now it was truly a garden of spices.
"Oh, it is so beautiful here," he told Miss Avery, who sat and looked
at his revels with a hungry expression in her lovely eyes. "I wish I
could come often."
"Why can't you?" said Miss Avery.
The two looked at each other with sly intelligence.
"I could come whenever Aunt Augusta shuts me up in the blue room,"
said Jims.
"Yes," said Miss Avery. Then she laughed and held out her arms. Jims
flew into them. He put his arms about her neck and kissed her scarred
face.
"Oh, I wish _you_ were my aunt," he said.
Miss Avery suddenly pushed him away. Jims was horribly afraid he had
offended her. But she took his hand.
"We'll just be chums, Jims," she said. "That's really better than
being relations, after all. Come and have tea."
Over that glorious tea-table they became life-long friends. They had
always known each other and always would. The Black Prince sat between
them and was fed tit-bits. There was such a lot of good things on the
table and nobody to say "You have had enough, James." James ate until
_he_ thought he had enough. Aunt Augusta would have thought he was
doomed, could she have seen him.
"I suppose I must go back," said Jims with a sigh. "It will be our
supper time in half an hour and Aunt Augusta will come to take me
out."
"But you'll come again?"
"Yes, the first time she shuts me up. And if she doesn't shut me up
pretty soon I'll be so bad she'll have to shut me up."
"I'll always set a place for you at the tea-table after this, Jims.
And when you're not here I'll pretend you are. And when you can't come
here write me a letter and bring it when you do come."
"Good-bye," said Jims. He took her hand and kissed it. He had read of
a young knight doing that and had always thought he would like to try
it if he ever got a chance. But who could dream of kissing Aunt
Augusta's hands?
"You dear, funny thing," said Miss Avery. "Have you thought of how you
are to get back? Can you reach that pine bough from the ground?"
"Maybe I can jump," said Jims dubiously.
"I'm afraid not. I'll give you a stool and you can stand on it. Just
leave it there for future use. Good-bye, Jims. Jims, two hours ago I
didn't know there was such a person in the world as you--and now I
love you--I love you."
Jims' heart filled with a great warm gush of gladness. He had always
wanted to be loved. And no living creature, he felt sure, loved him,
except his gobbler--and a gobbler's love is not very satisfying,
though it is better than nothing. He was blissfully happy as he
carried his stool across the lawn. He climbed his pine and went in at
the window and curled up on the seat in a maze of delight. The blue
room was more shadowy than ever but that did not matter. Over in the
Garden of Spices was friendship and laughter and romance galore. The
whole world was transformed for Jims.
From that time Jims lived a shamelessly double life. Whenever he was
shut in the blue room he escaped to the Garden of Spices--and he was
shut in very often, for, Mr. Burroughs being away, he got into a good
deal of what Aunt Augusta called mischief. Besides, it is a sad truth
that Jims didn't try very hard to be good now. He thought it paid
better to be bad and be shut up. To be sure there was always a fly in
the ointment. He was haunted by a vague fear that Aunt Augusta might
relent and come to the blue room before supper time to let him out.
"And _then_ the fat would be in the fire," said Jims.
But he had a glorious summer and throve so well on his new diet of
love and companionship that one day Uncle Walter, with fewer sick
children to think about than usual, looked at him curiously and said:
"Augusta, that boy seems to be growing much stronger. He has a good
color and his eyes are getting to look more like a boy's eyes should.
We'll make a man of you yet, Jims."
"He may be getting stronger but he's getting naughtier, too," said
Aunt Augusta, grimly. "I am sorry to say, Walter, that he behaves very
badly."
"We were all young once," said Uncle Walter indulgently.
"Were _you_?" asked Jims in blank amazement.
Uncle Walter laughed.
"Do you think me an antediluvian, Jims?"
"I don't know what _that_ is. But your hair is gray and your eyes are
tired," said Jims uncompromisingly.
Uncle Walter laughed again, tossed Jims a quarter, and went out.
"Your uncle is only forty-five and in his prime," said Aunt Augusta
dourly.
Jims deliberately ran across the room to the window and, under
pretence of looking out, knocked down a flower pot. So he was exiled
to the blue room and got into his beloved Garden of Spices where Miss
Avery's beautiful eyes looked love into his and the Black Prince was a
jolly playmate and old Martha petted and spoiled him to her heart's
content.
