"Poor Jack!" thought Page; and the wheels seemed to repeat the words
like a refrain. He disliked his own task, but it did not seem strange
to him that he had been summoned. Mr. Van Tassel had no near relatives
in Chicago. Page had had charge of his legal affairs in Boston.
Doubtless his address had been among the dead man's papers, and Mrs. Van
Tassel's advisers had suggested that he be sent for.
Page shrank repugnantly from encountering this woman, whom disaster
followed so relentlessly. He tried not to think of her. Perhaps it
would not be necessary that they should meet at all; yet try as he
might, he could not prevent his imagination from picturing the siren,
who had succeeded in capturing the honest, cordial, fine-natured man,
whose death it was difficult to realize. How would Jack bear it? How
would his highly strung affectionate nature stand the strain? This woman
who had brazenly told him that she did not love his father had been the
one to stand near the latter's deathbed; while the loving heart of the
son had been kept at a distance by her machinations.
For Page was now fully convinced that Jack had been deliberately
deceived as to his father's condition, and he blamed himself hotly for
obeying his sister and refraining from intermeddling.
He said to himself that he ought to have talked with Miss Bryant about
the matter at R----. The thought of Mildred gave him no pleasure. She
was sister to the woman who had robbed Jack, and broken his heart. He
felt a sudden conviction of Mrs. Van Tassel's appearance. She was an
Amazon; tall, commanding, bold-faced, loud-voiced, with a coarser
repetition of her sister's beauty; and involuntarily he shuddered with
anticipatory disgust, and wished the next few days well over.
But this was being extraordinarily imaginative for Page, and he realized
it all at once, and opened the paper which he had bought, with the
newsboy shuffling along beside him as he hastened through the depot in
Boston. But his thoughts would not concentrate upon the printed page;
rather they flew to Jack's brilliant face,--the face which always said
that life was good,--and saw it suddenly stamped with white despair,
alone in a strange land.
The next day, arrived in Chicago, Page left the train at Hyde Park and
went to a hotel. Half an hour afterward, he emerged and walked toward
the lake. It was a dreary day, such as seldom comes in Chicago's
October. The lake was gray from recent rain, and an east wind was
whipping dead leaves from the elms, across the green lawn around the Van
Tassel house.
Page looked at the drawn curtains, walked up the steps to the crape-hung
door, and an unexpected lump rose in his throat, for he thought of Jack.
In that moment, there came to him a new loyal satisfaction in the fact
that he had come; that some one beside aliens would stand near Uncle
Richard. It was with a strange mixture of grief and resentment that he
met the servant, and asked for Miss Bryant.
He looked around the well-remembered parlor, where the maid left him,
and noted that it was newly and fashionably furnished; but scarcely five
minutes had passed before Mildred entered the room, and walked straight
up to him with outstretched hand.
He returned the greeting with cold formality, and even in the shaded
room he could see that the girl's eyes were swelled from weeping.
"I am so glad you could come," she said tremulously. "Was it very
inconvenient? We thought you would probably wish to attend the funeral
any way. Mr. Van Tassel had so few"--she could go no further, but broke
down and wept into her handkerchief.
"Crocodile tears!" thought Page. "It is more than likely that they have
everything between them.--Certainly, I should have wished to come," he
said aloud.
"Then--then," began Mildred, making an effort, "my sister wanted your
advice--she thought you would know best--Mr. Van Tassel trusted
you--Forgive me, but we have had such a shock"--she tried vainly to go
on, once, twice, then with a gesture turned and left the room.
The visitor moved to a window, and looked out through a crack of the
blind.
"I'm sorry they think it necessary to go through this sort of thing," he
thought cynically. "Now I suppose she will send the other one; and if
that was a preface!" A sound behind him caused him to set his teeth,
and turn about with the coldest, blankest expression he could assume.
His eyes had grown accustomed to the dim light now, and he saw a
straight slight girl in black, standing and regarding him with the
saddest, loveliest countenance he had ever looked upon. Her large eyes
had shed all their tears, and her delicate lips had never smiled. Her
rippled brown hair framed a colorless face, and her effect was less
pathetic than awe-inspiring in its pure unconscious dignity.
