CHAPTER V ANOTHER ATTEMPT
When the Misses Flint saw the door shut behind Ladybird, and heard thekey click in the lock, they could believe neither their eyes nor theirears.
Miss Priscilla rose and walked majestically to the door and turned theknob, fully expecting the door would open. But it would not open, ofcourse, being locked, and the good lady, almost stupefied with anger andamazement, uttered an explosive and exasperated "Well!" and dropped intothe nearest chair.
Miss Dorinda responded with a terrified and apprehensive "Well!" and thenthe two sisters sat and stared blankly at each other.
Miss Dorinda spoke first, timidly.
"Priscilla, don't you think perhaps it is our duty to give a home toLavinia's child?"
"Duty!" exclaimed the elder sister, in a tense, restrained voice. "Duty!To keep such a vixen as that in our house? No! I confess I had some suchthought during the night; but now I have only one desire, and that is, toget rid of her."
"Yes," said Miss Dorinda, sighing; "of course she can't stay after this;but she seems very affectionate and loving."
"Affectionate! Loving! Dorinda Flint, what are you talking about? Do youcall it affectionate to lock us helplessly in this room?"
"No; but that was impulsive, and because she wants to stay here. I don'tthink she is really a vicious child."
"Well, I don't want to think anything about her!"
Miss Priscilla took up a newspaper and pretended to read, so desirous wasshe of not appearing defeated; and, indeed, she would have stayed quietlyin that room all day rather than call for assistance, or in any way showthat she was at the mercy of her erratic niece.
Miss Dorinda was as much perturbed as her sister, but she made no effortto hide it. She fluttered about the room, looked out of the window, triedthe door-knob, and at last sat down in a big rocking-chair and began torock violently.
Suddenly the door burst open and Ladybird came flying in.
"Aunties," she cried, "the house is on fire! What do you want to savemost?"
"Mercy on us!" cried Miss Priscilla, rushing from the room, "let me getmy Lady Washington geranium. The buds are just ready to open."
"Where is it? I'll get it," said Ladybird, dancing around in greatexcitement.
"Up-stairs, on a stand by the south-room window; but you can't goup--you'll be burned to death."
"No, I won't," screamed Ladybird, already half-way up-stairs; "I'll getit. What do _you_ want, Aunt Dorinda?"
"I don't know,--everything! Oh, my lace handkerchief," called thedistracted lady. "And get some of your own things; and bring ourfire-gowns."
Meantime volumes of smoke rolled into the hall through the dining-roomdoor.
Suddenly Matthew's face appeared in the midst of the smoke.
"Don't be frightened, ma'am," he said; "it's all right now. The soot gotafire in the chimbley; but we've put it out. But if the little ladyhadn't been afther runnin' down an' tellin' me that the wall felt hot,I'm thinkin' the house wud have been burned to the ground."
"Oh, Matthew, are you sure the fire is all out?" asked Miss Dorinda.
"And are you sure my house would have burned up but for that child?"asked Miss Priscilla.
"Yis, ma'am, sure as sure! An' I'll jist open the windies till the shmokedisappears."
Then Miss Priscilla called, "Come down, Ladybird; it's all right now."And in a moment the child came flying down-stairs.
"I put the geranium back in its place," she said, "and I left your lacehandkerchief on your bureau, Aunt Dorinda; but I brought both yoursmell-salts bottles, 'cause I thought you might be faint from the scare.Now sit down and rest, won't you?"
She hovered about her aunts, ministering to each in turn, and hercaressing touch was so gentle, and her sympathy so sincere, that MissPriscilla, who was unaccustomed to such attentions, quite forgot she hadcalled her niece a vixen, and that, too, with good and sufficientreasons.
But after a while, as her nerves became quieted and she felt morecomposed, Miss Priscilla Flint determined to attempt again the dismissalof her unwelcome guest.
"Lavinia," she said in a tone of firm decision.
"Oh, aunty, don't call me that; it makes me feel so old and grown up!"
"It is your name, and I have no desire to call you by any other. Lavinia,you are my niece, and the child of my dead sister; but I am in no wayinclined to take you into my home for that reason. You have some kind andwinning ways, but you appear to have an ungovernable temper, which wouldmake you impossible to live with. How dared you lock the door on me in myown house?"
"Why, aunty," said Ladybird, laughing at the memory of it, "that wasn'ttemper, and I didn't mean to be rude; but truly, there was nothing elseto do. Why, if you had been out on the veranda when my trunks came, youwould have sent them back to Boston, and I didn't want them to go back;so I just left you by yourselves until the man took them up-stairs."
"You think you have outwitted me, miss, but you will find that PriscillaFlint is not so easily set aside."
"Oh, I'm not going to set you aside, aunty; that isn't it. I'm just goingto stay here and be your little girl--yours and Aunt Dorinda's."
"I think, sister, we might keep her a week on trial," said Miss Dorinda,timidly.
Miss Dorinda always said everything timidly. In this respect she was notlike her niece.
"I shall _not_ keep her a week, nor a day; and no more hours than I canhelp. I am going now to write a note to Mr. Marks, and tell him to comeback at once for her and her trunks. So, Miss Lavinia Lovell, you may aswell get yourself ready, for this time you will have to go."
