Mrs. Kate Hartwell, the Henshaw brothers' sister from the West, was expected on the tenth. Her husband could not come, she had written, but she would bring with her, little Kate, the youngest child. The boys, Paul and Egbert, would stay with their father.
Billy received the news of little Kate's coming with outspoken delight.
“The very thing!” she cried. “We'll have her for a flower girl. She was a dear little creature, as I remember her.”
Aunt Hannah gave a sudden low laugh.
“Yes, I remember,” she observed. “Kate told me, after you spent the first day with her, that you graciously informed her that little Kate was almost as nice as Spunk. Kate did not fully appreciate the compliment, I fear.”
Billy made a wry face.
“Did I say that? Dear me! I was a terror in those days, wasn't I? But then,” and she laughed softly, “really, Aunt Hannah, that was the prettiest thing I knew how to say, for I considered Spunk the top-notch of desirability.”
“I think I should have liked to know Spunk,” smiled Marie from the other side of the sewing table.
“He was a dear,” declared Billy. “I had another 'most as good when I first came to Hillside, but he got lost. For a time it seemed as if I never wanted another, but I've about come to the conclusion now that I do, and I've told Bertram to find one for me if he can. You see I shall be lonesome after you're gone, Marie, and I'll have to have something,” she finished mischievously.
“Oh, I don't mind the inference—as long as I know your admiration of cats,” laughed Marie.
“Let me see; Kate writes she is coming the tenth,” murmured Aunt Hannah, going back to the letter in her hand.
“Good!” nodded Billy. “That will give time to put little Kate through her paces as flower girl.”
“Yes, and it will give Big Kate time to try to make your breakfast a supper, and your roses pinks—or sunflowers,” cut in a new voice, dryly.
“Cyril!” chorussed the three ladies in horror, adoration, and amusement—according to whether the voice belonged to Aunt Hannah, Marie, or Billy.
Cyril shrugged his shoulders and smiled.
“I beg your pardon,” he apologized; “but Rosa said you were in here sewing, and I told her not to bother. I'd announce myself. Just as I got to the door I chanced to hear Billy's speech, and I couldn't resist making the amendment. Maybe you've forgotten Kate's love of managing—but I haven't,” he finished, as he sauntered over to the chair nearest Marie.
“No, I haven't—forgotten,” observed Billy, meaningly.
“Nor I—nor anybody else,” declared a severe voice—both the words and the severity being most extraordinary as coming from the usually gentle Aunt Hannah.
“Oh, well, never mind,” spoke up Billy, quickly. “Everything's all right now, so let's forget it. She always meant it for kindness, I'm sure.”
“Even when she told you in the first place what a—er—torment you were to us?” quizzed Cyril.
“Yes,” flashed Billy. “She was being kind to you, then.”
“Humph!” vouchsafed Cyril.
For a moment no one spoke. Cyril's eyes were on Marie, who was nervously trying to smooth back a few fluffy wisps of hair that had escaped from restraining combs and pins.
“What's the matter with the hair, little girl?” asked Cyril in a voice that was caressingly irritable. “You've been fussing with that long-suffering curl for the last five minutes!”
Marie's delicate face flushed painfully.
“It's got loose—my hair,” she stammered, “and it looks so dowdy that way!”
Billy dropped her thread suddenly. She sprang for it at once, before Cyril could make a move to get it. She had to dive far under a chair to capture it—which may explain why her face was so very red when she finally reached her seat again.
On the morning of the tenth, Billy, Marie, and Aunt Hannah were once more sewing together, this time in the little sitting-room at the end of the hall up-stairs.
Billy's fingers, in particular, were flying very fast.
“I told John to have Peggy at the door at eleven,” she said, after a time; “but I think I can finish running in this ribbon before then. I haven't much to do to get ready to go.”
“I hope Kate's train won't be late,” worried Aunt Hannah.
“I hope not,” replied Billy; “but I told Rosa to delay luncheon, anyway, till we get here. I—” She stopped abruptly and turned a listening ear toward the door of Aunt Hannah's room, which was open. A clock was striking. “Mercy! that can't be eleven now,” she cried. “But it must be—it was ten before I came up-stairs.” She got to her feet hurriedly.
Aunt Hannah put out a restraining hand.
“No, no, dear, that's half-past ten.”
“But it struck eleven.”
“Yes, I know. It does—at half-past ten.”
“Why, the little wretch,” laughed Billy, dropping back into her chair and picking up her work again. “The idea of its telling fibs like that and frightening people half out of their lives! I'll have it fixed right away. Maybe John can do it—he's always so handy about such things.”
“But I don't want it fixed,” demurred Aunt Hannah.
Billy stared a little.
“You don't want it fixed! Maybe you like to have it strike eleven when it's half-past ten!” Billy's voice was merrily sarcastic.
“Y-yes, I do,” stammered the lady, apologetically. “You see, I—I worked very hard to fix it so it would strike that way.”
“Aunt Hannah!”
“Well, I did,” retorted the lady, with unexpected spirit. “I wanted to know what time it was in the night—I'm awake such a lot.”
“But I don't see.” Billy's eyes were perplexed. “Why must you make it tell fibs in order to—to find out the truth?” she laughed.
Aunt Hannah elevated her chin a little.
“Because that clock was always striking one.”
“One!”
“Yes—half-past, you know; and I never knew which half-past it was.”
“But it must strike half-past now, just the same!”
“It does.” There was the triumphant ring of the conqueror in Aunt Hannah's voice. “But now it strikes half-past on the hour, and the clock in the hall tells me then what time it is, so I don't care.”
For one more brief minute Billy stared, before a sudden light of understanding illumined her face. Then her laugh rang out gleefully.
“Oh, Aunt Hannah, Aunt Hannah,” she gurgled. “If Bertram wouldn't call you the limit—making a clock strike eleven so you'll know it's half-past ten!”
Aunt Hannah colored a little, but she stood her ground.
“Well, there's only half an hour, anyway, now, that I don't know what time it is,” she maintained, “for one or the other of those clocks strikes the hour every thirty minutes. Even during those never-ending three ones that strike one after the other in the middle of the night, I can tell now, for the hall clock has a different sound for the half-hours, you know, so I can tell whether it's one or a half-past.”
“Of course,” chuckled Billy.
“I'm sure I think it's a splendid idea,” chimed in Marie, valiantly; “and I'm going to write it to mother's Cousin Jane right away. She's an invalid, and she's always lying awake nights wondering what time it is. The doctor says actually he believes she'd get well if he could find some way of letting her know the time at night, so she'd get some sleep; for she simply can't go to sleep till she knows. She can't bear a light in the room, and it wakes her all up to turn an electric switch, or anything of that kind.”
“Why doesn't she have one of those phosphorous things?” questioned Billy.
Marie laughed quietly.
“She did. I sent her one,—and she stood it just one night.”
“Stood it!”
“Yes. She declared it gave her the creeps, and that she wouldn't have the spooky thing staring at her all night like that. So it's got to be something she can hear, and I'm going to tell her Mrs. Stetson's plan right away.”
“Well, I'm sure I wish you would,” cried that lady, with prompt interest; “and she'll like it, I'm sure. And tell her if she can hear a town clock strike, it's just the same, and even better; for there aren't any half-hours at all to think of there.”
“I will—and I think it's lovely,” declared Marie.
“Of course it's lovely,” smiled Billy, rising; “but I fancy I'd better go and get ready to meet Mrs. Hartwell, or the 'lovely' thing will be telling me that it's half-past eleven!” And she tripped laughingly from the room.
Promptly at the appointed time John with Peggy drew up before the door, and Billy, muffled in furs, stepped into the car, which, with its protecting top and sides and glass wind-shield, was in its winter dress.
“Yes'm, 'tis a little chilly, Miss,” said John, in answer to her greeting, as he tucked the heavy robes about her.
“Oh, well, I shall be very comfortable, I'm sure,” smiled Billy. “Just don't drive too rapidly, specially coming home. I shall have to get a limousine, I think, when my ship comes in, John.”
John's grizzled old face twitched. So evident were the words that were not spoken that Billy asked laughingly:
“Well, John, what is it?”
John reddened furiously.
“Nothing, Miss. I was only thinkin' that if you didn't 'tend ter haulin' in so many other folks's ships, yours might get in sooner.”
“Why, John! Nonsense! I—I love to haul in other folks's ships,” laughed the girl, embarrassedly.
“Yes, Miss; I know you do,” grunted John.
Billy colored.
“No, no—that is, I mean—I don't do it—very much,” she stammered.
John did not answer apparently; but Billy was sure she caught a low-muttered, indignant “much!” as he snapped the door shut and took his place at the wheel.
To herself she laughed softly. She thought she possessed the secret now of some of John's disapproving glances toward her humble guests of the summer before.
At the station Mrs. Hartwell's train was found to be gratifyingly on time; and in due course Billy was extending a cordial welcome to a tall, handsome woman who carried herself with an unmistakable air of assured competence. Accompanying her was a little girl with big blue eyes and yellow curls.
“I am very glad to see you both,” smiled Billy, holding out a friendly hand to Mrs. Hartwell, and stooping to kiss the round cheek of the little girl.
“Thank you, you are very kind,” murmured the lady; “but—are you alone, Billy? Where are the boys?”
“Uncle William is out of town, and Cyril is rushed to death and sent his excuses. Bertram did mean to come, but he telephoned this morning that he couldn't, after all. I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you'll have to make the best of just me,” condoled Billy. “They'll be out to the house this evening, of course—all but Uncle William. He doesn't return until to-morrow.”
“Oh, doesn't he?” murmured the lady, reaching for her daughter's hand.
Billy looked down with a smile.
“And this is little Kate, I suppose,” she said, “whom I haven't seen for such a long, long time. Let me see, you are how old now?”
“I'm eight. I've been eight six weeks.”
Billy's eyes twinkled.
“And you don't remember me, I suppose.”
The little girl shook her head.
“No; but I know who you are,” she added, with shy eagerness. “You're going to be my Aunt Billy, and you're going to marry my Uncle William—I mean, my Uncle Bertram.”
Billy's face changed color. Mrs. Hartwell gave a despairing gesture.
“Kate, my dear, I told you to be sure and remember that it was your Uncle Bertram now. You see,” she added in a discouraged aside to Billy, “she can't seem to forget the first one. But then, what can you expect?” laughed Mrs. Hartwell, a little disagreeably. “Such abrupt changes from one brother to another are somewhat disconcerting, you know.”
Billy bit her lip. For a moment she said nothing, then, a little constrainedly, she rejoined:
“Perhaps. Still—let us hope we have the right one, now.”
Mrs. Hartwell raised her eyebrows.
“Well, my dear, I'm not so confident of that. My choice has been and always will be—William.”
Billy bit her lip again. This time her brown eyes flashed a little.
“Is that so? But you see, after all, you aren't making the—the choice.” Billy spoke lightly, gayly; and she ended with a bright little laugh, as if to hide any intended impertinence.
It was Mrs. Hartwell's turn to bite her lip—and she did it.
“So it seems,” she rejoined frigidly, after the briefest of pauses.
It was not until they were on their way to Corey Hill some time later that Mrs. Hartwell turned with the question:
“Cyril is to be married in church, I suppose?”
“No. They both preferred a home wedding.”
“Oh, what a pity! Church weddings are so attractive!”
“To those who like them,” amended Billy in spite of herself.
“To every one, I think,” corrected Mrs. Hartwell, positively.
Billy laughed. She was beginning to discern that it did not do much harm—nor much good—to disagree with her guest.
“It's in the evening, then, of course?” pursued Mrs. Hartwell.
“No; at noon.”
“Oh, how could you let them?”
“But they preferred it, Mrs. Hartwell.”
“What if they did?” retorted the lady, sharply. “Can't you do as you please in your own home? Evening weddings are so much prettier! We can't change now, of course, with the guests all invited. That is, I suppose you do have guests!”
Mrs. Hartwell's voice was aggrievedly despairing.
“Oh, yes,” smiled Billy, demurely. “We have guests invited—and I'm afraid we can't change the time.”
“No, of course not; but it's too bad. I conclude there are announcements only, as I got no cards.
“Announcements only,” bowed Billy.
“I wish Cyril had consulted me, a little, about this affair.”
Billy did not answer. She could not trust herself to speak just then. Cyril's words of two days before were in her ears: “Yes, and it will give Big Kate time to try to make your breakfast supper, and your roses pinks—or sunflowers.”
In a moment Mrs. Hartwell spoke again.
“Of course a noon wedding is quite pretty if you darken the rooms and have lights—you're going to do that, I suppose?”
Billy shook her head slowly.
“I'm afraid not, Mrs. Hartwell. That isn't the plan, now.”
“Not darken the rooms!” exclaimed Mrs. Hartwell. “Why, it won't—” She stopped suddenly, and fell back in her seat. The look of annoyed disappointment gave way to one of confident relief. “But then, that can be changed,” she finished serenely.
