MARY FINDS GAY
THE day before Thanksgiving saw the Ware family fully settled in their
new home. The trunks had been unpacked and their contents disposed of to
make the little cottage look as homelike as possible. Even the
preparations for their Thanksgiving dinner were all made. They had been
simplified by Mrs. Barnaby's gift of a jar of mince-meat, and the plump
hen, which was to take the place of a turkey, had been bought already
dressed.
Now at only nine o'clock the morning work was all done, and Mrs. Ware
sat sewing on the south gallery where Jack had wheeled himself into the
sunshine. Mary came and stood in the doorway.
"Things stay so clean here," she grumbled in a laughing way. "I could do
everything there is to be done with one hand and not half try, and when
you all help we get through so fast it makes me dizzy. Then there's
nothing left to do but sit in the sun and wait till time to get the next
meal ready. I wish I hadn't been in such a hurry to put everything in
order. I wouldn't be so restless and idle now. It makes me fidgety to
have nothing to do."
"Take the basket and dishes back to the rectory," suggested Mrs. Ware,
after Jack had proposed several occupations to no purpose.
"But I've never met Mrs. Rochester yet," objected Mary, "and it would be
sort of awkward, going in and introducing myself."
"No more awkward than it was for Mr. Rochester to come here and
introduce himself," said Jack. "You can tell her for me that that
charlotte russe was perfection."
"I wonder what she is like," mused Mary, half persuaded to go and see.
"If I thought she'd be approachable and easy to talk to--but--"
"Oh, you know she's all right," urged Jack, "or she never would have
been so good to a family of strangers. I'll bet she's a dear, motherly
old soul, in a checked apron, with gray hair and a double chin."
"Why, she couldn't be!" cried Mary. "Not and be Mr. Rochester's wife. He
doesn't look much older than you do, and for all he's so dignified
there's something so boyish and likable about him that I felt chummy
with him right away."
"Well, the things she cooked tasted as if she were the kind of woman I
said," persisted Jack, "and I shall keep on thinking of her as that kind
until it's proved that my guess is wrong. I should think that anybody
with as much curiosity as you have would go just to satisfy it."
"You mean you want yours satisfied," retorted Mary. "Well, she'll do it
herself in a few days. She sent word that she'd call soon, so I believe
that I'll wait."
Coming out she stood leaning idly against one of the gallery posts, a
restless, dissatisfied little figure. Then she strolled out to the front
gate and stood there awhile, looking down the deserted road. Jack's gaze
followed her sympathetically, and he said to his mother in a low tone,
"Poor little kid, it's going to be a dull winter for her I'm afraid. She
was never cut out for solitude. She'd 'rather dwell in the midst of
alarms,' and this place isn't much more diverting than a country
graveyard."
Mrs. Ware's glance followed his, then she replied confidently as she
looked down to thread her needle, "Oh, she'll soon adjust herself.
She'll find something that will not only keep her busy but will amuse
all the rest of us."
Jack picked up the magazine from which he had been reading aloud the
evening before and resumed the story, but he was conscious all the time
of the little figure at the gate, and saw her without seeming to notice
when she slipped around the corner of the house presently to the back
yard. Then he looked up with a smile when he heard the creaking of the
windmill crank at the back of the house.
"She's stopping the wheel," said Mrs. Ware, "so that she can climb to
the top of the tower again. It seems to have some sort of fascination
for her."
Jack went on with his story, and Mary, perched on her watch-tower, clung
to the bar above and looked down over the town. The currents of air were
stronger up at the height to which she had climbed. Down below scarcely
a breath was stirring, but here a fresh breeze blew the hair into her
eyes and began to blow the discontent out of her mind. Her wish that
Jack could see the view was followed instantly by the thought that he
could never, never have any other outlook than the one the wheeled chair
afforded.
"It's wicked of me to be discontented one single minute," she thought
remorsefully. "There I was fussing right before him about having nothing
to do, when he'd give worlds just to be foot loose--to climb up here and
walk about the place. And he was so dear and considerate, never once
reminded me how much harder it is for him than me, and that he has
nothing else to look forward to as long as he lives."
The yellow walls of the rectory gleamed through the trees at the north
end of the little hamlet, reminding her of Jack's laughing wish to know
what Mrs. Rochester was like.
