THE INVESTIGATION.
“Well, this is a jolly place for the kind of girl I fancy Miss Reinette
to be,” Phil said, as he strolled through the grounds, putting aside
with his cane the weeds, and shrubs, and creeping vines, which choked
not only the flower-beds, but even the walks themselves.
Everywhere were marks of ruin and decay, and the house seemed worse than
all the rest, it was so damp and gloomy, with doors off their hinges,
floors half rotted away, and the glass gone from most of the lower
windows.
“Seems like some old haunted castle, and I actually feel my flesh creep,
don’t you?” Phil said to his companion, as they went through room after
room below, and then ascended the broad staircase to the floor above.
“Suppose we first take the room intended for Miss Reinette?” Mr.
Beresford suggested, and they bent their steps at once toward the large
chamber with the bay-window overlooking the town and the country for
miles and miles away.
As they stepped across the threshold both men involuntarily took off the
hats they had worn during their investigation below. Perhaps neither of
them was conscious of the act, or that it was a tribute of respect to
the unknown Reinette, who was in the thoughts of both as they stood in
the great silent, gloomy room, from which the light was excluded by the
heavy shutters which had withstood the ravages of time. This had
evidently been the guest chamber during the life of Mrs. Hetherton, and
the furniture was of solid mahogany and of the most massive kind, while
the faded hangings around the high-post bed were of the heaviest silken
damask. But the atmosphere was close and stifling, and Mr. Beresford
drew back a step or two while Phil pressed on until he ran against the
sharp corner of the bureau and uttered a little cry of pain.
“For Heaven’s sake come out of this,” Mr. Beresford exclaimed. “Let’s
give the whole thing up, and let Mr. Hetherton fix his own old rookery.
We can never make it decent.”
“Just hold on a minute,” said Phil, making his way to a window, “wait
till I let in a little air and light. There,” he continued, as he opened
window after window and pushed back the heavy shutters, one of which
dropped from the hinges to the ground. “There, that is better, and does
not smell so like an old cheese cupboard, and look, Beresford, just see
what a magnificent view. Ten villages, as I live, and almost as many
ponds, and the river, and the hills, with old Wachusett in the
distance.”
It was indeed a lovely landscape spread out before them, and Phil, who
had an artist’s eye for the beautiful, enjoyed it to the full, and
declared it as fine as anything he had seen in Switzerland, where he
went once with his father just before he entered college. Mr. Beresford
was, however, too much absorbed in the duties devolving upon him to care
for views, and Phil himself soon came back to the room and examined it
minutely, from the carpet, molding on the floor, to the rotten hangings
on the bed, which he began at last to pull down, thereby raising a cloud
of dust, from which Mr. Beresford beat a hasty retreat.
“I tell you what,” he said, “it’s of no kind of use. I shall wash my
hands of the entire job, and let Miss Reinette arrange her own room.”
“Nonsense! you won’t do any such thing,” said Phil. “It’s not so very
terrible, though I must confess it’s a sweet-looking boudoir for a
French lady to come to, but it can be fixed easy enough. I’ll help. I
can see the end from the beginning. First, we’ll have two or three
strong women. I know where they are. I’ll get ’em. Then we’ll pitch
every identical old dud out of the window and make a good bonfire—that
falls naturally to the boys. Then we, or rather, the women, will go at
the room, hammer and tongs, with soap, and sand, and water, and burnt
feathers, if necessary. Then we’ll get a glazier and have new
window-lights put in, and a painter with paint-pot and brush, and a
paperer to cover the walls with—let me see, what shade will suit her
complexion, I wonder. Is she skim-milky, with tow hair, like the
Fergusons generally, or is she dark, like the Hethertons, do you
suppose?”
“I’m sure I don’t know or care whether she is like a Dutch doll or black
as a nigger. I only wish she would stay in France, where she belongs,”
growled Mr. Beresford, very hot and very sweaty, and a good deal soiled
with the dust from the bed-curtains which Phil had shaken so vigorously.
“Take it cool, old fellow,” returned Phil. “You’ll be head and ears in
love, and go down on your knees to her in less than a month.”
“She’ll be the first woman I ever went on my knees to,” said Mr.
Beresford, while Phil continued:
“Reinette is light, of course; there never was a Ferguson yet who had
not a complexion like a cheese, so we will have the paper a soft, creamy
tint, of some intricate pattern, which she can study at her leisure,
mornings when she is awake and does not wish to get up. That settles the
paper, and now for the furniture—something light—oak, of course, and
real oak, no sham for the queen. Mosquito net—coarse, white lace,
trimmed with blue, for blondes and blue always go together. So, we’ll
loop the muslin window curtains back with blue, and have some blue and
white what do you call ’em, Beresford—those square things the girls are
always making for backs of chairs, and bureaus, and cushions; you know
what I mean?”
“No I don’t. I’m not a fool to know all the paraphernalia of a girl’s
bed-chamber,” said Mr. Beresford, while Phil replied, with imperturbable
good nature:
“Neither am I a fool because I can no more enter a room without knowing
every article and color in it, and whether they harmonize or not, than
you can help hearing of a projected law-suit without wondering if you
shall have a hand in it; _chacun à son goût_, my good fellow. You see I
am beginning to air my French, as I dare say this little French queen
speaks atrocious English. Do you understand French, Beresford?”
