Chapter X: The New Neighbors on the Hill

MRS. WENTWORTH WARD, true to the word written upon her postal card, appeared at Glen Arden early in the ensuing week. Upon this occasion she made known to her nieces her intention of spending the greater part of the next five months at Glen Arden, and naturally this announcement was received with some dismay.

“You should have some one with you part of the year, at least,” said their aunt, “and it suits me to come here. I had thought of going abroad for the summer, and of taking one of you with me, but there are various matters of importance which must be attended to, and which will suffer frightfully if I am not here to look after them. It is necessary for me to be near town. I shall board with you, of course. I may just as well pay the money to you that I should at a hotel at Magnolia or Nahant, and I don’t care for the sea this year. And I am sure you must be in need of the money. I can’t imagine how you manage to get along on so little.”

Honor ignored the close of this speech, and politely expressed her pleasure at the prospect of such an extended visit from her aunt, though it is to be feared that her tone was not very hearty. She was the only one of the family who could see her, Katherine being in the schoolroom, and Victoria and Peter at school in Fordham. This was one of Mrs. Wentworth Ward’s customs which her nieces considered most aggravating. She invariably came to Glen Arden during school hours, and expected their undivided attention.

Though she paid close observance to her own engagements, she had small regard for those of other people, and her nieces’ methods of supporting themselves she could never be induced to take seriously.

“The first of May will be next Thursday, a week from to-day,” continued she, “and I shall come on the three o’clock train. You may give me your father’s old room. It was mine when I lived here, you know, and I like it.”

“Yes,” murmured Honor, remembering that Katherine now occupied the room, and wondering what she would say to being turned out. “And is there anything else you would like, Aunt Sophia? I think perhaps I had better get another cook, and let B. Laf—I mean Blanch—do the upstairs work. She is not a very superior cook, and with such a large family we shall need two servants.”

“I will bring my waitress, Ellen Higgins, who has been with me so long,” rejoined Mrs. Ward, briskly. “I intended to suggest it, and she is an excellent cook herself, and can give Blanch—extraordinary name for an Irishwoman, Honor!—she can give Blanch lessons in cooking. I will also, and there are a number of other things that I want to teach you. Therefore you may expect me in the 3 P.M. train on Thursday, the first day of May. I shall bring my own desk, and my two canaries, my typewriter, and a number of other little things.”

“We have a typewriter,” said Honor, somewhat appalled by this list. “Perhaps you could use it, and not bring your own.”

“You have a typewriter? Where did you get it, and whose is it?”

“It is Katherine’s.”

“Indeed! And does she use it with ease?”

“Er—not exactly,” faltered Honor, who felt all too surely that she had made a misstep, and perhaps a fatal one. What would their aunt say if she knew that they had owned a typewriter for nearly six months, and that not one of them could make use of it? And she would find it out, she surely would! Why, oh why, had Honor ever given her this superfluous bit of information? Without it she need never have known that there was such a thing in the house.

“Very well, then, I shall not bring my own,” said Mrs. Wentworth Ward, rising as she spoke. “On the contrary, I will engage Katherine to be my secretary, and of course she will prefer to use her own machine which she is accustomed to. You tell her, will you, Honor, that I shall pay her an ample salary. And now good-bye, my dear! It will really be very pleasant to be with you all. My love to the others. I am not going to take the train yet. The carriage that is waiting will carry me down to Fordham, where I have a meeting. Good-bye.”

And in a moment she was gone. Honor stood on the piazza, looking at the back of the carriage as it rolled up the avenue. One more week, and then, good-bye, indeed! It would be the end of their careless freedom, their independence, their good times. For although it had been a sad winter in many ways, although they had missed the dear father more than words could express, although the question of money had at times pressed heavily upon them, yet in spite of all they had been happy with one another, they had enjoyed the sense of independence which they had gained from the fact that they were supporting, or trying to support, themselves, and there had been intense satisfaction in the mere feeling that they were earning money. Little though it was, it was theirs by the right of labor, and Honor was proud of it.

To be sure, they should now earn more, for she knew that her aunt would pay them generously; but she saw an endless line of small vexations rising and stretching themselves through the summer, the little trials that are not much in themselves, but which, when they come in rapid succession, are wearing and annoying, to say the least. Katherine, for one, would not brook the interference which was sure to come from her aunt. And what would she say to being obliged to give up her room, and to being engaged as secretary and typewriter?

Depressed and disturbed though she was feeling, Honor laughed aloud at the thought of the wonders which Katherine was expected to perform upon her writing-machine. As far as her present knowledge went she might just as well be required to translate something from the Sanscrit.

And then, Honor, after one more look across the lawn where her father’s dear trees were in full leaf now, and the grass was green, and the robins were hopping about in ecstasy over the coming of spring, left the piazza and went back to the schoolroom. She determined to say nothing of these plans of her Aunt Sophia’s until Victoria should come home. It was curious, said Honor to herself, that they were all growing to lean upon Victoria.

Therefore, it was not until the afternoon, when they had a few moments of leisure before Katherine should go to one of her music pupils, that Honor imparted to them her dire intelligence.