Billy opened her lips, but she shut them without speaking. After a minute she opened them again.
“You might consult—Cyril—about that,” she said in a quiet voice.
“Yes, I will,” nodded Mrs. Hartwell, brightly. She was looking pleased and happy again. “I love weddings. Don't you? You can do so much with them!”
“Can you?” laughed Billy, irrepressibly.
“Yes. Cyril is happy, of course. Still, I can't imagine him in love with any woman.”
“I think Marie can.”
“I suppose so. I don't seem to remember her much; still, I think I saw her once or twice when I was on last June. Music teacher, wasn't she?”
“Yes. She is a very sweet girl.”
“Hm-m; I suppose so. Still, I think 'twould have been better if Cyril could have selected some one that wasn't musical—say a more domestic wife. He's so terribly unpractical himself about household matters.”
Billy gave a ringing laugh and stood up. The car had come to a stop before her own door.
“Do you? Just you wait till you see Marie's trousseau of—egg-beaters and cake tins,” she chuckled.
Mrs. Hartwell looked blank.
“Whatever in the world do you mean, Billy?” she demanded fretfully, as she followed her hostess from the car. “I declare! aren't you ever going to grow beyond making those absurd remarks of yours?”
“Maybe—sometime,” laughed Billy, as she took little Kate's hand and led the way up the steps.
Luncheon in the cozy dining-room at Hillside that day was not entirely a success. At least there were not present exactly the harmony and tranquillity that are conceded to be the best sauce for one's food. The wedding, of course, was the all-absorbing topic of conversation; and Billy, between Aunt Hannah's attempts to be polite, Marie's to be sweet-tempered, Mrs. Hartwell's to be dictatorial, and her own to be pacifying as well as firm, had a hard time of it. If it had not been for two or three diversions created by little Kate, the meal would have been, indeed, a dismal failure.
But little Kate—most of the time the personification of proper little-girlhood—had a disconcerting faculty of occasionally dropping a word here, or a question there, with startling effect. As, for instance, when she asked Billy “Who's going to boss your wedding?” and again when she calmly informed her mother that when she was married she was not going to have any wedding at all to bother with, anyhow. She was going to elope, and she should choose somebody's chauffeur, because he'd know how to go the farthest and fastest so her mother couldn't catch up with her and tell her how she ought to have done it.
After luncheon Aunt Hannah went up-stairs for rest and recuperation. Marie took little Kate and went for a brisk walk—for the same purpose. This left Billy alone with her guest.
“Perhaps you would like a nap, too, Mrs. Hartwell,” suggested Billy, as they passed into the living-room. There was a curious note of almost hopefulness in her voice.
Mrs. Hartwell scorned naps, and she said so very emphatically. She said something else, too.
“Billy, why do you always call me 'Mrs. Hartwell' in that stiff, formal fashion? You used to call me 'Aunt Kate.'”
“But I was very young then.” Billy's voice was troubled. Billy had been trying so hard for the last two hours to be the graciously cordial hostess to this woman—Bertram's sister.
“Very true. Then why not 'Kate' now?”
Billy hesitated. She was wondering why it seemed so hard to call Mrs. Hartwell “Kate.”
“Of course,” resumed the lady, “when you're Bertram's wife and my sister—”
“Why, of course,” cried Billy, in a sudden flood of understanding. Curiously enough, she had never before thought of Mrs. Hartwell as her sister. “I shall be glad to call you 'Kate'—if you like.”
“Thank you. I shall like it very much, Billy,” nodded the other cordially. “Indeed, my dear, I'm very fond of you, and I was delighted to hear you were to be my sister. If only—it could have stayed William instead of Bertram.”
“But it couldn't,” smiled Billy. “It wasn't William—that I loved.”
“But Bertram!—it's so absurd.”
“Absurd!” The smile was gone now.
“Yes. Forgive me, Billy, but I was about as much surprised to hear of Bertram's engagement as I was of Cyril's.”
Billy grew a little white.
“But Bertram was never an avowed—woman-hater, like Cyril, was he?”
“'Woman-hater'—dear me, no! He was a woman-lover, always. As if his eternal 'Face of a Girl' didn't prove that! Bertram has always loved women—to paint. But as for his ever taking them seriously—why, Billy, what's the matter?”
Billy had risen suddenly.
“If you'll excuse me, please, just a few minutes,” Billy said very quietly. “I want to speak to Rosa in the kitchen. I'll be back—soon.”
In the kitchen Billy spoke to Rosa—she wondered afterwards what she said. Certainly she did not stay in the kitchen long enough to say much. In her own room a minute later, with the door fast closed, she took from her table the photograph of Bertram and held it in her two hands, talking to it softly, but a little wildly.
“I didn't listen! I didn't stay! Do you hear? I came to you. She shall not say anything that will make trouble between you and me. I've suffered enough through her already! And she doesn't know—she didn't know before, and she doesn't now. She's only imagining. I will not not—not believe that you love me—just to paint. No matter what they say—all of them! I will not!”
Billy put the photograph back on the table then, and went down-stairs to her guest. She smiled brightly, though her face was a little pale.
“I wondered if perhaps you wouldn't like some music,” she said pleasantly, going straight to the piano.
“Indeed I would!” agreed Mrs. Hartwell.
Billy sat down then and played—played as Mrs. Hartwell had never heard her play before.
“Why, Billy, you amaze me,” she cried, when the pianist stopped and whirled about. “I had no idea you could play like that!”
Billy smiled enigmatically. Billy was thinking that Mrs. Hartwell would, indeed, have been surprised if she had known that in that playing were herself, the ride home, the luncheon, Bertram, and the girl—whom Bertram did not love only to paint!
The twelfth was a beautiful day. Clear, frosty air set the blood to tingling and the eyes to sparkling, even if it were not your wedding day; while if it were—
It was Marie Hawthorn's wedding day, and certainly her eyes sparkled and her blood tingled as she threw open the window of her room and breathed long and deep of the fresh morning air before going down to breakfast.
“They say 'Happy is the bride that the sun shines on,'” she whispered softly to an English sparrow that cocked his eye at her from a neighboring tree branch. “As if a bride wouldn't be happy, sun or no sun,” she scoffed tenderly, as she turned to go down-stairs.
As it happens, however, tingling blood and sparkling eyes are a matter of more than weather, or even weddings, as was proved a little later when the telephone bell rang.
Kate answered the ring.
“Hullo, is that you, Kate?” called a despairing voice.
“Yes. Good morning, Bertram. Isn't this a fine day for the wedding?”
“Fine! Oh, yes, I suppose so, though I must confess I haven't noticed it—and you wouldn't, if you had a lunatic on your hands.”
“A lunatic!”
“Yes. Maybe you have, though. Is Marie rampaging around the house like a wild creature, and asking ten questions and making twenty threats to the minute?”
“Certainly not! Don't be absurd, Bertram. What do you mean?”
“See here, Kate, that show comes off at twelve sharp, doesn't it?”
“Show, indeed!” retorted Kate, indignantly. “The wedding is at noon sharp—as the best man should know very well.”
“All right; then tell Billy, please, to see that it is sharp, or I won't answer for the consequences.”
“What do you mean? What is the matter?”
“Cyril. He's broken loose at last. I've been expecting it all along. I've simply marvelled at the meekness with which he has submitted himself to be tied up with white ribbons and topped with roses.”
“Nonsense, Bertram!”
“Well, it amounts to that. Anyhow, he thinks it does, and he's wild. I wish you could have heard the thunderous performance on his piano with which he woke me up this morning. Billy says he plays everything—his past, present, and future. All is, if he was playing his future this morning, I pity the girl who's got to live it with him.”
“Bertram!”
Bertram chuckled remorselessly.
“Well, I do. But I'll warrant he wasn't playing his future this morning. He was playing his present—the wedding. You see, he's just waked up to the fact that it'll be a perfect orgy of women and other confusion, and he doesn't like it. All the samee,{sic} I've had to assure him just fourteen times this morning that the ring, the license, the carriage, the minister's fee, and my sanity are all O. K. When he isn't asking questions he's making threats to snake the parson up there an hour ahead of time and be off with Marie before a soul comes.”
“What an absurd idea!”
“Cyril doesn't think so. Indeed, Kate, I've had a hard struggle to convince him that the guests wouldn't think it the most delightful experience of their lives if they should come and find the ceremony over with and the bride gone.”
“Well, you remind Cyril, please, that there are other people besides himself concerned in this wedding,” observed Kate, icily.
“I have,” purred Bertram, “and he says all right, let them have it, then. He's gone now to look up proxy marriages, I believe.”
“Proxy marriages, indeed! Come, come, Bertram, I've got something to do this morning besides to stand here listening to your nonsense. See that you and Cyril get here on time—that's all!” And she hung up the receiver with an impatient jerk.
She turned to confront the startled eyes of the bride elect.
“What is it? Is anything wrong—with Cyril?” faltered Marie.
Kate laughed and raised her eyebrows slightly.
“Nothing but a little stage fright, my dear.”
“Stage fright!”
“Yes. Bertram says he's trying to find some one to play his rôle, I believe, in the ceremony.”
“Mrs. Hartwell!”
At the look of dismayed terror that came into Marie's face, Mrs. Hartwell laughed reassuringly.
“There, there, dear child, don't look so horror-stricken. There probably never was a man yet who wouldn't have fled from the wedding part of his marriage if he could; and you know how Cyril hates fuss and feathers. The wonder to me is that he's stood it as long as he has. I thought I saw it coming, last night at the rehearsal—and now I know I did.”
Marie still looked distressed.
“But he never said—I thought—” She stopped helplessly.
“Of course he didn't, child. He never said anything but that he loved you, and he never thought anything but that you were going to be his. Men never do—till the wedding day. Then they never think of anything but a place to run,” she finished laughingly, as she began to arrange on a stand the quantity of little white boxes waiting for her.
“But if he'd told me—in time, I wouldn't have had a thing—but the minister,” faltered Marie.
“And when you think so much of a pretty wedding, too? Nonsense! It isn't good for a man, to give up to his whims like that!”
Marie's cheeks grew a deeper pink. Her nostrils dilated a little.
“It wouldn't be a 'whim,' Mrs. Hartwell, and I should be glad to give up,” she said with decision.
Mrs. Hartwell laughed again, her amused eyes on Marie's face.
“Dear me, child! don't you know that if men had their way, they'd—well, if men married men there'd never be such a thing in the world as a shower bouquet or a piece of wedding cake!”
There was no reply. A little precipitately Marie turned and hurried away. A moment later she was laying a restraining hand on Billy, who was filling tall vases with superb long-stemmed roses in the kitchen.
“Billy, please,” she panted, “couldn't we do without those? Couldn't we send them to some—some hospital?—and the wedding cake, too, and—”
“The wedding cake—to some hospital!”
“No, of course not—to the hospital. It would make them sick to eat it, wouldn't it?” That there was no shadow of a smile on Marie's face showed how desperate, indeed, was her state of mind. “I only meant that I didn't want them myself, nor the shower bouquet, nor the rooms darkened, nor little Kate as the flower girl—and would you mind very much if I asked you not to be my maid of honor?”
“Marie!”
Marie covered her face with her hands then and began to sob brokenly; so there was nothing for Billy to do but to take her into her arms with soothing little murmurs and pettings. By degrees, then, the whole story came out.
Billy almost laughed—but she almost cried, too. Then she said:
“Dearie, I don't believe Cyril feels or acts half so bad as Bertram and Kate make out, and, anyhow, if he did, it's too late now to—to send the wedding cake to the hospital, or make any other of the little changes you suggest.” Billy's lips puckered into a half-smile, but her eyes were grave. “Besides, there are your music pupils trimming the living-room this minute with evergreen, there's little Kate making her flower-girl wreath, and Mrs. Hartwell stacking cake boxes in the hall, to say nothing of Rosa gloating over the best china in the dining-room, and Aunt Hannah putting purple bows into the new lace cap she's counting on wearing. Only think how disappointed they'd all be if I should say: 'Never mind—stop that. Marie's just going to have a minister. No fuss, no feathers!' Why, dearie, even the roses are hanging their heads for grief,” she went on mistily, lifting with gentle fingers one of the full-petalled pink beauties near her. “Besides, there's your—guests.”
“Oh, of course, I knew I couldn't—really,” sighed Marie, as she turned to go up-stairs, all the light and joy gone from her face.
Billy, once assured that Marie was out of hearing, ran to the telephone.
Bertram answered.
“Bertram, tell Cyril I want to speak to him, please.”
“All right, dear, but go easy. Better strike up your tuning fork to find his pitch to-day. You'll discover it's a high one, all right.”
A moment later Cyril's tersely nervous “Good morning, Billy,” came across the line.
