"Well, I could have called you," said Lanse, looking curiously at her as, with cheeks like poppies, she sat down at the desk and answered. With ears wide open, although he had again taken up the magazine he had laid down, he listened to Charlotte's side of the conversation. It was brief, and no more remarkable than such performances are apt to be, but Lanse easily appreciated the fact that it was giving his sister immense satisfaction.
"Hullo--yes--yes!" she called. "Yes--oh,isshe? Yes--yes, I'm so glad! Yes--of course you are. I'msoglad! Thank you. Yes--Good night!" Charlotte hung up the receiver and swung round from the desk, her face radiant, her eyes like stars.
"Is she, indeed?" interrogated Lanse, lifting brotherly, penetrating eyes to her face. "Engagement just announced? When is she to be married? I'm glad you're glad--you might so easily have been jealous."
Charlotte laughed--a ripple of merriment which was contagious, for Captain Rayburn smiled over the evening paper, and Lanse himself grinned cheerfully.
"Mind telling us the occasion of such heartfelt joy?" he inquired. But Charlotte came up behind him, laid a warm velvet cheek against his for a moment, patted her uncle on the shoulder, cried, "Good night to you, gentlemen dear!" and ran away to bed.
Charlotte let little Ellen slide down from her lap, washed and brushed.
"Now, Ellen, be a good girl," she said as she set about picking up the various articles she had been using in the baby's bath and dressing. "Charlotte's in a hurry."
The door-bell rang. Celia was in the kitchen, stirring up a pudding. It was April now, and Celia's knee was so far mended that she could be about the house without her crutches, with certain restrictions as to standing, or using the knee in any way likely to strain it.
It was Charlotte who did the running about, and it was she who started for the door now, after casting one hasty look around the bath-room to make sure that the baby could do herself no harm.
Left to herself, Ellen investigated the resources of the bath-room and found them wanting. After she had thrown two towels, the soap and her own small tooth brush back into the tub from which she had lately emerged, and which Charlotte had not yet emptied, she found her means of entertainment at an end. The other toilet articles were all beyond her reach. She gazed out of the window; there was nothing moving to be seen but a row of Mrs. Fields's dish-towels waving in the wind.
She turned to the door. Charlotte had meant to latch it, but it was a door with a peculiar trick of swinging slowly open an inch after it had apparently been closed, and it had not been latched. Ellen pushed one small hand into the crack and pulled it open.
Charlotte was nowhere to be seen or heard Across the hall was the door of her room, ajar; and since doors ajar have somehow a singular charm for babies, this one crossed to it and swung it wide.
Here was richness. This was Charlotte's workshop. She slept in a smaller room adjoining, the baby in the crib by her side; and with that smaller room little Ellen was familiar, but not with this. The tiny feet travelled eagerly about, from one desirable object to another. And presently she remembered the big, porcelain-lined bath-tub, There was nothing Ellen liked so well as to throw things into that tub and see them splash.
Two books crossed the hall and made the plunge, one after the other, into the soapy water. Ellen gurgled with delight. Two more journeys deposited a shoe, a hair-brush and a small box, contents unknown, in the watery receptacle. Then Ellen made a discovery which filled her small soul with joy.
Just two days before, Charlotte had completed the set of colour drawings which delineated the wall decoration of four rooms--a "den," a dining-room and two bedrooms. They represented the work of the winter, pursued under the exceeding difficulties of managing a household, and, for the last three months, caring in part for a little child.
But Charlotte had toiled faithfully, with the ardour of one who, having only a small portion of time to give to a beloved pursuit, works at it all the more zealously. And she had gone on from one room to another, in her designing, with the hope that if in one she failed to please those upon whom her success depended, some one of the series might appeal to them, and give her the desired place in their interest.
It was her intention on this very day, after luncheon should be over and she should be free for a few hours, to make the much-dreaded, wholly-longed-for visit to the great manufacturing house where she was to show her wares.
The drawings lay in a pile upon Charlotte's table, ready to be wrapped. Baby Ellen, spying the pile of drawings, with an edge or two of brilliant colour showing, trotted gaily over to the table. She stood on tiptoe and pulled at the corner nearest her. The drawings fell from the table in a disordered heap on the floor.
The sight of them pleased Ellen immensely. She held one up and shook it in her small fists, slowly and carefully tore a corner off it, and cast the sheet down in favour of the next in order. This she tore cleanly in two in the middle. The paper was tough, to be sure, but the little fists were strong.
Then she remembered that seductive bath-tub. A patter of little feet, a laugh of pleasure--"Da!" cried Ellen, gleefully---and the first sheet was in.
Seven trips, pursued with vigour and growing hilarity, and Charlotte's work had received its initial plunge into a new state of being. Four of the drawings had been torn in two. The bath-tub was a mass of softly blending colours.
Charlotte came running back up the stairs, her mind, which had been held captive by a young caller, reverting with some anxiety to the small person whom she had left, as she thought, shut up in the safe bath-room. She expected to hear Ellen crying, as was likely to be the case when left alone without sufficient means of amusement; but the silence, as she flew up-stairs, alarmed her. Silence was almost sure to mean mischief.
The bath-room door was ajar. Charlotte pushed it open and looked in. One glance showed her he havoc which had been wrought. She stopped short, staring with wild eyes into the bath-tub; then she caught her treasures out of it, held them dripping before her for an instant, and let them drop on the floor. She turned and ran out of the room to look for Ellen.
The baby sat calmly on a rug, in the middle of Charlotte's room, engaged in pulling the leaves, one by one, out of a small sketch-book which had been on the table with the drawings. She looked up, a most engaging and innocent expression on her round face, and smiled at Charlotte. But she met no smile in return.
