AUNT EUPHEMIA MAKES A POINT
Lawford Tapp did not appear at the store and Louise continued to wonder
about it; but she shrank from asking Betty Gallup, who might have been
able to inform her why the young man did not come again. However, on
one bright morning the gray roadster stopped before the door and
Louise, from her window, saw that the three Tapp girls were in the car.
She thought they had come to make purchases, for the store on the Shell
Road was often a port of call for the automobiles of the summer
colonists. Suddenly, however, she realized that L'Enfant Terrible was
standing up in the driver's seat and beckoning to her.
"Oh, Miss Grayling!" shrilled Cecile. "May I come up? I want to speak
to you."
"No," commanded Prue firmly, preparing to step out of the car. "I will
speak to Miss Grayling myself."
"I don't see why she can't come down," drawled Marian, the languid.
"_I_ have a message for her."
"Why!" ejaculated the surprised Louise, "if you all wish to see me I'd
better come down, hadn't I?" and she left the window at once.
She had remarked on the few occasions during the last few days that she
had met the Tapp sisters on the beach, that they had seemed desirous of
being polite to her--very different from their original attitude; but
so greatly taken up had Louise's mind been with more important matters
that she had really considered this change but little.
Therefore it was with some curiosity that she descended the stairs and
went around by the yard gate to the side of the automobile.
"Dear Miss Grayling," drawled Marian, putting out a gloved hand.
"Pardon the informality. But mother wants to know if you will help us
pour tea at our lawn fete and dance Friday week? It would be so nice
of you."
Louise smiled quietly. But she was not a stickler for social
proprieties; so, although she knew the invitation savored of that
"rawness" of which her aunt had remarked, she was inclined to meet
Lawford's family halfway. She said:
"If you really want me I shall be glad to do what I can to make your
affair a success. Tell your mother I will come--and thank you."
"So kind of you," drawled Marian.
But Cecile was not minded to let the interview end so tamely--or so
suddenly.
"Say!" she exclaimed, "did Ford see you, Miss Grayling, before he went
away?"
"He has gone away, then?" Louise repeated, and she could not keep the
color from flooding into her cheeks.
"He wanted to see you, I'm sure," Cecile said bluntly. "But he started
off in a hurry. Had a dickens of a row with dad."
"Cecile!" admonished Prue. "That sounds worse than it is."
Louise looked at her curiously, though she did not ask a question.
"Well, they did have a shindy," repeated L'Enfant Terrible. "When
daddy gets on his high horse------"
"Ford wished to see you before he went away, Miss Grayling," broke in
Prue, with an admonitory glare at her young sister. "He told us he was
so confused that day he fell overboard from the _Merry Andrew_ that he
did not even thank you for fishing him out of the sea. It was awfully
brave of you."
"Bully, _I_ say!" cried Cecile.
"Really heroic," added Marian. "Mother will never get over talking
about it."
"Oh! I wish you wouldn't," murmured Louise. "I'm glad Betty and I
saved him. Mrs. Gallup did quite as much as I----"
"We know all that," Prue broke in quickly. "And daddy's made it up to
_her_."
"Yes. I know. He was very liberal," Louise agreed.
"But mercy!" cried Prue. "He can't send _you_ a check, Miss Grayling.
And we all do feel deeply grateful to you. Ford is an awfully good
sort of a chap--for a brother."
Louise laughed outright at that. "I suppose, though never having had a
brother, I can appreciate his good qualities fully as much as you
girls," she said. "Will he be long away?"
"That we don't know," Marian said slowly. Louise had asked the
question so lightly that Miss Tapp could not be sure there was any real
interest behind it. But Cecile, who had alighted to crank up,
whispered to Louise:
"You know what he's gone away for? No? To get a job! He and father
have disagreed dreadfully."
"Oh! I am so sorry," murmured Louise. She would not ask any further
questions. She was troubled, however, by this information, for
L'Enfant Terrible seemed to have said it significantly. Louise
wondered very much what had caused the quarrel between Lawford and his
father.
She got at the heart of this mystery when she appeared at the lawn fete
to help the Tapp girls and their mother entertain. She was introduced
at that time to the Taffy King. Louise thought him rather a funny
little man, and his excitability vastly amused her.
She caught him staring at her and scowling more than once; so, in her
direct way, she asked him what he meant by it.
"Don't you approve at all of me, Mr. Tapp?" she asked, presenting him
with a cup of tea that he did not want.
"Ha! Beg pardon!" ejaculated the candy manufacturer. "Did you think I
was watching you?"
"I _know_ you were," she rejoined. "And your disapproval is marked.
Tell me my faults. Of course, I sha'n't like you if you do; but I am
curious."
"Huh! I'd like to see what that son of mine sees in you, Miss
Grayling," he blurted out.
"Does he see anything particular in me?" Louise queried, her color
rising, but with a twinkle in her eye.
"He's crazy about you," said I. Tapp.
