THERE WERE THE GIRLS IN THEIR COTTON GOWNSTHERE WERE THE GIRLS IN THEIR COTTON GOWNS
“We wrote her,” continued Julie, “that we were detained by our work and I suppose if she did not get it that you thought when we did not appear something was the matter with Daddy. What a shame you had that anxiety for nothing!”
“You must go straight back,” said Hester. “We are getting on famously and you must not miss another minute of the reception.”
“You want to get me out of the way, I suppose, so you can keep up this orgy until all hours. I know you, you minx! I shan’t budge until I know all about it so you may as well begin.” He surveyed the group with a smiling imperturbable manner that was impossible to withstand. Jack, gazing at him out of the corner of his eye, thought he had never seen so splendid a gentleman and indeed his evening clothes became the Doctor tremendously so that he had never looked more handsome nor distinguished than at that moment as he sat among them leaning back in the kitchen chair.
“It is all this wedding-cake,” said Hester disgustedly. “It has acted like Sam Patch!”
“It is the first we have ever done,” explained Julie. “We took an order for two hundred boxes of cake and a big loaf, all for a wedding,and we made the cake a month ago. Oh! such a time as we had! You see, we are such ignoramuses that we have to wade through endless wrong ways before we discover the right one and we thought we had all the loaves properly frosted to cut for the boxes; but when we tried to cut the slices all the frosting fell off and so we had to begin all over again. Then we decided it would be better to cut the cake up into pieces for the boxes first and frost each one separately and—”
“Wedidn’t any such thing!” interrupted Hester. “That was Julie’s brilliant inspiration and she worked out all the frosting designs too. The big loaf and the bride’s cake are perfect beauties. Did you know the bride’s cake always had a ring and a thimble and a coin hidden in it for luck? Just look at the cakes over there,” waving her hand toward a side table, “aren’t they distinctly professional? Julie’s been hanging around caterers’ windows with her nose pressed against the glass studying their fancy frosted show pieces until I wonder she hasn’t been arrested for a suspicious character. Of course that childlike and bland countenance of hers was greatly in her favor but,” resignedly, “I was prepared for the worst.”
“Miss Hester will have her laugh,” said Bridget, “but ’tain’t no laughin’ matter this job they’re putting through!”
“Now Bridget, you keep still,” expostulated Julie. “She has been scolding us all the evening,” to Dr. Ware, “and frightening poor Jack to death, hasn’t she, Jack? Jack came to bring Daddy’s paper, you know, which he prints in great style since Mr. Landor has given him a printing press, and when he found we were busy he begged so hard to come out to the kitchen and help that we just had to let him. He’s been helping Bridget cut paraffine paper into squares—for each piece of cake has to be wrapped separately before it goes into its box—and they have cut all the white ribbon into pieces the right length to tie around the boxes and now they’re uncovering the boxes and getting them ready for the cake as soon as the frosting dries. Jack has been invaluable, hasn’t he, Bridget?”
“Humph!” grunted Bridget, with whom, nevertheless, the boy was a prime favorite.
“Good heavens! Julie,” cried the Doctor, “does one little box of wedding-cake mean all that?”
“Two hundred do,” smiling, “but another time we’ll know better how to go at it.”
All during this conversation she and Hester had been bending over the big work-table making curious evolutions with frosting bags over the pieces of cake spread everywhere about theroom. Presently Hester dropped her bag and sat down.
“Well,” she exclaimed, “I believe they are done—that part. Dr. Ware,” turning to him suddenly, “doesn’t it strike you as funny that instead of disporting ourselves gayly in the festivities of the town we should be wasting our youth and beauty—doesn’t that sound just like a book!—our youth and beauty over aggravating old things like these?” with a disgusted look at the wedding-cake. “You do not seem to laugh but I think it’s tremendously funny. Dear me!” to the air, reflectively, “how trying it must be to get on without a sense of humor!” Then with an entire change of tone, “We did want to go awfully, especially as we had a suspicion that some one might be there. I wonder,” dreamily, “if he was.”
“I fancy so,” said the Doctor, hardly knowing whether or not to take her seriously. “Come back with me now and find out.”
“Can’t,” said Hester, “but you might be an angel and tell us if we knew any one there.”
“Let me see, there was Landor—”
“Oh! bother Mr. Landor!” with a toss of her head. “He’s omnipresent!”
“Um,” thought the Doctor, “I’ve struck the nail on the head.” Outwardly he said, “Then there was Renshawe,—you know him, do younot, and a guest of his who was tucked under my wing—apparently for protection against the wiles of the women who are trying systematically to spoil him with adulation.”
“I know him,” said Hester, “that is Monsieur Jules Grémond.”
“Yes,” replied the Doctor, “I thought you would guess. He told me he knew you girls and I believe he is hunting my house over for you at this moment.” He was talking to Hester but watching Julie narrowly.
“There! Julie Dale,” exclaimed her sister triumphantly, “what did I tell you! I knew he would not forget us. She swore, Dr. Ware, that he would have forgotten our very existence and I vowed that he carried her image around on his heart and all sorts of high-sounding things. Shouldn’t wonder if they were true, too,” to Dr. Ware confidingly, “and you needn’t blush so furiously about it, either, Julie Dale?”
“I am not blushing,” protested poor Julie who was crimson, “and I’ll have Bridget carry you off bodily if you don’t stop talking such nonsense. Don’t you mind what she says, will you Dr. Ware?” pleadingly. “She would rather tease than eat any day.”