"You little wretch!" breathed Charlotte, between her teeth, as she seized the sketch-book and whirled the baby to her feet. "Oh!Is this the way you pay me for all I've done for you? Youwicked--cruel--heartless----"
It was the explosion of a blind wrath which made the girl shake the tiny form until Baby Ellen roared lustily. Charlotte set her upon the floor again, and stood looking down at her with blazing eyes. The small head was clasped in two little fists, as the child tore at her yellow curls, her infant soul stirred to indignation and fright at this most unexpected treatment. Suddenly Charlotte seized her again and bore her swiftly away to Captain Rayburn's room.
"Take care of her for an hour? Surely. But what's the matter?"
It was small wonder he asked, for Charlotte's face was white, her eyes brilliant, and her lips quivering as she spoke:
"It's nothing--only baby has spoiled something of mine, and I'm so angry I don't dare trust myself with her."
She dropped little Ellen in his arms and fled, leaving her uncle to think what he might. He looked grave as he soothed the baby, whose small breast still heaved convulsively.
"Are you conscientiously trying to do your full share in developing our little second fiddle's capacity to play first?" he asked the baby, with his face against hers. "Never mind, little one, never mind. Baby doesn't know--but John Rayburn does--that this being a means of education to other people is a thankless task sometimes. Don't cry. Aunty Charlotte will kiss her hard and fast by and by, to make up for losing her temper with the little maid. I suspect you were very, very trying, to make Aunty Charlotte look like that."
Charlotte came down-stairs after a time and attended to the luncheon, her lips pressed tight together, her eyes heavy--although not with tears. She would not let herself cry.
Celia had a headache and did not notice, being herself disinclined to talk, and Captain Rayburn forbore to look at Charlotte. But Jeff, when he came in, observed at once that something was amiss. As soon as the meal was over he drew Charlotte into a corner.
"You haven't been to Murdock with the pictures and been--turned down?" he asked.
"No."
"Going this afternoon, aren't you?"
"No."
"Why not? Thought that was the plan."
Charlotte turned away, fighting hard for self-control. Jeff caught her arm.
"See here, Fiddle, you've got to tell me. You look like a ghost. No bad news--from New Mexico?"
"Oh, no--no! Please go away."
"I won't till you tell me what's up. You're not sick?"
Charlotte ran off up-stairs, Jeff following. "Charlotte," he cried, as he pursued her into her room before she could turn and close the door, "what's the use of acting like this? Something's happened, and I'm going to know what it is."
Charlotte sat down in a despairing heap on the floor and hid her face in her hands. Jeff glanced helplessly from her to the table in the corner. Then he observed that it was bare of the pile of drawings.
"Nothing's happened to the wall-paper?" he asked, eagerly.
Charlotte nodded.
"What?"
"Go look up in the attic, if you must know."
Jeff dashed up-stairs, and surveyed the havoc. He came back breathless with dismay.
"How did it happen?"
"Baby--bath-tub."
"The little--imp! Are they spoiled?"
"You saw."
"Yes; colours run together a bit on some, others torn in two. Yet they show what they were, Fiddle--I vow they do. I'd take them just as they are, explain the whole thing, and see what comes of it."
Charlotte raised her head to shake it vigorously. "Offer work in such shape as that? I'm not such a goose."
"Got to do them all over?"
Her head sank again. "If I can get the courage."
"Of course you can," declared Jeff, more cheerfully. "You never lack pluck. Poor girl, I'm mighty sorry, though. It's simply tough to have it happen at the last minute. You're all tired out, too--I know you are; you ought never to have to do it all over again."
"If I could just have shown them to Mr. Murdock," said Charlotte, heavily, "and have found out that it was the sort of thing they would like, it wouldn't seem so hard to do them all over again. But to work for weeks more--and then perhaps have it a failure, after all----"
"I know. Well, I've got to be off, or I'll be late. Mid-term exams this week. Cheer up, Fiddle, maybe you can fix 'em up easier than you think."
Late in the afternoon Charlotte came to her uncle for the baby. He had cared for her all day.
"She's safe with you now?" he asked, with a keen look up into her quiet face.
"I hope so." Charlotte's cheek was against the little head; she held the baby tenderly.
"When she is in bed to-night will you come and tell me what she did?"
Charlotte shook her head, with a faint smile. "She wasn't to blame. I left her alone for ten minutes."
"But I should like to know about it," he said, coaxingly. "I have had rather a busy day with Ellen-baby--why not reward me with your confidence?"
But she would not promise; neither did she come. This was exceedingly characteristic of the girl, but Captain Rayburn, his sharp eyes observing in her aspect the signs of misery in spite of a brave attempt to seem cheerful, made up his mind to find out for himself. Twice he encountered her coming down from the attic, and each time she avoided speaking to him.
That night, after everybody was in bed, Captain Rayburn, his canes held under his arm, crept slowly up-stairs, a little electric candle of his own in his pocket. By means of this he soon discovered Charlotte's ruined work, which she had not yet found heart to remove from the place where she had first laid it, trusting to the privacy of a place which was seldom invaded by anybody.
He sat down on a convenient box and studied the coloured plates and sketches. As he looked, his lips drew into a whistle of surprise and admiration, followed by a long breath of pity for what he was sure he understood.
Jeff, having just dropped off into the sound sleep of the healthy boy, found himself gently punched into wakefulness.
"Come to, Jeff, and tell me what I want to know," said Captain Rayburn, smiling at his nephew in the dim white light from the candle. Jeff raised himself on his pillow.
"Wh-what's up?" he grunted, blinking like an owl.
"Nothing serious. What was Charlotte going to do with her colour drawings? Show them to some wall-paper manufacturers?"
"What--er--yes--no. What do you know about it?" Jeff was up on his elbow now, staring at his uncle.
"All about it--except that."
"Charlotte tell you? I didn't think she----"
"She didn't. I guessed--and found out. You may as well tell me the rest."
