CHAPTER XVIII.
Foran instant silence reigned; but it was not in the frank natures of either Octave or Fritz to tremble long before the apparition which had appeared so suddenly in their midst. Fritz flew to the arms outstretched to receive him with a genuineness of joy that was very sweet to Ruth’s heart, and Octave’s momentary hesitation vanished at the first kindly smile from her relative’s lips.
“Dear Aunt Ruth, I am glad to see you, after all,” she said, coming forward as Fritz was deposited upon the ground; and Ruth’s clear gaze rested on the girl with fond surprise. She did not remember to have left Octave so well grown and fair of face; and yet a second’s thought showed that no very great change could have been accomplished during the few weeks of her absence.
Fritz and Octave had been the aunt’s favorites. She had not even attempted to deny thatfact to herself; there was something akin to her own outspoken nature in their characters, and it was with the most implicit confidence she believed that, whoever might have been misbehaving while she had been away, it could not be Octave.
Undoubtedly, Fritzy had been in scrapes innumerable; he could not exist without them; but the scrapes of a child “going on nine” are rarely very serious. Her mind naturally fell upon Paula, whom she liked least of all her nieces; and it was with a prejudgment that Paula had been trying something romantic and out of the common that she had returned to The Snuggery to investigate.
Paula, poor Paula! The irreproachable and really lovely girl, whose faults might be disagreeable because they touched so closely upon the faults of others, but who fully intended to be just perfect, and was all the time anxiously investigating her own motives, lest there should be some flaw therein.
The one fault of which the elder “Miss Pickel” had been most painfully self-conscience was her own selfishness and love of ease.
Wise Grandmother Kinsolving had seen this, and had put the girl at the head of affairs, believing that a position of trust would best counteract Paula’s tendency to indolence and fault-finding. Mother Amy had found that congenial labor is a happy antidote to the poison of sin, and believed implicitly in the old “word” that “Satan still will find some task for idle hands to do.” Well, then, whoever fell under the guidance of the far-seeing Friend was rarely left to be a victim of the evil spirit’s wiles.
But, as soon as she heard that her aunt had arrived, Paula reflected with no small degree of pride on her excellent management. She considered that she had earned a right to be a bit self-complacent, since, during her brief reign, accidents had been fewer than usual, and “the children” had really acquitted themselves very well indeed.
So, delaying only long enough to complete the very pretty afternoon toilet she was making, “Miss Pickel” descended to receive her aunt, with what Uncle Fritz would have judged a very graceful greeting, and of which his loving heart would have been most proud.
But prejudiced Aunt Ruth saw only a prim little maiden, dressed far beyond the necessities of the occasion, and read in the momentary delay that dressing had occasioned the tardy welcome of one who was conscious of having something to hide.
Even the unobservant Christina noticed the coldness of the aunt’s kiss, as compared with that she had bestowed on each of the others, who had not tarried for any toilet making before they bade her welcome home. As for Octave, she looked up in such visible surprise that honest Ruth was convicted of unfairness, and tried to remedy the mischief by scrupulous inquiries after Paula’s health.
“I am perfectly well,” answered Paula, thanking her relative sweetly, and inquiring in her own turn after their grandmother and her home-coming.
“She will not return for some time yet, if I can prevent it,” answered Ruth, with considerable sternness. “She is used to quiet, and I should not like to have her improvement all for nothing, as it would be if she came back just yet.”
“Will you have lunch or dinner now?” asked the deputy house-mistress, trying to be perfect in her behavior.
It was very odd, Ruth thought, to have anyone asking her in her own house if she would have something to eat, as if she had been a stranger; and somehow it did not strike her at all pleasantly. The pretty young Quakeress was, in reality, a little out of temper. She had been vexed at having to take this unexpected journey home, and, with her propensity for worrying, was already fancying a thousand evils which might have befallen her precious mother at the hands of that ignorant serving-maid to whom she had been entrusted.
“No, I am not hungry. It is not our habit to lunch at irregular hours; or itwasnot our habit, when I was mistress here. Where is Rosetta?”
