People of the Whirlpool Part 16

I was at once relieved, for I knew that the lacerations were of trousers and not flesh, and at the same time I saw that the crash of gla.s.s was caused merely by the toppling backward of the sash, also that all my young heliotrope plants that were in the frame where the chauffeur reposed were hopelessly ruined.

Timothy brought out Evan's bath gown, and in a few moments Mr. Somers was himself again, and after surveying the scene of the disaster, he approached me with a charming bow, and drawing a crumpled note from his pocket said:--

"I promised Bertie Chatterton to give you this invitation for his studio tea to-morrow, in person, and I fear that I have rather overshot my promise. Best way to get that brute up will be from the bank wall,--will damage your fruit less. I will have a derrick sent up to-morrow, or if possible this afternoon. I'm awfully sorry, Mrs. Evan, but I think you'll bear me witness that the accident was quite out of my control. May I beg the favour of a trap home? I'm a trifle shaken up, that's all." And as if the accident were an everyday affair, he departed without fuss and having steadied my nerves by his entire self-control.

As I stood by the gateway pondering upon the matter and the easy manners of this Whirlpooler, Mrs. Jenks-Smith drove past. She had met Mr. Somers, and as her curiosity was piqued by his strange attire, she stopped to see if I could furnish a clew. She says, by the way, that he is not a New Yorker, but from Boston, and that his father is an English Honourable and his mother a Frenchwoman.

A gang of men with a sort of wrecking machine hired from the railroad company removed the _Thing_ next day, and towed it off, but of course the strawberries were half ruined; next a man from the florist's in town came with directions to repair all damage to turf and replace the smashed plants. Yet that is not all--the sense of peace and protection that I had when working in my garden has had a shock. In spite of the inhospitable air it gives the place, I think we must keep the gates closed.

Why was Jenks-Smith inspired to start a land-boom here and fate allowed to make fas.h.i.+on smile on it, when we were so uneventfully happy, so twinfully content?

Martin Cortright arrived on Wednesday, and is safely ensconced with Martha and Timothy Saunders, who could give him the couple of plainly furnished rooms he desired, and breakfast at any hour. For a man of no hours (which usually means he never breakfasts before nine) to forgather cheerfully at a commuter's table at 7:15 A.M. is a trial to him, and a second breakfast is apt to cause a cloud in Madam C.'s domestic horizon.

Therefore, father allowed Martin to do as he suggested, live at the farm cottage and work here in the library or attic den, as suits his convenience. In this way he feels quite independent, has motive for exercise in walking to and fro, and as he is always welcome to dine with us, can mix his portion of solitude and society in the exact proportion of his taste, even as his well-shaped fingers carefully blend the tobacco for his outdoor pipe.

Dear old fellow, he seems so happy and bubbling over with good temper at having overstepped the tyranny of habit, that I shall almost expect to see his gray hairs turn brown again as the wintry pelt of the weasel does in spring.

If the Vanderveer boy is diagnosed as a case of "suppressed boyhood,"

then Martin Cortright's only ailment should be dubbed "suppressed youth!"

He was to have come earlier in the month, but a singular circ.u.mstance prevented. The old-time gentlewoman, at whose house in Irving Place he has had his apartments so long that a change seemed impossible, died, and he was obliged not only to move, but put his precious belongings in storage until he can place himself suitably once more. So that his plan of coming here bridges the break, and seems quite providential.

He and father walk up and down the garden together after dinner, smoking and chatting, and it does me good to see dear daddy with one of his old-time friends. I think I am only now realizing what he, with his sociable disposition, gave up in all those years before Evan came, that I should not be alone, and that he might be all in all to me.

It was quite cool yesterday. We had hearth fires all through the house, and Martin, rearranging some reference books for his own convenience in the little room that is an annex to father's library, wore his skull cap and Chinese silk dressing gown, which gave him an antique air quite at variance with his clear skin and eyes.

Lavinia Dorman had been due all the week, but worry with the workmen who are building in the rear of her house detained her, and she telegraphed me that she would take the morning express, and asked me to meet her over in town. So I drove in myself, dropping father at the hospital on the way, but on reaching the station the train brought me no pa.s.senger.

I returned home, hoping to be in time for our way train, thinking I had mistaken her message, and missed it; but the postmistress,--for every strange face is noticed in town,--told me that the lady who visited me two weeks ago walked up from the ten o'clock train; that she had a new bonnet and "moved right spry," and asked if she was a relative of mine.

"An aunt, maybe, and was the pleasant new gentleman an uncle, and did he write a newspaper? She thought maybe he did because he was so particular about his mail." I said something about their being adopted relations, and hurried home.