"Isn't it a shame? Poor girl's worked months on those things; just got 'em done. You ought to have seen them; they were great. I told her she could take them as they were, but she wouldn't hear of it."
"But where were they going?"
"To Mr. Murdock, at Chrystler & Company's office. He saw something of Charlotte's once by chance, through a niece of his who's Charlotte's friend, and he sent word to Fiddle that she ought to cultivate that colour sense, or whatever it was, I forget what he called it--for she had it to an unusual degree. Charlotte has cultivated it for two years since then, and now--oh, confound that baby! That's what you get for trying to be a missionary. I wish we'd sent her to an orphanage right off. What's the use?"
"You don't feel that 'sweet are the uses of adversity'? Sometimes they are, though, son. The little second violin hasn't given in and wailed about it; I saw no traces of tears."
"No, you're right you haven't," agreed Jeff, proudly. "She's not that sort. She's all broken up, though, inside, and I don't blame her."
"No. Jeff, to-morrow--it's Saturday, isn't it? You must get those drawings early in the morning, while Charlotte is busy with her Saturday baking. We'll have a livery outfit, and you shall drive me down to Chrystler's."
"Uncle Ray! You're a trump! It's just what I said should be done. The work shows perfectly well what she intended, and if a chap like you explains it----"
Captain Rayburn limped away, laughing, his hand red with the tremendous grip his nephew had just given it. It gave him great pleasure to see the way the boy invariably stood by his sister. It was a characteristic of the Birch family, as a whole, which, it may be said, was worth more both to themselves and to the world at large than the possession of almost any other trait.
It was not until dinner was over that Captain Rayburn and his nephew returned, begging pardon for their tardiness, and explaining that they had taken luncheon in the city.
"Fiddle," Jeff said, with a face of preternatural gravity, "come up to Uncle Ray's room when the dishes are done, will you?"
He vanished before his sister could ask why, and before she could see the grin which overspread his ruddy countenance as he turned away. But something he could not keep out of his voice roused her curiosity, and she made quick work of the dishes.
"Come in, come in!" invited Captain Rayburn, and Jeff rose from the couch, where his nose had been buried among some of his uncle's periodicals.
There were always books and magazines by the Score wherever Captain Rayburn settled himself for any length of time.
The ex-soldier and the schoolboy eyed each other doubtfully for an instant as Charlotte dropped into a chair. Her usually bright face was still very sober, and her eyelashes swept her cheek as she waited.
Captain Rayburn nodded at Jeff. The boy stood on one foot, then on the other, pushed his hands deep into his pockets, pulled them out again, cleared his throat, laughed nervously, and strode suddenly across the room to his sister. He thrust out his hand as he came to a halt before her. "Congratulations to the distinguished decorator!" he cried, and came to the end, temporarily, of his eloquence.
Charlotte looked up in amazement. Jeff seized her hand and pumped it up and down. She glanced in bewilderment at her uncle, and met his smile of encouragement.
"Mine, too," he said.
"What--" she began, and her voice stuck in her throat. Her heart began to thump wildly. Then Jeff told it all in one burst:
"Uncle Ray found your stuff in the attic--thought it great--woke me up and ground it out of me what you meant to do with it. He was sure, as I was, it was fit to show, and you ought not to do it all over first. Got a horse, drove into Chrystler's, saw Murdock. He would look at anything, listened to the story about the baby, looked at the stuff. Face changed--didn't it, Uncle Ray?--from politeness to interest, and all the rest of it. Said the work had faults, of course--you expected that, Fiddle--but it showed promise--'great promise,' that's just what he said. He wants to see everything you do. He wants you to come and see him. He thinks he can use at least two of your rooms, after you've made them over. Oh, he was great! You've done it, Fiddle, you've done it!"
But he was not prepared for the way his sister took the good news. She sat looking solemnly at him for a minute; then she jumped up, turned toward Captain Rayburn with a face on fire with conflicting and uncontrollable emotions, then whirled about and was out of the room like a flash.
"Well, if I ever!" declared Jeff, in intense displeasure, staring at his uncle. But Captain Rayburn's face was the picture of satisfaction.
"It's all right, Jeff," said his uncle. "You never can tell what a woman will do, but you can count on one thing--it won't be what you expect."
"You don't suppose she was angry, do you?"
The captain smiled. "No, I don't think she was angry," he said confidently.
The door flew open again. Two impetuous arms were around Jeff's neck from behind, nearly strangling him. A breezy swirl of skirts, and Captain Rayburn feared for the integrity of his head upon his shoulders. And then the two were alone again.
"Christopher Columbus!--discovered America in 1492!" ejaculated Jefferson, an expression of great delight irradiating his countenance. Then he looked at his uncle with an air of superior wisdom. "Nowshe'll cry," he said.
"I shouldn't wonder if she did," agreed the captain, nodding.
Lanse stood in the kitchen door, lunch-pail in hand. It lacked ten minutes of seven of a June morning; therefore he wore his working clothes. He glanced down at them now with an expression of extreme distaste, then from Celia to Charlotte, both of whom wore fresh print dresses covered with the trim pinafore aprons which were Celia's pride.
"When this siege is over," he remarked, "maybe I won't appreciate the privilege of wearing clean linen from morning till night every day in the week."
"Poor old Lanse!" said Celia, with compassion. "That's been the part that has tried your soul, hasn't it! You haven't minded the work, but the dirt----"
"I hope I'm not a Nancy, either," Lanse went on. "I'm sure I don't feel that my wonderful dignity is compromised by my occupation. Better men than I soil their hands to more purpose every day, but--well, I must be off."
He departed abruptly, leaving Celia standing in the door to wave a hand to him as he turned the corner.
