CHAPTER VI
Louise, still bound by the discipline of school, was not a late sleeper.As early as seven o'clock on the morning following Langdon Jesse's callshe was lying awake, striving to dispel, by the process of optimisticreasoning, the sinister nimbus that seemed to be enshrouding her, whenthe telephone bell in her dressing room began to ring persistently.Louise sprang up to answer the call.
"I know it is a barbarous hour, dear," Laura's cheerful contralto cameover the wire, "but I've just been aroused from my juvenile slumbers bythe telephone, and of course I must have revenge upon somebody. Listen,dear: I know that it only takes you about fifteen minutes to dress--ofcourse you are not dressed yet? Well, begin this instant. Put onsomething for tramping and fussing around in the country. You must beover here by eight o'clock. We are going to have a romping day in thecountry. Now, hurry, won't you?"
"Just you and I, Laura?" asked Louise, delighted. A day in the country!Open fields to dispel vapors! The thought of it made her eager andexcited.
"No, there'll be another," replied Laura. "I disregard the axiom, youknow, that 'Three is a crowd.' Three needn't be a crowd if one of thethree has a little tact and--and the knack of opportunely vanishing,"and Louise heard her soft laughter. "A man I know has what he calls alittle tumbledown place, with some ground around it, over in Jersey. Hecalls it Sullen Manor, because he says he always goes over there, inpreference to all other places, when he feels the imperative need tosulk. Now, there is not another moment to be wasted in 'phoning. Startto dress this very instant! Will you solemnly promise me to be here onthe stroke of eight? Very well. I shall be waiting. Goodbye."
Louise, "very trig and complete," as Laura remarked, in a suit of greywith a matching fur-trimmed grey toque, was with the astonished Laura agood quarter of an hour before eight.
"Heaven knows how you do it," said Laura, still in the hands of hermaid. "Go into the dining-room and have some coffee, dear. I shall bewith you directly."
Louise, humming happily at the thought of the care-free day ahead ofher, sped into the bright dining room. John Blythe, sipping coffee atthe table, rose to meet her. He looked fine and upstanding in his fresh,rough tweeds, his close-shaven face ruddy and his clear grey eyesshowing an agate sparkle from the brisk walk to Laura's apartment fromhis own.
Louise halted abruptly in her astonishment when she saw him. But she wasextremely glad to see him and said so frankly, resting her hand in hismuscular but gentle clasp for a moment.
"Laura packed me off here to take some coffee," she said. "Does she knowyou are here? And how early you are abroad in the world. We are stirringabout at this sunrise hour because we are going for a day in thecountry--and I am mad to get there! In my previous incarnation I musthave been a milkmaid, for I dearly love the country." Then she added,with a little air of disappointment: "I do wish you were coming withus!"
"That," replied Blythe, smiling his wide smile as he poured coffee forher, "is precisely what I am going to do."
Louise, in the act of taking the cup from him, looked into his face withan expression of pleased mystification on her own.
"Why, what is--how can--" She broke off suddenly and rose from her chairin the intensity of a pleasure which she herself, at that moment, couldscarcely have analyzed. "Surely," she went on in a lower tone, her faceirradiated by a smile which it thrilled him to observe, "Surely you arenot the man who sulks?"
"One of Laura's agreeable fictions," he pronounced. "She calls my littleplace Sullen Manor, and declares that it is my sulking cave, becauseI've not had her over there to see it. I've had no chance to ask heruntil now. Do you mean to say she did not tell you that I was theorganizer of this expedition?"
"The secretive creature did not even hint at such a thing," declaredLouise, not very successfully pretending to be miffed.
"Now I call that downright neglect of orders," said Blythe, alsostriving to show a serious face. "I particularly charged Laura to tellyou who the party of the third part was to be in order that you mighthave the privilege of refusing to accompany the expedition in case youso desired. A shocking departure from discipline on Laura's part."
"Then it was you," said Louise, lighter in spirits than she had been fora long time, "who invited me?"
"My dear, don't you know he would say so to you no matter whether itwere true or not?" said Laura, who had caught Louise's question,breezing into the dining-room at that moment. "Come on, children. Yourantique chaperone is impatient to be on her disregarded way. Louise,have you had your coffee? And some toast? Finish them this instant! Evenso ascetic and imaginative a person as Mr. Blythe knows that a girlmust have a little breakfast before venturing upon an expedition intothe jungles of Jersey."
