PHILIP ENTERTAINS
Philip still had Eliza on his mind, so when Kathleen had left him,
he went back to the farmhouse and had the good fortune to meet Eliza
returning home.
"I'm looking for you!" he called cheerfully.
She regarded him unsmiling. "Well," she remarked carelessly, "you look
like a gentleman of leisure."
"Just what I am. You guessed right. My Villa is finished and I've been
waiting for you because I'm going to let everybody in to-morrow and I
wanted you to see it with me alone."
"My opinion ain't worth anything," said Eliza; "besides, it's pretty
near time to get supper. Miss Foster went up to Portland to-day."
"I know she did. That's why I'm in a hurry to take you into the studio
before the boat arrives. You know how discouraging you were, Eliza, and
I wanted to surprise you. I'd have liked to surprise everybody, but,
of course, I hadn't the nerve to keep Miss Foster out. The rent I pay
didn't warrant it." The speaker twinkled down into Eliza's unresponsive
eyes. "I'm going to give a tea to-morrow and I want to talk it over
with you."
They had strolled near to the rustic bench where Mrs. Wright was still
sitting with her work.
"Eliza is going with me to have a private view of the Villa," said
Phil. "Your turn to-morrow. I'm going to give a tea. Will you come?"
"Most assuredly," answered Mrs. Wright. "As soon as you cleaned those
windows, my curiosity began to effervesce."
"I can't go now," said Eliza. "I've waited this long, I guess I can
wait till to-morrow. I've got to get supper."
Philip threw an arm around her and drew her forward.
"Boarders have come, Mr. Philip," she exclaimed. "They'll see you."
"I hope they will," he responded firmly. "If they don't know I love
you, it's the best way to tell them."
Eliza walked along stiffly, perforce, toward the forbidden ground.
"Yes, I thought I'd make a grand splurge to-morrow, and give a tea," he
continued. "I want you to preside."
"Do what?"
"Pour. I want you to pour for me."
"H'm. Ridiculous! Let one of the girls do it."
"Well, just as you say. Now, then," they were drawing near the little
house, "prepare! Be a good sport now, and own yourself wrong if you
think you are. See my shingle?"
Eliza's eyes followed his gesture and caught sight of the crowing cock.
"H'm," she said; then they went inside.
Eliza looked about in silence for a minute.
"It's clean," she said at last; and Phil knew she was moved to catch at
a word of praise as one says of a neighbor's plain and uninteresting
baby, "How healthy he looks!"
He began explaining his devices to Eliza and her heart was touched by
his joy in all this cheap gloom.
By the time he opened the back door, she was ready to weep over him;
and she said:--
"That's a real sightly piazza."
Then they moved into the little kitchen.
"I've been waiting for you to tell me what to do here," said the
artist, and Eliza rose to the bait and began pulling things about and
showing him where shelves must be placed.
"How are you goin' to give a tea," she asked, "with one broken mug?"
"Borrow cups and saucers from Aunt Isabel. That's easy; but," he
looked down at Eliza, whose face had regained its usual alertness,
"it occurred to me that perhaps I have some of my own--those that you
packed for me and that ran away to the island."
"Mr. Philip, I'm a fool to forget those!" responded the other, after
gazing at him in silence. "You shall have every one of 'em. They're all
mixed in with the Foster things. I'll pick 'em out; and we'll lend you
all you need beside."
"Would it interfere with supper proceedings if we were to do it right
now?"
"Law! it ain't time to get supper yet," responded Eliza, so promptly
that, as they hurried out of the door, Phil stooped to break a long
blade of grass to bite.
A vigorous search was at once instituted for the china, and Phil and
Eliza carried it down to the studio; and as they went, Mr. Wright came
up from the water and joined his wife.
"We're to be let in to-morrow," she said. "He has finished."
"Well, it's been a job," remarked Mr. Wright, who had occasionally sat
on a log and watched Phil at his roof-mending or some other strenuous
part of the work.
"Yes, he ought to succeed," said Mrs. Wright. "He hasn't a lazy bone in
his body."
"There aren't many of us that have at his age," remarked Mr. Wright.
"Are there, Pluto?"
The cat had run to meet him like a dog. For him the scent of Mr.
Wright's fishing trousers was as the perfume of Araby; and he followed
him to the room in the shed where his friend changed them for
habiliments more generally agreeable.
At last Phil returned to the boulder cottage where he found Mrs. Fabian
and Kathleen in the wind-break. The latter was working at the table,
sorting the moss specimens for her slides.
She looked up at him now with a new realization of his powers.
