CHAPTER IIIThe Flower Show Ticket"I call it mean of Mabel."Jean sat in a crinkled heap on her bedroom floor, and pulled bad-temperedly with a wire comb at straight unruly hair. It had always annoyed Mabel that Jean should use a wire comb, when it set her "teeth on edge even to look at it."Mabel however was out of the way, well out of it, they decided, and Elma and Betty had invaded the room belonging to the elder two in order to condole with Jean."Mabel could easily have got another ticket--and said she didn't want it! Didn't want it, when we're dying to go! And then off she goes, looking very prim and grown-up, with Cousin Harry."Jean threw her head back, and began to gather long heavy ends in order for braiding."Just wait till I grow up! I shall soon take it out of Mabel," she said."Oh, girls, girls!"Mrs. Leighton's voice at the door was very accusing."Well, mummy, it was mean. We've always gone together before, and now Mabel won't go with one of us.""Not if you behave in this manner," said Mrs. Leighton. "I do not like any of my girls to be spiteful, you know.""Spiteful!" exclaimed Jean. She ran rapid fingers in and out the lengthening braid of hair, till long ends were brought in front. She put these energetically in her mouth, while she hunted for the ribbon lying by her."Oh, Jean," said Mrs. Leighton, "I've asked you so often not to do that.""Sorry, mummy," said Jean, disengaging the ends abruptly.Mrs. Leighton sat down rather heavily on a chair."You didn't say you were sorry for being spiteful," she remarked gravely."Well, mummy, are we spiteful, that's the question?"Elma sat on a bed, looking specially tragic."It'sawfulto be left out of things now by Mabel," she said.Betty looked as though she meant to cry."Well, I never," said Mrs. Leighton. "You must take your turn. You don't come wherever your father and I go, or Cuthbert. You know you don't.""I think that Cuthbert might occasionally take us, however," said Jean."We all went to the flower show last year," wailed Elma."Yes, with the parasols papa brought us from London," said Betty. "And Mabel said it was like carrying four bassinettes in a row, and snapped hers down and wouldn't put it up till she got separated from us.""She was growing up even then," said Jean in a melancholy manner."Come, come, girls," interrupted Mrs. Leighton. "You may be just the same when you grow up. I won't allow you to be down on poor Mabel. Especially when she isn't here to speak for herself.""When we grow up there will always be one less to tyrannize over," said Jean. "Honestly, mother, I never would have thought that Mabel could be so priggish. Do you know why she wouldn't have us? I'm too big and gawky, and Elma is always saying silly things, and Betty is just a baby. There you are.""Well, it isn't very nice of Mabel, but you mustn't believe she means that," said Mrs. Leighton. "And after all, Mabel must have her little day. She was very good, let me tell you, very sweet and nice when you were babies and she just a little thing. She nursed you, Elma and Betty, often and often, and put you to sleep when your own nurse couldn't, and she has looked after you all more or less ever since. You might let her grow up without being worried.""It's hateful to be called a nuisance," said Jean, somewhat mollified."Why do you waste time over it, I wonder," said Mrs. Leighton. "Instead of moping Jean might be golfing, and Elma and Betty having tea at Miss Annie's; with nobody at all being nice to your poor old mother."It dawned on them how selfish they might all be."Oh, mummy," cried three reproachful voices."Well, Elma likes Miss Grace much better than she does me, and Betty likes her rabbits, and Jean despises me because I don't play golf. I lead a very lonely life," said Mrs. Leighton."Oh, mummy!""My idea, when I came into your room," said Mrs. Leighton, "was to propose that we might walk into town and get Jean's new hat, and take tea at Crowther's, and drive home if my poor old leg won't hold out for walking both ways. But we've wasted so much time in talking about Mabel----""Oh, mummy--Your bonnet, your veil, and your gloves, and do be quick, mummy," cried Elma. "We're very sorry about Mabel."They flew in self-reproachful manner to getting her off to her room and making their own things fly."After all, we are a beastly set of prigs," called out Jean to Elma. "And I think I ought to have a biscuit-coloured straw, don't you?"It was one of a series of encounters with which the new tactics of Mabel invaded the family. Mrs. Leighton's gentle rule was sorely tried for quite a long time in this way. Although she reasoned with the younger girls on the side of Mabel, she took Mabel severely to task for her behaviour over the flower show."It wasn't nice of you," she told her, "to cut off any little invitation for your sisters. You must not begin by being selfish, you know. There are few enough things happening here not to spread the opportunities. Jean wouldn't have troubled you. She may be at the gawky stage, but she makes plenty of friends."Mrs. Leighton could be very impartial in her judgments.But Mabel was hurt. She preserved a superior air, which became extremely annoying to the girls.The greatest crime that she committed was when Jean, amiably engaging her in conversation in the old way, asked, "And how was Adelaide Maud dressed?"Mabel turned in a very studied manner and stared past Jean and every one."I don't think I observed Adelaide Maud," she said.This was more than human beings could stand."I think it's most ir--ir----""Oh, find the word first and talk afterwards," said Mabel grandly. "You kids get on one's nerves.""Kids--nerves," cried Jean faintly. "I think Mabel is taking brain fever."Elma left the room abruptly, much on the verge of tears, and she tried to find solace in her dictionary. The word was "irrelevant"--yet did not seem to fit the occasion at all. What would Miss Annie or Miss Grace do, if a sister had turned old and strange in a few days like that? What would mother have done? Mother's sisters always complimented each other when they met. They never quarrelled. Of course they never could have quarrelled. "Forgive and forget," Aunt Katharine once had said had always been their motto. Forgiving seemed very easy--but forgetting with Adelaide Maud in the question--what an impossibility! Miss Annie had an axiom that when you felt worried about one matter the correct thing to do was to think about another. Elma thought and thought, but everything worked round to the traitorous remark of Mabel's about Adelaide Maud. It seemed as though her head could hold nothing else but that one idea about Adelaide Maud, until suddenly it dawned on her that it was really rather fine and grand of Mabel that she should talk in this negligent manner of any one so magnificent. This reflection gave her the greatest possible comfort. To be condescending, even in a mere frame of mind, to the Story Book Girls seemed like the swineherd becoming a prince. Elma began to think how jolly it would be to hear Mabel saying, "You know, my dear Helen, I don't think you ought to wear heliotrope, it hardly suits you." There was something very delicious in having Mabel starchy and proud after all. Elma heard her coming upstairs to her bedroom to dress for dinner just then. The fall of the footsteps seemed to suggest that some of the starchiness had departed from Mabel. Much of the quality of sympathy which had produced such a person as Miss Grace, was to be found in Elma. Jean and Betty had hardened their two little hearts to the consistency of flint over the behaviour of Mabel, but the mere fact that Elma thought her footsteps seemed to flag and become tired roused her to chivalrous eagerness towards making it up. She went into Mabel's room and sat on the window seat. It was a long, low, pleasant couch let into a wide window looking on the lawn and gardens at the front of the house. The sun poured in on Elma, who forgot the habits of upright behaviour which she exhibited at Miss Annie's, and sprawled there with her fingers on the cord of the blind.Mabel drew her hatpins out of fair braids in an admiring yet disconsolate manner. She took a hand glass and had first a side view, then a back view of the new effect, patted little stray locks into place, and ruffled out others."What's up, Mabs? You don't look en--thusiastic," asked Elma."It's papa. After my lovely day too. He wants me to play that Mozart thing with Betty to-night. Mozart and Betty! Isn't it stale? I hate Mozart, and I hate drumming away at silly things with Betty." A very discontented sigh accompanied these remarks."I really don't see why I should always be tacked on to Betty or to Jean or you. I haven't a minute to myself.""Oh, Mabs, you've had a lovely day!"The words broke out in an accusing manner. Elma had certainly intended to comfort Mabel, yet immediately began by expostulating with her.Mabel turned round, with her seventeenth birthday present, a fine silver-backed brush, in her hand."HaveI had a lovely day, have I?" she asked. "I've had simply nothing of the kind. Jean went on so about not going that Cousin Harry seemed to think I had injured her. He made me feel like a criminal all afternoon. These navy men like lots of girls round them. One or two more don't make the difference to them that it makes to us. At least it's a different kind of difference. A nice one. I think it was abominable of him. My first chance--and to spoil it, all because of Jean! It wasn't fair of her."Elma began to feel her reason rocking with the sudden justice of this new argument."A minute ago, I thought it wasn't fair of you," she said reflectively. "I can see it will be awfully hard to get us all peacefully grown up. Betty will have the best of it. I shall simply give in to her right along the line. I can see that. I really couldn't stand the worry of it.""I suppose you wouldn't have gone to the flower show without Jean?" asked Mabel in rather a scornful way."Good gracious, no," said Elma simply. "I should have presented her with the one and only ticket, just for the sake of peace.""That's a rotten, weak way to behave," said Mabel, with a touch of Cuthbert's best manner."I