Chapter XV: Victoria Meets with Difficulties

“IT seems to me that you are not as proficient as one would expect. There are a number of mistakes in this letter. How long have you been using the typewriter, Victoria?”

“Not very long, Aunt Sophia.”

“But how long?”

“A few—at least, some weeks.”

“Weeks? I supposed that you had owned one for months. In fact, it has never been explained to me where you got it nor how you happened to get it. Who bought the typewriter?”

“Er—we did.”

“But which one of you? I am under the impression that it belongs to Katherine. Am I right? Did she buy it?”

There was no reply. The aunt and niece were in Mrs. Wentworth Ward’s room this afternoon in June, engaged with the correspondence of the latter. It was a beautiful day, and Victoria longed to be out of doors. She had watched Katherine go across the lawn with her music-roll under her arm, and she knew that she was going to the house on the hill to read music with Miss Madison. Honor was sitting under the trees with Sophy and Peter, who was able now to be out of doors, lying stretched out in a steamer chair. Victoria alone was in the house this golden afternoon; and, anxious though she was to finish her task and be off,—no doubt for that very reason,—she had never worked so slowly. Her mistakes were innumerable, and several times she had been obliged to rewrite a note because of her aunt’s dissatisfaction with its appearance.

“Which one of you bought the typewriter?” repeated Mrs. Ward.

“Why do you want to know, Aunt Sophia?”

“I have my reasons. Who bought it?”

“Katherine did.”

“Ah, I thought so! I was sure that Honor told me so. And why does not Katherine use it?”

“She has so much else to do.”

“And yet she seems to have time to go to the Madisons’ almost, if not quite every day. Katherine is selfish.”

“Oh, Aunt Sophia, I don’t think so!”

“You may not think so, but that does not alter the facts. She is both selfish and extravagant—two serious faults. It is well for all of you that she is in a fair way to make a good match, but I am sorry for the young man.”

“Why, Aunt Sophia, what do you mean?” asked Victoria, gazing at her aunt in surprise.

“My dear, you must see for yourself what I mean. I shall say no more, but it is a self-evident fact. I will talk to Honor about it. There is nothing to be said against his family, and he seems to be a very nice young man,—good manners, good-looking, and all that, but Katherine is very young.”

“Young! I should think so,” said Victoria, indignantly. “Katherine hasn’t an idea of anything of the kind, and I don’t see why it should ever have occurred to you, Aunt Sophia. Can’t people, men and women, I mean, be good friends without _that_ being thought of?”

“Very seldom, my dear. But why you should be so disturbed by my remarks I cannot imagine. Your cheeks are flushed, and your eyes are like saucers. One would think that I had suggested something quite unusual and very much to be dreaded, instead of an event which would be most desirable in every way.”

“I don’t think it would be desirable at all!” exclaimed Victoria. “Excuse me, Aunt Sophia, for contradicting you, but I can’t help it. It would be perfectly hateful to have either Honor or Katherine married, and to Mr. Madison of all people. Oh, it couldn’t possibly be!”

“But why not, Victoria? Why have you such an aversion for Mr. Madison?”

“Oh, because,” said Victoria, breaking down somewhat lamely. “I don’t want them to marry any one. I wish you hadn’t told me. Not that I think there is anything in it at all, but—but it just makes me think about it.”

“I most sincerely wish I had not,” rejoined Mrs. Wentworth Ward. “It has quite prevented your being of any further assistance to me this afternoon, and we may as well lay aside these other papers. You are usually so sensible that I supposed you would be so in this case. It is quite absurd for you to become so excited. There is another question that I wish to speak about to one of you, but I will wait until I see Honor. She is the proper one.”

“Won’t I do, Aunt Sophia?”

Victoria was sorry that she had allowed her excitement to run away with her. If it had been any one but Roger Madison whom her aunt had suggested as a possible husband for Katherine, she could have borne it better, but try as she would, and much as she really liked the young man, she could not overcome the feeling that she had about him in regard to the sale of the etchings.

That affair had assumed astounding proportions in her mind. From constant brooding over it without imparting the facts of the case to any one else, she had greatly exaggerated their importance. It seemed to her out of the question that Katherine should be allowed to become engaged while in ignorance of it, and in that event, Honor too should be told, and yet after her long silence she dreaded speaking of it. She wished that she could ask the advice of some one else, some older person, but there was no one. If it were upon any other subject, she would go at once to Miss Madison, she thought, who was so kind and friendly, but under the circumstances of course that was out of the question.

