CHAPTER SIX
_In which Margaret Elizabeth is discussed at the Breakfast Table; inwhich also, later on, she and Virginia and Uncle Bob talk before thefire, and in which finally Margaret Elizabeth seeks consolation byrelating to Uncle Bob her adventure in the park._
"No, she is not regularly beautiful," remarked Dr. Prue in herdiagnostician manner as she poured her father's second cup of coffee,"but there is much that is captivating about her. Her hair growsprettily on her forehead, the firmness of her chin, the line of her lipsin repose----"
"Mercy on us! You talk like a novel," interrupted Uncle Bob, who waslonging to get in an oar. "Now I like her best when she laughs."
"But I was speaking of her face in repose."
"And any way," persisted Uncle Bob, "if she isn't a beauty, I don't knowwhat you call it. She has the witchingest ways!"
"We were speaking of features, not ways. If you dissect her----"
"Good Heavens, Prue! Find another word."
"If you dissect her," the doctor repeated firmly, "you will find nothingremarkable in her separate features."
"But I insist," Uncle Bob spoke in a loud tone, and brought his fistdown so emphatically his coffee spilled over into the saucer, "thatbeauty is a complex thing consisting of ways as well as features."The sentence was concluded in a milder tone, owing to the coffee.
"Nancy, give Mr. Vandegrift another saucer," said Dr. Prue.
"My dear, there is no need. I can pour this back," he protested. Then, afresh saucer having been substituted, he went on: "Take a landscape----"
"I haven't time for landscapes this morning, father. I am due at thehospital at nine. You'll have to excuse me."
"Well, what I was going to say is, that it is the combination of allher separate qualities and characteristics, manifested in ways andotherwise, that is beautiful--that constitutes beauty. The somethingthat makes her Margaret Elizabeth, that subtle--" Uncle Bob was talkingagainst time.
"Now, father," Dr. Prue pushed back her chair and rose, "there isnothing subtle about Margaret Elizabeth, and you know it. She is athoroughly nice, quite pretty girl, and that is all there is to it. Ifthose Penningtons don't spoil her." With this the doctor disappeared.
"Miss Prue and her pa do argufy to beat the band," Nancy remarked toJenny the cook as she waited for hot cakes.
"That's all, Nancy. I shan't want any more," her master told her whenshe carried them into the dining-room. "You needn't wait." As the doorclosed behind her he smiled to himself. He always enjoyed the leisurelycomfort of those last cakes.
The morning sun shone in brightly, emphasising the pleasant, substantialappointments of the room and the breakfast table. Its glint in the oldsilver coffee pot was a joy to him; the unopened paper at his elbowspoke to him of the interests of a day, like it, not yet unfolded. UncleBob after his own fashion savoured life....
DR. PRUE]
The sun had travelled around the house and was looking in at the westwindow of the Little Red Chimney Room, when Virginia discovered herladyship sitting on a low stool by her hearthstone deep in meditation."I saw the smoke," she announced, "so I thought I'd come over."
"I am glad to see you," Margaret Elizabeth said, waking up. "But whatsmoke do you mean?" And now it developed that although Miss Bentley wasof course aware of the Little Red Chimney, and indeed preferred it red,she had not understood its significance.
In amused interest she listened while Virginia explained. "That dear,ridiculous Uncle Bob!" she cried, hugging her knees. "And what fun,Virginia!"
Virginia nodded. "Like a fairy-tale," she said.
"So it is," Miss Bentley agreed, and became again lost in thought.
From the other side of the hearth Virginia watched her. Her ladyshipto-day wore a grey-blue gown with a broad white collar, and shecontrasted harmoniously with the soft browns and greens of hersurroundings. Uncle Bob should have been there to enjoy the glint ofthe sunshine in her hair.
It was an unobtrusive room, abounding in pleasant suggestions if you satstill and let them sink in: books around the walls, a few water coloursand bits of porcelain, an open piano, a work table, a broad divan withmany cushions, ferns in the windows, and the fire.
Virginia, however, saw nothing of this; she was looking at MargaretElizabeth. "The Candy Man wanted to know where you stayed when youweren't here," she remarked at length.
Miss Bentley came out of her brown study in great surprise. Who in theworld was the Candy Man?
"Why, you know the Candy Wagon on the Y.M.C.A. corner! And don't youremember how you fell in the mud, and the Candy Man helped you up, andI gave you your bag, and the Miser was there too?" Virginia spoke inpatient toleration of Miss Bentley's strange lapse of memory.
"Naturally I was rather shaken and didn't notice. Was it a Candy Man whopicked me up? And a miser, you say?" Chin in hand Margaret Elizabethregarded her visitor. "It is all very interesting, but why should theCandy Man wish to know about me?"
Virginia owned that she had mentioned the Little Red Chimney to him,and that when the identity of her ladyship had come to light, he hadexclaimed, "I might have guessed!"
"Well, really," said Miss Bentley, sitting up very straight, "whatbusiness is it of his to be guessing about me?"