know. I don't mean that you should have given her the ticket. You weren't made to be bullied. I was. I feel it in my bones every time any one is horrid to me.""I'm getting tired of giving up to others," said Mabel, still on her determined tack. "You can't think what it has been during these years. I mustn't do this and that because of the children. It's always been like that. And now when I'm longing to go to dances and balls, I've got to go right off after dinner and play Mozart with Betty. It's all very well for papa, he hasn't had the work I've had. If I play now, I want to play something better than a tum-tum accompaniment.""Mozart isn't tum-tum," said Elma, "and papa has been listening to us all these years. It must have been very trying.""Well, all I can say is that, at his time of life, he ought to be saved from hearing Betty scrape on her fiddle every night as she does nowadays. Instead, you would think he hadn't had one musical daughter, he's so keen on the latest.""Miss Annie says it never does to be selfish," said Elma gravely. "I think that's being selfish, the way you talk."Mabel stopped at the unclasping of her waist-belt."Miss Annie! Well, I like that! Don't you know there isn't so selfish a person in the world as Miss Annie. I've heard people say it."She nodded with two pins in her mouth, then released them as she went on."Miss Annie made up her mind to lie on a nice bed and have Miss Grace wait on her. And she's done it. There's nothing succeeds like success." Mabel nodded her head with the wisdom of centuries."Oh, Mabs, how can you?" Elma was dreadfully shocked. A vision of poor martyred Miss Annie, with "something internal," being supposed to like what was invariably referred to in that household as "the bed of pain," to have conferred on herself this dreadful thing from choice and wilfulness, this vision was an appalling one."How can you say such things of Miss Annie? Who would ever go to bed for all these years for the pleasure of the thing?""I would," said Mabel. "Yes, at the present moment, I would. I should like to have something very pathetic happen to me, so that I should be obliged to lie in bed like Miss Annie, and have somebody nice and sympathetic come in and stroke my hand! Cousin Harry, for instance. He can look so kind and be so comforting when he likes. But, oh! Elma, he was a beast to-day."The truth was out at last. Mabel sat suddenly on the couch beside Elma, and burst into tears."I think I hate being grown up," she said, "if people treat you in that stiff severe way. Nobody ever did it before--ever."Elma stroked and stroked her hand. "The Leighton lump," as they interpreted the slightly hysterical quality which made each girl cry when the other began, rose in riotous disobedience in her throat, and strangled any further effort at consolation."Why don't you say something," wailed Mabel."I'm trying not to cry too," at last said Elma.Then they both laughed."I should go right to Cousin Harry and tell him all about it," Elma managed to counsel at last. "I thought you were a beast--but it's awfully hard on you. It's awfully hard on all of us--having sisters.""Yes, isn't it," groaned Mabel."Harry is very understanding. Almost as understanding as papa is.""Papa!Doyou think papa understands?""Papa understands everything," said Elma. Then a very loyal recollection of the afternoon they had spent in the cheery presence of Mrs. Leighton beset her. "Also mamma, I think she's a duck," said Elma.CHAPTER IVCuthbertThere was a tremendous scurry after this to allow of the four getting ready in time for dinner. Mabel and Elma regained high spirits after their confidences, and everybody seemed in a better key.Mrs. Leighton came in to inquire of Mabel why Cuthbert had not returned. Cuthbert, by some years the eldest of the family, had attained great brilliance as a medical student, and now worked at pathology in order to qualify as a specialist. His studies kept him intermittently at home, but to-day he had been down early from town and had gone out bicycling with George Maclean."Cuthbert!" exclaimed Mabel. "Why, I can't think--why, where's Cuthbert?""Why, yes, where's Cuthbert?" said Jean.Their minute differences had engaged their minds so fully, that no one had really begun to wonder about Cuthbert until that moment."He is always in such good time," said Mrs. Leighton in a puzzled way. "Didn't he say to any one that he would be late?"No one knew anything about him. They speculated, and collected at the dinner-table still speculating. Even Cousin Harry knew nothing of him, but that, of course, was because of the flower show. While the meal was in progress, Mr. Maclean appeared quietly in the room. He had prepared a little speech for Mrs. Leighton, but it died on his lips as he saw her face. It was a curious thing, as they afterwards reflected, that Mr. Maclean went on speaking to Mrs. Leighton as though she knew of everything that had happened to Cuthbert."He is all right, Mrs. Leighton, but he wouldn't let me bring him in until I told you that he was all right.""Bring him in----"It seemed to the Leightons that Mr. Maclean had been standing all his life in their dining-room saying that Cuthbert was all right, but wouldn't be "brought in."Mr. Leighton put down his table napkin in a methodical manner."You'd better come with me and see him, Lucy," he said to his wife.Nothing could have more alarmed the girls. On no occasion had Mr. Leighton ever referred to his wife as Lucy."Oh, Cuthbert must be dead," cried Betty."Nonsense," said Mr. Leighton, with a white face. "Where is Harry?"Harry had slipped out after a direct glance from Mr. Maclean, and was at that moment assisting two doctors to lift Cuthbert from a carriage."Look here, you kids," sang out Cuthbert, "I've only broken a rib or two. You needn't look scared. I shall allow you to nurse me. You won't be dull, I can tell you."Mrs. Leighton gave a sharp little gasp. Her face looked drawn and only half its size."Oh, Cuthbert," she said."I won't move," said Cuthbert, "till you stop being anxious about me. Maclean, you are a bit of an idiot--look how you've frightened her!"Elma found Betty in partial hysterics in the dining-room with Jean hanging over her in a corresponding condition."I say, you two," she said in a disgusted manner. "You'll frighten mother more than ever. Get up, and don't be idiots.""You're as pale as death yourself," cried Jean hotly."Oh--am I," said Elma in almost a pleased voice. She longed to go and see the effect for herself, but the condition of Betty prevented her."Well, it's our first shock," she said in an important manner. "I never feltawfullike this before.""I'm sure Cuthbert will die," cried Betty."Oh, don't." Elma turned on her fiercely. "Why do you say such dreadful things.""If you think he will die, Betty, he will die," sobbed Jean."Oh, Jean, Jean, do brace up," said Elma. "I don't want to cry, and every minute I'm getting nearer it. Harry says it's just a knock on the ribs, and the navy men don't even go to bed for that.""Liar," sobbed Betty, "Cuthbert isn't a softy.""Well, of course, if you want him to be bad, I can't help it," said Elma. "I'm off to see where Mabel is."Mabel--well, this was just where the magnificence of Mabel asserted itself. She had done a thing which not one of the people who were arranging about getting Cuthbert upstairs and into bed had thought of. At the first sight of his white face and some blankets with which he had been padded into a carriage, after the accident which had thrown him from his bicycle and broken three ribs, Mabel turned and went upstairs. She put everything out of the way for his being carried across the room, and finally tugged his bed into a convenient place for his being laid there. She dragged back quilts and procured more pillows, so that when Cuthbert finally reclined there he was eminently comfortable."You'll have to haul out my bed, it's in a corner," he had sung out as they carried him in, and there was the bed already prepared for him, and Mabel with an extra pillow in her arms."Good old Mabs," said Cuthbert. "I promote you to staff nurse on the spot."Mabel was more scared than any one, not knowing yet about the ribs or Cousin Harry's tale of the navy men who went about with broken ones, and rather enjoyed the experience. She was so scared that it seemed easy to stand quiet and be perfectly dignified."Come, Mabs dear, and help me to look for bandages. The doctor wants one good big one," said the recovered voice of Mrs. Leighton.Mr. Leighton went about stirring up everybody to doing things. He was very angry with Betty and Jean. "Any one can sit crying in a corner," he declared, "and we may be so glad it's no worse.""It's our first shock," said Betty, who had rather admired the sentiment of that speech of Elma's.Mr. Leighton could not help smiling a trifle."Well," he exclaimed kindly, "we don't want to get accustomed to them. I should really much rather you would behave properly this time. You might take a lesson from Mabel."Nobody knew till then what a brick Mabel had been. To have their father commend them like that, the girls would stand on their heads. Lucky Mabel! There was some merit after all in being the eldest. One knew evidently what to do in an emergency. The truth was that Mabel's temperament was so nicely balanced that she could act, as well as think, with promptitude. She had always admired dignity and what Mr. Leighton called "efficiency," whereas Jean and Betty believed most in the deep feelings of people who squealed the loudest."Nobody knows the agony this is to me," Jean exclaimed in a tragic voice. "Feel my heart, it's beating so.""Go and feel Mabel's," said Elma. "I expect it's thumping as hard as yours. And she got Cuthbert's bed ready. She really is the leader of this family. There's something more in it than putting up one's hair."The doctors came down much more merrily than they went up, and joined in the dining-room in coffee and dessert while Harry stayed with the patient.Mr. Leighton seemed very deeply moved. The thing had hurt him more than he ventured to say. A remembrance of the white look on his son's face, the appearance of the huddled figure in