Even though Victoria and Roger Madison had met that afternoon in Peter’s room, she had tried since to avoid him. This was not easy, for he came to the house very frequently, ostensibly to see Peter. Was it really to see Katherine? She wondered what other alarming news her Aunt Sophia might have to disclose. Something disagreeable, she had no doubt, and she would try to save Honor from hearing it.

“I hope you will tell me,” she said, as she watched her aunt fold up the unanswered letters, replace them in their envelopes, and lay them away in the proper pigeon-hole in her desk. “I will try not to be so excited over this, but the other was such a surprise.”

“I have no doubt this will be also,” said Mrs. Wentworth Ward, “and probably you will take up the cudgels in defence of the young man just as violently as you have scouted the idea of Katherine’s plans.”

“Her plans? And what young man? Are you again speaking of Mr. Madison?”

“Not by any means. I am speaking of the young man who attends to so much of your gardening, and who, as far as I can make out, has more confidence reposed in him, than any one else who comes to Glen Arden. I mean David.”

“David? Dave Carney? Why, Aunt Sophia, what is the trouble about him? We have always found him so satisfactory.”

“Exactly so, and therefore you have never taken the trouble to find out anything else about him. Where did you get him in the first place?”

“Peter met him in Fordham, and brought him home.”

“And do you mean to tell me that is all you know about him? Did you look up his references?”

“No-o, I don’t think so—at least, I’m not sure. Honor attends to all such things. But why, Aunt Sophia? What makes you ask?”

“I have reason to suspect him,” said Mrs. Wentworth Ward. “When I was in Boston yesterday I saw him, or some one who closely resembled him, going into a pawnbroker’s shop, and since then I have questioned Ellen Higgins.”

Ellen Higgins was Mrs. Ward’s maid whom she had brought with her to Glen Arden.

“And what does she say?” asked Victoria. She did not fancy Ellen herself, and since her advent there had been endless trouble in the kitchen.

“She does not like him, and she thinks you trust him entirely too much.”

Victoria felt like replying, “I wish Ellen Higgins would mind her own business,” but she restrained herself. Instead she remarked:

“We all like Dave Carney, and we have found him very satisfactory, but I think, after all, that Honor is the one for you to speak to about him. And now if you will excuse me, I will go—that is, if you have quite finished with the work.”

“I have finished because you were doing it so badly,” said her aunt. “I am ashamed to send such miserable typewriting as you did this afternoon.”

“Why not let me write the letters over with a pen, Aunt Sophia? I write a very clear hand, you know.”

“I prefer the typewriter for many reasons, and as you own one, you should be able to make use of it, even if Katherine was the one to buy it. I am astonished at you all. You are very headstrong. Now you may go.”

And Victoria quickly took her departure.

[Picture: “She found her eldest sister sitting on a rustic bench under
the trees, with her work in her hands”]

Her mind was filled with the new ideas presented to her, but she found time to wonder why her aunt was not willing to have her notes and various documents written in a good clear hand with a pen, instead of insisting upon having them typewritten. But such a question was of minor importance, she thought, as she ran downstairs and across the lawn. Even if she could not tell Honor what was troubling her about Katherine, it would be a comfort to be near her.

She had two secrets now to keep from her sisters, and strangely enough, they were both connected with Roger Madison. Victoria felt that life had become very complicated within the last few months.

She found her eldest sister sitting on a rustic bench under the trees, with her work in her hands. She was making a dress for Sophy, who was playing with her doll, but who was so deeply interested in Peter’s occupation that the doll was frequently neglected.

Peter was lying back in his chair while he held an opera-glass to his eyes and gazed up into the branches of the tree above him. No one had spoken for some time, and when Victoria drew near, her brother held up his hand with a gesture of warning.

“Hush!” he whispered.

Victoria sank quietly upon the grass and waited. It gave her time to think over her aunt’s disturbing speeches, and for this she was not sorry.

The silence lasted for some minutes, and then Peter put down his glass.

“It’s a robin’s nest,” said he. “I thought it was, from the shape. I bet if we could see into it, we’d find it was lined with mud. Robins’ nests always are. The young ones are getting quite big, and one is terribly greedy when the old ones come. I daresay it is a cowbird.”

“But you said they were robins, Peter,” said Sophy.

“I know I did, but that doesn’t prevent a cowbird being there too, does it? That is just what those hateful cowbirds do. They are too lazy to build nests of their own, but they go and lay their eggs in other birds’ nests whenever they get a chance, and never go near them again. Then the cowbird’s egg gets hatched with the robin’s or the catbird’s eggs, or whatever nest it happens to have been laid in, and the little cowbird is awfully greedy and snatches all the food, and grows up to be just like its parents. Oh, they are hateful birds! I was reading about them to-day in a book Mr. Madison lent me on birds. It said there that no self-respecting American bird will have anything to do with cowbirds. English sparrows are the only birds that will go with them. I thought that was pretty good, for every one knows that an English sparrow hasn’t much self-respect. I’m sure that is a cowbird up there, poking its head so far out and snatching, every time the old robins come with the worms.”