Laura, perfect in a walking suit of shepherd's plaid and tan walkingshoes, had, on this morning, the animation as well as the beauty of agirl. Blythe compared the two as they stood side by side, hastilysipping coffee. Laura, with her Judith-black, glossy hair and fresh,youthful color, and Louise with her thick coils of vivid, velvety auburnand glowing ivory pallor--Blythe thought, studying them for a momentover the rim of his cup, that he had never seen so splendid a contrast.
"_Allons!_" Laura broke in upon his reflection. "Are we to dawdle hereuntil luncheon time? Already it is," looking at her watch, "twenty-fourseconds past eight!"
Blythe, slipping into his greatcoat, turned a solemn face upon Laurawhen they had reached the hall, outward-bound.
"There is one thing, Laura, in connection with this expedition, that Iam keenly sorry for," he said, assuming a sepulchral tone.
"Why, what is that?" asked Laura, a little alarmedly, taken off herguard.
"Well," replied Blythe, still solemn, "you'll only be away from here forabout fifteen hours, and how are you possibly going to have yourapartment completely redecorated, from forepeak to mizzen, alow andaloft, in that space of time?"
"Tush!" laughed Laura. "There will be plenty of time to have the placedone over--and it really does sorely need it, now doesn't it?" this witha wistfulness at which Blythe and Louise laughed, "--when I take Louiseto Europe with me in May--less than three months off."
"Am I to go to Europe with you, dear--really?" asked Louise, surprisedand pleased; for Laura had said nothing about it before.
"Most assuredly you are," replied Laura, entirely in earnest. "If, thatis, you can make up your mind to be burdened by the companionship of oneso aged."
The topic was lost in the excitation of their arranging themselves inLaura's car, which was to take them to the ferry. But the thought of itrecurred to Louise several times during the ride to the ferry. It was analluring prospect, barring the obstacles. How could she leave hermother, even for a short time, now that she had rejoined her after aseparation of years? Finally she was able to dismiss such cogitationsand yield herself to the enjoyment of the day ahead.
It was one of those unseasonably mild days in late February thatoccasionally "drop in" to point an accusing finger at the harshness ofwinter. A brilliant sun swam in a cloudless sky, and the soft yetinvigorating balminess of late April was, as they noticed when theysped by the Park, deluding the buds of tree and hedge into swellingprematurely and even seducing the willows into a vague, timidlydisplayed elusive green. Hardy, pioneering robins, advance couriers sentforth to investigate the senile endurance of winter, hopped about thePark sward. School-ward bound boys, out of sight of their homes, weredoffing their irksome overcoats, and thrusting them, blanket-wise, atdemure little schoolgirls who, in turn, were carrying their stuffyjackets over their arms. Motormen and truckmen were smothering yawnsthat denoted a premature spring fever. Business-bound men, going moreslowly than usual, glancing occasionally at the sky of sapphire, andfeeling on their cheeks gusty little zephyrs from the South, thought offishing "where the wild stream sings." Belated shopgirls, sensing themorning's benign balm as they hurried through crowds, thought of hatsand furbelows for the season that, they surmised, was almost upon them.
In the ferry-bound automobile, John Blyt
he was thinking about a letterhid in the pocket of his coat and wondering how the person whom theletter most concerned would regard its contents. Louise was wondering ifher mother would be annoyed over the word she had left with her maidthat she would be with Laura for the entire day and part of the evening;occasionally she glanced sidelongwise at John Blythe, when there was nopossibility of his catching her at it, and strove vaguely to analyze thesense of power, mingled with kindliness, which his presence diffused.Laura, leaning back, emitting an occasional absurdity, studied them bothand wondered, her eyes a little dreamy, if matters ever actually turnedout in real life as they did in novels.
They stood on the ferryboat's prow, bathing in the sun's relenting glowand blinking at the gold-tipped river crests; and it was only teno'clock when, after half an hour's ride on the slam-bang littleaccommodation train, they debarked at the spick-and-span little station,at the side of which Blythe's care-taker, a grinning but stolid German,had drawn up a fine and comfortable, if old-fashioned, surrey to whichwas hitched a pair of glossy, mettlesome sorrels.
