CHAPTER XII
SIX MONTHS LATER
IT was a cold snowy afternoon, late in January. Rob Moore, looking athis watch as he hurried along the street, found that he was ten minutesahead of the time at which the next car was due to start to the Valley.Rather than wait on the windy corner or take refuge in the alreadycrowded drug-store, he walked on down to the car-shed. He rarely lefttown this early. As he sprang up the steps and took his seat in thewaiting car, he saw that it was the one usually filled by theschool-children living in the suburbs. It was already nearly filled nowby half-grown boys and girls, flocking in with their book straps andlunch-baskets. It made him think of his own High school days. Theylaughed and joked and called messages back and forth as freely as ifthey were at home. Here and there he recognized the younger sisters andbrothers of some of his old classmates, so like them that it gave him acurious sense of having stepped backward several years. There was WatSewall wriggling and writhing out of his overcoat with the samecontortions that Fred always went through with. That slap on the backwith its accompanying "Hi, there, old man," was exactly like T. D.Williams' salutation. He nearly always laid a fellow out flat when hespoke to him. And the couple on the seat in front of him, exchangingclass pins, was only a repetition of a scene he had witnessed dozens oftimes.
With a reminiscent smile he shook out the pages of the evening paperwhich he had bought as he came along and glanced at the head-lines. Butbefore he had time to read further the girl in front of him exclaimed,"Look, Harry! Here comes Miss Sherman! Isn't she perfectly stunning inthat dark blue broadcloth? I think she's the prettiest debutante of theseason."
"She's a peach," was the enthusiastic answer. "I say, Ethel, she lookslike you."
Rob did not see the girlish blush which rose to Ethel's cheeks, for atthe first exclamation he had lowered his paper to peer quickly throughthe window. He had just a glimpse of a slender stylish figure hurryinginto the ticket office.
The girl in front was speaking. "I suppose I've been more interested inthe debutantes this year than any other because Cousin Amy is one ofthem. She comes out to Anchorage for a week-end now and then to rest up,and I keep her talking the whole time about what they do. She says thatMiss Sherman is the most popular of them all, with the girls as well asthe men. She's had so many beautiful entertainments given in her honour,and she's been asked to help receive or pour tea or do something orother at every single function that's been given in Louisville thiswinter. I think it's perfectly grand to be out in society when you canbe as great a success as that. They say that the American Beauties sentto her in just one day sometimes would fill a florist's shop window.There's a man from Cincinnati who sends them all the time. He's crazyabout her. I should be too if I were a man. Cousin Amy has a photographof her taken in evening dress, and she's simply regal looking. I don'twonder she makes a sensation wherever she goes."
"Here she comes now," interrupted the boy, turning with a stare of frankadmiration. Rob turned too, as Lloyd came down the aisle, glancing fromone side to another for an empty seat. Her face was glowing from herwalk in the cold wind, and the little hat of dark blue velvet and herrich dark furs made her seem fairer than ever by contrast. Hers was adelicate, patrician style of beauty, and Rob in one critical glance sawthat this winter in society had given the graceful girl the ease andpoise of a charming woman. The little school-girl on the seat in fronthad good reason for admiring her so extravagantly. He rose as she camenearer, and stepped out in the aisle to give her the seat by the window.
"Oh, Rob! This is great!" the little school-girl heard her exclaimcordially. "I haven't seen you for an age. How does it happen you aregoing out on such an early train?"
Much as she was interested in "Harry's" remarks, she wished he wouldkeep still at least until the car started. She wanted to hear how thisbig handsome man answered her adorable Miss Sherman. She would have beenshocked could she have heard his second remark.
"There's a big flake of soot on your nose, Lloyd."
"Thanks," she said, almost looking cross-eyed in her endeavour to locateit. "There usually is in this dirty town. There! Is it off?" Shescrubbed away with a bit of a handkerchief she took from her muff. "AndI was flattering myself as I came along that I looked especially spickand span," she sighed. "It's refreshing to have somebody tell you thetruth about yoahself, and you nevah were one to mince mattahs, Bobby."