"It's as little as I can do to go and find out for him," she thought,
"even if he did ask it in a joke. I ought to be willing to do anything
in the world he expresses a wish for, poor boy. There's little enough
here to amuse him."
A few minutes later, in her travelling suit and hat, with Mrs.
Rochester's basket on her arm, she interrupted the reading on the
gallery.
"I'm going to see your motherly friend," she announced--"to find out if
she is gray-haired and double-chinned. Maybe I'll tell her how you
described her."
"Don't you dare," warned Jack, laughingly. "I'll get even with you if
you do."
"You've already done that on a dozen old scores," answered Mary gaily.
"Good-bye, my friends and kinsmen dear! As the story books say, 'we
shall see what we shall see.'"
What she saw when she rang the bell at the rectory was the exact
opposite of the motherly creature whom Jack had pictured; for Mrs.
Rochester, who came to the door herself, was tall and slim and very
young, with the delicate, spirituelle kind of beauty that had always
been plump little Mary's greatest admiration and desire. One part of
Jack's guess was correct, however. She wore a big checked apron, for she
was making cake, and she invited Mary into the dining-room where the
materials were all spread out on the table.
With the girlish cordiality that had won her so many friends even in
unsociable Bauer, she made Mary feel so much at home, that in a few
moments she was insisting on helping with the cake. It seemed a matter
of course that Mrs. Rochester should hand her the egg-beater, and before
the eggs were whipped into a stiff white mountain of snow, they were
exchanging experiences like old friends. Mrs. Rochester had found Bauer
a lonely place too, at first.
"Jack says there was some great mix-up made when I alighted on this
planet," said Mary. "I should have dropped down some place where 'the
breaking waves dashed high on a stern and rock-bound coast.' He says I
wasn't meant for a quiet fish-pond existence."
"I know," laughed her hostess. "You feel as if you were bound into the
wrong book. You'd be perfectly satisfied to find yourself in one of
Scott's novels, in a jumble of knights and tourneys and border wars, but
you would be bored beyond endurance to have to be one of the characters
in Jane Austen's stories."
"Oh, you _do_ know," cried Mary eagerly, emphasizing her pleasure with a
harder bang of the egg-beater. "You understand exactly. There's nothing
tamer than Miss Austen's stories. Why, there's pages and pages taken up
with just discussing the weather and each other's health; and they do
such trivial, inane things and go around and around in such a deadly
monotonous circle that sometimes I've been so out of patience with them
that I wanted to throw the book into a corner."
"But you never did throw it down," answered Mrs. Rochester, "you read on
to the end and in spite of yourself you were interested in those same
commonplace happenings and conversations, just as readers before you
have been interested in them and always will be as long as those books
live. And I'll tell you why. You read them to the end because they are
true pictures of the lives of average people. The majority of us have to
put up with the humdrum, no matter how much we long for the heroic, and
it's a good thing to read such books as 'Emma' and 'Pride and Prejudice'
every now and then, as a sort of spirit-level. We're more satisfied to
amble along the road if everybody else drives a slow nag too."
"I'm not," declared Mary. "I want to whizz past everything in sight that
is poky and slow. I know it would be lots easier for me if I could only
make up my mind to the fact that nothing exciting and important is ever
going to happen to me, but I can't break myself of the habit of
expecting it. I've felt that way as far back as I can remember. I'm
always looking for something grand and unexpected, and every morning
when I wake up it gives me a sort of thrill to think, maybe it will come
to-day."
"Well, if you're going to stay in Bauer for awhile you certainly do need
another dose of 'Emma,'" answered Mrs. Rochester, nodding to the shelves
in the adjoining library, where stood a well thumbed edition of Miss
Austen's works. "Take her home with you, and any of the books you think
your brother would like. We are glad to make our library a circulating
one."
Mary's face showed her pleasure quite as much as her words, as she left
her seat by the table to slip into the great book-lined room and glance
around it.
"You've made up for one of my disappointments," she called back. "I had
counted so much on having the library in San Antonio to draw on this
winter, and this is even better, for I'm sure that they haven't all
these rare old prints and first editions that I see here."
Her five minutes' call stretched into an hour, when she found that Mrs.
Rochester had been brought up in Washington and had spent her school
days there. Then it stretched into two, for some one drove in from the
country with a carriage load of autumn leaves, and Mary stayed to help
arrange them in the little church for the Thanksgiving service next day.
