PICTURES
Richard Kendrick had been guest at a good many dinners in the course of
his experience, dinners of all sorts and of varying degrees of
formality. Club dinners, college-class dinners, "stag" dinners at
imposing hotels and cafés, impromptu dinners hurriedly arranged by three
or four fellows in for a good time, dinners at which women were present,
more at which they were not--these were everyday affairs with him. But,
strange to say, the one sort of dinner with which he was not familiar
was that of the family type--the quiet gathering in the home of the
members of the household, plus one or two fortunate guests. He had never
sat at such a table under his own roof, and when he was entertained in
the homes of his friends the occasion was invariably made one for
summoning many other guests, and for elaborate feasting and diversion of
all kinds.
It will be seen, therefore, that Richard looked forward to a totally new
experience, without in the least realizing that he did so. His principal
thought concerning the invitation to the Grays' was that he should at
last have the chance to meet again the niece of his employer, in a way
that would show him considerably more of her as a woman than he had been
able to observe on the occasion when they had so hurriedly finished a
luncheon together, and she had escaped from him as fast as possible in
order to set forth on a madcap adventure with her small brother.
On the day of which he expected to spend the evening with the Grays he
found it not a little difficult to keep his mind upon his work with the
Judge, and that gentleman seemed to him extraordinarily particular, even
fussy, about having every fact brought to him painstakingly verified
down to the smallest detail. When at last he was released, and he rushed
home in his car to dress, he discovered that his spirits were dancing as
he could not remember having felt them dance for a year. And all over a
simple invitation to a family dinner!
As he dressed it might have been said of him that he also could be
particular, even fussy. When, at length, he was ready, he was as
carefully attired as ever he had been in his life--and this not only in
body but in mind. It was curious, to his own observation of himself, how
differently he felt, in what different mood he was, than had ever been
the case when he had left his room for the scene of some accustomed
pleasure-making. He could not just define this difference to himself,
though he was conscious of it; but there was in it a sense of wishing
the people he was to meet to think well of him, according to their own
standards, and he was somehow rather acutely aware that their standards
were not likely to be those with which he was most intimate.
When he entered the now familiar door of the Gray homestead he was
surprised to hear sounds which seemed to indicate that the affair was,
after all, much larger and more formal than he had been led to suppose.
Strains of music fell upon his ears--music from a number of stringed
instruments remarkably well played--and this continued as he made his
entrance into the long drawing-room at the left of the hall, of whose
interior he had as yet caught only tempting glimpses.
As he greeted his hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Gray, Judge Calvin Gray,
Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Gray, wondering a little where the rest of the
family could be, his eye fell upon the musicians, and the problem was
solved. Ruth, the sixteen-year-old, sat before a harp; Louis, the elder
son, cherished a violin under his chin; Roberta--ah, there she was!
wearing a dull-blue evening frock above which gleamed her white neck,
her half-uncovered arms showing exquisite curves as she handled the bow
which was drawing long, rich notes from the violoncello at her knee.
Not one of the trio looked up until the nocturne they were playing was
done. Then they rose together, laying aside their instruments, and made
the guest welcome. He had a vivid impression of being done peculiar
honour by their recognition of him as a new friend, for so they received
him. As he looked from one to another of their faces he experienced
another of those curious sensations which had from time to time assailed
him ever since he had first put his head inside the door of this house,
the sensation of looking in upon a new world of which he had known
nothing, and of being strangely drawn by all he saw there. It was not
alone the effect of meeting a more than ordinarily alluring girl, for
each member of the family had for him something of this drawing quality.
As he studied them it was clear to him that they belonged together, that
they loved each other, that the very walls of this old home were
eloquent of the life lived here.
He had of course seen and noted families before, noted them carelessly
enough: rich families, poor families, big families, little, newly begun
families; but of a certain sort of family of which this was the
interesting and inviting type he knew as little as the foreigner, newly
landed on American shores, knows of the depths of the great country's
interior. And as he studied these people the desire grew and grew within
him to know as much of them as they would let him know. The very
grouping of them, against the effective background of the fine old
drawing-room, made, it seemed to him, a remarkable picture, full of a
certain richness of colour and harmony such as he had never observed
anywhere.
The evening did not contain as much of gay encounter with Roberta as
he had anticipated--but, somehow, as he afterwards looked back upon it,
he could not feel that there had been any lack. He had fancied himself,
in prospect, sitting beside her at the table, exchanging that pleasant,
half-foolish badinage with which young men are wont to entertain
girls who are their companions at dinners, both nearly oblivious of
the rest of the company. But it turned out that his seat was between
his hostess and her younger daughter, Ruth, and though Roberta was
nearly opposite him at the table and he could look at her to his full
content--conservatively speaking--he was obliged to give himself to
playing the part of the deferential younger man where older and more
distinguished men are present.