"John Lansing is tired," she said to Charlotte, sisterly sympathy in her voice. "I don't think we've half appreciated what all these months in the shops have meant to him. It isn't as if he were training for one of the engineering specialties, and were interested in his work as practical education in his own line. He'll never have the least use for anything he's learning now."
"He may," Charlotte suggested. "He may marry a girl who will want him to do odd jobs about the house. A mechanic in the family is an awfully desirable thing. Mrs. Fields says there's nothing Doctor Churchill can't do in the way of repairing; and when I told that to Uncle Ray he said that all good surgeons needed to be born mechanics, and usually were. And even though Lanse makes a lawyer, like father, he may need to get out of the automobile he'll have some day, and crawl under it and make it over inside before he can go on."
Celia laughed, and went to call the rest of the family from their beds, early hours having now perforce become the habit of the Birch family.
It was some three hours later that Charlotte sat down for a moment to rest on the little vine-covered back porch. The breakfast work and the bed-making were over, the kitchen was in order, and there was time to draw breath before plunging into the next set of duties.
Celia had gone up-stairs to some summer sewing she had on hand; Captain Rayburn had taken the baby around the corner to a pretty park, where the two spent long hours now, in the perfect June weather; the boys were at school, and the house was very still.
Charlotte stretched her arms above her head, drawing a long breath.
"How long ago it seems that I was free after breakfast to do what I wanted to!" she said to herself. "And how little I realised all the cares that were always on mother! Oh, if it were only time for them to come back--this day--this hour--this minute! I wouldn't mind the work now, if they were only here."
The girl's gaze, fixed wistfully on the leafy treetops above her, suddenly dropped to earth. A man's figure was stumbling along the little path which led diagonally from the back of the Birch premises through a gateway and off toward a back street, the route by which Lanse was accustomed to take an inconspicuous short cut toward the locomotive shops, by the river.
For an instant, only the similarity of the figure to Lanse's struck her, for the wavering walk and bandaged head, with hand pressed to the forehead, did not suggest her brother. At the next instant the man lifted a white face, and Charlotte gave a startled cry as she saw that it was John Lansing himself, in a sorry plight.
She ran to him. His head was clumsily tied up in a soiled cloth, which the blood was beginning to stain. As she put her arm about him he smiled wanly down at her, murmuring, "Thought I couldn't make it--glad I have. No--not the house--Doctor's office. Don't want to scare Celia. It's nothing."
It might be nothing, but he was leaning heavily on his sister's strong young shoulder as they crossed the threshold of Doctor Churchill's little office, Charlotte having flung open the door without waiting to ring. Nobody was there.
"No, don't try to sit up in a chair. Here, lie down on the couch," she insisted, and Lanse yielded, none too soon. His face had lost all colour by the time he had stretched his tall form on the wide leather couch which stood ready for just such occupants.
Charlotte went back to the door and rang the bell; then, as nobody appeared, she explored the lower part of the house for Mrs. Fields in vain.
Returning, she caught sight for the first time of a little memorandum on the doctor's desk: "Out. Return 10:30 A.M." She glanced at the clock. It was exactly quarter past ten.
She studied her brother's face anxiously. The stain upon the cloth was rapidly growing larger. She was sure he ought not to lie there with the bleeding unchecked. She went to the door of the small private office; her eyes fell upon a package labeled "Absorbent Cotton." She opened it, pulled out a handful, and went back to her brother.
She lifted the cloth from his head, and saw a long, uneven gash, from which the blood was freely oozing. Taking two rolls of cotton, she laid one on each side of the wound, forcing the edges together. After a little experimenting she found that by holding her cotton very firmly and pressing in a certain way, the flow of the blood was almost completely checked.
"Does that hurt?" she asked Lanse. He nodded without speaking, but she did not lighten her pressure. She saw that he was very faint.
"I'm sorry it hurts you, dear," she said, "but it stops the blood when I press this way, and I'm sure that's better for you. The doctor will be here soon, and I think I'd better hold it till he comes."
Lanse nodded again, his brows contracting with pain, not only from the pressure upon the wound, but from the reaction from the blow which had caused it.
Charlotte's eyes watched the clock, her hands never relinquishing their task.
"What next?" she was thinking. "Will the time ever be up and father and mother come back to find us all safe? Three more months--three more months----"
Dr. Andrew Churchill came whistling softly across the lawn, glancing at his watch, and noting that he was fifteen minutes later than he had expected to be. In the doorway of his office he came to a surprised halt.
"Miss Charlotte! What's happened?"
Lanse spoke faintly for himself: "Got hit at the shop--wrench slipped out of man's hands above me--nothing much----"
"No--I see," the doctor answered, surveying the situation.
He lifted Charlotte's cotton rolls, noted the character and extent of the injury, and lost no time in getting at work.
"Keep up that pressure just as you were doing, please, Miss Charlotte, while I make things ready. We'll have you all right in a jiffy, Birch."
Two minutes later the doctor had Lanse stretched on a narrow white table in an inner office. "I've got to hurt you quite a bit," he said to his patient. "I don't want to give you an anesthetic, but somebody must hold your head. Shall I call Mrs. Fields?"
He glanced at Charlotte, and met what he had counted on--her help. "No, I can manage," she said quietly.
The doctor was soon ready, with arms, surgically clean, bared to the elbows.
It was rather a bad ten minutes for Lanse that followed, although he bore it bravely, without a sound. The strong, steady support of his sister's hands on the sides of his head never varied, and her eyes watched the doctor's rapid movements with absorbed attention. Doctor Churchill glanced at her two or three times, but met only quiet resolve in her face, which, although pale, showed no sign of weakness.
