AN EMBARRASSING MEETING
MEANTIME Aunt Crete in the whitest of her white was settling herself
comfortably on the gray cushions of the fringed phaeton again, relief
and joy mingled in her countenance. It was not that she was glad that
Carrie’s ankle was so bad, but that she was to have another short
reprieve before her pleasure was cut off. Soon enough, she thought,
would she be destined to sit in the darkened room and minister to
her fussy sister, while Luella took her place in the carriages and
automobiles with her handsome young cousin, as young folks should do,
of course; but O, it was good, good, that a tired old lady, who had
worked hard all her life, could yet have had this bit of a glimpse of
the brighter side of life before she died.
It would be something to sit and think over as she scraped potatoes
for dinner, or picked over blackberries for jam, or patiently sewed on
Val lace for Luella. It would be an event to date from, and she could
fancy herself mildly saying to Mrs. Judge Waters, when she sat beside
her some time at missionary meeting, if she ever did again, “When my
nephew took me down to the shore,” etc. She never knew just what to
talk about when she sat beside Mrs. Judge Waters, but here was a topic
worth laying before such a great lady.
Well, it was something to be thankful for, and she resolved she just
would not think of poor Carrie and Luella until her beautiful morning
was over. Then she would show such patience and gratitude as would
fully make up to them for her one more day of pleasure.
It was Donald, of course, who had suggested the roses. When the message
came from the fourth floor back, Aunt Crete had turned white about the
mouth, and her eyes had taken on a frightened, hunted look, while the
double V in her forehead flashed into sight for the first time since
they had reached the Atlantic coast. He saw at once in what terror
Aunt Crete held her sister and niece, and his indignation arose in
true Christian fashion. He resolved to place some nice hot coals on
the heads of his unpleasant relatives, and run away with dear Aunt
Crete again; hence the roses and the message, and Aunt Crete was fairly
childish with pleasure over them when he finally persuaded her that it
would be all right to send these in place of going up herself as she
had been bidden.
She listened eagerly as Donald gave careful directions for the message,
and the stately functionary respectfully repeated the words with his
own high-sounding inflection. It made the pink come and go again in
Aunt Crete’s cheeks, and she felt that Luella and Carrie could not be
angry with her after these roses, and especially when everything was
being done up in so nice, stylish a manner.
The drive was one long dream of bliss to Aunt Crete. They went miles up
the coast, and took lunch at a hotel much grander than the one they had
left, so that when they returned in the afternoon Aunt Crete felt much
less awe of the Traymore, her experience in hotels having broadened.
They also met some friends of Donald’s, a professor from his alma
mater, who with his wife was just returning from a trip to Europe.
The bathers were making merry in the waves as they returned, and Aunt
Crete’s wistful look made Donald ask whether she felt too tired to take
another dip, but she declared she was not one bit tired.
She came from her bath with shining eyes and triumphant mien. Whatever
happened now, she had been in bathing twice. She felt like quite an
experienced bather, and she could dream of that wonderful experience of
being lifted high above the swells in Donald’s strong young arms.
She obediently took her nap, and surrendered herself to the hands of
the maid to have the finishing touches put to her toilet. It was the
soft gray voile that she elected to wear to-night, and Donald admired
her when she emerged from her room in the dress, looking every inch a
lady.
A knock sounded at the door before he had had time to give Aunt Crete
a word of his admiration; but his eyes had said enough, and she felt a
glow of humble pride in her new self, the self that he had created out
of what she had always considered an unusually plain old woman. With
the consciousness of her becoming attire upon her she turned with mild
curiosity to see who had knocked; and, behold, her sister and niece
stood before her!
The day had been passed by them in melancholy speculations and the
making and abandoning of many plans of procedure. After careful
deliberation they at last concluded that there was nothing to be done
but go down and find out who these people really were, and if possible
allay the ghost of their fears and set themselves free from their dull
little room.
“If it should be Aunt Crete and Donald, we’ll just settle them up and
send them off at once, won’t we, mother?”
“Certainly,” said Mrs. Burton with an angry snap to her eyes. “Trust me
to settle with your Aunt Crete if it’s really her. But I can’t think
it is. It isn’t like Crete one bit to leave her duty. She’s got a lot
of work to do, and she never leaves her work till it’s done. It must
be some one else. What if it should be those folks you admire so much?