“Oh, Peter, I wish you would let me look!” said Sophy, in pleading tones.

Peter hesitated. He was very much interested in the proceedings in the tree; the opera-glass was adjusted to exactly the right point for his eyes, and in all probability Sophy would move it—she always did. Then, again, Sophy would never be able to locate the nest, and much valuable time would be wasted for nothing.

He was about to refuse her request when a new idea occurred to him. After all, it was not much to do for Sophy, who had been so devoted to him ever since his accident. She had run up and down stairs for him forty times a day. In fact, she had gone to the house a short time ago when he had expressed a wish for the opera-glass, and had brought it to him, and again for a book on birds. She never refused to do what he asked; on the contrary, she was eager to please him.

Peter handed her the glass.

“Look right up the trunk of the tree, Soph,” he said kindly, “till you get to the second branch from the top to the right, and a little way along that, leaning up against a small branch that isn’t much more than a twig, is the robin’s nest. Do you see? With all those heads sticking out. They’re getting hungry, I guess, for the old birds haven’t been back for ten minutes at least. They hear us talking, I suppose, and are afraid to come. Keep very quiet, now, if you’ve found the nest, and watch.”

Sophy, greatly pleased, peered up into the tree and waited. She had scarcely dared hope that Peter would allow her to look, and her heart was filled with an overpowering love for the brother who was so good to her.

It was a little thing for him to do, perhaps, but Peter felt happier than if he had declined to point out the nest to Sophy, and even though it did take her a long time to find it, and though she turned the screw to and fro in her efforts to see better, and retained possession of the glass for at least ten minutes, he was glad on the whole that he had lent it to her.

Victoria sat upon the grass, absent-mindedly poking a hole in the ground with a bit of stick that she had found, and thinking about the very disturbing topic that had been suggested to her by her aunt. She did not pay much attention to the remarks about Dave Carney, for she considered her aunt a very prejudiced person who had objected to the boy’s presence at Glen Arden from the first.

The news about Katherine was far more alarming, and while she thought about it the sound of voices was heard in the distance, and the very persons of whom she was thinking were seen coming down the avenue towards the group under the trees.

“Dear me,” exclaimed Peter, impatiently, “here they all come! Now I shall have no chance at the birds at all. Mr. Madison is an awfully good fellow, but I wish he had stayed away this afternoon.”

Victoria’s glance chanced to rest upon Honor at this moment, and she was surprised to see a peculiar expression cross her face and the color deepen in her cheeks. She wondered if Aunt Sophia’s absurd ideas about Katherine and Roger Madison could possibly have occurred to her as well. In that case, perhaps they were not so absurd. She really thought she must talk to Honor about it that very night. There could be no harm in doing so, and she felt that she was incapable of bearing the burden of two secrets.

In the meantime there was no necessity for staying where she was if Roger Madison were coming, so Victoria rose at their approach, and waving her hand to them walked back to the house.

“Why does your sister, Victoria, always run away from us?” said Miss Madison, as she seated herself beside Honor. “I like her so much, and I wish I could see more of her.”

“She doesn’t run away from _you_,” said Sophy before Honor could reply. Miss Madison as well as her brother was a great favorite with the child, and she would have liked to gaze for hours at the beautiful face had her sisters not admonished her so frequently for staring.

“It’s your brother,” she added.

“But why my brother?” said Miss Madison in surprise.

“I don’t know,” said the truthful Sophy, “but ever since you came I’ve noticed that Vic ran away from your brother, and the other day when she was in Peter’s room and didn’t know he was coming and I brought him in, Vic said: ‘Don’t tell any one. I’ve tried not to meet you. Nobody knows it.’ I asked her afterwards what she meant, and she wouldn’t tell me.”

“Why, Sophy, what are you talking about?” asked Honor.

“Mr. Madison knows, don’t you?” said the child, turning to him. “Will you tell me what Vic meant?”

“Certainly not, if Miss Victoria won’t tell you herself,” said he; “I think you must ask her. Did you see the bird’s nest?”

“Yes, I did,” said Sophy, nodding her head wisely, “but you are only trying to get out of telling me by changing the subject. We weren’t talking about birds.”