The boys were industriously digging dandelions on the side lawn. I inconsistently let the dear, cheery flowers grow and bloom their fill in the early season, when they lie close to the sward, but when they begin to stretch awkward, rubbery necks, and gape about as if to see where they might best shake out their seed puffs, they must be routed. Do it as thoroughly as possible, enough always remain to repay my cruelty with a shower of golden coin the next spring. Bertel spends all his spare time on the other bits of gra.s.s, but the side lawn is the boys' plunder, where, by patiently working each day at grubbing out the roots at twenty-five cents a hundred, they expect, before the dandelion season is over, to ama.s.s wealth enough to buy an alluring red goat harness trimmed with bells that is on exhibition at the harness shop in town, for Corney Delaney. Yes, they said, Aunt Lavinia had just come, but she said they need not stop, for she could go in by herself.

There was no one in the hall, sitting room, den, or upstairs, neither had Effie seen any person enter. Thinking I heard voices in the direction of father's office, I went there and through to the library "annex," where an unexpected picture met my gaze. Martin Cortright, the precise, in stocking feet, skull cap, and dressing gown, perched on top of the step-ladder, was clutching a book in one hand, within the other he held Miss Lavinia's slender fingers in greeting, while his face had a curious expression of surprise, pleasure, and a wild desire to regain his slippers that were down on the floor, a combination that made him look extremely foolish as well as "pudgy."

Up to that moment, Miss Lavinia, who cannot distinguish a face three feet away without her lorgnette, thought she was speaking to father.

Under cover of our mutual hilarity, I led her back to a seat in the study, so that Martin might recover his wits, coat, and slippers at the same time, for Miss Lavinia had stumbled over the latter and sent them coasting in different directions.

Yes, the postmistress was right, Lavinia Dorman had a new bonnet. Not the customary conservative but monotonous upholstered affair of jet and lace, but a handful of pink roses in a tulle nest, held on by wisps of tulle instead of ribbons.

"Hortense, who has made bonnets for years, said this was more appropriate for the country, and would show dirt less than black,--and even went so far as to suggest omitting the strings altogether," she said in rather flurried tones, as a few moments later we went upstairs, and I removed the pins that held the confection in place, and commented upon its prettiness.

Martin Cortright stayed to dinner, and afterward he, Miss Lavinia, father, and Evan sat down to a "real old-fas.h.i.+oned," serious game of whist! Of all things, to the fifth wheel, who is out of it, would not be in if she could, cannot learn, and prefers jackstraws to card games of any sort, an evening of serious whist is the most aggravating. They were too well matched to even enliven matters by squabbling or casting venomous glances at each other. Evan played with Martin Cortright, whose system he was absorbed in mastering, and he never spoke a word, and barely looked up. This, too, when he had been away for several days on a business trip. It was moonlight, and I wanted him to see the new iris that were in bloom along the wild walk, dilate upon the game of leap-frog that the automobile played, and--well--there is a great deal to say when Evan has been away that cannot be thought of indoors or be spoken hurriedly in the concise, compact, public terms in which one orders a meal. Conversation is only in part made of words, its subtilties are largely composed of touch and silence.

I myself, being wholly responsible for the present whist combination, of course could say nothing except to myself and the moon. What a h.o.a.rd of personal reminiscences and heart to heart confessions the simpering old thing must have stored away behind her placid countenance. It is a wonder that no enterprising journal has syndicated her memoirs by wireless telegraphy for the exclusive use of their Sunday issue.

I resolved that I must wait awhile, and then if this silence lasted many evenings, I must hunt up a game of cards that takes only two. How could I get out of the room without appearing to be in a huff or bored? Ah! a wordless excuse; a slight noise upstairs. Ian sometimes walks in his sleep. I go up and sit in my window and look out through the diamond panes at the garden. Ian stirs and mutters something about a drink. I hasten to get it, and he, gripping the gla.s.s with his teeth, swallows eagerly, with a clicking noise in his throat.

"Is your throat sore?" I ask apprehensively. He opens his eyes, realizes where he is, nestles his head into my neck and whispers,--

"Not zactly lumpy sore, Barbara, just crusty, 'cause I made--lots of dandelion curls wif my tongue to-day, and they're--velly--sour," and with a satisfied yawn he rolled back on his pillow, into the funny spread-eagle att.i.tude peculiar to himself, but Richard slept peacefully on like a picture child, cheek on hand, and the other little dandelion-stained paw above the sheet.

(N.B.--When one's husband and father together take to serious whist of a moonlight night in spring, twins are not only an advantage but a necessity.)

I have searched the encyclopedia for the description of an intellectual game of cards, arranged as a duet, and found one. It is piquet! Now I can wait developments peacefully, for are there not also in reserve chess, checkers, backgammon, and--jackstraws?

_June_ 2. A gentle summer shower at sunset after a perfect day has filled the world with fragrance and song, for do the birds ever sing so perfectly with such serene full-noted ecstasy as after the rains of May and June? Or is it the clearness of the air after the rain that transmits each note in full, prisoning nothing of its value?

To-night I am unhappy. Perhaps that is an exaggeration, and perplexed is the better word, and it is only in pages of my social experience book that the cause can be given.

Friday was Peysey Vanderveer's eighth birthday, and it has been celebrated by a party on a scale of magnificence that to my mind would have been suitable for the only son of royalty.

