A Jest Becomes Earnest
"To mourn a mischief that is past and gone,
Is the next way to draw new mischief on."
--_Othello. Shakespeare._
"Dear, dear! will evening never come!" exclaimed Beatrice, pushing back
her hair impatiently and looking at the clock in the hall for the third
time in five minutes.
"Don't you know that the days are longer in June, Bee?" asked Adele in
mock surprise.
"Isn't there anything that you can do, Beatrice?" Mrs. Raymond glanced
up from her embroidery. "Occupation of some sort is the best remedy for
restlessness."
"Everything is done, auntie. I've even set the table for dinner, and
it's only five o'clock. Three long hours before he comes! What shall I
do?"
"It will take nearly all that time to dress," remarked Adele rising.
"How do you manage it, Adele? I need only fifteen minutes."
"Which explains your usual fly-away look," observed her aunt quietly.
"It would do no harm to expend more pains upon your toilet, Beatrice. A
girl cannot be too careful of her personal appearance. This evening of
all others you should desire to look your best."
"I do, auntie; so I will begin to get ready right now," replied Bee,
following her cousin out of the room.
It was the Fifteenth of June, and everything was in readiness for Doctor
Raymond's homecoming. He had always objected to a tenant in his home, so
the dwelling had been left in charge of caretakers. Each year, however,
Walnut Grove, as the old vine-clad house was called, had enjoyed a
thorough house-cleaning under Mrs. Raymond's supervision; but never
before had it undergone such a furious renovation. Paint and floors were
scoured; walls swept; beds shaken and sunned, and furniture polished.
The grounds, too, had received attention as the neat appearance of lawn
and garden could testify. The last day of waiting left nothing to do to
beguile the dragging hours.
Mrs. Raymond settled herself for a quiet time after the departure of the
girls, but she was not long left alone. Her calm was shortly broken by
the reappearance of her niece.
"I've been just as long as ever I could be," cried Bee, skimming lightly
across the room to the lady's side. "I've brushed my hair until the
roots are visible, and if there is a button unfastened anywhere about me
it would take a search warrant to find it. Will I do, auntie?"
Her aunt suppressed a smile, and looked at her critically. The girl was
looking unusually well. She wore a gown of shimmering white which clung
to her lithesome figure in soft folds. A single red rose nestled
caressingly in her hair and supplied the touch of color needful.
Excitement lent a flush to her cheek and an added lustre to her eye so
that she appeared animated and even brilliant.
"You never looked so well in your life, Bee," approved Mrs. Raymond.
"Why, you are almost beautiful."
"As if I could ever be that," laughed Bee, giving her a bearish hug and
a resounding kiss. "Although, if anything in the world could transform
me into a beauty it would be father's coming. There, Aunt Annie! I am
going to leave you in peace. I am going into the garden and walk to the
Arbor Vitae hedge. It will take five minutes to walk there, and five to
come back. If I do that six times one hour will be gone."
"Oh, youth! Impatient, restless youth!" ejaculated the lady as the girl
danced out of the room.
The sun sank to rest. The gorgeous hued clouds of sunset lost their
brilliancy under the approach of gray Twilight, and were folded upon the
breast of Evening. Low in the west hung the silvery crescent of the
young moon; and near, vieing with it in brightness, shone the soft
radiance of the evening star--first wanderer in the train of night. The
twilight shadows lengthened. The odorous breeze, scented with honeyed
clover and the perfume of roses, grew languid in its sweetness, and
presently died away. Great dusky moths drifted silently about the
half-closed flowers, and from the hedge sounded the plaintive notes of a
whip-poor-will.
"You will not have much longer to wait, Bee," comforted Mrs. Raymond,
coming out on the verandah where the girl had taken her stand. "I heard
the train quite a while ago, so they will soon be here. They are later
than Henry thought they would be. You are not nervous, are you?"
"No; that is, I don't know," answered Bee, her head bent in a listening
attitude. "Oh, auntie! What makes the minutes seem so long when one is
waiting for something good to happen? They go fast enough at other
times."
"It is one of those things that can't be explained, child," answered
Mrs. Raymond gravely. "You remember the old proverb: 'A watched pot
never boils'? But it won't be much longer. Try to possess your soul in
patience for just a short time. He will soon be here now. It grows dark,
doesn't it? The dinner will be quite late. Had we not better go inside?"
"You may, auntie, but I want to stay right here so as to get the first
glimpse of him."
"I think I will, Bee. The air seems damp, and I am beginning to feel
some of your nervousness. Adele is singing in the parlor. I think I'll
join her."
"Do," said Bee briefly.