“Gone to the village for an afternoon’s visit,” replied Paula, surprised in her turn by her aunt’s tone, and more hurt by it than she would have cared to show.
At this news Octave rejoiced, for she preferredtelling her aunt as much other “Mystery” affair as she was free to divulge, and not have the account garbled by any other’s report. Oddly enough, her proceeding had never looked such a bold and strange one as it had during the few minutes since Aunt Ruth had returned.
“I wonder why I do feel so queer! I’m sure I did nothing wrong, nothing I would not do again, if I was placed in just such a position. And it is all coming out so beautifully, too. Oh, dear! How shall I get a chance to talk with her first!” thought Octave, growing more and more perplexed.
But presently Ruth’s eyes begun to wander afresh around the apartment. There was one other who had failed in her welcome, and that the sweet-faced Content. Octave interpreted the glance in her quick way, and replied to it. “Oh, it’s lamb and caper sauce this afternoon, Aunt Ruth. It’s the first tantrum Melville has had in some time. He really is the most improved boy—”
“There was plenty of room for it,” interrupted Ruth, grimly. “What was the ‘tantrum’ about?”
Octave colored. She could not answer without involving somebody else in possible blame, and that one she who, strangely enough, seemed already to have incurred it. Had the family been asked who would have the best record to show the absent house-mistress upon her return, the answer would have been unanimous, “Paula.” It was incomprehensible, yet it seemed true, that now Paula was the only one found wanting in favor.
“What was the ‘tantrum’ about, Octave? Thee must tell me.”
“It was a trifle, Aunt Ruth. If you please, I would rather not tell.”
“As thee likes. Christina, then.”
But Christina, the peace lover, was frightened. She tell tales of anybody! Least of all, of Melville and Paula!
The affair was really, as Octave had said, one of the slightest import; but because of their hesitation it grew to assume tremendous consequence in Ruth’s mind. There was evidently something they all wished to hide, and a very natural feeling of resentment filled her heart. Here, in herown home, over which, under the gentle supervision of her mother, she had reigned supreme during all her maiden life, she was flouted by a parcel of young creatures who had intruded upon her peace, uninvited, and unconscious, even, of that intrusion. They seemed so to take it for granted that she was as pleased to have them there as they had been to come! and she did not like it at all; she had only received them because her mother had said it was right.
“Well, if none will tell, then I will go and learn from Melville himself. He has faults enough, but he is not afraid to give an answer when it is demanded.”
With that, and with a motion which seemed to impart to the rustling gray gown which clothed her tall figure an air of great austerity, Ruth led the way to the cripple’s room. Scarcely knowing whether they were wanted or not, but with the natural curiosity of their age, the others followed in a body.
“Hello, Aunt Ruth! When did you come to town?” was Melville’s rather disrespectful salutation.
“I came home this afternoon. I am pleased to see thee in such fine spirits. I had heard that thee was in a ‘tantrum.’”
“Oh, I was, a little while ago; but Content has cured me. She’s a great pacifier of family strife, Aunt Ruth.”
“I know that,” replied the aunt, kissing with fervency the niece who had sprung to her side in glad surprise. “Our little Content is always right.”
“Scuse me, Aunt Ruthy, but she isn’t. She told a story one day.”
“O Fritzy, I think that could not be!”
“Yep; she told me so her own self; didn’t you, Content?”
“Yes, I did tell him so, Aunt Ruth; but it was not here that I was guilty of the sin. We were comparing notes, and finding out that everybody does wrong, even though they do not mean to,” said Content, in her low voice and with a painful flush on her fair cheek. It was one thing to be confidentially sympathetic with Fritzy, in the privacy of her own room and the sacredness of a Sunday afternoon chat; it was quite another tohave her fault published “on the housetop” as it were, and as a sort of send-off to her aunt’s unexpected return.
“Well, I declare!” said Octave, suddenly. Then stopped, as if she had forgotten herself.
“Thee declares what, Octave?” asked Ruth, sharply, and sitting suddenly down upon the foot of Melville’s lounge.