Billy drew in her breath and cast a hurriedly apprehensive glance over her shoulder to make sure Marie was not near.
“Cyril,” she called in a low voice, “if you care a shred for Marie, for heaven's sake call her up and tell her that you dote on pink roses, and pink ribbons, and pink breakfasts—and pink wedding cake!”
“But I don't.”
“Oh, yes, you do—to-day! You would—if you could see Marie now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing, only she overheard part of Bertram's nonsensical talk with Kate a little while ago, and she's ready to cast the last ravelling of white satin and conventionality behind her, and go with you to the justice of the peace.”
“Sensible girl!”
“Yes, but she can't, you know, with fifty guests coming to the wedding, and twice as many more to the reception. Honestly, Cyril, she's broken-hearted. You must do something. She's—coming!” And the receiver clicked sharply into place.
Five minutes later Marie was called to the telephone. Dejectedly, wistful-eyed, she went. Just what were the words that hummed across the wire into the pink little ear of the bride-to-be, Billy never knew; but a Marie that was anything but wistful-eyed and dejected left the telephone a little later, and was heard very soon in the room above trilling merry snatches of a little song. Contentedly, then, Billy went back to her roses.
It was a pretty wedding, a very pretty wedding. Every one said that. The pink and green of the decorations, the soft lights (Kate had had her way about darkening the rooms), the pretty frocks and smiling faces of the guests all helped. Then there were the dainty flower girl, little Kate, the charming maid of honor, Billy, the stalwart, handsome best man, Bertram, to say nothing of the delicately beautiful bride, who looked like some fairy visitor from another world in the floating shimmer of her gossamer silk and tulle. There was, too, not quite unnoticed, the bridegroom; tall, of distinguished bearing, and with features that were clear cut and-to-day-rather pale.
Then came the reception—the “women and confusion” of Cyril's fears—followed by the going away of the bride and groom with its merry warfare of confetti and old shoes.
At four o'clock, however, with only William and Bertram remaining for guests, something like quiet descended at last on the little house.
“Well, it's over,” sighed Billy, dropping exhaustedly into a big chair in the living-room.
“And well over,” supplemented Aunt Hannah, covering her white shawl with a warmer blue one.
“Yes, I think it was,” nodded Kate. “It was really a very pretty wedding.”
“With your help, Kate—eh?” teased William.
“Well, I flatter myself I did do some good,” bridled Kate, as she turned to help little Kate take the flower wreath from her head.
“Even if you did hurry into my room and scare me into conniption fits telling me I'd be late,” laughed Billy.
Kate tossed her head.
“Well, how was I to know that Aunt Hannah's clock only meant half-past eleven when it struck twelve?” she retorted.
Everybody laughed.
“Oh, well, it was a pretty wedding,” declared William, with a long sigh.
“It'll do—for an understudy,” said Bertram softly, for Billy's ears alone.
Only the added color and the swift glance showed that Billy heard, for when she spoke she said:
“And didn't Cyril behave beautifully? 'Most every time I looked at him he was talking to some woman.”
“Oh, no, he wasn't—begging your pardon, my dear,” objected Bertram. “I watched him, too, even more closely than you did, and it was always the woman who was talking to Cyril!”
Billy laughed.
“Well, anyhow,” she maintained, “he listened. He didn't run away.”
“As if a bridegroom could!” cried Kate.
“I'm going to,” avowed Bertram, his nose in the air.
“Pooh!” scoffed Kate. Then she added eagerly: “You must be married in church, Billy, and in the evening.”
Bertram's nose came suddenly out of the air. His eyes met Kate's squarely.
“Billy hasn't decided yet how she does want to be married,” he said with unnecessary emphasis.
Billy laughed and interposed a quick change of subject.
“I think people had a pretty good time, too, for a wedding, don't you?” she asked. “I was sorry Mary Jane couldn't be here—'twould have been such a good chance for him to meet our friends.”
“As—Mary Jane?” asked Bertram, a little stiffly.
“Really, my dear,” murmured Aunt Hannah, “I think it would be more respectful to call him by his name.”
“By the way, what is his name?” questioned William.
“That's what we don't know,” laughed Billy.
“Well, you know the 'Arkwright,' don't you?” put in Bertram. Bertram, too, laughed, but it was a little forcedly. “I suppose if you knew his name was 'Methuselah,' you wouldn't call him that—yet, would you?”
Billy clapped her hands, and threw a merry glance at Aunt Hannah.
“There! we never thought of 'Methuselah,'” she gurgled gleefully. “Maybe it is 'Methuselah,' now—'Methuselah John'! You see, he's told us to try to guess it,” she explained, turning to William; “but, honestly, I don't believe, whatever it is, I'll ever think of him as anything but 'Mary Jane.'”
“Well, as far as I can judge, he has nobody but himself to thank for that, so he can't do any complaining,” smiled William, as he rose to go. “Well, how about it, Bertram? I suppose you're going to stay a while to comfort the lonely—eh, boy?”
“Of course he is—and so are you, too, Uncle William,” spoke up Billy, with affectionate cordiality. “As if I'd let you go back to a forlorn dinner in that great house to-night! Indeed, no!”
William smiled, hesitated, and sat down.
“Well, of course—” he began.
“Yes, of course,” finished Billy, quickly. “I'll telephone Pete that you'll stay here—both of you.”
It was at this point that little Kate, who had been turning interested eyes from one brother to the other, interposed a clear, high-pitched question.
“Uncle William, didn't you want to marry my going-to-be-Aunt Billy?”
“Kate!” gasped her mother, “didn't I tell you—” Her voice trailed into an incoherent murmur of remonstrance.
Billy blushed. Bertram said a low word under his breath. Aunt Hannah's “Oh, my grief and conscience!” was almost a groan.
William laughed lightly.
“Well, my little lady,” he suggested, “let us put it the other way and say that quite probably she didn't want to marry me.”
“Does she want to marry Uncle Bertram?” “Kate!” gasped Billy and Mrs. Hartwell together this time, fearful of what might be coming next.
“We'll hope so,” nodded Uncle William, speaking in a cheerfully matter-of-fact voice, intended to discourage curiosity.
The little girl frowned and pondered. Her elders cast about in their minds for a speedy change of subject; but their somewhat scattered wits were not quick enough. It was little Kate who spoke next.
“Uncle William, would she have got Uncle Cyril if Aunt Marie hadn't nabbed him first?”
“Kate!” The word was a chorus of dismay this time.
Mrs. Hartwell struggled to her feet.
“Come, come, Kate, we must go up-stairs—to bed,” she stammered.
The little girl drew back indignantly.
“To bed? Why, mama, I haven't had my supper yet!”
“What? Oh, sure enough—the lights! I forgot. Well, then, come up—to change your dress,” finished Mrs. Hartwell, as with a despairing look and gesture she led her young daughter from the room.
Billy came down-stairs on the thirteenth of December to find everywhere the peculiar flatness that always follows a day which for weeks has been the focus of one's aims and thoughts and labor.
“It's just as if everything had stopped at Marie's wedding, and there wasn't anything more to do,” she complained to Aunt Hannah at the breakfast table. “Everything seems so—queer!”
“It won't—long, dear,” smiled Aunt Hannah, tranquilly, as she buttered her roll, “specially after Bertram comes back. How long does he stay in New York?”
“Only three days; but I'm just sure it's going to seem three weeks, now,” sighed Billy. “But he simply had to go—else he wouldn't have gone.”
“I've no doubt of it,” observed Aunt Hannah. And at the meaning emphasis of her words, Billy laughed a little. After a minute she said aggrievedly:
“I had supposed that I could at least have a sort of 'after the ball' celebration this morning picking up and straightening things around. But John and Rosa have done it all. There isn't so much as a rose leaf anywhere on the floor. Of course most of the flowers went to the hospital last night, anyway. As for Marie's room—it looks as spick-and-span as if it had never seen a scrap of ribbon or an inch of tulle.”
“But—the wedding presents?”
“All carried down to the kitchen and half packed now, ready to go over to the new home. John says he'll take them over in Peggy this afternoon, after he takes Mrs. Hartwell's trunk to Uncle William's.”
“Well, you can at least go over to the apartment and work,” suggested Aunt Hannah, hopefully.
“Humph! Can I?” scoffed Billy. “As if I could—when Marie left strict orders that not one thing was to be touched till she got here. They arranged everything but the presents before the wedding, anyway; and Marie wants to fix those herself after she gets back. Mercy! Aunt Hannah, if I should so much as move a plate one inch in the china closet, Marie would know it—and change it when she got home,” laughed Billy, as she rose from the table. “No, I can't go to work over there.”
“But there's your music, my dear. You said you were going to write some new songs after the wedding.”
“I was,” sighed Billy, walking to the window, and looking listlessly at the bare, brown world outside; “but I can't write songs—when there aren't any songs in my head to write.”
“No, of course not; but they'll come, dear, in time. You're tired, now,” soothed Aunt Hannah, as she turned to leave the room.
“It's the reaction, of course,” murmured Aunt Hannah to herself, on the way up-stairs. “She's had the whole thing on her hands—dear child!”
A few minutes later, from the living-room, came a plaintive little minor melody. Billy was at the piano.
Kate and little Kate had, the night before, gone home with William. It had been a sudden decision, brought about by the realization that Bertram's trip to New York would leave William alone. Her trunk was to be carried there to-day, and she would leave for home from there, at the end of a two or three days' visit.
It began to snow at twelve o'clock. All the morning the sky had been gray and threatening; and the threats took visible shape at noon in myriads of white snow feathers that filled the air to the blinding point, and turned the brown, bare world into a thing of fairylike beauty. Billy, however, with a rare frown upon her face, looked out upon it with disapproving eyes.
“I was going in town—and I believe I'll go now,” she cried.
“Don't, dear, please don't,” begged Aunt Hannah. “See, the flakes are smaller now, and the wind is coming up. We're in for a blizzard—I'm sure we are. And you know you have some cold, already.”
“All right,” sighed Billy. “Then it's me for the knitting work and the fire, I suppose,” she finished, with a whimsicality that did not hide the wistful disappointment of her voice.
She was not knitting, however, she was sewing with Aunt Hannah when at four o'clock Rosa brought in the card.
Billy glanced at the name, then sprang to her feet with a glad little cry.
“It's Mary Jane!” she exclaimed, as Rosa disappeared. “Now wasn't he a dear to think to come to-day? You'll be down, won't you?”
Aunt Hannah smiled even while she frowned.
“Oh, Billy!” she remonstrated. “Yes, I'll come down, of course, a little later, and I'm glad Mr. Arkwright came,” she said with reproving emphasis.
Billy laughed and threw a mischievous glance over her shoulder.
“All right,” she nodded. “I'll go and tell Mr. Arkwright you'll be down directly.”
In the living-room Billy greeted her visitor with a frankly cordial hand.
“How did you know, Mr. Arkwright, that I was feeling specially restless and lonesome to-day?” she demanded.
A glad light sprang to the man's dark eyes.
“I didn't know it,” he rejoined. “I only knew that I was specially restless and lonesome myself.”
Arkwright's voice was not quite steady. The unmistakable friendliness in the girl's words and manner had sent a quick throb of joy to his heart. Her evident delight in his coming had filled him with rapture. He could not know that it was only the chill of the snowstorm that had given warmth to her handclasp, the dreariness of the day that had made her greeting so cordial, the loneliness of a maiden whose lover is away that had made his presence so welcome.
“Well, I'm glad you came, anyway,” sighed Billy, contentedly; “though I suppose I ought to be sorry that you were lonesome—but I'm afraid I'm not, for now you'll know just how I felt, so you won't mind if I'm a little wild and erratic. You see, the tension has snapped,” she added laughingly, as she seated herself.
“Tension?”
“The wedding, you know. For so many weeks we've been seeing just December twelfth, that we'd apparently forgotten all about the thirteenth that came after it; so when I got up this morning I felt just as you do when the clock has stopped ticking. But it was a lovely wedding, Mr. Arkwright. I'm sorry you could not be here.”
“Thank you; so am I—though usually, I will confess, I'm not much good at attending 'functions' and meeting strangers. As perhaps you've guessed, Miss Neilson, I'm not particularly a society chap.”
“Of course you aren't! People who are doing things—real things—seldom are. But we aren't the society kind ourselves, you know—not the capital S kind. We like sociability, which is vastly different from liking Society. Oh, we have friends, to be sure, who dote on 'pink teas and purple pageants,' as Cyril calls them; and we even go ourselves sometimes. But if you had been here yesterday, Mr. Arkwright, you'd have met lots like yourself, men and women who are doing things: singing, playing, painting, illustrating, writing. Why, we even had a poet, sir—only he didn't have long hair, so he didn't look the part a bit,” she finished laughingly.
“Is long hair—necessary—for poets?” Arkwright's smile was quizzical.
“Dear me, no; not now. But it used to be, didn't it? And for painters, too. But now they look just like—folks.”
