A TRAITOROUS PROCEEDING
"We shall have to make our work count this week, Mr. Kendrick. Next week
I anticipate that there will be no chance whatever to do a stroke." So
spoke Judge Gray to his assistant on one Monday morning as he shook
hands with him in greeting.
"Very well, sir," replied the young man, with, however, a sense of its
not being at all well. It was to him a regrettable fact that he seldom
saw much of the various members of the household, and of one particular
member so little that he was tempted to wonder if she ever took the
trouble to evade him. But, of course, there was always the chance of an
encounter, and he never opened the house door without the feeling that
just inside might be a certain figure on its way out.
"Next week is Christmas week," explained Judge Gray. He stood upon the
hearth-rug, his back to the open fire, warming his hands preparatory to
taking up his pen. His fingers were apt to be a little stiff on these
December mornings. "During Christmas week this house is always given
over to such holiday doings as I don't imagine another house in town
ever knows. Christmas house-parties are plenty, I believe, but not the
sort of house-party we indulge in. I am inclined to think ours beats the
world."
He chuckled, running his hand through the thick white locks above his
brow with a gesture which Richard had come to know meant special
satisfaction.
"You have so many and such delightful people?" suggested his assistant.
The white head nodded. "The house would hardly hold more, nor could they
be more delightful. You see, there are five brothers of us. I am the
eldest, Robert the youngest. Rufus, Henry, and Philip come between.
Henry and Philip live in small towns, Rufus in the country proper. Each
has a good-sized family, with several married sons and daughters who
have children of their own. It has been my brother Robert's custom for
twenty years to ask them all here for Christmas week." He began to
laugh. "If the family keeps on growing much larger I don't know that
there will be room to accommodate them all, but so far my sister has
always managed. Fortunately this is an even more roomy old homestead
than it looks. But you may easily imagine, Mr. Kendrick, that there is
very little chance for solitude and quiet work during that week."
"I can fully imagine," agreed Richard. "And yet I can't imagine," he
amended. "I never saw such a gathering in my life."
"Never did, eh? You must come in some time during the week and get a
glimpse of it. We have fine times, I can tell you. My old head sometimes
whirls a bit," the Judge admitted, "before the week is over, but--it's
worth it. Particularly on the night of the party. The children always
have a party on Christmas Eve in the attic. It's a great affair. No
dancing-parties nor balls in other places can be mentioned in the same
breath with it. You should see brother Rufus taking out my niece
Roberta, and brother Henry dancing with Stephen's little wife. The girls
accommodate themselves to the old-fashioned steps in great style."
"I certainly should like to see it," Richard said, wondering if there
were any possible chance of his being invited.
But Judge Gray offered no suggestion of the sort, and Richard made up
his mind that the Christmas Eve dance would be a strictly family affair.
"Probably the country relatives are a queer lot," he decided, "and the
Grays don't care to show them off. Still--that's not like them, either.
It's certainly like them to do such an eccentric thing as to get their
cousins all here and try to give them a good time. I should like to see
it. I should!"
He found his thoughts wandering many times during the morning's work to
the image of Roberta dancing with the old uncle from the country. He had
never met her at any of the society dances which were now and then
honoured by his presence. Unquestionably the Grays moved in a circle
with which he was not familiar--a circle made up of people distinguished
rather for their good birth and the things which they had done than for
their wealth. Nobody in the city stood upon a higher social level than
the Grays, but they lived in a world in which the gay and fashionable
set Richard knew were totally unknown and unhonoured.
The more he thought about it the more he wished that, if only for a
week, he were at least a sixteenth cousin of the Gray family, that he
might be present at that Christmas party. But during the week chance did
not even throw him in the way of meeting the various members of the
family proper, and when Saturday night came he had discovered no
prospect of attaining his wish. He knew that the guests were to arrive
on the following Monday. Christmas Day was on Saturday; the night of the
party then would be Friday night. And the Judge, in taking leave of him,
did not even mention again his wish that Richard might see the guests
together.
He was coming out of the library, on his way to the hall door, hope
having died hard and his spirits being correspondingly depressed, when
Fate at last intervened in his behalf. Fate took the form of young Mrs.
Stephen Gray, descending the stairs with a two-year-old child in her
arms, such a rosy, brown-eyed cherub of a child that an older and more
hardened bachelor than Richard Kendrick need not have been suspected of
dissimulation if he had stopped short in his course as Richard did, to
admire and wonder.