It was nearly noon when she finally started home with several books
under her arm, her usual hopefulness and buoyancy of spirits quite
restored.
"Mamma and I can't both be away from Jack at the same time," she said in
response to Mrs. Rochester's invitation to attend the service next day.
"I want her to come. I've already had my share of Thanksgiving. I've
been thankful every minute while I've been here that I discovered you.
It's been a beautiful morning."
"Come over often," urged Mrs. Rochester cordially. "I can always find
something for you to do, and I'd love to have you come."
Mary's wave of the hand as she turned to latch the gate at the end of
the walk was answered by a flutter of Mrs. Rochester's apron in the
doorway, and each went her way smiling over the recollection of the
other.
"She's a diverting little piece," Mrs. Rochester reported to her husband
at noon. "I laughed all the time she was here."
"She's a darling," Mary reported at home, and quoted her at intervals
for several days.
"She's promised to take me with her sometime when she drives out to call
at the ranches. Nearly all the members of St. Boniface are out-of-town
people, so they'll probably not call on us she says. But she's coming as
soon as she can get around to it. I saw our name on a list she has
hanging beside her calendar. But there's nearly a week full of things
for her to do before she gets to us. I wish that I had a list of duties
and engagements that would keep me going every minute, the way she has
to go."
"You can easily fill out a list that will keep you busy for awhile,"
answered her mother. "While you were gone Jack and I got to discussing
dates, and it was somewhat of a shock to find that Christmas will be
here so soon. One forgets the calendar in this summer-like climate.
Whatever we send to Holland and Joyce must be started from here in less
than three weeks, and as our gifts must be all home-made we cannot
afford to lose any time in beginning."
The problem of Christmas giving had always been a knotty one in the Ware
household, but it was especially hard this year. Mary spent nearly all
afternoon making her list of names with the accompanying list of gifts
that seemed suitable for each one. There were so many to whom she longed
to send little remembrances that the length of it was appalling. Then
she revised it, putting in one column such people as Madam Chartley and
Mrs. Lee, to whom she decided to write letters--the gayest, brightest
greetings she could think of. Still there were a goodly number left to
provide with gifts, no matter how simple, and she was busy till
bed-time measuring and figuring over the amount of material she would
need for each, and how much it would cost. It had been decided that she
should go to San Antonio for a day to attend to the family shopping.
"The trouble is," she sighed next morning, "it's the simplest things
that are always the hardest to get. Don't you remember, in the story of
Beauty and the Beast, the father had no difficulty in buying ropes of
jewels and costly things for his oldest daughters, but it almost cost
him his life to get the one common little white rose that his youngest
daughter so modestly asked for. I could do this shopping in a few hours
if I did not have to stop to consider pennies, but there are several
little things that may take me all day to find. I'm sure that that
particular kind of narrow beading that I need for Lloyd's present will
prove to be the fatal white rose. I can't make it without and there
isn't time to send back East for it."
"Maybe you'd better arrange to stay over night," suggested her mother,
"and take two days to look around for what you want. Of course you
couldn't go to a hotel alone, and it would be too expensive even if you
had company, but Mrs. Rochester might be able to recommend some private
family who has rooms for transients."
Mary caught at the idea so eagerly that had it not been Thanksgiving Day
and she feared to intrude, she would have gone that very hour to ask if
the Rochesters knew of such a place. She remembered that they were to
have guests to dinner. Fortunately for her peace of mind the rector and
his wife called for a few moments just before dusk. Mrs. Rochester did
know of a quiet inexpensive place where she could spend the night, and
then and there slipped off her gloves to write a cordial note of
introduction.
It rained the Friday after Thanksgiving, but the next day was fair, and
Mary insisted on doing the week's washing Saturday morning, and as much
of the ironing as she could accomplish in the afternoon, in order to be
able to start early Monday morning. Several times she left her tubs to
run into the house and jot down some small items on her memorandum,
which she remembered would be indispensable in making up their Christmas
packages. Once she thought of something in the night, when the barking
of a neighbor's dog awakened her.
If she had been alone in the room she would have lighted a candle and
made a note of it. As it was she was afraid to do so lest she waken her
mother, and afraid not to lest it should slip her mind before morning.
Finally she settled the difficulty by putting her hand to her head and
pulling out several hairs which she twisted together and tied around her
finger.
"There!" she said to herself. "Hair will make me think of herring, and
then ring will make me think of the little white celluloid rings that I
must get for those safety-pin holders."