The injury was a severe one, being no clean cut, but a jagged gash several inches in length, caused by a heavy blow with a rough tool. Charlotte observed that the worker seemed never at a loss what to do, that his touch was as light as it was practised, and that his eyes were full of keen interest in his work. At length Doctor Churchill finished his manipulations and put on the smooth bandages, which, he remarked with a laugh, were to turn Lanse into the image of the Terrible Turk.
"You show all the Spartan attributes of the real martyr," declared the doctor, as he helped his patient back to a couch. "It took pluck to get home here alone. How was it they sent no man with you?"
"Everybody busy. A man was coming with me if I'd let him, but I didn't care for his company so I slipped out. It was farther home than I thought," Lanse explained. "How long will this lay me up? I can go back to-morrow, can't I?"
"Suppose we say the day after. That hammock on your front porch behind the vines strikes me as a restful place for you. A bit of vacation won't hurt you."
By afternoon the ache in John Lansing's head had reached a point where he gladly lay quietly in the hammock and submitted to be waited on by two devoted feminine slaves. The doctor came over to see him after supper, and found him in a high state of restlessness. He got him to bed, stayed with him until he fell into an uneasy slumber, then left him in charge of Celia, and came so quietly down to the front porch again that he startled Charlotte, who lay in the hammock Lanse had lately quitted.
"Do you need me?" she asked eagerly. "I thought Lanse would rather have Celia with him, and I was sure she wanted to take care of him, so I stayed. But I'm ready, if I'm wanted."
"You're wanted," returned Doctor Churchill, gently, "but not up-stairs just now. Lie still in that hammock; let me fix the pillows a bit. Yes, do, please. Do you know it's positively the first time I've seen you appearing to rest since I've known you?"
"Why, Doctor Churchill!"
"It's absolutely so. You're growing thin under the cares you've assumed. And I suspect, besides the cares, you keep yourself busy when you ought to be resting. Am I right?"
Charlotte coloured in the twilight of the porch, which the thick vines of the wisteria screened from the electric light on the corner, except for a few feet at the end nearest the door. She had been working harder than ever all the spring over her designs for Chrystler & Company, and her cheeks were of a truth somewhat less round and her colour less vivid of hue. She was tired, although she had not owned it, even to herself.
"You see, Doctor Churchill," she said, slowly, "until father and mother went away I had been the lazy one of the family, the good-for-nothing--the drone--and I've not yet learned to work in the quiet way my sister does, which accomplishes so much without any fuss. Now that she can get about again she does twice as much as I do, but she doesn't make such a clatter of tools, and doesn't get the credit for being as busy as I."
"I see. Of course I had a feeling all along that this dish-washing and dinner-getting and baby-tending were mere pretense, and I'm relieved to have you own up to it!"
Charlotte laughed. "After all, one doesn't like to be taken at one's own estimate," she admitted. "I confess I feel a pang to have you agree with me, even in jest."
"Do you know," he said, abruptly, after an instant's silence, "you gave me great pleasure this morning?"
"I? How?"
"By the way you stood by your brother."
"Oh!" said Charlotte, astonished. "But I didn't do anything.
"Nothing at all, except keep cool and hold steady. Those are the hardest things a surgeon can set a novice at, you know."
"But you needed me; and Mrs. Fields was out. You didn't know that, but I did. And I don't think I'm one of the fainting-away kind."
"No, you can stand fire. I think sometimes--do you know what I think?"
Charlotte waited, her cheeks warm in the darkness. Praise is always sweet when one has earned it.
"I believe you would stand by a friend--to the last ditch."
Charlotte was silent for a minute; then she answered, low and honestly, "If he were a friend at all worth having I should try."
"And expect the same loyalty in return?"
"Indeed I should."
"I should like," said Doctor Churchill's steady voice, "to try a friendship like that--an acknowledged one. I always was a fellow who liked things definite. I don't like to say to myself, 'I think that man is my friend--I'm sure he is--he shows it.' No, I want him to say so--to shake hands on it. I had such a friend once--the only one. When he died I felt I had lost--I can't tell you what, Miss Charlotte. I never had another."
There was a long silence this time. The figure in the hammock lay still. But Charlotte's heart was beating hard. She knew already that Doctor Churchill was the warm friend of the family. Could he mean to single her out as the special object of his regard--her, Charlotte--when people like Lanse and Celia were within reach?
Charlotte rose to her feet, the doctor rising with her. She held out her hand, and he could see that she was looking steadily up at him. He gazed back at her, and a bright smile broke over his face.
"Do you mean it?" he said, eagerly. "Oh, thank you!"
He grasped the firm young hand as Charlotte fancied he might have grasped that of the comrade he had lost.
"Can't we take a little walk in this glorious moonlight?" he asked, happily. "Just up and down the block once or twice? Or are you too tired?"
Charlotte was not too tired; her weariness had vanished as if by magic. The two strolled slowly up and down the quiet street, talking earnestly. The doctor told his companion about several interesting cases he had among the children, and of one little crippled boy upon whom he had recently operated. The girl listened with an unaffected interest and sympathy very grateful to the man who had long missed companionship of that sort. An hour went by as if on wings.
Celia came to the door as the two young people were saying good-night at the foot of the steps. The doctor looked up at her with a smile.
"Is the patient quiet?" he asked.
"Yes, only he mutters in his sleep."
"That's not strange. He's bound to be a bit feverish after that blow; but I don't anticipate serious trouble. Let Jeff sleep on the couch in his room; that will be all that's necessary."
Celia stood looking down at the doctor as her sister came up the steps. "It's strange," she said, "for I know Lanse isn't badly hurt, but all I can think of to-night is how I wish father and mother were here."
"That's been in my head all day," said Charlotte, with her arm around Celia's shoulder.
"I can understand," Doctor Churchill answered them both, and they knew he could. "But just remember that though they were on the other side of the world to stay for years, they can still come back to you. Just to know that seems to me enough."