"This is Mr. Page?" she said, advancing and offering a hand which the
young man took mechanically. "It was kind of you to come promptly. I
felt that I must see you and you only, about--about Mr. Van Tassel's
son."
She spoke in an even, emotionless voice, but Page noted a faint
trembling of her lips at the mention of Jack.
"You are the nearest relative, and you can best decide what should be
done."
Page was in all the confusion incident upon intense revulsion of
feeling. He felt that he had not yet full command of his ideas; but the
spontaneous desire to help this exquisite young creature, to let neither
himself nor any one else wound her further, constituted his ruling
passion for the moment.
"You have sent no word to Jack as yet?"
"No. As soon as your telegram came I decided to wait for you."
She had been waiting for him and he had filled the moments of his coming
with brutal contempt and criticism of her.
The tearless sadness of her voice went on: "It is better for the word to
go from you than from me." Her eyelids fell. "It will hurt Jack less.
I would"--she lifted her eyes again and gave Page a look that his heart
received as a pang. "I would gladly give my life if it could procure
Jack one hour with his father, alive."
"I believe it sincerely," he answered.
The respect and sympathy of Page's tone seemed to impel her to further
explanation. "It was terribly sudden and unexpected," she said. "No
one--the doctor himself did not believe in the possibility of such a
catastrophe. He was feeling so well for him. He was in the act of
speaking of it when he sank back. His last word was 'happy.'"
She stood a moment, her eyelids dropped, in statuesque silence. Page
watched her steady her tottering self-control.
"I had thought," she went on finally, "of a succession of cablegrams.
Could it be broken to your cousin a little more gently, so?"
"Yes, that will be best."
"And may I ask you to send them, without regard to cost?"
"Certainly. What else can I do? I beg you to let me be useful to you
in all ways that I can for Uncle Richard's sake."
"Thank you. I will give you the address of a neighbor, an old and dear
friend of Mr. Van Tassel, who has been most kind. Perhaps he would be
glad to consult with you."
Page soon took his leave, and until the day after the funeral did not
again have opportunity to speak with the young widow. Then she sent for
him and he went upstairs to the gay and delicate boudoir which Richard
Van Tassel had furnished for his young wife, whose black gown to-day
made the one dark spot amid its luxury.
She looked precisely the same as on the occasion of their first meeting
except that now, by daylight, Page could see more distinctly her
patient, marble beauty.
"I could not let you go East without thanking you," she said, greeting
him gravely. "You have been very kind, and a great help to us."
The young man bowed, and murmured a polite platitude. He could think of
nothing to say to her.
"Do you--I suppose you do expect your cousin to return home
immediately."
"Yes. I think he will come."
"One thing which I wanted to say to you this morning is that my sister
and I are going immediately to California to spend the winter. You will
meet your cousin, very likely, upon his arrival?"
Page bowed.
"Will you kindly tell him that the house here is ready for him, that we
shall not return to it"--Mrs. Van Tassel's even, formal utterance broke,
and she suddenly averted her head. "Poor Jack!" she exclaimed. "It
will make him suffer afresh to come back here, and who can comfort him?
It is the best I can do, though," she added suddenly, turning again
toward Page. "You know there is not one person save Mildred to whom I
can speak of all this, and it is wrong to dwell upon sad and humiliating
subjects with a bright young girl."
She looked scarcely older than Mildred herself, Page thought, but he
eagerly offered himself as a confidant.
"I am glad Jack has you," she continued. "I wish, oh, so deeply, that I
might do or say anything to alleviate his sorrow; but you see,"
appealingly, "the only thing I can do is to keep away. Jack and I were
good friends once, but that is all over."
As Page a little later came downstairs to leave the house, Mildred
Bryant rose from a seat near the fireplace in the hall. Her face looked
a little paler than was its wont, and faint shadows about her eyes told
of grief; but she was once more the self-possessed girl he had first
seen on the train.
"You are returning at once to Boston?" she asked.
"Yes. I leave to-night."
"I saw by your face as you came downstairs that you think my sister
looks badly; but of course you do. Well, I believe there is nothing
more, there are no more shocks that she can suffer--unless she should
lose me, and I fancy I am long for this world;" a shade of the girl's
pretty ironical smile flitted over her lips; "but I could lose her," the
hazel eyes suddenly became bright with unshed tears; "and," with
vehemence, "I will not. I am going, we are going away to search for
Clover's girlhood. It must come back. She has been cheated out of it
too soon."