Armed with Mrs. Rochester's letter she started off gaily on the Monday
morning train. It was not due in the city till nearly ten, so she
decided that it would save time to go at once to the largest department
store, check her suit-case and wait until shopping hours were over
before going out to the boarding-house which Mrs. Rochester had
recommended.
She had thought San Antonio charming the first time she saw it, but it
seemed doubly so now that she came back to it, as one familiar with its
principal streets and landmarks. The life, the color, the holiday air of
the crowds, the fête day atmosphere of the old town itself, exhilarated
her till her cheeks glowed like roses, and several times, both on the
street and in the stores, she caught herself whistling half under her
breath.
Although the usual Monday morning bargain hunters were out in throngs,
she found no trouble in making her purchases. Everything seemed to be in
her favor this morning. The shop girls were unusually responsive and
helpful, showed her just what she wanted or suggested something better
than she had thought of. Only once or twice did the prices go above the
limit she had set for them, and several times they were lower. By
quarter to twelve she had checked off two thirds of the articles on her
list.
Elated by this success, she stood waiting at the transfer desk for her
change, looking around with unabated interest. Suddenly her attention
was attracted to a girl in a brown tailor suit, standing in the next
aisle. Her back was turned towards Mary, but there was something
familiar looking in the poise of the graceful head; something very
familiar looking in the puffs of soft auburn-bronze hair held by amber
combs, and arranged so becomingly under the big brown hat.
Mary had been on the look-out all morning for the girl whom Jack had
recognized at the hotel as Gay Melville. She might have missed her had
Gay been an ordinary blonde or brunette, but as Jack said, there was no
mistaking that glorious hair. Snatching up the proffered change, which
the cashier put through the cage window, she pushed her way into the
next aisle. The girl turned. The big plumed hat drooped over her face,
still Mary recognized the delicate profile, the slight tilt of the
slender chin. It was an opportunity which she could not afford to lose,
and as the girl turned her back again to receive a package held out to
her by a clerk, and started slowly to the door, Mary hurried after her.
Almost breathless in her eagerness she exclaimed impulsively, "I beg
your pardon--but aren't you _Gay_?"
There was an instant of freezing silence as the eyes of the girl in
brown swept Mary from head to foot.
"Well, not particularly," was the indignant reply.
The roll of her r's emphasized Mary's mistake. It was evidently some
stranger from the North whom she had accosted. One glance into her full
face made Mary see how dire her mistake had been. There was no
resemblance whatever in that to Gay. Wishing that she could drop out of
sight through the floor, she hastily apologized and hurried out into
the street, her cheeks burning, as she smarted under the recollection of
the stranger's supercilious glance.
"She needn't have been so snippy," Mary thought. "_Any_body is liable to
make such mistakes."
Not until she had crossed the street and was stopped short by her own
reflection in a mirror in the show window opposite, did she realize how
her question might have sounded.
"Oh, she must have thought that I was asking her if she wasn't _gay_!
_Gay with a little g!_" she gasped. "No wonder she looked at me so
freezingly."
She was so perturbed by this discovery, that she walked on, unmindful of
the direction. When a group of children crowded past her on the narrow
pavement, she turned into a side street to avoid being jostled, and
walked aimlessly for some distance. It was the sight of a green kettle
swinging above a door which she was approaching that brought her to
herself with a start. Mrs. Rochester had told her to stop at the Sign of
the Green Kettle for lunch, and had given her directions for finding it.
Here she had stumbled upon it unaware, just as the city bells were
beginning to clang for noon.
At the next glance her heart went to thumping so hard that she could
plainly hear it. There on the step leading up to the door of the Green
Kettle, stood Gay Melville; the real Gay this time. There was no shadow
of doubt about it. As she looked, Mary wondered how she ever could have
mistaken the other girl for her, although each had hair wonderfully like
the other.
This one carried a violin case. She had paused on her way in to call
back something to the girl in the carriage, who had brought her down
town. And the girl in the carriage was Roberta--Roberta of the boyish
speech and coquettish eyelashes, whose laughing question held the girl
on the step long enough for Mary to reach it too, and stand there beside
her while she gathered courage to speak.
It was the little pin thrust through Gay's tie which finally brought the
words trembling to Mary's lips, for it was the Warwick Hall pin which
only its alumni might wear; those who had kept the four years' tryst
with all its requirements. It was a mailed hand rising from a heart to
grasp a spear, the motto and the crest of Edryn.
