THE WAY THE WIND BLEW
However anxious the wife of Senator Parks had been to impress herself
upon New York society, she experienced a delightful sense of relief
when the winter of her novitiate was ended. Furling her banners of
tactful triumph, she left town immediately after Easter, thereby doing
the correct thing and following her own mood, a combination of rare
accomplishment.
Many times during the season she had thought of the Lawtons and missed
Brooke sorely from the circle of bright young women in their “third and
fourth winters,” whom she had the good sense as well as the attraction
to draw about her; but the swirl of the pool had been so insistent that
she had done little more than to send Brooke one or two cordial, if
inconsiderate, notes of invitation to visit her, which of course had not
been accepted.
Now that she had moved to the famous Smythers place at Gordon, and
found her early passion for outdoor life and her developed taste for
luxury at once sufficiently satisfied by its beauty and stimulated by
its possibilities, she desired the companionship of some one of taste,
a friend and not a timeserver, with whom she could discuss her plans.
Immediately her mind reverted to Brooke Lawton, and knowing from Lucy
Dean that Gilead was within driving distance from Gordon, she set out
in her victoria one exquisite afternoon toward the end of May to locate
Brooke. Visiting Mrs. Parks was an elderly New York matron, Mrs. Van
Kleek, of particular social importance, who was anxious to run over to
her own cottage, recently built in Stonebridge and not yet open for the
season, in consequence of which this drive, having a double mission,
began immediately after luncheon.
Both coachman and footman, being new importations to the hill country,
knew even less about the upper and lower turnpike and maze of cross-roads
than did their employer, who had a general idea of the region. It seemed
an easy matter to keep the river in sight, and yet the constant desire
of the ladies to follow up each pretty lane, with its delicate fringe
of wild flowers or drapery of catkins, kept luring them away from it at
right angles; so that five o’clock in the afternoon found the sweating
horses, as yet unused to anything longer than the drive through the park
to Claremont and return, toiling wearily uphill on the upper pike just
above Gilead, facing the way in which they desired not to go, but had
accomplished by looping about in a figure eight.
The coachman was growing momentarily more anxious lest the horses should
break down; the footman was bored and cramped with long sitting; both
ladies were weary, quite talked out, and longing for their afternoon tea;
while Mrs. Parks was also exasperated at the failure of the excursion.
“Stop a moment, Benson, and let Johnson ask that man in the field yonder
if we are on the right road to Stonebridge, and if there is any place
near where we can rest,” she said finally. Benson pulled up as well as
he could on the incline; Johnson dismounted and interviewed the farmer
and, returning with a disgusted expression, said, “Stonebridge is six
miles downhill, the way we’ve come up, mum, and if you please Gilead is
that village a mile and a half back, mum, we passed a bit ago. This ’ere
is the hupper road, the one in the dip below follows the river easy from
Gordon to Stonebridge, and he says we’d best get on that.”
Mrs. Parks demurred a moment, and while she did so Benson, whose word was
law in all matters concerning the Parkses’ horseflesh, turned on the box
and, touching his hat, said in a tone that was not to be contradicted,
“Mrs. Parks, mum, we must keep on the way we are going, facin’ with the
wind until we can get to a flat spot where I can blanket my horses and
rest them a bit. I’d not take the risk of turning them against that chill
river breeze in their present sweat.”
Both ladies understood stable ethics, and the moods of husbands when
these same are disregarded, too well to object, and so a drive that
would not have been abandoned for anything else was reversed by the mere
blowing of the wind.
Reaching the beginning of the plateau by the West homestead, Benson had
the tact to choose a spot for blanketing the horses where the cross-road
opened Brooke’s favourite river vista to the ladies in the carriage.
“How beautiful!” mumbled Mrs. Van Kleek, drowsily, her dry tongue
cleaving to the roof of her mouth.
“It would be if we could only have our tea,” sighed Mrs. Parks. “I
declare I must have an outfit of some kind adjusted to this carriage, for
I’m devoted to driving, and every one says that it is the great feature
of this hill country, and of course there isn’t a place around here where
they know what tea is.”
Johnson, who had been reconnoitring with an eye to a well, returned at
that moment. “Hup yonder, mum, there’s a neat house, mum, and a sign of
a fox hangs by the gate, mum, quite like the old country, only it says
‘TEA’ instead of hale, mum.”
“Tea on a sign-board here in the backwoods! Lead the horses a little
farther up, Benson, and Johnson, do you go in and ask what we can
have,”—turning to Mrs. Van Kleek, “I don’t suppose the tea will be any
good, herbs or old hay, but at least it will be wet, and perhaps hot,
and I’m beginning to feel the evening chill in the wind. I wonder why no
one has the sense to have a good tea place hereabouts, like the English
tea-gardens, where they would put up sandwiches for fishing and touring
parties and all that. They could make a fortune in the season, I’m sure.”
