CHAPTER XXVIA GATHERING IN THE ATTIC
WhenBonnie May went down-stairs and learned that Mrs. Baron had gone out calling, she entered her own room and pushed her door partly shut, so that she would be invisible to any one passing.
Her most earnest wish, for the moment, was to see her two friends next door. Of course, she would see them before long, but she did not like to leave the matter to chance.
There was no reason why she should not simply go to their front door, and knock and ask for them. No reason; but undoubtedly a prejudice. The Barons wouldn’t approve of such a thing. She really hadn’t been aware of the existence of the house next door until now. She realized that there were worlds between the people who lived over there and the people who lived in the mansion. So far as she was concerned, the Barons were a Family, while Heaven only knew what those other people were.
Well, she would think of some way of getting at Clifton and Jack some other time. Something would happen. And in the meantime, Mrs. Baron was gone and there were various things whichmight be done now which couldn’t be done at any other time.
Rummaging among her possessions in search of an inspiration she came upon a hat covered with little silk butterflies.
She had the liveliest appreciation of the silk butterflies, though she did not quite approve of the shape of the hat upon which they were bestowed. On the other hand, there was a hat of adorable shape which had an insufficient decoration in the form of a spray of roses which were not of the right color, and which were in too advanced a stage of development.
In another moment a small pair of scissors was travelling over one of the hats with a snipping sound and a startlingly destructive effect.
The snipping was not suspended until voices, subdued and confidential, arose in the near-by sitting-room.
Baron had come down-stairs, too, and was talking to Flora.
“The thing for us to do,” Baron was saying, “is to go places, and let him know about it beforehand. Any place at all. For a walk in the park, or to the theatre. I wouldn’t be in the way. I would know what to do. And after—that is to say, when.... What I mean is that in the course of time you could just tell mother that you’ve made up your mind, and that it’s your business, and not hers. The thing is absurd. She’s got no reasons. We’ve noright to let her have her own way entirely in such a case.”
Bonnie May dropped the hat into her lap, and paid no attention to the shower of butterflies and roses which fell to the carpet. Quite stealthily she went out into the hall. A moment of indecision—and then she descended the stairs to the first floor.
“There’sthatto be attended to, too,” she was reflecting.
She went to the telephone immediately. She had noiselessly closed the dining-room door, so she wouldn’t be heard. And after very little delay she had Mr. Addis on the other end of the wire.
“It’s Bonnie May,” she said in response to Addis’s greeting. “I called you up to tell you that you’re wanted here this afternoon. It’s really important. I think, honestly, you ought to come. Can you?”
“Why, yes, certainly!” came back the vigorous and pleasant voice of Addis. “Yes, I’ll come right away.”
In the hall she paused, thrilled by the contemplation of a good, forbidden deed. Then the warm sunlight, finding its way in through the ground-glass door, enticed her, and she went out into the vestibule. There she stood looking out on the street.
Clearly, fate was on her side.
Almost immediately two immaculately dressedgentlemen, moving with superb elegance, passed the gate.
Bonnie May ran down the steps, calling to them. “Clifton!” was the word that penetrated the chaos of street noises, and “Oh, Jack!”
The two gentlemen turned about, and at the sight of the child they became far less correct in their general deportment. Happiness made them quite unconscious of self.
Very shortly afterward a little girl was sitting between two altogether presentable gentlemen on the top step in front of the Baron mansion.
“Of course we shouldn’t,” admitted Bonnie May. “We never sit on the front steps. I mean, the Family. But nobody will know. And, besides, I don’t see how we can help ourselves.”
“We don’t mind at all,” Clifton assured her. He looked inquiringly over his shoulder, into the vestibule. “What is it?—an old ladies’ home?”
“Not exactly. It’s one old lady’s home, and you couldn’t get in without a jimmy or a letter of introduction. She used to be a Boone.”
“Of course that explains it,” said Clifton. “What are you doing here? Does she give private theatricals?”
“Not intentionally. No, I’m the little daughter of the house—a kind of Little Eva, without any dogs or fiddles, and I have to go to bed at nine o’clock, and take lessons. It’s really a wonderful place. When we all sit down to the table it—itsticks. When I get across with anything neat nobody whistles. Far from it.”
Clifton and Jack accepted all this as quite definitely informative.
