A Cry in the Wilderness Part 18

"I have n't had a good look at him--Jamie did n't give me the chance."

"Wal, I can't say as I have neither. He 's pretty quiet, but I noticed he hit the nail on the head every time he did speak. The one they call Doctor Rugvie is some different; he was like a schoolboy let loose when he got into the pung. Guess Mr. Ewart won't wait long 'fore he 'll have a sleigh, as is a sleigh, to match the French coach hosses, from what I heard. The Doctor had his little joke about a pung for a manor house. I 've got to go over again ter-morrer to get the rest of the truck."

"Oh, Cale, more!"

He nodded, and, with a significant upward motion of his thumb, made his exit at the kitchen end. I slipped into the dining-room to see that all was in readiness for the extra supper. I actually did not know what to do with myself, what was my place, or where I belonged in the household, now that the owner of Lamoral and his friend were here. I looked about: the flames from the pine cones were leaping in the fireplace, the curtains were drawn close, the room was filled with a resinous forest fragrance, for I had placed large branches of white pine in some antiquated milk jugs of glazed red clay, which I found in one of the unused dairy rooms, and set them on each end of the mantel.

When I heard Jamie and the Doctor on the stairs, I left by way of the kitchen and, pa.s.sing through that and the bare offices between it and the living-room, slipped into the latter to inspect it. Here also the fire was blazing, the wax candles in the sconces were lighted. The yellow sofa was drawn in front of the fireplace, but good eight feet from it. At either end were the easy chairs, and at the right of the chimney, nearest the door into the kitchen offices, was a low ample tea table covered with a white linen cloth, set with plain white china, a nickel-plated tea-kettle and lamp. Behind the sofa, along the length of its straight long back, stood the library table furnished with writing pad and inkstand, a wooden bookrack filled with Jamie's favorites and mine, and a bowl of red geranium blossoms. I was satisfied with my work.

Around the room, even between the windows, the more than two thousand books in their cases formed a rich dado of finely blended colors--the deep royal blue and dark reds in morocco, the yellow-white imitation of parchment,--parchment itself in several instances,--the light faun and reddish brown of half calf; even s.h.a.green was there, and the limp bronze-gilt leather of Chinese bindings. Jamie told me that many of the editions were rare.

It seemed to me in my ignorance, that there could be no more beautiful room than this simple, book-lined, wood-panelled parlor in the old manor of Lamoral. I felt an owners.h.i.+p in it, for I had helped in part to create the intimate atmosphere that I knew must be like home,--something I had dreamed of, but never expected to make real.

The owner, whose voice I heard for the first time talking to the dogs as he came down stairs, presented himself to me at that moment as an outsider, an intruder. I waited until I heard him close the dining-room door; then I went up stairs again to my own room.

VIII

I did not light the candles. The firelight showed through the mica in the stove grate. I sat down by the window and looked out. A full moon shone high and clear above the dark irregular outline of the ma.s.sed treetops in the woods across the creek, now covered with ice and blanketed with white. The great hemlock branches, crowding close to the house, were drooping, snow-laden. The moonlight, reflected in them, flashed diamond dust from the upper branches; beneath the lower ones it cast violet shadows on the snow.

"What next?" I was thinking, and might have spared myself the trouble of that thought, for just then Mrs. Macleod knocked at the door and came in.

"In the dark? Marcia, my dear, we need you down stairs."

"Of course I 'll come, Mrs. Macleod, if you wish me to, but I don't quite see how, as your companion and a.s.sistant, I am needed now down stairs. I shall feel as if I were not earning my salt, just playing lady."

Now, can any one tell me why the spirit of revolt at the change in my position in this house, through the coming of the owner and his friend, should have materialized in just this ungracious speech? I was ashamed of myself the moment I had given it utterance. Such a mean sentiment!

Not worthy of a woman of twenty-six. I was thankful she could not see my face.

She hesitated before replying. When she spoke I heard a note of displeasure in her voice.

"I need you now, perhaps, more than before. With these guests in the house, there is more responsibility than during the last three weeks."

"If only they _were_ guests!" The perverse spirit was still at work within me. "But we are the guests now, and I don't quite see what my work is to be; my position seems to be an anomalous one."

"It may seem so to you," she replied quietly. I knew by the tone of her voice she was exercising great self control, and that had the candles been lighted I should have seen her cheeks flush a deep pink; "but evidently it is perfectly clear to Doctor Rugvie. The position is his creation. I think you can trust him.-- Are you coming?"