the cab, and the anxiety of not knowing for a few moments how bad the injury might be, had given him a great shock. His children were so deeply a part of his life, their welfare of so much more consequence than his own, that it seemed dreadful to him that his splendid manly young son had been suddenly hurt--perhaps beyond remedy. Mrs. Leighton used to remark that she had always been very thankful that none of her children had ever been dangerously ill, her husband suffered so acutely from even a trifling illness undergone by one of them. Now she gazed at him rather anxiously.Mr. Maclean told them at last how it had happened. Cuthbert had done something rather heroic. Mr. Maclean recounted it, it seemed to Elma, in the tone of a man who thought very little of the reckless way in which Cuthbert had risked his life, until she discovered afterwards that he as well as Cuthbert had made a dash to the rescue.It was a case of a runaway bicycle, with no brakes working, and a girl on it, terror-stricken, trying to evade death on the Long Hill. Cuthbert had rushed down to her. Cuthbert had gripped the saddle, and was putting some strength into his brakes, and actually reaching nearly a full stop, when the girl swayed and fainted. They were both thrown, but the girl was quite unhurt. Something had hit Cuthbert on the side and broken three ribs.Mabel stared straight at Mr. Maclean."Where were you?" she asked.Mr. Maclean looked gravely at her. "I was somewhere about," he said with unnecessary vagueness."Then you tried to save the girl too," said Elma with immediate conviction. She greatly admired Mr. Maclean, and resented the manner of Mabel's question. "How beautiful of you both," she exclaimed enthusiastically.Mr. Maclean seemed a little annoyed."I nearly ran into them," he growled. "Cuthbert was the man who did the clean neat thing."Mabel stirred her coffee with a dainty air, and then she looked provokingly at Mr. Maclean. In some way she made Elma believe that she did not credit that he could be valorous like Cuthbert."I think it was most grand-iloquent of you," Elma said to Mr. Maclean by way of recompense.The word saved the situation. Where doctors' assurances had not cleared anxiety from the brow of Mr. Leighton, nor restored the placidity which with Mrs. Leighton was habitual, the genuine laugh which followed Elma's effort accomplished everything."I shall go right up and tell Cuthbert," said Jean."No, you won't! Cuthbert mustn't laugh," said Mrs. Leighton hurriedly."Oh, mummy," said poor Elma.Nobody laughed later, however, when all four girls were tucked in bed and not one of them could sleep. Betty in particular was in a nervous feverish condition which alarmed Elma. She would have gone to her mother's room to ask advice, except for Mabel's great indication of courage that afternoon, and the certainty that Mabel and Jean were both sensibly fast asleep in the next room. She took Betty into her own bed and petted her like a baby. On windy nights Betty never could sleep, and had always gone to Elma like a chicken to its mother to hide her head and shut out the shrieking and whistling which so unnerved her. But to-night, nothing could shut out the fear which had suddenly assailed her that everybody died sooner or later, and Cuthbert might have died that day. She lay and wept on Elma's shoulder.At last the door moved gently and Mrs. Leighton came in. The moon shone on her white hair, and made her face seem particularly gentle and lovely."I've been scolding Mabel and Jean for talking in bed," she said, "and now I hear you two at it.""Oh, mummy," replied Elma, "I'm so glad you've come. You don't know how empty and dreadful we feel. We never thought before of Cuthbert's dying. And Betty says you and papa might die--and none of us could p--possibly bear to live."She began to cry gently at last."I can't have four girls in one house all crying," said Mrs. Leighton; "I really can't stand it, you know.""What--are Mabel and Jean crying?" asked Elma tearfully, yet hopefully. "Well, that's one comfort anyway."Mrs. Leighton sat down by their bed. Long years afterwards Elma remembered the tones of her mother's voice, and the quiet wonderful peace that entered her own mind at the confident words which Mrs. Leighton spoke to them then."I thought you might be feeling like that," she said; "I did once also, long ago, when my father turned very ill, until I learned what I'm going to tell you now. We aren't here just to enjoy ourselves, or that would be an easy business, would it not? We are here to get what Cuthbert calls a few kicks now and again, to suffer a little, above all to remember that our father or our mother isn't the only loving parent we possess. What is the use of being taught to be devoted to goodness and truth, if one doesn't believe that goodness and truth are higher than anything, higher than human trouble? If you lost Cuthbert or me or papa, there is always that strong presence ready to hold you.""Oh, mummy," sobbed Betty, "there seems nothing like holding your hand."Mrs. Leighton stroked Betty's very softly."Would you like a little piece of news?" she asked."We would," said Elma."The only person who is asleep in this household--last asleep, is--Cuthbert.""O--oh!"Elma could not help laughing."And another thing," said Mrs. Leighton. "Didn't you notice? Not one of my girls asked a single question about the girl whom Cuthbert saved.""How funny!"Betty's sobs became much dimmer."Do you know who she was?" asked Mrs. Leighton."No," chimed both."Well, I don't know her name," said Mrs. Leighton. She rose and moved towards the door. "But I know one thing." She opened the door softly.Elma and Betty sat up dry-eyed in bed."Remember what I said to you to-night," Mrs. Leighton said, "and don't be very ungrateful for all the happiness you've known, and little cowards when the frightening time comes. Promise me."They promised.She prepared to draw the door quietly behind her."She is staying with the Story Books," whispered Mrs. Leighton. Then she closed the door.CHAPTER V"The Story Books" CallMabel was sitting with Cuthbert when the Story Books called.They really did call.And nothing could have been more unpropitious.First, they called very early in the afternoon, just when Betty, with her arms full of matting for her rabbits, rushed out at the front door. She nearly ran into them. The matting slipped from her arms, and she stood spell-bound, gazing at the Story Books. Mrs. Dudgeon was there, looking half a size larger than any ordinary person. An osprey waved luxuriantly in a mauve toque, and her black dress bristled with grandeur. She produced a lorgnette and looked through it severely at Betty. Betty became half the size of an ordinary mortal.Adelaide Maud was with Mrs. Dudgeon.Adelaide Maud was in blue.Adelaide Maud seemed stiff and bored."Is your mamma at home?" Mrs. Dudgeon asked.Betty kicked the matting out of the way in a surreptitious manner."Oh, please come in," she said shyly.It was tragic that of all moments in one's life the Dudgeons should have come when Betty happened to be flying out, and they had not even had time to ring for Bertha, who, as parlour-maid, had really irreproachable showing in manners.Betty tripped over a mat on her way to the drawing-room. Betty showed them in without a word of warning. Jean was singing at the piano--atrociously. Jean might know that she oughtn't to sing till her voice was developed. Elma was dusting photographs.Nothing could have been more tragic.The girls melted from the room, and left Mrs. Dudgeon and Adelaide Maud in the centre of it, stranded, staring."What an odd family," said Mrs. Dudgeon stiffly.Adelaide Maud never answered.The Leightons rushed frantically to other parts of the house.The second tragedy occurred.Mrs. Leighton utterly refused to change her quiet afternoon dress for another in which to receive Mrs. Dudgeon. She went to the drawing-room as she was.They ran to Cuthbert's room to tell him about it. Cuthbert seemed rather excited when he asked which "Story Book." Elma said, "Oh, you know,theone," and he concluded she meant Hermione, who did not interest him at all."Why couldn't you stay and talk to them?" he asked. "They wouldn't eat you. Who cares what you have on? The mater is quite right. She is just as nice in a morning costume as old Dudgeon in her war paint. You think too much of clothes, you kids.""Yet you like to see us nicely dressed," wailed Jean."Of course I do. Mabel in that blue thing is a dream."Mabel looked at him gratefully."Oh, if only Mabel had been sitting there embroidering, in her blue gown, and Bertha had shown them ceremoniously in! How lovely it would have been!" said Elma."I couldn't have worn my blue," said Mabel with a conscience-stricken look. "You know why.""Oh, Mabel--the rucking! How unfortunate!""It never dawned on us that we should ever know them."Cuthbert looked from one to another."What on earth have you been up to now?" he asked suspiciously."Mabel got her dress made the same as Adelaide Maud's," said Betty accusingly. She rather liked airing Mabel's mistakes just then, after having been so sat upon for her own."Well, it's a good thing that Adelaide Maud, as you call her, won't ever come near you," Cuthbert remarked in a savage voice."But it's Adelaide Maud who's in the drawing-room," said Elma.Cuthbert drew in his breath sharply."Oh, Cuthbert, you aren't well.""It's the bandage," he said. "Montgomery is a bit of an idiot about bandaging. I told him so. Doesn't give a fellow room to breathe."He became testy in his manner."You oughtn't to have all run away like that, like a lot of children. Old Dudgeon will be sniffing round to see how much money there is in our furniture, and cursing herself for having to call.""Adelaide Maud was awfully stiff," sighed Elma."Our furniture can bear inspection," said Mabel with dignity. "The Dudgeons may have money, but papa has taste.""Yes, thank goodness," said Cuthbert. "They can't insult us on that point. This beastly side of mine! Why can't we go downstairs, Mabel, and tell them what we think of 'em?""I'm longing to, but terrified," said Mabel. "It's because we've admired them so and talked about them so much.""Adelaide