Arkwright laughed.
“It isn't possible that you are sighing for the velvet coats and flowing ties of the past, is it, Miss Neilson?”
“I'm afraid it is,” dimpled Billy. “I love velvet coats and flowing ties!”
“May singers wear them? I shall don them at once, anyhow, at a venture,” declared the man, promptly.
Billy smiled and shook her head.
“I don't think you will. You all like your horrid fuzzy tweeds and worsteds too well!”
“You speak with feeling. One would almost suspect that you already had tried to bring about a reform—and failed. Perhaps Mr. Cyril, now, or Mr. Bertram—” Arkwright stopped with a whimsical smile.
Billy flushed a little. As it happened, she had, indeed, had a merry tilt with Bertram on that very subject, and he had laughingly promised that his wedding present to her would be a velvet house coat for himself. It was on the point of Billy's tongue now to say this to Arkwright; but another glance at the provoking smile on his lips drove the words back in angry confusion. For the second time, in the presence of this man, Billy found herself unable to refer to her engagement to Bertram Henshaw—though this time she did not in the least doubt that Arkwright already knew of it.
With a little gesture of playful scorn she rose and went to the piano.
“Come, let us try some duets,” she suggested. “That's lots nicer than quarrelling over velvet coats; and Aunt Hannah will be down presently to hear us sing.”
Before she had ceased speaking, Arkwright was at her side with an exclamation of eager acquiescence.
It was after the second duet that Arkwright asked, a little diffidently.
“Have you written any new songs lately?”
“No.”
“You're going to?”
“Perhaps—if I find one to write.”
“You mean—you have no words?”
“Yes—and no. I have some words, both of my own and other people's; but I haven't found in any one of them, yet—a melody.”
Arkwright hesitated. His right hand went almost to his inner coat pocket—then fell back at his side. The next moment he picked up a sheet of music.
“Are you too tired to try this?” he asked.
A puzzled frown appeared on Billy's face.
“Why, no, but—”
“Well, children, I've come down to hear the music,” announced Aunt Hannah, smilingly, from the doorway; “only—Billy, will you run up and get my pink shawl, too? This room is colder than I thought, and there's only the white one down here.”
“Of course,” cried Billy, rising at once. “You shall have a dozen shawls, if you like,” she laughed, as she left the room.
What a cozy time it was—the hour that followed, after Billy returned with the pink shawl! Outside, the wind howled at the windows and flung the snow against the glass in sleety crashes. Inside, the man and the girl sang duets until they were tired; then, with Aunt Hannah, they feasted royally on the buttered toast, tea, and frosted cakes that Rosa served on a little table before the roaring fire. It was then that Arkwright talked of himself, telling them something of his studies, and of the life he was living.
“After all, you see there's just this difference between my friends and yours,” he said, at last. “Your friends are doing things. They've succeeded. Mine haven't, yet—they're only trying.”
“But they will succeed,” cried Billy.
“Some of them,” amended the man.
“Not—all of them?” Billy looked a little troubled.
Arkwright shook his head slowly.
“No. They couldn't—all of them, you know. Some haven't the talent, some haven't the perseverance, and some haven't the money.”
“But all that seems such a pity-when they've tried,” grieved Billy.
“It is a pity, Miss Neilson. Disappointed hopes are always a pity, aren't they?”
“Y-yes,” sighed the girl. “But—if there were only something one could do to—help!”
Arkwright's eyes grew deep with feeling, but his voice, when he spoke, was purposely light.
“I'm afraid that would be quite too big a contract for even your generosity, Miss Neilson—to mend all the broken hopes in the world,” he prophesied.
“I have known great good to come from great disappointments,” remarked Aunt Hannah, a bit didactically.
“So have I,” laughed Arkwright, still determined to drive the troubled shadow from the face he was watching so intently. “For instance: a fellow I know was feeling all cut up last Friday because he was just too late to get into Symphony Hall on the twenty-five-cent admission. Half an hour afterwards his disappointment was turned to joy—a friend who had an orchestra chair couldn't use his ticket that day, and so handed it over to him.”
Billy turned interestedly.
“What are those twenty-five-cent tickets to the Symphony?”
“Then—you don't know?”
“Not exactly. I've heard of them, in a vague fashion.”
“Then you've missed one of the sights of Boston if you haven't ever seen that long line of patient waiters at the door of Symphony Hall of a Friday morning.”
“Morning! But the concert isn't till afternoon!”
“No, but the waiting is,” retorted Arkwright. “You see, those admissions are limited—five hundred and five, I believe—and they're rush seats, at that. First come, first served; and if you're too late you aren't served at all. So the first arrival comes bright and early. I've heard that he has been known to come at peep of day when there's a Paderewski or a Melba for a drawing card. But I've got my doubts of that. Anyhow, I never saw them there much before half-past eight. But many's the cold, stormy day I've seen those steps in front of the Hall packed for hours, and a long line reaching away up the avenue.”
Billy's eyes widened.
“And they'll stand all that time and wait?”
“To be sure they will. You see, each pays twenty-five cents at the door, until the limit is reached, then the rest are turned away. Naturally they don't want to be turned away, so they try to get there early enough to be among the fortunate five hundred and five. Besides, the earlier you are, the better seat you are likely to get.”
“But only think of standing all that time!”
“Oh, they bring camp chairs, sometimes, I've heard, and then there are the steps. You don't know what a really fine seat a stone step is—if you have a big enough bundle of newspapers to cushion it with! They bring their luncheons, too, with books, papers, and knitting work for fine days, I've been told—some of them. All the comforts of home, you see,” smiled Arkwright.
“Why, how—how dreadful!” stammered Billy.
“Oh, but they don't think it's dreadful at all,” corrected Arkwright, quickly. “For twenty-five cents they can hear all that you hear down in your orchestra chair, for which you've paid so high a premium.”
“But who—who are they? Where do they come from? Who would go and stand hours like that to get a twenty-five-cent seat?” questioned Billy.
“Who are they? Anybody, everybody, from anywhere? everywhere; people who have the music hunger but not the money to satisfy it,” he rejoined. “Students, teachers, a little milliner from South Boston, a little dressmaker from Chelsea, a housewife from Cambridge, a stranger from the uttermost parts of the earth; maybe a widow who used to sit down-stairs, or a professor who has seen better days. Really to know that line, you should see it for yourself, Miss Neilson,” smiled Arkwright, as he reluctantly rose to go. “Some Friday, however, before you take your seat, just glance up at that packed top balcony and judge by the faces you see there whether their owners think they're getting their twenty-five-cents' worth, or not.”
“I will,” nodded Billy, with a smile; but the smile came from her lips only, not her eyes: Billy was wishing, at that moment, that she owned the whole of Symphony Hall—to give away. But that was like Billy. When she was seven years old she had proposed to her Aunt Ella that they take all the thirty-five orphans from the Hampden Falls Orphan Asylum to live with them, so that little Sallie Cook and the other orphans might have ice cream every day, if they wanted it. Since then Billy had always been trying—in a way—to give ice cream to some one who wanted it.
Arkwright was almost at the door when he turned abruptly. His face was an abashed red. From his pocket he had taken a small folded paper.
“Do you suppose—in this—you might find—that melody?” he stammered in a low voice. The next moment he was gone, having left in Billy's fingers a paper upon which was written in a clear-cut, masculine hand six four-line stanzas.
Billy read them at once, hurriedly, then more carefully.
“Why, they're beautiful,” she breathed, “just beautiful! Where did he get them, I wonder? It's a love song—and such a pretty one! I believe there is a melody in it,” she exulted, pausing to hum a line or two. “There is—I know there is; and I'll write it—for Bertram,” she finished, crossing joyously to the piano.
Half-way down Corey Hill at that moment, Arkwright was buffeting the wind and snow. He, too, was thinking joyously of those stanzas—joyously, yet at the same time fearfully. Arkwright himself had written those lines—though not for Bertram.
On the fourteenth of December Billy came down-stairs alert, interested, and happy. She had received a dear letter from Bertram (mailed on the way to New York), the sun was shining, and her fingers were fairly tingling to put on paper the little melody that was now surging riotously through her brain. Emphatically, the restlessness of the day before was gone now. Once more Billy's “clock” had “begun to tick.”
After breakfast Billy went straight to the telephone and called up Arkwright. Even one side of the conversation Aunt Hannah did not hear very clearly; but in five minutes a radiant-faced Billy danced into the room.
“Aunt Hannah, just listen! Only think—Mary Jane wrote the words himself, so of course I can use them!”
“Billy, dear, can't you say 'Mr. Arkwright'?” pleaded Aunt Hannah.
Billy laughed and gave the anxious-eyed little old lady an impulsive hug.
“Of course! I'll say 'His Majesty' if you like, dear,” she chuckled. “But did you hear—did you realize? They're his own words, so there's no question of rights or permission, or anything. And he's coming up this afternoon to hear my melody, and to make a few little changes in the words, maybe. Oh, Aunt Hannah, you don't know how good it seems to get into my music again!”
“Yes, yes, dear, of course; but—” Aunt Hannah's sentence ended in a vaguely troubled pause.
Billy turned in surprise.
“Why, Aunt Hannah, aren't you glad? You said you'd be glad!”
“Yes, dear; and I am—very glad. It's only—if it doesn't take too much time—and if Bertram doesn't mind.”
Billy flushed. She laughed a little bitterly.
“No, it won't take too much time, I fancy, and—so far as Bertram is concerned—if what Sister Kate says is true, Aunt Hannah, he'll be glad to have me occupy a little of my time with something besides himself.”
“Fiddlededee!” bristled Aunt Hannah.
“What did she mean by that?”
Billy smiled ruefully.
“Well, probably I did need it. She said it night before last just before she went home with Uncle William. She declared that I seemed to forget entirely that Bertram belonged to his Art first, before he belonged to me; and that it was exactly as she had supposed it would be—a perfect absurdity for Bertram to think of marrying anybody.”
“Fiddlededee!” ejaculated the irate Aunt Hannah, even more sharply. “I hope you have too much good sense to mind what Kate says, Billy.”
“Yes, I know,” sighed the girl; “but of course I can see some things for myself, and I suppose I did make—a little fuss about his going to New York the other night. And I will own that I've had a real struggle with myself sometimes, lately, not to mind—his giving so much time to his portrait painting. And of course both of those are very reprehensible—in an artist's wife,” she finished, a little tremulously.
“Humph! Well, I don't think I should worry about that,” observed Aunt Hannah with grim positiveness.
“No, I don't mean to,” smiled Billy, wistfully. “I only told you so you'd understand that it was just as well if I did have something to take up my mind—besides Bertram. And of course music would be the most natural thing.”
“Yes, of course,” agreed Aunt Hannah.
“And it seems actually almost providential that Mary—I mean Mr. Arkwright is here to help me, now that Cyril is gone,” went on Billy, still a little wistfully.
“Yes, of course. He isn't like—a stranger,” murmured Aunt Hannah. Aunt Hannah's voice sounded as if she were trying to convince herself—of something.
“No, indeed! He seems just like one of the family to me, almost as if he were really—your niece, Mary Jane,” laughed Billy.
Aunt Hannah moved restlessly.
“Billy,” she hazarded, “he knows, of course, of your engagement?”
“Why, of course he does, Aunt Hannah everybody does!” Billy's eyes were plainly surprised.
“Yes, yes, of course—he must,” subsided Aunt Hannah, confusedly, hoping that Billy would not divine the hidden reason behind her question. She was relieved when Billy's next words showed that she had not divined it.
“I told you, didn't I? He's coming up this afternoon. He can't get here till five, though; but he's so interested! He's about as crazy over the thing as I am. And it's going to be fine, Aunt Hannah, when it's done. You just wait and see!” she finished gayly, as she tripped from the room.
Left to herself, Aunt Hannah drew a long breath.
“I'm glad she didn't suspect,” she was thinking. “I believe she'd consider even the question disloyal to Bertram—dear child! And of course Mary”—Aunt Hannah corrected herself with cheeks aflame—“I mean Mr. Arkwright does—know.”
It was just here, however, that Aunt Hannah was mistaken. Mr. Arkwright did not—know. He had not reached Boston when the engagement was announced. He knew none of Billy's friends in town save the Henshaw brothers. He had not heard from Calderwell since he came to Boston. The very evident intimacy of Billy with the Henshaw brothers he accepted as a matter of course, knowing the history of their acquaintance, and the fact that Billy was Mr. William Henshaw's namesake. As to Bertram being Billy's lover—that idea had long ago been killed at birth by Calderwell's emphatic assertion that the artist would never care for any girl—except to paint. Since coming to Boston, Arkwright had seen little of the two together. His work, his friends, and his general mode of life precluded that. Because of all this, therefore, Arkwright did not—know; which was a pity—for Arkwright, and for some others.