Jims never asked questions but he was a wide-awake chap, and, taking
one thing with another, he found out a good deal about the occupants
of the old stone house. Miss Avery never went anywhere and no one ever
went there. She lived all alone with two old servants, man and maid.
Except these two and Jims nobody had ever seen her for twenty years.
Jims didn't know why, but he thought it must be because of the scar on
her face.
He never referred to it, but one day Miss Avery told him what caused
it.
"I dropped a lamp and my dress caught fire and burned my face, Jims.
It made me hideous. I was beautiful before that--very beautiful.
Everybody said so. Come in and I will show you my picture."
She took him into her big parlor and showed him the picture hanging on
the wall between the two high windows. It was of a young girl in
white. She certainly was very lovely, with her rose-leaf skin and
laughing eyes. Jims looked at the pictured face gravely, with his
hands in his pockets and his head on one side. Then he looked at Miss
Avery.
"You were prettier then--yes," he said, judicially, "but I like your
face ever so much better now."
"Oh, Jims, you can't," she protested.
"Yes, I do," persisted Jims. "You look kinder and--nicer now."
It was the nearest Jims could get to expressing what he felt as he
looked at the picture. The young girl was beautiful, but her face was
a little hard. There was pride and vanity and something of the
insolence of great beauty in it. There was nothing of that in Miss
Avery's face now--nothing but sweetness and tenderness, and a motherly
yearning to which every fibre of Jims' small being responded. How they
loved each other, those two! And how they understood each other! To
_love_ is easy, and therefore common; but to _understand_--how rare
that is! And oh! such good times as they had! They made taffy. Jims
had always longed to make taffy, but Aunt Augusta's immaculate kitchen
and saucepans might not be so desecrated. They read fairy tales
together. Mr. Burroughs had disapproved of fairy tales. They blew
soap-bubbles out on the lawn and let them float away over the garden
and the orchard like fairy balloons. They had glorious afternoon teas
under the beech tree. They made ice cream themselves. Jims even slid
down the bannisters when he wanted to. And he could try out a slang
word or two occasionally without anybody dying of horror. Miss Avery
did not seem to mind it a bit.
At first Miss Avery always wore dark sombre dresses. But one day Jims
found her in a pretty gown of pale primrose silk. It was very old and
old-fashioned, but Jims did not know that. He capered round her in
delight.
"You like me better in this?" she asked, wistfully.
"I like you just as well, no matter what you wear," said Jims, "but
that dress is awfully pretty."
"Would you like me to wear bright colors, Jims?"
"You bet I would," said Jims emphatically.
After that she always wore them--pink and primrose and blue and white;
and she let Jims wreathe flowers in her splendid hair. He had quite a
knack of it. She never wore any jewelry except, always, a little gold
ring with a design of two clasped hands.
"A friend gave that to me long ago when we were boy and girl together
at school," she told Jims once. "I never take it off, night or day.
When I die it is to be buried with me."
"You mustn't die till I do," said Jims in dismay.
"Oh, Jims, if we could only _live_ together nothing else would
matter," she said hungrily. "Jims--Jims--I see so little of you
really--and some day soon you'll be going to school--and I'll lose
you."
"I've got to think of some way to prevent it," cried Jims. "I won't
have it. I won't--I won't."
But his heart sank notwithstanding.
One day Jims slipped from the blue room, down the pine and across the
lawn with a tear-stained face.
"Aunt Augusta is going to kill my gobbler," he sobbed in Miss Avery's
arms. "She says she isn't going to bother with him any longer--and
he's getting old--and he's to be killed. And that gobbler is the only
friend I have in the world except you. Oh, I can't _stand_ it, Miss
Avery."
Next day Aunt Augusta told him the gobbler had been sold and taken
away. And Jims flew into a passion of tears and protest about it and
was promptly incarcerated in the blue room. A few minutes later a
sobbing boy plunged through the trees--and stopped abruptly. Miss
Avery was reading under the beech and the Black Prince was snoozing on
her knee--and a big, magnificent, bronze turkey was parading about on
the lawn, twisting his huge fan of a tail this way and that.
"_My_ gobbler!" cried Jims.
