The pleasant aromas of coffee and sausages were mingling in the air
when "Guardy Lud" woke up and looked about the old-fashioned room with
a sense of satisfaction. The very pictures on the walls rested him,
they reminded him so much of the rooms in his boyhood home. He had a
feeling that old-fashioned things were best, and in spite of the fact
that he owned a house most different from this one himself and knew
that his wife would not for a minute have tolerated any old-fashioned
things about unless they were so old-fashioned that they had become
the latest rage, he could not help feeling that a woman brought up
amid such simple surroundings would be the very best kind to mother
these orphan children who had been left on his helpless hands. He
would have loved to take them to his heart and his home; but his wife
was not so minded, and that ended it. But it rolled a great burden
from his shoulders to feel that he might leave them in such capable
hands.
They had a rollicking time at breakfast, for Guardy Lud was delighted
with the crisp brown sausages, fried potatoes, and buckwheats with
real maple-syrup; and he laughed, and ate, and told stories with the
children, and kept the old dining-room walls ringing with joy as they
had not resounded within the memory of Julia Cloud. Then suddenly the
door opened, and there stood Ellen Robinson, disapproval and hauteur
written in every line of her unpleasant face! One could hardly
imagine how those two, Julia and Ellen, could possibly be sisters.
Dismay filled Julia Cloud's heart for an instant, and brought a pallor
to her cheek. How had she forgotten Ellen? What a fool she had been to
tell Ellen to come early in the morning! But she had not realized that
Mr. Luddington would be willing to come out to her humble home and
stay all night. She had supposed that the arrangements would be made
in the city. However, it could not be helped now; and a glance at the
kind, strong face of the white-haired man gave her courage. Ellen
could not really spoil their plans with him there. He felt that the
arrangement was good, and with him to back her she felt she could
stand out against any arguments her sister might bring forth.
So she rose with a natural ease, and introduced her. "My sister Mrs.
Robinson, Mr. Luddington"; and Ellen stiffly and still disapprovingly
acknowledged the introduction.
"I won't interrupt," she said disagreeably. "I'm just going up to look
over some of my mother's things." And she turned to the back stairway,
and went up, closing the door behind her.
Mr. Luddington gazed after her a second; and then, taking his glasses
off and wiping them energetically, he remarked:
"Well, well, bless my soul! It must be getting late! We've had such a
good time I didn't realize. Those certainly were good buckwheats, Miss
Cloud. I shan't forget them very soon. And now I suppose we'd better
get down to business. Could we just go into the other room there, and
close the door for a few minutes, not to be interrupted?" and he cast
an anxious glance toward the stair-door again.
Julia Cloud smiled understandingly, and ushered them into the little
parlor ablaze with fall sunshine, its windows wreathed about with
crimsoning woodbine; and, as she caught the glow and glint from the
window, she remembered the gray evening when she had looked out across
into her future as she supposed it would be. How beautiful and
wonderful that the gray had changed to glow! As she sat down to enter
into the contract that was to bind her to a new and wonderful life
with great responsibilities and large possibilities, her heart,
accustomed to look upward, sent a whisper of thanksgiving heavenward.
The details did not take long, after all; for Mr. Luddington was a
keen business man, and he had gone over the whole proposition, and had
the plan in writing for her to sign, telling just what were her duties
and responsibilities with regard to his wards, just how much money she
would have for housekeeping and servants and other expenses, and the
salary she would receive herself for accepting this care.
"You're practically in a position of mother to them, you know," he
said, beaming at her genially; "and I declare I never laid eyes on a
woman that I thought could fill the part better!"
Julia Cloud was quite overwhelmed. But the matter of the salary
troubled her.
"I think it should not be a matter of money," she demurred. "I would
rather do it for love, you know."
"Love's all right!" said the old man, smiling; "but this thing has got
to be on a business basis, or the terms of the will will not allow me
to agree to it. You see what you are going to undertake means work,
and it means sticking to it; and you deserve pay for it, and we're not
going to accept several of the best years out of your life for
nothing. Besides, you've got to feel free to give up the job if it
proves too burdensome for you."
"And you to dismiss me if I do not prove capable for the position,"
suggested Julia Cloud, lifting meek and honest eyes to meet his gaze.
"Well, well, well, I can see there won't be any need of that!"
sputtered the old gentleman pleasantly. "But, however that is, this is
the contract I've made out. And I'm quite satisfied. So are the
children. Are you willing to sign it? Of course there's a clause in
there about reasonable notice if there is dissatisfaction on either
side; that lets you out at any time you get tired of it. Only give me
a chance to look after these youngsters properly."
Julia Cloud took the pen eagerly, tremblingly, a sense of wonder in
her pounding heart, and signed her name just as Ellen's heavy
footsteps could be heard pounding down the back stairs. Leslie seized
Julia, and gave her a great hug as the last letter was finished, and
then threw open the parlor door in the nick of time to save her Aunt
Ellen from seeming to be deserted.