Promptly at five o'clock that afternoon, Arkwright rang Billy's doorbell, and was admitted by Rosa to the living-room, where Billy was at the piano.
Billy sprang to her feet with a joyous word of greeting.
“I'm so glad you've come,” she sighed happily. “I want you to hear the melody your pretty words have sung to me. Though, maybe, after all, you won't like it, you know,” she finished with arch wistfulness.
“As if I could help liking it,” smiled the man, trying to keep from his voice the ecstatic delight that the touch of her hand had brought him.
Billy shook her head and seated herself again at the piano.
“The words are lovely,” she declared, sorting out two or three sheets of manuscript music from the quantity on the rack before her. “But there's one place—the rhythm, you know—if you could change it. There!—but listen. First I'm going to play it straight through to you.” And she dropped her fingers to the keyboard. The next moment a tenderly sweet melody—with only a chord now and then for accompaniment—filled Arkwright's soul with rapture. Then Billy began to sing, very softly, the words!
No wonder Arkwright's soul was filled with rapture. They were his words, wrung straight from his heart; and they were being sung by the girl for whom they were written. They were being sung with feeling, too—so evident a feeling that the man's pulse quickened, and his eyes flashed a sudden fire. Arkwright could not know, of course, that Billy, in her own mind, was singing that song—to Bertram Henshaw.
The fire was still in Arkwright's eyes when the song was ended; but Billy very plainly did not see it. With a frowning sigh and a murmured “There!” she began to talk of “rhythm” and “accent” and “cadence”; and to point out with anxious care why three syllables instead of two were needed at the end of a certain line. From this she passed eagerly to the accompaniment, and Arkwright at once found himself lost in a maze of “minor thirds” and “diminished sevenths,” until he was forced to turn from the singer to the song. Still, watching her a little later, he noticed her absorbed face and eager enthusiasm, her earnest pursuance of an elusive harmony, and he wondered: did she, or did she not sing that song with feeling a little while before?
Arkwright had not settled this question to his own satisfaction when Aunt Hannah came in at half-past five, and he was conscious of a vague disappointment as he rose to greet her. Billy, however, turned an untroubled face to the newcomer.
“We're doing finely, Aunt Hannah,” she cried. Then, suddenly, she flung a laughing question to the man. “How about it, sir? Are we going to put on the title-page: 'Words by Mary Jane Arkwright'—or will you unveil the mystery for us now?”
“Have you guessed it?” he bantered.
“No—unless it's 'Methuselah John.' We did think of that the other day.”
“Wrong again!” he laughed.
“Then it'll have to be 'Mary Jane,'” retorted Billy, with calm naughtiness, refusing to meet Aunt Hannah's beseechingly reproving eyes. Then suddenly she chuckled. “It would be a combination, wouldn't it? 'Words by Mary Jane Arkwright. Music by Billy Neilson'! We'd have sighing swains writing to 'Dear Miss Arkwright,' telling how touching were her words; and lovelorn damsels thanking Mr. Neilson for his soul-inspiring music!”
“Billy, my dear!” remonstrated Aunt Hannah, faintly.
“Yes, yes, I know; that was bad—and I won't again, truly,” promised Billy. But her eyes danced, and the next moment she had whirled about on the piano stool and dashed into a Chopin waltz. The room itself, then, seemed to be full of the twinkling feet of elves.
Immediately after breakfast the next morning, Billy was summoned to the telephone.
“Oh, good morning, Uncle William,” she called, in answer to the masculine voice that replied to her “Hullo.”
“Billy, are you very busy this morning?”
“No, indeed—not if you want me.”
“Well, I do, my dear.” Uncle William's voice was troubled. “I want you to go with me, if you can, to see a Mrs. Greggory. She's got a teapot I want. It's a genuine Lowestoft, Harlow says. Will you go?”
“Of course I will! What time?”
“Eleven if you can, at Park Street. She's at the West End. I don't dare to put it off for fear I'll lose it. Harlow says others will have to know of it, of course. You see, she's just made up her mind to sell it, and asked him to find a customer. I wouldn't trouble you, but he says they're peculiar—the daughter, especially—and may need some careful handling. That's why I wanted you—though I wanted you to see the tea-pot, too,—it'll be yours some day, you know.”
Billy, all alone at her end of the line, blushed. That she was one day to be mistress of the Strata and all it contained was still anything but “common” to her.
“I'd love to see it, and I'll come gladly; but I'm afraid I won't be much help, Uncle William,” she worried.
“I'll take the risk of that. You see, Harlow says that about half the time she isn't sure she wants to sell it, after all.”
“Why, how funny! Well, I'll come. At eleven, you say, at Park Street?”
“Yes; and thank you, my dear. I tried to get Kate to go, too; but she wouldn't. By the way, I'm going to bring you home to luncheon. Kate leaves this afternoon, you know, and it's been so snowy she hasn't thought best to try to get over to the house. Maybe Aunt Hannah would come, too, for luncheon. Would she?”
“I'm afraid not,” returned Billy, with a rueful laugh. “She's got three shawls on this morning, and you know that always means that she's felt a draft somewhere—poor dear. I'll tell her, though, and I'll see you at eleven,” finished Billy, as she hung up the receiver.
Promptly at the appointed time Billy met Uncle William at Park Street, and together they set out for the West End street named on the paper in his pocket. But when the shabby house on the narrow little street was reached, the man looked about him with a troubled frown.
“I declare, Billy, I'm not sure but we'd better turn back,” he fretted. “I didn't mean to take you to such a place as this.”
Billy shivered a little; but after one glance at the man's disappointed face she lifted a determined chin.
“Nonsense, Uncle William! Of course you won't turn back. I don't mind—for myself; but only think of the people whose homes are here,” she finished, just above her breath.
Mrs. Greggory was found to be living in two back rooms at the top of four flights of stairs, up which William Henshaw toiled with increasing weariness and dismay, punctuating each flight with a despairing: “Billy, really, I think we should turn back!”
But Billy would not turn back, and at last they found themselves in the presence of a white-haired, sweet-faced woman who said yes, she was Mrs. Greggory; yes, she was. Even as she uttered the words, however, she looked fearfully over her shoulders as if expecting to hear from the hall behind them a voice denying her assertion.
Mrs. Greggory was a cripple. Her slender little body was poised on two once-costly crutches. Both the worn places on the crutches, and the skill with which the little woman swung herself about the room testified that the crippled condition was not a new one.
Billy's eyes were brimming with pity and dismay. Mechanically she had taken the chair toward which Mrs. Greggory had motioned her. She had tried not to seem to look about her; but there was not one detail of the bare little room, from its faded rug to the patched but spotless tablecloth, that was not stamped on her brain.
Mrs. Greggory had seated herself now, and William Henshaw had cleared his throat nervously. Billy did not know whether she herself were the more distressed or the more relieved to hear him stammer:
“We—er—I came from Harlow, Mrs. Greggory. He gave me to understand you had an—er—teapot that—er—” With his eyes on the cracked white crockery pitcher on the table, William Henshaw came to a helpless pause.
A curious expression, or rather, series of expressions crossed Mrs. Greggory's face. Terror, joy, dismay, and relief seemed, one after the other to fight for supremacy. Relief in the end conquered, though even yet there was a second hurriedly apprehensive glance toward the door before she spoke.
“The Lowestoft! Yes, I'm so glad!—that is, of course I must be glad. I'll get it.” Her voice broke as she pulled herself from her chair. There was only despairing sorrow on her face now.
The man rose at once.
“But, madam, perhaps—don't let me—” I he began stammeringly. “Of course—Billy!” he broke off in an entirely different voice. “Jove! What a beauty!”
Mrs. Greggory had thrown open the door of a small cupboard near the collector's chair, disclosing on one of the shelves a beautifully shaped teapot, creamy in tint, and exquisitely decorated in a rose design. Near it set a tray-like plate of the same ware and decoration.
“If you'll lift it down, please, yourself,” motioned Mrs. Greggory. “I don't like to—with these,” she explained, tapping the crutches at her side.
With fingers that were almost reverent in their appreciation, the collector reached for the teapot. His eyes sparkled.
“Billy, look, what a beauty! And it's a Lowestoft, too, the real thing—the genuine, true soft paste! And there's the tray—did you notice?” he exulted, turning back to the shelf. “You don't see that every day! They get separated, most generally, you know.”
“These pieces have been in our family for generations,” said Mrs. Greggory with an accent of pride. “You'll find them quite perfect, I think.”
“Perfect! I should say they were,” cried the man.
“They are, then—valuable?” Mrs. Greggory's voice shook.
“Indeed they are! But you must know that.”
“I have been told so. Yet to me their chief value, of course, lies in their association. My mother and my grandmother owned that teapot, sir.” Again her voice broke.
William Henshaw cleared his throat.
“But, madam, if you do not wish to sell—” He stopped abruptly. His longing eyes had gone back to the enticing bit of china.
Mrs. Greggory gave a low cry.
“But I do—that is, I must. Mr. Harlow says that it is valuable, and that it will bring in money; and we need—money.” She threw a quick glance toward the hall door, though she did not pause in her remarks. “I can't do much at work that pays. I sew”—she nodded toward the machine by the window—“but with only one foot to make it go—You see, the other is—is inclined to shirk a little,” she finished with a wistful whimsicality.
Billy turned away sharply. There was a lump in her throat and a smart in her eyes. She was conscious suddenly of a fierce anger against—she did not know what, exactly; but she fancied it was against the teapot, or against Uncle William for wanting the teapot, or for not wanting it—if he did not buy it.
“And so you see, I do very much wish to sell.”
Mrs. Greggory said then. “Perhaps you will tell me what it would be worth to you,” she concluded tremulously.
The collector's eyes glowed. He picked up the teapot with careful rapture and examined it. Then he turned to the tray. After a moment he spoke.
“I have only one other in my collection as rare,” he said. “I paid a hundred dollars for that. I shall be glad to give you the same for this, madam.”
Mrs. Greggory started visibly.
“A hundred dollars? So much as that?” she cried almost joyously. “Why, nothing else that we've had has brought—Of course, if it's worth that to you—” She paused suddenly. A quick step had sounded in the hall outside. The next moment the door flew open and a young woman, who looked to be about twenty-three or twenty-four years old, burst into the room.
“Mother, only think, I've—” She stopped, and drew back a little. Her startled eyes went from one face to another, then dropped to the Lowestoft teapot in the man's hands. Her expression changed at once. She shut the door quickly and hurried forward.
“Mother, what is it? Who are these people?” she asked sharply.
Billy lifted her chin the least bit. She was conscious of a feeling which she could not name: Billy was not used to being called “these people” in precisely that tone of voice. William Henshaw, too, raised his chin. He, also, was not in the habit of being referred to as “these people.”
“My name is Henshaw, Miss—Greggory, I presume,” he said quietly. “I was sent here by Mr. Harlow.”
“About the teapot, my dear, you know,” stammered Mrs. Greggory, wetting her lips with an air of hurried apology and conciliation. “This gentleman says he will be glad to buy it. Er—my daughter, Alice, Mr. Henshaw,” she hastened on, in embarrassed introduction; “and Miss—”
“Neilson,” supplied the man, as she looked at Billy, and hesitated.
A swift red stained Alice Greggory's face. With barely an acknowledgment of the introductions she turned to her mother.
“Yes, dear, but that won't be necessary now. As I started to tell you when I came in, I have two new pupils; and so”—turning to the man again “I thank you for your offer, but we have decided not to sell the teapot at present.” As she finished her sentence she stepped one side as if to make room for the strangers to reach the door.
William Henshaw frowned angrily—that was the man; but his eyes—the collector's eyes—sought the teapot longingly. Before either the man or the collector could speak, however; Mrs. Greggory interposed quick words of remonstrance.
“But, Alice, my dear,” she almost sobbed. “You didn't wait to let me tell you. Mr. Henshaw says it is worth a hundred dollars to him. He will give us—a hundred dollars.”
“A hundred dollars!” echoed the girl, faintly.
It was plain to be seen that she was wavering. Billy, watching the little scene, with mingled emotions, saw the glance with which the girl swept the bare little room; and she knew that there was not a patch or darn or poverty spot in sight, or out of sight, which that glance did not encompass.
Billy was wondering which she herself desired more—that Uncle William should buy the Lowestoft, or that he should not. She knew she wished Mrs. Greggory to have the hundred dollars. There was no doubt on that point. Then Uncle William spoke. His words carried the righteous indignation of the man who thinks he has been unjustly treated, and the final plea of the collector who sees a coveted treasure slipping from his grasp.
“I am very sorry, of course, if my offer has annoyed you,” he said stiffly. “I certainly should not have made it had I not had Mrs. Greggory's assurance that she wished to sell the teapot.”
Alice Greggory turned as if stung.