Julie’s embarrassment did not escape the Doctor and there was a twinge of pain in his heart as he said to her gently, “She is a naughtylittle girl, Julie, but she is right when she says your old friend Monsieur Grémond has not forgotten you. He inquired with great interest about you all and asked my permission to call upon you.”
To this Julie made no reply and for some moments there was silence, when at last Hester sidled up to her and in her most wheedling voice said, “Forgive me, please, I did not mean to be naughty.”
Julie gave her a hearty kiss and in the laugh that followed they all joined, even including Jack, who had found the situation almost painful a moment before when he thought his adored Miss Julie’s feelings had been hurt. Perhaps the good Doctor did not laugh with his accustomed zest but if so no one detected it, least of all Hester who gave him a big hug by way of magnanimously forgiving him for being cross to her and said emphatically:
“Youmustgo home. Miss Ware will be having a thousand fits, not to mention all the guests who are probably looking everywhere for you.”
“I have been called out to see a patient,” replied the Doctor. “Every one knows it by this time, only they do not know that instead of one I find four,” with a sweeping glance that embraced them all, “and not an inch do I stir untilI see this case through. So you might as well make up your mind to put up with me and I want something to do. Come, Jack, show me how to take hold with you. I needn’t be condemned as utterly worthless just because I am a man.”
In spite of their protestations Dr. Ware was as good as his word, busying himself in Jack’s corner, and with so many hands the work went forward swiftly. It was all smooth sailing now, as Bridget said, for the critical and difficult part was done and the next two hours in which the little group sat about the kitchen table wrapping, boxing and tying the cake was immeasurably shortened by Dr. Ware, who told them interesting anecdotes, experiences of his life that made Jack long to have the night lengthen out indefinitely. But that which the Doctor most dwelt upon, knowing well it was what the girls most liked to hear, were stories of the days when he and Major Dale fought side by side for the Union of the country in that war which was as much of a reality to these girls as if they had taken part in every military engagement.
And Dr. Ware went home in the wee small hours with his mind in a tumult of thought. Distress that the girls had had such a night of it formed only a part of his disturbance, for above this fact, which in more tranquil moments wouldhave been pre-eminent, was the consciousness that a new and central figure had arisen on the scene—yesterday a stranger to him, to-day the hero of a drama which was to the Doctor as his very life.
He sat a long while in his study when he reached home, pondering over the future and the change that seemed imminent to the girls and he wondered what the outcome would be should Grémond take Julie’s life into his keeping. Was he worthy of her—washe? How on so short an acquaintance could he tell? And did she love him—didshe? Beset by all these unanswerable questions he paced up and down the room, his slow measured tread like an accompaniment strengthening the minor harmonies in which his thoughts that night were set.
His Julie! His little girl! Ah! she was no child to choose her lover lightly and if she loved him, trusted him to make her future, all would be well. He thought of her as he had left her, sweet and dainty in spite of the little dabs of sugar and frosting that stuck to the quaint blue apron which nearly covered her from head to foot. He remembered her embarrassment when Grémond’s name came up and kept that picture of her long before his eyes as if to accustom himself to this new aspect. He remembered too how flushed her cheeks were over the work andthe tired shadows under her eyes told him plainly enough the relentless demand she was making upon her strength. Gad! those girls had been working eighteen hours at a stretch! Eighteen hours! It wasn’t the first time, either! And he, who would give his life to make things easier, was powerless—to another man would be given the right! Good heavens! Did Grémond realize his privilege? As if suddenly weary the Doctor flung himself down in his chair and heaved a sigh. Presently his lids drooped heavily. When he opened his eyes the room was flooded with sunlight.
The order for the wedding-cake which had been a cause of such tribulation to the girls had come through Mrs. Lennox for a young cousin of her husband’s in whose marriage she was much interested. The order consisted of a bride’s cake, a round wedding-cake, two hundred boxes and in addition some thirty dozen small assorted cakes to be served with the supper. The bride’s mother had given the girls a fruit-cake recipe which had been many years in her family and had asked them to make the cake at least a month before the wedding that it might “age,” as the saying is. Hours easily counting into days had gone into the preparation of the fruit alone for this large order before the work of putting the cake together began; and then to make the twenty loaves, each of which when done resembled in size a two-quart brick of ice-cream, it was necessary to mix and cook the dough in installments. But as Julie told Dr. Ware, that was as child’s play to the intricacies of the frosting and the catastrophe that ensued; and the nervous as well as the physical strain of that, coming on top of all the rest ofthe work which the order entailed, told severely on the girls, especially Julie, though she was up with Hester at six the next morning packing the boxes into the wooden case which was to take the cake to its destination.
The round loaf over which Julie had expended so much anxious thought was wrapped in sheet after sheet of cotton wadding to protect the elaborate frosting from breaking, and resembled when laid in its box a small-sized snow drift. Hester printed “handle with care” in so many places on the wooden box cover that the expressman when he came could with difficulty distinguish the address; while Bridget cautioned him with such emphasis to carry it “like it wuz a baby, shure,” that the man finally turned on her and asked if she thought he played football with his packages. It was an intense relief to them all when he had carried down the boxes and driven away, though their suspense would not really end until they learned of its safe arrival in the country town twenty miles away. And that they would know that same afternoon, for the mother of the bride had asked them to the wedding and Mrs. Lennox had been most urgent in insisting upon their going out with her, just, as she put it, for a “little country spree.”