“Here’s the bill of fare, mum,” said Johnson, returning and presenting
the card; “a most genteel place, mum, though they’ve no license for
spirits. Everything made fresh to order, mum, and in fifteen minutes.
Besides what’s there, mum, there’s ginger hale and club sody, and will
you ’ave it ’ere or go on the porch, mum?”
“Mrs. Van Kleek, will you look at this!” ejaculated Mrs. Parks, laying
the card upon that lady’s lap as if she had suddenly been presented with
a patent of nobility.
“Printing, get-up, prices, quite like Tokay’s! We will decide quickly,
lest the thing prove an illusion and vanish as we near it, Cheshire-cat
fashion. Johnson, we will have a pot of tea for two, with cream, and
half—no, a dozen lettuce and chicken sandwiches, served out here. Also
you may get ginger ale and cheese sandwiches for Benson and yourself,”
for Mrs. Parks owed much of her social success, as well as happiness in
life, to the fact that she recognized the equal primal necessities of
all classes, and she argued that if Mrs. Van Kleek and herself, seated at
ease in the carriage, were thirsty beyond endurance, Benson and Johnson
on the box must be doubly so.
In due course the man returned, and turning up the flap seat in front of
the ladies, placed the tray, with its dainty array, upon it.
“Damask napkins, instead of paper!” gasped Mrs. Van Kleek.
“Real cream!” said Mrs. Parks, “and domino sugar!”
“English breakfast tea, smell the aroma! a pot with an inside strainer,
and porcelain cups and saucers!” continued Mrs. Van Kleek, proceeding
to pour the tea, after which the remarks of the two women turned into a
veritable patter song of praise, punctuated by sipping and munching.
“Really, this is most extraordinary! I wish I could tell of what those
plates remind me; I seem to have seen the pattern before. Ferns, and no
two bits quite alike,—it’s not at all like the usual commercial china,”
said Mrs. Van Kleek, sinking comfortably back among the cushions, after
finishing two cups of tea, together with five of the delicate sandwiches,
and still looking meditatively at the sixth, murmuring, “Tokay could not
outdo this, they are of the best—and the tea—simply unique!”
“Johnson,” called Mrs. Parks, for the two men were eagerly regaling
themselves at a respectful distance, “take back the tray and see if they
can change this bill—and Johnson, was there a waiter or any one there who
should have a tip?”
“I should jedge, mum, there was one elderish party who should; she
was rather snappy, mum, and charged me not to break the ware; but the
others are gentlefolks, mum, quite through, and said as of course I’d be
careful, which of a certain I would, mum, and me bein’ in service, mum,
where I’d always known real china from Liverpool, and plate from pewter,
which they ’ad the eye to see, mum,” and Johnson walked off, bearing the
tray as carefully as if it held family plate.
“Wait a minute,” Mrs. Parks called after him; “ask if they can put me
up fifty sandwiches, some of each kind, for ten o’clock to-morrow, and
pack them in a box, and if they know where a family named Lawton live
hereabouts,—the Adam Lawtons.” Then to Mrs. Van Kleek, “The Senator is
going to take those four old California chums of his, that come to-night,
trout fishing somewhere up this way to-morrow, to a place called Muzzle
Guzzle, or some such name. I wished to send a nice luncheon out in the
bus with the camping stove and the under cook to have it hot for them,
but no, the Senator has ordered sandwiches—plenty of sandwiches, with
Scotch and soda. They are to be driven only to the foot of the hills,
and then walk for the rest of the day. He says they want to forget who
and where they are for once,—be boys and all that sort of thing, you
know,—so if I could get the soda and sandwiches here it would be quite
delightful.
“How long he stays! I believe I will go in myself and see to the matter,
for my curiosity is quite piqued. Will you come? No—very well, I’ll not
be gone a moment,” and Mrs. Parks, her delicate robes trailing behind
her, crossed the dandelion-studded sward toward the house, with a swish
and swirl of skirts, and a step as elastic as that of a young girl.
Laugh, as has been the foolish fashion, at those women who come out of
the West to receive the chill of eastern polish; yet they bring us a
better gift than they take, that of buoyancy of heel, head, and heart
that we greatly need.
Mrs. Van Kleek meantime adjusted her head, heavy with comfortable
sleep, and gratefully entered the Land of Forty Winks, evidently for a
protracted visit.