Yet--to his surprise, it must be admitted--he found himself not bored by
that table-talk. It was such table-talk, by the way, as is not to be had
under ordinary roofs. He now recognized that he had only partially
appreciated the qualities of mind possessed by Judge Gray--certainly not
his capacity for brilliant conversation. Mr. Robert Gray was quite his
elder brother's match, however, and more than once Kendrick caught Louis
Gray's eye meeting his own with the glance which means delighted pride
in the contest of wits which is taking place. All three young men
enjoyed it to the full, and even Ted listened with eyes full of eager
desire to comprehend that which he understood to be worth trying hard
for.
"They enjoy these encounters keenly," said Mrs. Gray, beside Richard, as
a telling story by Mr. Robert Gray, in illustration of a point he had
made, came to a conclusion amid a burst of appreciative laughter. "They
relish them quite as much, we think, as if they often succeeded in
convincing each other, which they seldom do."
"Are they always in such form?" asked Richard, looking into the fresh,
attractive face of the lady who was the mistress of this home, and
continuing to watch her with eyes as deferential as they were admiring.
She, too, represented a type of woman and mother with which he was
unfamiliar. Grace and charm in women who presided at dinner-tables he
had often met, but he could not remember when before he had sat at the
right hand of a woman who had made him begin, for almost the first time
in his life, to wonder what his own mother had been like.
"Nearly always, at night, I think," said she, her eyes resting upon her
husband's face. Richard, observing, saw her smile, and guessed, without
looking, that there had been an exchange of glances. He knew, because he
had twice before noted the exchange, as if there existed a peculiarly
strong sympathy between husband and wife. This inference, too, possessed
a curious new interest for the young man--he had not been accustomed to
see anything of that sort between married people of long standing--not
in the world he knew so well. He seemed to be learning strange new
possibilities of existence at every step, since he had discovered the
Grays--he who at twenty-eight had not thought there was very much left
in human experience to be discovered.
"Is it different in the morning?" Richard inquired.
"Quite different. They are rather apt to take things more seriously in
the morning. The day's work is just before them and they are inclined to
discuss grave questions and dispose of them. But at night, when the
lights are burning and every one comes home with a sense of duty done,
it is natural to throw off the weights and be merry over the same
matters which, perhaps, it seemed must be argued over in the morning. We
all look forward to the dinner-table."
"I should think you might," agreed Richard, looking about him once more
at the faces which surrounded him. He caught Roberta's eye, as he did
so--much to his satisfaction--and she gave him a straightforward, steady
look, as if she were taking his measure for the first time. Then, quite
suddenly, she smiled at him and turned away to speak to Ted, who sat by
her side.
Richard continued to watch, and saw that immediately Ted looked his way
and also smiled. He wanted so much to know what this meant, that, as
soon as dinner was over and they were all leaving the room, he fell in
with the boy and, putting his hand through Ted's arm, whispered with
artful intent: "Was my tie under my left ear?"
Ted stared up at him. "Your tie's all right, Mr. Kendrick."
"Then it wasn't that. Perhaps my coat collar was turned up?"
"Why, no," the boy laughed. "You look as right as anything. What made
you think--"
"I saw you and your sister laughing at me and it worried me. I thought I
must be looking the guy some way."
Ted considered. "Oh, no!" he said. "She asked me if I thought you were
enjoying the dinner as well as you would have liked the corn-popping."
"And what did you decide?"
"I said I couldn't tell, because I never saw you at a corn-popping. I
asked her that day we went to walk why she wouldn't ask you to it, but
she just said you were too busy to come. I didn't think you acted too
busy to come," he said naïvely, glancing up into Richard's down-bent
face.
"Didn't I? Haven't I looked very busy whenever you have seen me in your
uncle's library?"
Ted shook his head. "I don't think you have--not the way Louis looks
busy in father's office, nor the way father does."
Richard laughed, but somehow the frank comment stung him a little, as he
would not have imagined the comment of an eleven-year-old boy could have
done. "See here, Ted," he urged, "tell me why you say that. I think
myself I've done a lot of work since I've been here, and I can't see why
I haven't looked it."
But Ted shook his head. "I don't think it would be polite to tell you,"
he said, which naturally did not help matters much.
Still holding the lad's arm, Richard walked over to Roberta, who had
gone to the piano and was arranging some sheets of music there.
"Miss Gray," he said, "have you accomplished a great deal to-day?"
She looked up, puzzled. "A great deal of what?" she asked.