The old name on the lips of this pretty girl so like the old Lloyd insome ways, yet so bewilderingly unlike in others, stirred him strangely.
"Better throw off your furs and that heavy jacket in this over-heatedcar," was his only answer. "You'll take cold when you get off if youdon't." She thanked him for the suggestion, and, as he hung her wrapsover the back of the seat, settled herself comfortably for the hour'sride.
"Now tell me all about it," he began as the car started. "All thatyou've been doing these last months. Of course I've kept up with you inthe papers. I know that you went here and went there, and that you woresky-blue pink folderols at this banquet and velvet satin crepe de chineat the Country Club dinner, with feathers and jewels to match, butthat's no more than all the rest of the world knows. I want to be let inon the ground floor and told about the inner workings of this socialwhirl. How have you managed to do it all? To vibrate between town andcountry and not peg out. You look as fresh as a daisy; as if the pacethat kills agrees with you."
"I haven't vibrated much," she answered. "I've made Aunt Jane's house myheadquartahs, and you know what a crank she is about hygiene. Everymoment not actually engaged in 'whirling' she had reduced to a system ofsimple living. What I have suffered in the way of naps in a darkenedroom when I wasn't sleepy, and hot milk when I loathed the idea ofswallowing anything, and gymnastic exercises in the attic when theweathah was too bad for long walks, would fill a volume."
"Is the game worth the candle?" he asked soberly.
She hesitated. "Well, yes. For a season anyhow. I wouldn't want to keepup such a round yeah aftah yeah, but I _have_ had a good time, and Imust confess it's awfully nice to be really grown up and have everybodytreat you with the consideration due yoah age."
They were out in the open country now. The car stopped, and as the dooropened to admit a passenger, the shrill voices of some children skatingon an ice pond near the road floated cheerily in. Lloyd looked out thewindow with a smile at the gay scene.
"I'd like to be out there with them," she confessed. "Look at thatlittle girl in the red mittens and Tam O'Shanter. She skates exactly theway Katie Mallard used to. Oh, deah, didn't we used to have fun with herdown on our ice pond?"
"Do you remember the day Malcolm broke through when he was trying tocake-walk on the ice?" asked Rob with a reminiscent grin.
"He was laughing about that only last week when he took me to theCountry Club dinnah. I've seen a lot of Malcolm this wintah."
"I thought he was rushing Molly Standforth."
"Well, he is, pah't of the time, but he's rushed me too, as you call it,just as much."
Rob gave her a keen glance, but she made the announcement in such a calmway that he said to himself there couldn't be much in it as far as shewas concerned, or she wouldn't have spoken of it in the way she did.
At Anchorage the boy and girl in front left the car, he with such opensolicitude for her comfort as he helped her off that Lloyd's eyes metRob's with a twinkle.
"Aftah all, it's good to be young like that," she said. "Don't youremembah Kitty and Guy Ferris at that age? How we used to tease Kittyfor keeping a dead rose and a valentine and a brass button from hismilitary coat, tied up with a blue ribbon in a candy box?"
"But we boys had a better time teasing Guy about the lock of Kitty'shair that he carried around in the back of his watch. His watch got outof order, and when the jeweller opened it and found all that hair in theback, he didn't say a word, but with a most disgusted look tossed itinto the wastebasket as if it hadn't been Guy's most sacred possession.I was along with him, and I simply roared. Guy didn't have the ner
ve toask for it, just stood there looking like the big silly he must havefelt."
The series of reminiscences that this story started lasted all the wayout to the Valley. The red streak of the wintry sunset had faded out ofthe west when the car stopped there, and Lloyd looking out into the coldgray gloaming saw that the snow was beginning to fall again.
"Let's get out and walk the rest of the way," she exclaimed impetuously,snatching up her jacket and furs as she rose.
"I haven't had a twilight walk in the country this wintah, when it'sall good and gray like this, with snow-flakes in yoah face."