Ellen Robinson appeared on the scene just in time to witness the
hearty hand-shake that Guardy Lud gave Julia Cloud as he picked up the
papers and went up-stairs for his suitcase while Allison went after
the car to take him to the train.
"Is that man married? Because, if he isn't, I don't think it's
respectable for you to go and live near him!" declared Ellen in a
penetrating voice to the intense distress of Julia Cloud, who was
happily hurrying the dishes from the breakfast table.
But Leslie came to the rescue.
"Oh, indeed, Aunt Ellen, he's very much married! Altogether too much
married for comfort. He would be a dear if it wasn't for his silly
little old bossy wife! But he doesn't intend to live anywhere near us.
His home is off in California, and he's going back next week. He's
only waiting to see us settled somewhere before he goes back; so you
needn't worry about Aunt Jewel's morals. We'll take good care of her.
But isn't he a dear? He was my Grandfather Leslie's best friend."
Leslie chattered on gayly till the visitor's footsteps could be heard
coming down-stairs again, and Ellen Robinson could only shut her lips
tight and go into the kitchen, from which her sister beat immediately
a hasty retreat lest more unpleasant remarks should be forthcoming.
Julia Cloud bade Mr. Luddington good-by, standing on her own front
steps, and then waited a moment, looking off toward the hills which
had shut in her vision all her life. The two young people had rushed
down to the car, and were pulling their guardian joyously inside.
They seemed to do everything joyously, like two young creatures let
out of prison into the sunshine. Julia Cloud smiled at the thought of
them, but her soul was not watching them just then. She was looking
off to the hills that had been her strength all the years through so
many trials, and gathering strength now to go in and meet her sister
in final combat. She knew that there would be a scene; that was
inevitable. That she might maintain her calmness and say nothing
unkind or regrettable she was praying earnestly now as her eyes sought
the hills.
Across the road behind her parlor curtains Mrs. Perkins was keeping
lookout, and remarking to a neighbor who had run in:
"Yes, I thought as much. There's always a man in the case when a woman
acts queer! Now, doesn't that beat all? Do you suppose he's a
long-lost lover or something, come back now he knows she's free? Seems
to me I did hear there was somebody died or something before we came
here to live, but she must have been awful young."
The car moved noisily away, and the old gentleman leaned out with a
courteous lift of his hat toward Julia Cloud. She acknowledged it with
a bow and a smile which Mrs. Perkins pounced on and analyzed audibly.
"Well, there's no fool like an old fool, as the saying is! Just watch
her smirk! I'm mighty glad Ellen Robinson's there to relieve me of the
responsibility. She'll be over after a while, and then we'll know who
he is. There goes Julia in. She watched him out o' sight! Well, I
wonder what her mother would think."
Julia Cloud went slowly back to the dining-room, where Ellen was
seated on the couch, waiting like a visitor. Julia's smile was utterly
lost on her glum countenance, which resembled an embattled tower under
siege.
"Well!" she said as Julia began to gather up more dishes from the
breakfast table. "I suppose you think you've done something smart now,
don't you, getting that old snob here and fixing things all up without
consulting any of your relatives?"
"Really, Ellen, this has all been so sudden that I had no opportunity,"
said Julia gently. "But it did not seem likely that you would object,
for you suggested yourself that I rent the house, and you said you did
not want me to stay here alone. This seemed quite providential."
"Providential!" sniffed Ellen. "Providential to take you away from
your own home and your own people, and send you out into a world where
nobody really cares for you, and where all they want of you is to make
a drudge of you! You call that providential, do you? Well, I _don't_!
And when I object, and try to save you from yourself, and offer you a
good home where you will be cared for all the rest of your days, right
among your own, where mother would have wanted to see you, you will
probably get high-headed, and say I am interfering with your rights.
But I can't help it. I've got to speak. I can't see you put the
halter around your neck to hang yourself without doing everything I
can to stop it. My own sister!"
"Why, Ellen, dear!" said Julia Cloud eagerly, sitting down beside her
sister. "You don't understand. It isn't in the least that way. I'm
sorry I had to spring it on you so suddenly and give you such a wrong
impression. You know I couldn't think of coming to live on you and
Herbert. It was kind of you to suggest it, and I am grateful and all
that; but I know how it would be to have some one else, even a sister,
come into the home, and I couldn't think of it. I have always resolved
that I would never be dependent on my relatives while I had my
health."
Ellen sat up bristling.
"And yet you are willing to go away to some strange place where nobody
knows you, and slave for a couple of little snobs!"
"O Ellen!" said Julia pleadingly. "You don't understand. I am not
going to slave. I'm just going to be a sort of mother to them. And you
oughtn't to call them snobs. They are your own brother's children."
"Own brother's children, nothing!" sneered Ellen. "He's been away so
many years he was just like a stranger when he came back the last
time, and as for the children they are just like his stuck-up wife and
her family. Yet you'll leave the children that were born and raised
close beside you, and go and slave for them. Mother! fiddlesticks!