Hesitating as to whether front or side door was the legitimate entrance
for wayfarers, and deciding upon the latter, Mrs. Parks, rounding the
corner hurriedly, came face to face with Brooke, who was coming up from
the garden bearing a great bunch of lilies-of-the-valley, while Tatters
trotted beside her carrying a basket that held still more.
“Brooke Lawton at last!” and Mrs. Parks put out her arms and, to
Johnson’s amazement, clasped Brooke, flowers and all, in a hug of
spontaneous pleasure, that made the girl’s heart beat quick for many a
day, as she thought of it.
“Is this quaint, delightful place an inn as well, and are you stopping
here?” queried Mrs. Parks, holding Brooke off at arm’s length, first
looking at her and then sweeping the surroundings with a comprehensive
glance.
“No, it isn’t an inn exactly,” replied Brooke, mischief lurking at the
corners of her eyes and mouth, “though I’m staying here. I am the Sign of
the Fox, and this is my home! Now that you are here, pray come in and see
mother, while I make you a bouquet from my very own garden in remembrance
of the hothouse lilies you sent us when father was first ill.”
“The Sign of the Fox!—you! how do you mean?” ejaculated Mrs. Parks,
knitting her brows as if some one had asked her to guess a conundrum.
“Ah, yes, then that was your _mother’s_ fern china and her brand of tea
that we all used to rave over! Mrs. Van Kleek was recalling it only an
hour ago—by the way she’s out in the carriage (go tell her, Johnson, that
Miss Lawton lives here and ask her to come in). But I do not yet quite
understand.”
“It is this way,” explained Brooke, with an admirable self-possession,
in which diffidence and independence were equally blended. “We had the
farm and a bit of money, but not quite enough to keep us; the life agrees
with father, and may cure him. If Adam and I went away to earn more
money, mother could not stay alone. Then I tried to think what I could
do or sell here. People drive a great deal hereabouts; the hill country
makes people hungry; therefore why not make and sell good tea and good
sandwiches? And I think that you must have found them so,” she added
archly, looking at the empty plate upon the tray that Johnson had left on
the serving table in the screened porch.
“Good! superlatively so! but why didn’t you write me of your plan and
let me exploit it and interest our own set? for you know that they are
scattered all over these parts at some time of the year, either for the
entire season, or between times, and before and after Newport and Europe.
I would have done it with a will, I assure you, as I shall now with a
megaphone voice, in spite of you!”
“I know that you would have, Mrs. Parks, and Lucy Dean wished to also;
but what has happened, I think you must acknowledge, is best. I wanted
people to find out for themselves, as you have done, and if they bought
my wares, to do so because they are good and they need them, not because
I sell them and desire their money. Otherwise the sun would very soon set
on the Sign of the Fox, instead of apparently beginning to rise. You
know that it is the way of the world!
“But tell me; how did you come upon us? merely by chance? This must be a
lucky ‘red letter day,’ for Lucy herself is coming to visit me to-night;
Adam has already driven down to Gilead for her.”
“Partly that, but chiefly because of the way the wind blew. You see we
started for Stonebridge and circled about, not finding our mistake until
we began to climb the hill below. By that time the horses were quite
spent, and Benson would not turn back in the teeth of the river wind.”
“It’s no use, mum,” said Johnson, returning, “Mrs. Van Kleek is sleepin’
that ’eavy and ’appy it would take a brass band to wake her, mum,” so
the two women passed indoors, the fragrance of the lilies-of-the-valley
lingering in the air.
When Mrs. Parks left, her arms full of flowers, a half-hour had sped by;
but Mrs. Van Kleek, awaking with a jerk, was none the wiser for it, for
one of Mrs. Parks’s maxims was that it is always a mistake to apologize,
save at the pistol’s point, because it usually provokes irritation by
calling attention to things that, ten to one, would otherwise pass
unnoticed. As the victoria, following Brooke’s advice, turned the corner
toward the lower road, they met, coming up, a fat-stomached country horse
dragging a rockaway, that pulled to the side of the narrow cross-road to
let them pass. In it, beside Adam, sat Lucy Dean, while the rear seat was
heaped with hand-baggage; she waved gayly to Mrs. Parks, who would have
stopped then and there for a gossip about the afternoon’s events, but
Benson, intent on making the home stretch, all deaf to her exclamation,
kept his horses up to the bit, and soon the river road echoed their
hoof-beats.
As to Mrs. Lawton, the visit, brief as it had been, did her untold good,
besides giving her no feeling save of pleasure, thus bringing her for
the second time naturally in contact with old acquaintances, without in
the least destroying her peace of mind or making her doubt the wisdom of
having broken away from the old life.