"Mrs. Van Tassel told me that you intend going West. Southern
California will surely do her good."
"I hope so. I am glad you have been here these last days. It has been
a comfort to my sister."
"Do you really think so?" eagerly.
"Without doubt. I observed that she seemed less anxious
about--everything, from the moment of your coming."
"The matter of telling Jack had preyed upon her," said Page
sympathetically.
He saw an indefinable change come over Mildred's face. "I suppose Jack
must bear his troubles like the rest of the world," she answered with a
tinge of hardness. "We thank you very much for everything, Mr. Page,"
she added, holding out her hand, and the other clasped it warmly.
"I would not have failed to be here for any consideration, Miss Bryant.
I hope," looking into the girl's eyes earnestly, "that the time may not
be far distant when I shall meet you and Mrs. Van Tassel again."
"Thank you," returned Mildred courteously, and the young man left the
house with a distinct sensation of disappointment because she had not
echoed his wish. He could not avoid the suspicion that these young
women would now expect and wish to walk in a separate way from that of
all connections of his dear lost uncle. He himself would henceforth be
classed with Jack, and, strange new disloyalty, the prospect was
unsatisfactory.
He turned his steps toward the office where he was going to await a
cablegram, and on his way undertook to analyze his own unreasonable
feelings. "They are nothing to me, those girls," he thought, while
memory presented in fresh hues that averted head leaning upon a white
hand in Clover's spasm of impotent pity for Jack, and all of a sudden,
instead of theorizing, Page found himself dwelling with eager pride, as
if it were the climax of achievement in his life, on the fact that he
had been of assistance, of use, of comfort, to that fair, pale creature,
set in a sacred niche apart from all the other women in the world.
He recalled himself with cold surprise from this Scylla, only to fall
into the Charybdis of a reverie in which Miss Bryant's face and bearing
were regal, as she declared that Jack must bear his trials like the rest
of the world.
Page threw back his head in self-impatience. "She is a fine, bright
girl, and I should like to know her better," he thought; "but there is
this comfort--in a couple of months I shall have forgotten all about
her. I couldn't remember her if I tried."
Before evening he received the expected message from his cousin. Jack
sailed from Bremen at once.
*CHAPTER IX.*
*A CHRISTMAS VISITOR.*
The national dispute finished regarding the location of the World's
Fair, a local contest at once arose among Chicago's citizens as to which
portion of the city was best fitted for the display. The debate was
long drawn out. Several sites were energetically lauded by their
several partisans, and their respective advantages were hotly maintained
and as hotly contradicted. It was very interesting to Chicagoans, but
to the public outside it was a matter of indifference whether the North
Side, the West Side, or the South Side, should win the day.
Meanwhile a good many people--like Miss Berry, for instance--forgot that
such a thing as preparation for a World's Fair was going on. She thought
it vastly more interesting that Jack Van Tassel had returned from
Europe, and that in his desolation instead of going to his father's
deserted house he had begun to read law in his cousin's office.
Miss Lovina's association with Mrs. Van Tassel during the summer had
brought much food for thought into her quiet life; thought that haunted
her after the young wife had become a widow, and after Jack had come
home; his sore heart full of cold anger, so Miss Berry surmised, against
a woman whom she devoutly declared to be "one of the sweetest of God's
creatures."
It was an exciting time to her when one November day she received the
letter from Gorham Page giving her hope that she need not always be
passive concerning a matter which, in her uneventful life, she had
greatly at heart. She read:--
DEAR AUNT LOVE,--Jack Van Tassel has come back and is with me for the
present. Of course he is very much shaken; and when I met him at the
dock I felt a good deal disturbed about him; but you know his excitable,
gay disposition. He will doubtless soon recover from the shock, and
react from his present low state. Naturally he wants to blame somebody
for his suffering, and I fear he is inclined to accuse Mrs. Van Tassel
of inconsiderateness in not sending for him last summer. I never met
her excepting on the occasion of the funeral, so my defense has little
weight; but I recall that my sister said you esteemed her highly, and it
occurred to me to ask you to do what you can toward exonerating her when
you see Jack, which I dare say may be soon, as he has spoken of visiting
you in order to learn something of the last weeks of his father's life.