They understood him. Celia would have made warm-hearted answer, but at that instant the sound of heavy carriage-wheels rapidly rounding the corner and coming toward them made all three turn to look. The carriage came on at a great pace, swerved toward them, and drew in to the curb, the driver pulling in his horses at their door.
"Who can it be?" breathed Celia. "Nobody has written. It must be a mistake."
Charlotte gasped. "It couldn't be--Celia--itcouldn'tbe----"
The driver leaped from the box and flung open the door. A tall figure stepped out, turned toward them as if trying to make sure who they were, then waved its arm. The familiar gesture brought two cries of rapture as Charlotte rushed and Celia hurried down the steps.
The doctor stood still and watched, his pulse quickening in sympathy. He saw the tall figure grasp in turn both the slender ones, heard two eager cries of "Mother!"and beheld the second occupant of the carriage fairly dragged out, to be smothered in two pairs of impetuous young arms. Then he went quietly away over the lawn to his own house, feeling that he had as yet no right to be one of the group about the home-comers.
In his room, an hour later, he stood before the portrait of a woman, no longer young, but beautiful with the beauty which never grows old. He stood looking up at it, then spoke gently to it.
"She's just your sort, dear," he said, his keen eyes soft and bright. "It's only friendship now, for she's not much more than a child, and I wouldn't ask too much too soon. But some day--give me your blessing, mother, for I've been lonely without you as long as I can bear it."
"The gentle art of cooking in a chafing-dish," discoursed Captain John Rayburn, lightly stirring in a silver basin the ingredients of the cream sauce he was making for the chopped chicken which stood at hand in a bowl, "is one particularly adapted to the really intelligent masculine mind. No noise, no fuss, no worry, no smoke, everything systematic,"--with a practised hand he added the cream little by little to the melted butter and flour--"business-like and practical. It is a pleasure to contemplate the delicate growth of such a dish as this which I am preparing. It is----"
"Youmayhave thickening enough for all that cream," Celia interrupted, doubtfully, watching her uncle's cookery with an anxious eye.
"And youmayhave sufficient mental poise to be able to lecture on cookery and do the trick at the same time," supplemented Doctor Churchill, his eyes also on the chafing-dish. In fact, everybody's eyes were on the chafing-dish.
The entire Birch family, Doctor Churchill, Lanse's friend, Mary Atkinson; Jeff's comrade, Carolyn Houghton; and Just's inseparable, Norman Carter--Just scorned girls, and when asked to choose whom he would have as a guest for Captain Rayburn's picnic, mentioned Norman with an air of finality--sat about a large rustic table upon a charming spot of greensward among the trees of a little island four miles down the river.
A great bowl of pond-lilies decorated the centre of the table; and bunches of the same flowers, tied with long yellow ribbons, lay at each plate.
When Captain Rayburn entertained he always did it in style. And since this picnic had been especially designed to celebrate the home-coming of the travellers, a week after their arrival, no pains had been spared to make the festival one to be remembered.
Mrs. Birch was in the seat of honour, a position which she graced. In a summer gown of white, her face round and glowing as it had not been in years, she seemed the central flower of a most attractive bouquet. Mr. Birch looked about him with appreciative eyes.
"I don't thinkIcould attend to the chafing-dish with any certainty of result," he remarked. "I am too much occupied in observing the guests. It strikes me that nowhere, either in New Mexico or Colorado, did I see any people approaching those before me in interest and attractiveness. Except one," he amended, as a general laugh greeted this extraordinary statement, "and even she never seemed to me quite so----" He hesitated.
"Say it, sir!" cried Lanse. "We're with you whatever it is. I think 'beautiful' is the word you want."
Mr. Birch's face lighted with a smile. "Thank you, that is the word," he said.
The captain stirred his chopped chicken into his cream sauce with the air of a chef. "Now here you are," he said.
The captain would not allow everything upon the table at once, picnic fashion, but kept the viands behind a screen a few feet away, and with Jeff's and Just's assistance, served them according to his ideas of the fitness of things.
Toward the end of the feast a particularly fine strawberry shortcake appeared, which was followed by ice-cream. Altogether, the captain's guests declared no picnic had ever been so satisfactory.
"Isn't the captain great?" said Doctor Churchill, enthusiastically, to Celia, when they had all left the table and were beginning to stroll about. "Cut off from the sort of thing he would like best to do--that he aches to do--he occupies himself with what comes in his way. He would deceive any one into thinking him completely satisfied."
"I'm so glad you understand him," Celia answered. "Everybody doesn't. Just the other day a caller said to me, 'Isn't it lovely that Captain Rayburn is so contented with his quiet life? Whenever I see him sitting in the park with the baby and a book, I think what a mercy it is that he isn't like some men, or he never could take it so calmly.' Calmly! Uncle Ray would give his life to-morrow night if he could have a day at the head of his company over there in the Philippines."
"I don't doubt it for an instant. Since I've known him I've learned more admiration for the way he keeps himself in hand than I ever had for any single quality in any human being. I'm mighty sorry he's going away. It's for a year in France and Italy, he tells me."
"Yes. He's very fond of travel, and I imagine he's a little restless after the winter here. Do you know what I suspect? That he came just so that mother might feel somebody was keeping an eye on us."
"That would be like him. He's immensely fond of you all."
Celia caught sight of her uncle beckoning to her, and went to him. Doctor Churchill saw Mrs. Birch, lying among the gay striped pillows in a hammock which had been brought along for her special use, and went over to her. His eyes noted the direction in which Charlotte was vanishing, but he sat down on a log by the hammock as if he had no other thought than for the gracious lady who looked up at him with a smile.
And indeed he had thought for her. It was impossible to be with her and not give oneself up to her charm.