"Yes. Martha went to your uncle's house and bought him. Oh, she didn't
betray you. She told Nancy Jane she wanted a gobbler and, having seen
one over there, thought perhaps she could get him. See, here's your
pet, Jims, and here he shall live till he dies of old age. And I have
something else for you--Edward and Martha went across the river
yesterday to the Murray Kennels and got it for you."
"Not a dog?" exclaimed Jims.
"Yes--a dear little bull pup. He shall be your very own, Jims, and I
only stipulate that you reconcile the Black Prince to him."
It was something of a task but Jims succeeded. Then followed a month
of perfect happiness. At least three afternoons a week they contrived
to be together. It was all too good to be true, Jims felt. Something
would happen soon to spoil it. Just _suppose_ Aunt Augusta grew
tender-hearted and ceased to punish! Or suppose she suddenly
discovered that he was growing too big to be shut up! Jims began to
stint himself in eating lest he grew too fast. And then Aunt Augusta
worried about his loss of appetite and suggested to Uncle Walter that
he should be sent to the country till the hot weather was over. Jims
didn't want to go to the country now because his heart was elsewhere.
He must eat again, if he grew like a weed. It was all very harassing.
Uncle Walter looked at him keenly.
"It seems to me you're looking pretty fit, Jims. Do you want to go to
the country?"
"No, please."
"Are you happy, Jims?"
"Sometimes."
"A boy should be happy all the time, Jims."
"If I had a mother and someone to play with I would be."
"I have tried to be a mother to you, Jims," said Aunt Augusta, in an
offended tone. Then she addressed Uncle Walter. "A younger woman would
probably understand him better. And I feel that the care of this big
place is too much for me. I would prefer to go to my own old home. If
you had married long ago, as you should, Walter, James would have had
a mother and some cousins to play with. I have always been of this
opinion."
Uncle Walter frowned and got up.
"Just because one woman played you false is no good reason for
spoiling your life," went on Aunt Augusta severely. "I have kept
silence all these years but now I am going to speak--and speak
plainly. You should marry, Walter. You are young enough yet and you
owe it to your name."
"Listen, Augusta," said Uncle Walter sternly. "I loved a woman once. I
believed she loved me. She sent me back my ring one day and with it a
message saying she had ceased to care for me and bidding me never to
try to look upon her face again. Well, I have obeyed her, that is
all."
"There was something strange about all that, Walter. The life she has
since led proves that. So you should not let it embitter you against
all women."
"I haven't. It's nonsense to say I'm a woman-hater, Augusta. But that
experience has robbed me of the power to care for another woman."
"Well, this isn't a proper conversation for a child to hear," said
Aunt Augusta, recollecting herself. "Jims, go out."
Jims would have given one of his ears to stay and listen with the
other. But he went obediently.
And then, the very next day, the dreaded something happened.
It was the first of August and very, very hot. Jims was late coming to
dinner and Aunt Augusta reproved him and Jims, deliberately, and with
malice aforethought, told her he thought she was a nasty old woman. He
had never been saucy to Aunt Augusta before. But it was three days
since he had seen Miss Avery and the Black Prince and Nip and he was
desperate. Aunt Augusta crimsoned with anger and doomed Jims to an
afternoon in the blue room for impertinence.
"And I shall tell your uncle when he comes home," she added.
That rankled, for Jims didn't want Uncle Walter to think him
impertinent. But he forgot all his worries as he scampered through the
Garden of Spices to the beech tree. And there Jims stopped as if he
had been shot. Prone on the grass under the beech tree, white and cold
and still, lay his Miss Avery--dead, stone dead!
At least Jims drought she was dead. He flew into the house like a mad
thing, shrieking for Martha. Nobody answered. Jims recollected, with a
rush of sickening dread, that Miss Avery had told him Martha and
Edward were going away that day to visit a sister. He rushed blindly
across the lawn again, through the little side gate he had never
passed before and down the street home. Uncle Walter was just opening
the door of his car.
"Uncle Walter--come--come," sobbed Jims, clutching frantically at his
hand. "Miss Avery's dead--dead--oh, come quick."
"_Who_ is dead?"
"Miss Avery--Miss Avery Garland. She's lying on the grass over there
in her garden. And I love her so--and I'll die, too--oh, Uncle Walter,
_come_."