"Work--endeavour--strenuous endeavour."
"The usual amount. Lessons--and lessons--and one more lesson. I have
really more pupils than I can do justice to, but I am promised an
assistant if the work grows too heavy," she answered. "Why, please?"
"I've been wondering if the motto of the Gray family might be 'Let us,
then, be up and doing.' Ted gives me that notion."
Roberta glanced at Ted, whose face had grown quite grave. "Can you tell
him what the motto is, Ted?"
"Of course I can," responded Ted proudly. "It's _Hoc age_."
Richard hastily summoned his Latin, but the verb bothered him for a
minute. "_This do_," he presently evolved. "Well, I should say I came
pretty near it."
"What's yours?" the boy now inquired.
"My family motto? I believe it is _Crux mihi ancora_; but that doesn't
just suit me, so I've adopted one of my own"--he looked straight at
Roberta--"_Dum vivimus, vivamus_. Isn't that a pleasanter one in this
workaday world?"
Ted was struggling hard, but his two months' experience with the
rudiments of Latin would not serve him. "What do they mean?" he asked
eagerly.
"The second one means," said Roberta, with her arm about the slim young
shoulders, "'While we live, let us live--well.'" Her eyes met Richard's
with a shade of defiance in them.
"Thank you," said he. "Do you expect me to adopt the amendment?"
"Why not?"
"Even you--take cross-country runs."
She nodded. "And am all the better teacher for them next day."
He laughed. "I should like to take one with you some time," said he. He
saw Judge Gray coming toward them. "I wonder if I'm likely ever to have
the chance," he added hurriedly.
"_You_ take a cross-country run when you could have a sixty-mile spin in
that motor-car of yours instead?"
"I couldn't go cross-country in that. You see I've been by the beaten
track so much I should like to try exploring something new."
He was eager to say more, but Judge Gray, coming up to them, laid an
affectionate hand on his niece's shoulder.
"She doesn't look the part she plays by day, does she?" he said to
Richard. "Curious, how times have changed. In my day a teacher looked a
teacher every minute of her time. One stood in awe of her--or
him--particularly of her. A prim, stuff gown, hair parted in the middle
and drawn smoothly away"--his glance wandered from Roberta's ivory neck
to the dusky masses of her hair--"spectacles, more than likely--with
steel bows. And a manner--ye gods--the manner! How we were impressed by
it! Well, well! Fine women they were and true to their profession. These
modern girls who look younger than their pupils--" He shook his head
with an air of being quite in despair about them.
"Uncle Calvin," said Roberta, demurely, with her hand upon his arm, "do
tell Mr. Kendrick about your teaching school 'across the river' when you
were only sixteen years old."
And, of course, that settled the chance of Richard's hearing anything
about Roberta's teaching, for, though Judge Gray was called out of the
room in the midst of his story, Stephen and Louis came up and joined the
group and switched the talk a thousand miles away from schools and
school-teaching.
Presently there was music again, and this time Richard found himself
sitting beside young Mrs. Stephen Gray. Between numbers he found
questions to ask, which she answered with evident pleasure.
"These three must have been playing together a good many years?"
"Dear me, yes--ever since they were born, I think. They do make real
harmony, don't they?"
"They do--in more ways than one. Is that colour scheme intentional, do
you think?"
Mrs. Stephen's glance followed his as it dwelt upon the group. "I hadn't
noticed," she admitted, "but I see it now; it's perfect. And I've no
doubt Ruth thought it out. She's quite a wonderful eye for colour, and
she worships Rob and likes to dress so as to offset her--always giving
Rob the advantage--though of course she would have that, anyway, by
virtue of her own colouring."
"Blue and corn-colour--should you call it?--and gold. Dull tints in the
background, and the candle-light on Miss Ruth's hair and her sister's
cheek. It makes the prettiest picture yet in my new collection of family
groups."
Mrs. Stephen looked at him curiously. "Are you making a collection of
family groups?" she inquired. "Beginning away back with your first
memories?"
"My first memories are not of family groups--only of nurses and tutors,
with occasional portraits of my grandfather making inquiries as to how I
was getting on. And my later memories are all of school and
college--then of travel. Not a home scene among them."
"You poor boy!" There was something maternal in Mrs. Stephen's tone,
though she looked considerably younger than the object of her pity. "But
you must have looked at plenty of other family groups, if you had none
of your own."
"That's exactly what I haven't done."
"But you've lived--in the world," she cried under her breath, puzzled.