"I have been wanting to see you alone for a minute, Doctor Churchill," she said. "It has been such a busy week I haven't had half a chance to express to you how I appreciate your care for my little family. And especially I am grateful to you for the perfect recovery of Celia's knee. Doctor Forester has assured me that the knee might easily have been a bad case."
"I am very thankful that the results were good, Mrs. Birch," Doctor Churchill answered.
Nobody interrupted the two for a long half-hour. At the end of it Doctor Churchill rose, his eyes kindling.
"Thank you!" he said fervently. "Thank you! More than that I won't ask--yet. But if you will trust me--I promise you may trust me, little as you know me--you may be sure I shall keep my word, not only to you, but to my mother I know her ideals, and if I can be fit to be the friend of one who fills them----"
Mrs. Birch held out her hand.
"I do trust you, Doctor Churchill," she said. "Not only from what Doctor Forester has told me of your family, but from what I have seen and heard for myself."
With a light heart the doctor went away over the hill to the path which descended to the river. Far down the bank, near the pond-lilies, he had caught a glimpse of a blue linen gown.
Captain Rayburn and Celia came over to establish themselves upon rugs and cushions by the side of the hammock. Mr. Birch, who had been out with Just and Norman in a boat, appeared, sunburned and warm, and joined the party.
"I've been wanting to get just this quartet together," remarked the captain, when his brother-in-law had cooled off and was lying comfortably stretched along a mossy knoll.
"Go ahead, Jack, we are ready to listen. Your plans are always interesting," Mr. Birch replied. "What now?"
"In the first place," began the captain, "I want you people to understand that the person who has had least fun out of this absence of yours is the young woman before you."
"O Uncle Ray!" protested Celia, instantly. "Haven't I had as much fun as you?"
"Hardly. Between Mrs. Fields and Miss Ellen Donohue I don't know when I've been so enlivened. I hardly know which of the two has afforded me more downright amusement, each in her way. But Celia, I tell you, Roderick and Helen, has been one brave girl, and that's all there is of it."
"You'll find no dissenting voice here," Celia's father declared, and her mother added:
"Nobody who knows her could expect her to be anything else."
Celia looked away, her cheeks flushing.
"So now I want her to have her reward," said Captain Rayburn. "Let me take her with me for the year abroad."
Celia started, glancing quickly from her father to her mother, neither of whom looked so surprised as she would have expected. Both returned her gaze thoughtfully.
"How about the going to college?" Mr. Birch questioned. "I thought that was the great ambition."
"She shall have a four year's course in one if she comes with me. I shall spend much time in the libraries and art collections. My friends in several cities are people it is worth a long journey to meet. Undoubtedly such a year would be valuable at the end of a college course, and it may appear to you that the studies within the scholastic walls in this country had better come first. The point is that I am going now. I may not be, at the moment Celia takes her diploma. And the question of her health seems to me also one to be considered. Months of enforced quiet haven't been any too good for her."
"There's not much need to ask Celia what she would like," Mr. Birch observed.
The girl studied his face anxiously. "But could you spare me?" she asked. "If it means that mother would have to take my place again----"
"It won't mean that," said Captain Rayburn, stoutly. "My plans cover two maids in the Birch household, the most capable to be obtained."
"See here Jack," said Mr. Roderick Birch, quickly, "you can't play good fairy for the whole family--and it's not necessary. As soon as I am at work in the office again this close figuring will be over."
"I want my niece Charlotte to go to her school of design," the captain went on, imperturbably.
"We mean that she shall."
"I wish you people would let me alone!" he cried. "Here I am, your only brother, without a chick or a child of my own. Am I to be denied what is the greatest delight I can have? By a lucky accident my money was safe in the panic that swept away yours. Pure luck or providence, or whatever you choose to call it--certainly not because my business sagacity was any greater than yours. You wouldn't take a cent from me at the time, but you've got to let me have my way now. Celia goes with me--if you agree. Charlotte goes to her art school, and if you refuse me the fun of assuming both expenses, I'll be tremendously offended--no joke, I shall."
He looked so fierce that everybody laughed--somewhat tremulously. There could be no doubt that he meant all he said. Celia's cheeks were pink with excitement; Mrs. Birch's were of a similar hue, in sympathy with her daughter's joy.
"I tell you, that girl Charlotte," began the captain again, "deserves all anybody can do for her. She has developed three years in one. Fond as I've always been of her, I hadn't the least idea what was in the child. She's going to make a woman of a rare sort. Look here!" A new idea flashed into his mind.
He considered it for the space of a half-minute, then brought it forth:
"Let me take her, too. Not for the year--don't look as if I'd hit you, Helen--just till October. I mean to sail in ten days, you know. I've engaged plenty of room. There'll be no trouble about a berth----"
"O Uncle Ray!" Celia interrupted him. There could be no question about her unselfish soul. If she had been happy before, she was rapturous now.
"Three months will give her quite a journey," the captain hurried on, leaving nobody any time for objections. "I'll see that she gets art enough out of it to fill her to the brim with inspiration. And there will surely be somebody she can come back with. May I have her?"
"What shall we do with you?" his sister said, softly. "I can't deny you--or her. If her father agrees----"
"If I didn't know your big heart so well, Jack," said Roderick Birch, slowly, "I should be too proud to accept so much, even from my wife's brother. But I believe it would be unworthy of me--or of you--to let false pride stand in my girls' way."
From the distance two figures were approaching, one in blue linen, the other in white flannel--Charlotte and Doctor Churchill.
They were talking gaily, laughing like a pair of very happy children, and carrying between them a great bunch of daisies and buttercups that would have hid a church pulpit from view.
"Let's tell her now," proposed Celia. "I can't wait to have her know."
"Go ahead," agreed her uncle. "And let the doctor hear it, too. If he isn't a brother of the family, it's because the family doesn't know one of the finest fellows on the face of the earth when it sees him."