Maud wouldn't know you from the furniture," said Jean. "You may spare yourself the agony of wanting to see her. I think they might be nice when we've been neighbours in a kind of way for so long.""Well--they're having a good old chat with the mater at least," said Cuthbert."I haven't confidence in mummy," said Jean. "I can hear her, can't you? Instead of talking about the flower show or the boat races, or something dashing of that sort, she will be saying----""Oh, I know," said Mabel. "When Elma was a baby--or was it when Betty was a baby--yes, it was, and saying how cute Cuthbert was when he was five years old----""If she does," shouted Cuthbert. "Oh, mother mine, if you do that!" He shook his fist at the open door.A sound of voices approaching a shut one downstairs came to their ears. Each girl stole nimbly and silently out and took up a position where she could see safely through the banisters. First came the mauve toque with its white osprey quite graciously animated, then a blue and wide one in turquoise, which from that foreshortened view completely hid the shimmering gold of the hair of Adelaide Maud. Mrs. Leighton was weirdly self-possessed, it seemed to the excited onlookers. She had rung for Bertha, who held the door open now in quite the right attitude. Good old Bertha. Mrs. Dudgeon was condescendingly remarking, "I'm so sorry your little girls ran away!""Little girls!" breathed four stricken figures at the banisters.Adelaide Maud said, "Yes, and I did so want to meet them. I hear they are very musical.""Musical!" groaned Mabel."She just said that to be polite--isn't it awful?" whispered Jean."Hush.""Once more, our best thanks to your son."Mrs. Leighton answered as though she hadn't minded a bit that Cuthbert had been nearly killed the day before."So good of you to call," said she."Oh," cried Elma, with her head on the banister rail, after the door shut, "I hate society; don't you, mummy?""I think you're very badly behaved, all of you, listening there like a lot of babies," said Mrs. Leighton."Come and tell your little girls all about it," cried Jean sarcastically.Mrs. Leighton smiled as she toiled upstairs."It ought to be a lesson to you. Haven't I often told you that listeners hear no good of themselves," she exclaimed."Oh, mummy, we are musical," reminded Mabel, softly. "Think of that terrific compliment!"Their mother seemed to have more on her mind than she would tell them. She puffed gently into Cuthbert's room."These stairs are getting too much for me," she said."Well, mater?" asked Cuthbert in an interrogating way."Well, Cuthbert, they are very grateful to you," she said.He lay back on his pillows."Don't I know that patronizing gratitude," he said. It seemed as though they had all suddenly determined to be down on the Dudgeons. His face appeared hard and very determined. He had the fine forehead which so distinguished his father, with the same clear-cut features, and a chin of which the outline was strong and yet frankly boyish. He had a patient insistent way of looking out of his eyes. It had often the effect of wresting remarks from people who imagined they had nothing to say.This time, Mrs. Leighton, noting that familiar appeal in his eyes, was drawn to discussing the Dudgeons."Mrs. Dudgeon was very nice; she said several very nice things about you and us. She says that Mr. Dudgeon had always a great respect for your father. He knew what he had done in connection with the Antiquarian Society and so on. Miss Dudgeon was very quiet.""Stiff little thing," said Jean, with her head in the air."She was very nice," said Mrs. Leighton. There was a softness in her voice which arrested the flippancy of the girls. "I don't know when I have met a girl I liked so much.""Good old Adelaide Maud," cried Jean.A flush ran up Cuthbert's pale determined face. It took some of the hardness out of it."Did she condescend to ask for me?" he asked abruptly. "Or pretend that she knew me at all?""She never said a word about you," said his mother; "but----""But--what a lot there may be in a but," said Jean."She looked most sympathetic," said Mrs. Leighton lamely. Cuthbert moved impatiently."What silly affairs afternoon calls must be," said he."Miss Steven--the girl you ran away with--isn't well to-day, and they are rather anxious about her. She is very upset, but wanted to come and tell you how much she thanked you.""Oh, lor," said Cuthbert, "what a time I shall have when I'm well. I shall go abroad, I think."Elma gazed at him with superb devotion. He seemed such a man--to be careless of so much appreciation, and from the Story Books too! Cuthbert appeared very discontented."Oh, these people!" he exclaimed; "they call and thank one as they would their gardener if he had happened to pull one of 'em out of a pond. It's the same thing, mummy! They never intend to be really friendly, you know."Elma slipped downstairs and entered the drawing-room once more. A faint perfume (was it "Ideal" or "Sweet Pea Blossom"?) might be discerned. A Liberty cushion had been decidedly rumpled where Mrs. Leighton would be bound to place Mrs. Dudgeon. Where had Adelaide Maud, the goddess of smartness and good breeding, located herself? Elma gave a small scream of rapture. On the bend of the couch, where the upholstering ran into a convenient groove for hiding things, she found a little handkerchief. It was of very delicate cambric, finely embroidered. Elma's first terror, that it might be Mrs. Dudgeon's, was dispelled by the magic letters of "Helen" sewn in heliotrope across a corner. It struck her as doubtful taste in one so complete as Adelaide Maud that she should carry heliotrope embroidery along with a blue gown. She held her prize in front of her."Now," said she deliberately, "I shall find out whether it is 'Ideal' or 'Sweet Pea.'"She sniffed at the handkerchief in an awe-stricken manner. The enervating news was thus conveyed to her--Adelaide Maud put no scent on her handkerchiefs.This was disappointing, but a hint in smartness not to be disobeyed. Mrs. Dudgeon must have been the "Ideal" person. Elma rather hoped that Hermione used scent. This would provide a loophole for herself anyhow. But Mabel would be obliged to deny herself that luxury.Elma sat down on the couch with the handkerchief, and looked at the dear old drawing-room with new eyes. She would not take that depressing view of the people upstairs with regard to the Story Books. She was Adelaide Maud, and was "reviewing the habitation" of "these Leighton children" for the first time."Dear me," said Adelaide Maud, "who is that sweet thing in the silver frame?""Oh," said Mrs. Leighton, "that's Mabel, my eldest."Then Adelaide Maud would be sure to say with a refined amount of rapture, "Oh, is that Mabel? I have heard how pretty she is from Mr. Maclean."Then mother--oh, no; one must leave mother out of this conversation. She would have been so certain to explain that Mabel was not pretty at all.Elma sat with her elbows out and her hands presumably resting on air. "Never lean your elbows on your hips, girls," Miss Stanton, head of deportment, informed them in school. "Get your shoulder muscles into order for holding yourself gracefully." One could only imagine Adelaide Maud with a faultless deportment.Elma carried the little handkerchief distractedly to her lips, then was appalled at the desecration.Oh--and yet how lovely! It was really Adelaide Maud's!She tenderly folded it.How distinguished the drawing-room appeared! How delightful to have had a father who made no mistakes in the choice of furniture! Cuthbert had said so. She could almost imagine that the mauve toque must have bowed before the Louis Seize clock and acknowledged the Cardinal Wolseley chair. It did not occur to her to think that Mrs. Dudgeon might size up the whole appearance of that charming room in a request for pillars and Georgian mirrors, and beaded-work cushions. It is not given to every one to see so far as this, however, and Elma--as Miss Dudgeon for the afternoon--complimented her imaginary hosts on everything. As a wind-up Miss Dudgeon asked Mrs. Leighton particularly if her third daughter might come to take tea with Hermione."So sweet of you to think of it," said the imaginary Mrs. Leighton, once more in working order.Out of these dreams emerged Elma. Some one was calling her abruptly."Coming," she shrieked wildly, and clutched the handkerchief.She kept it till she got to Cuthbert. It seemed to her that he, as an invalid, might be allowed a bit of a treat and a secret all to himself."Adelaide Maud left her handkerchief," she said. "We shall have to call to return it."He gazed at the bit of cambric."Good gracious, is that what you girls dry your eyes on?"He took it, and looked at it very coldly and critically."Thank you," he said calmly."Oh, Cuthbert," she exclaimed with round eyes, "you won't keep it, will you?""I shall return it to the owner some day, when she deserves it," said the hero of yesterday, with a number of pauses between each phrase."Don't say a word, chucky, will you not?""I won't," said Elma honourably, yet deeply puzzled.Imaginary people were the best companions after all. They did exactly what one expected them to do.It seemed rather selfish that Cuthbert should hang on to the handkerchief. But of course they would never have even seen it had it not been for the accident.She surrendered all ownership at the thought, and then gladly poured tea for the domineering Cuthbert."You are a decent little soul, Elma," said he."And you are very extraasperating," said Elma.
CHAPTER III
The Flower Show Ticket
"I call it mean of Mabel."
Jean sat in a crinkled heap on her bedroom floor, and pulled bad-temperedly with a wire comb at straight unruly hair. It had always annoyed Mabel that Jean should use a wire comb, when it set her "teeth on edge even to look at it."
Mabel however was out of the way, well out of it, they decided, and Elma and Betty had invaded the room belonging to the elder two in order to condole with Jean.
"Mabel could easily have got another ticket--and said she didn't want it! Didn't want it, when we're dying to go! And then off she goes, looking very prim and grown-up, with Cousin Harry."