Use your own discretion about this. Jack will stay with me for a time,
and read law in my office for the sake of occupation. His father's
affairs were left in perfect shape. His will divided the fortune into
three parts: one third is left to charities and certain relatives; one
third goes to Jack, and the other to Mrs. Van Tassel, with the exception
of an amount sufficient to make her sister independent, which he has
left to Miss Bryant.
Please say nothing of this letter, and believe me, with best wishes
always,
Cordially yours, GORHAM PAGE.
These lines had not been penned without some uncomfortable recollections
on the part of the writer of a day when he had himself received the
announcement of Aunt Love's attachment to her young guest in a spirit of
impatient skepticism. Now that he discovered the strength of his desire
that Jack should be more yielding and credulous, the memory of his own
hardness was especially exasperating.
Miss Berry waited for her expected visitor with much interest, and each
day altered a little the form of the statement she intended to make him
when he came. She had opportunity to make a variety of changes in her
programme, for weeks went by without a sign from him, and finally Miss
Lovina's faith in his coming wavered.
Christmas day dawned in ideal fashion at Pearfield that year. The sun
fell on swelling drifts of virgin snow. The little town sparkled like
the village in a Christmas card, and just as the inevitable church spire
ornaments that souvenir, so the Congregationalist meeting-house stood in
a field of glistening white, as Miss Berry trudged up the shoveled path
to attend a service of song planned by the Sunday-school as a fitting
festivity for the morning. There was a good attendance, and Miss Lovina
gave her neighbors, old and young, cheerful greeting as she regarded
complacently the holly wreaths which she had yesterday helped to place
in the church windows.
When the exercises were over she moved slowly down the aisle by the side
of Miss Getchell with whom she had promised weeks ago to eat her
Christmas dinner. If there was something of the martyr concealed under
Lovina's benevolent countenance as Miss Ann clutched her arm, the latter
would not be allowed to suspect it, and together they emerged from the
wide-open door; but once on the porch Miss Berry, with an exclamation of
surprise, shook herself free, and Miss Getchell's astonished eyes beheld
her friend hasten down the steps towards some one who ascended to meet
her.
"It was a reg'lar young prince of a feller with grand eyes," Ann said
afterward, dramatizing the occurrence to her old homekeeping mother,
"and he took off his hat as he come up to Loviny as though she was
somebody great." Miss Getchell's curious ears could not grasp Jack's
low-spoken question:--
"Are you going out to dinner anywhere, Aunt Love?"
Miss Lovina's conscience would have done credit to any Puritan of them
all, but Jack had said "are" instead of "were," and she considered that
in a flash before responding heartily:
"Indeed I am not, Mr. Jack. You're just comin' home with me and I'm
delighted. Wait one second till I speak to one o' my neighbors."
Jack suspected her as she turned back to Miss Getchell, but her evident
pleasure in his arrival decided him not to press the question. He
turned his back while she hurriedly and emphatically accosted her
friend.
"I'm sorry it happens so, Ann, but"--
"Oh now, don't say you won't come, Loviny. Fetch the young man along and
welcome."
"Hush, don't say a word. It is Mr. Van Tassel's son. You remember.
I'll make it up to you sometime,--I mean you'll make it up to me. You
see it can't be helped. Now don't coax me, that's a good girl; I can't
possibly come, and don't be mad with me, Ann, you see just how it is,"
and Miss Getchell allowed herself to be twitched into dumbness by
Lovina's anxious grasp upon her arm, and departed on her lonely way in a
measure consoled by the consideration of two luscious mince pies which
Miss Berry had sent her as a gift the day before.
"I'll bet a cookie she wishes she had 'em back now," she reflected as
she looked after the erect, tall form moving away beside Miss Berry's
stout figure. "I'm glad 't ain't me caught by a city feller like that
on Christmas day without any decent dinner to give him."
But Miss Getchell and Miss Berry were two very different people. The
latter, as she walked along trying with some preoccupation to talk to
her guest, was filled with felicitation that Jack had chosen for his
visit the day when each heart is most inclined to gentleness, and in the
same breath she rejoiced that there were two roast chickens in the
larder at home prepared in a moment of dubiousness regarding Ann
Getchell's cooking. "If I don't relish my dinner, I'll have a good
supper," Miss Lovina had thought when she roasted them, and now the most
devout thanksgiving of the morning arose from her heart in consequence.
