A Daughter of the Rich Part 47

"Now look here, wifie, don't you let those women with their eternal hunger for gossip say anything to you about Jack. I tell you there is n't another fellow I know, who, placed as he is, can set up so many white stones to mark his short life's pathway as John Sherrill's only son. For heaven's sake, give him the credit for them. I know what I saw on Mount Hunger a year ago, and I know and believe what I see."

"Well, I only hope he won't flirt with her--" began Mrs. Heath. Her husband interrupted her:

"Flirt with her!" The Doctor chuckled. "I'll warrant Jack won't do any flirting with her--it 'll be the other way round sooner than that! Just say good-night to Rose for me when you go up stairs, and tell her if she is n't down bright and early Sunday morning, I 'll prescribe for her."

But there was no need for the Doctor's prescription; for Rose was down for breakfast, and although white cheeks and heavy eyes caused the Doctor to draw his eyebrows together in a straight line over the bridge of his nose, nothing was said of there being any need for a prescription. But after breakfast he drew her into the library and placed her in an easy-chair before the blazing fire.

"There now," he said in his own kindliest tones, "sit there and dream while wifie makes ready for church, and after that you shall go with me for an official drive. The air will do you good. I can't send such white roses"--he patted her cheek--"back to Mount Hunger; what would mother say?"

To his amazement Rose buried her face in both hands; a half-suppressed sob startled him.

"Why, Rose-pose! What's the matter, little girl? Headachey--nerves unstrung--too much opera? Here, come into the office where we shan't be disturbed, and tell me all about it."

But Rose shook her head, lifted it from her hands, and smiled through the welling tears.

"I 'm a perfect goose, but--but--I believe I 'm getting just a little bit homesick for Mount Hunger, and I 'm not going to stay for Mrs.

Fenlick's ball. I know mother needs me at home--I can just feel it in her letters, and I know I want--I want her."

"Don't blame you a bit, Rose,--but is n't this rather sudden? Any previous attacks?"

"No--and I know it seems dreadfully ungrateful to you and dear Mrs.

Heath to say so, and it is n't that--I 'd love to be with just you two; but it's this dreadful feeling comes over me, and I know I ought to go."

"And go you shall, Rose," said the Doctor, emphatically, but oh! so kindly and understandingly. "Go back to all the dear ones there--and when you come again, don't give us the tail-end of your visit, will you?"

"Indeed, I won't," answered Rose, earnestly, "and if it were only you and Mrs. Heath, I 'd love to stay, but--but--"

"No need to say anything more, Rose, wifie and I understand it perfectly--" ("I wish the d.i.c.kens I did!" was his thought)--"Tell wifie when she comes down, and meanwhile I 'll send round for the brougham and we 'll take a little drive in the Park before office hours."

Rose patted his hand, and her silence spoke for her.

"Here 's a pretty kettle of fis.h.!.+" said the Doctor to himself as he went to the telephone. "I wish I could get to the bottom of it."

And thus it came about that a cool, dignified note, not expressive of any particular regret, was mailed to Cambridge on Sunday afternoon, and a long letter to Mount Hunger telling them to be sure to meet her on Tuesday at Barton's, and filled with wildly enthusiastic expressions of delight in antic.i.p.ation of the home-coming. And on Tuesday afternoon, as the train sped onwards, following the curves of the frozen Connecticut, and the snow-covered mountains on the Vermont side began to crowd its banks, Rose felt a lightening of the heart and an uplifting of spirits.

The bitterness and shame and shock she had experienced, in consequence of that one little bite of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, seemed to diminish with every mile that increased the distance between her and the frothing whirlpool of the great city's gayeties. All the way up, until the mountains loomed in sight, there had been hot, indignant protest in her thoughts. At first, indeed, it had been hatred.

"I hate it all--hate it, _hate_ it!" she found herself saying over and over again after the good-byes had been said at the station, and Hazel and Mr. Clyde and Doctor Heath had supplied her with flowers and magazines for the long day's journey. It was all she could think or feel at the time; but soon the little p.r.o.noun changed, and the thought grew more bitter:

"I hate him! How could he--how dared he do as he did! Because I am poor, I suppose. Oh! I wish I could make him pay for it. I wish I could make him love me really and truly, and then just _scorn_ him! But what a fool I am--as if he _could_ love after what I heard--oh, why did I hear it! I wish I may never see his face again, and I wish I 'd stayed at home where I belong--I hate him!"--And so on "da capo" hour after hour, and the incessant chugetty-chug-chug of the express furnished the rhythmic, basal tone for the bitter motive.

It was long after lunch time, and the train of thought had not changed, when Rose's eye fell upon the dainty basket Martin had placed in the rack.

"This is a pretty state of mind to go home to Martie in!" she said to herself, rising and taking down the basket. "I have n't eaten a good meal since last Sat.u.r.day at lunch, and I 'm--why, I believe I 'm hungry!"

She opened the basket, and loving evidence of Minna-Lu's admiration tempted her to pick a little here and there--a stuffed olive or two, a roast quail, a delicate celery sandwich, a quince tart, a bunch of Hamburg grapes. Soon Rose was feasting on all the good things, and her harsh thoughts began to soften. How kind they all were! And _they_ truly loved her--and what had they not done for her comfort and pleasure! Rose, setting her pretty teeth deep into a third quince tart, looked out of the window and almost exclaimed aloud at the sight. The vanguard of the Green Mountains closed in the upper end of the river-valley along which they were speeding. It was home that was behind all that! The thought still further softened her.