Jean threw her head back, and began to gather long heavy ends in order for braiding.
"Just wait till I grow up! I shall soon take it out of Mabel," she said.
"Oh, girls, girls!"
Mrs. Leighton's voice at the door was very accusing.
"Well, mummy, it was mean. We've always gone together before, and now Mabel won't go with one of us."
"Not if you behave in this manner," said Mrs. Leighton. "I do not like any of my girls to be spiteful, you know."
"Spiteful!" exclaimed Jean. She ran rapid fingers in and out the lengthening braid of hair, till long ends were brought in front. She put these energetically in her mouth, while she hunted for the ribbon lying by her.
"Oh, Jean," said Mrs. Leighton, "I've asked you so often not to do that."
"Sorry, mummy," said Jean, disengaging the ends abruptly.
Mrs. Leighton sat down rather heavily on a chair.
"You didn't say you were sorry for being spiteful," she remarked gravely.
"Well, mummy, are we spiteful, that's the question?"
Elma sat on a bed, looking specially tragic.
"It'sawfulto be left out of things now by Mabel," she said.
Betty looked as though she meant to cry.
"Well, I never," said Mrs. Leighton. "You must take your turn. You don't come wherever your father and I go, or Cuthbert. You know you don't."
"I think that Cuthbert might occasionally take us, however," said Jean.
"We all went to the flower show last year," wailed Elma.
"Yes, with the parasols papa brought us from London," said Betty. "And Mabel said it was like carrying four bassinettes in a row, and snapped hers down and wouldn't put it up till she got separated from us."
"She was growing up even then," said Jean in a melancholy manner.
"Come, come, girls," interrupted Mrs. Leighton. "You may be just the same when you grow up. I won't allow you to be down on poor Mabel. Especially when she isn't here to speak for herself."
"When we grow up there will always be one less to tyrannize over," said Jean. "Honestly, mother, I never would have thought that Mabel could be so priggish. Do you know why she wouldn't have us? I'm too big and gawky, and Elma is always saying silly things, and Betty is just a baby. There you are."
"Well, it isn't very nice of Mabel, but you mustn't believe she means that," said Mrs. Leighton. "And after all, Mabel must have her little day. She was very good, let me tell you, very sweet and nice when you were babies and she just a little thing. She nursed you, Elma and Betty, often and often, and put you to sleep when your own nurse couldn't, and she has looked after you all more or less ever since. You might let her grow up without being worried."
"It's hateful to be called a nuisance," said Jean, somewhat mollified.
"Why do you waste time over it, I wonder," said Mrs. Leighton. "Instead of moping Jean might be golfing, and Elma and Betty having tea at Miss Annie's; with nobody at all being nice to your poor old mother."
It dawned on them how selfish they might all be.
"Oh, mummy," cried three reproachful voices.
"Well, Elma likes Miss Grace much better than she does me, and Betty likes her rabbits, and Jean despises me because I don't play golf. I lead a very lonely life," said Mrs. Leighton.
"Oh, mummy!"
"My idea, when I came into your room," said Mrs. Leighton, "was to propose that we might walk into town and get Jean's new hat, and take tea at Crowther's, and drive home if my poor old leg won't hold out for walking both ways. But we've wasted so much time in talking about Mabel----"
"Oh, mummy--Your bonnet, your veil, and your gloves, and do be quick, mummy," cried Elma. "We're very sorry about Mabel."
They flew in self-reproachful manner to getting her off to her room and making their own things fly.
"After all, we are a beastly set of prigs," called out Jean to Elma. "And I think I ought to have a biscuit-coloured straw, don't you?"
It was one of a series of encounters with which the new tactics of Mabel invaded the family. Mrs. Leighton's gentle rule was sorely tried for quite a long time in this way. Although she reasoned with the younger girls on the side of Mabel, she took Mabel severely to task for her behaviour over the flower show.
"It wasn't nice of you," she told her, "to cut off any little invitation for your sisters. You must not begin by being selfish, you know. There are few enough things happening here not to spread the opportunities. Jean wouldn't have troubled you. She may be at the gawky stage, but she makes plenty of friends."
Mrs. Leighton could be very impartial in her judgments.
But Mabel was hurt. She preserved a superior air, which became extremely annoying to the girls.
The greatest crime that she committed was when Jean, amiably engaging her in conversation in the old way, asked, "And how was Adelaide Maud dressed?"
Mabel turned in a very studied manner and stared past Jean and every one.
"I don't think I observed Adelaide Maud," she said.
This was more than human beings could stand.
"I think it's most ir--ir----"
"Oh, find the word first and talk afterwards," said Mabel grandly. "You kids get on one's nerves."
"Kids--nerves," cried Jean faintly. "I think Mabel is taking brain fever."
Elma left the room abruptly, much on the verge of tears, and she tried to find solace in her dictionary. The word was "irrelevant"--yet did not seem to fit the occasion at all. What would Miss Annie or Miss Grace do, if a sister had turned old and strange in a few days like that? What would mother have done? Mother's sisters always complimented each other when they met. They never quarrelled. Of course they never could have quarrelled. "Forgive and forget," Aunt Katharine once had said had always been their motto. Forgiving seemed very easy--but forgetting with Adelaide Maud in the question--what an impossibility! Miss Annie had an axiom that when you felt worried about one matter the correct thing to do was to think about another. Elma thought and thought, but everything worked round to the traitorous remark of Mabel's about Adelaide Maud. It seemed as though her head could hold nothing else but that one idea about Adelaide Maud, until suddenly it dawned on her that it was really rather fine and grand of Mabel that she should talk in this negligent manner of any one so magnificent. This reflection gave her the greatest possible comfort. To be condescending, even in a mere frame of mind, to the Story Book Girls seemed like the swineherd becoming a prince. Elma began to think how jolly it would be to hear Mabel saying, "You know, my dear Helen, I don't think you ought to wear heliotrope, it hardly suits you." There was something very delicious in having Mabel starchy and proud after all. Elma heard her coming upstairs to her bedroom to dress for dinner just then. The fall of the footsteps seemed to suggest that some of the starchiness had departed from Mabel. Much of the quality of sympathy which had produced such a person as Miss Grace, was to be found in Elma. Jean and Betty had hardened their two little hearts to the consistency of flint over the behaviour of Mabel, but the mere fact that Elma thought her footsteps seemed to flag and become tired roused her to chivalrous eagerness towards making it up. She went into Mabel's room and sat on the window seat. It was a long, low, pleasant couch let into a wide window looking on the lawn and gardens at the front of the house. The sun poured in on Elma, who forgot the habits of upright behaviour which she exhibited at Miss Annie's, and sprawled there with her fingers on the cord of the blind.
Mabel drew her hatpins out of fair braids in an admiring yet disconsolate manner. She took a hand glass and had first a side view, then a back view of the new effect, patted little stray locks into place, and ruffled out others.
"What's up, Mabs? You don't look en--thusiastic," asked Elma.
"It's papa. After my lovely day too. He wants me to play that Mozart thing with Betty to-night. Mozart and Betty! Isn't it stale? I hate Mozart, and I hate drumming away at silly things with Betty." A very discontented sigh accompanied these remarks.
"I really don't see why I should always be tacked on to Betty or to Jean or you. I haven't a minute to myself."
"Oh, Mabs, you've had a lovely day!"
The words broke out in an accusing manner. Elma had certainly intended to comfort Mabel, yet immediately began by expostulating with her.
Mabel turned round, with her seventeenth birthday present, a fine silver-backed brush, in her hand.
"HaveI had a lovely day, have I?" she asked. "I've had simply nothing of the kind. Jean went on so about not going that Cousin Harry seemed to think I had injured her. He made me feel like a criminal all afternoon. These navy men like lots of girls round them. One or two more don't make the difference to them that it makes to us. At least it's a different kind of difference. A nice one. I think it was abominable of him. My first chance--and to spoil it, all because of Jean! It wasn't fair of her."
Elma began to feel her reason rocking with the sudden justice of this new argument.
"A minute ago, I thought it wasn't fair of you," she said reflectively. "I can see it will be awfully hard to get us all peacefully grown up. Betty will have the best of it. I shall simply give in to her right along the line. I can see that. I really couldn't stand the worry of it."
"I suppose you wouldn't have gone to the flower show without Jean?" asked Mabel in rather a scornful way.
"Good gracious, no," said Elma simply. "I should have presented her with the one and only ticket, just for the sake of peace."
"That's a rotten, weak way to behave," said Mabel, with a touch of Cuthbert's best manner.
"I know. I don't mean that you should have given her the ticket. You weren't made to be bullied. I was. I feel it in my bones every time any one is horrid to me."
"I'm getting tired of giving up to others," said Mabel, still on her determined tack. "You can't think what it has been during these years. I mustn't do this and that because of the children. It's always been like that. And now when I'm longing to go to dances and balls, I've got to go right off after dinner and play Mozart with Betty. It's all very well for papa, he hasn't had the work I've had. If I play now, I want to play something better than a tum-tum accompaniment."