I’ve been thinking. We had some New York cousins by the name of Ward.
It might be one of them, and Donald might have gone to them first, and
they’ve brought him down here. I can’t think he’s very much, though.
But we’ll just hope for the best, anyway, till we find out. If it’s
Aunt Crete, I shall simply talk to her till she is brought to her
senses, and make her understand that she’s got to go right home. I’ll
tell her how she’s mortifying you, and spoiling your chances of a good
match, perhaps——”
“O ma!” giggled Luella in admiration.
“I’ll tell her she must tell Donald she’s got to go right home,
that the sea air don’t agree with her one bit—it goes to her head
or something like that; and then we’ll make him feel it wouldn’t be
gallant in him not to take her home. That’s easy enough, if ’tis them.”
“But ma, have you thought about your sprained ankle? How’ll they think
you got over so quick? S’posing it shouldn’t be Aunt Crete.”
“Well, I’ll tell her the swelling’s gone down, and all of a sudden
something seemed to slip back into place again, and I’m all right.”
This was while they were buttoning and hooking each other into their
best and most elaborate garments for the peradventure that the people
they were to meet might prove to be of patrician class.
They had been somewhat puzzled how to find their possible relatives
after they were attired for the advance on the enemy, but consultation
with the functionary in the office showed them that, whoever Miss Ward
and Donald Grant might be, they surely were at present occupying the
apartments on the second floor front.
For one strenuous moment after the elevator had left them before the
door of the private parlor they had carefully surveyed each other,
fastening a stubborn hook here, putting up a stray rebellious lock
there, patting a puff into subordination. Mrs. Burton was arrayed in an
elaborate tucked and puffed and belaced lavender muslin whose laborious
design had been attained through hours of the long winter evenings
past. Luella wore what she considered her most “fetching” garment,
a long, scant, high-waisted robe of fire-red crape, with nothing to
relieve its glare, reflected in staring hues in her already much-burned
nose and cheeks. Her hair had been in preparation all the afternoon,
and looked as if it was carved in waves and puffs out of black walnut,
so closely was it beset with that most noticeable of all invisible
devices, an invisible net.
[Illustration: “THEY STOOD FACE TO FACE WITH THE WONDERFUL LADY IN THE
GRAY GOWN”]
They entered, and stood face to face with the wonderful lady in the
gray gown, whose every line and graceful fold spoke of the skill of a
foreign tailor. And then, strange to say, it was Aunt Crete who came to
herself first.
Perfectly conscious of her comely array, and strong in the strength of
her handsome nephew who stood near to protect, she suddenly lost all
fear of her fretful sister and bullying niece, and stepped forward with
an unconscious grace of welcome that must have been hers all the time,
or it never would have come to the front in this crisis.
“Why, here you are at last, Luella! How nice you look in your red
crape! Why, Carrie, I’m real glad you’ve got better so you could come
down. How is your ankle? And here is Donald. Carrie, can’t you see
Hannah’s looks in him?”
Amazement and embarrassment struggled in the faces of mother and
daughter. They looked at Aunt Crete, and they looked at Donald, and
then they looked at Aunt Crete again. It couldn’t be, it wasn’t, yet it
was, the voice of Aunt Crete, kind and forgiving, and always thoughtful
for every one, yet with a new something in it. Or was it rather the
lack of something? Yes, that was it, the lack of a certain servile
something that neither Luella nor her mother could name, yet which made
them feel strangely ill at ease with this new-old Aunt Crete.
They looked at each other bewildered, and then back at Aunt Crete
again, tracing line by line the familiar features in their new radiance
of happiness, and trying to conjure back the worried V in her forehead,
and the slinky sag of her old gowns. Was the world turned upside down?
What had happened to Aunt Crete?
“Upon my word, Lucretia Ward, is it really you?” exclaimed her sister,
making a wild dash into the conversation, determined to right herself
and everything else if possible. She felt like a person suddenly
upset in a canoe, and she struggled wildly to get her footing once
more if there was any solid footing anywhere, with her sister Crete
standing there calmly in an imported gown, her hair done up like a
fashion-plate, and a millionaire’s smile on her pleasant face.