"You're a most discerning chap, Jack Rayburn," said his brother-in-law, heartily, "but there are other people with discernment. I have liked young Churchill from the moment I saw him first. All that Forester says of him confirms my opinion."
"How excited you people all look!" called Charlotte, merrily, as she drew near. "Tell us why."
Captain Rayburn nodded to Celia. She shook her head vigorously in return. He glanced at Mr. and Mrs. Birch, both of whom smilingly refused to speak. So he looked up at Charlotte, and put his question as he might have fired a shot.
"Will you sail for Europe with Celia and me week after next, to stay till October? Celia will stay the year with me; you I shall ship home as useless baggage in the fall."
Charlotte stood still, her arms tightening about the daisies and buttercups, as if they represented a baby whom she must not let fall. A rich wave of colour swept over her face. She looked from one to another of the group as if she could not believe her good fortune. Then suddenly she dropped her flowers in an abandoned heap, clasped her hands tightly together, and drew one long breath of delight.
"Can you spare me?" she murmured, her eyes upon her mother.
Mrs. Birch nodded, smiling. "I surely can," she said.
"Turn about is fair play," said Mr. Birch, "and your uncle seems to consider himself a person of authority."
"I want," declared Captain Rayburn, his bright eyes studying each niece's winsome young face in turn, "in the interest of the family orchestra, to tune the violins."
"Speaking of violins," said the captain, half an hour later, quite as if no interval of busy talk and plan-making had occurred, "suppose we see about how far off the key they are at present. Jeff--Just----"
Everybody stared, then laughed, for Jeff and Just instantly produced, from behind that same screen, five green-flanneled, familiar shapes. The entire company had reassembled under the oak-trees, drawn together by a secret summons from the captain.
"Now see here, Uncle Ray," remonstrated his eldest nephew, "this is stealing a march on us with a vengeance."
"I'm entirely willing you should let a march steal on me," retorted the captain, disposing himself comfortably among his rugs and cushions, "or a waltz, or a lullaby, or anything else you choose. But music of some sort I must have."
Laughing, they tuned their instruments, and the rest of the company settled down to listen. Lanse, his eyes mischievous, passed a whispered word among the musicians, and presently, at the signal, the well-known notes of "Hail to the Chief" were sounding through the woods, played with great spirit and zest. And as they played, the five Birches marched to position in front of the captain, then stood still and saluted.
"Off with you, you strolling players!" cried the captain. "The spectacle of a 'cello player attempting to carry his instrument and perform upon it at the same time is enough to upset me for a week. Sit down comfortably, and give us 'The Sweetest Flower That Blows.'"
So they played, softly now, and with full appreciation of the fact that the melodious song was one of their mother's favourites.
But suddenly they had a fresh surprise, for as they played, a voice from the little audience joined them, under his breath at first, then--as the captain turned and made vigorous signs to the singer to let his voice be heard--with tunefully swelling notes, which fell upon all their ears like music of a rare sort:
"The sweetest flower that blowsI give you as we part.To you it is a rose,To me it is my heart."
The captain knew, as the voice went on, that those barytone notes were very fine ones--knew better than the rest, as having a wider acquaintance with voices in general. But they all understood that it was to no ordinary singer they were listening.
When the song ended the captain reached over and laid a brotherly arm on Doctor Churchill's shoulder. "Welcome, friend," he said, with feeling in his voice. "You've given the countersign."
But the doctor, although he received modestly the words of praise which fell upon him from all about, would sing no more that day. It had been the first time for almost three years. And "The Sweetest Flower That Blows" was not only Mrs. Birch's favourite song; it had been Mrs. Churchill's also.
"See here, Churchill," said Lanse, as the orchestra rested for a moment, "do you play any instrument?"
"Only as a novice," admitted the doctor, with some reluctance.
"Which one?"
"The fiddle."
"And never owned up!" chided Lanse. "You didn't want to belong to such an amateurish company?"
"I did--very much," said Churchill, with emphasis. "But you needed no more violins."
"If I'm to be away all next year," said Celia, quickly, "they will need you. Will you take my place?"
"No, indeed, Miss Celia," the doctor answered, decidedly. "But if you would let me play--second."
He looked at Charlotte, smiling. She returned his smile, but shook her head. "I'm Second Fiddle," she said. "I'll never take Celia's place."
The eyes of the two sisters met, affectionately, comprehendingly.
"I should like to have you, dear," said Celia, softly.
But Charlotte only shook her head again, colouring beneath the glances which fell on her from all sides. "I'd rather play my old part," she answered.
Jeff caught up and lifted high in the air an imaginary glass.
"Here's to the orchestra!" he called out. "May Doctor Churchill read the score of the first violin. Here's to the First Violin! May she hear plenty of fine music in the old country, and come back ready to coach us all. And here's--"
He paused and looked impressively round upon the company, who regarded him in turn with interested, sympathetic eyes. "I say we've called her 'Second Fiddle' long enough," he said, and hesitated, beginning to get stranded in his own eloquence. "Anyhow, if she hasn't proved this year that she's fit to play anything--dishes or wall-paper or babies--" He stopped, laughing. "I don't know how to say it, but as sure as my name's Jefferson Birch she--er--"
"Hear! hear!" the captain encouraged him softly.
"Here's,"--shouted the boy, "here's to the Second Violin!"
Through the friendly laughter and murmurs of appreciation, Charlotte, dropping shy, happy eyes, read the real love and respect of everybody, and felt that the year's experiences had brought her a rich reward. But all she said, as Jeff, exhausted by his effort at oratory, dropped upon the grass beside her, was in his ear:
"If anybody deserves a toast, Jeffy boy, I think it's you. You've eaten so many slices of mine--burnt to a cinder--and never winced! If that isn't heroism, what is?"