CHAPTER I

THE TWENTY-FOURTH OF JUNE

Midsummer's Day

by

GRACE S RICHMOND

1914

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I. The Curtain Rises on a Home

II. Richard Changes His Plans

III. While It Rains

IV. Pictures

V. Richard Pricks His Fingers

VI. Unsustained Application

VII. A Traitorous Proceeding

VIII. Roses Red

IX. Mr. Kendrick Entertains

X. Opinions and Theories

XI. "The Taming of the Shrew"

XII. Blankets

XIII. Lavender Linen

XIV. Rapid Fire

XV. Making Men

XVI. Encounters

XVII. Intrigue

XVIII. The Nailing of a Flag

XIX. In the Morning

XX. Side Lights

XXI. Portraits

XXII. Roberta Wakes Early

XXIII. Richard Has Waked Earlier

XXIV. The Pillars of Home

XXV. A Stout Little Cabin

CHAPTER I

THE CURTAIN RISES ON A HOME

None of it might ever have happened, if Richard Kendrick had gone into

the house of Mr. Robert Gray, on that first night, by the front door.

For, if he had made his first entrance by that front door, if he had

been admitted by the maidservant in proper fashion and conducted into

Judge Calvin Gray's presence in the library, if he had delivered his

message, from old Matthew Kendrick, his grandfather, and had come away

again, ushered out of that same front door, the chances are that he

never would have gone again. In which case there would have been no

story to tell.

It all came about--or so it seems--from its being a very rainy night in

late October, and from young Kendrick's wearing an all-concealing

motoring rain-coat and cap. He had been for a long drive into the

country, and had just returned, mud-splashed, when his grandfather,

having taken it into his head that a message must be delivered at once,

requested his grandson to act as his messenger.

So the young man had impatiently bolted out with the message, had sent

his car rushing through the city streets, and had become a still muddier

and wetter figure than before when he stood upon the porch of the old

Gray homestead, well out in the edge of the city, and put thumb to the

bell.

His hand was stayed by the shrill call of a small boy who dashed up on

the porch out of the dusk. "You can't get in that way," young Ted Gray

cried. "Something's happened to the lock--they've sent for a man to fix

it. Come round to the back with me--I'll show you."

So this was why Richard Kendrick came to be conducted by way of the

tall-pillared rear porch into the house through the rear door of the

wide, central hall. There was no light at this end of the hall, and the

old-fashioned, high-backed settee which stood there was in shadow.

With a glance at the caller's muddy condition the young son of the house

decided it the part of prudence to assign him this waiting-place, while

he himself should go in search of his uncle. The lad had seen the big

motor-car at the gate; quite naturally he took its driver for a

chauffeur.

Ted looked in at the library door; his uncle was not there. He raced off

upstairs, not noting the change which had already taken place in the

visitor's appearance with the removal of the muddy coat and cap.

Richard Kendrick now looked a particularly personable young man, well

built, well dressed, of the brown-haired, gray-eyed, clear-skinned type.

The eyes were very fine; the nose and mouth had the lines of

distinction; the chin was--positive. Altogether the young man did not

look the part he had that day been playing--that of the rich young idler

who drives a hundred and fifty miles in a powerful car, over the worst

kind of roads, merely for the sake of diversion and a good luncheon.

While he waited Richard considered the hall, at one end of which he sat

in the shadow. There was something very homelike about this hall. The

quaint landscape paper on the walls, the perceptibly worn and faded

crimson Turkey carpeting on the floors, the wide, spindle-balustrade

staircase with the old clock on its landing; more than all, perhaps, on

an October night like this, the warm glow from a lamp with crystal

pendants which stood on the table of polished mahogany near the front

door--all these things combined to give the place a quite distinctive

look of home.

There were one or two other touches in the picture worth mentioning, the

touches which spoke of human life. An old-fashioned hat-tree just

opposite the rear door was hung full with hats. A heavy ulster lay over

a chair close by, and two umbrellas stood in the corner. And over

hat-rack, hats, ulster, and chair, with one end of silken fringe caught

upon one of the umbrella ribs, had been flung by some careless hand,

presumably feminine, a long silken scarf of the most intense

rose-colour, a hue so vivid, as the light caught it from the landing

above, that it seemed almost to be alive.

