CHANGES
The first week in December a strange thing happened. Brenda had received
a letter with a Washington postmark, yet this in itself was not
remarkable. Such letters came to her daily, for Arthur had gone to
Washington on business a day or two after the trip to Harvard. But her
manner, as she rapidly scanned this particular letter, was so unusual
that Martine, watching her, knew that it brought news out of the
ordinary.
The slight frown on Brenda's face deepened as she read the four or five
pages, and when she had finished she flung the letter down on the floor.
"Oh--it seems too bad," she sighed, in response to Martine's look of
surprise. "Just as we are settled, to have to give everything up!"
"Give up--what?" asked the puzzled Martine.
"Why this--everything--our apartment--Boston--oh, dear--of course I knew
it might come--but I hoped next year."
As Brenda finished there were tears in her eyes, and still Martine did
not wholly understand.
"Of course I am sorry," said Martine, "since it's something that
troubles you. But would you please tell me what it is all about?"
"Well--it's Arthur's business," she explained. "A promotion that he has
expected has come. It took him some time to find out what he really
could do after he left college. The office in San Francisco is more
important just now than the one in Boston. He is needed there for six
months--and we must go at once--yes," she concluded, looking at the
letter a second time. "We must be there by the first of January. Well,
fortunately, we need not give up this apartment, for we have a two
years' lease, and it wouldn't be worth while to sublet it, as we may
return in six months. So you see, my dear, that things might be worse. I
shall have to pack only my clothes and small belongings, and after all,
it will be rather fun to see a new corner of the world."
"What you say sounds practical--except--you seem to have forgotten
_me_."
"Oh, you poor child, how selfish I am! Why you could just stay on here
with the cook and Maggie, or Angelina, if you prefer her."
"Brenda Weston! You know that would never do! I mean other people would
say it would never do."
"There, there, child, don't worry," said Brenda, assuming her most
elderly manner. "I will write to your mother, and between us something
delightful will be arranged. What a shame you are in school," she
concluded, forgetting for the moment her position as Martine's temporary
guardian. "Except for that you might go to San Francisco, or even travel
with your mother."
"I am growing fond of school," replied Martine, as she returned to her
book. "Even to go to California I wouldn't give it up, but if it's
really settled that you are going, I must write home at once."
In a few days Brenda and Martine both received answers to their letters
to Mrs. Stratford. To Martine what her mother wrote was even more
surprising than Brenda's change of plans.
"Your father has to go to South America on very important business. It
is too long a journey for me, although I am much stronger than a year
ago. We think the wisest plan would be for me to go to Boston to be near
you and Lucian, and I am writing Mrs. Weston to see if we may not engage
her apartment for the next six months."
"Hurrah!" cried Martine, turning to Brenda, who had just finished
reading the letter Mrs. Stratford had written her. "Of course you'll say
'yes.' Oh, how perfectly happy I shall be to have mother with me."
"Of course I will say 'yes.' But please spare my feelings; if you are
too happy you will forget to miss me."
"Oh, never, never; but then mother must be feeling much stronger, and I
have seen her so little the past few years. She has been under the
doctor's care or travelling, and our Chicago house has been closed so
long, and hotels are so unhomelike. But now, with this apartment to
ourselves, and Lucian coming in from college--oh! it will be
delightful."
Again Brenda protested that Martine was unfeeling in counting her out so
completely.
"But I can't count you in, when you calmly and deliberately plan to turn
your back on Boston and me. You know that I shall miss you, but to have
mother here--of course that makes all the difference in the world."
For the Christmas holidays Lucian and Martine joined Mr. and Mrs.
Stratford in New York. A day or two after Christmas, Mr. Stratford
sailed for England, whence he was to embark for South America. Martine
could but notice that the sadness that her father showed during these
last days seemed due to something besides the fact that he was to be
absent from his family for a few months. He had often before gone on
long journeys, but usually he made an effort to have his departure
particularly cheerful.
"Your father is worried," her mother said; "his business is not going
just as it should. He hopes that this visit to South America will
straighten out some things. If it does not--well, we needn't talk of the
future now. I am glad that we are all together this Christmas. You and
Lucian must do all you can to divert your father, he has so much to
trouble him."
Martine took this advice to heart, and though Mr. Stratford spent some
hours each day downtown, after luncheon she always insisted that he must
entertain her. By this she meant that she must entertain him, and in
consequence she thought out all kinds of odd ways of amusing him. One
day they sailed on the Ferry to Staten Island to visit Sailors' Snug
Harbor. Another afternoon they went up to Van Cortland Park to see the
old Van Cortland house. One day they wandered for an hour in the Bowery,
but Martine admitted that this wasn't as entertaining an expedition as
she had imagined it would be from the accounts she had read of it. The
shops on the whole seemed commonplace, and the crowded cross-streets of
the East Side looked far more interesting, as she caught glimpses of
them in passing.
She had to let these glimpses satisfy her, as she had promised her
mother not to explore any out-of-the-way corners of the tenement
district; and so obedient was she in this that she would not even go
inside a certain Bowery pawnshop in whose windows she saw a fascinating
little guitar. Instead she urged her father to price it, and when he
came outside with it under his arm she accepted it with delight.
"It's neither a violin nor a guitar," Mr. Stratford explained, "but the
little instrument that the Sandwich Islanders love."
Martine was delighted by this account of her new treasure, and she
carried it home with great pride. But unconventional expeditions were
not the only pleasures that Martine shared with her father. One day Mrs.
Stratford drove with them through the Park up beyond Riverside and
Grant's tomb. Two or three afternoons they spent with relatives, of whom
Mr. Stratford had a number in New York. Lucian was little with his
father during the holidays. Classmates at Ardsley and Trenton and
Germantown claimed short visits from him. But on Christmas Day he joined
his parents at the small uptown hotel where they were staying.