"This is my first glimpse of Pearfield in winter," said Jack, surveying
the blue-white shadows on the unspotted fields. "I dreaded Christmas
this year, Aunt Love. It occurred to me yesterday that I would come to
see you. It is as I expected. 'Peace on earth' doesn't seem such a
satire here."
"You couldn't please me better," replied Miss Berry. "I've been some
expectin' you, for Mr. Gorham told me you laid out to be in Boston a
while."
"Yes. I have thought a great deal about Pearfield lately." There was a
brief silence as the two moved on between snowy bulwarks thrown up by
the village ox-plow that morning. "Do you never become lonely here,
Aunt Love?" asked her visitor at last.
"No, I don't know as I do. Pearfield's a nice safe stiddy place and I'm
as busy as a bee all the time. Once in a while there's a tramp, but now
Blitzen attends to them in short order. We all have our gifts,"
continued Aunt Love, desiring for the present to keep the conversation
impersonal, "and seems if Blitzen's was appearin' to go mad whenever he
wants to."
"Rather a questionable accomplishment, I should suppose."
"It is convenient sometimes, though, there ain't any denyin' it.
Blitzen does hate a tramp. I believe if he was off in the woods a mile
he'd smell one, if he was comin' towards the house; and no sooner does
one o' the shif'less critters knock on the door and ask for a meal o'
victuals, than Blitzen's there. Even if I haven't seen him for an hour
and haven't the least idea where he is, he'll be there soon's the tramp
is, and barkin' so the feller can't hardly make himself heard.
Blitzen's tramp-bark is queer," continued Aunt Love thoughtfully. "It's
mysterious to me where he gets his breath. It ain't just one bark after
another, but he runs 'em all together without any let up, and so loud
and long, it's curious to me he don't just choke to death and done with
it."
"Rather discomposing to the tramp, I imagine."
"Well, 't is," admitted Miss Berry, one corner of her mouth smiling.
"Some stand it longer 'n others; but when one o' the critters sticks to
it till I'm wore out with him, I never have to do but just one thing. I
just look at Blitzen,--he's always jumpin' and whirlin' around enough to
make a clock dizzy,--and I say, 'What's the matter with the dog!' Then
I close the door a little and look through it at the tramp and holler,
'You'll have to excuse me, but that dog acts so queer I'--then, slam, I
shut the door. It never fails to work. Takes away a tramp's appetite
every time."
"I should suppose Blitzen might feel the weight of a boot under those
circumstances."
"Bless your heart, Mr. Jack, don't you believe it! A man would have to
be built like one o' these centerpedes to have any luck tryin' to kick
Blitzen when he's on the rampage. No sir, a tramp don't like the idea
of a mad dog, and he needs all the legs he's got to get over the fence
with. I always step to the winder pretty certain what I'll see. A man
just lightin' out for the road, and Blitzen after him, makin' rosettes
of himself, bringin' all four feet together at every bound and hollerin'
enough to croozle you."
Jack laughed.
"He's a smart dog," went on Miss Berry in the tone of one who gives the
devil his due. "He's been a means o' grace to me more 'n once, but I
won't deny he's talented. Now after one o' those whirlwind times, you'd
think he'd be so tuckered out he'd just have to lay down a spell and get
his wind back; but land, he never turns a hair. All the time he's
playin' hydrophoby on that tramp he's rememberin' where he buried his
last bone, and he hasn't any more 'n seen him over the fence when he
switches around mute as a mole, and digs in the ground just as pert as
though he'd never used any energy on anything else. He needs
nourishment and he knows it."
"I should suppose he would get it some day," remarked Van Tassel, "in
the shape of poisoned meat."
"Law, they've tried that," said Miss Berry contemptuously. "I've had to
laugh when I've picked it up in the yard and burned it. It was such a
simple idea. Why, if a tramp could come into the house and get one o'
ma's white China plates with the gold band, and set some victuals o'
mine on it and pizen 'em, he might stand some chance. Blitzen puts on
more airs and frills every day about what he will eat and what he won't;
but as for pickin' up strange doin's! he and I both rather prefer our
own cookin' to other folks's, anyway," finished Aunt Love with a little
conscious toss of her head.