From various parts of the house came sounds--of voices and of footsteps,

more than once of distant laughter. Far above somewhere a child's high

call rang out. Nearer at hand some one touched the keys of a piano,

playing snatches of Schumann--_Der Nussbaum, Mondnacht, Die Lotosblume_.

Richard recognized the airs which thus reached his ears, and was sorry

when they ceased.

Now there might be nothing in all this worth describing if the effect

upon the observer had not been one to him so unaccustomed. Though he had

lived to the age of twenty-eight years, he had never set foot in a place

which seemed so curiously like a vague dream he had somewhere at the

back of his head. For the last two years he had lived with his

grandfather in the great pile of stone which they called home. If this

were no real home, the young man had never had one. He had spent periods

of his life in various sorts of dwelling-places; in private rooms at

schools and college--always the finest of their kind--in clubs, on

ships, in railway trains; but no time at all in any place remotely

resembling the house in which he now waited, a stranger in every sense

of the word, more strange to the everyday, fine type of home known to

the American of good birth and breeding than may seem credible as it is

set down.

"Hold on there!" suddenly shouted a determined male voice from somewhere

above Richard. A door banged, there was a rush of light-running feet

along the upper hall, closely followed by the tread of heavier ones. A

burst of the gayest laughter was succeeded by certain deep grunts,

punctuated by little noises as of panting breath and half-stifled

merriment. It was easy to determine that a playful scuffle of some sort

was going on overhead, which seemed to end only after considerable

inarticulate but easily translatable protest on the part of the weaker

person involved.

Then came an instant's silence, a man's ringing laugh of triumph; next,

in a girl's voice, a little breathless but of a quality to make the

listener prick up ears already alert, these most unexpected words:

"'O, it is _excellent_

To have a giant's strength; but it is _tyrannous_

To use it like a giant!'"

"Is it, indeed, Miss Arrogance?" mocked the deeper voice. "Well, if you

had given it back at once, as all laws of justice, not to mention

propriety, demanded, I should not have had to force it away from you.

Oh, I say, did I really hurt that wrist, or are you shamming?"

"Shamming! You big boys have no idea how brutally violent you are when

you want some little thing you ought not to have. It aches like

anything," retorted the other voice, its very complaints uttered in such

melodious tones of contralto music that the listener found himself

wishing with all his might to know if the face of its owner could by any

possibility match the loveliness of her voice. Dark, he fancied she must

be, and young, and strong--of education, of a gay wit, yet of a

temper--all this the listener thought he could read in the voice.

"Poor little wilful girl! Did she get hurt, then, trying to have her own

way? Come in here, jade, and I'll fix it up for you," the deeper tones

declared.

Footsteps again; a door closed. Silence succeeded for a minute; then the

Schumann music began again, a violin accompanying. And suddenly,

directly opposite the settee, a door swung slowly open, the hand upon

the knob invisible. A picture was presented to the stranger's eyes as if

somebody had meant to show it to him. He could but look. Anybody, seeing

the picture, would have looked and found it hard to turn his eyes away.

For it was the heart of the house, right here, so close at hand that

even a stranger could catch a glimpse of it by chance. A great,

wide-throated fireplace held a splendid fire of burning logs, the light

from it illumining the whole room, otherwise dark in the October

twilight. Before it on the hearth-rug were silhouetted, in distinct

lines against its rich background, two figures. One was that of a woman

in warm middle life, sitting in a big chair, her face full of both

brightness and peace; at her feet knelt a young girl, her arm upon her

mother's knees, her face uplifted. The two faces were smiling into each

other.

Somebody--it looked to be a tall young man against the fire-glow--came

and abruptly closed the door from within, and the picture was gone. The

fitful music ceased again; the house was quiet.

Thereupon Richard Kendrick grew impatient. Fully ten minutes must have

elapsed since his youthful conductor had disappeared. He looked about

him for some means of summoning attention, but discovered none.

Suddenly a latchkey rattled uselessly in the lock of the front door;

then came lusty knocks upon its stout panels, accompanied by the

whirring of a bell somewhere in the distance.