“Domesticated,” explained Clifton to Jack, who nodded.
“How did you find them?” Jack wanted to know.
“They found me. There’s a Romeo in the house who’s the real thing. Love me, love my Romeo. That’s how I feel about him. He brought me here.”
“But where——”
“You see, Miss Barry wished me onto one of the theatres here last spring when the going got rough. Put me down and disappeared. And he found me. I wish to goodness you and he could get acquainted.Youknow that I was a baby only a few years back. But just because I don’t cry for bread and milk here they seem to think I’m Mrs. Tom Thumb come back to earth. You could tell them.”
Clifton and Jack leaned back as far as they safely could and laughed heartily. Then they drew painfully sedate faces and sprang to their feet. A soft yet decisive voice—the voice of a young woman—sounded behind them.
When Bonnie May turned around she realized that she and her two friends were standing in a line on the bottom step, looking up into the faces of Baron and Flora, who had made their appearance in the vestibule.
Flora was smiling in a pleasantly mischievous manner. Baron was regarding the two actors critically, yet not with unfriendliness.
“Won’t you introduce your friends?” asked Flora.
Bonnie May did so. She concluded with, “old friends of mine in the profession.”
“If I might suggest,” said Flora, “it’s ever so much more comfortable in the house, if you don’t mind coming in.” She turned to Baron with slightly heightened color. Her glance seemed to say: “You can see they are gentlemen.” Something of constraint passed from her eyes when Baron pushed the door open and turned to the two men, who were “in the profession,” and led the way into the house.
“Delighted,” said Clifton, mounting the steps, followed by the other actor.
“You’re very welcome on your own account,” said Baron, “and, besides, we all like to do anything we can to please Mrs. Tom Thumb.”
He glanced sharply at Bonnie May, who nodded in her best manner and remarked, with delicacy of intonation: “Caught with the goods!”
The little joke paved the way for really comfortable intercourse, and there was a highly satisfactory condition of sociability in the sitting-room up-stairs half an hour later when the street bell rang.
It rang as if it were in the nature of a challenge. And the ring was almost immediately repeated.
“Mrs. Shepard must be out,” said Flora. She went to respond.
It was only the McKelvey girls, after all. Bonnie May heard their gay voices in the lower hall. And it occurred to her that there was danger of certain complications—complications which might not be wholly agreeable.
She turned to Baron. “You know we’ve a hundred things to talk about—old times and old friends. Couldn’t we go up into your room until the company goes?” She referred to herself and the actors, of course.
In his heart Baron could have blessed her for the thought. The McKelvey girls were on their way up-stairs, and he was not sure about the propriety of bringing the McKelvey girls into even a fleeting relationship with two actors whom none of them knew.
“Why, if you like,” he said, with an air of reluctance—which he fully overcame by the promptness with which he arose and got the child and her friends started on their way.
Flora might have decided to entertain her callers in the room down-stairs, if she had had any choice in the matter. But the McKelvey girls had always felt wholly at home in the mansion, and they had begun climbing the stairs before Flora closed the street door.
Flora paused for an instant, changing from one arm to the other the huge bundle of flowers theelder Miss McKelvey had thrust at her upon entering. A wan, resigned smile trembled on her lips, and then she tossed her head ever so slightly.
“Oh, what’s the difference!” she exclaimed to herself, and then she followed the others up the broad flight of stairs.
Still, she was somewhat relieved to find no one but her brother in the room into which the visitors led the way. She did not know just what had happened, but she did not ask any questions. And then she heard the murmur of voices up in the attic, and understood.
She brought a vase and put the flowers into it. “Don’t they look beautiful?” she asked. She had to lift her voice a little, because both of the McKelvey girls were talking at once.
“They certainly do!” came the response in a wholly unexpected voice, and Flora turned and beheld the animated face of Mrs. Harrod, framed in the doorway.
“Mrs. Shepard asked me to come on up,” said Mrs. Harrod. She looked about her as if the room were empty. “Flora,” she demanded, “where’s that child?” She had laid eager hands upon Flora’s shoulders and kissed her flushed cheek with genuine affection. She had also taken a second to glance at the McKelvey girls and say: “How-do, young ladies?”
“Child?” echoed Miss Baron.