They were off in another instant, and as he stood on the stationplatform helping her on with her wraps, she held up her face to feel thestray flakes blowing cold and soft against it. He smiled at her childishdelight in them, and seeing the smile she started up the narrow pathahead of him, laughing over her shoulder.
"There's no use denying it," she called back. "When I want to be thepropah dignified young lady I'll have to stay in town. Just the smell ofthe country, the fresh earth, the fallen leaves, has such a rejuvenatingeffect that I want to tuck up my skirts and skip and run as I used to."
"Come on," he exclaimed gaily, falling in with her mood. "I'll race youto that dead sycamore up the road."
She looked up at him, her face dimpling as she noticed how he toweredabove her and how broad were the shoulders in the big overcoat. Then sheshook her head sadly.
"Nevah again, Bobby! We're too old and dignified. I'd almost as soonthink of racing with the Judge as with you now. What if somebody shouldsee us? They'd be shocked to death. There's some one now," she added,peering forward through the dusk.
"Only old Unc' Andy coming back from his rabbit traps," answered Rob, asthe grizzled old coloured man shuffled nearer. Uncle Andy had been thegardener at Oaklea more years than Lloyd could remember, and now as hestepped out of the path with elaborate courtesy to let her pass, shedelighted his soul by stopping with a friendly inquiry about himself andfamily.
"Lawd, if it aint the Little Cun'l herself!" he chuckled. "All growed upand a bloomin' like a piney! I reckon, Miss Lloyd, youse forgot the timethat you pulled up all the pansies in my flowah beds 'cause you saidthey was makin' faces at you."
"No, indeed, Uncle Andy," she answered with a laugh, and started to passon. But the encounter with the old servant seemed somehow to set herback among the days when she had been almost as much at home at Oakleaas she was at The Locusts, and prompted by some sudden impulse shecalled over her shoulder as she had often called then: "Unc' Andy, tellMrs. Moore that Mistah Rob won't be home for dinnah. He's going to stayat The Locusts."
It was a familiar message although it had been several years since Andyhad heard it. He looked back bowing and scraping, and then walked onchuckling to himself.
Taken by surprise, Rob did not remonstrate when she thus took hisconsent for granted. If she had waited to ask his permission to sendsuch a message home he would have made some excuse to decline, and thenleft her at the gate. That night under the measuring tree when helistened to her singing he had resolutely made up his mind to keep outof the way of temptation. Since then he had become convinced that shewas engaged to Leland Harcourt and had put her out of his dreams as faras possible. Now that she had left him no choice, he gladly accepted theopportunity that fate seemed to throw in his way, and gave himself up tothe enjoyment of it.
The fitful snow had stopped falling again by the time they reached thegate, and the stars were beginning to glimmer through the bare branchesof the locust-trees. As Lloyd looked up the avenue, and saw the lightsfrom many windows streaming out across the white-pillared porch into thewinter night, her gay mood suddenly changed to one of intense feeling.
"Isn't it deah?" she said in a low voice. "I nevah had it come ovah meso overwhelmingly, how good it is to come back to the things that nevahchange--that nevah fail! The home-lights and the home-loves, the sameold trees and the same old sta'hs and the same old chum!"
Rob made no answer, but his silence was only another proof to Lloyd thatshe had found her old chum unchanged. He never answered at the timeswhen she knew he felt most deeply. Rob's silences expressed moresometimes than other people's speeches.
He was talkative enough at dinner, however, and between them he andLloyd made the meal such a lively one that the old Colonel heaved a sighwhen it was over.
"I'd give a good deal if our whist club didn't meet to-night," he saidin response to Lloyd's question. "I surely would have asked them topostpone it if I had known you were coming out to-night."
"Suahly not a time-honahed institution like that!" exclaimed Lloydteasingly, "and when it's yoah turn to entahtain it. Rob, we haven'tfound out what refreshments mothah has for them. Think of wasting allthis time without knowing."