“Scarcely a word, and I am glad I do not. English is good enough for
me,” said Mr. Beresford, thinking to himself, however, that he would
privately get out his grammar and French reader, and brush up his
knowledge of the language, for if the foreigner, in whom he was
beginning to feel a great deal of interest, really could not speak
English readily, it would never do to give so much advantage to
handsome, winning Phil, who startled him with the exclamation:
“I’ve got it! _Tidies!_—that’s what I mean. Blue and white tidies on the
bureau, with little fancy scent-bottles standing round—new-mown hay
jockey-club, eau-decologne, the very best that Mrs. Maria Ferina Regina
can make; and _soap_! By Jove! she shall have the very last cake of the
box I got in Vienna nine years ago; I keep it in the drawer with my
shirts, and collars, and things, for perfumery; but I’ve got to give it
up now. Not but Miss Reinette will bring out a cart load, but I wish her
to know that we Americans have foreign soap sometimes, as well as she.
Then, there’s powder; I must get sister Ethel to give me some of
Pinaud’s.”
“Powder! What _do_ you mean?” Mr. Beresford asked, in unfeigned
surprise; and Philip replied:
“Now, Beresford, are you putting on, or what? Is it possible you have
lived to be forty years old——”
“Only thirty-five,” interrupted Mr. Beresford, and Phil continued:
“Well, thirty-five, then. Have you lived to be thirty-five, and don’t
know that every grand lady has a little powder-pot and puff-ball on her
dressing bureau, just to touch her skin and make it feel better when
she’s moist. Some of it costs as high as three dollars a package—that’s
the kind Reinette must have. You ought to have some, too. It would
improve that spot where the dust of the Hethertons has settled under
your nose. There—don’t rub it with your hands; you make it worse than
ever. We must hunt round for some water to wash your face before we go
back to town. But let’s furnish this room with matting, which we quite
forgot, and a willow chair in the bay-window, and a work-table, and
another chair close by, with the cat and kittens. That will make the
picture complete, and if she is not satisfied, why, then she’s hard to
suit. I’ll make this room my special charge; you needn’t bother about it
at all. I was going right down to the Vineyard, but shall wait to greet
my cousin. And now, come on, and let’s investigate the rest of the old
hut, while there is daylight to do it in.”
Mr. Beresford was not at all loth to leave the close room which smelled
so musty and damp, but which really seemed in a better state of
preservation than other parts of the house. Everything had gone to
decay, and but for Phil he would have been utterly discouraged, and
abandoned all attempts to restore the place to anything like a habitable
condition. Phil was all enthusiasm, and knew exactly what ought to be
done, and in his zeal offered to see to nearly everything, provided his
friend did not limit him as to means. This Mr. Beresford promised not to
do. Money should be forthcoming even if a hundred workmen were employed,
as Phil seemed to think there must be, the time was so short, and they
would like to have things decent at least for Miss Reinette, of whom
they talked and speculated as they rode back to town. Was she pretty,
they wondered, and the decision was, that as all young girls have a
certain amount of prettiness, she probably was not an exception; yes,
she was pretty, unquestionably, and Frenchy, and spoiled, and a blonde,
Phil said, for no one with a drop of Ferguson blood in his veins was
ever anything but that, and the young man spoke impatiently, for he was
thinking of his own lilies and roses, and fair hair which he affected to
hate.
“Of course she is _petite_,” Mr. Beresford said, but Phil did not agree
with him.
He was himself six feet; his mother was tall, his cousin Anna was tall.
All the Fergusons were tall, and the young men bet a soft hat on the
subject of Reinette’s height. They were getting very much interested in
the young lady, nor was their interest at all diminished when, as they
reached the village, they called at the post-office and found a letter
from her, which, though sent by the same steamer with her father’s had
not reached Merrivale until that evening. The handwriting was very
small, but very plain and pretty; the letter was very short and ran as
follows:
“HOTEL MEURICE, PARIS, June ——.
“MR. ARTHUR BERESFORD.—Dear Sir: I have just discovered that papa has
told you among other things to have a _little_ saddle pony in
readiness for me. Now I will not have a pony. I detest a little horse
as much as I do a little woman, and I must have a great tall horse,
who will carry me grandly and high. The biggest and grandest you can
find.
“Truly, REINETTE HETHERTON.”
It almost seemed to the young men that they held the unknown Reinette by
the hand, so near did this letter bring her to them, and such insight
into her character did it give them.
“She has a mind of her own and means to exercise it,” said Mr.
Beresford, while Phil, intent upon the soft hat, said:
“You will lose your bet, old fellow. Nobody but an Amazon would insist
upon a great tall horse. It is just as I told you. She is five feet
eleven at least. I want a _nice_ hat, and if you don’t object, I’ll pick
it out myself, and send you the bill.”
“I was just thinking of doing the same by you, for only a wee little
creature would want a tall horse to carry her grandly and high,” said
Mr. Beresford, still studying the gilt-edged sheet of note paper, where
there lingered a faint delicate perfume which miles of travel by land
and sea had not quite destroyed.
“_Ah bien, nous verrons_,” said Phil: then, bidding good-night to his
friend, he walked away humming softly an old French song, of which Mr.
Beresford caught the words, “_Ma petite reine_.”
“Confound the boy,” he said to himself. “He’s better up in French than I
am, and that will never do.”
Arrived at his rooms, Arthur Beresford’s first act after putting
Reinette’s letter carefully away, was to hunt up his long-neglected
Ollendorf, over which he pondered for two hours or more, with only this
result, that his head was full of all sorts of useless and nonsensical
phrases, and that even in his dreams he kept repeating over and over
again, “_Avez vous mon chapeau? Oui, monsieur, je l’ai._”