The Portygee Part 64

"I love the place," he said simply.

"I am glad. So do I; but then I have lived here all my life. The next time we talk I want to know more about your plans for the future--yours and Madeline's, I mean. How proud she must be of you."

He looked up at her; she was standing upon the upper step and he on the walk below.

"Madeline and I--" he began. Then he stopped. What was the use? He did not want to talk about it. He waved his hand and turned away.

After dinner he went out into the kitchen to talk to Mrs. Ellis, who was was.h.i.+ng dishes. She was doing it as she did all her share of the housework, with an energy and capability which would have delighted the soul of a "scientific management" expert. Except when under the spell of a sympathetic attack Rachel was ever distinctly on the job.

And of course she was, as always, glad to see her protege, her Robert Penfold. The proprietary interest which she had always felt in him was more than ever hers now. Had not she been the sole person to hint at the possibility of his being alive, when every one else had given him up for dead? Had not she been the only one to suggest that he might have been taken prisoner? Had SHE ever despaired of seeing him again--on this earth and in the flesh? Indeed, she had not; at least, she had never admitted it, if she had. So then, hadn't she a RIGHT to feel that she owned a share in him? No one ventured to dispute that right.

She turned and smiled over one ample shoulder when he entered the kitchen.

"h.e.l.lo," she hailed cheerfully. "Come callin', have you, Robert--Albert, I mean? It would have been a great help to me if you'd been christened Robert. I call you that so much to myself it comes almost more natural than the other. On account of you bein' so just like Robert Penfold in the book, you know," she added.

"Yes, yes, of course, Rachel, I understand," put in Albert hastily. He was not in the mood to listen to a dissertation on a text taken from Foul Play. He looked about the room and sighed happily.

"There isn't a speck anywhere, is there?" he observed. "It is just as it used to be, just as I used to think of it when I was laid up over there.

When I wanted to try and eat a bit, so as to keep what strength I had, I would think about this kitchen of yours, Rachel. It didn't do to think of the places where the prison stuff was cooked. They were not--appetizing."

Mrs. Ellis nodded. "I presume likely not," she observed. "Well, don't tell me about 'em. I've just scrubbed this kitchen from stem to stern.

If I heard about those prison places, I'd feel like startin' right in and scrubbin' it all over again, I know I should... . Dirty pigs! I wish I had the scourin' of some of those Germans! I'd--I don't know as I wouldn't skin 'em alive."

Albert laughed. "Some of them pretty nearly deserved it," he said.

Rachel smiled grimly. "Well, let's talk about nice things," she said.

"Oh, Issy Price was here this forenoon; Cap'n Lote sent him over from the office on an errand, and he said he saw you and Mr. Kendall goin'

down street together just as he was comin' along. He hollered at you, but you didn't hear him. 'Cordin' to Issachar's tell, you was luggin' a basket with Jonah's whale in it, or somethin' like that."

Albert described his encounter with the minister. Rachel was much interested.

"Oh, so you saw Helen," she said. "Well, I guess she was surprised to see you."

"Not more than I was to see her. I didn't know she was in town. Not a soul had mentioned it--you nor Grandfather nor Grandmother."

The housekeeper answered without turning her head. "Guess we had so many things to talk about we forgot it," she said. "Yes, she's been here over a week now. High time, from what I hear. The poor old parson has failed consider'ble and Maria Price's housekeepin' and cookin' is enough to make a well man sick--or wish he was. But he'll be looked after now.

Helen will look after him. She's the most capable girl there is in Ostable County. Did she tell you about what she done in the Red Cross and the hospitals?"

"She said something about it, not very much."

"Um-hm. She wouldn't, bein' Helen Kendall. But the Red Cross folks said enough, and they're sayin' it yet. Why--"

She went on to tell of Helen's work in the Red Cross depots and in the camp, and hospitals. It was an inspiring story.

"There they was," said Rachel, "the poor things, just boys most of 'em, dyin' of that dreadful influenza like rats, as you might say. And, of course it's dreadful catchin', and a good many was more afraid of it than they would have been of bullets, enough sight. But Helen Kendall wa'n't afraid--no, siree! Why--"

And so on. Albert listened, hearing most of it, but losing some as his thoughts wandered back to the Helen he had known as a boy and the Helen he had met that forenoon. Her face, as she had welcomed him at the parsonage door--it was surprising how clearly it showed before his mind's eye. He had thought at first that she had not changed in appearance. That was not quite true--she had changed a little, but it was merely the fulfillment of a promise, that was all. Her eyes, her smile above a hospital bed--he could imagine what they must have seemed like to a lonely, homesick boy wrestling with the "flu."