It had always been a matter of interest with them in earlier times tohave a finger in this particular pie. It was one thing in which Mrs.Sherman was most careful to humour her father's whims, and she alwayspleased him by giving her personal attention to the dainty littlesuppers which she served after the game.
Lloyd led the way to the pantry and they lifted covers and opened doors,smelling and peering around till they unearthed all the tempting dishesthat had been so carefully prepared for the occasion.
"We'll be in at the end," warned Lloyd as the Colonel's old croniesbegan to arrive, "and in the meantime I'll pop some cawn. I used tothink that old Majah Timberly came for my cawn as much as he did for thegame."
To his great annoyance a telephone message called Mr. Sherman over tothe Confederate Home. He had looked forward to a quiet evening in frontof the great log fire, and was loath to leave the cosy room and cheerfulcompany. Presently some household matters claimed Mrs. Sherman'spresence up-stairs, and she too had to go, leaving Lloyd at the piano,playing runs and trills and snatches of songs as a sort of undercurrentto their conversation. Rob in a big armchair in front of the fire,looking comfortable enough to want to purr, glanced around the familiarold room that long association had made as dear to him as home.
"Why don't you read your letters?" he asked, his gaze happening to reston a pile of various sized envelopes lying on the table near him, allbearing Lloyd's name.
She turned around on the piano stool and held out her hand for them ashe rose to take them to her.
"I forgot all about the possibility of there being any mail for me," shesaid, tearing open the first one. "This is from Betty. I know you wantto hear that, so I'll read it aloud."
Crossing the room she seated herself under one of the silver sconces inthe chimney corner, so that the candlelight fell on the paper. She hadnever relinquished the idea that came to her on her return from schoolthat Rob was growing especially fond of Betty. It seemed to her such adesirable state of affairs that she longed to deepen his interest inher.
"I am not being carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease, by anymanner of means," wrote Betty. "Life at Warwick Hall as a pupil is onething. It is quite another to be a teacher. But I'm gaining experienceand that's what I came for, and best of all I'm having some littlesuccesses that make me take heart and feel like attempting more. I havehad two little sketches of school-girl life accepted and _paid for_(mark the paid for) by the _Youth's Companion_, and a request for more.'_True hope is swift and flies with swallows' wings. Kings it makesgods, and meaner creatures kings._' You can imagine how happy I am overit, and what castles in the air I am already building again."
It was a long newsy letter, telling of a reception she had attended atthe White House, to which she took half a dozen girls in MadamChartley's place, and describing a famous lecturer who had been at theHall the day before.
"Betty's a girl in a thousand!" said Rob approvingly as she slipped theletter back in its envelope. "She's a dear little piece, with sense andpluck enough for a dozen."
His hearty tone confirmed Lloyd's suspicions, and she looked as pleasedas if he had paid her a compliment instead of Betty. She led him on toexpress a still deeper appreciation, by telling of so
me of the thingsthat Elise Walton had written home about Betty's kindness to the newgirls and how they all adored her. Then she opened the next letter.
"From Phil Tremont," she said, glancing down the page. "He's back in NewYork and has just seen Eugenia, who is still delighted withhousekeeping, and makes an ideal home for Stewart and the doctor. Andhe's seen Joyce," she added, turning the page, "and Joyce is as happy asa clam, struggling along with a lot of art-students in a flat, andreally doing well with her book-cover designs and illustrations."
She read a paragraph aloud here and there, then hastily looked over thelast part in silence, laying it down with a little sigh. Rob glanced upinquiringly. "I wish he wouldn't make such a to-do about my writing moahregularly. It makes a task of a correspondence instead of a pleasuah, toknow that every two weeks, rain or shine, I'm expected to send ananswah. I like to write if I can choose my own time, and wait till thespirit moves me, but I despise to be nagged into doing it."
"You write to Betty every week," he suggested.
"Yes, sometimes twice or three times. But that's different. I haven'tseen Phil for two yeahs and when you don't see people for a long timeyou can't keep in touch with them."
"The song says, 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder,'" quoted Robmischievously.