“Wished to sell!” She repeated the words with superb disdain. She was plainly very angry. Her blue-gray eyes gleamed with scorn, and her whole face was suffused with a red that had swept to the roots of her soft hair. “Do you think a woman wishes to sell a thing that she's treasured all her life, a thing that is perhaps the last visible reminder of the days when she was living—not merely existing?”
“Alice, Alice, my love!” protested the sweet-faced cripple, agitatedly.
“I can't help it,” stormed the girl, hotly. “I know how much you think of that teapot that was grandmother's. I know what it cost you to make up your mind to sell it at all. And then to hear these people talk about your wishing to sell it! Perhaps they think, too, we wish to live in a place like this; that we wish to have rugs that are darned, and chairs that are broken, and garments that are patches instead of clothes!”
“Alice!” gasped Mrs. Greggory in dismayed horror.
With a little outward fling of her two hands Alice Greggory stepped back. Her face had grown white again.
“I beg your pardon, of course,” she said in a voice that was bitterly quiet. “I should not have spoken so. You are very kind, Mr. Henshaw, but I do not think we care to sell the Lowestoft to-day.”
Both words and manner were obviously a dismissal; and with a puzzled sigh William Henshaw picked up his hat. His face showed very clearly that he did not know what to do, or what to say; but it showed, too, as clearly, that he longed to do something, or say something. During the brief minute that he hesitated, however, Billy sprang forward.
“Mrs. Greggory, please, won't you let me buy the teapot? And then—won't you keep it for me—here? I haven't the hundred dollars with me, but I'll send it right away. You will let me do it, won't you?”
It was an impulsive speech, and a foolish one, of course, from the standpoint of sense and logic and reasonableness; but it was one that might be expected, perhaps, from Billy.
Mrs. Greggory must have divined, in a way, the spirit that prompted it, for her eyes grew wet, and with a choking “Dear child!” she reached out and caught Billy's hand in both her own—even while she shook her head in denial.
Not so her daughter. Alice Greggory flushed scarlet. She drew herself proudly erect.
“Thank you,” she said with crisp coldness; “but, distasteful as darns and patches are to us, we prefer them, infinitely, to—charity!”
“Oh, but, please, I didn't mean—you didn't understand,” faltered Billy.
For answer Alice Greggory walked deliberately to the door and held it open.
“Oh, Alice, my dear,” pleaded Mrs. Greggory again, feebly.
“Come, Billy! We'll bid you good morning, ladies,” said William Henshaw then, decisively. And Billy, with a little wistful pat on Mrs. Greggory's clasped hands, went.
Once down the long four flights of stairs and out on the sidewalk, William Henshaw drew a long breath.
“Well, by Jove! Billy, the next time I take you curio hunting, it won't be to this place,” he fumed.
“Wasn't it awful!” choked Billy.
“Awful! The girl was the most stubborn, unreasonable, vixenish little puss I ever saw. I didn't want her old Lowestoft if she didn't want to sell it! But to practically invite me there, and then treat me like that!” scolded the collector, his face growing red with anger. “Still, I was sorry for the poor little old lady. I wish, somehow, she could have that hundred dollars!” It was the man who said this, not the collector.
“So do I,” rejoined Billy, dolefully. “But that girl was so—so queer!” she sighed, with a frown. Billy was puzzled. For the first time, perhaps, in her life, she knew what it was to have her proffered “ice cream” disdainfully refused.
作者的其它作品
《Miss Billy比利小姐》
Kate and little Kate left for the West on the afternoon of the fifteenth, and Bertram arrived from New York that evening. Notwithstanding the confusion of all this, Billy still had time to give some thought to her experience of the morning with Uncle William. The forlorn little room with its poverty-stricken furnishings and its crippled mistress was very vivid in Billy's memory. Equally vivid were the flashing eyes of Alice Greggory as she had opened the door at the last.
“For,” as Billy explained to Bertram that evening, after she had told him the story of the morning's adventure, “you see, dear, I had never been really turned out of a house before!”
“I should think not,” scowled her lover, indignantly; “and it's safe to say you never will again. The impertinence of it! But then, you won't see them any more, sweetheart, so we'll just forget it.”
“Forget it! Why, Bertram, I couldn't! You couldn't, if you'd been there. Besides, of course I shall see them again!”
Bertram's jaw dropped.
“Why, Billy, you don't mean that Will, or you either, would try again for that trumpery teapot!”
“Of course not,” flashed Billy, heatedly. “It isn't the teapot—it's that dear little Mrs. Greggory. Why, dearie, you don't know how poor they are! Everything in sight is so old and thin and worn it's enough to break your heart. The rug isn't anything but darns, nor the tablecloth, either—except patches. It's awful, Bertram!”
“I know, darling; but you don't expect to buy them new rugs and new tablecloths, do you?”
Billy gave one of her unexpected laughs.
“Mercy!” she chuckled. “Only picture Miss Alice's face if I should try to buy them rugs and tablecloths! No, dear,” she went on more seriously, “I sha'n't do that, of course—though I'd like to; but I shall try to see Mrs. Greggory again, if it's nothing more than a rose or a book or a new magazine that I can take to her.”
“Or a smile—which I fancy will be the best gift of the lot,” amended Bertram, fondly.
Billy dimpled and shook her head.
“Smiles—my smiles—are not so valuable, I'm afraid—except to you, perhaps,” she laughed.
“Self-evident facts need no proving,” retorted Bertram. “Well, and what else has happened in all these ages I've been away?”
Billy brought her hands together with a sudden cry.
“Oh, and I haven't told you!” she exclaimed. “I'm writing a new song—a love song. Mary Jane wrote the words. They're beautiful.”
Bertram stiffened.
“Indeed! And is—Mary Jane a poet, with all the rest?” he asked, with affected lightness.
“Oh, no, of course not,” smiled Billy; “but these words are pretty. And they just sang themselves into the dearest little melody right away. So I'm writing the music for them.”
“Lucky Mary Jane!” murmured Bertram, still with a lightness that he hoped would pass for indifference. (Bertram was ashamed of himself, but deep within him was a growing consciousness that he knew the meaning of the vague irritation that he always felt at the mere mention of Arkwright's name.) “And will the title-page say, 'Words by Mary Jane Arkwright'?” he finished.
“That's what I asked him,” laughed Billy.
“I even suggested 'Methuselah John' for a change. Oh, but, dearie,” she broke off with shy eagerness, “I just want you to hear a little of what I've done with it. You see, really, all the time, I suspect, I've been singing it—to you,” she confessed with an endearing blush, as she sprang lightly to her feet and hurried to the piano.
It was a bad ten minutes that Bertram Henshaw spent then. How he could love a song and hate it at the same time he did not understand; but he knew that he was doing exactly that. To hear Billy carol “Sweetheart, my sweetheart!” with that joyous tenderness was bliss unspeakable—until he remembered that Arkwright wrote the “Sweetheart, my sweetheart!” then it was—(Even in his thoughts Bertram bit the word off short. He was not a swearing man.) When he looked at Billy now at the piano, and thought of her singing—as she said she had sung—that song to him all through the last three days, his heart glowed. But when he looked at her and thought of Arkwright, who had made possible that singing, his heart froze with terror.
From the very first it had been music that Bertram had feared. He could not forget that Billy herself had once told him that never would she love any man better than she loved her music; that she was not going to marry. All this had been at the first—the very first. He had boldly scorned the idea then, and had said:
“So it's music—a cold, senseless thing of spidery marks on clean white paper—that is my only rival!”
He had said, too, that he was going to win. And he had won—but not until after long weeks of fearing, hoping, striving, and despairing—this last when Kate's blundering had nearly made her William's wife. Then, on that memorable day in September, Billy had walked straight into his arms; and he knew that he had, indeed, won. That is, he had supposed that he knew—until Arkwright came.
Very sharply now, as he listened to Billy's singing, Bertram told himself to be reasonable, to be sensible; that Billy did, indeed, love him. Was she not, according to her own dear assertion, singing that song to him? But it was Arkwright's song. He remembered that, too—and grew faint at the thought. True, he had won when his rival, music, had been a “cold, senseless thing of spidery marks” on paper; but would that winning stand when “music” had become a thing of flesh and blood—a man of undeniable charm, good looks, and winsomeness; a man whose thoughts, aims, and words were the personification of the thing Billy, in the long ago, had declared she loved best of all—music?
Bertram shivered as with a sudden chill; then Billy rose from the piano.
“There!” she breathed, her face shyly radiant with the glory of the song. “Did you—like it?”
Bertram did his best; but, in his state of mind, the very radiance of her face was only an added torture, and his tongue stumbled over the words of praise and appreciation that he tried to say. He saw, then, the happy light in Billy's eyes change to troubled questioning and grieved disappointment; and he hated himself for a jealous brute. More earnestly than ever, now, he tried to force the ring of sincerity into his voice; but he knew that he had miserably failed when he heard her falter:
“Of course, dear, I—I haven't got it nearly perfected yet. It'll be much better, later.”
“But it s{sic} fine, now, sweetheart—indeed it is,” protested Bertram, hurriedly.
“Well, of course I'm glad—if you like it,” murmured Billy; but the glow did not come back to her face.
Those short December days after Bertram's return from New York were busy ones for everybody. Miss Winthrop was not in town to give sittings for her portrait, it is true; but her absence only afforded Bertram time and opportunity to attend to other work that had been more or less delayed and neglected. He was often at Hillside, however, and the lovers managed to snatch many an hour of quiet happiness from the rush and confusion of the Christmas preparations.
Bertram was assuring himself now that his jealous fears of Arkwright were groundless. Billy seldom mentioned the man, and, as the days passed, she spoke only once of his being at the house. The song, too, she said little of; and Bertram—though he was ashamed to own it to himself—breathed more freely.
The real facts of the case were that Billy had told Arkwright that she should have no time to give attention to the song until after Christmas; and her manner had so plainly shown him that she considered himself synonymous with the song, that he had reluctantly taken the hint and kept away.
“I'll make her care for me sometime—for something besides a song,” he told himself with fierce consolation—but Billy did not know this.
Aside from Bertram, Christmas filled all of Billy's thoughts these days. There were such a lot of things she wished to do.
“But, after all, they're only sugarplums, you know, that I'm giving, dear,” she declared to Bertram one day, when he had remonstrated with with her for so taxing her time and strength. “I can't really do much.”
“Much!” scoffed Bertram.
“But it isn't much, honestly—compared to what there is to do,” argued Billy. “You see, dear, it's just this,” she went on, her bright face sobering a little. “There are such a lot of people in the world who aren't really poor. That is, they have bread, and probably meat, to eat, and enough clothes to keep them warm. But when you've said that, you've said it all. Books, music, fun, and frosting on their cake they know nothing about—except to long for them.”
“But there are the churches and the charities, and all those long-named Societies—I thought that was what they were for,” declared Bertram, still a little aggrievedly, his worried eyes on Billy's tired face.
“Oh, but the churches and charities don't frost cakes nor give sugarplums,” smiled Billy. “And it's right that they shouldn't, too,” she added quickly. “They have more than they can do now with the roast beef and coal and flannel petticoats that are really necessary.”
“And so it's just frosting and sugarplums, is it—these books and magazines and concert tickets and lace collars for the crippled boy, the spinster lady, the little widow, and all the rest of those people who were here last summer?”
Billy turned in confused surprise.
“Why, Bertram, however in the world did you find out about all—that?”
“I didn't. I just guessed it—and it seems 'the boy guessed right the very first time,'” laughed Bertram, teasingly, but with a tender light in his eyes. “Oh, and I suppose you'll be sending a frosted cake to the Lowestoft lady, too, eh?”
Billy's chin rose to a defiant stubbornness.
“I'm going to try to—if I can find out what kind of frosting she likes.”
“How about the Alice lady—or perhaps I should say, the Lady Alice?” smiled the man.
Billy relaxed visibly.
“Yes, I know,” she sighed. “There is—the Lady Alice. But, anyhow, she can't call a Christmas present 'charity'—not if it's only a little bit of frosting!” Billy's chin came up again.
“And you're going to, really, dare to send her something?”
“Yes,” avowed Billy. “I'm going down there one of these days, in the morning—”
“You're going down there! Billy—not alone?”
“Yes. Why not?”
“But, dearie, you mustn't. It was a horrid place, Will says.”
“So it was horrid—to live in. It was everything that was cheap and mean and forlorn. But it was quiet and respectable. 'Tisn't as if I didn't know the way, Bertram; and I'm sure that where that poor crippled woman and daughter are safe, I shall be. Mrs. Greggory is a lady, Bertram, well-born and well-bred, I'm sure—and that's the pity of it, to have to live in a place like that! They have seen better days, I know. Those pitiful little worn crutches of hers were mahogany, I'm sure, Bertram, and they were silver mounted.”
Bertram made a restless movement.
“I know, dear; but if you had some one with you! It wouldn't do for Will, of course, nor me—under the circumstances. But there's Aunt Hannah—” He paused hopefully.