A curious expression came into the young man's face. "That's exactly
what I have done," he said quietly. "In the world, not in the home. I've
not even _seen_ homes--like this one. The sight of brother and sisters
playing violin and harp and 'cello together, with the father and mother
and brother and uncle looking on, is absolutely so new to me that it has
a fascination I can't explain. I find myself continually watching you
all--if you'll forgive me--in your relations to each other. It's a new
interest," he admitted, smiling, "and I can't tell you what it means to
me."
She shook her head. "It sounds like a strange tale to me," said she,
"but I suppose it must be true. How much you have missed!"
"I'm just beginning to realize it. I never knew it till I began to come
here. I thought I was well enough off--it seems I'm pretty poor."
It was rather a strange speech for a young man of his class to make.
Possibly it indicated the existence of those "brains" with which his
grandfather had credited him.
"Well, Rob, do you think he had as dull a time as you said he would
have?"
The inquirer was Ruth. She stood, still in the corn-coloured frock, in
the doorway of her sister's room, from which her own opened. "Please
unhook me," she requested, approaching Roberta and turning her back
invitingly.
Roberta, already out of the blue-silk gown, released her young sister
from the imprisonment of her hooks and eyes.
"His manners are naturally too good to make it clear whether he had a
dull time or not," was Roberta's non-committal reply.
"I don't believe his manners are too good to cover up his being bored,
if he was bored," Ruth went on. "He certainly wasn't bored _all_ the
time, anybody could tell that. He's very good-looking, isn't he?"
"If you care for that sort of good looks--yes."
"What sort?"
"The kind that doesn't express anything--except having had a good time
every minute of one's life."
"Why, Rob, what's the matter with you? Anybody would think you had
something against poor Mr. Kendrick."
"If he were 'poor Mr. Kendrick' there might be a chance of liking him,
for he would have had to _do_ something."
Roberta was pulling out hairpins with energy, and now let the whole dark
mass tumble about her shoulders. The half-curling locks were very thick
and soft, and as she shook them away from her face she reminded Ruth of
a certain wild little Arabian pony of her own.
"You throw back your head just like Sheik when he's going to bolt," Ruth
cried, laughing. "I wish my hair were like that. It looks perfectly dear
whatever you do with it, and mine's only pretty when it's been put just
right."
"It certainly was put just right to-night then," said a third voice, and
Rosamond, Stephen's wife, appeared in Roberta's half-open door. "May I
come in? Steve hasn't come up yet, and I'm so comfortable in this loose
thing I want to sit up a while and enjoy it."
Rosamond looked hardly older than Roberta; there were times when she
looked younger, being small and fair. Ruth considered her quite as much
of a girl as either herself or Roberta, and welcomed her eagerly to the
discussion in which she herself was so much interested.
"Rosy," was her first question, "did _you_ think our guest was bored
to-night?"
"Bored?" exclaimed Mrs. Stephen in surprise. "Why should he be? He
didn't look it whenever I observed him. And if you had seen him when the
trio was playing you wouldn't have thought so. By the way, he has an eye
for colour. He noticed how your frock and Rob's went together in the
candle-light, with the harp to give a touch of gold."
"Did he say so?" cried Ruth in delight.
"He asked if the colour scheme was intentional. I said I thought it
probably was--on your part. Rob never thinks of colour schemes."
"Neither does any _man_," murmured Roberta from the depths of the hair
she was brushing with an energetic arm. "Unless it happens to be his
business," she amended.
"Rob doesn't like him," declared Ruth, "just because he has money and
good looks and doesn't work for his living, and likes pretty colour
schemes. He probably gets that from having seen so much wonderful art in
his travels. Aren't painters just as good as bridge-builders? Rob
doesn't think so. She wants every man to get his hands grubby."
Roberta turned about, laughing. "This one isn't even a painter. Go to
bed, you foolish, analytical child. And don't dream of the beautiful
guest who admired your corn-coloured frock."
"He only liked it because it set off your blue one," Ruth shot back.
"He said nothing whatever about my lovely new white gown," Rosamond
called after her.
Roberta came up to her sister-in-law from behind and put both arms about
her. "Stephen came and whispered in my ear to-night," said she, "and
wanted to know if I had ever seen Rosy look sweeter. I said I had--an
hour before. He asked what you had on, and I said, 'A gray kimono--and
the baby on her arm.' He smiled and nodded--and I saw the look in his
eyes."
"Rob, you're the dearest sister a girl ever had given to her," Rosamond
answered, returning the embrace.
"And yet you two say I don't care for colour schemes," Roberta reminded
her as she returned to her hair-brushing. "I care enough for them to
want them made up of colours that will wash--warranted not to fade--that
will stand sun and rain and only grow the more beautiful!"
"What _are_ you talking about now, dear?" laughed Rosamond happily,
still thinking of what Stephen had said to Roberta.