"Maybe it does if you're old friends, and have lots to remembahtogethah, but it seems to me that absence builds up a sawt of wallbetween people sometimes, especially if you've known each othah only alittle while, and at a time when you're both growing up and changing allthe time. Do you know," she added musingly, dropping the letter into herlap and leaning forward to gaze into the fire, "I believe if Phil and Ihad been togethah daily I'd have grown awfully fond of him. When we wereout on the desert in Arizona, I was only fou'teen that spring, he was myideal of all that was lovely and romantic, and I believe if it hadn'tbeen for those talks Papa Jack and I used to have about Hildegarde andher weaving, I'd have done like foolish Hertha, cut my web for him thenand there. I did imagine for awhile that he was a prince, and the onewritten for me in the sta'hs."
"And now?" asked Rob, in a low tone, as if afraid of interrupting theconfession she was making more to the fire and herself than to him.
"Now," she answered, "when he came back to be best man at Eugenia'swedding I still liked him awfully well, but I could see that my idealshad changed and that they didn't fit him any moah 'as the falcon'sfeathahs fit the falcon.' Still I don't know, maybe if we had beenthrown togethah a great deal from the time I first met him, it mighthave been different, but as I say, absence made a sawt of wall betweenus and we seem to be growing farthah and farthah apart."
"And now you're sure he's not the one the stars have destined for you?"
"Perfectly suah," she answered with a laugh, then leaning back in thechimney corner again, opened the third letter. The envelope slipped tothe floor as she read, and stooping over to return it, he saw quiteunintentionally that it bore a South American stamp. She was reading sointently that she did not notice when he laid it in her lap, but as soonas she finished she tossed it into the fire without a word. Her faceflushed and her eyes had an angry light in them. As she caught his gravelook, she shrugged her shoulders with a careless little laugh, to hidethe awkward pause, and then said lightly:
"I think Mammy Eastah's fortune will come true. There won't be anyprince in my tea-cup."
"Why?"
"Wait till I get the cawn-poppah and I'll tell you."
She was back in a moment with the popper and several ears of corn whichshe divided with Rob, and started to shell into the big dish which sheplaced on the floor between them. She shelled in silence a moment ortwo.
"It's this wintah in society that's given me that opinion," she saidfinally. "The view I've had of it through my Hildegarde mirror. Theknights have come riding, lots of them, and maybe among them I mighthave found my prince in disguise, but the shadows of the world blurredeverything. Out heah in the country I'd grown up believing that it's akind, honest old world. I'd seen only its good side. I took myconception of married life from mothah and Papa Jack, Doctah Shelby andAunt Alicia, and yoah fathah and mothah. They made me think thatmarriage is a great strong sanctuary, built on a rock that no storm canhurt and no trouble move. But this wintah I found that that kind ofmarriage has grown out of fashion. It's something to jest about, andit's a mattah of scandal and divorce and unhappiness. Sometimes it mademe heart-sick, the tales I heard and the things I saw. I came tolittle Mary Ware's conclusion, that it's safah to be an old maid."
"SHE POURED THE CORN INTO THE POPPER AND BEGAN TO SHAKEIT OVER THE RED COALS."]
Drawing a low stool nearer the fire, she poured the corn into the popperand began to shake it over the red coals.
"It's dreadful to be disillusioned," said Rob, smiling at her seriousface. "That's one reason why I keep so 'far from the madding crowd.' Myold friends have been good about remembering me with invitations andI've been sorely tempted to accept some of them just to see what kind ofa show was going on. But I couldn't accept one and refuse another and Icouldn't afford to go in wholesale; carriages and flowers and the bummedup feeling that follows make it too expensive for a poor man like me.It's nearly over now, I suppose, anyway."
"Yes, the fancy dress ball on Valentine's night will be the last bigthing befoah Lent."
"Who is to be your escort?"
"Mistah Whitlow, probably. He hasn't asked me yet, but he saw Aunt Janethis mawning and told her not to let me make any engagement, for he wascoming to ask me as soon as I got back to town Monday."