* * * * *
Brooke and Lucy always met with enthusiasm; indeed, one of the
reasons for the stanch friendship of the two being the way in which
they supplemented each other, thus allowing the character of both
complete scope, without forcing either into the lead, except in matters
conversational.
“I was so surprised and pleased when I knew that you would come, for
the very evening after I wrote I saw in the _Daily Forum_ that you were
starting with your father on his car party to California. How did it
happen that you changed your mind?” asked Brooke, leading the way to the
little room next hers, for which Lucy had begged, instead of the formal
and unused best room over Mr. and Mrs. Lawton’s, which some day was to be
beautified, but at present harboured the dreadful black walnut furniture
moved from below, in addition to smelling of wood soot and wasps.
Lucy threw herself into the arms of a fat rocking-chair that was covered
with a cheerful bird-of-paradise chintz, and rumpled her hair back from
her forehead before she answered. So long was she about it that Brooke
looked toward her apprehensively, fearing that the trip might have given
her a headache; then she noticed that Lucy really looked tired, and that
there was a lack of colour in her cheeks for which car soot could not
wholly account.
“I did expect to go, and had planned out a delightful group of people for
the trip, which, aside from pleasure as a side issue, was to explore and
exploit a new bit of country that father thinks needs a railroad, and
help convince his friends of that fact.
“_The Forum_ offered to send Tom Brownell as the newspaper man of
the trip, besides which two or three others we had chosen are always
excellent fun, and Mrs. Parks was to be chaperon, at which she is a
perfect success. She has the knack of always being on the spot, in case
any one needs to prove or disprove an alibi, yet at the same time is
totally oblivious; so Mrs. Grundy never has a chance to say a word, and
every one is happy.”
“Did you turn your back on such attractions to come to us?” said Brooke,
deeply touched. Her feeling showed plainly in the look she gave Lucy, as
after unpacking her friend’s toilet things, she had dipped a sponge in
warm water, and kneeling by her, began to bathe her forehead and eyes as
gently as if Lucy had been a tired little child.
Lucy closed her eyes and gave a sigh of content at the touch of Brooke’s
fingers, but in a second opened them again, and looking straight at
Brooke, replied: “No, I won’t let you quite think that, though you know
that I love to be with you and your mother. Some of the party turned
their backs on me; first, Tom Brownell had himself replaced (I made sure
through Charlie that it was his own doing) by a young westerner who, he
said, ‘knew the local ropes’ better, and would be of greater advantage to
the prospectors. Next Mrs. Parks decided that as _the_ baby was teething
she could not leave him for so long, in spite of having a separate maid
for his head, hands, and feet, besides a trained nurse in perpetual
residence.
“Then father suggested that little Mrs. Morton be invited in Mrs. Parks’s
place. You must remember her,—the Hendersons’ cousin, a pretty, subdued
little widow of about thirty, who puts people’s houses in order and sees
to the curtains and other interior decorations. She always looks as if
she’d been cut out for a good time, but fate has been rough to her, and
though she is working hard to get used to it, a merry devil will look out
of her eyes in spite of herself.”
“Oh, yes, I remember. She redecorated your house as a surprise for you
the season we were abroad, I believe,” said Brooke, sudden illumination
coming to her, for it had been openly whispered, early in the season,
that Mr. Dean was ardently, if maturely, in love with Mrs. Morton, but
that the little lady’s peace-loving nature and hardly won independence,
coupled with a fear of Lucy and her sharp tongue, stood firmly in the way
of a very comfortable and suitable match.
“Yes, and father wished it done over again this winter, but I absolutely
refused to be routed out in cold weather. Now I’d heard, as I know you
have by your face, Miss Simplicity, that father was supposed to wish
to marry the lady long ago, but that she was afraid of me. At first it
pleased me to have her afraid; I revelled in it, also I thought that the
idea would wear off with father.
“Lately I’ve changed my mind, and I think life is too good to live it
alone, and that everybody ought to marry any one they wish to, provided
the person does not have fits or inherit consumption. Then I went to
father and told him so, and he was so pleased that he nearly made me cry,
for though he always said that I was everything to him, it wasn’t quite
true it seems; and he said that some day I would find out that he was not
quite everything to me, and oh, Brooke, I really think I should like to!”
Brooke, who was still kneeling by Lucy, put her arms around her, and the
two women, each having felt the mysterious throb of the woman heart that
made them kin, rested a moment cheek to cheek.
Lucy recovered first, and shaking off the tender mood, tossed her head,
the usual bravado returning to eye and lip as she said: “Next, I went to
see Mrs. Morton and told her that so far as I was concerned the coast was
clear, that I bore no malice, and that I hoped she and father would have
a jolly old age (she is only six years older than I); but that I simply
could not go on the car trip with them, though I would thank her not to
announce it until after the start.