A maidservant came hurriedly into the hall through a door near Richard,

and at the same moment a boy of ten or eleven came tearing down the

front stairs. As the lad shouted through the door, Richard recognized

his late conductor.

"You can't get in, Daddy; the lock's gone queer. Come around to the

back. I'll see to him, Mary," the boy called to the maid, who, nodding,

disappeared.

At this moment the door opposite Richard opened again, and the mother of

the household came out, her comely waist closely clasped by the arm of

the young girl. The two were followed by the tall young man.

Richard stood up, and was, of course, instantly upon the road to the

delivery of his message.

Ted, ushering in his father, and spying the waiting messenger, cried

repentantly, "Oh, I forgot!" and the tall young man responded gravely,

"You usually do, don't you, Cub?" This elder son of the house, waving

the small boy aside, attended to taking Richard to the library, and to

summoning Judge Calvin Gray.

In five minutes the business had been dispatched, Judge Gray had made

friendly inquiry into the condition of his old friend's health, and

Richard was ready to take his departure. Curiously enough he did not now

want to go. As he stood for a moment near the open library door, while

Judge Gray returned to his desk for a newspaper clipping, the caller was

listening to the eager greetings taking place in the hall just out of

his sight. The father of the family appeared to have returned from an

absence of some length, and the entire household had come rushing to

meet and welcome him. Richard listened for the contralto notes he had

heard above, and presently detected them declaring with vivid emphasis:

"Mother has been a dear, splendid martyr. Nobody would have guessed she

was lonely, but--we knew!"

"She couldn't possibly have been more lonely than I. Next time I'll take

her with me!" was the emphatic response.

Then the whole group swept by the library door, down the hall, and into

the room of the great fireplace. Nobody looked his way, and Richard

Kendrick had one swift view of them all. Vigorous young men, graceful

young women, a child or two, the mother of them all on the arm of her

husband--there were plenty to choose from, but he could not find the one

he looked for. Then, quite by itself, another figure flashed past him.

He had a glimpse of a dusky mass of hair, of a piquant profile, of a

round arm bared to the elbow. As the figure passed the hat-tree he saw

the arm reach out and catch the rose-coloured scarf, flinging it over

one shoulder. Then the whole vision had vanished, and he stood alone in

the library doorway, with Judge Gray saying behind him: "I cannot find

the clipping. I will mail it to your grandfather when I come upon it."

"I knew that scarf was hers," Richard was thinking as he went out into

the night by way of the rear door, Judge Gray having accompanied him to

the threshold and given him a cordial hand of farewell. What a voice!

She could make a fortune with it on the stage, if she couldn't sing a

note. The stage! What had the stage to do with people who lived together

in a place like that?

He looked curiously back at the house as he went down the box-bordered

path which led, curving, from it to the street. It was obviously one of

the old-time mansions of the big city, preserved in the midst of its

grounds in a neighbourhood now rampant with new growth. It was outside,

on this chill October night, as hospitable in appearance as it was

inside; there was hardly a window which did not glow with a mellow

light. As Richard drove down the street, he was recalling vividly the

picture of the friendly-looking hall with its faded Turkey carpet worn

with the tread of many rushing feet, its atmosphere of welcoming

warmth--and the rose-hued scarf flung over the dull masculine belongings

as if typifying the fashion in which the women of the household cast

their bright influence over the men.

It suddenly occurred to Richard Kendrick that if he had lived in such a

home even until he went away to school, if he had come back to such a

home from college and from the wanderings over the face of the earth

with which he had filled in his idle days since college was over, he

should be perhaps a better, surely a different, man than he was now.

* * * * *

Louis Gray, coming into the hall precisely as Richard Kendrick, again

enveloped in his muddy motoring coat, was releasing Judge Gray's hand

and disappearing into the night, looked curiously after the departing

figure. His sister Roberta, following him into the hall a moment after,

rose-coloured scarf still drifting across white-clad shoulder, was in

time to receive his comment:

"Seems rather odd to see that chap departing humbly by any door but the

front one."

"You knew him, then. Who was he?" inquired his sister.