"Well, you said this morning to-day would finish the work," said Mrs.
Fabian, closing her novel on her finger for a mark. "Are you through?"
"As nearly as I ever shall be," he replied, throwing himself into a
chair near Kathleen's table and regarding her deft fingers at their
work.
"Well, I'm glad," said Mrs. Fabian, "for we've seen nothing of you. I
like the way you visit us."
He looked at her quickly to see if there were feeling behind the
accusation.
"Now, you'll have to stay on a week when you are not so preoccupied."
"Not if he doesn't wish to, mother," said Kathleen, going on with her
work. Her cheeks were still flushed from the warm tramp to the woods;
the red glints in her hair shone lustrous.
"It does look like making use of you, doesn't it?" he said impetuously.
"But you're so good to me, both of you. To-morrow you'll forgive me,
Aunt Isabel, when you see I have a place to work and trouble no one. I
do hope it won't rain."
"Oh, no," said Kathleen, handling a tiny bit of moss. "The moon holds
the weather."
Mrs. Fabian laughed. "Kathleen, the astronomer," she said.
The girl nodded. "It may not be a scientific way to put it, but I've
always noticed it here. It will be full to-morrow night. The weather
won't change till the moon does."
"Delightfully consoling," said Phil, continuing to watch her averted
face. It seemed to him this was the first time since Christmas
night that his mind had been sufficiently at leisure from itself to
concentrate upon her. He suddenly remembered that she used to like
cigarettes. He had not yet seen her use one. Perhaps she was aiding
Edgar in the stern limit which he was imposing upon himself.
"I wonder," he said, "if either of you would pour for me at my grand
tea to-morrow."
Kathleen did not look up, but her cheeks grew warmer while she
manipulated the moss.
"Oh, a tea in the chicken-house," laughed Mrs. Fabian.
The light jeering tone struck Kathleen as coming at a particularly
unfortunate moment.
"I will. Be glad to," she said heartily.
"Whom are you going to invite? The fish?" laughed Mrs. Fabian.
Phil's naïveté was dashed by her tone. Kathleen felt it.
"Mother's jealous, Phil," she said, "because she has seen so little of
you all the week. She is at fever heat of curiosity as to what you have
been doing; and as for tea! Mother's an inebriate. She won't leave any
for the fish. You'll see."
Phil looked at the speaker gratefully, and leaned toward her a little.
"I have the right barrel at last," he said. "The one that ran away to
the island. Do you remember?"
His eyes were so very speaking that Kathleen dropped hers to the moss.
She nodded and smiled.
"It knew where it ought to go, didn't it?" she returned.
Mrs. Fabian's countenance had sobered. She knew the descendant of the
Van Ruyslers so well that she understood that she had offended.
"Can't one make a bit of fun once in a while?" she asked in injured
tones of Kathleen when next they were alone.
"Yes, once in a while," answered the girl, and kissed her.
"It'll be something funny for you to look back upon when you come out,
Kathleen, that your first function after graduating took place in a
chicken-house."
"I hope I shall not be homesick for it," thought the girl; but she only
smiled.
"Kathleen is certainly touchy about Phil," mused Mrs. Fabian. "She
glared up at me just the way she did last fall when I wanted to get
Aunt Mary's silver. She is the queerest girl!"
The moon or something else did hold the weather and the artist could
have had no better day on which to give his proof that where there's a
will there's a way.
The company swarmed through the little house, laughing, admiring,
questioning. At last they stood on the terrace.
"My dear boy!" exclaimed Mrs. Wright. "You could have no better view if
you were a millionaire!"
"The only thing lacking," cried Violet, "is a white peacock. Where is
the white peacock?"
"How about it, Edgar?" asked Phil. "Couldn't you stand out there for
the lady?"
"The nightingale could never deceive us," said Mrs. Wright, bending her
universally loving gaze on Edgar, whose chin was held rather higher
than usual.
"That's so," cried Phil. "Sing us something, Edgar, right here and now."
"Certainly," responded the gifted one, regarding his host as he
launched easily into song:--
"'I'm looking for a lobster and I think you'll do.'"
Mrs. Fabian did not join in the laugh. She had moved inside, and her
lorgnette was fixed on a closed door.
"I must see in there, Phil," she said.
"Of course, you must, Mrs. Bluebeard," he replied. "You may all go in
this once, but it's the last time ever, I warn you, for that is my
kitchen."
They swarmed through to the little room, where Edgar perceived with
a groan an oil-stove burning cosily in the midst of canvas, paints,
easel, et cetera.
"_I'll_ never go in again, I promise you," he declared.
