Chapter VII: Part 7

“I think I won’t stay,” she said to Lucinda, “but you must write me twice a week and I’ll write the others.”

Then Arethusa departed and Lucinda remained alone to superintend things and be superintended by Aunt Mary.

Aunt Mary’s superintendence waxed extremely vigorous almost at once. She had out her writing desk, and wrote Jack a letter, as a consequence of which everything published in New York was mailed to his aunt as soon as it was off the presses. Lucinda was set reading aloud and, except when the mail came, was hardly allowed to halt for food and sleep.

“My heavens above,” said the slave to Joshua, “it don’t seem like I can live with her!”

“You’ll live with her,” said Joshua.

“It’s more as flesh and blood can bear.”

“Flesh and blood can bear a good deal more’n you think for,” said Joshua, and then he delivered up two letters and drove off toward the barn.

“If those are letters,” said Aunt Mary from her pillow the instant she heard the front door close, “I’d like ’em. I’m a great believer in readin’ my own mail, an’ another time, Lucinda, I’ll thank you to bring it as soon as you get it an’ not stand out on the porch hollyhockin’ with Joshua for half an hour while I wait.”

Lucinda delivered up the letters without demanding what species of conversational significance her mistress attached to the phrase, “holly-hocking.”

Aunt Mary turned the letters through eagerly.

“My lands alive!” she said suddenly, “if here isn’t one from Mitchell,—the dear boy. Well, I never did!—Lucinda, open the blinds to the other window, too—so I—can—see to—” her voice died away,—she was too deep in the letter to recollect what she was saying.

Mitchell wrote:

MY DEAR MISS WATKINS:—

We are sitting in a row with ashes on the heads of our cigarettes mourning, mourning, mourning, because we have had the news that you are ill. As usual it is up to me to express our feelings, so I have decided to mail them and the others agree to pay for the ink.

I wish to remark at once that we did not sleep any last night. Jack told us at dinner, and we spent the evening making a melancholy tour of places where we had been with you. If you had only been with us! The roof gardens are particularly desolate without you. The whole of the city seems to realize it. The watering carts weep from dawn to dark. All the lamp-posts are wearing black. It is sad at one extreme and sadder at the other.

You must brace up. If you can’t do that try a belt. Life is too short to spend in bed. My motto has always been “Spend freely everywhere else.” At present I recommend anything calculated to mend you. I may in all modesty mention that just before Christmas I shall be traveling north and shall then adore to stop and cheer you up a bit if you invite me. I have made it an invariable rule, however, not to stay over night anywhere when I am not invited, so I hope you will consider my feelings and send me an invitation.

My eyes fill as I think what it will be to sit beside you and recall dear old New York. It will be the next best thing to being run over by an automobile, won’t it?

Yours, with fondest recollections, HERBERT KENDRICK MITCHELL.

Aunt Mary laid the letter down.

“Lucinda,” she said in a curiously veiled tone, “give me a handkerchief—a big one. As big a one as I’ve got.”

Lucinda did as requested.

“Now, go away,” said Aunt Mary.

Lucinda went away. She went straight to Joshua.

“She’s had a letter an’ read it an’ it’s made her cry,” she said.

“That’s better’n if it made her mad,” said Joshua, who was warming his hands at the stove.

“I ain’t sure that it won’t make her mad later,” said Lucinda. “Say, but she is a Tartar since she came back. Seems some days’s if I couldn’t live.”

“You’ll live,” said Joshua, and, as his hands were now well-warmed, he went out again.

After a while Aunt Mary’s bell jangled violently and Lucinda had to hurry back.

“Lucinda, did the doctor say anythin’ to you about how long he thought I might be sick?”

“Yes, he did.”

“What did he say? I want to know jus’ what he said. Speak up!”

“He said he didn’t have no idea how long you’d be sick.”

Aunt Mary threw a look at Lucinda that ought to have annihilated her.