Mrs. Lennox had arranged a charming program whereby the girls should be of the partyshe and Mr. Lennox were to take out on their coach, but as the morning wore on and Julie found each hour’s work more difficult she finally told Hester she felt too tired to consider such an expedition and should remain at home. It was so unusual for Julie to admit fatigue that Hester felt alarmed and attempted to order her immediately to bed, saying she and Bridget could easily get through the rest and she should not go to the wedding without her. But Julie insisted, not only in working on into the afternoon when the orders for the day were at last completed, but in persuading Hester to consent to go to the wedding—a consent reluctantly given, for she was loath to go off without her sister. Having gained it, however, Julie dispatched a note to Mrs. Lennox begging to be excused from the party and turned her attention to helping Hester get ready when their work was done.
Whereas, owing to her delicate constitution, Julie’s fatigue usually showed itself in complete physical exhaustion, Hester’s frequently took the form of intense mental excitement, when the chords of her buoyant nature were strung to their highest pitch. At such times she talked incessantly, laughed immoderately and was so restless that Julie always threatened to tie a string to her. She was in such a mood this afternoon, laughing and capering about, performing suchridiculous antics that Peter Snooks, who aided and abetted these moods, was barking with joy while Julie despaired of ever getting her clothed, not to mention restoring her to her right mind.
“You are a darling to help me but I don’t love you at all for making me go when you are too ill to budge. I’ve a good notion not to mind you, anyway! Why should I? I’m bigger ’an you!” dancing about on her toes to increase her height, which possibly measured some two inches more than her sister’s.
Julie caught her on the fly and thrust a dress skirt over her head, hooking it together without loss of time. “I’m going to have a nice quiet rest with Daddy,” she said, “and will be all right when you come home. I want to hear all about the wedding and whether the cake got there and everything, so do go, there’s a dear girl, and you’ll have a beautiful drive and a good time into the bargain.”
“And feel like a pig because you are not there. That will be pleasant, won’t it! Is that the doorbell? Do peek out the window like a dear and see if the coach is there.”
Julie did as she was requested and reported the arrival of the coach just as Bridget appeared and announced that Mrs. Lennox had sent Mr. Landor up to ask if she were ready.
“Do you suppose he is going?” whisperedHester. “Oh! Julie dear, can’t you go in and see him?”
“Not much! Here are your gloves and have you got a handkerchief? Can’t find one? Never mind, here is one of mine. Now run along and kiss Daddy and hurry—it is dreadful to keep people waiting. You look as fresh as a lark but don’t talk yourself black in the face,” admonishingly. “Remember ‘silence is golden,’” she called out when she had recovered her breath from Hester’s parting hug.
She heard Mr. Landor expressing regret that the elder Miss Dale was not to be of the party and then she heard nothing more; but in most plebeian fashion she and Bridget and Peter Snooks peeped out of the window watching their departure, as did also Jack from the floor beneath. They saw Mr. Landor help her up to the box seat of the coach beside Mr. Lennox and sent down answering smiles to the parting wave of her hand.
“Belikes I bet the young gentleman’s disappointed he ain’t got her hisself,” commented Bridget. “She’s the prettiest of the whole lot!”
“Didn’t she look lovely, Bridget! She always does when she is so excited.”
“It’s a lot more excited she’ll be when she gets back an’ finds you no better, Miss Julie, soI’m just goin’ to put you to bed. You do look in a way as I don’t like, an’ small wonder, the way you whip your poor frail little body along to do the work of ten!”
“Nonsense, Bridget! I am not frail, you must not talk that way. I am just tired out to-day and I couldn’t brace up and be agreeable to people—I don’t want to be agreeable—I want to be cross, so I advise you to keep out of the way.”
Bridget acted upon this suggestion by picking her up in her great muscular arms and marching into her bedroom. There laying her down she left to brew her a cup of tea—faithful Bridget’s panacea for every woe. Having returned and administered this she proceeded to undress her.
“I was going to lie down with Daddy,” expostulated Julie feebly.
“You’ll do nothin’ of the sort,” commanded Bridget. “You ain’t fit to be seen with that look in your face. I’m goin’ to tuck you into bed an’ darken the room an’ we’ll see what sleep’ll do for yez.”
As if this petting were more than she could bear, Julie buried her head in the pillow with a movement that made the woman suspicious.
“What is it, darlint?” she cried, smoothing her hair. “Can’t you tell your old Bridget about it?”
“Nothing,” said a muffled voice.
“Shure it’s rest yez want, darlint. I seen how yez kep’ up all day so Miss Hester’d not be after knowin’ how dead beat yez wuz an’ now ye’ve clean gone all to pieces. Jus’ cry it all out dearie, an’ it’s like a new person you’ll be. ’Taint no small wonder yer wore out, with the worryin’ an’ frettin’ that goes on inside yer an’ always a cheery smile outside. Yer old Bridget knows! And may the blessed saints take yez out of this business before yez drop dead in yer tracks, sez I, every night on my knees—an’ I don’t care who’s after knowin’ it!” She gave the girl a loving motherly kiss and thus encouraged Julie cried her heart out on her shoulder.
This was an unusual proceeding, for Julie seldom cried in these days. She had learned when her emotions threatened to overcome her to stiffen her chin and swallow hard, hard, hard,—until the tears were forced back and only a drawn look about the mouth told of the battle royal. She valued each victory, however trifling, for tears are weakening and self-control is a mighty weapon in the equipment of a soldier. To-day she was weak bodily and the petting utterly unnerved her, so that she cried until she could cry no longer and finally fell asleep from sheer exhaustion.
When she awoke it was with a confused sense that it must be the middle of the night and thatsomething was wrong, for Bridget stood over her.
“Are yez wakin’? That’s right, dearie. You’ve bin sleepin’ these two hours an’ there’s a gentleman to see yez.”