"Martine," he said as they sat at breakfast, "Elinor Naylor was at the
Harbins' dance night before last in Germantown. She took a lot of
trouble to introduce me to some of her best friends just because I was
your brother. I tell you what--you made a great impression on her."
"I certainly did--the first time we met," responded Martine, smiling,
and Lucian did not quite understand, because his sister had never really
explained the circumstances under which she and Elinor had first met.
With slight urging from Martine, however, Lucian plunged into a
description of the Harbins' dance, and though boy-like he could not
describe what Elinor wore, he declared that whatever it was it just
suited her, and that she certainly was a regular peach, "and the
funniest thing about it is that you don't think about her being pretty
when you first see her. It's only when you begin to remember her that
you realize how good-looking she is."
"Poor Priscilla," sighed Martine in mock sorrow, "I fear her nose is out
of joint."
"Oh, no--at least, what do you mean?" asked Lucian, and at this moment
the entrance of Mr. and Mrs. Stratford put an end to their fun.
The Christmas breakfast, in spite of Martine's efforts, passed off
rather quietly. Her parents both seemed sad and disinclined to talk.
Even the unobservant Lucian at last noticed this and tried to turn the
conversation into cheerful and impersonal channels, with poor success.
Their Christmas dinner was at the house of an elderly cousin of the
Stratfords in Washington Square. The guests were nearly all relatives of
Martine's father, and the young visitor received abundant criticism,
favorable or unfavorable, according to the dispositions of the various
critics.
But even those who thought Martine a little forward or too
self-possessed for a girl of her age could but admire her frank, cheery
manner and the consideration that she constantly showed for older
people. The less conservative found her charming and complimented her on
her clever way of telling a story. Some said she looked like her father,
some like her mother, and the oldest cousin of them all, taking her
aside said, "You are just like your father's mother when she was your
age. She had your coloring and your bright brown eyes. I knew her well
when I was a girl. She was said to be the image of her French
grandmother, and I can wish you nothing better than to grow up like
her," and as the old lady kissed her Martine felt her own eyes
moistening.
"I am glad that I have some French blood in my veins," she said a little
later; "the Huguenots were so wonderful. I wish that papa and I had time
to go up to New Rochelle, for although I believe there's little left
there of the Huguenots now except the name, I should like to see the
place because my forefathers lived there."
Lucian found the Washington-Square dinner rather a bore, although he
managed to conceal his feelings until with his family he was back at the
hotel.
"They might have asked at least one girl near my age," Lucian said. "No
wonder you were such a belle, Martine, among all those antiquities," a
compliment that Martine refused to accept until Lucian admitted that she
possessed qualities that would make her popular even in a younger crowd.
One of Martine's Christmas gifts did not surprise her,--a complete set
of brushes, mirror and little boxes to replace those she had lost in the
Windsor fire. This did, however, surprise Lucian, who knew that his
father had promised Martine a full set of silver.
"Why, how is this?" he asked, as Martine spread out her new possessions
before him on a table. "Is plain black wood more in fashion than silver?
It must be, or you wouldn't have it."
"But this is pretty; don't you think so?" asked Martine, always anxious
for her brother's approval.
"It's rather neat, with your initial in silver, but it couldn't have
cost as much as the other, and I thought you always preferred the most
expensive things." For the moment Martine did not explain that her
preference was still for the silver, but that she had chosen the other
because of a chance word or two from her mother on her tendency toward
extravagance.
"I know you have generally whatever you wish, Martine, and your father
and I generally give you what you ask. You are seldom unreasonable,
although we may have been overindulgent. For now--"
Here Mrs. Stratford broke off suddenly.
"But now, mamma, are things very different? I know we usually stay at a
larger hotel, and still--"
"Oh, no, dear. Things are not very different. Perhaps they will not be.
Yet your father has so much care now that you will surely do your best
to relieve him from needless burdens."
Therefore, when Mr. Stratford took Martine downtown to choose her
present, she could not be shaken from her determination to have
something simpler than silver.
"It will be so much better in case I am caught in another fire, papa.
Things that are burnt up are gone forever, and as I seem to be a rather
unlucky person, this plainer set is much better--and besides I like it,
papa."
In the end it seemed to Martine that Mr. Stratford was rather pleased by
her choice, for when the matter was decided he patted her hand gently as
he slipped it within his arm, saying,--
"After all, daughter, you are getting to be a very sensible girl. I have
noticed a great change within the past year."
"Oh, thank you, papa. Do you really think I've improved? Then it's
partly on account of the company I have kept. I am sure of that."
"I am pleased that you are on the right track, and when I am far from
you, as I shall be now for some time, it will be a great satisfaction to
think that you are doing your best."
A few days later Martine and Lucian, with their mother, stood on the
dock watching the receding ocean-liner that was carrying Mr. Stratford
to England. There was a great lump in Martine's throat as she wiped away
her tears with the handkerchief that a moment before she had been waving
frantically at her father.
"Goose, goose!" whispered Lucian. "You are too big a girl to cry."
"Oh, I hate saying good-bye," murmured Martine.
"Why, we've hardly been together--all four of us--for years."
"That's just it! It's been so pleasant lately--and now to have father in
South America!--it's just dreadful."
"Nonsense, child! South America isn't so very far away. The trouble is,
you've had too long a vacation. It's well we're going back to Boston
to-morrow, and that in a day or two you'll be at your books again."
"'At my books'--as if I were a six-year-old! I can't see why Harvard
College gives even a day's vacation to its students, since their chief
use of time seems to be to tease their sisters," and with this little
burst of temper Martine's tears were blown away.