Billy chuckled.
“Bless your dear heart! Aunt Hannah would call for a dozen shawls in that place—if she had breath enough to call for any after she got to the top of those four flights!”
“Yes, I suppose so,” rejoined Bertram, with an unwilling smile. “Still—well, you can take Rosa,” he concluded decisively.
“How Miss Alice would like that—to catch me going 'slumming' with my maid!” cried Billy, righteous indignation in her voice. “Honestly, Bertram, I think even gentle Mrs. Greggory wouldn't stand for that.”
“Then leave Rosa outside in the hall,” planned Bertram, promptly; and after a few more arguments, Billy finally agreed to this.
It was with Rosa, therefore, that she set out the next morning for the little room up four flights on the narrow West End street.
Leaving the maid on the top stair of the fourth flight, Billy tapped at Mrs. Greggory's door. To her joy Mrs. Greggory herself answered the knock.
“Oh! Why—why, good morning,” murmured the lady, in evident embarrassment. “Won't you—come m?”
“Thank you. May I?—just a minute?” smiled Billy, brightly.
As she entered the room, Billy threw a hasty look about her. There was no one but themselves present. With a sigh of satisfaction, therefore, the girl took the chair Mrs. Greggory offered, and began to speak.
“I was down this way—that is, I came this way this morning,” she began a little hastily; “and I wanted just to come up and tell you how sorry I was about—about that teapot the other day. We didn't want it, of course—if you didn't want us to have it.”
A swift change crossed Mrs. Greggory's perturbed face.
“Oh, then you didn't come for it again—to-day,” she said. “I'm so glad! I didn't want to refuse—you.”
“Indeed I didn't come for it—and we sha'n't again. Don't worry about that, please.”
Mrs. Greggory sighed.
“I'm afraid you thought me very rude and—and impossible the other day,” she stammered. “And please let me take this opportunity right now to apologize for my daughter. She was overwrought and excited. She didn't know what she was saying or doing, I'm sure. She was ashamed, I think after you left.”
Billy raised a quick hand of protest.
“Don't, please don't, Mrs. Greggory,” she begged.
“But it was our fault that you came. We asked you to come—through Mr. Harlow,” rejoined the other, hurriedly. “And Mr. Henshaw—was that his name?—was so kind in every way. I'm glad of this chance to tell you how much we really did appreciate it—and your offer, too, which we could not, of course, accept,” she finished, the bright color flooding her delicate face.
Again Billy raised a protesting hand; but the little woman in the opposite chair hurried on. There was still more, evidently, that she wished to say.
“I hope Mr. Henshaw did not feel too disappointed—about the Lowestoft. We didn't want to let it go if we could help it; and we hope now to keep it.”
“Of course,” murmured Billy, sympathetically.
“My daughter knew, you see, how much I have always thought of it, and she was determined that I should not give it up. She said I should have that much left, anyway. You see—my daughter is very unreconciled, still, to things as they are; and no wonder, perhaps. They are so different—from what they were!” Her voice broke a little.
“Of course,” said Billy again, and this time the words were tinged with impatient indignation. “If only there were something one could do to help!”
“Thank you, my dear, but there isn't—indeed there isn't,” rejoined the other, quickly; and Billy, looking into the proudly lifted face, realized suddenly that daughter Alice had perhaps inherited some traits from mother. “We shall get along very well, I am sure. My daughter has still another pupil. She will be home soon to tell you herself, perhaps.”
Billy rose with a haste so marked it was almost impolite, as she murmured:
“Will she? I'm afraid, though, that I sha'n't see her, after all, for I must go. And may I leave these, please?” she added, hurriedly unpinning the bunch of white carnations from her coat. “It seems a pity to let them wilt, when you can put them in water right here.” Her studiously casual voice gave no hint that those particular pinks had been bought less than half an hour before of a Park Street florist so that Mrs. Greggory might put them in water—right there.
“Oh, oh, how lovely!” breathed Mrs. Greggory, her face deep in the feathery bed of sweetness. Before she could half say “Thank you,” however? she found herself alone.
Christmas came and went; and in a flurry of snow and sleet January arrived. The holidays over, matters and things seemed to settle down to the winter routine.
Miss Winthrop had prolonged her visit in Washington until after Christmas, but she had returned to Boston now—and with her she had brought a brand-new idea for her portrait; an idea that caused her to sweep aside with superb disdain all poses and costumes and sketches to date, and announce herself with disarming winsomeness as “all ready now to really begin!”
Bertram Henshaw was vexed, but helpless. Decidedly he wished to paint Miss Marguerite Winthrop's portrait; but to attempt to paint it when all matters were not to the lady's liking were worse than useless, unless he wished to hang this portrait in the gallery of failures along with Anderson's and Fullam's—and that was not the goal he had set for it. As to the sordid money part of the affair—the great J. G. Winthrop himself had come to the artist, and in one terse sentence had doubled the original price and expressed himself as hopeful that Henshaw would put up with “the child's notions.” It was the old financier's next sentence, however, that put the zest of real determination into Bertram, for because of it, the artist saw what this portrait was going to mean to the stern old man, and how dear was the original of it to a heart that was commonly reported “on the street” to be made of stone.
Obviously, then, indeed, there was nothing for Bertram Henshaw to do but to begin the new portrait. And he began it—though still, it must be confessed, with inward questionings. Before a week had passed, however, every trace of irritation had fled, and he was once again the absorbed artist who sees the vision of his desire taking palpable shape at the end of his brush.
“It's all right,” he said to Billy then, one evening. “I'm glad she changed. It's going to be the best, the very best thing I've ever done—I think! by the sketches.”
“I'm so glad!” exclaimed Billy. “I'm so glad!” The repetition was so vehement that it sounded almost as if she were trying to convince herself as well as Bertram of something that was not true.
But it was true—Billy told herself very indignantly that it was; indeed it was! Yet the very fact that she had to tell herself this, caused her to know how perilously near she was to being actually jealous of that portrait of Marguerite Winthrop. And it shamed her.
Very sternly these days Billy reminded herself of what Kate had said about Bertram's belonging first to his Art. She thought with mortification, too, that it did look as if she were not the proper wife for an artist if she were going to feel like this—always. Very resolutely, then, Billy turned to her music. This was all the more easily done, for, not only did she have her usual concerts and the opera to enjoy, but she had become interested in an operetta her club was about to give; also she had taken up the new song again. Christmas being over, Mr. Arkwright had been to the house several times. He had changed some of the words and she had improved the melody. The work on the accompaniment was progressing finely now, and Billy was so glad!—when she was absorbed in her music she forgot sometimes that she was ever so unfit an artist's sweetheart as to be—jealous of a portrait.
It was quite early in the month that the usually expected “January thaw” came, and it was on a comparatively mild Friday at this time that a matter of business took Billy into the neighborhood of Symphony Hall at about eleven o'clock in the morning. Dismissing John and the car upon her arrival, she said that she would later walk to the home of a friend near by, where she would remain until it was time for the Symphony Concert.
This friend was a girl whom Billy had known at school. She was studying now at the Conservatory of Music; and she had often urged Billy to come and have luncheon with her in her tiny apartment, which she shared with three other girls and a widowed aunt for housekeeper. On this particular Friday it had occurred to Billy that, owing to her business appointment at eleven and the Symphony Concert at half-past two, the intervening time would give her just the opportunity she had been seeking to enable her to accept her friend's invitation. A question asked, and enthusiastically answered in the affirmative, over the telephone that morning, therefore, had speedily completed arrangements, and she had agreed to be at her friend's door by twelve o'clock, or before.
As it happened, business did not take quite so long as she had expected, and half-past eleven found her well on her way to Miss Henderson's home.
In spite of the warm sunshine and the slushy snow in the streets, there was a cold, raw wind, and Billy was beginning to feel thankful that she had not far to go when she rounded a corner and came upon a long line of humanity that curved itself back and forth on the wide expanse of steps before Symphony Hall and then stretched itself far up the Avenue.
“Why, what—” she began under her breath; then suddenly she understood. It was Friday. A world-famous pianist was to play with the Symphony Orchestra that afternoon. This must be the line of patient waiters for the twenty-five-cent balcony seats that Mr. Arkwright had told about. With sympathetic, interested eyes, then, Billy stepped one side to watch the line, for a moment.
Almost at once two girls brushed by her, and one was saying:
“What a shame!—and after all our struggles to get here! If only we hadn't lost that other train!”
“We're too late—you no need to hurry!” the other wailed shrilly to a third girl who was hastening toward them. “The line is 'way beyond the Children's Hospital and around the corner now—and the ones there never get in!”
At the look of tragic disappointment that crossed the third girl's face, Billy's heart ached. Her first impulse, of course, was to pull her own symphony ticket from her muff and hurry forward with a “Here, take mine!” But that would hardly do, she knew—though she would like to see Aunt Hannah's aghast face if this girl in the red sweater and white tam-o'-shanter should suddenly emerge from among the sumptuous satins and furs and plumes that afternoon and claim the adjacent orchestra chair. But it was out of the question, of course. There was only one seat, and there were three girls, besides all those others. With a sigh, then, Billy turned her eyes back to those others—those many others that made up the long line stretching its weary length up the Avenue.
There were more women than men, yet the men were there: jolly young men who were plainly students; older men whose refined faces and threadbare overcoats hinted at cultured minds and starved bodies; other men who showed no hollows in their cheeks nor near-holes in their garments. It seemed to Billy that women of almost all sorts were there, young, old, and middle-aged; students in tailored suits, widows in crape and veil; girls that were members of a merry party, women that were plainly forlorn and alone.
Some in the line shuffled restlessly; some stood rigidly quiet. One had brought a camp stool; many were seated on the steps. Beyond, where the line passed an open lot, a wooden fence afforded a convenient prop. One read a book, another a paper. Three were studying what was probably the score of the symphony or of the concerto they expected to hear that afternoon.
A few did not appear to mind the biting wind, but most of them, by turned-up coat-collars or bent heads, testified to the contrary. Not far from Billy a woman nibbled a sandwich furtively, while beyond her a group of girls were hilariously merry over four triangles of pie which they held up where all might see.
Many of the faces were youthful, happy, and alert with anticipation; but others carried a wistfulness and a weariness that made Billy's heart ache. Her eyes, indeed, filled with quick tears. Later she turned to go, and it was then that she saw in the line a face that she knew—a face that drooped with such a white misery of spent strength that she hurried straight toward it with a low cry.
“Miss Greggory!” she exclaimed, when she reached the girl. “You look actually ill. Are you ill?”
For a brief second only dazed questioning stared from the girl's blue-gray eyes. Billy knew when the recognition came, for she saw the painful color stain the white face red.
“Thank you, no. I am not ill, Miss Neilson,” said the girl, coldly.
“But you look so tired out!”
“I have been standing here some time; that is all.”
Billy threw a hurried glance down the far-reaching line that she knew had formed since the girl's two tired feet had taken their first position.
“But you must have come—so early! It isn't twelve o'clock yet,” she faltered.
A slight smile curved Alice Greggory's lips.
“Yes, it was early,” she rejoined a little bitterly; “but it had to be, you know. I wanted to hear the music; and with this soloist, and this weather, I knew that many others—would want to hear the music, too.”
“But you look so white! How much longer—when will they let you in?” demanded Billy, raising indignant eyes to the huge, gray-pillared building before her, much as if she would pull down the walls if she could, and make way for this tired girl at her side.
Miss Greggory's thin shoulders rose and fell in an expressive shrug.
“Half-past one.”
Billy gave a dismayed cry.
“Half-past one—almost two hours more! But, Miss Greggory, you can't—how can you stand it till then? You've shivered three times since I came, and you look as if you were going to faint away.”
Miss Greggory shook her head.
“It is nothing, really,” she insisted. “I am quite well. It is only—I didn't happen to feel like eating much breakfast this morning; and that, with no luncheon—” She let a gesture finish her sentence.
“No luncheon! Why—oh, you couldn't leave your place, of course,” frowned Billy.
“No, and”—Alice Greggory lifted her head a little proudly—“I do not care to eat—here.” Her scornful eyes were on one of the pieces of pie down the line—no longer a triangle.
“Of course not,” agreed Billy, promptly. She paused, frowned, and bit her lip. Suddenly her face cleared. “There! the very thing,” she exulted. “You shall have my ticket this afternoon, Miss Greggory, then you won't have to stay here another minute. Meanwhile, there is an excellent restaurant—”
“Thank you—no. I couldn't do that,” cut in the other, sharply, but in a low voice.
“But you'll take my ticket,” begged Billy.
Miss Greggory shook her head.
“Certainly not.”
“But I want you to, please. I shall be very unhappy if you don't,” grieved Billy.
The other made a peremptory gesture.