“What?” dazedly, rubbing her eyes.
“A gentleman to see yez—he didn’t give no name.”
“Probably he has come to give an order. Couldn’t you look after him, Bridget?”
“No, miss,” with an air of suppressed excitement, “his business is particular with you. Go bathe your face, Miss Julie, an’ I’ll have you dressed in a jiffy.”
“Well, I am a pretty looking object,” commented the girl with a glance in the mirror as Bridget let some light into the room.
“Never you mind, you’re feelin’ much better an’ you souse your eyes good with hot water—they’ll look natural enough—an’ it’s gettin’ kinder twilight in the parlor now anyhow,” consolingly.
“What is the matter with you, Bridget, are you daft?” seeing her bring forth from the closet a French gown she had never worn in Radnor. “You know I never would put on such a thing to go in to see a customer. Get me a fresh shirt waist like the old dear you are.”
“Oh! Miss Julie, just this once, please,” insuch a coaxing tone that Julie found it hard to refuse her but she simply said:
“I couldn’t, Bridget, not even to please you,” and checked her inclination to smile at the vicious manner in which Bridget got out a shirt-waist and jabbed in the studs and cuff-buttons.
Immensely refreshed by her nap she went down the hall with a light heart and entered the little sitting-room to be greeted by a stranger who eagerly seized both her hands and cried:
“Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle, this is indeed a joy to find you!”
At the sound of his voice she trembled from head to foot and endeavored to withdraw her hands but he held them in a firm clasp and led her over to the window.
“I want the light to shine on your face, Mademoiselle, as it did in sunny California. Am I too bold—have I startled you?”
Still she did not speak and he dropped her hands as moving back a little he said penitently, “Forgive me, I am rough and have frightened you. May I sit down, Mademoiselle?”
She dropped into the nearest chair and waved him to another as she said: “I did not expect you here, Monsieur Grémond.”
“Not expect me! Did you not know I was in Radnor?”
“Oh! yes,” laughing a little for she wasbeginning to recover herself, “but the two are not synonymous.”
“You are jesting, Mademoiselle. Surely you know—you must know that only one thing would bring me to this country as soon as I came out of the wilderness.” There was a world of meaning in his eyes, but Julie chose to ignore it.
“Your friendship with Mr. Renshawe has been of long standing, has it not?” she asked evasively.
“Oh! Mademoiselle Julie, it was not Renshawe—do not hold me aloof—have you forgotten the dear old California days?”
“One might have been led to suppose you had,” she said quietly, “you disappeared so suddenly and—”
“But I wrote,” he interrupted, “and though you never replied I meant always to return when I had accomplished something. Did you not feel that instinctively, Mademoiselle? Many things have happened to me since then and to you, also, your guardian said.”
“My guardian?” she repeated. “Do you mean Dr. Ware?”
“He gave me permission to call and said you might have many things to say to me,” looking at her rather perplexedly. “Will you tell me all about it, Mademoiselle?”
“Tell you,” she cried springing up and confrontinghim, “tell you as if it were a book I were reading all the sorrow and wretchedness and misery of these past eight months! No, a thousand times no! It would not interest you!” She threw back her head defiantly. “Why,” she demanded fiercely, “did you find us out? We have no part in the world to which you belong! Could you not know that to see you would bring back the past, intensify the contrast between then and now—hurt us like the thrust of a sword? Oh! how could you come?”
“I came because I—” and then breaking off suddenly he said gravely, “If you think your affairs are of no interest to me you would perhaps prefer that I ask no questions, even though I do not understand.”
“Oh! I did not mean to be rude,” she exclaimed, her burst of resentment over, “how could you understand and how can I explain? Dear Daddy is enduring a living death—everything is changed—we are professional caterers—working women—you will not begin to comprehend that and no doubt it shocks you. The dignity of labor is not a popular theme on the other side!”
“Mademoiselle, have you only unkind things to say to me—me, who would have given my life to have averted them or helped you through all this? You do not seem to comprehend that Ilove you—love you—have journeyed out to Los Angeles and back to find you and now,”—he drew in his breath, “ah! now I never mean to let you go.” He took a step toward her but she eluded him, standing well back in the room where he could not see how her lips trembled as she said:
“You must not talk to me like this; I—I cannot bear it. I am all unstrung to-day and you startle me with your calm air of taking things for granted.”
“Do I, chérie?” tenderly. “But you see I love you and you are going to love me, too.”
“No,” she replied, drawing still further back, “no, Monsieur Grémond, I am not.”
Something unflinching about the girl’s quiet tone made the man say beseechingly, “Ah! Mademoiselle Julie, do not kill me!”
“Kill you? You never thought whether you would kill me or not, did you, when you almost taught me to love you in those old days and then rode away? Many a man does that, expecting a girl to take everything for granted and receive him with open arms when he returns. And many a girl waits and waits, eating her heart out meanwhile. But I am not that kind, Monsieur!”
“Oh, Mademoiselle!”
“I was very fond of you—so fond that when I knew you were in town I wondered whether Icared to see you—wondered whether I would have loved you had you loved me and last night I thought perhaps I should see you at the Wares’; but we did not go, and now you come to me and at the first sight of you I know it is not love—could never have been love under any circumstances!”
“Are you sure you know what love is, Mademoiselle?” and seeing the color spread in a crimson wave over her face he cried, “Some one has stolen you away from me! Tell me, is it not true?”
“What right have you to ask questions?” she demanded, angered by his assumption of authority. And then more quietly, “We must not quarrel, Monsieur, we have been altogether too good friends for that. I want to tell you that we are interested in your explorations and how proud we are to know that so many of your plans have been accomplished.”
