Chapter XIX: A Passage at Arms

Mr. and Mrs. Duffy's teas were quite different from other people's afternoon affairs. There was always lots to eat for one thing; long buffet tables piled with salads and sandwiches; great bowls of fruit drinks and ices and cakes. There was dancing, too, in the big parlors, and who ever heard of dancing at a tea before?

"Young people like to dance no matter what the hour of the day," Mrs. Duffy had said in explanation to Miss Campbell.

"But this is a very beautiful entertainment, my dear," replied Miss Campbell. "We had expected simple tea and you are giving us an elaborate lawn party. You must have gone to no end of trouble, and what a good time they all seem to be having. My girls are everywhere. Billie is on the tennis court, and Mary is playing croquet, and Nancy is dancing, and here is Elinor hovering over me like a guardian angel."

"You are a careful chaperone, I see," observed a deep, well-trained English voice at her elbow.

Miss Campbell turned quickly. It was Mrs. Paxton-Steele leaning heavily on her stick. Elinor could not keep from looking at that stick with much curiosity. Edward Paxton had told her that the old lady had numbers of canes which her man servant packed around in a case like golf sticks. It would have been interesting, she thought, to have been an unseen witness at that famous battle when the other Edward had seized the stick and broken it in half. She wondered if there had been a great clap of thunder and a flash of lightning, as there was when Siegfried smote the staff of Wotan.

Miss Campbell turned smiling. Her manners were always exquisite and she was not in the least afraid of the old bird of prey, as the girls had disrespectfully christened the war-like English lady.

"Ah, well," she replied, "they are not my own. That is why I must be particularly careful of them. They are only borrowed children. One feels especially responsible for borrowed property, don't you think?"

"They are all equally troublesome, my dear lady," returned Mrs. Paxton-Steele, "whether they are one's own or another's. I assure you that bringing my three grandchildren with me to America was much more difficult than bringing three packages of Bohemian glass of the most expensive and brittle character. That is what they are, these young people, expensive and brittle. They have no stability--no strength."

"With your permission, madam, I would like to introduce my four girls to you," put in Miss Campbell proudly. "They are much more satisfactory than Bohemian glass and I can rely on them always."

Elinor smiled to herself. The two ladies reminded her of an old baldheaded eagle in a garden hat and a silver pheasant in a lavender bonnet.

"Perhaps if you were suddenly deprived of your grandchildren, Madam," went on the silver pheasant, "you would realize how much you really cared for them."

The old eagle shrugged her shoulders and flapped the brim of her garden hat with a sort of fierce humor.

"Ah, but they are a problem, Madam, they are a problem. People should not bring children into the world and leave them for others to rear. I had hoped for a peaceful old age and I find neither peace nor rest."

"That's because you don't give any yourself," thought Elinor. "Just leave a few of those canes behind and things would go smoother."

"This young woman," continued the old eagle, pointing to Elinor with her cane--Elinor held up her head haughtily because she did not enjoy being under inspection in this way--"this high-bred, proud young woman looks as if she might have plenty of backbone."

Elinor blushed slightly. After all, Mrs. Paxton-Steele had a flattering way with her that was not entirely unpleasant.

"Elinor, dear, have you met Mrs. Paxton-Steele?" asked Miss Campbell. "This is Elinor Butler, one of my most precious charges."

"A very good name," pursued the old lady. "Butler, a fine, Irish name. Perhaps, if you will excuse me, Madam, Mistress Elinor Butler will be good enough to walk with me about the garden. I do not notice that my granddaughter, Georgiana, is paying me much attention. What I like about you, child, is that you are not timid. Georgiana is like a frightened hare. She rushes under cover at the first loud noise."

"Perhaps," replied Elinor, feeling that it would do no harm to live up to this high opinion of courage, "perhaps Georgiana is afraid of your ebony stick."

The old lady chuckled.

"My dear Mistress Elinor Butler," she exclaimed, "you have quite hit the nail on the head. That is the very test of courage I have always been setting them, but they don't seem to understand. Why should they be afraid of a stick? I'm not going to murder them. Suppose I should threaten to strike you with this stick. What would you do?"

"If I had the strength, I should break it in two; if not, I should throw it as far as I could send it."

