Chapter XIV: Annie’s Story Continued

THE PICNIC.

The picnic grounds were seven or eight miles distant, and we were to start as early as possible so as to avoid the heat of midday. Mrs. Hathern, whose ambition was to excel in everything, had made great preparations for an elaborate lunch, which was to be served by Phyllis and Julina.

Fan said she must have slept in her bonnet, as we found her with it on when we went down to breakfast. Katy was also ready, and so wild with excitement and anticipation that she scarcely heard Mrs. Hathern’s oft repeated warning not to soil her clothes unless she wished to stay at home. She wanted to show Carl her kittens and puppies and chickens, and finally took him down to feed the ducks in a little artificial pond or basin by the side of the lane, where they were assembled in full force, their quacks growing louder and louder when they saw the little girl approaching and knew by instinct that she was coming to feed them. It was great fun throwing them crumbs of bread and watching them as they swam after and fought over them and then craned up their necks for more. For a time everything went well and Katy’s white dress was without spot or blemish, although her boots showed marks of the soft soil around the basin. Then suddenly, neither she nor Carl knew how, she slipped and fell in the worst possible place. Her boots and stockings and dress were covered with mud, spatters of which were on her sash and face and hands, so that it was a most forlorn-looking child who came to us, crying bitterly as she held up first one foot and then the other and showed us her muddy hands.

“I am so sorry! Oh, what will mamma say? and can’t I go?” was the burden of her cry as we began to wash off the dirt and tried to comfort her.

At that moment Mrs. Hathern, who had heard of Katy’s mishap from Carl, appeared in the doorway, her face a thunder cloud and her voice trembling with anger as she said, “You naughty, disobedient child! Why did you go to the duck pond at all? You know what I told you, and I mean it, too. I shall send for Julina at once and put you to bed where you will stay while we are gone.”

“Oh, mamma, mamma; please don’t make me stay at home. I want to go so much. I didn’t think the bank was so soft, and I wanted to show the big duck to Carl,” was Katy’s despairing cry, as she stretched her little hands imploringly toward her stepmother.

But she might as well have pleaded with a rock. Things generally had gone wrong in the household that morning. Father had been called to an old patient who lived miles away and was dangerously ill. Consequently, he could not go with us unless we waited for him an indefinite length of time. Phyllis had scorched one of the finest table-cloths. Something ailed the range, and Norah’s corn cakes were spoiled in the baking, thereby putting her in a state where collision, or even conversation, with her was not desirable. In looking about Carl’s room to see if everything was in order, Mrs. Hathern had come across a photograph which Julina had put behind some books where Carl would be sure to find it if he ever took up one to read. The girl’s admiration of her handsome son was not unknown to Mrs. Hathern, who heretofore had thought but little of it; but this was going too far, and taking the picture to Julina she tore it into shreds, asking what she meant by such presumption, and threatening her with instant dismissal if anything of the sort occurred again. It was in vain that Julina protested that she only wanted to put something in Carl’s room as all the rest had done,—that she meant nothing wrong. Mrs. Hathern heard her with scorn, and was so scathing and bitter that Julina declared her intention of giving up her place and going home at once. This Mrs. Hathern could not allow. It was well enough for her to threaten dismissal, but for Julina to forestall her by going voluntarily was another thing. She was too well trained and too useful to be given up lightly, and some concession had to be made before matters were adjusted. Following this came the news that Katy had fallen into the duck pond, and this was a straw too much. She could conciliate Julina, because it was for her interest to do so, but towards Katy she was inexorable, notwithstanding that Fan and I pleaded that for this once she might be forgiven.

“Beat her, if you will, but let her go,” Fan said. “Think what you are condemning her to,—a long day in bed, while we are enjoying ourselves; and she has anticipated it so much. Father would not allow it if he were here.”

“I am very glad then that he is away, as I should be sorry to have any serious disagreement with him on the subject of family discipline,” Mrs. Hathern replied, in that tone which always made us so angry.

With a slight inclination of her head she left the room, and the rattle of her stiff skirts as she swept down the stairs reminded us of Norah’s shoes when she was in a tantrum. In a few minutes Julina came in, sullen and red-eyed, and began to remove Katy’s soiled clothes, while the little girl cried bitterly with long-drawn, gasping sobs, hard for us to bear and know that we were powerless to help her. What Julina thought we could not guess. Her movements were rather jerky and spiteful as she undressed the child and put her in the little cot, which stood in one corner of our room. Katy’s tears, however, must have moved her, for, as she drew the sheet up round her, she said, “It’s awful mean, but I wouldn’t let her know I cared. Norah will come and sit with you and bring you some raspberry tarts.”

Then she turned to leave the room, but stopped on the threshold as if a new idea had suddenly occurred to her.

“Katy,” she said, going back to the cot, “I believe you’ll go yet. I am going to tell Carl.”