The darkness grew denser, but Bee still lingered on the porch, her form
half hidden by the vines. Presently the sound of wheels was heard down
the drive, and she started forward eagerly, then paused overcome by a
sudden shyness. Mrs. Raymond hastened to the door, and stepped to the
girl's side.
"Come," she called as Beatrice shrank behind her.
A carriage came rapidly out of the darkness, and drew up before the
entrance. Before it had fairly stopped the door opened, and a man sprang
from it. Quickly he ran up the steps just as Adele appeared in the
doorway, the broad white light of the hall lamp shining about her yellow
hair like a halo, making her face with its beautiful eyes look like a
cameo in a golden setting.
"Welcome home, William," began Mrs. Raymond, but her brother-in-law
brushed by her with eyes only for the graceful figure beyond.
"My daughter! My dear little daughter!" he cried, clasping the
astonished girl in his arms.
"How beautiful you are! You are just as I pictured you."
"Oh!" burst from Bee in such heartbroken accents that Mrs. Raymond was
galvanized into action.
"William," she cried, laughing nervously, "you have made a mistake. That
is my daughter, Adele. Beatrice, come and welcome your father."
Beatrice came forward slowly. All the joy and sparkle had gone out of
her face, and in its misery it looked dull and heavy.
"Why, why," stammered Doctor Raymond, glancing from one girl to the
other, his disappointment written plainly upon his countenance. "I
thought, I certainly thought--"
"You thought that I was Bee, didn't you?" smiled Adele, gracefully
disengaging herself from his embrace. "It was a funny mistake, as we are
not a bit alike. Bee is so clever."
"Yes; I dare say." The entomologist was clearly bewildered by the
occurrence, and he greeted his own daughter awkwardly in consequence.
Bee received his caress passively, feeling with unerring intuition his
lack of warmth.
Mechanically she followed the others into the parlor, her anguish each
moment becoming more intolerable. She could not but remark how her
father's eyes were constantly straying toward Adele who was fairly
radiant. Bee had adored her cousin, and had been proud of her beauty;
but now, something closely resembling hatred crept into her heart.
Hoping that the cheer and conversation of the table would put matters
upon a more genial footing, Mrs. Raymond ushered them in to dinner. The
lady, as well as her husband, had been distressed by the incident, and
both viewed with anxiety Beatrice's constraint and coldness. The girl
was usually the gayest of the gay at table, and so light-hearted that
her aunt frequently reproved her for her levity, but now, fearful of
losing control of herself, she grew so frigid that there was no thawing
her out. The talk was chiefly among the grown people.
"What are your plans, William?" asked Henry Raymond.
"They are uncertain," replied Doctor Raymond. "I shall be here for the
summer at least. I have a great number of specimens to mount and to
catalogue, beside some work upon my new book. In fact, I have so much
on hand that I fear it will be very lonesome for Beatrice. Do you not
think, my child,--" with a conciliatory smile in Bee's direction, and
blundering into a second error as even the most learned of men, be they
lepidopterists or what not, sometimes will,--"do you not think that you
would better have your cousin with you for the summer?"
"No;" blurted out Bee, unable to trust herself to utter more than the
single word.
"Why, bless my soul!" ejaculated the scientist, turning an amazed glance
upon her. Mrs. Raymond interposed quickly:
"Beatrice is right, William. It has been long since she has seen you,
and you will naturally wish to spend as much time with her as possible.
I have already arranged for Adele to go to mother's for the summer. She
may come to you in the fall; if Beatrice wishes."
"Perhaps that will be better," acquiesced the traveller quietly. "And
now, as we are all here together, it may be the time and place for
explanations. I don't know whether one is due me, or to Beatrice; but I
do not understand how I received this in place of her picture. Can you
explain the mistake, my daughter?"
He drew Adele's photograph from the inside pocket of his coat as he
spoke, and handed it to Bee. She gave an exclamation of astonishment as
she saw the beautiful, laughing countenance on the cardboard instead of
her own. Then she raised her eyes, and gave Adele a long, steady look.
Adele had changed the photographs, and Bee knew that it had been done on
purpose. She saw that her cousin was a little frightened, and she
wondered what explanation she would make.
Adele was frightened. It had not occurred to her that the matter would
take on a serious aspect, and she feared to say that she had made the
exchange in fun. So she reached over and took the photograph from Bee
with a hand that trembled slightly.
"Why! It's my picture," she cried with a little hysterical giggle. "What
a mistake! I remember now they both came home together, and lay on the
desk in the library. They must have gotten mixed some way. It would have
been easy to change them."
"Why, so it would," agreed her mother with a relieved expression. "I
remember they were on the desk together. Bee must have picked up yours,
Adele, by mistake."