"Is that a real, live boy?" cried the young man softly. "Or have you
stolen him out of a frame somewhere?"
Mrs. Stephen stood still, smiling, on the bottom stair, and Richard
approached with eager interest. He came close and stood looking into the
small face with eyes which took in every exquisite feature.
"Jove!" he said, under his breath, and looked up at the young mother. "I
didn't know they made them like that."
She laughed softly, with a mother's happy pride. "His little sister
really ought to have had his looks," she said. "But we're hoping she'll
develop them, and he'll grow plain in time to save him from being
spoiled."
"Do you really hope that?" he laughed incredulously. "Don't hope it too
fast. See here, Boy, are you real? Come here and let me see." He held
out his arms.
"He's very shy," began Mrs. Stephen in explanation of the situation she
now expected to have develop. It did develop in so far that the child
shyly buried his head in her shoulder. But in a moment he peeped out
again. Richard continued to hold out his arms, smiling, and suddenly the
little fellow leaned forward. Richard gently drew him away from his
mother, and, though he looked back at her as if to make sure that she
was there, he presently seemed to surrender himself with confidence into
the stranger's care and gave him back smile for smile.
Richard sat down with little Gordon Gray on his knee, and then ensued
such a conversation between the two, such a frolic of games and smiles,
as his mother could only regard in wonder.
"He never makes friends easily," she said. "I can't understand it. You
must have had plenty of experience with little children somehow, in
spite of those statements about your never having seen a family like
ours before."
"I never held a child like this one before in my life," said Richard
Kendrick. He looked up at her as he spoke.
"If Roberta could see him now," thought Mrs. Stephen, "she wouldn't be
so hard on him. No man who isn't worth knowing can win a baby's
confidence like that. I think he has one of the nicest faces I ever
saw--even though it isn't lined with care." Aloud she said: "It
surprises me that you should care to begin now."
"It's one of those new experiences I'm getting from time to time under
this roof; that's the only way I can account for it. I never even
guessed at the pleasure of making the acquaintance of a small chap like
this. But I've no right to keep you while I taste new experiences. Thank
you for this one. I shan't forget it."
He surrendered the boy with evident reluctance. "I hear you are to have
a houseful of guests next week," he ventured to add. "Do they include
any first cousins of this little man?"
"Two--of his own age--and any number of older ones. I'll take you up to
the playroom some afternoon next week and show you the babies together,
if you're interested, and if Uncle Calvin will let me interrupt his work
for a few minutes."
"Thank you; I'll gladly come to the house for that special purpose, if
you'll let me know when. Judge Gray has decided not to try to work at
all next week; he's giving me a holiday I really don't want."
"Are you so interested in your labours with him?"
Their eyes met. There was something very sweet and womanly in Mrs.
Stephen's face and in the eyes which scanned his, or he would never have
dared to say what he said next.
"Not in the work itself," he confessed frankly, "though I don't find it
as hard as I did at first. But--the association with Judge Gray,
the--well, I suppose it's really having something definite to do with my
time. Above all, just being in this house, though I don't belong to it,
is getting to seem so interesting to me that I'm afraid I shall hardly
know what to do with myself all next week."
She could not doubt the genuineness of his admission, strange as it
sounded. So the young aristocrat was really dreading a week's vacation,
he who had done nothing but idle away his time. She felt a touch of pity
for him; yet how absurd it was!
"I wish you could meet some of the people who will be here next week,"
she said. "I wonder if you would care to?"
"If they're anything like those of the Gray family, I already know I
should care immensely." He spoke with enthusiasm.
"I think some of them are the most interesting people I have ever met.
My husband's Uncle Rufus, Judge Gray's brother--why, you must meet Uncle
Rufus. I'll speak to Mrs. Robert Gray about it. I'm sure if she thought
you cared she'd be delighted to have you know him. Then there's the
Christmas Eve dance. I wonder if you would enjoy that? We don't usually
have many people outside of the family, but there are always some of
Rob's and Louis's special friends asked for the dance, and I'm sure I
can arrange it. I'll mention it to Roberta."
"Must it--er--rest with Miss Roberta? I'm afraid she won't ask me,"
declared Richard anxiously.