"And you would be quite right to do either. I have respect only for those who stand up for their rights. If my sticks were loaded, if they were pistols or rifles, there might be some excuse. They are merely harmless splinters of wood. And yet, I assure you, not a member of my household, either servants or grandchildren, has ever found it out. There is no more harm in them than there was in the Queen of Hearts who cried, 'Off with his head,' every other moment and never beheaded anyone. But I have only to raise one of these bits of sticks and shake it in the air and they are all at my feet. It is very monotonous."

"Why don't you tell them so?" asked Elinor. "Perhaps poor Georgiana would be happier and so would the others, if they knew it was all a--a bluff."

"Oh, child; that is the point. That is the test. A coward is always a coward until he proves his own courage, and these grandchildren of mine are cowards, worthless, characterless cowards. If Georgiana were only like you or your friend who saved the young man in bathing--what's her name? But she is not. She is a spiritless little creature."

"You mean you would like her better if she wouldn't allow you to--to go on so?" hesitated Elinor, hardly knowing what name to call the old lady's fits of rages.

"Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to see her stand up for herself. But it is not in her. It is a pity some good red American blood could not be injected into her veins."

"Oh," broke in Elinor, "but I thought you didn't like American girls. I once heard you say you thought they were too bold."

The old lady looked at her with a shrewd smile.

"I find the species improving," she said.

While they had been idling along the path, a bold stroke had occurred to Elinor and she now determined to put it into action. Gently, but firmly, she had turned her companion's footsteps toward the boat landing. As they took the lower walk, she said:

"Is Edward coming back to Palm Beach?"

"I know nothing of Edward or his movements," replied the other sharply.

"And you don't miss him?"

"Miss him, indeed! Lazy, piano-playing fellow! It was his music I could forgive least of all. It has been a curse in my family. I am old and bent from the misery it has brought me."

"But suppose he could do other things besides play? Couldn't you forgive him then?"

"No, no," answered Mrs. Paxton-Steele. "I am tired of hearing his name. Never speak to me of Edward again. You are a presuming, impudent young upstart."

"And you," exclaimed Elinor, flushing scarlet, "and you, Mrs. Paxton-Steele, are a cruel, vain old woman. You think you are wise and you are only stupid. Because it is stupid to be a bully. You are crushing all the soul and spirit out of Edward and Georgiana until, instead of loving you, they--they hate you," she ended, stamping her foot on the gravel path.

"What? What?" screamed the old woman, choking with rage.

She raised her stick. But before she could lay it across Elinor's back the young girl seized it with both hands, wrenched it from her and pitched it into the lake. Then she burst into tears.

Mrs. Paxton-Steele sat down on a bench and folded her hands in her lap. "Don't cry, child," she said as calmly as if a moment before a tornado of rage had not almost swept both of them off their feet. "But of course all women must cry," she added. "I was curious to see if you would keep your word, which I am delighted to see you did. I shall have no sticks left if this keeps up. Dear, dear, dear!"

"But you had no right to experiment with me like that," sobbed Elinor. "I'm not one of your unfortunate grandchildren."

Mrs. Paxton-Steele laughed good-humoredly.

"I haven't enjoyed myself so much in years," she said. "It's a dangerous thing, my dear, for a rich old woman to be bored and disappointed, that is, if she has a bundle of sticks nearby. But of course I had no intention of striking you, just now. I should have had the whole Duffy clan on my back in a moment if I had, and your little peacock chaperone in the bargain. It was only an experiment, as you say. So I am a vain, cruel, stupid bully, am I?"

Elinor hung her head. She was ashamed of her outbreak now that calm was restored. She felt that Mrs. Paxton-Steele was really just a big tease; that her grandchildren had never understood her and perhaps--perhaps. A notion had come into Elinor's head. Might it not be that she was too deep for any of them to fathom? For just one instant Elinor had caught a glimpse into this strange woman's mind, and now she was more than ever bent on the original object of the walk which had taken its course downward toward the water's edge.

"Why didn't you add that I was an old cat playing with a harmless little mouse?" her eccentric companion added leaning on the young girl's shoulder almost affectionately.

"Because I didn't feel like a helpless mouse," returned Elinor, dabbing her eyes with her pocket handkerchief to remove the last traces of tears from them.

"But where are you bound for now, Elinor Butler?"

"Wouldn't you like to take a motor-boat ride? We have a splendid engineer. He is reliable and knows the engine thoroughly."

"I should like it very much. It would cool our blood after our recent passage at arms."