"Mozart isn't tum-tum," said Elma, "and papa has been listening to us all these years. It must have been very trying."
"Well, all I can say is that, at his time of life, he ought to be saved from hearing Betty scrape on her fiddle every night as she does nowadays. Instead, you would think he hadn't had one musical daughter, he's so keen on the latest."
"Miss Annie says it never does to be selfish," said Elma gravely. "I think that's being selfish, the way you talk."
Mabel stopped at the unclasping of her waist-belt.
"Miss Annie! Well, I like that! Don't you know there isn't so selfish a person in the world as Miss Annie. I've heard people say it."
She nodded with two pins in her mouth, then released them as she went on.
"Miss Annie made up her mind to lie on a nice bed and have Miss Grace wait on her. And she's done it. There's nothing succeeds like success." Mabel nodded her head with the wisdom of centuries.
"Oh, Mabs, how can you?" Elma was dreadfully shocked. A vision of poor martyred Miss Annie, with "something internal," being supposed to like what was invariably referred to in that household as "the bed of pain," to have conferred on herself this dreadful thing from choice and wilfulness, this vision was an appalling one.
"How can you say such things of Miss Annie? Who would ever go to bed for all these years for the pleasure of the thing?"
"I would," said Mabel. "Yes, at the present moment, I would. I should like to have something very pathetic happen to me, so that I should be obliged to lie in bed like Miss Annie, and have somebody nice and sympathetic come in and stroke my hand! Cousin Harry, for instance. He can look so kind and be so comforting when he likes. But, oh! Elma, he was a beast to-day."
The truth was out at last. Mabel sat suddenly on the couch beside Elma, and burst into tears.
"I think I hate being grown up," she said, "if people treat you in that stiff severe way. Nobody ever did it before--ever."
Elma stroked and stroked her hand. "The Leighton lump," as they interpreted the slightly hysterical quality which made each girl cry when the other began, rose in riotous disobedience in her throat, and strangled any further effort at consolation.
"Why don't you say something," wailed Mabel.
"I'm trying not to cry too," at last said Elma.
Then they both laughed.
"I should go right to Cousin Harry and tell him all about it," Elma managed to counsel at last. "I thought you were a beast--but it's awfully hard on you. It's awfully hard on all of us--having sisters."
"Yes, isn't it," groaned Mabel.
"Harry is very understanding. Almost as understanding as papa is."
"Papa!Doyou think papa understands?"
"Papa understands everything," said Elma. Then a very loyal recollection of the afternoon they had spent in the cheery presence of Mrs. Leighton beset her. "Also mamma, I think she's a duck," said Elma.
CHAPTER IV
Cuthbert
There was a tremendous scurry after this to allow of the four getting ready in time for dinner. Mabel and Elma regained high spirits after their confidences, and everybody seemed in a better key.
Mrs. Leighton came in to inquire of Mabel why Cuthbert had not returned. Cuthbert, by some years the eldest of the family, had attained great brilliance as a medical student, and now worked at pathology in order to qualify as a specialist. His studies kept him intermittently at home, but to-day he had been down early from town and had gone out bicycling with George Maclean.
"Cuthbert!" exclaimed Mabel. "Why, I can't think--why, where's Cuthbert?"
"Why, yes, where's Cuthbert?" said Jean.
Their minute differences had engaged their minds so fully, that no one had really begun to wonder about Cuthbert until that moment.
"He is always in such good time," said Mrs. Leighton in a puzzled way. "Didn't he say to any one that he would be late?"
No one knew anything about him. They speculated, and collected at the dinner-table still speculating. Even Cousin Harry knew nothing of him, but that, of course, was because of the flower show. While the meal was in progress, Mr. Maclean appeared quietly in the room. He had prepared a little speech for Mrs. Leighton, but it died on his lips as he saw her face. It was a curious thing, as they afterwards reflected, that Mr. Maclean went on speaking to Mrs. Leighton as though she knew of everything that had happened to Cuthbert.
"He is all right, Mrs. Leighton, but he wouldn't let me bring him in until I told you that he was all right."
"Bring him in----"
It seemed to the Leightons that Mr. Maclean had been standing all his life in their dining-room saying that Cuthbert was all right, but wouldn't be "brought in."
Mr. Leighton put down his table napkin in a methodical manner.
"You'd better come with me and see him, Lucy," he said to his wife.
Nothing could have more alarmed the girls. On no occasion had Mr. Leighton ever referred to his wife as Lucy.
"Oh, Cuthbert must be dead," cried Betty.
"Nonsense," said Mr. Leighton, with a white face. "Where is Harry?"
Harry had slipped out after a direct glance from Mr. Maclean, and was at that moment assisting two doctors to lift Cuthbert from a carriage.
"Look here, you kids," sang out Cuthbert, "I've only broken a rib or two. You needn't look scared. I shall allow you to nurse me. You won't be dull, I can tell you."
Mrs. Leighton gave a sharp little gasp. Her face looked drawn and only half its size.
"Oh, Cuthbert," she said.
"I won't move," said Cuthbert, "till you stop being anxious about me. Maclean, you are a bit of an idiot--look how you've frightened her!"
Elma found Betty in partial hysterics in the dining-room with Jean hanging over her in a corresponding condition.
"I say, you two," she said in a disgusted manner. "You'll frighten mother more than ever. Get up, and don't be idiots."
"You're as pale as death yourself," cried Jean hotly.
"Oh--am I," said Elma in almost a pleased voice. She longed to go and see the effect for herself, but the condition of Betty prevented her.
"Well, it's our first shock," she said in an important manner. "I never feltawfullike this before."
"I'm sure Cuthbert will die," cried Betty.
"Oh, don't." Elma turned on her fiercely. "Why do you say such dreadful things."
"If you think he will die, Betty, he will die," sobbed Jean.
"Oh, Jean, Jean, do brace up," said Elma. "I don't want to cry, and every minute I'm getting nearer it. Harry says it's just a knock on the ribs, and the navy men don't even go to bed for that."
"Liar," sobbed Betty, "Cuthbert isn't a softy."
"Well, of course, if you want him to be bad, I can't help it," said Elma. "I'm off to see where Mabel is."
Mabel--well, this was just where the magnificence of Mabel asserted itself. She had done a thing which not one of the people who were arranging about getting Cuthbert upstairs and into bed had thought of. At the first sight of his white face and some blankets with which he had been padded into a carriage, after the accident which had thrown him from his bicycle and broken three ribs, Mabel turned and went upstairs. She put everything out of the way for his being carried across the room, and finally tugged his bed into a convenient place for his being laid there. She dragged back quilts and procured more pillows, so that when Cuthbert finally reclined there he was eminently comfortable.
"You'll have to haul out my bed, it's in a corner," he had sung out as they carried him in, and there was the bed already prepared for him, and Mabel with an extra pillow in her arms.
"Good old Mabs," said Cuthbert. "I promote you to staff nurse on the spot."
Mabel was more scared than any one, not knowing yet about the ribs or Cousin Harry's tale of the navy men who went about with broken ones, and rather enjoyed the experience. She was so scared that it seemed easy to stand quiet and be perfectly dignified.
"Come, Mabs dear, and help me to look for bandages. The doctor wants one good big one," said the recovered voice of Mrs. Leighton.
Mr. Leighton went about stirring up everybody to doing things. He was very angry with Betty and Jean. "Any one can sit crying in a corner," he declared, "and we may be so glad it's no worse."
"It's our first shock," said Betty, who had rather admired the sentiment of that speech of Elma's.
Mr. Leighton could not help smiling a trifle.
"Well," he exclaimed kindly, "we don't want to get accustomed to them. I should really much rather you would behave properly this time. You might take a lesson from Mabel."
Nobody knew till then what a brick Mabel had been. To have their father commend them like that, the girls would stand on their heads. Lucky Mabel! There was some merit after all in being the eldest. One knew evidently what to do in an emergency. The truth was that Mabel's temperament was so nicely balanced that she could act, as well as think, with promptitude. She had always admired dignity and what Mr. Leighton called "efficiency," whereas Jean and Betty believed most in the deep feelings of people who squealed the loudest.
"Nobody knows the agony this is to me," Jean exclaimed in a tragic voice. "Feel my heart, it's beating so."
"Go and feel Mabel's," said Elma. "I expect it's thumping as hard as yours. And she got Cuthbert's bed ready. She really is the leader of this family. There's something more in it than putting up one's hair."
The doctors came down much more merrily than they went up, and joined in the dining-room in coffee and dessert while Harry stayed with the patient.
Mr. Leighton seemed very deeply moved. The thing had hurt him more than he ventured to say. A remembrance of the white look on his son's face, the appearance of the huddled figure in the cab, and the anxiety of not knowing for a few moments how bad the injury might be, had given him a great shock. His children were so deeply a part of his life, their welfare of so much more consequence than his own, that it seemed dreadful to him that his splendid manly young son had been suddenly hurt--perhaps beyond remedy. Mrs. Leighton used to remark that she had always been very thankful that none of her children had ever been dangerously ill, her husband suffered so acutely from even a trifling illness undergone by one of them. Now she gazed at him rather anxiously.