The oriole elm was still bedecked with diamonds when the two entered
Miss Berry's yard, and the branches of the pine trees were weighed down
with a soft, white burden.
In the distance, at the sitting-room window, Blitzen's head could be
seen, and it bobbed convulsively as he barked an excited welcome to his
adored mistress.
"Such a time as I had to get away from him this mornin'," she said. "He
knows Sunday as well as you do, but other days he expects to go to the
store with me, and from the first I expected trouble. I thought I'd
begin to plan about an hour before service, so's to slip off without his
knowin' it; but Mr. Jack, I'm glad Salem days are gone and done with, or
that dog would be burned for a witch. As sure as I'm talkin' to you
this minute, he always knows what I'm thinkin' about. He acted meachin'
from the minute breakfast was over. I was unusually clever to him too;
told him Merry Christmas, and snapped my finger to him; but sir, he
whined. He just sat down and looked at me pitiful and whined. I really
believed the critter was sick, and felt of his nose; but it made me
jump; 't was as cold's a frog; and law, when I begun to go to church I
found he wa'n't confined to the bed by a long chalk. I say _begun_ to
go to church, 'cause that's just what it was. I've been back to this
house this mornin' three different times," said Aunt Love impressively.
"The first time Blitzen wasn't in sight anywheres, so I just thought I'd
seize the chance, and I turned the house-door key and hurried down the
path, puttin' my shawl on and pinnin' my veil as I went. I hadn't but
just got to the cross-roads when I spied him trottin' slowly along as
still and pious as though he'd been sent for in a hurry to tend a dyin'
friend. I suspicioned mischief, but still I wasn't sure. You can
usually tell somethin' about a dog's notions by his tail; but Blitzen
not havin' any he gets the best o' me there, and he knows it. I tipped
along when I saw him, for thinks says I perhaps he's settin' out to head
me off at the store, and if that was his idea it just suited me; for
'twas the other cross-road that was the shortest way to church. Well,
he started that path. Now," said Aunt Love argumentatively, as she
mechanically broke a long twig from a lilac bush, "I don't s'pose you
believe any more 'n I do that Blitzen's got eyes in his back, though why
he shouldn't be equally blind in both ends is another o' the mysteries;
but the very minute I set my foot, silent as the dead, mind you, into
the church road, that dog stopped and looked over his shoulder. It was
a hang-dog look, but set. I stopped too, and he smiled,--there, like
that," for Miss Berry had unlocked the house door and Blitzen had flung
himself upon her in an ecstasy, his white teeth gleaming once and again
as he lifted his lip in a canine grin.
The use of the lilac switch now became apparent as Miss Lovina, holding
her silk gown away with one hand, with the other belabored her adorer in
a business-like manner until he became penetrated with the idea that his
addresses were unwelcome.
"If 't wa'n't for whips, I shouldn't have one frock fit to be seen," she
explained calmly, as Blitzen, unabashed, preceded them alertly into the
sitting-room, where he had been alternately napping and lamenting all
the morning.
"Yes, I had to bring that good-for-nothin' home from the
cross-roads,--just drop your coat right off, Mr. Jack,--and I shut him
up in the shed and hasped the door. Then I started off again. I told
you he was a witch. There must be some hole out o' that shed that he's
made himself, for I hadn't got ten rods from the house before I found
him stealin' along after me. Yes, sir, you remember it very well;" and
Blitzen, whom the switching had not dispirited, now crept abjectly under
the sofa. "The second time I tried the barn, but that turned out to be
a sieve too, so, though it's against my rule, I was forced when I came
back the third time to lock him in the house. He hasn't broke a hole
through the house yet. Yes, you better stay under there, you scamp!
Now you make yourself at home, Mr. Jack, while I put dinner on the
table." Miss Berry, as she spoke, shook down the coal-stove, which she
had left to burn as little as possible in her absence. She twitched one
damper in the back and one in the front. "It's cold as charity here,"
she remarked, "but we'll soon heat up. There's some o' those bound
Harpers you used to like to look at, with the pictures o' the war in
'em; or there's the Christian Union. I'll call you in a little while.
Want a few cookies now, just to stay your stomach?"