Louise and Laura felt like clapping their hands when, after the two-miledrive through woodlands and past neat, well-cared-for little farms theclean, sweet-smelling soil of which already was being turned up, theydrove on a firm, natural road through a wide wooden gate and came insight of the pretty Colonial house, with four bright yellow pillars,topped by a balcony of snowy white, with wide-open shutters of anintense green, and a big white double door at the sides of which werelittle grooved columns surmounted by the inevitable Corinthiancapitals. The house, fresh and smart in its old-fashioned way, wasroomier than it looked from the front. It was divided by a wide hallwhich ran its entire length on the ground floor; and a wide stairway ranfrom the hall in front to the second floor, where, after the Colonialfashion, the balcony gave upon sleeping rooms.
"Sullen Manor," announced Laura, assuming the megaphonic utterance ofthe sight-seeing car's expounder. "But doesn't it beautifully belie itsname and its owner's doldrumish use of it? Why, it is as pretty andcheerful as a pigeon-cote snuggling under sifting cherry blossoms! Howmuch ground is there around the place, John?"
"Twenty acres," replied Blythe, smiling a little gravely. "I suppose Iknow every foot of the twenty acres, too, though I left here--it iswhere I was born, you know--when I was seven years old. My father lostthe place, you see, through bad investments and what not, when I was atthat age. We moved to New Orleans, and a year later both my father andmother were swept off by yellow fever. I only remember them in a shadowyway. Oddly enough, I remember this old place much better than I do myparents; its corners, clumps of trees, and that sort of thing. I had achance to get the place back a couple of years ago, and I seized it. Agood deal of the gear that was here when I was a tyke is still here,stowed in the attic; for the place has not been often occupied since weleft it. I've refurnished it in a sort of a way. I hope you'll not findit so bad, Laura; but I'm prepared right now to wilt under yoursuperior, and, I might say, your inveterate knowledge of interiordecoration."
Blythe looked a bit self-disdainful over what had been rather a longspeech for him, particularly when he observed that Louise had beenwaiting to ask him something.
"You will not think me inquisitive, Mr. Blythe?" she prefaced. "But whatyou said about the--the carrying away of your people by yellow fever notonly touched me but aroused my curiosity. You were only a child then, ofcourse. What did you do then? Were you taken in hand by relatives? Youare not annoyed because I ask?"
"Why should I be?" Blythe laughed. "Particularly when the reply is sosimple. I have no relatives--had none then. When my people died I was onthe streets. I believe I hold the record yet for the number of _NewOrleans Picayunes_ and _Times-Democrats_ sold in a given time. Whateverelse I became later, I certainly was a hustling newsboy. Then I came uphere and I've been working ever since. My annals, you see, MissTreharne, are distinctly dry."
"But your education?" Louise asked, her eyes alight with an interestwhich caused Laura to smile.
"Well," said Blythe, "there are plenty of people living in Princetonyet, I think, who will tell you, if ever you take the pains to inquire,that I was an exceptionally successful furnace-tender, tinker,chore-doer, and all-round roustabout. Oh, yes, I forget. I was apersuasive peddler of soap and starch before the Lord, too. Likewise, Iacquired the knack of mending umbrellas. Not to overlook the fact that,odd times, I drove a village hack. At Princeton, in short, I wasvirtually everything and anything you can think of except a barber and apoliceman. I shied at those two occupations."
"And you took your degree?" inquired Louise.
"Just squeezed through," replied Blythe.
"Don't you believe anything of the sort, Louise," put in Laura. "He wasvaledictorian of his class, and, worse than that, he played full-backwith his eleven, and a sensational full-back too. I ought to know. I amold enough, woe is me, to have been a woman grown the year John Blythecontributed a good three-fifths to the Tigers' victory over Yale."
Blythe, flushing embarrassedly, was holding up a protesting hand whenthe surrey drew up in front of the clean, scrubbed porch and thecare-taker's wife, a freshly-ginghamed, bright-eyed German woman ofmiddle age, appeared to receive them. Then, from around the left side ofthe house, a terrific yipping began. Two hysterically joyous foxterriers, scenting their master, came tearing around the porch andliterally leaped upon Blythe. Then they "side-wheeled" in circles overthe lawn, first listing precariously over on starboard legs and then onport, whimpering in their sheer delight as they tore around. A hugeAngora cat, as they entered the hall, made two bounds of it from thehuge fireplace, from which a pair of smouldering logs diffused a redglow that contrasted oddly with the streaming sunlight, to rub hersides, purring almost vociferously as she did so, against Blythe'strousers legs. Later in the day, she was solemnly to conduct Blythe andhis guests to the cellar for the purpose of exhibiting a litter whichkept the women chained around the basket for nearly an hour.