But Luella was growing angry. What did Aunt Crete mean by masquerading
round in that fashion and making them ashamed before this handsome
young man? and was he really their Western cousin? Luella felt that a
joke was being played upon her, and she always resented jokes—at least,
unless she played them herself.
Then Donald came to the front, for he feared for Aunt Crete’s poise.
She must not lose her calm dignity and get frightened. There was
a sharp ring in the other aunt’s voice, and the new cousin looked
unpromising.
“And is this my Aunt Carrie? And my Cousin Luella?” He stepped forward,
and shook hands pleasantly.
“I am glad to be able to speak with you at last,” he said as he
dropped Luella’s hand, “though it’s not the first time I’ve seen you,
nor heard your voice, either, you know.”
Luella looked up puzzled, and tried to muster her scattered graces, and
respond with her ravishing society air; but somehow the ease and grace
of the man before her overpowered her. And was he really her cousin?
She tried to think what he could mean by having seen and talked with
her before. Surely he must be mistaken, or—perhaps he was referring to
the glimpse he had of her when Mr. Grandon bowed the evening before.
She tossed her head with a kittenish movement, and arched her poorly
pencilled eyebrows.
“O, how is that?” she asked, wishing he had not been quite so quick to
drop her hand. It would have been more impressive to have had him hold
it just a second longer.
“Why, I saw you the morning you left your home, as I was getting out of
the train. You were just entering, and you called out of the window to
a young lady in a pony-cart. You wore a light kind of a yellowish suit,
didn’t you? Yes, I was very sure it was you.”
He was studying her face closely, a curious twinkle in his eyes, which
might or might not have been complimentary. Luella could not be sure.
The color rose in her cheeks and neck and up to her black-walnut hair
till the red dress and the red face looked all of a flame. She suddenly
remembered what she had called out to the young lady in the pony-cart,
and she wondered whether he had heard or noticed.
“And then,” went on her handsome persecutor, “I had quite a long talk
with you over the telephone, you know——”
“What!” gasped Luella. “Was that you? Why, you must be mistaken; I
never telephoned to you; that is, I couldn’t get any one to the ’phone.”
“What’s all this about, Luella?” questioned her mother sharply, but
Donald interposed.
“Sit down, Aunt Carrie. We are so excited over meeting you at last
that we are forgetting to be courteous.” He shoved forth a comfortable
chair for his aunt, and another for the blushing, overwhelmed Luella;
and then he took Aunt Crete’s hands lovingly, and gently pushed her
backward into the most comfortable rocker in the room. “It’s just as
cheap to sit down, dear aunt,” he said, smiling. “And you know you’ve
had a pretty full day, and must not get tired for to-night’s concert
at the Casino. Now, Aunt Carrie, tell us about your ankle. How did
you come to sprain it so badly, and how did it get well so fast? We
were quite alarmed about you. Is it really better? I am afraid you are
taxing it too much to have come down this evening. Much as we wanted to
see you, we could have waited until it was quite safe for you to use
it, rather than have you run any risks.”
Then it was the mother’s turn to blush, and her thin, somewhat
colorless face grew crimson with embarrassment.
“Why, I——” she began; “that is, Luella was working over it, rubbing
it with liniment, and all of a sudden she gave it a sort of a little
pull; and something seemed to give way with a sharp pain, and then it
came all right as good as ever. It feels a little weak, but I think by
morning it’ll be all right. I think some little bone got out of place,
and Luella pulled it back in again. My ankles have always been weak,
anyway. I suffer a great deal with them in going about my work at home.”
“Why, Carrie,” said Aunt Crete, leaning forward with troubled reproach
in her face, “you never complained about it.”
A dull red rolled over Mrs. Burton’s thin features again, and receded,
leaving her face pinched and haggard-looking. She felt as if she were
seeing visions. This couldn’t be her own sister, all dressed up so, and
yet speaking in the old sympathetic tone.
“O, I never complain, of course. It don’t do any good.”
The conversation was interrupted by another tap on the door. Donald
opened it, and received a large express package. While he was giving
some orders to the servant, Mrs. Burton leaned forward, and said in a
low tone to her sister:
“For goodness’ sake, Lucretia Ward, what does all this mean? How ever
did you get tricked out like that?”