The rebuke was well deserved, and, in accepting it, my respect for her was doubled.

"Just let me get my work," I said, fumbling in my basket for some petty crochet. She said nothing, and in silence we went down stairs together, she little realizing that, in referring to Doctor Rugvie as the one to whom I was indebted for being here, she twisted some fibre in my mental make-up and caused it to vibrate painfully. Had I but known it, I had been keyed to this moment ever since hearing Delia Beaseley's account of my mother's death--keyed too long and at too high a pitch. Something had to give way; hence my mood of apparent revolt, because I could not live in unchanged circ.u.mstances in this manor of Lamoral.

As we entered the living-room the three pipes were in full blast.

"Permitted?" said the Doctor, waving his towards us as he rose. Mr.

Ewart, also, rose and came towards us. In the manner of his action I saw that, already, he had taken his rightful place as host. He held out his hand in greeting, and I took it.

"Sit here, Miss Farrell, by me," he motioned to the corner of the sofa next his easy chair, "and tell me how you have managed to accomplish a home--in three weeks. Mrs. Macleod and Jamie have been giving you all the credit for this transformation. How did you do it?"

He put me at ease at once, for what he said sounded both cordial and sincere. The tone of voice challenged me instantly to be as sincere with him.

"Perhaps it's because I never have had the chance to make what you call a 'home' before, and besides," I looked up from my sofa corner and dared to say the truth, "it was such a pleasure to spend some money that I did n't have to earn by hard work; this was play for me. But, truly, Mrs. Macleod and Jamie are not fair to themselves; they not only helped, but inspired me."

"Oh, woman, woman!" said the Doctor, laughing; "shopping is the characteristic symptom of the s.e.x!"

"Talk about inspiration," said Jamie; "Marcia put mother and me through our best paces. I can tell you we conjugated: I must hustle, Thou must hustle, He must hustle, We must hustle, You must hustle, They must hustle, for three weeks," he said emphatically.

"You seem to have thriven on it," said the Doctor.

"Your work was in the New York Library, Miss Farrell?" It was Mr.

Ewart who spoke.

"Yes, in a branch; I was there for five years."

"Who told you that, Gordon?" Jamie demanded.

"Who?--Who but Cale?"

Mrs. Macleod laughed outright at that, and Jamie and I joined her; we could not help it. The mere inflection of Mr. Ewart's voice, told us he had succ.u.mbed on the way over to our omniscient One. I saw that, quiet as he was, he had a keen sense of humor.

"Yes," he continued, "Cale made my acquaintance on the platform, and half way on the road he took occasion to give me some information concerning my household."

"Oh, I know that too," I said, "for Cale confided to me immediately on his arrival that, to use his own expression, he could n't get in a 'word edgewise', on account of the rapidity with which you and Peter were carrying on a conversation in French. I think he is jealous of every tongue but his own."

"We had better compare notes, Miss Farrell. I concluded that Cale was a firm friend of yours from his remarks."

"What did he say? Do tell me."

"I will--if you 'll agree to tell me his comments on my talk with Pierre. I believe Pierre's words fell over themselves, he had so much to tell me."

"Hear--hear!" This from Jamie.

"I agree; tell me, please."

"I think it was just before we entered the river road--"

"I know it was, for he told me so," I said, enjoying the fun.

"Oh, he did! Well, perhaps you will be so good as to tell me, if he told you what he told me you told him?"

"You would n't ask that if you knew Cale," said Jamie, shaking his head dubiously.

"No, he did n't," I said. "Cale is a genuine Yankee. What did he say?"

"You hear that, Ewart? What did I tell you?"

"Oh, you've been telling, too, have you, Jamie Macleod? He gave me to understand that it was he who brought you from the steamboat to the house; that you were born in New York; that you had been in the Public Library of that city; that in consequence what you did n't know about books was, in his estimation, not worth knowing; that you were just as handy with hammer and tacks as you were with books, and that you had been 'fixin' up' the old manor till it shone. I gathered further, that he expected me to be properly appreciative of the benefits conferred upon me in this matter. As, up to that time, I had heard nothing of your arrival in Richelieu-en-Bas, and as my friend here, Doctor Rugvie, was likewise in the dark in regard to your personality, you may imagine our curiosity; in fact, he wanted to rouse it, and took the best way to do it."