Mr. Maclean told them at last how it had happened. Cuthbert had done something rather heroic. Mr. Maclean recounted it, it seemed to Elma, in the tone of a man who thought very little of the reckless way in which Cuthbert had risked his life, until she discovered afterwards that he as well as Cuthbert had made a dash to the rescue.
It was a case of a runaway bicycle, with no brakes working, and a girl on it, terror-stricken, trying to evade death on the Long Hill. Cuthbert had rushed down to her. Cuthbert had gripped the saddle, and was putting some strength into his brakes, and actually reaching nearly a full stop, when the girl swayed and fainted. They were both thrown, but the girl was quite unhurt. Something had hit Cuthbert on the side and broken three ribs.
Mabel stared straight at Mr. Maclean.
"Where were you?" she asked.
Mr. Maclean looked gravely at her. "I was somewhere about," he said with unnecessary vagueness.
"Then you tried to save the girl too," said Elma with immediate conviction. She greatly admired Mr. Maclean, and resented the manner of Mabel's question. "How beautiful of you both," she exclaimed enthusiastically.
Mr. Maclean seemed a little annoyed.
"I nearly ran into them," he growled. "Cuthbert was the man who did the clean neat thing."
Mabel stirred her coffee with a dainty air, and then she looked provokingly at Mr. Maclean. In some way she made Elma believe that she did not credit that he could be valorous like Cuthbert.
"I think it was most grand-iloquent of you," Elma said to Mr. Maclean by way of recompense.
The word saved the situation. Where doctors' assurances had not cleared anxiety from the brow of Mr. Leighton, nor restored the placidity which with Mrs. Leighton was habitual, the genuine laugh which followed Elma's effort accomplished everything.
"I shall go right up and tell Cuthbert," said Jean.
"No, you won't! Cuthbert mustn't laugh," said Mrs. Leighton hurriedly.
"Oh, mummy," said poor Elma.
Nobody laughed later, however, when all four girls were tucked in bed and not one of them could sleep. Betty in particular was in a nervous feverish condition which alarmed Elma. She would have gone to her mother's room to ask advice, except for Mabel's great indication of courage that afternoon, and the certainty that Mabel and Jean were both sensibly fast asleep in the next room. She took Betty into her own bed and petted her like a baby. On windy nights Betty never could sleep, and had always gone to Elma like a chicken to its mother to hide her head and shut out the shrieking and whistling which so unnerved her. But to-night, nothing could shut out the fear which had suddenly assailed her that everybody died sooner or later, and Cuthbert might have died that day. She lay and wept on Elma's shoulder.
At last the door moved gently and Mrs. Leighton came in. The moon shone on her white hair, and made her face seem particularly gentle and lovely.
"I've been scolding Mabel and Jean for talking in bed," she said, "and now I hear you two at it."
"Oh, mummy," replied Elma, "I'm so glad you've come. You don't know how empty and dreadful we feel. We never thought before of Cuthbert's dying. And Betty says you and papa might die--and none of us could p--possibly bear to live."
She began to cry gently at last.
"I can't have four girls in one house all crying," said Mrs. Leighton; "I really can't stand it, you know."
"What--are Mabel and Jean crying?" asked Elma tearfully, yet hopefully. "Well, that's one comfort anyway."
Mrs. Leighton sat down by their bed. Long years afterwards Elma remembered the tones of her mother's voice, and the quiet wonderful peace that entered her own mind at the confident words which Mrs. Leighton spoke to them then.
"I thought you might be feeling like that," she said; "I did once also, long ago, when my father turned very ill, until I learned what I'm going to tell you now. We aren't here just to enjoy ourselves, or that would be an easy business, would it not? We are here to get what Cuthbert calls a few kicks now and again, to suffer a little, above all to remember that our father or our mother isn't the only loving parent we possess. What is the use of being taught to be devoted to goodness and truth, if one doesn't believe that goodness and truth are higher than anything, higher than human trouble? If you lost Cuthbert or me or papa, there is always that strong presence ready to hold you."
"Oh, mummy," sobbed Betty, "there seems nothing like holding your hand."
Mrs. Leighton stroked Betty's very softly.
"Would you like a little piece of news?" she asked.
"We would," said Elma.
"The only person who is asleep in this household--last asleep, is--Cuthbert."
"O--oh!"
Elma could not help laughing.
"And another thing," said Mrs. Leighton. "Didn't you notice? Not one of my girls asked a single question about the girl whom Cuthbert saved."
"How funny!"
Betty's sobs became much dimmer.
"Do you know who she was?" asked Mrs. Leighton.
"No," chimed both.
"Well, I don't know her name," said Mrs. Leighton. She rose and moved towards the door. "But I know one thing." She opened the door softly.
Elma and Betty sat up dry-eyed in bed.
"Remember what I said to you to-night," Mrs. Leighton said, "and don't be very ungrateful for all the happiness you've known, and little cowards when the frightening time comes. Promise me."
They promised.
She prepared to draw the door quietly behind her.
"She is staying with the Story Books," whispered Mrs. Leighton. Then she closed the door.
CHAPTER V
"The Story Books" Call
Mabel was sitting with Cuthbert when the Story Books called.
They really did call.
And nothing could have been more unpropitious.
First, they called very early in the afternoon, just when Betty, with her arms full of matting for her rabbits, rushed out at the front door. She nearly ran into them. The matting slipped from her arms, and she stood spell-bound, gazing at the Story Books. Mrs. Dudgeon was there, looking half a size larger than any ordinary person. An osprey waved luxuriantly in a mauve toque, and her black dress bristled with grandeur. She produced a lorgnette and looked through it severely at Betty. Betty became half the size of an ordinary mortal.
Adelaide Maud was with Mrs. Dudgeon.
Adelaide Maud was in blue.
Adelaide Maud seemed stiff and bored.
"Is your mamma at home?" Mrs. Dudgeon asked.
Betty kicked the matting out of the way in a surreptitious manner.
"Oh, please come in," she said shyly.
It was tragic that of all moments in one's life the Dudgeons should have come when Betty happened to be flying out, and they had not even had time to ring for Bertha, who, as parlour-maid, had really irreproachable showing in manners.
Betty tripped over a mat on her way to the drawing-room. Betty showed them in without a word of warning. Jean was singing at the piano--atrociously. Jean might know that she oughtn't to sing till her voice was developed. Elma was dusting photographs.
Nothing could have been more tragic.
The girls melted from the room, and left Mrs. Dudgeon and Adelaide Maud in the centre of it, stranded, staring.
"What an odd family," said Mrs. Dudgeon stiffly.
Adelaide Maud never answered.
The Leightons rushed frantically to other parts of the house.
The second tragedy occurred.
Mrs. Leighton utterly refused to change her quiet afternoon dress for another in which to receive Mrs. Dudgeon. She went to the drawing-room as she was.
They ran to Cuthbert's room to tell him about it. Cuthbert seemed rather excited when he asked which "Story Book." Elma said, "Oh, you know,theone," and he concluded she meant Hermione, who did not interest him at all.
"Why couldn't you stay and talk to them?" he asked. "They wouldn't eat you. Who cares what you have on? The mater is quite right. She is just as nice in a morning costume as old Dudgeon in her war paint. You think too much of clothes, you kids."
"Yet you like to see us nicely dressed," wailed Jean.
"Of course I do. Mabel in that blue thing is a dream."
Mabel looked at him gratefully.
"Oh, if only Mabel had been sitting there embroidering, in her blue gown, and Bertha had shown them ceremoniously in! How lovely it would have been!" said Elma.
"I couldn't have worn my blue," said Mabel with a conscience-stricken look. "You know why."
"Oh, Mabel--the rucking! How unfortunate!"
"It never dawned on us that we should ever know them."
Cuthbert looked from one to another.
"What on earth have you been up to now?" he asked suspiciously.
"Mabel got her dress made the same as Adelaide Maud's," said Betty accusingly. She rather liked airing Mabel's mistakes just then, after having been so sat upon for her own.
"Well, it's a good thing that Adelaide Maud, as you call her, won't ever come near you," Cuthbert remarked in a savage voice.
"But it's Adelaide Maud who's in the drawing-room," said Elma.
Cuthbert drew in his breath sharply.
"Oh, Cuthbert, you aren't well."
"It's the bandage," he said. "Montgomery is a bit of an idiot about bandaging. I told him so. Doesn't give a fellow room to breathe."
He became testy in his manner.
"You oughtn't to have all run away like that, like a lot of children. Old Dudgeon will be sniffing round to see how much money there is in our furniture, and cursing herself for having to call."
"Adelaide Maud was awfully stiff," sighed Elma.
"Our furniture can bear inspection," said Mabel with dignity. "The Dudgeons may have money, but papa has taste."