Then Donald’s clear voice broke in upon them as the door closed once
more, and Luella watched him curiously cutting with eager, boyish haste
the cords of the express package.
“Aunt Crete, your cloak has come. Now we’ll all see if it’s becoming.”
“Bless the boy,” said Aunt Crete, looking up with delighted eyes.
“Cloak; what cloak? I’m sure I’ve got wraps enough now. There’s the
cloth coat, and the silk one, and that elegant black lace——”
“No, you haven’t. I saw right off what you needed when we went out in
the auto last night; and I telephoned to that Miss Brower up in the
city this morning, and she’s fixed it all up. I hope you’ll like it.”
With that he pulled the cover off the box, and brought to view a long,
full evening cloak of pale pearl-colored broadcloth lined with white
silk, and a touch about the neck of black velvet and handsome creamy
lace.
He held it up at arm’s length admiringly.
“It’s all right, Aunt Crete. It looks just like you. I knew that woman
would understand. Stand up, and let’s see how you look in it; and then
after dinner we’ll take a little spin around the streets to try you in
it.”
Aunt Crete, blushing like a pretty girl, stood up; and he folded the
soft garment about her in all its elegant richness. She stood just in
front of the full-length mirror, and could not deny to herself that it
was becoming. But she was getting used to seeing herself look well,
and was not so much overpowered with the sight as she was with the
tender thought of the boy that had got it for her. She forgot Carrie
and Luella, and everything but that Donald had gone to great trouble
and expense to please her; and she just turned around, and put her two
hands, one on each of his cheeks, standing on her tiptoes to reach him,
and kissed him.
He bent and returned the kiss laughingly.
“It’s lot of fun to get you things, Aunt Crete,” he said; “you always
like them so much.”
“It is beautiful, beautiful,” she said, looking down and smoothing the
cloth tenderly as if it had been his cheek. “It’s much too beautiful
for me. Donald, you will spoil me.”
“Yes, I should think so,” sniffed Luella, as if offering an apology in
some sort for her childish aunt.
“A little spoiling won’t hurt you, dear aunt,” said Donald seriously.
“I don’t believe you’ve had your share of spoiling yet, and I mean to
give it to you if I can. Doesn’t she look pretty in it, Cousin Luella?
Come now, Aunt Carrie, I suppose it’s time to go down to dinner, or we
sha’n’t get through in time for the fun. Are you sure your ankle is
quite well? Are you able to go to the Casino to-night? I’ve tickets
for us all. Sousa’s orchestra is to be there, and the programme is an
unusually fine one.”
Luella was mortified and angry beyond words, but a chance to go to the
Casino, in company with Clarence Grandon and his mother, was not to be
lightly thrown away; and she crushed down her mortification, contenting
herself with darting an angry glance and a hateful curl of her lip
at Aunt Crete as they went out the door together. This, however, was
altogether lost on that little woman, for she was watching her nephew’s
face, and wondering how it came that such joy had fallen to her lot.
There was no chance for the mortified mother and daughter to exchange
a word as they went down in the elevator or followed in the wake of
their relatives, before whom all porters and office-boys and even head
waiters bowed, and jumped to offer assistance. They were having their
wish, to be sure, entering the dining-hall behind the handsome young
man and the elegant, gray-clad, fashionably coiffured old lady, a part
of the train, with the full consciousness of “belonging,” yet in what a
way! Both were having ample opportunity for reflection, for they could
see at a glance that no one noticed them, and all attention was for
those ahead of them.
Luella bit her lip angrily, and looked in wonder at Aunt Crete, who
somehow had lost her dumpiness, and walked as gracefully beside her
tall young nephew as if she had been accustomed to walk in the eyes of
the world thus for years. The true secret of her grace, if Luella had
but known it, was that she was not thinking in the least of herself.
Her conscience was at rest now, for the meeting between the cousins
was over, and Luella was to have a good time too. Aunt Crete was never
the least bit selfish. It seemed to her that her good time was only
blooming into yet larger things, after all.
Behind her walked her sister and niece in mortified humiliation. Luella
was trying to recall just what she had said about “country cousins”
over the telephone, and exactly what she had said to the girl in the
pony-cart the morning she left home. The memory did not serve to cool
her already heated complexion. It was beginning to dawn upon her that
she had made a mighty mistake in running away from such a cousin and in
such a manner.