“It is nothing to me now.”
“Fie, Monsieur! Are you going to cry baby because you can’t have the world all your way?”
“You are all my world.”
Julie had heard this from other men under similar conditions, and though she believed his disappointment to be genuinely bitter she knew that life could still hold out some hope even in the face of unrequited love. But how make him see it her way? In a moment she said:
“I am only a girl, Monsieur Grémond, but I think you want me to respect you, don’t you, and I certainly shall not be apt to if you are going to be vanquished right before my very eyes.”
“What a strange girl you are, Mademoiselle,” he said, roused to a critical survey of her. “Most girls like their lovers to be inconsolable, but you threaten me with everlasting disgrace for refusing to be consoled. I don’t understand it.”
“No, you would not understand me, ever,” said Julie cheerfully, glad to have roused him at last. “You must go back to France and marry some nice sweet little thing who will perfectly adore you and you’ll be ‘happy ever after,’ as the story books say.”
“I wish you would not dispose of me in such an off-hand fashion,” aggrievedly. “I am tempted to kidnap you and carry you off this moment to the steamer. She sails in the morning. Oh! couldn’t you do it,ma petite?”
The vehemence of his tone really startled Julie who laughed to herself afterward as she remembered how she had shrank back in her corner as if she expected him to snatch her up bodily.
“Leave Hester,” she cried aghast, “and Daddy and Bridget—and Peter Snooks and—and every-body to go away with you? Monsieur Grémond, you must be mad.”
“Then you do not know what love is.” He rose and came over to her. “Will you put your hands in mine, Mademoiselle? I am going—good-by. I suppose I have been a selfish brute to dwell altogether on my own troubles and not sympathize with yours, but the truth is I am knocked out. I undoubtedly, as you say, took too much for granted.”
“Do not put us out of your life altogether,” said Julie gently. “Some day perhaps you will really care for my interest and respect and all the things I would gladly give you if you would have them.”
“If you put it that way, perhaps—but it seems to me there is only one thing,” he said disconsolately.
“Then you are not half the man I take you to be!”
“I will be,” asserted Grémond, his better nature responding to this rebuke. “It is good at least to have been with you. Good-by, Mademoiselle, good-by.”
For some time after he had gone Julie sat with closed lids trying to forget the last look of his eyes into hers, so persistently did it haunt her; but within her heart surged a feeling of gratitude that there is an all-wise Providence who shapes our ends.
Madame Grundy was saying that winter that at last Kenneth Landor had settled down, though why he should take the trouble to burden himself with business cares when he had a rich, indulgent father was, from her point of view, wholly incomprehensible. Other people who knew Kenneth better saw that his life had become full of purpose and regarded it as the natural outcome of a nature like his—rich in possibilities. To the father who was just learning to know the son, there was much that was surprising in the intelligent way in which he grasped the great commission business and little by little made himself familiar with every detail, showing that in his composition was much practical ability—talents unquestionably inherited. Of any ulterior motive which had led him on to these things Mr. Landor had no suspicion nor indeed had any one save Dr. Ware, who kept his own counsel, and possibly Jack, whose fanciful imagination wove endless romances, the thread of which became wretchedly entangled, for what could a poor boy do with two heroines to one hero?
That was the stumbling block of our young author, for he never could make up his mind to choose between the Dale girls. First he would write out a beautiful story in which his hero (and there was only one hero to him) married Julie and was as happy as the day is long. This would have been eminently satisfactory if it had not been for a sort of feeling of slighting Hester, who seemed to be lurking in the background of his tale gazing at him with reproachful eyes. Jack the tender-hearted could not stand that, so zip!—would go all the paper, torn to shreds, and he would patiently start all over again to give Hester a chance. But however he arranged it, one was left out. He couldn’t have it on his conscience to make his hero a Mormon and so to one and one alone could he belong. This was all wrong, from Jack’s point of view, but he did not know how to make it any different and as it seemed to be a subject he could not discuss with any of the three persons most concerned the poor boy gave it up in despair.
But if Jack was racked with indecision it was not so with Kenneth Landor, who had fallen in love with Hester at first sight. One hears that to fall in love at first sight is an experience belonging to bygone days, and is quite unknown to the practical common-sense young people of whom in this generation one hears so much. Bethat as it may, Kenneth, in spite of his worldly experience, was old-fashioned enough to be full of sentiment and treasured in his mind every meeting with Hester down to their first walk when she had dismissed him so summarily under the lamp-post. He could count them on the fingers of one hand, the actual hours he had spent with her, but between Dr. Ware and Jack he managed to keep as well informed concerning her life as if he were in daily intercourse with her; and it was his sole aim and ambition to put her struggles to an end. The generous fellow had not Grémond’s idea of taking one of them away—he could not conceive of the little family being separated and his admiration of Julie was rapidly growing into an affection that made him long to cast her life, too, in sunny places and make a snug little home for them all. These were Kenneth’s hopes and dreams—air-castles which sometimes took grim, fantastic shapes and often tottered to the ground when he remembered that Hester might not deign to look at him.
Suddenly into all this work and dreaming entered a new element, threatening to disturb the future with a terrible upheaval, for the necessity that our country should go to war with Spain was talked of openly throughout the land. Rumors that war would be, had been, never would be declared were rife, suggested and contradictedin a breath, while the uncertainty of national affairs produced an excitement that pervaded all classes and conditions of men.