“I should be very unhappy if I did,” she said with cold emphasis. “Really, Miss Neilson,” she went on in a low voice, throwing an apprehensive glance at the man ahead, who was apparently absorbed in his newspaper, “I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to let me go on in my own way. You are very kind, but there is nothing you can do; nothing. You were very kind, too, of course, to send the book and the flowers to mother at Christmas; but—”
“Never mind that, please,” interrupted Billy, hurriedly. Billy's head was lifted now. Her eyes were no longer pleading. Her round little chin looked square and determined. “If you simply will not take my ticket this afternoon, you must do this. Go to some restaurant near here and get a good luncheon—something that will sustain you. I will take your place here.”
“Miss Neilson!”
Billy smiled radiantly. It was the first time she had ever seen Alice Greggory's haughtily cold reserve break into anything like naturalness—the astonished incredulity of that “Miss Neilson!” was plainly straight from the heart; so, too, were the amazed words that followed.
“You—will stand here?”
“Certainly; I will keep your place. Don't worry. You sha'n't lose it.” Billy spoke with a smiling indifference that was meant to convey the impression that standing in line for a twenty-five-cent seat was a daily habit of hers. “There's a restaurant only a little way—right down there,” she finished. And before the dazed Alice Greggory knew quite what was happening she found herself outside the line, and the other in her place.
“But, Miss Neilson, I can't—you mustn't—” she stammered; then, because of something in the unyieldingness of the square young chin above the sealskin coat, and because she could not (she knew) use actual force to drag the owner of that chin out of the line, she bowed her head in acquiescence.
“Well, then—I will, long enough for some coffee and maybe a sandwich. And—thank you,” she choked, as she turned and hurried away.
Billy drew the deep breath of one who has triumphed after long struggles—but the breath broke off short in a gasp of dismay: coming straight up the Avenue toward her was the one person in the world Billy wished least to see at that moment—Bertram Henshaw. Billy remembered then that she had twice lately heard her lover speak of calling at the Boston Opera House concerning a commission to paint an ideal head to represent “Music” for some decorative purpose. The Opera House was only a short distance up the Avenue. Doubtless he was on his way there now.
He was very near by this time, and Billy held her breath suspended. There was a chance, of course, that he might not notice her; and Billy was counting on that chance—until a gust of wind whirled a loose half-sheet of newspaper from the hands of the man in front of her, and naturally attracted Bertram's eyes to its vicinity—and to hers. The next moment he was at her side and his dumfounded but softly-breathed “Billy!” was in her ears.
Billy bubbled into low laughter—there were such a lot of funny situations in the world, and of them all this one was about the drollest, she thought.
“Yes, I know,” she gurgled. “You don't have to say it-your face is saying even more than your tongue could! This is just for a girl I know. I'm keeping her place.”
Bertram frowned. He looked as if he were meditating picking Billy up and walking off with her.
“But, Billy,” he protested just above his breath, “this isn't sugarplums nor frosting; it's plain suicide—standing out in this wind like this! Besides—” He stopped with an angrily despairing glance at her surroundings.
“Yes, I know,” she nodded, a little soberly, understanding the look and answering that first; “it isn't pleasant nor comfortable, in lots of ways—but she's had it all the morning. As for the cold—I'm as warm as toast. It won't be long, anyway; she's just gone to get something to eat. Then I'm going to May Henderson's for luncheon.”
Bertram sighed impatiently and opened his lips—only to close them with the words unsaid. There was nothing he could do, and he had already said too much, he thought, with a savage glance at the man ahead who still had enough of his paper left to serve for a pretence at reading. As Bertram could see, however, the man was not reading a word—he was too acutely conscious of the handsome young woman in the long sealskin coat behind him. Billy was already the cynosure of dozens of eyes, and Bertram knew that his own arrival on the scene had not lessened the interest of the owners of those eyes. He only hoped devoutly that no one in the line knew him ar Billy, and that no one quite knew what had happened. He did not wish to see himself and his fiancée the subject of inch-high headlines in some evening paper figuring as:
“Talented young composer and her famous artist lover take poor girl's place in a twenty-five-cent ticket line.”
He shivered at the thought.
“Are you cold?” worried Billy. “If you are, don't stand here, please!”
He shook his head silently. His eyes were searching the street for the only one whose coming could bring him relief.
It must have been but a coffee-and-sandwich luncheon for the girl, for soon she came. The man surmised that it was she, as soon as he saw her, and stepped back at once. He had no wish for introductions. A moment later the girl was in Billy's place, and Billy herself was at his side.
“That was Alice Greggory, Bertram,” she told him, as they walked on swiftly; “and Bertram, she was actually almost crying when she took my place.”
“Humph! Well, I should think she'd better be,” growled Bertram, perversely.
“Pooh! It didn't hurt me any, dearie,” laughed Billy with a conciliatory pat on his arm as they turned down the street upon which her friend lived. “And now can you come in and see May a minute?”
“I'm afraid not,” regretted Bertram. “I wish I could, but I'm busier than busy to-day—and I was supposed to be already late when I saw you. Jove, Billy, I just couldn't believe my eyes!”
“You looked it,” twinkled Billy. “It was worth a farm just to see your face!”
“I'd want the farm—if I was going through that again,” retorted the man, grimly—Bertram was still seeing that newspaper heading.
But Billy only laughed again.
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《Miss Billy比利小姐》
Arkwright called Monday afternoon by appointment; and together he and Billy put the finishing touches to the new song.
It was when, with Aunt Hannah, they were having tea before the fire a little later, that Billy told of her adventure the preceding Friday afternoon in front of Symphony Hall.
“You knew the girl, of course—I think you said you knew the girl,” ventured Arkwright.
“Oh, yes. She was Alice Greggory. I met her with Uncle William first, over a Lowestoft teapot. Maybe you'd like to know how I met her,” smiled Billy.
“Alice Greggory?” Arkwright's eyes showed a sudden interest. “I used to know an Alice Greggory, but it isn't the same one, probably. Her mother was a cripple.”
Billy gave a little cry.
“Why, it is—it must be! My Alice Greggory's mother is a cripple. Oh, do you know them, really?”
“Well, it does look like it,” rejoined Arkwright, showing even deeper interest. “I haven't seen them for four or five years. They used to live in our town. The mother was a little sweet-faced woman with young eyes and prematurely white hair.”
“That describes my Mrs. Greggory exactly,” cried Billy's eager voice. “And the daughter?”
“Alice? Why—as I said, it's been four years since I've seen her.” A touch of constraint had come into Arkwright's voice which Billy's keen ear was quick to detect. “She was nineteen then and very pretty.”
“About my height, and with light-brown hair and big blue-gray eyes that look steely cold when she's angry?” questioned Billy.
“I reckon that's about it,” acknowledged the man, with a faint smile.
“Then they are the ones,” declared the girl, plainly excited. “Isn't that splendid? Now we can know them, and perhaps do something for them. I love that dear little mother already, and I think I should the daughter—if she didn't put out so many prickers that I couldn't get near her! But tell us about them. How did they come here? Why didn't you know they were here?”
“Are you good at answering a dozen questions at once?” asked Aunt Hannah, turning smiling eyes from Billy to the man at her side.
“Well, I can try,” he offered. “To begin with, they are Judge Greggory's widow and daughter. They belong to fine families on both sides, and they used to be well off—really wealthy, for a small town. But the judge was better at money-making than he was at money-keeping, and when he came to die his income stopped, of course, and his estate was found to be in bad shape through reckless loans and worthless investments. That was eight years ago. Things went from bad to worse then, until there was almost nothing left.”
“I knew there was some such story as that back of them,” declared Billy. “But how do you suppose they came here?”
“To get away from—everybody, I suspect,” replied Arkwright. “That would be like them. They were very proud; and it isn't easy, you know, to be nobody where you've been somebody. It doesn't hurt quite so hard—to be nobody where you've never been anything but nobody.”
“I suppose so,” sighed Billy. “Still—they must have had friends.”
“They did, of course; but when the love of one's friends becomes too highly seasoned with pity, it doesn't make a pleasant morsel to swallow, specially if you don't like the taste of the pity—and there are people who don't, you know. The Greggorys were that kind. They were morbidly so. From their cheap little cottage, where they did their own work, they stepped out in their shabby garments and old-fashioned hats with heads even more proudly erect than in the old days when their home and their gowns and their doings were the admiration and envy of the town. You see, they didn't want—that pity.”
“I do see,” cried Billy, her face aglow with sudden understanding; “and I don't believe pity would be—nice!” Her own chin was held high as she spoke.
“It must have been hard, indeed,” murmured Aunt Hannah with a sigh, as she set down her teacup.
“It was,” nodded Arkwright. “Of course Mrs. Greggory, with her crippled foot, could do nothing to bring in any money except to sew a little. It all depended on Alice; and when matters got to their worst she began to teach. She was fond of music, and could play the piano well; and of course she had had the best instruction she could get from city teachers only twenty miles away from our home town. Young as she was—about seventeen when she began to teach, I think—she got a few beginners right away, and in two years she had worked up quite a class, meanwhile keeping on with her own studies, herself.
“They might have carried the thing through, maybe,” continued Arkwright, “and never apparently known that the 'pity' existed, if it hadn't been for some ugly rumors that suddenly arose attacking the Judge's honesty in an old matter that somebody raked up. That was too much. Under this last straw their courage broke utterly. Alice dismissed every pupil, sold almost all their remaining goods—they had lots of quite valuable heirlooms; I suspect that's where your Lowestoft teapot came in—and with the money thus gained they left town. Until they could go, they scarcely showed themselves once on the street, they were never at home to callers, and they left without telling one soul where they were going, so far as we could ever learn.”
“Why, the poor dears!” cried Billy. “How they must have suffered! But things will be different now. You'll go to see them, of course, and—” At the look that came into Arkwright's face, she stopped in surprise.
“You forget; they wouldn't wish to see me,” demurred the man. And again Billy noticed the odd constraint in his voice.
“But they wouldn't mind you—here,” argued Billy.
“I'm afraid they would. In fact, I'm sure they'd refuse entirely to see me.”
Billy's eyes grew determined.
“But they can't refuse—if I bring about a meeting just casually, you know,” she challenged.
Arkwright laughed.
“Well, I won't pretend to say as to the consequences of that,” he rejoined, rising to his feet; “but they might be disastrous. Wasn't it you yourself who were telling me a few minutes ago how steely cold Miss Alice's eyes got when she was angry?”
Billy knew by the way the man spoke that, for some reason, he did not wish to prolong the subject of his meeting the Greggorys. She made a quick shift, therefore, to another phase of the matter.
“But tell me, please, before you go, how did those rumors come out—about Judge Greggory's honesty, I mean?”
“Why, I never knew, exactly,” frowned Arkwright, musingly. “Yet it seems, too, that mother did say in one letter, while I was in Paris, that some of the accusations had been found to be false, and that there was a prospect that the Judge's good name might be saved, after all.”
“Oh, I wish it might,” sighed Billy. “Think what it would mean to those women!”
“'Twould mean everything,” cried Arkwright, warmly; “and I'll write to mother to-night, I will, and find out just what there is to it-if anything. Then you can tell them,” he finished a little stiffly.
“Yes—or you,” nodded Billy, lightly. And because she began at once to speak of something else, the first part of her sentence passed without comment.
The door had scarcely closed behind Arkwright when Billy turned to Aunt Hannah a beaming face.
“Aunt Hannah, did you notice?” she cried, “how Mary Jane looked and acted whenever Alice Greggory was spoken of? There was something between them—I'm sure there was; and they quarrelled, probably.”
“Why, no, dear; I didn't see anything unusual,” murmured the elder lady.
“Well, I did. And I'm going to be the fairy godmother that straightens everything all out, too. See if I'm not! They'd make a splendid couple, Aunt Hannah. I'm going right down there to-morrow.”
“Billy, my dear!” exclaimed the more conservative old lady, “aren't you taking things a little too much for granted? Maybe they don't wish for—for a fairy godmother!”
“Oh, they won't know I'm a fairy godmother—not one of them; and of course I wouldn't mention even a hint to anybody,” laughed Billy. “I'm just going down to get acquainted with the Greggorys; that's all. Only think, Aunt Hannah, what they must have suffered! And look at the place they're living in now—gentlewomen like them!”
“Yes, yes, poor things, poor things!” sighed Aunt Hannah.
“I hope I'll find out that she's really good—at teaching, I mean—the daughter,” resumed Billy, after a moment's pause. “If she is, there's one thing I can do to help, anyhow. I can get some of Marie's old pupils for her. I know some of them haven't begun with a new teacher, yet; and Mrs. Carleton told me last Friday that neither she nor her sister was at all satisfied with the one their girls have taken. They'd change, I know, in a minute, at my recommendation—that is, of course, if I can give the recommendation,” continued Billy, with a troubled frown. “Anyhow, I'm going down to begin operations to-morrow.”