"Do you know, it doesn't seem to me as if I would go this time," saidLadybird, thoughtfully; "it seems to me as if I would stay here years andyears, until I get to be a dear old lady like you," and she patted thetop of Miss Priscilla's head. Then she danced out of the room, and out tothe garden, singing as she went:
"I am not going away to-day; I'm going to stay and stay and stay."
When the luncheon-bell rang, she danced back again, and seeing a letteron the hall-table addressed to Mr. Marks, she tore it into bits and threwit into the waste basket.
The gay good humor of their visitor was infectious, and the Flint ladieslaughed and chatted over their luncheon, so that the meal was nearly overbefore Miss Priscilla said:
"Mr. Marks will call for you at three o'clock, Lavinia."
"I don't think he will," replied the child, "because I tore up thatletter you wrote to him and threw it away."
"What!" gasped Miss Priscilla. "This is too much!"
"Well, you see, aunty, there was nothing else to do. If he'd got thatletter he would have come, and I don't want him to come, so I tore it up.Don't write another."
"I won't," said Miss Priscilla, in an ominous voice, and snapping herteeth together with a click.
But half an hour later the Primrose Hall carriage went down toward thevillage, and inside of it sat a very determined-looking old lady.
She went to Mr. Marks's office and asked him to get his wagon and followher home at once, and bring back the young miss and her luggage.
"That firebrand as I saw at your house this morning?" exclaimed the oldcountryman. "Wal, I guess she won't be so easy brung."
He chuckled to himself as he drove along the road behind Miss PriscillaFlint; and when they reached the farm-house, he waited decorously forfurther orders.
Then the hunt began. For Ladybird was nowhere to be found. Miss Priscillacalled in vain. Then Miss Dorinda called. Then they went up and looked inthe room which Ladybird had appropriated as her own.
Her three trunks stood there wide open and empty. Their contents were allaround: on the bed, on the bureaus, on the chairs, and many of them onthe floor. But no trace of the missing child.
Then Miss Priscilla called the servants.
"The little girl is hiding somewhere," she explained, "and she must befound."
"Yes, 'm," Bridget said; and she began s
ystematically to search the housefrom attic to cellar.
Matthew shook his old head doubtfully.
"I'm thinkin' yez'll niver find her," he said. "She was a spookish piece,an' the likes of her flies up chimbleys an' out of windies an' niverappears ag'in."
Martha, much mystified, stared helplessly around the room, and in doingso noticed a bit of paper pinned to the pin-cushion.
She handed it to Miss Priscilla, who read:
Aunty, Aunty, Do not look for me; Until you send that man away, I'll stay just where I be.
"Oh," groaned Miss Priscilla, "what _can_ I do? We _must_ find her!"
Miss Dorinda felt pretty sure, in her secret heart, that they _wouldn't_find Ladybird until that strange being was ready to be found; but shecontinued looking about in her placid way, which did no good nor harm.
After an hour's search, the case did seem hopeless, and Mr. Marksdeclared he couldn't wait any longer; so Miss Priscilla reluctantly lethim go away.
Two more hours passed; and then it was five o'clock, and still no signfrom the missing child.
Although they hadn't confessed it to each other, the Flint ladies wereboth a little scared.
Finally Miss Dorinda said:
"You don't think she'd do anything rash, do you, sister?"
"From the little I've seen of her," replied Miss Priscilla, "I should saythat what she does is never anything but rash. However, I don't think shehas drowned herself in the brook, or jumped down the well, if that's whatyou mean."
That was what Miss Dorinda had meant, and somehow she was not very muchreassured by her sister's word.
They sat silent for a while; then Miss Dorinda, with a sudden impulse ofdetermination such as she had never known in all her life, and, indeed,never experienced again, said:
"Priscilla, I think you are doing wrong; and you needn't look at me likethat. For once, I'm going to say what I think! This child has been sentto us, and in your secret heart you know it is our duty to keep her anddo for her. The Bible says that those who neglect their own families areworse than infidels, and we have no right to turn away our kin. Yourdislike of visitors has nothing to do with the matter. The child is not avisitor, as she says herself. And it makes no difference what kind of achild she is: she is our sister's daughter, and we are bound by every lawof humanity and decency to give her a home. If father were alive, do yousuppose he would turn his orphan grandchild from his door? No; he woulddo his duty by his own: he would be just, if he could not be generous;and he would accept a responsibility that was rightly thrust upon him."
Miss Priscilla looked at her sister in utter amazement. Dorinda had neverspoken like this before, and it seemed as if the spirit of old JosiahFlint was manifesting itself in his daughter.
But if Miss Dorinda had acted in an unusual manner, Miss Priscillaproceeded to behave no less strangely.
At the close of her sister's speech, she suddenly burst into tears; andthe times in her life when Miss Priscilla Flint had cried were very fewindeed.
Then the younger sister was frightened at what she had done, and tried topacify the weeping lady.
"I know you're right, Dorinda," said Miss Priscilla, between her sobs;"I--I knew it all along,--and I suppose we shall have to keep her. Fatherwould have wished it so,--and--and I wouldn't mind it so much if shewouldn't--wouldn't leave the doors open."
The Staying Guest Page 6