Uncle Walter looked as if he wanted to ask some questions, but he said
nothing. With a strange face he hurried after Jims. Miss Avery was
still lying there. As Uncle Walter bent over her he saw the broad red
scar and started back with an exclamation.
"She is dead?" gasped Jims.
"No," said Uncle Walter, bending down again--"no, she has only
fainted, Jims--overcome by the heat, I suppose. I want help. Go and
call somebody."
"There's no one home here to-day," said Jims, in a spasm of joy so
great that it shook him like a leaf.
"Then go home and telephone over to Mr. Loring's. Tell them I want the
nurse who is there to come here for a few minutes."
Jims did his errand. Uncle Walter and the nurse carried Miss Avery
into the house and then Jims went back to the blue room. He was so
unhappy he didn't care where he went. He wished something _would_ jump
at him out of the bed and put an end to him. Everything was discovered
now and he would never see Miss Avery again. Jims lay very still on
the window seat. He did not even cry. He had come to one of the griefs
that lie too deep for tears.
"I think I must have been put under a curse at birth," thought poor
Jims.
* * * * *
Over at the stone house Miss Avery was lying on the couch in her room.
The nurse had gone away and Dr. Walter was sitting looking at her. He
leaned forward and pulled away the hand with which she was hiding the
scar on her face. He looked first at the little gold ring on the hand
and then at the scar.
"Don't," she said piteously.
"Avery--why did you do it?--_why_ did you do it?"
"Oh, you know--you must know now, Walter."
"Avery, did you break my heart and spoil my life--and your own--simply
because your face was scarred?"
"I couldn't bear to have you see me hideous," she moaned. "You had
been so proud of my beauty. I--I--thought you couldn't love me any
more--I couldn't bear the thought of looking in your eyes and seeing
aversion there."
Walter Grant leaned forward.
"Look in my eyes, Avery. Do you see any aversion?"
Avery forced herself to look. What she saw covered her face with a hot
blush.
"Did you think my love such a poor and superficial thing, Avery," he
said sternly, "that it must vanish because a blemish came on your
fairness? Do you think _that_ would change me? Was your own love for
me so slight?"
"No--no," she sobbed. "I have loved you every moment of my life,
Walter. Oh, don't look at me so sternly."
"If you had even told me," he said. "You said I was never to try to
look on your face again--and they told me you had gone away. You sent
me back my ring."
"I kept the old one," she interrupted, holding out her hand, "the
first one you ever gave me--do you remember, Walter? When we were boy
and girl."
"You robbed me of all that made life worth while, Avery. Do you wonder
that I've been a bitter man?"
"I was wrong--I was wrong," she sobbed. "I should have believed in
you. But don't you think I've paid, too? Forgive me, Walter--it's too
late to atone--but forgive me."
"_Is_ it too late?" he asked gravely.
She pointed to the scar.
"Could you endure seeing this opposite to you every day at your
table?" she asked bitterly.
"Yes--if I could see your sweet eyes and your beloved smile with it,
Avery," he answered passionately. "Oh, Avery, it was _you_ I
loved--not your outward favor. Oh, how foolish you were--foolish and
morbid! You always put too high a value on beauty, Avery. If I had
dreamed of the true state of the case--if I had known you were here
all these years--why I heard a rumor long ago that you had married,
Avery--but if I had known I would have come to you and _made_ you
be--sensible."
She gave a little laugh at his lame conclusion. That was so like the
old Walter. Then her eyes filled with tears as he took her in his
arms.
* * * * *
The door of the blue room opened. Jims did not look up. It was Aunt
Augusta, of course--and she had heard the whole story.
"Jims, boy."
Jims lifted his miserable eyes. It was Uncle Walter--but a different
Uncle Walter--an Uncle Walter with laughing eyes and a strange
radiance of youth about him.
"Poor, lonely little fellow," said Uncle Walter unexpectedly. "Jims,
would you like Miss Avery to come _here_--and live with us always--and
be your real aunt?"
"Great snakes!" said Jims, transformed in a second. "Is there any
chance of _that_?"
"There is a certainty, thanks to you," said Uncle Walter. "You can go
over to see her for a little while. Don't talk her to death--she's
weak yet--and attend to that menagerie of yours over there--she's
worrying because the bull dog and gobbler weren't fed--and Jims--"
But Jims had swung down through the pine and was tearing across the
Garden of Spices.