At the host's invitation, the company arranged themselves on
the rejuvenated chairs and couch, and Kathleen made tea at the
spindle-legged table.
Mrs. Fabian's lorgnette was bent upon the newel post.
"However did you make him stand up, dear?" she asked, regarding the
Mercury which had winged his way from her garret. "We haven't been
upstairs yet, remember."
"And you won't go till you're tired of life," returned the host.
"It abounds in trapdoors and, aside from my affection for you, the
furniture down here couldn't stand being fallen on."
Being turned ceilingward, Mrs. Fabian's lorgnette discovered that
branches of bay had been woven through the rafters in some places. She
shrugged her shoulders.
"You'll get rained on in this dilapidated old place," she said. "A few
bay leaves can't deceive me."
"Madam! Are you aware that you are talking about the Villa Chantecler?
That roof is as tight as a drum."
Mrs. Fabian stirred the lemon in her substantially thick cup; and
looked admiringly at the energetic host.
"I only hope, Phil," she sighed, "that you aren't too practical to
succeed in your profession. So few artists would know how to mend a
roof or even remember the necessity for it. I hope it isn't a bad sign."
Edgar, sitting with Violet on the railing, drinking tea, heard his
mother's comment.
"A good deal in that, I think," he remarked softly. "I've never seen
any of Phil's things except that rough black-and-white stuff he has in
there. He never seemed to me to have a particle of temperament."
Violet was inclined to agree. She had seen nothing amusing in Philip's
chaff about the peacock. She thought it quite as silly as were the
other comments on the robin.
"I wish you would sing something," she said. "Do, and surprise them."
"I can't. I haven't even a banjo."
"I've noticed you have everything over at the house: banjo, guitar,
mandolin, everything. You must leave one of them over here. Music would
sound perfectly charming in this place."
"_Any_ music?" asked Edgar, smiling.
She returned his look from the tops of her eyes. "Bold fisherman," she
replied.
Her companion scanned the horizon: "The moon is going to be great
to-night. It looks as if it would rise clear out of the water. Want to
go for a sail?"
"I don't believe I can," replied Violet. "I have an engagement."
"An engagement!" returned Edgar, sceptically. "Are you going to read
aloud to your aunt?"
Violet smiled at him provokingly. "You're not the only man on this
island," she remarked.
A quick flush mounted to Edgar's forehead.
"Phil?" he asked quickly.
She nodded, mutely, and took the last swallow of her tea.
Her companion looked as if he might be in the throes of the red mood.
"That's beastly," he said, dismayed to think that in all Phil's
preoccupation he had had sufficient forethought to secure Violet for
this perfect evening. "Since when?" he demanded fiercely.
"Since yesterday," she returned demurely, apparently unconscious that
the arrangement caused annoyance.
"Very well, then, we'll take the yacht," he said, "and let the crowd
go. Phil can help me sail her. I was intending to take the motor-boat
and you alone."
"I don't know whether Mr. Sidney would care to," she returned coolly,
"but it's very kind of you."
Edgar regarded her, baffled. "What--what had you planned to do?"
he asked. He knew the question was inexcusable and braced himself
for a snub; but the sweet Violet, exultant at his open disturbance,
administered none.
"Nothing special," she replied. "Mr. Sidney is invited to dine with us,
in celebration of the completion of the improvements he has been making
on the estate. That's all."
"Oh, absurd!" declared Edgar. "As if you couldn't dine any foggy night.
Well, you don't need to stay after dinner. He isn't your guest."
Violet regarded him with an ironical smile.
"I've been taught manners," she said. "Beside, perhaps I want to stay.
Didn't that occur to you?"
Edgar scowled and looked off on the ocean and back again. "I don't want
to take the whole family out in order to get you," he said, fuming.
"I wouldn't," she answered, laughing. "It isn't worth the trouble."
Her companion clenched his even teeth. He didn't want to risk Philip's
meandering about the island alone with Violet on such an evening
as this was going to be. He would be sure to talk of his work and
his hopes, and her confoundedly soulful eyes would look back at him
comprehendingly, and a precedent would be established and--
"You see, Mr. Sidney expects to take all his dinners with us after he
begins working here," went on Violet sweetly. "It will be so convenient
just to run across."
Edgar gave her a furious glance, but the simplicity of her regard was
complete.
Mrs. Wright came to the open door. "We're going now, Violet," she said.
"Will you come? Our host positively refuses to allow us to help him
put things away, and he will follow a little later. I've been hoping,"
turning to Edgar, "that you might be moved to sing as you sat out here."