In the lives of most men and women there are days--usually unanticipateddays--so encompassed, aureoled, by a memorable happiness that, everafterward, in hours of retrospection, they mark the beginning or denotethe closing of the eventful periods.
This was such a day for Blythe and Louise and Laura. They rambledthrough miles of field and forest, chattering and laughing like childrena-berrying; the women's hair blowing free or tumbling down altogether,their skirts caught by brambles, their deadliest fears aroused by theinevitable ruminative cow. They climbed fences, while Blythe pretendedthat something had just dropped out of his pocket back of him. Theyromped with the dogs, they tossed pebbles at a mark in a garrulouslittle just-thawed stream, they even sat down on an inviting littlemound, beneath an old elm, and played at mumblety-peg with Blythe'sjack-knife and quarrelled laughingly over the score of the game.
When they returned to the house in mid-afternoon, they found the Germanwoman preparing a meal for them. Laura and Louise insisted upon helpingher. In fact, they banished her from the kitchen altogether and did itall themselves. Louise announced, her features set rather determinedly,that she was going to make some biscuits, whereupon Blythe, asking herif she'd learned that in the cooking class at Miss Mayhew's school,incontinently fled in well-simulated alarm. But he came back to thespotless kitchen to watch the two women, aproned to the neck, and theirarms bared to the shoulders, breeze about with their preparations. Hewas repaid for his inquisitiveness by being swaddled in an apron and setto peel the potatoes.
The meal was an unqualified success, including the biscuits, which, toLouise's intense surprise, were superb, although Blythe impertinentlymaintained that the German woman really had made them and that Louisehad merely heated them over. The light began to fall as they chattedaround the table, and Blythe, having no great liking for oil lamps,tossed logs on to the dining-room fireplace for the flickering glow oftheir light. Blythe lighted a cigar with his coffee and fell into asilence of content when Louise and Laura began to hum, very low,snatches of old songs in uni
son; Laura in her deep, moving contralto,with an appealing little "break" in it, and Louise in a clear, sweetsoprano--she had been the honor girl of her school for her singing.
"More," Blythe would give the repressed command when they ceased; andthey would willingly obey. After a while, darkness having quite fallen,Laura went to another part of the house for her after-dinner cigarette.She made it a practice not to take her cigarettes in the presence ofquite young women.
Blythe, silent enough now, and his silence tacitly concurred in byLouise, who also had become preoccupied, under the spell of theflickering fire-light and her nearness, alone, to a man who made astrong appeal to her imagination, brought up a deep leather chair beforethe logs and motioned to Louise to take it. But she pulled anold-fashioned three-legged footstool before the fire, and Blythehimself had to take the chair. Thus they sat silent for a while,listening to the sputtering of the green logs.
"Louise."
It was the first time he had called her that. But she did not even turnher head. She was sitting near him on the low stool, chin in palm, herface illumined by the fire's glow. It was agreeable to hear him call herLouise. He knew her father. She had been thinking of her father whileshe and Laura were singing softly.
"Yes," she said, quietly.
"I am to be your guardian, Louise. Does that please you?"
Blythe, leaning back in the deep chair, did not take his eyes from themurmuring logs. Louise, chin still in palm, turned to look at himcalmly. Then she gazed back into the fire.
"Yes," she replied, no surprise in her tone. Perhaps, she thoughtwhimsically, the dancing, leaping flames had hypnotized her. But she wasnot surprised. She was, instead, swept by a surge of deep gladness. "Youhave a letter from my father?"
"Two," said Blythe. "One of them is for you."
She moved her little stool close to his chair and he handed her thepacket. The letter for her was under cover of the letter addressed toBlythe. Louise studied, in the fire's glow, the bold, clear address onthe envelope. It was the first time she had ever seen her father'shandwriting. Her eyes became slightly suffused at that thought. Herletter dropped out of the larger envelope.
"If you care to, read the one addressed to me first, Louise," saidBlythe.
Louise, turning a bit the better to catch the fire's glow, read herfather's letter addressed to Blythe--as far as she could read it. Shewas nearly at the end when her unshed tears blinded her. Blythe's hand,which she then felt, without surprise, softly clasping both of her ownas they rested in her lap, felt very cool and soothing to her.
After a while, nothing having been said by either, she broke theenvelope and read her father's letter to her. It was not a long letter,but it took her a long time to read it; the tears would blot out thewords, try as she would to crowd them back.
