Chapter XII: Nosegays and Tennis

The household was late in pulling itself together next morning. At half-past nine, Mary and her husband, John, had carried trays of coffee and rolls to the rooms of the guests, informing them, at the same time, that luncheon would be served at half-past twelve.

Mollie and Grace, in dressing gowns and slippers, had carried their trays into the room shared by Ruth and Barbara. Miss Sallie had followed, looking so charming in her lavender silk wrapper, elaborately trimmed with lace and ribbons that all the girls had exclaimed with admiration; which put the lady in a very good humor at the outset. Who does not like to be complimented, especially in the early morning when one is not apt to feel at one's best?

To add to the gayety of the company there was a knock on the door, which, when opened, disclosed John bearing a large tray of flowers, a small nosegay for each of the girls and a large bunch of dewy sweet peas for Miss Sallie, all with the major's compliments.

"What a man he is!" she cried. "He disarms me with his bunches of flowers just as I was about to tell him something very disagreeable. I really don't see how I can do it."

"Oh, please don't, auntie, dear!" exclaimed Ruth. "I know what it is. We all do. But if we broke up the party, and went trailing off home, now that the worst is over, it wouldn't do anybody much good, and think of what a beautiful time we would be missing. To tell you the truth, auntie, we are just dying to stay. In spite of everything we are. Aren't we, girls?"

"Yes, indeed," came in a chorus from the other three girls, a little faintly from Bab perhaps, but very eagerly from Mollie and Grace.

"Well, we'll see," replied Miss Sallie. "But it does seem to me that this trip has started off very badly. Three attacks in as many days."

"That's true," said Ruth. "Yet by the magic Rule of Three we should have no more. We have finished now and the curse is lifted."

"When Mollie's old Gypsy comes over we must ask her to tell a few things," observed Grace. "I believe she really can predict the future. That night when you and Bab had gone with the Gypsies to get the automobile I asked her if she told fortunes, and all she said was: 'I can tell when there is blood on the moon.'"

"What a horrible idea!" exclaimed Miss Sallie. "Weren't you frightened?"

"No, I wasn't frightened, because she seemed to have forgotten me entirely. I really thought, at the time, she must be talking about her own affairs. She looked so black and fierce."

"Perhaps she meant José's blood," remarked Mollie from behind her nosegay of honeysuckle and mignonette.

"Well, there wasn't much of it," replied Bab, "because José received only a scratch, and lost scarcely any blood. It was a close shave, though. Just half an inch nearer and it would have gone straight through his head."

"He seems to be a very remarkable young man," said Miss Sallie. "Did you notice he never said one word? Just sat there as quietly as if nothing had happened."

"He was thinking," answered Barbara. "But of course most people would have been too frightened to think. Did you notice the knife?" she ventured.

But nobody had, evidently. They had all been too excited and horror-struck at the time to have noticed anything.

"I saw it was a knife, and that was all," said Ruth.

"I never saw a man dance before," observed Mollie, as if following aloud a train of thoughts she had been pursuing while the others talked. "I was almost sorry he said he would, but when I saw what kind of dancing it was I was glad. It was really and truly a man's dance. I think it must have been a toreador's dance, don't you?"

"Something like this," said Ruth, using a towel for a scarf and a comb for a dagger. "And, by the way," she continued, pausing as she pranced around the room, "how did he happen to have a dagger so handy!"

"That's because he is a Spaniard, my dear," remarked Miss Sallie. "These foreigners carry anything from dynamite bombs to carving knives. They are always murdering and slashing one another."

"Perhaps," cried Mollie, excitedly, "it was the Black Hand that tried to kill him."

The others all laughed.

"Really, Mollie," cried Miss Sallie, "don't add any more horrors to the situation. We are already surrounded by Gypsies, and tramps and assassins."

"But protected, Aunt Sallie, dear," protested Ruth, "protected by five 'gintlemin frinds,' as Irish Nora used to say."

"Well, dress yourselves now," said Miss Stuart, making for the door with her silken draperies trailing after her. "And remember, Ruth, dear, if your father scolds us for staying I shall lay all the blame on you."

"Oh, I will manage Dad," replied Ruth.

When the two girls were left alone they did not speak for a little while. Barbara, who was sitting on the floor near the window with her head propped against a pillow, closed her eyes, and for a moment Ruth thought she was asleep. A breeze laden with the perfume of the honeysuckle vines stirred the curtain. Barbara took in a deep breath, opened her eyes and sat up.

"Ruth," she said, "do you know, the smell of the honeysuckles gives me the queerest sensation? I feel as if I had been here before, once long ago, ever so long. I can't remember when, and of course I haven't been, but isn't it curious? These old rooms are as familiar to me as if I had lived in them. I believe I could find my way blindfolded around the house."

"I should like to see you try it," replied Ruth, "especially when you struck one of those back passages that lead off into nowhere in particular. But you are tired, Bab, dear," continued her friend, leaning over and patting her on the cheek. "Come along, now, and get dressed. I told Stephen and Alfred we would play them a game of tennis some time this morning."

The girls found the two boys waiting in the hall to keep their appointment. Alfred was fast losing his shyness in the presence of these two wholesome and unaffected girls who could play tennis almost as well as he could, ride horseback, run a motor car, repel a highwayman with a pistol and not lose their heads when they needed to keep them most. But, what was more to the purpose, they were not in the least shy or afraid to speak out. They were full of high spirits and knew how to have a good time without appealing constantly to some everlasting governess who was always tagging after them, or asking mamma's permission. In fact, Alfred had suffered a change of heart. When he had heard the house party was to be increased by a number of girls he had bitterly repented ever having left England. By this time, however, he could not imagine a house party without girls, especially American girls.