"Oh! Is _that_ why you and he disagreed?"
"It's going to cost him his home and his patrimony," the candy
manufacturer declared fiercely. "I won't have it, I tell you! I've
other plans for him. He's got to do as I say, or----"
Something in the girl's face halted him at the very beginning of one of
his tirades. Positively she was laughing at him?
"Is _that_ the reef on which you and Lawford have struck?" Louise asked
gently. "If he chooses to address attentions to me he must become
self-supporting?"
"I'll cut him off without a cent if he marries you!" threatened I. Tapp.
"Why," murmured Louise, "then that will be the making of him, I have no
doubt. It is the lack I have seen in his character from the beginning.
Responsibility will make a man of him."
"Ha!" snarled I. Tapp. "How about _you_? Will you marry a poor man--a
chap like my son who, if he ever makes twenty dollars a week, will be
doing mighty well?"
"Oh! This is so--so sudden, Mr. Tapp!" murmured Louise, dimpling.
"You are not seriously asking me to marry your son, are you?"
"Asking you to?" exploded the excitable Taffy King, with a wild
gesture. "I forbid it! Forbid it! do you hear?" and he rushed away
from the scene of the festivities and did not appear again during the
afternoon.
Mrs. Tapp, all of a flutter, appeared at Louise's elbow.
"Oh, dear, Miss Grayling! What _did_ he say? He is so excitable."
She almost wept. "I hope he has said nothing to offend you?"
Louise looked at her with a rather pitying smile.
"Don't be worried, Mrs. Tapp," she assured her. "Really, I think your
husband is awfully amusing."
Naturally disapproval was plainly enthroned upon Aunt Euphemia's
countenance when she saw her niece aiding in the entertainment of the
guests at the Tapp lawn fete. The Lady from Poughkeepsie had come with
the Perritons because, as she admitted, the candy manufacturer's family
must be placated to a degree.
"But you go too far, Louise. Even good nature cannot excuse this. I
am only thankful that young man is not at home. Surely you cannot be
really interested in Lawford Tapp?"
"Do spare my blushes," begged Louise, her palms upon her cheeks but her
eyes dancing. "Really, I haven't seen Lawford for days."
"Really, Louise?"
"Surely I would not deceive you, auntie," she said. "He may have lost
all his interest in me, too. He went away without bidding me good-bye."
"Well, I am glad of that!" sighed Aunt Euphemia. "I feared it was
different. Indeed, I heard something said------Oh, well, people will
gossip so! Never mind. But these Tapps are so pushing."
"I think Mrs. Tapp is a very pleasant woman; and the girls are quite
nice," Louise said demurely.
"You need not have displayed your liking for them in quite this way,"
objected Aunt Euphemia. "You could easily have excused yourself--the
uncertainty about your poor father would have been reason enough. I
don't know--I am not sure, indeed, but that we should go into mourning.
Of course, it would spoil the summer----"
"Oh! Aunt Euphemia!"
"Yes. Well, I only mentioned it. For my own part I look extremely
well in crepe."
Louise was shocked by this speech; yet she knew that its apparent
heartlessness did not really denote the state of her aunt's mind. It
was merely bred of the lady's shallowness, and of her utterly
self-centered existence.
That evening, long after supper and after the store lights were out,
and while Cap'n Amazon and Louise were sitting as usual in the room
behind the store, a hasty step on the porch and a rat-tat-tat upon the
side door announced a caller than whom none could have been more
unexpected.
"Aunt Euphemia!" cried Louise, when the master mariner ushered the lady
in. "What has happened?"
"Haven't you heard? Did you not get a letter?" demanded Mrs. Conroth.
But she kept a suspicious eye on the captain.
"From daddy-prof?" exclaimed Louise, jumping up.
"Yes. Mailed at Gibraltar. Nothing has happened to that vessel he is
on. That was all a ridiculous story. But there is something else,
Louise."
"Sit down, ma'am," Cap'n Amazon was saying politely. "Do sit down,
ma'am."
"Not in this house," declared the lady, with finality. "I do not feel
safe here. And it's not safe for you to be here, Louise, with
this--this man. You don't know who he is; nobody knows who he is. I
have just heard all about it from one of the--er--natives. Mr. Abram
Silt never had a brother that anybody in Cardhaven ever saw. There is
no Captain Amazon Silt--and never was!"
"Oh!" gasped Louise.
"Nor does your father say a word in his letter to me about Abram Silt
being with him aboard that vessel, the _Curlew_. Nobody knows what has
become of your uncle--the man who really owns this store. How do we
know but that this--this creature," concluded Aunt Euphemia, with
dramatic gesture, "has made away with Mr. Silt and taken over his
property?"
"It 'ud be jest like the old pirate!" croaked a harsh voice from the
kitchen doorway, and Betty Gallup appeared, apparently ready to back up
Mrs. Conroth physically, as well as otherwise.