"Bartrom Whitlow!" exclaimed Rob, shifting his easy lounging positionto an upright one, and looking very stern. "Lloyd, you don't mean to sayyou're going with _that_ man! He isn't fit to be invited to decentpeople's houses, much less fit to shake hands with their daughters. Someof the others are bad enough, goodness knows, but he is the limit. Yousimply can't go with him."
"Well, you needn't ro'ah so," exclaimed Lloyd with a little pout, as ifshe resented his dictatorial, big-brother tone. Secretly it pleased her,for it had been a long time since she had heard it.
"Rather than let you go with him I'll accept my invitation and take youmyself!"
"What a sweet martyr-like spirit!" laughed Lloyd, teasingly. "Icertainly feel flattered at the way you put it, and I appreciate thegreat sacrifice you're willing to make for my sake. Of co'se I don'twant to go with Mistah Whitlow if that's the kind of man he is, but itseems rathah late in the day to raise a row. He's called on me severaltimes this wintah and sent me flowahs and danced with me, just as hedoes with all the othah girls. I know Aunt Jane believes he is allright, because she is very particulah about my company. I can't see anyway to get out of going with him as long as she's given him toundahstand that I would, but for me to hold you to yoah offah and makeyou make a martyr of yoahself on the altah of friendship."
"You know very well, Lloyd Sherman, _no_ fellow would count it martyrdomto escort the most popular debutante of the season to the last greatfunction."
She opened her eyes wide, astonished at such an unusual thing as acompliment from Rob.
"Oh, I'm just quoting," he added to tease her. "That's what I heard anenthusiastic admirer of yours call you on the car this evening. But I'min dead earnest, too. My offer is a sincere one."
"Very well," responded Lloyd quickly, "I'll hold you to it. I supposeyou've seriously considahed it. You'll have to go in fancy costume, youknow."
His face showed plainly that he had not thought how much his offerinvolved, but after an instant's hesitation he made a wry grimace andlaughed. "That's all right. I die game. I haven't been to anything fortwo years, but I'll see you through on this deal. 'I'll never desertMicawber.' Name the character I'm to represent and I'll get thecostume."
"I think a Teddy beah would be most in keeping if you're going to glowahand growl the way you did a moment ago, or anything fierce and furious;Bluebeard for instance. That would be fine, and I'll carry a bloody keyand you can drag me around by the hair as an object le
sson to allthoughtless girls who weave their mantles to fit unworthy shouldahsinstead of using their yah'd sticks to do it right."
"That old tale seems to worry you a lot, Lloyd."
"It does," she confessed. "I've thought about it every day this wintah.Now this is all ready for the salt and buttah," she added as the lastgrain in the wire cage burst into snowy bloom. "I'll take it ovah to theold gentlemen while it's hot. You can be popping the next lot while I'mgone."
Mrs. Sherman joined them presently, and the question of costumes wassettled. "There's no use of yoah going to any expense for one," saidLloyd, with her usual delicate consideration. "There are trunkfuls oflovely things still in the attic. Come ovah next week and we'll lookthrough them."
So it came to pass that the old intimacy was, in a measure, resumed, forseveral calls were necessary to complete the arrangements for Valentinenight. That those arrangements were highly satisfactory might have beeninferred from the account of the affair which appeared in the Societycolumns next day, in which Miss Sherman and Mr. Rob Moore were awardedthe palm for the most unique and striking costumes. They had gone asBluebeard and his beautiful Fatima. It was the crowning good time of theseason, Lloyd declared, for Rob under cover of his disguise entered intothe spirit of the occasion with all his old zest, and when Rob tried,nobody could be better company than he. After that he fell into the wayof an occasional call at The Locusts. He was too busy to spare manyevenings, but when Lloyd came back to the Valley, nearly every Sundayafternoon was spent in their old way, taking long tramps togetherthrough the quiet country lanes and winter woods.
The Little Colonel's Knight Comes Riding Page 15