John Everett sat before the fire in his sister's cheerful little parlor
for a full half hour without uttering a word. He was thinking
particularly and persistently of Jane, of her proud, sensitive little
face beneath its cloud of curling dark hair, of her shy, haughty eyes
which refused to meet his own, of her curving mouth which so often
quivered like a child's on the brink of heart-breaking sobs. He wished
that he knew more of the girl's history.
"Strange that Margaret takes so little interest in her," this altruistic
young person said to himself impatiently, as he glanced across at his
sister, who sat cuddling her sleepy baby in her lap in the warm glow of
the fireside. Mrs. Belknap was talking and laughing gayly with her
husband, who stretched his slippered feet to the cheerful blaze with an
air of huge content.
This charming picture of domesticity, which he had so frequently
admired and even envied in a vague, impersonal fashion, suddenly
impressed Jack Everett as being little else than an exhibition of
monstrous selfishness. What right had Margaret to sit there so radiantly
happy and unconcerned while another woman, as fair and lovable as
herself, shed lonely tears in her kitchen. It wasn't right, by Jove, it
was not, he told himself hotly.
Just what provision did Margaret make for the amusement and recreation
of her maids he wondered. His praiseworthy curiosity on this point
presently got the better of his prudence. He arose deliberately and
walked out into the kitchen.
Jane stood at the window gazing drearily into the darkness. She glanced
about at the sound of his step, and he saw that her face was pale and
that her eyes were brimming with large tears.
John Everett laid two magazines on the table. "I have brought you
something to read, Jane," he said kindly. "This kitchen is a dull place
of an evening; isn't it?"
Jane's homesick eyes wandered hopelessly about the clean, bare little
place, with its straight-backed wooden chairs set primly against the
painted wall, its polished range and well-scoured table, still damp and
odorous with soap and water. A flamboyant advertisement of laundry soap
and the loud-voiced nickel clock were the sole ornaments of the scene,
which was illumined faintly by a small kerosene lamp.
"Thank you, sir," she said coldly; "but I have no time to read."
Her manner was inexorable, but John Everett saw that her little fingers
were trembling. "Jane," he said softly, "I asked you once if I might be
your friend. You did not answer me at that time. Have you thought about
it since?"
"I did not need to think about it, sir. It is impossible."
"But why, Jane? Do you hate me?"
John Everett was doubtless quite unaware of the fervor and earnestness
which he infused into these two short questions. There was much of the
chevalier _sans peur et sans reproche_ about this particular young
American, and all the knightly enthusiasm and tender indignation of a
singularly pure and impulsive nature had been deeply stirred at sight of
the lonely and friendless English girl. He was, in short, compounded
from the identical stuff out of which the Geraints and Sir Galahads and
King Cophetuas of past ages were made, and so, quite naturally, he
couldn't help saying and looking a great deal more than a modern young
man ought to say and look under like circumstances.
Jane stared at him in resentful silence for a moment before she replied.
"I know nothing of American ways," she said--which was not entirely
true, by the way, since for years she had devoured everything she could
lay her hands on concerning America--"but in England no gentleman would
speak to a servant as you have spoken to me, unless----"
"Unless--what, Jane?" he urged.
"Unless he meant to--insult her," she said haughtily.
John Everett's handsome face flushed scarlet.
"Jane," he said sternly. "Look at me."
She raised her eyes to his reluctantly.
"Did you really think I was trying to insult you?"
"N--o," she faltered. "But----"
"In America," he went on eagerly, "there is nothing to prevent our being
friends. Everyone works for a living here. There is no high and no low.
In America a man who would wantonly insult a woman who works is not
called a gentleman. He is called a scoundrel! And, Jane, whatever else I
may be I am not a scoundrel."
A shadowy smile glimmered for an instant in Jane's clear eyes, and
dimpled the corners of her serious mouth. Then she pierced his pretty
sophistry with a question. "Does Mrs. Belknap know that you brought
these magazines to me, and that you--wish to be my friend?"
"I shall tell her," he said firmly. "She will understand."
The girl shook her head. "Mrs. Belknap would be very much displeased,"
she said. "She would not like it if she knew I was talking to you now.
She would think me very bold and unmannerly, I am sure. Indeed, as far
as I can find out, being a servant in America is very like being a
servant in England."
"Jane," he entreated, "tell me: were you ever a servant in England?"
She looked at him thoughtfully, as if half minded to take him into her
confidence; then her eyes danced. "I was a nursery governess in my last
place in England," she said. "And I left without a reference. Good
night, sir, and thank you kindly for the books, but I don't care about
reading them."
She dropped him an old-fashioned courtesy, with indescribable grace and
spirit, and before he could gather his wits for another word had
vanished up the dark stairway. He stood listening blankly to her little
feet on the stair, and so Mrs. Belknap found him.
"Why, Jack!" she exclaimed; "what in the world are you doing in the
kitchen? I heard voices and I thought perhaps Jane had a beau." Her eyes
fell upon the gay-colored magazines which lay upon the table. "How did
these come here?" she asked, a note of displeasure in her pleasant
voice.
"I brought them to Jane," he said bluntly.
"To _Jane_? Why, Jack Everett! What did you do that for?"
"Why shouldn't I do it? The poor girl has nothing to amuse her in this
beastly little kitchen. And I am sure she is quite as capable of
enjoying good reading as anyone in the house."
"I gave the girls several of the old magazines only last week," Mrs.
Belknap said with an offended lifting of her eyebrows, "and the very
next morning I found Mary kindling the fire with them. I never knew a
servant to appreciate really good reading. And _these_--well, all I have
to say is that I hope you'll consult _me_ the next time you wish to
make a present to either of the maids. I fancy an occasional dollar
would be in rather better taste, and quite in a line with what they
would expect from you."