All her life, in such a case, Luella had been accustomed to lay the
blame of her disappointments upon some one else, and vent, as it were,
her spite upon that one. Now, in looking about to find such an object
of blame her eyes naturally fell upon the one that had borne the
greater part of all blame for her. But, try as she would to pour out
blame and scorn from her large, bold eyes upon poor Aunt Crete, somehow
the blame seemed to slip off from the sweet gray garments, and leave
Aunt Crete as serene as ever, with her eyes turned trustingly toward
her dear Donald. Luella was brought to the verge of vexation by this,
and could scarcely eat any dinner.
The dessert was just being served when the waiter brought Aunt Crete
a dainty note from which a faint perfume of violets stole across the
table to the knowing nostrils of Luella.
With the happy abandonment of a child Aunt Crete opened it joyously.
“Who in the world can be writing to me?” she said wonderingly. “You’ll
have to read it for me, Donald; I’ve left my glasses up in my room.”
Luella made haste to reach out her hand for the note, but Donald had it
first, as if he had not seen her impatient hand claiming her right to
read Aunt Crete’s notes.
“It’s from Mrs. Grandon, auntie,” he said.
“‘_Dear Miss Ward_,’” he read, “‘I am sorry that I am
feeling too weary to go to the concert this evening as we
had planned, and my son makes such a baby of me that he
thinks he cannot leave me alone; but I do hope we can have
the pleasure of the company of yourself and your nephew on
a little auto trip to-morrow afternoon. My brother has a
villa a few miles up the shore, and he telephoned us this
morning to dine with them to-night. When he heard of your
being here, he said by all means to bring you with us. My
brother knows of your nephew’s intimacy with Clarence, and
is anxious to meet him, as are the rest of his family. I do
hope you will feel able to go with us.
“‘With sincere regrets that I cannot go with you to the
Casino this evening,
HELEN GRANDON.’”
For the moment Luella forgot everything else in her amazement at this
letter. Aunt Crete receiving notes from Mrs. Grandon, from whom she
and her mother could scarcely get a frigid bow! Aunt Crete invited
on automobile trips and dinners in villas! Donald an intimate friend
of Clarence Grandon’s! O, fool and blind! What had she done! Or what
had she undone? She studied the handsome, keen face of her cousin as
he bent over the letter, and writhed to think of her own words, “I’m
running away from a backwoods cousin”! She could hear it shouted from
one end of the great dining-hall to the other, and her face blazed
redder and redder till she thought it would burst. Her mother turned
from her in mortified silence, and wondered why Luella couldn’t have
had a good complexion.
Studied politeness was the part that Donald had set for himself that
evening. He began to see that his victims were sufficiently unhappy.
He had no wish to see them writhe under further tortures, though when
he looked upon Aunt Crete’s happy face, and thought how white it had
turned at dread of them, he felt he must let the thorns he had planted
in their hearts remain long enough to bring forth a true repentance.
But he said nothing further to distress them, and they began to wonder
whether, after all, he really had seen through their plan of running
away from him.
It was all Aunt Crete’s fault. She ought to have arranged it in some
way to get them quietly home as soon as she found out what kind of
cousin it was that had come to see them. It never occurred to Luella
that nothing her poor, abused aunt could have said would have convinced
her that her cousin was worthy of her home-coming.
As the concert drew near to its close, Luella and her mother began to
prepare for a time of reckoning for Aunt Crete. When she was safely in
her room, what was to hinder them from going to her alone and having it
out? The sister’s face hardened, and the niece’s eyes glittered as she
stonily thought of the scornful sentences she would hurl after her aunt.
Donald looked at her menacing face, and read its thoughts. He resolved
to protect Aunt Crete, whatever came; so at the door, when he saw a
motion on his Aunt Crete’s part to pause, he said gently: “Aunt Crete,
I guess we’ll have to say ‘Good night’ now; for you’ve had a hard day
of it, and I want you to be bright and fresh for morning. We want to
take an early dip in the ocean. The bathing-hours are early to-morrow,
I see.”
He bowed good-night in his pleasantest manner, and the ladies from the
fourth floor reluctantly withdrew to the elevator, but fifteen minutes
later surreptitiously tapped at the private door of the room they
understood to be Aunt Crete’s.