What? Carry her bitterness and disappointed pride back into that dear, peaceful home? Not she! "They shall never know--never!" she said to herself--"I 'm not Molly Stark for nothing, and there are others in the world beside Jack Sherrill." And so she continued to speak cold comfort to herself for the next four hours until the brakeman called "Barton's River!"

There beyond the platform was the old apple-green pung!--and yes! father and March and Budd and dear old Chi anxiously scanning the coaches.

Home at last! and such a home-coming! How busy the tongues were for a week afterwards! How wildly gay was Rose, who kept them laughing over the many queer doings of the metropolis, over Wilkins and Minna-Lu and Martin and Mrs. Scott! And how lovingly she spoke of Hazel's charming hospitality and of Mr. Clyde's thoughtfulness for her pleasure, although, as she mentioned his name, a wave of color mounted to the roots of her hair at the ugly thought that would intrude. Chi listened with all his ears, enjoying it with the rest; but once upstairs in his room over the shed, he would sit down on the side of his bed to ponder a little the gay doings of his Rose-pose among the "high-flyers," and then turn in with a sigh and a muttered:

"'T ain't Rose-pose. I knew how 't would be.--There 's a screw loose somewhere; but she's handsome!--handsome as a picture, 'n' I 'd give a dollar to know if she 's cut that other one out."

"Valentines seem kind of scarce this year," he remarked rather grimly, a few days after her arrival, as late in the afternoon, he returned from Barton's with little mail and no boxes of flowers. "It's the sixteenth day of February, but it might be Fast Day for all that handful of mail would show for it!" He placed the package on Mrs. Blossom's work-table at which Rose was sitting busy with some sewing. They were alone in the room.

Rose laughed merrily. "Goodness, Chi! you want us to have more than our share. We had a perfect deluge last year when Hazel was here; you know it makes a difference without her. You said yourself that there was a good deal of bulk, but it was pretty light weight--don't you remember?"

Chi elevated one bushy eyebrow. "I ain't forgot; but I don't know about it's bein' any _Deluge_--it appeared to me it was a Shadrach, Meshach, 'n' Abednego kind of a business--" He gave the back log a kick that sent the sparks up the chimney in a grand pyrotechnic show. "Seems as if I could see those posies, now, a-shrivellin' in the fireplace. Never thought you treated those innocent things quite on the square, Rose-pose!"

Rose's head was bent low over her work. Chi went on, bracing himself to the self-imposed task of enlightening her:--

"I don't want to meddle, Rose, in anybody's business, but it ain't set well with me ever since--the way you treated those roses; 'n', after all, we 're both members of the n.o.body's Business But Our Own Society, 'n' if anybody 's goin' to meddle, perhaps I 'm the one. I 've thought a good many times you would n't have been quite so harsh with 'em, if you had n't overlooked this in your flare-up--" He drew out of his breast pocket a card--Jack 's--with the verse on the back. "Read that, 'n' see if you ain't dropped a st.i.tch somewhere that you can pick up in time." He handed her the card.

Rose looked up surprised, but with burning cheeks. She took the card, read the verse, turned it over on the name side, and rose from her chair. Every particle of color had left her face. She went over to the fireplace, and, bending, dropped the little piece of pasteboard upon the glowing back-log.

"The sentiment belongs with the roses, Chi; don't let's have any more Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego business--I 'm tired of it." She spoke indifferently; then, resuming her seat, called out in a cheery voice:

"Martie, won't you come here a minute, and see if I have put on this gore right?"

"I 'll come, dear."

Chi, nonplussed, irritated, repulsed, set his teeth hard and abruptly left the room.

Outside in the shed he clenched his fist and shook it vigorously at the closed door of the long-room: "--By George Was.h.i.+n'ton!" he muttered, "I 'll make you pay up for that, Rose Blossom. You can't come any of your high-flyers' games on me-- Just you put that in your pipe and smoke it!

Thunderation! what gets into women and girls, sometimes?" He seized the milk-pails from the shelf and hurried to the barn nearly running down Cherry in his wrathful excitement.

"Look out there, Cherry! You 're always getting round under foot!" he said, harshly, and stumbled on, regaining his balance, only to be met by Budd in the barn.

"Just clear out now, Budd! I ain't goin' to stand your foolin'. Let alone of that stanchion," he roared. "Always worryin' the cow if she looks once at you sideways. Get _up_, there--" His right boot helped the amazed cow forwards into the stall, and the milk drummed into the pail as if the poor creature were being milked by a dummy-engine with more pressure of steam on than it could well stand.

Budd flew into the woodshed and found Cherry still standing, in a half-dazed condition, where Chi had left her. They compared notes immediately to the detriment and defamation of Chi's character. Then they carried their budget of woe to their mother.

"Chi is worried, children; you must n't mind if he is a little cross now and then. He feels dreadfully about the prospect of this war, as we all do, and that's his way of showing it."

"Well, if he's going to be so cross at us, I wish he 'd clear out an' go to war!" retorted Budd, smarting under the unjust treatment.

"I 'm only afraid he will if we have one," said Mrs. Blossom, sadly.

"But, oh, I hope and pray we may be spared that!"

But Budd continued to grumble, and Cherry to be suspiciously sniffy, until their father's return; and then at the supper table they listened greedily to all the talk of their elders, that had for its absorbing theme the prospective war.

As the spring days lengthened, and the sun drew northward, the tiny cloud on the country's peaceful horizon grew larger and darker, until it cast its shadow throughout the length and breadth of the land, and men's faces grew stern and troubled and women prayed for peace.

With the lengthening days Chi showed signs of increasing restlessness.

"It ain't any use, Ben," he said, one soft evening in early May, as the family, with the exception of the younger children, sat on the porch discussing the latest news, "I 've got to go."