“But we will talk about them now, Sophy,” said Honor, quietly, while she wondered what the child could mean. “We have been studying birds all the afternoon, Mr. Madison, and there are several questions that I know Peter wants to ask you.”

But Honor determined to speak to Victoria that very night, for she too had noticed her peculiar conduct, so unlike Vic’s usual open and cordial manner. There must be some reason for it, and Honor would have questioned her about it before this had there not been so many other things to occupy their minds.

It was a beautiful evening, and after supper the family sat on the piazza while the twilight deepened after the long June day, and in time the light of the moon made itself felt, and shone down upon the lawn where the trees cast such strange shadows.

Peter lay in the hammock until his bedtime, and after he and Sophy had gone upstairs and Mrs. Ward into the house to establish herself with her book by the parlor lamp, with the remark that she had no time to waste in moon gazing, the three sisters were left alone.

Victoria, who was anxious to speak with Honor, wished that there was something which would take Katherine into the house or elsewhere, that she might have the desired opportunity, for her words were meant for Honor’s ears alone.

Honor, while equally desirous of speaking to Victoria, was perfectly willing to do so in Katherine’s presence. The three had always been in the habit of talking freely together, and so Honor opened the subject at once.

“Why do you always try to avoid the Madisons, Vic?” said she, suddenly.

Victoria started guiltily. How strange, she thought, that Honor should have pounced upon the very topic that was occupying her mind.

“Do I?” said she. It was a difficult matter for Victoria to attempt evasion.

“Yes. You know you do. There must be some reason for it. We have all noticed it, and Miss Madison spoke of it this afternoon.”

“I don’t try to avoid _her_,” said Victoria.

“No, we know that,” said Katherine, “but you do avoid Roger, and it is very strange.”

“Roger! Do you call him Roger?” asked Victoria, somewhat icily.

“Oh, no, of course not to his face,” rejoined Katherine, impatiently, “but I hear his sister speak of him so often that I did it then without thinking.”

“I don’t think you ought to,” said Honor. “You might do it without thinking before him.”

“You must think I am very stupid,” laughed Katherine, “and I am not quite so ignorant of the ways of the world as all that! Honor, you are too funny about Roger Mad—I mean, Mr. Madison, begging all your pardons! He is so nice and jolly, and sings so well, but you never will go there much, and Vic is still queerer. Come now, Vicky, and tell us why you run away from him.”

“I can’t tell you anything,” replied Victoria, in a somewhat stifled voice. “I wish you wouldn’t ask me such unnecessary questions.”

“They are not unnecessary, dear,” said Honor, gently. “If you have any reason for doing it, you really ought to tell us. When it reaches such a pass that even little Sophy speaks of it, and repeated before us all this afternoon what you said to Mr. Madison the day you met him in Peter’s room, I really think you ought to explain.”

“Did Sophy do that?” exclaimed Victoria. “What did she say?”

“That you begged Mr. Madison not to tell any one, and that you had tried not to meet him, and that no one knew it. It is certainly very mysterious, Vic, and I think you ought to tell us.”

Victoria, sitting on the steps with her white dress gleaming in the moonlight, was silent. She would like to tell them the whole story. Should she do so? But then, if Katherine—she stopped short, even in her thoughts. She wished that her Aunt Sophia had never presented so disagreeable an idea to her imagination.

Should she tell them, or should she not? It would be a distinct relief to talk it over with them, and to feel free at last from the burden of a secret. She was about to speak when Katherine motioned to her to be silent.

“Wait a minute,” Katherine said in a whisper. She had been watching intently the clump of trees and shrubbery, near the side of the house, which separated them from the flower garden. “I’m sure I heard something or somebody moving, and I thought I saw the shadow of a man. Who can it be?”

“Let’s go find out,” said Victoria, promptly, glad to have the matter decided for her and the subject changed. “It was probably a night-hawk or an owl. It couldn’t be a man, Katherine!”

The three went around the corner of the house and walked about among the shrubbery. No thought of fear entered their minds.

“It is nothing, after all,” said Katherine at last. “I must have been mistaken, but it was exactly like the shadow of a man.”

“Well, I am going to bed as long as your shadow isn’t going to materialize,” said Victoria; “so good night, girls!” And abruptly leaving them, she went into the house.

“It is funny about Vic, isn’t it, Honor?” said Katherine. “I mean that she won’t explain why she doesn’t like Mr. Madison.”

“Very, and I am going to speak to her again about it. Perhaps she would tell me more if we were alone.”

“You mean without me? Why, I should like to know? However, if you do find out, you mustn’t fail to tell me, for I really am most curious about it.”