The young man had sprung to his feet and was trying to banish evidences
of the red mood from his brow.
"I wanted to take Violet out on the water to-night," he said. "It seems
there's an obstacle."
"Yes, a large one," returned Mrs. Wright pleasantly. "Lots of evenings
coming, but I don't know about letting my little girl go on the water
at night."
"I guarantee her safety. I've come here ever since I was a baby, Mrs.
Wright, and I'm an amphibious animal; but if Sidney should ever suggest
it, remember he's a landlubber. Half the time they don't know enough to
be afraid."
"Very true," returned Mrs. Wright, with her natural graceful sweetness
of manner, which at least succeeded in making Edgar feel rude. "Come,
dear," turning to Violet, "I'd like to have you come with me."
So the girl rose and yielded her cup to Edgar, who took it with
dignity. He, the ex-cavalier of Mrs. Larrabee, not to be able to mould
circumstances among these poor and provincial people!
He took leave of Philip, and tendered his congratulations with an air
fitted to grace marble halls. "I believe," he added, "you don't dine at
home to-night."
"No," replied Phil, "Miss Foster is very kindly entertaining her
tenant."
Edgar pricked up his ears; and instantly ran after Violet. "Phil says
Jane Foster invited him," he said vehemently. "I shall call for you by
eight o'clock. I'll take the best care of her, Mrs. Wright. I assure
you I will, and bring her in early."
He was off before he could be gainsaid, and Mrs. Wright noticed that
Violet's expression was such as might be worn by a well-grown kitten
who had been hilariously entertained in a game with a mouse which was
as yet unfinished and highly promising.
The events of the week had thrown light on the happiness Violet evinced
the day of her arrival under Edgar Fabian's escort. Mrs. Wright's
tenderness for her orphan niece was alertly watchful. She put an arm
around her now and drew her away from the house, and they walked slowly
across the grass.
"It really is perfectly safe to go on the water with Edgar," said the
girl, half laughing.
"For me, it might be," returned Mrs. Wright quietly.
Violet blushed deeply, and dreaded what might be coming.
"The Fabians are nice people," went on her aunt, "very rich people and
able to give you pleasures, and I like you to be friendly with them;
but I'm a little afraid of this situation."
"You needn't be," burst forth the girl impulsively. "Edgar doesn't
really care much about me."
"That's the trouble," said Mrs. Wright quietly.
The reply was so unexpected that Violet felt a sharp twinge of
mortification and a spontaneous desire to show her aunt that she was
wrong. There were lots of small proofs that she might give her--
"No," she returned, suddenly serious. "He cares very much for me in
a certain way: my understanding of his gift--and his hopes--and his
career. His family mean to be kind, but they're so unsympathetic.
They're not temperamental like him and--"
Violet paused because Aunt Amy was smiling. It was unkind to smile at
such a time. Very well! Her lips should be sealed from this time on.
She would never again speak to her about Edgar!
"He is very attractive even with all his conceit," said Mrs. Wright,
who was quite conscious that the girl's slender body had suddenly
a resentful rigidity. "A beautiful tenor voice and conceit seem to
be inseparable in this mundane sphere; and if my little girl has
understood and responded to his outpourings about himself she is
charming to him." Mrs. Wright paused and then went on: "Look around,
Violet, and realize that you are the only girl here to whom he can show
attention. Did he show you any in New York? Did he go out of his way
for you? You fell right into his reach on the train and he took the
gifts the gods provided; and they were very sweet gifts."
The speaker squeezed her unresponsive listener, whose heart was beating
hotly. "As a rule men are marauders," she went on. "As a rule, women
are single-hearted, faithful. There are exceptions. I want to give you
one piece of advice and I can't put it too strongly. Take it in and
act upon it, and it may save you a world of hurt vanity, and possibly
a broken heart. No matter how a man behaves toward you,--no matter how
he looks, or what he does,--or what he says,--don't believe or even
imagine that he loves you until he tells you he does, in so many words."
There were tears in the baby-bachelor's blue eyes. Among the stormy
emotions that filled her was the horrible suspicion that, instead of
being a foreordained victor, the kitten might possibly in the end be
the mouse's victim.
"Now, Mr. Sidney," went on Mrs. Wright's calm voice, "is a man who I
believe has hold of life by the right end."
"He is always making fun of Edgar," burst forth Violet, her breath
coming fast. "You heard what he said about the peacock."
At this, Mrs. Wright fell a peg lower in her niece's estimation, for
she laughed.
"I knew what he meant," she answered, "but I couldn't let the lovely
singer's feelings be hurt."