Kenneth was one of those who believed in the war and whose whole spirit was fired with a desire to do his part toward jealously guarding his country’s honor. At the same time, if he hoped to win Hester and make a home for her it scarcely seemed as if it would accrue to his advantage to go away. These things were so in his mind that he longed for a chance to see and talk with her, and then, as always, in his thoughts of her he was confronted by the fearful consciousness that she might take no interest in so unimportant a thing as himself. Nevertheless, he meant to make himself important to her and it was therefore to him as to Grémond, a great disappointment that the girls had not put in an appearance at Miss Ware’s reception and he had spent an anxious night speculating as to the cause of their non-appearance.
He managed by rising earlier than usual to get around to Dr. Ware’s office on his way to business the morning after the reception; but, contrary to habit, that individual was already off. Much perturbed he worked harder than ever at the office and regretted that he had promised to drive out of town to a wedding. He was in no mood for society, even so charming as that ofthe Lennoxes. He was not a man who broke his engagements, however, and therefore went home about three o’clock to dress. When the Lennoxes called for him he sauntered out in his usual charming manner and made the greater effort to be agreeable to each member of the party from the mere fact that itwasan effort. This is a form of unselfishness, trivial perhaps, but necessitating a willingness to put aside one’s personal inclination, to thrust aside one’s mood for the general good. Some people call it adaptability, some tact, some a desire to please, but in Kenneth Landor, as in many others, it was an unselfish wish to contribute his share to the general entertainment. He was a man who recognized the duty of a guest to his hostess and did not look upon it as being all the other way. Having adjusted himself to a purely impersonal philosophical attitude toward the expedition, imagine his revulsion of feeling when Mrs. Lennox told him that the party would not be complete until they had picked up Miss Hester Dale whose sister, unfortunately, was unable to go with them. As we know, she delegated him to escort Hester down and we may know too, though no one on the coach suspected it, that he went up the four flights of stairs two steps at a time and nearly ran down Jack who was hobbling up on his crutches.
What if, when he and Hester went into the street together she was immediately appropriated by their host and given the seat of honor beside him. Couldn’t Kennethseeher—every turn of her pretty head—and wasn’t he inwardly proud that she was chosen for this distinction and didn’t he know that it would be his own fault if he did not monopolize her later on?
As for Hester, she had never been in a merrier mood and chattered on like a little magpie, forgetful of her sister’s warning “not to talk herself black in the face.” Every now and then she would heave a little sigh and audibly wish Julie were there—a wish promptly seconded by her host, who nevertheless was amply satisfied with his companion.
The mere sensation of bowling along over smooth roads and through the beautiful environs of Radnor was in itself a novelty and delight to Hester but she was raised to the seventh heaven of bliss when Mr. Lennox, after a talk they had had about horses, said:
“Wouldn’t you like to take the ribbons, Miss Dale?”
“Oh!” she gasped, “but my gloves—I can’t drive in these,” holding up two white kid hands. She did not think it necessary to add that they were her only pair.
“Take them off and I’ll give you mine. You can manage even if they are big. Try.”
She tried and in another moment the gloves were on, the ribbons slipped into her fingers and the control of four superb horses lay within her hands. Ah! how delicious it was to feel their strength and hers!
“What would Mrs. Lennox say if she knew I were driving?”
“She would not mind, but the others might. We’ll never tell.”
“Never.”
They swung along at an even pace, but presently, as if conscious that the ribbons had changed hands, the horses became restive and finally taking fright at an imaginary object, the leaders shied and plunged forward madly.
“Give them their heads!” commanded Mr. Lennox peremptorily.
“Don’t drive at quite such a mad pace, please Mr. Lennox,” cried a girl from the rear, “you frighten us nearly to death.”
“Oh! it’s all right,” reassuringly, “they’ll quiet down in a moment.”
Hester with set lips and feet firmly planted was struggling to get them under control. She did not speak nor did Mr. Lennox again, but he watched her narrowly, alert and ready in asecond to relieve her. He thought her equal to the emergency and she was, for after half a mile of tearing madly over the ground, she succeeded in regaining control of them and the horses, recognizing the strength of an experienced hand, quieted down into the old habit of obedience.
“Good!” cried Mr. Lennox, “you’re a crack whip, as I thought.”
A little color came back into Hester’s white face. “I’m so grateful to you for not taking them away from me,” she said. “I should have died of humiliation if you had.”
“I thought I could trust you to pull through, but now that you have proved your prowess—and I believe you just got the animals to playing tricks to show what youcoulddo, you sly young person—aren’t you a bit tired? Shan’t I drive?”
“Oh! thank you, yes, but I—I enjoyed it.”
She was very quiet after that, and presently when they reached the house and Landor sprang off and turned to lift her down, the two bright red spots in her cheeks did not escape him nor the subdued manner so unusual to her.
As they passed into the house Hester saw in the hall a large table piled high with small white boxes and she shuddered as she thought how they had spent half the night over the completion of those innocent looking things. Thesatin bows actually had a “perky” look as if the ribbon had just tied itself without any trouble whatever! Turning her back on them abruptly she followed Mrs. Lennox into the drawing-room, where the ceremony took place a few moments after their arrival.
It was a simple wedding with no bridesmaids nor ushers nor adjuncts of any kind, and the bridegroom had so large a family connection that only intimate friends had been added to the list so that the reception took on the informal character of a large family gathering. When the bride had been kissed all around, including every male cousin, in spite of the laughing protests of the bridegroom, she led the way into the dining-room for supper.
“May I take you out, Miss Dale?” asked a dapper young fellow who had just been presented to Hester.
“Thank you, I—”
“You can’t walk off with Miss Dale in that calm fashion, Charley,” said a voice back of them, “she’s promised to come to supper with me.”