It had precisely the effect which she had feared. Katherine flatly declined to give up her room to her aunt, and declared that it was an imposition to have her come there at all. She, for one, refused to endure it. As to acting as her secretary, it was out of the question. Besides, she could not use the typewriter. Why had Honor ever led Aunt Sophia to suppose that she could? Honor had drawn them into this scrape; now she must get them out of it. She need not have told Aunt Sophia that they owned a typewriter.

Katherine walked up and down the shady end of the piazza, looking very tall and extremely angry. Indignation was written in every line of her beautiful face. She had, oddly enough, the perfectly straight features of the aunt whom she did not particularly love; but her eyes and hair were very dark and her forehead was low and broad. It would have annoyed her extremely to be told that she looked like Mrs. Wentworth Ward, who, nevertheless, was a handsome woman.

“I see no way out of it,” said Honor. She was sitting in the hammock, and swung herself to and fro while she watched Katherine’s rapid movements. Victoria had perched herself upon the railing of the piazza, and was looking out across the lawn.

“And, Katherine, you bought the typewriter. You are responsible for its being in the house, so I really don’t think you ought to blame me for this complication. I know it was foolish of me ever to tell Aunt Sophia, but I was so taken aback when I heard that she was coming for five months, and was going to bring all those things with her, including that patronizing Ellen Higgins, whom I can’t bear, that I said the first thing that came into my head. I thought if she used ours,—yours, I mean,—it would be one thing less to bring with her.”

“I don’t see why you took the news so meekly,” said Katherine. “Why didn’t you tell her right up and down that she couldn’t come?”

“Oh, of course Honor couldn’t do that!” said Victoria. “It would have been very rude, and, besides, Katherine, she is our own aunt.”

“Very well, then, you can give up your room to her, and you can be her secretary. It is easy for you to say we ought to have her here, for you don’t have to do anything. I have to give up my dear room, which I love because it was father’s, and go to that hot third-story one, I suppose. As for the typewriter, it is simply out of the question. I can’t use it, and I won’t learn to use it just to please Aunt Sophia; and if Honor is going to keep flinging it in my face, she can keep on flinging, that is all. And now it is time for me to go.”

She picked up her music case and was soon walking rapidly away from them across the lawn.

“What are we to do about it?” sighed Honor. “I knew Katherine would be frantic, and I suppose it is provoking for her, but I don’t see why she need be so furious with me.”

“Oh, never mind!” said Victoria, looking after Katherine’s hurrying figure. “Katherine’s bark is worse than her bite, you know, and she will probably have gotten over some of it, before she comes back. I am sorry for her scholars, though, this afternoon! But, Honor, I have an idea.”

“What is it, Vic? If it is a cheering one, as I suppose it is, do hurry and tell me, for I feel bowed to the earth with gloom.”

“I will learn to use the typewriter, and I will be Aunt Sophia’s secretary through the summer. I have been wild to try it, but I have had so much to do, I couldn’t. I will learn to use it before she comes and practise on it in secret, after she gets here, and by the time school is over, I shall be ready for work. She can’t expect any of us to do it before June, while we are so busy, and we can make Katherine’s music an excuse for her not to do it at all. She will have to practise very hard through the summer, we can say. You write a nice note to Aunt Sophia and tell her how it is, so that she may be prepared.”

“Oh, Vic, what a dear you are! You do help me out of so many difficulties. Do you really think, though, that you can learn to use it in so short a time?”

“Of course,” replied Victoria. “One can do anything one sets out to do, if one only tries, and I mean to conquer that white elephant of a typewriter, if only for the sake of feeling that the forty dollars wasn’t wasted; and then, too, if Aunt Sophia pays me well, it will be quite a nice sum for us to make. I will go tinker at it now, for I have a little time, and those books of lessons are quite a help. So, cheer up, Honor! We may get some fun out of Aunt Sophia’s visit, after all.

“‘Jog on, jog on the footpath way,’”

she hummed, as she went into the house and sought the hitherto neglected writing-machine.

In the meantime, Katherine pursued her way across the fields to the village, where she intended to take an electric car. She was still very angry and greatly irritated by her late conversation, and by the prospect of five months of Aunt Sophia’s uninterrupted society. How hateful it was that they were so poor that they were forced to submit to the imposition, as she termed it. If Aunt Sophia were coming as a visitor, it would be different, but as a boarder she would, no doubt, consider herself privileged to say and do exactly what she wished, and how could she be expected to give up her room to her? And besides all this, as Katherine really felt guilty about the purchase of the typewriter, every word that Honor spoke upon the subject went home.

After a while, however, her better nature prevailed. It was always thus with Katherine, as her sisters knew. If sufficient time were given her, she was sure to come out of her fits of temper in the sweetest possible frame of mind, so repentant for all that she had said, and so desirous to atone for it, that it was impossible to help loving her more than ever. On this occasion, before she had reached Fordham she had begun to be sorry, and by the time she had returned to the village, after giving two music lessons, she was ready to do all and more than her sisters required of her.