“That perfect little creature, who was here thelast time I was. I did hope she’d let me in again. Such angelic manners! You don’t mean to say you’ve let her go?”
“Oh, Bonnie May! No, she hasn’t gone. She’s quite one of us now. Where is she, Victor?”
Baron fidgeted. “She went up into the attic, I believe.”
Mrs. Harrod made for the hall immediately. “I’m sure you don’t mind,” she said, without turning around. They heard her climbing the second flight of stairs. “You young people won’t miss me,” she called back.
The younger Miss McKelvey suddenly sat up very straight. “What’s the matter with you, Flora Baron?” she demanded.
“The matter?”
“The way you’re looking at Victor—yes, and the way he’s looking at you. What’s the mystery?”
Flora listened. Up-stairs a door opened and shut, and then there was silence. “I was wondering if Mrs. Harrod would find things just to her liking up there,” she explained.
“Oh! Well, if she doesn’t, it will be her own fault. People who take possession of a house can’t be too particular.”
“I suppose not,” admitted Flora thoughtfully. She was listening intently again. There was a movement down-stairs. Mrs. Shepard was serenely complaining to herself on the ground of many interruptions. The street door opened and shut andFlora heard resonant, familiar tones. Baron heard them, too.
“I’ll see,” Mrs. Shepard was heard to say, and then there was the sound of her heavy tread on the stairs.
Again Flora and Victor looked at each other dubiously.
“Whatisthe matter with you?” demanded Miss McKelvey—the other Miss McKelvey, this time.
Flora leaned back against the mantel almost limply and laughed—not the laugh of Bonnie May’s lessons, but the old contralto gurgle. “Nothing,” she said. Her cheeks flamed, her eyes were filled with a soft light.
“Mr. Addis has called to see Miss Baron,” announced Mrs. Shepard truculently in the doorway.
“I’ll go right down,” said Flora.
“Oh!” exclaimed the elder Miss McKelvey.
“Oh!” echoed her sister.
They arose as by a common impulse and stole out into the hall. “We don’t care if we do,” they flung back in a whisper as they tiptoed to the stair railing. They came hurrying back with ecstatic twitterings. “You know you never entertain company in that dark room down-stairs, Flora Baron! You’ve got to bring him up!”
Flora gazed at them in rebellious misery.
“Well, then,” exclaimed the younger Miss McKelvey, seizing her sister’s hand, “we’ll go up into the attic!”
And they were gone.
“Oh!” cried Flora hopelessly, “it shows what one criminal act will lead to!”
“There was no criminal act,” retorted Baron. “Nothing is really wrong. Have him up!” His tone seemed to say: “Assert your right! I’ll back you up!”
He went to the head of the stairway. “Come right up, Addis,” he called. He tried to throw a great deal of cordiality into his voice.
Flora’s hands went to her temples in a gesture of despair. “You invited him here in mother’s absence—you know you did!” she cried.
“I didn’t. But I wouldn’t care if I had. I’d have done it if I’d had the wit to think of it. Why shouldn’t he come?”
“I won’t have him come in this way. Until mother—” She slipped from the room without finishing her sentence.
“What do you intend to do?” demanded Baron.
“There’s only one thing to do. I think I may be needed elsewhere just now. I’m going up into the attic.”
But as she made her escape she glanced down the stairs. Somebody was coming up. There was the stubborn black hair, the ruddy cheeks, and the close-cropped black mustache——
But she was gone.
Mr. Addis mounted the stairs with the determinationof one who goes more than half-way to meet destiny.
“Come in!” called Baron. “Excuse me for not coming to meet you. You know I’ve got a bad ankle.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Addis, whose robust presence somehow had the effect of making all the aspects of the room effeminate and trivial. “You—were expecting me?”
“No—that is,” bungled Baron, “we’re delighted to have you call.”
Addis reflected. “And Miss Baron?” he asked.
“She’s up in the attic just now. There are some callers, I believe.”
A dull flush mounted to the visitor’s forehead. “I’m afraid I made a mistake,” he said. He arose, casting a keen glance at Baron.
“You didn’t. You didn’t make any mistake at all. We won’t wait for them to come down. Come, let’s follow, if you don’t mind.”
“Follow—” said Addis.
“We’ll go up to the attic.”