“She—well, she is a good sort, and I guess we understand each other, for
she looked me straight in the face and said she hoped she’d have a chance
some day to stand by me in return, and she didn’t slop over or call me
‘dear daughter,’ or say she’d be a mother to me, for any grown woman
knows that there is only one who can be that.
“Consequently society and Charlie Ashton think that I’m speeding to
California, while in reality I’ve flown to you for protection against
the blues, and I want to stay a month if you will let me cook and do
everything as you do—it is what I need. Who knows but I might turn
farmer, or try love in a cottage myself some day.”
“A month, Lucy! oh, how good!” cried Brooke. “Yes, you shall do as
we do,—you’ll really have to if business rushes as it has since we
began,—but I’m afraid you will find it very dull, unless your fate dashes
up in an automobile.”
“Dull! not a bit of it! Why, if I feel my flirting ability growing rusty,
I can practise on the Cub’s elderly paragon, Mr. Stead, or try archaic
sentiment on your big farmer man to console him for the sweetheart who
has not yet materialized. From your ardent written descriptions of the
landscapes about here, and the important places he always fills in them,
it seems to me that he must be at least a straying Walther or a prince in
disguise, seeking to be loved for himself alone.”
“Mr. Stead will probably be down to-night, so that you need lose no time
in beginning,” Brooke made answer, flushing hotly. “We four have been
playing whist a good deal, lately, and as I am not passionately fond of
it, you shall take my hand. I think that you and he will prove pretty
evenly matched in most things. As to my farmer, as you absurdly call
him, you had better leave him alone,—it’s not worth while,—he might
misunderstand, take you in earnest, and embarrass you.” Whereupon, after
making the most cutting speech that Lucy had ever heard from her tongue,
she turned about and went quietly downstairs, saying something about
hurrying supper, as Lucy must be hungry as well as tired.
A new idea came to Lucy, born of her own teasing words, spoken wholly
at random and in jest, and of Brooke’s flushing. She had always thought
Brooke wholly an idealist in affairs of the heart, and that whatever
emotion she had ever been able to detect had been brought out by the
artist Lorenz during their Paris sojourn. When it had apparently ended
in naught she had been both disappointed and glad, the latter especially
after Adam Lawton’s failure, for after this she had desired Brooke,
through matrimony, again to have the luxury and chance to enjoy her art
that she thought her friend deserved.
When Charlie Ashton had drawn her attention to the resemblance to Brooke
in the picture, “Eucharistia,” she had expected developments, but now
that nearly six months had passed she regarded the thing as a mere
artistic coincidence, the lingering in the man’s memory, perhaps, of a
face for which he doubtless had a passing fancy.
Now a tangible possibility in the shape of Stead came into the
foreground. Though Lucy had not seen the man, the Cub had given
him a glowing recommendation. As to his age,—Lucy was a woman of
experience,—fifty might mean many things, fatherly or otherwise, and the
life of leisure he led implied that he had some independent property.
Was he not always much at the house, and were not his books and various
offerings scattered about everywhere, even at her first visit? Brooke had
written of horseback rides in his company. Surely he did not come alone
out of respect for Mrs. Lawton or anxiety about the Cub’s lessons. Why
had Brooke blushed and been so resentful?
Lucy sprang up, and seizing a brush, began to work at her hair with a
will, until the colour returned to her cheeks and the glossy dark locks
wreathed her crown in a way to add a fascinating air of maturity to her
arch face. Then, picking out the most dashing waist she had brought,
having merely chosen her plainest clothing, she adjusted it over a long,
flowing skirt and stood surveying herself for a moment, saying half
aloud, “I will look at Milor Stead, widower; if he is a good possession
for little Brooke, so be it, I stand aside; if not, I interfere!” and
then a softened expression followed the one that Brooke’s semi-challenge
had called forth, and she added, with a sigh, “How I wish Brooke could
have some one’s whole, first, fresh love, be he rich or poor! She would
keep it and live and die for it, and not mar it with a selfish thought. I
wonder if Charlie is right and that Tom Brownell is trying to avoid me?
Bah! but it is really a handicap for a woman to have a rich father; the
money lures those she dislikes, and gives the others blind staggers, and
they bolt in the wrong direction.”
Two minutes later, Lucy, wholly radiant, was pushing Adam Lawton’s chair
in to supper, and insisting that she was sure that he recognized her,
even though he could not speak her name, while the Cub changed seats so
as to be next her at table, and Pam insisted upon sharing the somewhat
narrow chair by wedging herself between Lucy and the straight, high back.