You'll slave all right. I know you. In six weeks you'll be a drudge
for them the way you've been all your life! I know how it is, and you
may not believe it; but I have feelings for my sister, and I don't
like to see her put upon."
Ellen fumbled for her handkerchief, and managed a comely tear or two
that quite touched Julia's heart. Affection between them even when
Ellen was a child had been quite one-sided; for Ellen had always been
a selfish, spoiled little thing, and Julia had looked in vain for any
signs of tenderness. Now her heart warmed toward her younger sister in
this long-delayed thoughtfulness, and her tone grew gentler.
"That's dear of you, Ellen, and I appreciate it; but I haven't been
able to make you understand yet, I see. I'm not to be a worker, nor
even a housekeeper. I'm to be just a sort of mother, or aunt, if you
please, to see that the house runs all right, to be with the children
and have a happy time with them and their young friends, and to see
that they are cared for in every way necessary; just a housemother,
you understand. I am to have servants to do the work, although I'm
sure one servant will be all that I shall want in a little household
like that. But Mr. Luddington quite insisted there should be servants,
and that no work of any sort should fall upon me. He said that as
their nearest relative I was to be in the position of mother and
guardian to them, and to preside over their home."
"That's ridiculous!" put in Ellen. "Why don't they go to college and
board like any other reasonable young folks if they must go to college
at all? I think it's all nonsense for 'em to go. What do they do it
for? They've got money, and don't have to teach or anything. What do
they need of learning? They've got enough now to get along. That girl
thinks she's too smart to live. I call her impudent, for my part!"
"They want a home," said Julia, waiving the subject of higher
education; "and they have chosen me, and I mean to do my best."
There was a quiet finality in her tone that impressed her sister. She
looked at her angrily.
"Well, if you will, you will, I suppose. Nobody can stop you. But I
see just what will come of it. You'll fool away a little while there,
and find out how mistaken you were; and then you'll come back to
Herbert to be taken care of. And you don't realize how offended
Herbert is going to be by your actions, and how he'll feel about
letting you come back after you have gone away in such high feather.
You haven't anything to speak of to support yourself, of course, and
how on earth do you expect to live anyway after these children get
through their college and get married or something? They won't want
you then."
Julia arose and went to the window to get calmed. She was more angry
than she had been for years. The thought of Herbert's having to take
care of her ever was intolerable. But she was able to hold her tongue
until she could get her eyes on those hills out of the window. "I will
lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help." That
had been the verse which she had read from her little Bible before
leaving her room in the early morning and she was grappling it close
to her heart, for she had known it would be a hard day.
Ellen was watching her silently. Almost she thought she had made an
impression. Perhaps this was the time to repeat Herbert's threat.
"Herbert feels," she began, "that if you refuse his offer now he can't
promise to keep it open. He can't be responsible for you if you take
this step. He said he wanted you to understand thoroughly."
Julia Cloud turned and walked with swift step to the little parlor
where lay the paper she and Mr. Luddington had just signed, and a copy
of which he had taken with him. She returned to her astonished sister
with the paper in her hand.
"Perhaps it would be just as well for you to read this," she said with
dignity, and put the paper into Ellen's hands, going back to her
clearing of the table.
There was silence in the dining-room while Ellen read, Julia moving on
quiet feet about the table, putting things to rights. She had finished
her part of the argument. She was resolutely putting out of her mind
the things her sister had just said, and refusing altogether to think
of Herbert. She knew in her heart just how Herbert had looked when he
had said those things, even to the snarl at the corner of his nose.
She knew, too, that Ellen had probably not reported the message even
so disagreeably as the original, and she knew that it would be better
to forget.
"Well," said Ellen, rising after a long perusal, laying the paper on
the table, "that sounds all very well in writing. The thing is to see
how it comes out. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and you
needn't tell me that any man in his senses will pay all that salary
merely for a 'chaperon,' as he calls it. If he does, he's a fool;
that's all I've got to say. But I suppose nothing short of getting
caught in a trap will make you see it; so I better save my breath. I'm
sure I hope you won't go to the poorhouse through your stubbornness.
I've done all I could to keep you from it, and it's pretty hard to
have my only sister leave me--so soo-oo-on after mother's--death."
"Well, Ellen," said Julia Cloud, looking at her speculatively, "I'm
sure I never dreamed you cared about having me away from here. You've
never shown much interest in being with me. But I'm sorry if you feel
it that way, and I'm sure I'll write to you and try to do little
things for the children often, now that I shall have something to do
with." But her kindly feeling was cut short by Ellen interrupting
her.
"Oh, you needn't trouble yourself! We can look after the children
ourselves. You better save what you get to look after yourself when
those two get over this whim!"
And then to her great relief Julia Cloud heard the car returning from
the station, and the two young people rushing into the hall.