“I don’t know how to say it, but something appears to have come over all of us and set us all by the ears, just the minute you came in.”
It was an unfortunate speech, and Octave swiftly recognized the fact; but she could see no way of setting it right, so perforce she left it.
“I am not accustomed to setting people ‘by the ears,’ Octave; and if thee and thy sisters are disturbed by my coming there must be some reason for it. I may as well tell all that I had a very peculiar letter from Rosetta Perkins, and it is that has sent me home on this flying visit.”
Melville caught the word “flying,” and, in his relief that it was only such an one, he winked at Octave. Aunt Ruth intercepted the wink and the swift glance of sympathy which answered it.More than ever was she convinced that there was mischief afoot, and that she was none too soon upon the scene.
“Aunt Ruth, did you bring Rosetta’s letter with you?” asked Octave, so suddenly that the other replied without thinking.
“Yes, I think it is in my hand-bag.”
“Will you let us see it?”
“For what reason?”
“Because it seems to have made mischief. There is something wrong somewhere, and I, for one, don’t know where; but I should like to. If I see what she has said, then I can tell just how to straighten it out.”
Ruth was sorely puzzled; but she smiled at Octave’s ingenuous confession that she desired to fix things up to suit the occasion; yet some way she did not misconstrue it, nor in any degree include her favorite in the general blame.
“Thee can read the letter if thee chooses; read it aloud. But thee is not likely to make much sense out of it. I could not, therefore I came home.”
Miss Kinsolving took the letter from hersatchel and gave it to Octave, who attempted to read it aloud, as she had been directed. But the feat, for that fun-loving girl, was an impossibility. She would enunciate a few word and then stop to laugh, which, in itself, would have been confusing, had the epistle been most carefully worded; but, composed as it was and ambiguous in the extreme, the others found the suspense more than they could endure; so it was finally handed over to Content, and she managed to get through it after a fashion.
“But what does it all mean?” asked that girl, smilingly.
“It means, as far as I can translate it, that there has been some strange occurrence here. Something that would not have happened if mother and I had been at home. I have come here, as I told thee, to find out what it is. Paula, thee is the eldest. What has happened that should not?”
Paula did not answer. Her eye unconsciously flew to Octave, and then dropped upon the carpet. Her new habit of self-denial would not allow her to convict her sister.
Ruth frowned. “What is it, Content?”
But poor Content flushed and paled, yet neither would she reply; that is, in such terms as her aunt desired. “I would rather not tell, Aunt Ruth.”
“Then thee acknowledges there is something, and thee knows what that something is?”
“Ye-es,” said Content.
“I shall get to it, then; Fritzy, what has happened?”
“I run Don into the side of the stable and barked his sides all off.”
It was a relief for all to laugh; the confession was made in such honest trepidation, for Fritz knew that old Don was the “apple of his Aunt Ruth’s eye.”
“Christina, will thee tell me?”
The gentle tone assumed when she was addressed sent soft-hearted little Christina into a flood of tears.
“Melville?”
“Wild horses won’t drag it out of me, Aunt Ruth.”
“Then, Paula, I shall hold thee responsible.Thee was left in charge. Come with me to my room. I will hear thy story there.”
“Wait, Aunt Ruth; there is no blame to be put upon anybody but me. I, Octave, was what ‘happened’; I always am, you know.”
There was visible relief in all the faces of the group, save that of the self-accused. Yes, and save in that of Aunt Ruth herself. At that instant it was perfectly evident to all that the judgment which would be meted out to Octave would be far more lenient than it would have been in any other case.
An expression of keenest regret stole over the young Friend’s features; and a look of astonishment that cut Octave to the heart. But she did not gaze upon it long, for, with an impetuous rush, she fell upon Ruth’s neck and hid her face on the gray-clad shoulder. “Yes, Aunt Ruth; and I am sorry; but I should do it again, just the same. No, I mean, not perhaps not the same—but, oh, dear! I—I believe, upon my word, I’m crying; and I’m sure I don’t know why!”