All diffidence fled at that familiar sight, but this time Mary did not
ask if the girl were gay. With a gesture toward the pin she cried
breathlessly, "Oh, I know by _that_ that you are Miss Melville. _Aren't_
you!" Gay after one look into the eager gray eyes said quite as
cordially, "And you're Mary Ware! I had a letter from Betty Lewis this
very morning telling me to be sure to find you."
She gave a quick glance at the chatelaine watch she wore. "I haven't a
minute to stop--I'm to play an obligato for the great prima donna,
Madame de Martel, and she has a beast of a temper which she lets loose
if a person is one second late at rehearsal. But I must take time to say
one thing if she wipes me off the face of the earth for it. The girls'
letters have made me wild to know you. At what hotel can I find you?
I'll call this very day."
"We've taken a cottage in Bauer," Mary answered hastily. "I came down on
a little shopping expedition, and am on my way in here for luncheon."
The heavy chords of a piano accompaniment rolled threateningly through
the music rooms up-stairs, and Gay shrugged her shoulders impatiently.
"Do be a long time over it," she begged as she turned towards the
stairs. "I'll get through as quickly as possible and hurry back for
another word with you."
Mary watched her out of sight before starting into the dining-room of
the Green Kettle, and then deliberately pinched herself to make sure
that she was awake. It was a good hard nip, which hurt, and smiling to
herself because it proved that she was not dreaming, she sat down at a
table near the window to gloat over the fact that one of her best dreams
had come true at last. She had met Gay Melville.
The lunch was a good one, but it would have made no difference to Mary
what was put before her that day. Anything would have been nectar and
ambrosia served to the accompaniment of the music overhead. A chorus of
cherubim and seraphim could not have left her more uplifted. Madame de
Martel might have the temper of a beast at times, but she had a voice of
rare sweetness and power, and the knowledge that it was Gay's violin
pouring out that tremulous, tender, heartbreaking obligato, enhanced
Mary's enjoyment of every note.
The rehearsal was a short one. All that the famous visiting singer
wanted was to make sure, since her own accompanists had failed her,
that the local ones were satisfactory. It came to an end just as Mary
began her dessert, and almost instantly it seemed Gay was at her elbow,
and seating herself in the chair beside her.
"Isn't it a shame I haven't more than two minutes to stay," she began.
"This is like having Warwick Hall and Lloydsboro Valley rolled into one,
to find somebody who loves them both as much as I do. I could talk a
week without stopping about each place, and ask a thousand questions,
but I'm due at a luncheon out on Government Hill by the time the next
car can put me there. Immediately after that is over we're all going to
the polo tournament. All during rehearsal I kept trying to think of some
way I could arrange to see you, and there's only one. You've simply got
to come home with me to stay all night. Go on and finish your shopping,
and I'll come down for you after the tournament and meet you anywhere
you say."
The invitation, as cordial as it was sudden, was gladly accepted and Gay
exclaimed, "Oh, I'm so delighted to think I've found you at last! You've
no idea how often you were quoted the summer I was in the Valley. Lloyd
and Betty and the old Colonel and Dr. Alex Shelby were always saying
'as little Mary Ware says.' I feel as if I'd known you from babyhood
up."
"And I know all about your past," laughed Mary. She was about to mention
several incidents to prove her claim, when Gay stopped her by a glance
at the clock and the question: "Wouldn't you like to see the dress
parade at the Post this evening? Most people do, and it's well worth
seeing."
Would she _like_ it! Mary's beaming face answered the question before
her usually ready tongue found a word, and Gay smiled as she hastily
drew on her gloves and picked up her violin case.
"I'd like to keep you all to myself to-night," she said, "but I do want
you to meet some of the people that Kitty Walton liked best when she
visited me last year. I'll pick up Roberta and Lieutenant Boglin to take
dinner with us if I can get them. They're always so nice to my Warwick
Hall friends. They were both wild about Kitty. Well, at quarter to five,
then, I'll meet you--where?"
Finally the glove counter at Joske's was agreed upon as a meeting place,
and with a friendly pat on the shoulder in passing, Gay hurried away to
keep her engagement. Smiling blissfully after her, Mary whispered to
herself with one of her old childish wriggles of pleasure, "And _Bogey_,
too."