Jack smiled at the familiar question. Aunt Love was one of those
comfortable folk who are always wanting to stay people's stomachs,
especially children's. She had never thought it an odd or inconvenient
fact that boys are always hungry. What wonder that she was popular? Her
visitor assured her that he would prefer to wait, and she hastened out
to the kitchen, her brain seething with plans to prepare a meal which
should deceive the visitor as to its impromptu nature.
With great celerity she tied a huge apron over her black silk gown, and
went to work. Miss Berry's friends, could they have looked on, would
have thought she had lost her wits; for never had she been known to pare
potatoes to such a reckless depth. She exulted in her own rule never to
let the kitchen fire go out, and flew hither and thither with a
practiced deftness which allowed of no false move. Once she stumbled
over some object and looked down impatiently. It was Blitzen.
"I thought you was under the settin'-room sofa, you rascal. If you dare
to hender me to-day!" she said hotly. Blitzen knew there was danger in
her voice, but the chickens were beginning to send forth an appetizing
fragrance, and all his discretion could not keep him from joining in
such a novel romp as his staid mistress was making of getting dinner.
The consequence was that in a minute more Miss Lovina trod on his nimble
toe. The yelp he gave exasperated her. She threw open the kitchen door.
"Go out!" she ordered sternly.
Blitzen rolled over on his back and lay there, limp, looking like a
gigantic caterpillar. Miss Berry spoke once more in vain; then she
swooped upon him in a totally unprecedented manner, and in another
moment the terrier was picking himself out of a snowdrift to the tune of
the slamming of the kitchen door.
Jack could see him from his window, sitting in the path, scratching the
snow out of his ears, and reflecting on the mutations of this life.
*CHAPTER X.*
*AUNT LOVE'S INTERCESSION.*
When Van Tassel saw Blitzen describe an arc which had its beginning at
the kitchen door and its vanishing point in a snowdrift, the spontaneous
laugh which burst from him sounded strangely in his own ears. It was
the first time he had laughed in such fashion since that October day
when Page's cable messages had found him in Berlin.
He had been wondering, as he stood there by Miss Berry's small-paned
window, whether Aunt Love's prattle on the way home from church had been
for the express purpose of diverting him. He could not connect even that
extent of diplomacy with this friend of two of his childhood's summers;
but supposing her anecdotes to have had that purpose, they had been
successful. Jack felt content to be here. The cold pure blankness of
this outside world, the absence of all necessity for exertion or
assumption of an interest he did not feel, were surpassingly restful.
He had known that a merry Christmas was not for him, and had shrunk from
either joining in or appearing to avoid the festivities of his Boston
friends; hence the idea of this postponed visit had come to him as a
deliverance, and been suddenly acted upon.
When Aunt Love finally presented herself again, smiling, red-cheeked,
and minus the apron, Jack found it awoke in him something like the
appetite of olden days to be led into the dining-room where a tempting
meal was spread.
The hostess heroically refrained from apologies concerning a certain
dryness of those twice-heated chickens, since it might be hazardous to
open the subject; and the cream gravy generously provided, with the
delicate mashed potato, hot biscuit, brandied peaches, and other
adjuncts of the impromptu meal, were delicious enough to divert the
attention of even the hypercritical from complaint. A couple of mince
pies, the mates to those in Miss Getchell's possession, and cups of
golden coffee with Alderney cream, finished a dinner calculated to put a
misanthrope into good humor, provided his pessimism did not arise from a
poor digestion.
It was a pleasure in itself to Jack to see what pleasure his presence
gave. He had been most kindly and tactfully treated in the Page home;
but they were too conscious there of his sorrow, too comprehensive of
his state of mind. Aunt Love was jolly. She was so entirely absorbed
in the pleasant responsibility of making her guest materially
comfortable, that she seemed to have no room at present for other
thought; and her own wholesome appetite was infectious. She talked of
summers long past, and evaded all reference to recent events. Jack ate
a hearty dinner, and as Miss Berry watched him sitting opposite,
leisurely drinking and appreciating her coffee, she felt wrapped in an
atmosphere of content.
"You are going to let me help you clear this all away and wash the
dishes?" said Jack, as he finished.