"Yes, thank goodness," said Cuthbert. "They can't insult us on that point. This beastly side of mine! Why can't we go downstairs, Mabel, and tell them what we think of 'em?"
"I'm longing to, but terrified," said Mabel. "It's because we've admired them so and talked about them so much."
"Adelaide Maud wouldn't know you from the furniture," said Jean. "You may spare yourself the agony of wanting to see her. I think they might be nice when we've been neighbours in a kind of way for so long."
"Well--they're having a good old chat with the mater at least," said Cuthbert.
"I haven't confidence in mummy," said Jean. "I can hear her, can't you? Instead of talking about the flower show or the boat races, or something dashing of that sort, she will be saying----"
"Oh, I know," said Mabel. "When Elma was a baby--or was it when Betty was a baby--yes, it was, and saying how cute Cuthbert was when he was five years old----"
"If she does," shouted Cuthbert. "Oh, mother mine, if you do that!" He shook his fist at the open door.
A sound of voices approaching a shut one downstairs came to their ears. Each girl stole nimbly and silently out and took up a position where she could see safely through the banisters. First came the mauve toque with its white osprey quite graciously animated, then a blue and wide one in turquoise, which from that foreshortened view completely hid the shimmering gold of the hair of Adelaide Maud. Mrs. Leighton was weirdly self-possessed, it seemed to the excited onlookers. She had rung for Bertha, who held the door open now in quite the right attitude. Good old Bertha. Mrs. Dudgeon was condescendingly remarking, "I'm so sorry your little girls ran away!"
"Little girls!" breathed four stricken figures at the banisters.
Adelaide Maud said, "Yes, and I did so want to meet them. I hear they are very musical."
"Musical!" groaned Mabel.
"She just said that to be polite--isn't it awful?" whispered Jean.
"Hush."
"Once more, our best thanks to your son."
Mrs. Leighton answered as though she hadn't minded a bit that Cuthbert had been nearly killed the day before.
"So good of you to call," said she.
"Oh," cried Elma, with her head on the banister rail, after the door shut, "I hate society; don't you, mummy?"
"I think you're very badly behaved, all of you, listening there like a lot of babies," said Mrs. Leighton.
"Come and tell your little girls all about it," cried Jean sarcastically.
Mrs. Leighton smiled as she toiled upstairs.
"It ought to be a lesson to you. Haven't I often told you that listeners hear no good of themselves," she exclaimed.
"Oh, mummy, we are musical," reminded Mabel, softly. "Think of that terrific compliment!"
Their mother seemed to have more on her mind than she would tell them. She puffed gently into Cuthbert's room.
"These stairs are getting too much for me," she said.
"Well, mater?" asked Cuthbert in an interrogating way.
"Well, Cuthbert, they are very grateful to you," she said.
He lay back on his pillows.
"Don't I know that patronizing gratitude," he said. It seemed as though they had all suddenly determined to be down on the Dudgeons. His face appeared hard and very determined. He had the fine forehead which so distinguished his father, with the same clear-cut features, and a chin of which the outline was strong and yet frankly boyish. He had a patient insistent way of looking out of his eyes. It had often the effect of wresting remarks from people who imagined they had nothing to say.
This time, Mrs. Leighton, noting that familiar appeal in his eyes, was drawn to discussing the Dudgeons.
"Mrs. Dudgeon was very nice; she said several very nice things about you and us. She says that Mr. Dudgeon had always a great respect for your father. He knew what he had done in connection with the Antiquarian Society and so on. Miss Dudgeon was very quiet."
"Stiff little thing," said Jean, with her head in the air.
"She was very nice," said Mrs. Leighton. There was a softness in her voice which arrested the flippancy of the girls. "I don't know when I have met a girl I liked so much."
"Good old Adelaide Maud," cried Jean.
A flush ran up Cuthbert's pale determined face. It took some of the hardness out of it.
"Did she condescend to ask for me?" he asked abruptly. "Or pretend that she knew me at all?"
"She never said a word about you," said his mother; "but----"
"But--what a lot there may be in a but," said Jean.
"She looked most sympathetic," said Mrs. Leighton lamely. Cuthbert moved impatiently.
"What silly affairs afternoon calls must be," said he.
"Miss Steven--the girl you ran away with--isn't well to-day, and they are rather anxious about her. She is very upset, but wanted to come and tell you how much she thanked you."
"Oh, lor," said Cuthbert, "what a time I shall have when I'm well. I shall go abroad, I think."
Elma gazed at him with superb devotion. He seemed such a man--to be careless of so much appreciation, and from the Story Books too! Cuthbert appeared very discontented.
"Oh, these people!" he exclaimed; "they call and thank one as they would their gardener if he had happened to pull one of 'em out of a pond. It's the same thing, mummy! They never intend to be really friendly, you know."
Elma slipped downstairs and entered the drawing-room once more. A faint perfume (was it "Ideal" or "Sweet Pea Blossom"?) might be discerned. A Liberty cushion had been decidedly rumpled where Mrs. Leighton would be bound to place Mrs. Dudgeon. Where had Adelaide Maud, the goddess of smartness and good breeding, located herself? Elma gave a small scream of rapture. On the bend of the couch, where the upholstering ran into a convenient groove for hiding things, she found a little handkerchief. It was of very delicate cambric, finely embroidered. Elma's first terror, that it might be Mrs. Dudgeon's, was dispelled by the magic letters of "Helen" sewn in heliotrope across a corner. It struck her as doubtful taste in one so complete as Adelaide Maud that she should carry heliotrope embroidery along with a blue gown. She held her prize in front of her.
"Now," said she deliberately, "I shall find out whether it is 'Ideal' or 'Sweet Pea.'"
She sniffed at the handkerchief in an awe-stricken manner. The enervating news was thus conveyed to her--Adelaide Maud put no scent on her handkerchiefs.
This was disappointing, but a hint in smartness not to be disobeyed. Mrs. Dudgeon must have been the "Ideal" person. Elma rather hoped that Hermione used scent. This would provide a loophole for herself anyhow. But Mabel would be obliged to deny herself that luxury.
Elma sat down on the couch with the handkerchief, and looked at the dear old drawing-room with new eyes. She would not take that depressing view of the people upstairs with regard to the Story Books. She was Adelaide Maud, and was "reviewing the habitation" of "these Leighton children" for the first time.
"Dear me," said Adelaide Maud, "who is that sweet thing in the silver frame?"
"Oh," said Mrs. Leighton, "that's Mabel, my eldest."
Then Adelaide Maud would be sure to say with a refined amount of rapture, "Oh, is that Mabel? I have heard how pretty she is from Mr. Maclean."
Then mother--oh, no; one must leave mother out of this conversation. She would have been so certain to explain that Mabel was not pretty at all.
Elma sat with her elbows out and her hands presumably resting on air. "Never lean your elbows on your hips, girls," Miss Stanton, head of deportment, informed them in school. "Get your shoulder muscles into order for holding yourself gracefully." One could only imagine Adelaide Maud with a faultless deportment.
Elma carried the little handkerchief distractedly to her lips, then was appalled at the desecration.
Oh--and yet how lovely! It was really Adelaide Maud's!
She tenderly folded it.
How distinguished the drawing-room appeared! How delightful to have had a father who made no mistakes in the choice of furniture! Cuthbert had said so. She could almost imagine that the mauve toque must have bowed before the Louis Seize clock and acknowledged the Cardinal Wolseley chair. It did not occur to her to think that Mrs. Dudgeon might size up the whole appearance of that charming room in a request for pillars and Georgian mirrors, and beaded-work cushions. It is not given to every one to see so far as this, however, and Elma--as Miss Dudgeon for the afternoon--complimented her imaginary hosts on everything. As a wind-up Miss Dudgeon asked Mrs. Leighton particularly if her third daughter might come to take tea with Hermione.
"So sweet of you to think of it," said the imaginary Mrs. Leighton, once more in working order.
Out of these dreams emerged Elma. Some one was calling her abruptly.
"Coming," she shrieked wildly, and clutched the handkerchief.
She kept it till she got to Cuthbert. It seemed to her that he, as an invalid, might be allowed a bit of a treat and a secret all to himself.
"Adelaide Maud left her handkerchief," she said. "We shall have to call to return it."
He gazed at the bit of cambric.
"Good gracious, is that what you girls dry your eyes on?"
He took it, and looked at it very coldly and critically.
"Thank you," he said calmly.
"Oh, Cuthbert," she exclaimed with round eyes, "you won't keep it, will you?"
"I shall return it to the owner some day, when she deserves it," said the hero of yesterday, with a number of pauses between each phrase.
"Don't say a word, chucky, will you not?"
"I won't," said Elma honourably, yet deeply puzzled.
Imaginary people were the best companions after all. They did exactly what one expected them to do.
It seemed rather selfish that Cuthbert should hang on to the handkerchief. But of course they would never have even seen it had it not been for the accident.
She surrendered all ownership at the thought, and then gladly poured tea for the domineering Cuthbert.
"You are a decent little soul, Elma," said he.
"And you are very extraasperating," said Elma.