She left the electric car at the post-office and found there several letters for the family; and then, the afternoon being so beautiful, she concluded to walk home by a somewhat indirect way, one which led her past the entrance to the house on the hill, as the Starrs had been in the habit of calling it. This house was a handsome one which had been vacant for two years. The grounds about it were not extensive, but they had always been well kept until the death of the owner. Since then they had been somewhat neglected; but now the place had been rented, and Katherine was glad to see, as she approached, that men were at work on the lawn and on the avenue which led up a rather steep incline to the house.

She paused for a moment to watch them, and then remembering that the family were probably already there, she hurried on, hoping that she had not been seen. She had not gone more than a few yards, however, before she heard a footstep behind and a voice said:

“Miss Starr, I beg your pardon, but is not this yours?”

Turning, Katherine saw a lady, who held towards her a letter.

“Oh, thank you ever so much!” said Katherine. “I slipped them into my music case at the post-office. I wonder if any more have dropped out?”

“I think not,” said the lady, smiling in a friendly way which won Katherine’s heart upon the spot. “I have been behind you all the way, and this did not fall until just as you reached our place. I couldn’t help seeing the address on it, and so I knew you were one of the Miss Starrs, whom we have heard so much about and are so anxious to meet. I hope you are going to be very neighborly.”

“Yes, indeed!” said Katherine, cordially. She was charmed with the lady’s manner, and quite forgot Honor’s intention to have nothing to do with the newcomers. “We will come and call upon you very soon. You are Mrs. Madison, I suppose.”

“Not Mrs., but Miss,” corrected her new friend, again with the lovely smile that had so attracted the young girl. She was a beautiful woman, with fair hair and eyes of deep blue, and there was that in her face which won Katherine’s love at first sight. She felt that she had found a friend, and, with all the enthusiasm of her young and ardent nature, she loved her before she knew her.

“My name is Margaret Madison. I think you must be the musical one, as you have a familiar-looking roll in your hand. You must come and see my music-room. I play the violin myself, and I should so much enjoy playing with you.”

Katherine’s dark eyes grew round with excitement and the color deepened in her face.

“The violin!” she exclaimed. “And you want me to accompany you? How perfectly lovely it will be!”

“We shall have some good music,” said Miss Madison; “you on the piano, and I on the violin. And my brother sings a little.”

“Oh, your brother!” said Katherine. “I’m so glad you have a brother, for we were hoping that he would do for Peter.”

Miss Madison looked somewhat astonished at this remark, but she said nothing.

“Peter is my brother,” continued Katherine, “and he doesn’t care for many boys, so I do hope your brother and he will get on together. We were so glad when we heard that another boy was coming. My sisters and I will call upon you very soon. Good-bye!”

She did not notice that Miss Madison laughed outright as she left her, so excited was she at the tempting prospect held out to her of the music which was to be enjoyed. She hurried home to tell her sisters of the meeting, and to beg Honor to reconsider her determination to have nothing to do with the new neighbors, but to go at once to call, and in the same breath she assured them that Aunt Sophia could have her room and she would try to use the typewriter.

She was greatly relieved, however, when her sisters told her that her last offer was unnecessary. Victoria had succeeded so well with her first efforts that she felt quite enthusiastic about it and would on no account give up the position to Katherine.

At first Honor would not listen to the suggestion that they should call upon the Madisons. It was only after much urging from both Katherine and Victoria that she finally consented; and then she took pains to make it very clear to them that she would go chiefly and solely because she wanted Peter to have a companion, and as there was a brother there who would no doubt be a desirable boy for him to know, it would perhaps prevent awkwardness for them to become acquainted with the other members of the family. The next afternoon, therefore, was set apart for making the visit.

This formality devolved naturally upon Honor and Katherine, but at the last moment Victoria announced that she should accompany them, so anxious was she to see the music-room and the other interesting things which were sure to be there, as well as the beautiful Miss Madison herself, of whom Katherine had talked so enthusiastically ever since she had met her the day before.

The three sisters made ready for their call, and before long were climbing the steep hill. They were about to ring the bell, when the door was opened for them by Miss Madison.

“I saw you coming,” she said, “and I thought I would let you in myself. How good of you to come so soon. I am delighted to see you. Now you must tell me which is Honor and which is Katherine and which Victoria,” she added as she shook hands with each. “You see I know all your names though I don’t know you apart. Come into the house, and I will send for my mother.”

They went into the parlor, and as they did so a gentleman rose and came forward. He was a good-looking young man with blue eyes like Miss Madison’s, though his hair was darker than hers. Before the girls had time to wonder who he was their hostess introduced him.

“This is my brother Roger,” said she. “Do you think he will ‘do for Peter’?” she added, laughing as she turned to Katherine.

“Oh,” exclaimed Katherine, wanting to laugh herself, but fearing that Honor would be shocked; “what must you have thought of me yesterday! We were told that he was a boy.”

“So I am in a great many respects,” said Roger Madison. “I’m sure that I’ll ‘do for Peter.’”

In the meantime, what had become of Victoria? She had paused for a moment in the doorway and then had turned and disappeared. Her one thought was flight, and like a flash she ran down the avenue and was lost to sight beneath the brow of the hill.

Miss Madison’s brother was the man who had bought the etching! What would Honor say?