His hostess laughed deprecatingly, looking at the hand with which he
raised his cup to his lips. She had been admiring the slender links in
his immaculate cuffs all through the dinner. There was a facet-like
cutting in their gold that gave them a glisten which attracted her.
"No. We're both of us too much dressed up to wash dishes," she
remarked. "I don't care if they ain't done for a week, Mr. Jack. I'm
goin' to enjoy myself with you, this afternoon. You make yourself at
home in any part o' the house but the kitchen for twenty minutes, and
then I'll sit down with you. I guess you haven't forgotten your way
'round."
Jack regarded her with serious brown eyes. "Are there any moths in your
sitting-room carpet, Aunt Love?" he asked.
Miss Berry looked amazement, and even a little anxiety lest her young
friend's brain had received more of a shock than she realized. "What
makes you ask that?" she demanded, being careful to speak gently.
"I know a sovereign remedy, that's all."
"I did, one time, have some trouble with that carpet," said Miss Berry
doubtfully, "but pepper's good; I used that. Camphor, too."
"Tobacco is excellent," declared Van Tassel, looking pensively into the
depths of his coffee cup.
A light of comprehension broke over Miss Berry's face.
"Mr. Jack, do you smoke!" she exclaimed reproachfully. "Do you shut
those shiny white teeth o' yours on an old pipe-stem! Oh, there never
ought a cigar to go into your mouth, never in the world. Do you
_smoke_?"
"Well--on Fourth of July's, and New Years, and Christmas,
and--birthdays, I do sometimes celebrate, and I thought if you wanted
the moths kept out of your carpet-- One thing really, Aunt Love, if
cigar smoke is disagreeable to you, you ought to have told me before
betraying me into such a dinner."
"It isn't any more disagreeable to me than it is to any other woman of
good principles," returned Miss Berry firmly. "'T isn't a question o'
that. I can show you statistics, Mr. Jack."
"Yes, I have seen statistics," he answered, mildly. "You haven't time
to look them up just now, and I think I'll walk out of doors a while and
discuss the movement cure with Blitzen, and ask him what part of the
chicken he'll take."
"No, no, Mr. Jack. There ain't enough paths shoveled to make it
pleasant to go out around the house. I let Obed go just as soon as he'd
done what was absolutely necessary this mornin'. 'T ain't that a
cigar's unpleasant to my nose. It's my principles it hurts; but 't
ain't so bad if you only smoke one for an occasional recreation.
Remember you can't suit me except by makin' yourself entirely at home;"
and the hospitable woman arose from the table. "If you don't smoke now
in the sittin'-room, I shall feel bad."
So Van Tassel went back to his window and sent a few rings of fragrant
smoke into the air before putting on his hat and sallying down the
garden path. He had not finished his cigar before he heard himself
called.
Miss Berry was standing in the open door, beckoning to him. "Time's
up," she said, smiling.
Jack smiled back and held up the cigar explanatorily.
"I know all about that. Come in. It's a good smellin' one," she added,
as her guest obediently returned to the piazza. "If folks would burn a
few leaves o' tobacco like that occasionally, it would be agreeable
enough, some like incense; but it's a pity to have it at the cost of a
man's poisonin' his lungs."
Van Tassel followed her back to the sitting-room, where he took the
armchair she had arranged for him, and smiled to see that one of the
white and gold China saucers had even been sacrificed to receive the
ashes of that disapproved cigar.
He thanked her and took from his pocket a little dark velvet box. "Here
is something I brought you as a Christmas gift, Aunt Love. I had to get
it in a hurry last night and I don't feel sure that it will please you."
Miss Berry opened the case and gazed at a hatpin of onyx set with a
conventional design of pearls.
"It's good enough for an empress!" she exclaimed in ingenuous delight.
"Why, you're too good, Mr. Jack. I'm just gettin' spoiled this
Christmas. I got another present out o' the post-office last night," and
Miss Lovina took from her pocket another and smaller box which she put
into Jack's hand. "Velvet too, you see," she said, beaming, "and more
precious yet inside, just like yours."
Jack opened the case and found a gold thimble.
"And it's big enough for me," announced the happy owner triumphantly; "I
didn't know as gold ones grew big enough for workin' hands like mine:
but you wouldn't catch Mrs. Van Tassel givin' anybody a thing they
couldn't use."