And Adele said not a word about its being her fault. She had no fear of
Bee's telling either. Her cousin had a boy's sense of honor about such
things, and unless she herself owned up, the matter would rest between
them. So she made no further comment on the subject, and the older
people, deeming the affair of no great importance since it was known
that a mistake had been made, resumed conversation.
Bee sat silent, her heart swelling almost to bursting. The words of her
father's letter rang in her brain: "It is partly your letters that have
wrought this change ... and partly your picture, which completed what
the letters had begun. I cannot resist its winsomeness."
* * * * *
It was Adele's picture which had brought him home. He would not have
come had she sent her own. He had thought the beautiful girl was his
daughter, and he was disappointed because she was not. He wanted Adele.
Adele!
The dinner, on the whole not a successful meal, was over at last. The
older people were deep in conversation; the traveller narrating his
experiences, the others questioning and exclaiming. Bee had pictured
just such a scene, but always in fancy she sat close to her father's
side with her hand in his, or else his arm was thrown caressingly around
her. The reality was so different that it was more than she could bear.
Seeing that she was unobserved, she rose and stole quietly out of the
house.
The light breeze, breathing of the sweetness of honeysuckles and roses,
touched the tops of the walnut trees and dipped down to stir the cool
grass beneath them. Into the darkness of the grove went the unhappy
girl. When she had reached a place where she was out of sight and sound
of the house she threw herself down, and gave way to a passion of tears.
"It's not fair," she sobbed in angry resentment. "She has her father,
and her mother too; and now she has to take mine. Oh, I can't bear it! I
can't bear it!"
"Bee!" Adele had seen her cousin leave the house, and had followed her.
"Go away," cried Bee, sitting up and speaking vehemently. "Go away,
Adele Raymond! I hate you!"
"I don't see why you should," whimpered Adele. "I shouldn't think you
would care so much for such a little thing. I shouldn't mind it a bit,
if I were in your place."
"Yes, you would," blazed Bee. "If you had not seen your father since you
were a little girl, and when he came home he thought some one else was
you, you wouldn't like it a bit more than I do. Adele Raymond, you
changed those pictures on purpose."
"It was only in fun, Bee. Truly, I did not mean it any other way. I
never dreamed that your father would come back just because of it."
"But you did know that if he thought the picture was mine he would think
I was pretty. How could he help it? It would give him a wrong idea of
how I looked, and when he came he would be disappointed. You knew that.
And then you ran out just as soon as you heard the carriage."
"I didn't do that on purpose anyway, Bee. I was singing, you know, when
I heard the wheels, and I ran out without thinking."
"But I heard Aunt Annie tell you to wait in the parlor until I had
greeted father," went on Bee accusingly. "You ran right out to the door
where the light would fall on you, so that he could not help but see you
first. It was done on purpose. I know it was. I'll never trust you again
in anything."
"I didn't think," said Adele again. "I didn't know that he was going to
take me for his daughter, even though I did send him my picture. Anyway
you ought to be glad that I sent it. He would not have come if I
hadn't."
"That's just it," uttered Bee with a pitiful sob. "If it were just a
mistake of the moment I could get over it, even though that would be bad
enough. But it's knowing that he poured over your picture, thinking that
it was his daughter. It's knowing that he was glad that you were
beautiful when I am not. It's knowing that it was for you that he came
home, and not for me at all. Oh! he never will care for an ugly old
thing like me now."
"Yes, he will. Everybody likes you best when they know us both for a
time. Then your mind--"
"Bother the mind!" ejaculated the other girl fiercely. "Mind doesn't
count. It's only being pretty that counts, and you know it, Adele
Raymond. Doesn't everyone indulge you just because you are pretty? And
now my father--and he's the only father I've got, too--now he's just
like everybody else. Oh, I hate you!"
"I don't want you to hate me, Bee," cried Adele, her own tears beginning
to flow. "You never cared before that I was pretty."
"I wouldn't care now if father didn't--didn't--" Bee broke down
completely, unable to finish.
"Won't you be friends, Bee?" pleaded Adele.
"No; I won't," answered Bee with decision.
"And won't you let me stay with you this Summer? I don't like grandma's.
It's poky there." Adele never once mentioned Bee's telling who had
changed the pictures. She knew without asking that Bee would not.
"I don't want you here," replied Bee angrily. "You want to stay because
father admires you, but you shan't do it. I want him to myself, and I've
a right to have him. He's my father!"
"Please, Bee," coaxed Adele. Bee always gave in to her pleadings, and
she could not believe that she would not do so now.
"I am going to my room," announced Beatrice, rising. "And I don't want
to be followed there."
She walked abruptly away, leaving Adele weeping softly.