"Knew what he meant!" exclaimed Violet, indignantly, and suddenly
breaking away from her aunt's embrace, she ran toward the house and
disappeared.
Mrs. Wright followed the fleeing form with her eyes, and nodded gently.
"I thought so. Only just in time," she said to herself. The seed was
dropped, and even though the ground did have to be harrowed to get the
necessary depth, it was better so.
The evening was as beautiful as Edgar Fabian had foreseen. One of the
many charms of Brewster's Island was the habit the wind had of lulling
at sunset, often making the evening air milder than that of day.
To-night the sun had sunk in a clear sky behind the White Mountains.
All the family at the Wright cottage had come out after supper to see
the Presidential Range, ninety miles away, silhouetted black against
the golden glory.
"One can breathe here," thought Philip. "One can breathe here." He
wondered if Kathleen were watching the sunset.
"Oh, but turn around," cried Violet suddenly. "This is a three-ringed
circus. One should live on a pivot here on a clear night."
Phil turned obediently, and saw the waters dashing against a huge disk
of pale gold.
Kathleen, lying in her hammock, arm folded beneath her head, was also
watching the moon.
Edgar sat near her on the steps, smoking his third cigarette that day.
It was his rigid allowance. He saw dimly the figures come out from the
Wright cottage and his first impulse was to stroll across and join
them; but pride forbade. Supposing he were to get there just in time to
see Violet walk off with Philip.
"What a perfect evening!" said Kathleen lazily. "Go in and get the
guitar, Edgar, and sing me something."
Sing something! Edgar's teeth clenched at the thought.
"I've practised such a lot to-day, I'm no good," he replied.
"Why, I didn't hear you," she said.
"No. I took my trusty pitch-pipe down in the woods and scared the
birds. I have some mercy on you and mother."
"What is your aim?" asked his sister. "What do you want to do? Concert
work?"
"Yes, perhaps. Mazzini says I could teach right now if I wanted to."
"Teach?" repeated Kathleen, trying to speak respectfully, but smiling
at the man in the moon, who grinned back as if he understood.
"Of course, there's no necessity for that, so I shall simply prepare
myself for public work; recitals; possibly go abroad for the prestige
of study over there. Not that I need it but the name goes a long way,
and if I should go into opera it is best to begin there."
The man in the moon grew redder in the face. So did Kathleen; but she
knew that sublime self-assurance is an asset not to be despised. She
looked at her brother's trim shapely head, rising from the white silk
collar of his negligée shirt.
"Does Mazzini really think you are already prepared to teach?" she
asked.
"Oh, yes. I had very few errors in method to unlearn, and he says,
given a good voice, a good presence, and good looks, tact, and an
attractive studio, pupils will come fast enough," replied Edgar
carelessly. "He said he'd send me his overflow; but of course all that
was in joke. He knows that it is no question of money with me."
Kathleen ceased to smile at the moon, for her thoughts recurred to
their father, meeting his problems in the heat of the great city. So
far his letters had breathed no hint of trouble.
"That's a glorious feeling, Edgar," she said soberly, "to feel certain
that you can be independent."
"Yes," he returned, speaking low, and holding the cigarette between his
fingers. "I said I'd show father, and I will."
The remainder of his thoughts he did not voice; but there was some one
else he meant to show. The vivacious Mrs. Larrabee who had dared to use
him when it suited her and then discard him with raised eyebrows and a
scornful word. She should see him win the plaudits of the multitude;
then, when she endeavored to add her incense and claim to have been his
inspiration, it should be his turn to show cold disdain. He ground the
even teeth at some memory.
"I want to tell you, Edgar," went on Kathleen in the same serious tone,
"that I am proud of your determination; proud of your regular work;
proud of your cutting down on smoking; and it will overwhelm me with
joy to see you succeed."
"Thanks, Kath," he returned. "I appreciate that."
"And I also want to ask you not to make love to Violet Manning," went
on the low, serious voice.
Edgar was dumb, and now the man in the moon met _him_ with a grin.
"You know it will be only an idle pastime with you, and because she is
the only girl here. It might mean a lot to her, and--it's a hard world
for girls."
Kathleen had not intended to end her appeal in that way, but the
declaration broke from her.
"She doesn't care a picayune for me," returned Edgar. "Don't you
worry." He hoped his sister would contradict him; but she did not.
"You might be able to make her," she said. "Be too manly to try, Edgar.
Do, do be unselfish and honest."
The earnest deliberation of her tone caused her listener to reflect for
a moment; and the man in the moon, by this time crimson in the face,
met his frowning regard mirthfully.