"Great heavens, Margaret! do you suppose I would offer money to _Jane_?"
"It certainly isn't necessary, Jack, for you to offer her anything; I
pay her good wages," retorted Mrs. Belknap crisply. "I merely said that
if you felt it your _duty_ to give either of them anything, a
dollar----"
Mr. Everett turned on his heel, very pointedly terminating the
interview, and Mrs. Belknap went back to her fireside with a slightly
worried expression clouding her pretty face.
"I wish Jack wouldn't be so perfectly absurd about poor people," she
said discontentedly, as she curled up in a deep chair at her husband's
side. "I don't mind his hobnobbing with the butcher and discussing
socialism with the plumber, but when it comes to acting as purveyor of
good literature for the kitchen, why it strikes me as being a little
tiresome."
"What has our philanthropic young friend been doing now?" Mr. Belknap
wanted to know.
"Presenting an offering of magazines to Jane in the kitchen. I declare,
Jimmy, this is the last straw! I shall certainly dismiss the girl at the
end of her month. I shan't do it before, though, because I have some
shopping to do, and I must finish my sewing before I undertake the care
of Buster again. _He_ is devoted to Jane; poor little lamb!"
"Buster is a young person of excellent taste," murmured Mr. Belknap.
"And so"--meditatively--"is Jack."
"Jimmy Belknap, what _do_ you mean?" demanded his wife, with a nervous
little clutch at his sleeve. "You don't _suppose_----"
Mr. Belknap chuckled. "Don't tempt a man so, Madge," he entreated; "it's
so delightfully easy to get a rise out of you that I really can't resist
it once in a while."
"Then you don't _think_----"
"My mind is an innocuous blank, dear," he assured her gravely. "I don't
'think,' 'mean' or 'suppose' anything which would give you a minute's
uneasiness. I'll tell you what, Margaret, suppose we cut out both the
girls, get our own breakfasts, take our dinners at Miss Pitman's, and
then we can afford one of those dinky little runabouts. How would that
strike you?"
"We'll do it!" exclaimed Mrs. Belknap rapturously.
Then these two happy people settled down to one of those periods of
castle building in the air which young married lovers delight in, and
upon whose airy foundations many a solid superstructure of after life is
reared. And, being thus pleasantly engaged, neither of them gave another
thought to the two young persons under their roof, both of whom, being
alone and lonely, were thinking of each other with varying emotional
intensity.
"I must find out more about her," John Everett was resolving. "Margaret
appears incapable of appreciating her."
"I must be careful and not allow him to talk to me any more," Jane was
deciding with equal firmness. "I can't help liking him a little, for he
is the only person who has been kind to me in years." Which statement
was, of course, eminently unfair to Mr. Robert Aubrey-Blythe, as well as
to his noble consort, Lady Agatha, both of whom had repeatedly assured
each other, within the past few weeks, that Jane had proved herself
_most ungrateful_ after all their kindness to her.
It is a singular fact that ingratitude thus persistently dwelt upon
proves a most effectual palliative to one's natural anxieties concerning
another. Lady Agatha, in particular, had found the practice of the
greatest use of late. She had been able by means of it to dismiss all
unpleasant reflections regarding her husband's niece, which might
otherwise have arisen to disquiet her.
As for Jane, she seldom thought bitterly of Lady Agatha in the far
country into which her rash pride and folly had brought her. Each day of
her hated servitude brought the time of her deliverance and her return
to England so much the nearer. Just what she meant to do when she got
there she did not for the present choose to consider. From the little
window of her attic chamber she could catch wide glimpses of the sea,
which stretched vast and lonely between this strange new country and the
land of her birth, for which she longed with the passionate regret of a
homesick child. The shore itself was not far distant, and one of Jane's
most agreeable duties thus far had been to convoy Master Belknap to the
beach, where he delighted to dig in the warm sand.
The very next day after Jane's prudent rejection of John Everett's
proffered friendship her mistress announced her intention of spending
the day in town. "In the afternoon, Jane, you may take Buster to the
beach," said Mrs. Belknap. "It will do the darling good. Be careful to
watch him every minute, Jane, and do not allow him to play with other
children," had been her parting injunction.
There were few persons to be seen when Jane and her little charge
alighted from the trolley car. The yellow sand lay warm and glistening
under the direct rays of the sun, and along the blue horizon drifted
myriads of white sails and the vanishing smoke of steamers coming and
going in this busiest of all waterways. Jane sat down in the sand with a
sigh of happy relief, while Master Belknap fell industriously to work
with a diminutive shovel.
"Jane!" he said earnestly, "Jane!"
"Yes, dear," said Jane absent-mindedly.
"I yuve 'oo, Jane! 'n'--'n' I'm doin' to dig a dreat big hole, an'
'nen--an' 'nen I'm doin' to build a dreat big house for 'oo, Jane!"
"Yes, dear," repeated Jane sweetly. The wind sweeping in across leagues
of softly rolling waves brought a lovely color to the girl's face. She
threw aside her hat and let the wild air blow the little curls about her
forehead. It pleased her to imagine that the fresh, salty savor carried
with it a hint of blossoming hedgerows and the faint bitter fragrance of
primroses abloom in distant English woods.
The little boy trotted away with his tiny red pail in quest of clam
shells; Jane followed him lazily, with her dreaming eyes. Then she
sprang to her feet, the color deepening in her cheeks at sight of the
tall, broad-shouldered figure which was approaching them at a leisurely
pace. Master Belknap had dropped his shovel and pail, and was running
across the sand as fast as his short legs could carry him.
"Uncle Jack! Uncle Jack!" he shouted gleefully. "Here we are, Uncle
Jack! I digged a--dreat--big hole, an'--an', Uncle Jack, I'm doin' to
build a dreat big house--all for my Jane!"