"He isn't Irish like Tim," Virginia hastened to assure her. "He's verynice. He's a friend of mine."
Margaret Elizabeth laughed. "That makes it all right, I suppose; and ifhe picked me up--But who is the Miser?"
"He lives over there," Virginia pointed toward the front window, "inthat stone house with the vine on it. Aleck says he has rooms and roomsfull of money."
The house she indicated was almost black with time and soot, but itsfine proportions suggested spacious, high-ceiled rooms, and whatever itspresent condition, a past of dignity and importance.
"How extremely interesting! What a remarkable neighbourhood this seemsto be!"
"Is it like a fairy-tale where you stay when you aren't here?" Virginiaasked.
Sudden illumination came to Margaret Elizabeth. "That is just what itisn't," she cried. "It's splendid and beautiful, and all sorts ofthings, except a fairy-tale. I wonder why? I love fairy-tales and LittleRed Chimneys."
"So does the Candy Man," exclaimed Virginia, charmed at the coincidence."It must be fun to be a Candy Man," she continued. "It isn't much likea fairy-tale where I live. I should like to live in a sure-enough housewith stairs."
"You talk like a squirrel who lives in a tree. And speaking of squirrels,you and I must buy some nuts for our bunny sometime, from this CandyMan. If he picked me up I suppose I ought to patronise him. All thesame, Virginia," and now Miss Bentley spoke with great seriousness,"I wish you not to say anything about me to him. It is rather silly,you know."
Virginia did not know, but she longed to do in every particular whatMiss Bentley desired, so she promised.
The opal lights in the western sky were the only reminders left of thesunny day, when Uncle Bob, seated comfortably in the big armchair,listened to Margaret Elizabeth's confession, the flames dancing andcurling around a fresh log meanwhile. In size it was but a modest log,for the fireplace was neither wide nor deep like those at PenningtonPark, but the Little Red Chimney did its part so merrily and well thatupon no other hearth could the flames dance and curl so gaily. At leastso it had seemed to Margaret Elizabeth, sitting there chin in hand,after Virginia's departure.
"And you are certain you never met him before?" Uncle Bob ran hisfingers through his hair and frowned thoughtfully.
"Perfectly certain. You see the resemblance was remarkable, all butthe eyes, and I thought Mr. McAllister had simply waked up. Peopleare sometimes stiff when you first meet them. He knew who I was, forhe called me Miss Bentley. Naturally I thought it was some one I hadmet--particularly when he mentioned the accident. You see, in gettingout of the machine at the Country Club a day or two before I caughtmy skirt in the door and fell, striking my elbow. It didn't amount toanything, though it hurt for a minute, but Aunt Eleanor made a gr
eatfuss. He may have been somewhere about at the time, but I didn't meethim. And it makes me furious," Margaret Elizabeth continued, "whenI think of his not telling me."
"Telling you that you didn't know him?" asked Uncle Bob.
"Certainly, he should have said at the very beginning, 'Miss Bentley,you are mistaken in thinking you know me.'"
"Ha! ha!" laughed Uncle Bob.
"Now what are you laughing at?" his niece demanded. "Honestly, don't youthink he should have?" But she laughed herself.
"Well, perhaps," he owned, reflecting, however, that if MargaretElizabeth looked half so alluring that morning as she did now in hergrey-blue frock, with her bright hair a bit tumbled, it was asking agood deal of human nature.
"Now, of course, Uncle Bob, this is strictly confidential. I wouldn'thave Dr. Prue know for the world. It is bad enough to have Aunt Eleanorsmiling sarcastically, though she doesn't know half. I think I have atlength quieted her, and the great Augustus is entirely mollified." Shepaused to laugh again, then continued tragically, "Sympathy is what Ineed now. To begin with, it was the most perfect day--the sort to makeyou forget tiresome conventions."
Uncle Bob nodded. "Perhaps he forgot, too," he suggested.
Margaret Elizabeth bit her lip. "That's true. I must try to be fair.He had nice eyes, Uncle Bob--with a twinkle in them." A smile playedover her lips, her dimple came and went. She gazed absently at thecurling flame. Suddenly she rose from her ottoman, and seated herselfbolt upright on the sofa with one of the plumpest cushions behind her."All the same it was inexcusable in me," she declared sternly.
"What was?" asked her uncle.
"The nonsense I talked. About a Fairy Godmother Society! No doubt he waslaughing in his sleeve all the time."
"Oh, I guess not. It sounds quite original and interesting. Have youcopyrighted the idea?"
"Uncle Bob, you are a dear. Some time I'll tell you all about it--whenI get over feeling so terribly, if I ever do."
"Now, really," insisted Uncle Bob, "I don't see why you should worry.You are almost certain to meet him again, and----"
"I shall die if I do," Margaret Elizabeth declared; but somehow theassertion failed to ring true.
"From what you have said he is plainly a gentleman, and altogethermatters might be worse," Uncle Bob concluded.
Miss Bentley shook her head. "I don't see how they could be," sheinsisted.
The Little Red Chimney: Being the Love Story of a Candy Man Page 7