"Won't she? Why? She will probably say that she doesn't believe you will
enjoy it, but if I assure her that you want to come I think she will
trust me. She's very exacting as to the qualifications of the guests at
this dance, and will have nobody who isn't ready for a good time in
every unconventional way. I warn you, Mr. Kendrick, who are used to
leading cotillions, you may have to dance the Virginia reel with one of
the dear little country cousins. I wonder if you will have the
discernment to see that some of them are better worth meeting than a
good many of the girls you probably know."
She gave him a keen, analyzing look. Small and sweet as she was, clearly
she belonged to this singular Gray family as if she had been born in it.
He met her look unflinchingly. Then his glance fell to little Gordon.
"You trusted me with the boy," said he. "I think you may trust me with
the little country cousin--if she will do me the honour."
"I will see that you have the chance," she assured him, and he went away
feeling like a boy who has been promised a long-desired and despaired-of
treat.
But it was not of the Virginia reel he was thinking as he went swinging
away down the wintry street.
* * * * *
They were sitting, most of them, before the living-room fire, discussing
the plans for the week of the house-party, when Rosamond broke the news.
"I've taken a great liberty," said she serenely, "for which I hope
you'll all forgive me. I've--tentatively--promised Mr. Kendrick an
invitation to the Christmas dance."
There was a shout from Louis and Ted together. Ruth beamed with delight.
Across the fireplace Roberta shot at her sister-in-law one rebellious
glance.
"I knew I had no right to do it," admitted Rosamond gayly. "But I knew
we always asked a few young people to swell the company to the dancing
size, and I was sure you couldn't ask anybody who would appreciate it
more."
"Hasn't the poor fellow a chance at any other merry-making?" mocked
Louis. "Poor little millionaire! Won't anybody invite him to lead a
Christmas Eve cotillion? I believe there's to be a most gorgeous affair
of the sort at Mrs. Van Tassel Grieve's that night. Has he been
inadvertently overlooked? Not with Miss Gladys Grieve to oversee the
list of the lucky ones, I'll wager. It's a wonder he hadn't accepted
that invitation before you got in yours."
"I didn't get mine in," was Rosamond's demure rejoinder. "I laid it in
an humbly beseeching hand."
"How on earth did he know there was to be a dance here?" Stephen
inquired.
"I mentioned it."
"I had already told him of it," put in Judge Gray from the background,
where he was listening with interest. "I'm glad you asked him, Rosamond,
and I'll answer for your forgiveness. While you are inviting I should
like to invite his grandfather also. Christmas Eve is a lonely time for
him, I'll be bound, and it would do him good to meet Rufus and Phil, and
the rest again."
"I'll tell you what we're going to end by being," murmured Louis to
Roberta:--"a 'Discontented Millionaires' Home.'"
* * * * *
On the stairs an hour afterward a brief but significant colloquy took
place between Rosamond Gray and her sister-in-law, Roberta.
"Why do you mind having him come, Rob? Haven't you any charity for the
poor at Christmas time?"
"Poor! He's poor enough, but he doesn't know it."
"Doesn't he? The night he was here at dinner he told me he felt poor."
Rosamond's look was triumphant. "He feels it very much; he's never known
what family life meant."
"Do you imagine he can adapt himself to the conditions of the Christmas
party? If I catch him laughing--ever so covertly--I'll send him home!"
"You savage person! You don't expect to catch him laughing! He's a
gentleman. And I believe he's enough of a man to appreciate the aunts
and uncles and cousins, even those of them who don't patronize city
tailors and dressmakers. Why, they're perfectly delightful people, every
one of them, and he will have the discernment to see it."
"I don't believe it. Where have you seen him that you have so much more
confidence than I have?"
"I've had one or two little talks with him that have told me a good
deal. And this afternoon he met me as I was coming downstairs with
Gordon. Rob, what do you think? Gordon went to him exactly as he goes to
Stephen; they had the greatest time. Gordon knows better than you do
whom to trust."
"You and Gordon are very discerning. A handsome face and a wheedling
manner--and you think you have a fine, strong character. Handsome is as
handsome does, Rosy Gray of the soft heart, and a wheedling manner is
dust and ashes compared with the ability to accomplish something worth
effort. But--bring your nice young man to the party if you like; only
take care of him. I shall be busy with the real men!"