"And, don't talk!" he heard the housekeeper say, as he drifted out of his reverie, "if she wa'n't popular around that hospital, around both hospitals, fur's that goes! The patients idolized her, and the other nurses they loved her, and the doctors--"

"Did they love her, too?" Albert asked, with a smile, as she hesitated.

She laughed. "Some of 'em did, I cal'late," she answered. "You see, I got most of my news about it all from Bessie Ryder, Cornelius Ryder's niece, lives up on the road to the Center; you used to know her, Albert.

Bessie was nursin' in that same hospital, the one Helen was at first.

'Cordin' to her, there was some doctor or officer tryin' to s.h.i.+ne up to Helen most of the time. When she was at Eastview, so Bessie heard, there was a real big-bug in the Army, a sort of Admiral or Commodore amongst the doctors he was, and HE was trottin' after her, or would have been if she'd let him. 'Course you have to make some allowances for Bessie--she wouldn't be a Ryder if she didn't take so many words to say so little that the truth gets stretched pretty thin afore she finished--but there must have been SOMETHIN' in it. And all about her bein' such a wonderful nurse and doin' so much for the Red Cross I KNOW is true... . Eh? Did you say anything, Albert?"

Albert shook his head. "No, Rachel," he replied. "I didn't speak."

"I thought I heard you or somebody say somethin'. I--Why, Laban Keeler, what are you doin' away from your desk this time in the afternoon?"

Laban grinned as he entered the kitchen.

"Did I hear you say you thought you heard somebody sayin' somethin', Rachel?" he inquired. "That's queer, ain't it? Seemed to me _I_ heard somebody sayin' somethin' as I come up the path just now. Seemed as if they was sayin' it right here in the kitchen, too. 'Twasn't your voice, Albert, and it couldn't have been Rachel's, 'cause she NEVER talks--'specially to you. It's too bad, the prejudice she's got against you, Albert," he added, with a wink. "Um-hm, too bad--yes, 'tis--yes, yes."

Mrs. Ellis sniffed.

"And that's what the newspapers in war time used to call--er--er--oh, dear, what was it?--camel--seems's if 'twas somethin' about a camel--"

"Camouflage?" suggested Albert.

"That's it. All that talk about me is just camouflage to save him answerin' my question. But he's goin' to answer it. What are you doin'

away from the office this time in the afternoon, I want to know?"

Mr. Keeler perched his small figure on the corner of the kitchen table.

"Well, to tell you the truth, Rachel," he said solemnly. "I'm here to do what the folks in books call demand an explanation. You and I, Rachel, are just as good as engaged to be married, ain't we? I've been keepin'

company with you for the last twenty, forty or sixty years, some such spell as that. Now, just as I'm gettin' used to it and beginnin' to consider it a settled arrangement, as you may say, I come into this house and find you shut up in the kitchen with another man. Now, what--"

The housekeeper advanced toward him with the dripping dishcloth.

"Laban Keeler," she threatened, "if you don't stop your foolishness and answer my question, I declare I'll--"

Laban slid from his perch and retired behind the table.

"Another man," he repeated. "And SOME folks--not many, of course, but some--might be crazy enough to say he was a better-lookin' man than I am. Now, bein' ragin' jealous,--All right, Rachel, all right, I surrender. Don't hit me with all those soapsuds. I don't want to go back to the office foamin' at the mouth. The reason I'm here is that I had to go down street to see about the sheathin' for the Red Men's lodge room.

Issy took the order, but he wasn't real sure whether 'twas sheathin'

or scantlin' they wanted, so I told Cap'n Lote I'd run down myself and straighten it out. On the way back I saw you two through the window and I thought I'd drop in and worry you. So here I am."

Mrs. Ellis nodded. "Yes," she sniffed. "And all that camel--camel--Oh, DEAR, what DOES ail me? All that camel--No use, I've forgot it again."

"Never mind, Rachel," said Mr. Keeler consolingly. "All the--er--menagerie was just that and nothin' more. Oh, by the way, Al,"

he added, "speakin' of camels--don't you think I've done pretty well to go so long without any--er--liquid nourishment? Not a drop since you and I enlisted together... . Oh, she knows about it now," he added, with a jerk of his head in the housekeeper's direction. "I felt 'twas fairly safe and settled, so I told her. I told her. Yes, yes, yes. Um-hm, so I did."

Albert turned to the lady.

"You should be very proud of him, Rachel," he said seriously. "I think I realize a little something of the fight he has made, and it is bully.

You should be proud of him."