Her father's letter to Blythe was couched in the tone a man assumes inaddressing his lawyer who also is his friend. It bore the postmark ofLahaina, Island of Maui, Hawaii--George Treharne's sugar plantationswere on that island of the Hawaiian group. The letter concerned Louisewholly. He was tied to his plantations, owing to labor troubles withthe Japanese, and there was no possibility of his visiting the Statesfor some time. He had been surprised to hear that Louise had leftschool. She was now a woman grown. He had looked forward to the timewhen, he hoped, she might feel an impulse to come to him. If that timehad not yet come he trusted implicitly to Blythe to see that she shouldbe properly bestowed, placed in a fitting environment, and shielded frombaneful influences. He knew that Blythe, the young partner of his oldlawyer, now dead, would not fail him in this. He desired that Blytheshould apply immediately for a court order appointing him his daughter'slegal guardian. He inclosed the necessary papers for the accomplishmentof that purpose. He was eager to see his daughter, and hoped to see herwithin a year. In the meantime he confidently committed her to Blythe'swatchful guardianship.
His letter to Louise bespoke a deep and solicitous affection. He toldher of Blythe, adverting to him in terms of praise as a man of exaltedhonor ("Poor father! as if I did not know that," thought Louise, whenshe came to that passage), and beseeching her to follow Blythe's advicein all matters in which his large experience would be invaluable to her.He added that he felt that she would not find Blythe's suggestionsirksome. He inclosed a draft on a Honolulu bank for five thousanddollars, which would suffice for her needs until she heard from himagain. He hoped to see her within a year. And he was hoping that shewould be glad to see her "always-affectionate father, George Treharne."
At length Louise conquered her tears and turned a fire-illumined smileupon Blythe.
"I am glad," she said simply. "Even before you told me, this had beenthe happiest day of my life. Now it is beautiful. I cannot even begin totell you how beautiful it is."
"Then I shall apply for the guardianship, Louise," said Blythe. "I wishI could say how it pleases me to know you are willing that I should."
"Willing?" said Louise. "Do you know that, aside from Laura, you are theonly--" She had been close to saying "friend;" but she could not leaveher mother out in that way;--"the only adviser I have?"
Blythe, glancing from the logs into her eyes as she said that, longed totake her in his arms.
Laura, at the piano in the music room on the other side of the hall,began softly to play the barcarole from "The Tales of Hoffmann." Theylistened for a little while, and then Blythe said, smiling gravely:
"As your father says, I shall not be, I hope, an exacting guardian.There are many things upon which I shall not touch at all. I shall notaffect to believe that you do not know what I mean."
"I know," said Louise.
"Your duty is that to which your heart prompts you--I know that," saidBlythe. "It is not for me, nor for anyone else, to seek to alter yourconception of your duty. All that I ask is that you call upon me in yourtime of need, if that time should ever come; and I hope it never shall.For the rest, nothing is to be changed at my suggestion. The scroll isin your hands, Louise. Only when you need me--I shall not fail youthen."
"Would it be unworthy," she asked him after a pause, "if I were not totell my father--just yet--that I am living with my mother?"
Blythe knew what a hard question that had been for her to ask.
"Not unworthy, or anything like it, I think," he replied promptly, "whenthe motive is so pure and fine."
Impulsively she rose and held out both of her hands and he took them inhis.
"Call Laura," she said. "I want to tell her. I want my guardian angel tomeet my guardian."
Laura came into the room as she spoke. She walked over to Louise andplaced an arm around her.
"I knew it, dear," she said to Louise. "John told me last night. That iswhy we are over here. He thought, and I agreed with him, that it wouldbe better to tell you at the close of a happy day. And was there _ever_such a happy day since the world began?"
Blythe looked at his watch and whistled.
"We've half an hour to make the last New York train tonight, and atwo-mile drive to the station," he said. "If we miss the train we'llhave to stay here all night."
Laura gathered up her skirts and raced for her hat, Louise after her.
"Stay here all night!" gasped Laura. "You are making a gloriousbeginning as a guardian, aren't you!"
It was past ten o'clock when Louise, in Laura's car, which had beenwaiting at the ferry, reached the house on the Drive, Laura having beendropped at her apartment. The sheer happiness of the day still absorbedher. Up to the moment when the car pulled up at the curb she had beengoing over and over, since parting with Blythe and Laura, the incidentsof the day that had made it such an oasis of happiness.
But it all disappeared like a suddenly-vanishing mirage when, uponstepping to the pavement, she saw Langdon Jesse's car drawn up at thecurb.
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