Hester had no recollection of any such compact so she looked up and said mischievously, “What a wonderful memory you have, Mr. Landor,” turning the while as if to move off with the younger man.
“You come with me, won’t you?” urged Charley Bemis, “Landor always claims the earth and never gives us younger fellows a chance. We’ll have to hurry a bit, Miss Dale,” looking at her entreatingly, “if we want to see the bride cut the cake.”
“The cake!” she repeated, suddenly shrinking back. “Oh! Mr. Bemis, you go on without me, will you? I—”
“Run along, Charley,” said Landor. “Miss Dale and I will follow. The dining-room will never begin to hold us all anyway, so if we do not get in you look us up and tell us who got the ring. You may get it yourself if you hurry, who knows!”
“Oh!” said Hester when the man had departed, “I couldn’t go in there—I just couldn’t.”
“Of course not,” emphatically, “it is much too crowded. They’ve covered in the piazza by the dining-room. Won’t you let me bring you something to eat out there?”
“How could you fib to that boy so!” exclaimed the girl at the same time signifying her willingness to be led to some less crowded spot.
Kenneth laughed. “You drove me to it. Do you suppose I intended to let him walk off with you under my very eyes?”
“Why not? I’m sure he seemed a veryniceboy,” with marked emphasis.
“Oh! yes, he’s nice enough,” cheerfully, “quite nice, now you mention it, but I’m not just yearning for his society at the present moment.”
“Perhaps I am,” getting a wistful far-away expression in her eyes that was tantalizing.
“Here we are,” said the man abruptly as they reached a semi-circular piazza where tables and chairs had been placed. “If you will sit down, Miss Dale, I’ll look up Mr. Bemis immediately.”
“Thank you,” demurely, “but if itshouldhappen that you found the supper first, would you mind bringing that instead? I amsohungry,” with a pathetic droop at the corners of her mouth.
He went off on air, returning followed by a waiter almost before she had a chance to miss him.
And what a gay little supper that was! They had a small table quite to themselves, where Landor played host and was solicitous in providing for all her wants. Mr. Lennox, wandering about with an eye to his party, smiled across the piazza at her and reported to his wife that Hester was being well taken care of. Half unconsciously the girl herself was aware that her slightest wish was anticipated and she caught herself wondering as she played with her ice, whether it was chance or design that led Mr. Landor to avoid having any cake served at theirtable. It was everywhere else in abundance; hundreds of colored frosted cakes that seemed to Hester like so many little imps grinning at her and crying, “You made me—you made me!” This fantastic notion wrought itself into her tired brain until she wanted to scream out from very nervousness and caused Kenneth to say, as if divining her thoughts:
“You are tired, Miss Dale. I am afraid you had an anxious night of it. I hope your father is better this morning.”
“How did you know?”
“We—we missed you at the reception,” evasively, “and when Dr. Ware went off I had my suspicions.”
“It was not Daddy,” she said quietly, “it was—other things.” Then in a lighter tone, “Don’t look so solemn, please, I want to be gay and forget last night.”
“What would happen, Miss Dale, if I were to lecture you?” smiling at her.
“Try and see,” teasingly. “Probably I shall laugh. I usually do when Julie scolds me and then she laughs too and that spoils the effect. Well, begin. What is the greatest of my enormities? Have you made out a list?”
“Will you promise me something?” earnestly, leaning forward with a pleading expression on his handsome face.
“Perhaps. I am in a most docile mood at this moment.”
“Then promise me you will do no more driving. You are not equal to it to-night, indeed you are not, and it takes all the strength out of you.”
“How do you know I drove? Did Mr. Lennox tell you?” regarding him with raised eyebrows.
“No—but I knew.”
“If you are one of those mysterious persons who always know everything, I am going to avoid you,” she laughed, feeling herself flush under his earnest scrutiny.
“You have not promised,” he persisted.
“Did I promise to promise?” with a swift provoking glance from under her long lashes.
“Miss Dale,” pleading, “I never asked a favor of you before.”
“Why should you?” wrinkling up her forehead and wishing he had not so persuasive a voice.
“I know—probably you think it is impertinent, but” coaxingly, “if you would just this once,—”
“Well, is this where you sneaked off to?” cried a voice beside them; “a pretty chase you’ve led me!” and Charley Bemis dropped into the nearest chair and held out a plate to Hester. “See here, Miss Dale, you wouldn’tgo to the mountain, so I’ve brought the mountain to you. The bride cut the cake long ago but I saved my piece to eat with you. Landor doesn’t get a crumb.”
Landor looked as if he would like to stuff the whole slice down the man’s throat. The girl smiled and resigned herself to at least make a pretense of eating the thing she had tried so desperately to avoid.
“There is something in your half,” suggested young Bemis significantly.
“Is there?” replied Hester, wishing his enthusiasm were less. “You find it for me.”
He cut her piece and pulled out something wrapped in paraffine paper which proved to be a shining gold dollar.
“Oh! you’ve got it!” he cried. “Miss Dale’s got the money,” turning to announce it to the whole piazza, “she’s going to be rich!”
“How nice of you to prophesy such good fortune,” she replied picking up the coin and rising. “Won’t you come and help me find Mrs. Lennox and tell her about it? I am sure Mr. Landor will excuse us?”
Kenneth, who had risen, bowed low and wondered how so adorably pretty a girl could be so stony-hearted. He was utterly confounded when, as she brushed by him she slipped something in his hand with a whispered “That’s forluck,” and vanished with Bemis in attendance. A quick indrawing of his fingers into the palm of his hand told Landor a little coin lay within his grasp. A half-smothered ejaculation escaped him! Her luck she had passed on to him! Did he dare attribute to it any significance? No outward sign betrayed his inward perturbation as he sauntered into the house to join the other guests.