"Didn't you? He's a familiar figure enough about town. Why, he's Rich

Kendrick. Grandson of Matthew Kendrick, of Kendrick & Company, you know.

Only Rich doesn't take much interest in the business. You'll find his

doings carefully noticed in certain columns in certain society

journals."

"I don't read them, thank you. Do you?"

"Don't need to. Kendrick's a familiar figure wherever the gay and

youthful rich disport themselves--when he's in the country at all. He's

doing his best to get away with the money his father left him.

Fortunately the bulk of the family fortune is still in the hands of his

grandfather, who seems an uncommonly healthy and vigorous old man."

Louis laughed. "Can't think what Rich Kendrick can be doing here with

Uncle Cal. I believe, though, he and old Matthew Kendrick are good

friends. Probably grandson Richard came on an errand. It certainly

behooves him to do grandfather's errands with as good a grace as he can

muster."

"He was sitting in the hall quite a while before Uncle Cal saw him,"

volunteered Ted, who had tagged at Roberta's heels, and was listening

with interest.

"Sitting in the hall, eh--like any district messenger?" Louis was

clearly delighted with this news. "How did it happen, Cub? Mary take him

for an everyday, common person?"

"I let him in. I thought he was a chauffeur," admitted Ted. "He was

awfully wet and muddy. Steve took him in to Uncle Cal."

An explosion of laughter from his interested elder brother interrupted

him. "I wish I'd come along and seen him. So he had the bad manners to

sit in our hall in a wet and muddy motoring coat, and go in to see Uncle

Cal--"

"The young man had on no muddy coat when Stephen brought him in to see

me," declared Judge Calvin Gray, coming out and catching the last

sentence. "He put it on in the hall before going out. What are you

saying? That was the grandson of my good friend, Matthew Kendrick, and

so had claim upon my good will from the start, though I haven't laid

eyes upon the boy since his schooldays. He was rather a restless and

obstreperous youngster then, I'll admit. What he is now seems pleasing

enough to the eye, certainly, though of course that may not be

sufficient. A fine, mannerly young fellow he appeared to me, and I was

glad to see that he seemed willing enough to run upon his grandfather's

errands, though they took him out upon a raw night like this."

But Louis Gray, though he did not pursue the subject further, was still

smiling to himself as he obeyed a summons to dinner.

At opposite ends of the long table sat Mr. and Mrs. Robert Gray. The

head of the house looked his part: fine of face, crisp of speech,

authoritative yet kindly of manner. His wife may be described best by

saying that one had but to look upon her to know that here sat the Queen

of the little realm, the one whose gentle rule covered them all as with

the brooding wing of wise motherhood. Down the sides of the board sat

the three sons: Stephen, tall and slender, grave-faced, quiet but

observant; Louis, of a somewhat lesser height but broad of shoulder and

deep of chest, his bright face alert, every motion suggesting vigour of

body and mind; Ted--Edgar--the youngest, a slim, long-limbed lad with

eyes eager as a collie's for all that might concern him--this was the

tale of the sons of the house. There were the two daughters: Roberta,

she of the rose-coloured scarf--it was still about her shoulders,

seeming to draw all the light in the room to its vivid hue, reflecting

itself in her cheeks--Roberta, the elder daughter, dusky of hair,

adorable of face, her round white throat that of a strong and healthy

girl, her laugh a song to listen to; the other daughter, Ruth, a

fair-haired, sober-eyed creature of growing sixteen, as different as if

of other blood. One would not have said the two were sisters. There was

one more girl at the table; no, not a girl, yet she looked younger than

Roberta--a little person with a wild-rose, charming face, and the

sweetest smile of them all--Rosamond, Stephen's wife, quite incredibly

mother of two children of nursery age, at this moment already properly

asleep upstairs.

Last but far from least, loved and honoured of them all above the lot of

average man to command such tribute, was the elder brother of the master

of the house, his handsome white head and genial face drawing toward him

all eyes whenever he might choose to speak--Judge Calvin Gray. All in

all they were a goodly family, just such a family as is to be found

beneath many a fortunate roof; yet a family with an individuality all

its own and a richness of life such as is less common than it ought to

be.