She found him in the side piazza playing with the kittens, and without softening the matter at all she acquainted him with the facts.

“Where’s mother?” Carl asked, and there was a look on his face like his mother as he started in quest of her.

She had come up to his room where he found her and as ours was directly opposite and the doors were open we could not help hearing most of the conversation.

“Mother,” he began, in a voice I would never have recognized as Carl’s, “what is this about Katy’s being kept at home and sent to bed because of an accident?”

“I suppose the young ladies have been complaining to you,” Mrs. Hathern said, and Carl replied, “I have not seen them since I came from the duck pond, but I know about Katy, and it’s a burning shame to treat a little child like that. I remember the hours,—yes, _weeks_, if all the time were added up,—that Paul and I were kept in bed or on chairs for trivial offenses. It’s worse than beating, for that is soon over and done with; Paul said so the time you thrashed him for nothing.”

“Why do you bring up Paul so often?” Mrs. Hathern asked, with what seemed a tremor in her voice.

“I don’t know, unless it is that he has been in my mind all the morning, and I keep wondering if he were in this part of the country,” Carl said, his voice softening as he spoke of Paul, but hardening again as he continued, “Don’t make Katy run away as Paul did. She was no more to blame for falling into the mud than I was, nor as much, and by George if she stays home I shall stay, too, and go to bed; or, no, I’ll sit up and amuse her.”

Here was a family jar in earnest, and we were thinking of closing our door so as not to hear any more, when Mrs. Hathern and Carl must have changed their positions or spoken lower, as we distinguished nothing more, except disjointed sentences, such as _for this once_, and _somebody’s sake_—Carl’s, or Paul’s presumably. Then the former crossed the hall quickly and knocked at our door.

“Hop up, Katy!” he exclaimed, walking up to the cot where Katy had raised herself on her elbow at the sound of his voice. “You are going, if you’ll promise never to fall into a frog pond again when you have on your best clothes. Hurry! the carriage will be round in fifteen minutes. Here are your shoes; but where the deuce are your stockings?”

Katy was on the floor by this time and we were all helping her dress, Carl the coolest of the three and showing a deftness and knowledge of straps and buttons and hooks not common in a boy. She was ready in ten minutes, her face a little flushed and stained with tears, but shining with the light of a great and sudden joy, and as the last pin was put in its place she threw her arms around Carl’s neck and laying her cheek against his, said to him, “Oh, Carl, I love you so much, and shall love you forever and ever because you are so good.”

“Perhaps you’d better say something handsome to mother for letting you go,” Carl said, adding hastily, as he saw Katy’s look of perplexity and heard his mother on the stairs: “Tell her she’s an angel, or a brick, or an old darling, or something of that sort.”

Usually Katy would have known what to say without prompting, but in her excitement she seemed to have lost her wits, and running up to Mrs. Hathern she exclaimed, “I thank you so much, and you are an old darling, and an old angel and an old brick; Carl said so, didn’t you, Carl?”

It would be difficult to describe the expression of Mrs. Hathern’s face as she looked at her son, who, she knew was responsible for this doubtful compliment, and who laughed so long and loud that Fan and I laughed with him.

“I think you might refrain from teaching Katy slang,” she said, with a smile she could not repress.

With harmony thus restored we seated ourselves in the carriage and were driven along the pleasant road and through the shady woods to the picnic grounds, where most of our friends were already assembled and where Mrs. Hathern’s good humor soon came back to her with the attention she received. No one’s lunch was as elaborate as ours, or as daintily served, for both Phyllis and Julina did their best. Julina’s face was clouded and scowling, but she moved with a certain airiness and grace natural to her, and spoke, when she did speak, in the language of a lady rather than of a servant. Hitherto she had only been seen by our neighbors when they called and she let them in, but now she was prominent everywhere and knew she was attracting attention, and her black eyes shone and flashed, and her color came and went until I began to think her positively pretty, and said so to Fan, who was also watching her.

“Dangerous,” was her reply, while Carl, who was standing near and heard her, added, “Has Satan in her as big as a barn, and intrigue enough to overthrow an empire. Thinks herself the equal of anybody and means to prove it some day, and, by George, I believe she will. I hope I shan’t be one of her victims.”

This scarcely seemed possible, but there swept over me suddenly a most unaccountable feeling that in some way that dark, slim girl with the French blood in her veins and the fierce ambition in her heart, might be a blot on the life of the handsome boy, who was the lion of the picnic as his mother was the queen. I had never seen her as gracious as she was that day when she moved among the people as if she had been the hostess instead of one of them. I think it was Carl’s presence which made her so different from the cold, precise woman we knew at home. She was very proud of him and of the attention he received. Everybody wished to know him and he wanted to know everybody, and before the day was over had said so many pleasant things and done so many little courteous acts to both old and young that we were congratulated on all sides for our good fortune in possessing so delightful a step-brother. Carl was a success.