Though the invitations fortunately were only given two days in advance, Richard and Ian were agog over the matter to the extent of muttering in their sleep, and getting up this morning before eight, in order, if possible, to make the hour of three come quicker, and to be sure to be ready in time.

When the invitation was brought by Mr. Vanderveer in person, he asked if Lavinia Dorman and I would not like to come up also and see the children play, adding that I need feel no responsibility about the boys, as he was going to be at home and give himself up to seeing that the "kids" had a jolly time, and got into no sc.r.a.pes.

We agreed that it would be amusing to go up with the children, stay a little while to be sure that they could adapt themselves, and then leave; for if there is anything dampening to the ardour of children at play it is a group of elders with minds divided between admiration and correction, punctuating unwise remarks upon beauty and cleverness with "Maud, you are overheated." "Tommy, don't! Use your handkerchief!"

"Billy, your stocking is coming down!" "Reggie, you must wait, girls should be helped first."

The boys certainly looked comfortably and humanly handsome in their white cheviot sailor suits, loose blue ties, black stockings and pumps. They really are good-looking children. Lavinia Dorman, who is candour itself, says so. I suppose people think that my opinion does not count, and that I should consider them perfect if they were of the human chipmunk variety. But I am sure I am not prejudiced, for I do _not_ think them perfect, only well made and promising, thus having the two first requisites of all young animals.

When we arrived at the Vanderveers a little late, owing to the fact of father's having been obliged to use our horse for a hurry call, the party had "gathered," to use an old-fas.h.i.+oned expression, and I saw that Richard and Ian were by several years the youngest of the group of thirty or more, the others ranging from eight to thirteen or fourteen.

The house and grounds were decorated wherever decoration was possible.

Though it was wholly a daylight affair, j.a.panese lanterns hung by festoons of handsome ribbon from verandas, trees, and around the new pergola, the marble columns of which, in the absence of vines, were wound with ribbons and roofed with bright flags, to form a tent for the collation. In an arbour decorated in a like manner, an Hungarian orchestra in uniform, much in vogue, Miss Lavinia says, for New York dinner dances, was playing ragtime, while a dozen smart traps and road carts filled with exquisitely dressed women lining the driveway around the sunken tennis court, indicated that a matched game was to take place.

Yes, after every one had exchanged greetings, Miss Lavinia, meeting several friends who not only treated her with something akin to homage, but were unfeignedly pleased to see her, the guests divided, a dozen of the elder girls and boys going toward the tennis court, where Monty Bell seemed to be acting as general manager. I afterward discovered that two prizes for doubles and two for singles were to be played for, not pretty trifles suitable for children, but jewellery, belt buckles of gold and silver, gold sleeve links, and a loving cup.

Meanwhile Mr. Vanderveer took charge of the younger group and led them through the garden to where some young spruce trees hid the wall. Here a surprise awaited them in the shape of two of the largest of the growing trees festooned with ribbons and laden with strange fruit in the shape of coloured toy balloons that bobbed about and tugged at their moorings as if anxious to escape.

On each balloon a number was painted in white. A wide ribbon was stretched barrierwise across the walk about fifteen feet from the trees, and near it were several large baskets, one full of bows and dart-pointed arrows, and the other heaped with expensive toys and bonbon boxes of painted satin, for prizes, each article being numbered.

"Step up, ladies and gentlemen. Stand in line by the ribbon and take your turn at the most unique shooting match ever seen in this county,--one at a time,--and whoever points the arrow at anything but the balloons is ruled out," rattled Mr. Vanderveer, after the manner of a fakir at a country fair, and beaming with pleasure. For Evan says that outside of business dealings he has the reputation of being the most good-natured and generous of men, and that to invent ways to lavish money upon his son and his friends is almost as keen a pleasure to him as to promote schemes for winning it.

Mr. Vanderveer picked up a bow and dart to ill.u.s.trate the game, aimed at a balloon, the arrow glanced off, but at the second shot the balloon went pop and shrivelled away with the whistle of escaping gas and shouts of applause from both children and their elders.

Feeling a.s.sured that my boys were quite at their ease and not likely to balk and act like wild rabbits, as is sometimes the case with children when they find themselves among strangers, and seeing nothing that they would be likely to fall out of or into, except a great bowl of lemonade arranged in a bower that represented a well, we came away, Lavinia Dorman sniffing in the spectacle like a veteran war-horse scenting powder, and enjoying the gayety, as I myself should have done heartily if it had not been for the boys.

I was not worried about their clothes, their taking cold, or sticking the darts into their fingers, but I was beginning to realize the responsibility of consequences. What would the effect of this fete be upon the birthday parties of our village community, where a dish of mottoes, a home-made frosted sponge cake, and a freezer of ice cream (possibly, but not always) from town, eaten out-of-doors, meant bliss.

I suppose it is only the comfortably poor who have to think of consequences, the uncomfortably rich think they can afford not to, and tired of mere possession, they must express their wealth audibly at any cost.