"I say, you know," he said to Ruth as they strolled toward the beautiful tennis court that was shaded, at one side, by a row of tall elm trees, "must I call you Ruth? I notice the other fellows do?"

"Oh, well," replied Ruth, "we are none of us actually grown yet and what is the use of so much formality before it is really necessary? What do you do in England?"

"In England," replied Alfred, "we don't call them anything. We don't see them except in the holidays, and then they are only sisters and cousins."

"Isn't there any fun in sisters and cousins?" asked Ruth.

"Well, they're not very jolly," replied the candid youth; "not as jolly as you, that is."

Ruth laughed. By this time they had reached the court and were selecting racquets and tossing for sides.

"Stephen, Ruth and I will play against you and Barbara," said Alfred rather testily. "What is the use of tossing when it was arranged beforehand?"

"You seem rather eager, Alfred, my boy," replied Stephen. "I'm sure we have no objections, have we, Barbara?"

"None," said Barbara, "At least I haven't. You may, however, when you hear that Ruth won the championship at Newport last summer."

"You look to me like a pretty good player, too," said Stephen.

Just then Jimmie Butler appeared, bearing a hammock and a book.

"You can get in the next set, Jimmie," called Stephen. "We are just starting in on this one."

"I don't care for the game," replied Jimmie. "I prefer a book 'neath the bough, especially as this house party seems to go in companies of twos. Every laddie has a lassie but me, so I've taken to literature."

He waved his hand toward the garden, and then toward the walk leading from the house.

In the old-fashioned flower garden, a stone's throw from the court, could be seen Miss Sallie and the major strolling along the paths, stopping occasionally to examine the late roses and smell the honeysuckle trained over wicker arches.

In the direction of the house appeared Mollie and Grace, followed by Martin and José. The sound of their laughter floated over to Jimmie as he swung in his hammock.

"Keep away, all," he called as he spread himself comfortably among the cushions and opened his book. "I intend to enter a monastery and take the vow of silence, and this is a good time to begin. It's easy because I have nobody to talk to."

"What are you grumbling about, Jimmie?" asked the major, who came up just then with Miss Sallie.

"Oh, nothing at all, Major," replied Jimmie. "I was only saying how delightful it was to see all you young people walking around this sylvan place in couples. It reminds me of my lost youth."

"Jimmie's lonesome," exclaimed Martin. "We'll have to get up some more excitement if we want to keep him happy."

"Very well," replied the major. "We will. The most exciting thing I can think of, just now, is to take a long ride in the automobiles, or go driving, whichever the ladies prefer, and wind up at the forest pool for tea. How does that strike you, Jimmie?"

"It sounds fine," said Jimmie, "if you mean the haunted pool. It is a beautiful spot, and it has a new haunt since last you saw it, Major. It's haunted by water nymphs now."

"Only nymphs in wading," cried Mollie, blushing. "Jimmie caught us in the act yesterday morning."

"Oho!" exclaimed the major. "You really are little girls, after all, are you?"

"Think of going in wading in that lonesome spot," said Grace, "and actually meeting somebody as casually as if you were walking up Fifth Avenue?"

"You're likely to meet Jimmie anywhere," said Martin. "He's a regular Johnnie-on-the-spot. He is the first person to get up and the last one to go to bed. Excitements have a real attraction for him. Haven't they, Jimsy?" and Martin gave the hammock such an affectionate shake that Jimmie nearly fell out on his face.

The luncheon gong rang out in the summer stillness, and they started toward the house, leaving the players to finish the game.

"José," asked the major, putting his arm through the young Spaniard's, "have you any theories about last night?"

"Yes," replied José. "I do not think it will do any good to hunt for the one who threw the knife. I have, in my country, an enemy. I believe it was he."

"What?" cried the major. "He has followed you all the way to America, and your life is constantly in danger?"

"I do not think he will come again," answered José. "At any rate, I am not afraid," he added, shrugging his shoulders, "and I can do nothing."

"You could have him arrested," said Miss Sallie.

"Yes, Madam, I could. But it would not be easy to catch him."

"Dear, dear!" exclaimed Miss Sallie. "What a dangerous country Spain must be to live in!"

"No more dangerous than America, Madam, I find," replied José.

"True enough," assented Miss Sallie, "since this is America and not Spain, and we find ourselves in a perfect hotbed of criminals. My dear John, I think we shall need a body-guard if we go out in the open this afternoon."

"Well, Sallie," answered the courteous old man, "you shall have one in me and my nephews and their friends--a devoted body-guard, I assure you."

At luncheon the feeling of good will which comes to friends who have just found each other, so to speak, had spread itself. Enjoyment was in the air and there were no discordant elements. All their troubles were of the past, and Bab determined to cast aside her suspicions and regard José in the light of a mysterious but otherwise exceedingly attractive foreigner. When she looked across the table into his clear, brown eyes, which regarded her sadly but without a single guilty quiver of the lids, she could not but believe that there had been some bitter mistake somewhere. He was lonely and strange, and there was something about him that aroused her pity. Everybody liked him; even Miss Sallie was attracted by his graceful and gentle manners.

Luncheon over, everyone made ready for the auto trip, and it was not long before the two autos carrying a merry party, had set forth.