Whether it was Kenneth’s skillful management or a preconceived arrangement on Mrs. Lennox’s part or just Fate, deponent saith not, but the fact remains that when the coach started off again that evening, Hester found herself ensconced on the back seat with Landor, the rest of the party chatting gayly in front of them, the guards well in the rear.
“Miss Dale,” Landor said when they had ridden some moments in silence, “are you too tired to-night to let me talk to you a little, seriously?” He had no desire to lose any time.
“Then you think I can be serious?”
“I know you can, only you never choose to be with me.”
“Iaman awful tease,” she admitted, touched by his wistful tone, “but I can be the most serious person in the world and I should like to have you to talk to me, only—you are not going to scold me any more, are you, Mr. Landor? Ithink I am really too tired for that.” Her low musical voice seemed to drift to him plaintively through the darkness.
“I was going to be selfishly egotistical and talk about—about a friend of mine,” hoping she had not detected how near he had come to blundering. “I wanted to ask your advice about him if you are quite sure you are not too tired to listen, Miss Dale.”
“Of course I am not. I should like to hear about your friend, Mr. Landor.”
Was there ever a voice so sweet, he thought, or a girl so full of contradictions? One moment bewitchingly, aggravatingly whimsical, the next revealing unfathomable depths of a nature which to him seemed the purest and noblest in the world. Aloud he said:
“My friend is torn by a divided duty. He wants to go to the war but—”
“You think there will be war? Can’t he go?” she interrupted. “It seems to me every man must go who can.”
“Yes, he can, but there are people whom he loves whom he hates to leave—more than that whom he wants to stay and protect. It is as if his whole future were at stake—not only his but theirs, and he can’t seem to see his way clear.”
“Are they old and dependent on him for support, these people?”
“No, but he wants them to become dependent on him and how can that be if he goes away?”
“If they love him,” the girl said emphatically, “they will not stand in his way.”
“But he does not know that they love him or that they will ever love him. He only knows that he loves them and—oh! Miss Dale,” sweeping aside this strangely complicated case, “if you had a brother in times like these, what would you do?”
“Do?” she cried; “why, I’d help him off to the front without a moment’s hesitation! Julie and I would be the proudest girls in the world if we had a brother to go to the war! If Daddy were well he would go—there never was a finer officer than Daddy. Oh! Mr. Landor, you know us so little that you’ve no idea how strongly we feel about these things. We’ve tried in our own small way, Julie and I, to be soldiers ourselves and we think no sacrifice too great to make for one another and for our country.” In her earnestness she had forgotten the man beside her, the friend and everything save the inspiration of those principles which were as the very air she breathed.
He made no reply, fearing to break the spell and startle her back into her old elusiveness. This revelation of her inner self was very precious to him.
Presently she said: “Perhaps I know a little how your friend feels, because I have always thought if ever I lived in war times I should go as a nurse, but now I could not consider such a thing.”
“You? You are too young,” he gasped, never dreaming of this possibility.
“No, I am not too young, but Julie could not carry on our business and take care of Daddy, too, all alone, and my duty is here.”
“You are doing active service in a field much harder than anything they may see in Cuba,” he said intently.
“Oh! no, don’t say that; I do not deserve it; but you have talked to me so frankly about your friend that I wanted you to know I understand a little, though I do not believe I have been of any help. But this much I know, if I were one of those people whom he loves, however much I might need him and perhaps want him,”—was her voice faltering?—“I should urge him to go and love him the better for going and believe that his future and all connected with him would be the richer and the brighter for the personal sacrifice.”
There was an exultant ring in her low voice that set the man’s heart to throbbing with a pain strangely new and exquisite and so great was his emotion that for some time he did not trusthimself to speak. When he did he said very gently:
“Youhavehelped my friend, Miss Dale, more than you have any idea and I thank you for him. Some day, perhaps, you will let him thank you himself. I—I shall always remember your kindness to-night” (poor fellow, it was not easy to pick his words calmly when he longed to pour his heart out to her). “I may not see you again for awhile; I—I am going away.”
The coach drew up at her door and she was brought to a sudden realization of her surroundings by the laughing salutations of the party as they said goodnight. Kenneth had sprung to the ground and was waiting to assist her to alight. She was not conscious of the gentle, almost tender manner in which he lifted her down, but as he stood with bared head holding the door open, for her, she stopped a moment and put out her hands impulsively.
“Is this good-by?” she said, her beautiful eyes looking full into his.
“Yes,” with her hands close in his, “I shall go out with the first regiment from Radnor.”
Julie was in bed, but not asleep, when Hester came in that night, and propped herself up on her elbow to listen with absorbed interest while she gave an account of herself.
“Julie dear,” the younger girl began, “never urge me again to go anywhere where I am to be confronted by the fruit of our labor. I can’t stand it. I thought I should die when I first saw the boxes of cake piled up in the hall—of course in a way it was a relief to know they were safely there, but it gave me an actual pain to remember how we nearly killed ourselves over them. Then a man I met nearly dragged me out to see the bride cut the cake. That was too much and Mr. Landor came to the rescue.”
“How nice of him!”
“Yes,” admitted Hester, “hewasnice and we were having a jolly time when that awful man pounced down upon us, bride cake in hand, and I was actually forced to eat some of it!”
“Poor child! Couldn’t you have intimated that you had tasted it just a few times before?”