“I want to see Jack,” she said. “Bring my writin’ desk. Right off. Quick.”

She wrote to Jack, and he came up and spent the next Sunday with her, cheering her mightily.

“I wish the others could have come, too,” she said once an hour all through his visit. Mitchell’s letter seemed to have bred a tremendous longing within her.

“They’ll come later,” said Jack, with hearty good-will. “They all want to come.”

“I don’t know how we could ever have any fun up here though,” said his aunt sadly. “My heavens alive, Jack,—but this is an awful place to live in. And to think that I lived to be seventy before I found it out.”

Jack took her hand and kissed it. He did sympathize, even if he was only twenty-two and longing unutterably to be somewhere else and kissing someone else at that very minute.

“Mitchell wrote me a letter,” continued Aunt Mary. “He said he was comin’. Well, dear me, he can eat mince pie and drive with Joshua when he goes for the mail, but I don’t know what else I can do with him. Oh, if I’d only been born in the city!”

Jack kissed her hand again. He didn’t know what to say. Aunt Mary’s lot seemed to border upon the tragic just then and there.

The next day he returned to town and Lucinda came on duty again. She soon found that the nephew’s visit had rendered the aunt harder than ever to get along with.

“I’m goin’ to town jus’’s soon as ever I feel well enough,” she declared aggressively on more than one occasion. “An’ nex’ time I go I’m goin’ to stay jus’’s long as ever I’m havin’ a good time. Now, don’t contradict me, Lucinda, because it’s your place to hold your tongue. I’m a great believer in your holding your tongue, Lucinda.”

Lucinda, who certainly never felt the slightest inclination toward contradiction, held her tongue, and the poor, unhappy one twisted about in bed, and bemoaned the quietude of her environment by the hour at a time.

“Did you say we had a calf?” she asked suddenly one day. “Well, why don’t you answer? When I ask a question I expect an answer. Didn’t you say we had a calf?”

Lucinda nodded.

“Well, I want Joshua to take that calf to the blacksmith and have him shod behind an’ before right off. To-day—this minute.”

“You want the calf shod!” cried Lucinda, suddenly alarmed by the fear lest her mistress had gone light-headed.

Aunt Mary glared in a way that showed that she was far from being out of her usual mind.

“If I said shod, I guess I meant shod,” she said, icily. “I do sometimes mean what I say. Pretty often—as a usual thing.”

Lucinda stood at the foot of the bed, petrified and paralyzed.

Then the invalid sat up a little and showed some mercy on her servant’s very evident fright.

“I want the calf shod,” she explained, “so’s Joshua can run up an’ down the porch with him.”

So far from ameliorating Lucinda’s condition, this explanation rendered it visibly worse. Aunt Mary contemplated her in silence for a few seconds, and she suddenly cried out, in a tone that was full of pathos:

“I feel like maybe—maybe—the calf’ll make me think it’s horses’ feet on the pavement.”

Lucinda rushed from the room.

“She wants the calf shod!” she cried, bursting in upon Joshua, who was piling wood.

For once in his life Joshua was shaken out of his usual placidity.

“She wants the calf shod!” he repeated blankly.

“Yes.”

“You can’t shoe a calf.”

“But she wants it done.”

Joshua regained his self-control.

“Oh, well,” he said, turning to go on with his work, “the calf’s gone to the butcher, anyhow. Tell her so.”

Lucinda went back to Aunt Mary.

“The calf’s gone to the butcher,” she yelled.

Aunt Mary frowned heavily.

“Then you go an’ get a lamp and turn it up too high an’ leave it,” she said,—“the smell’ll make me think of automobiles.”

Lucinda was appalled. As a practical housekeeper she felt that here was a proposition which she could not face.

“Well, ain’t you goin’?” Aunt Mary asked tartly. “Of course if you ain’t intendin’ to go I’d be glad to know it; ’n while you’re gone, Lucinda, I wish you’d get me the handle to the ice-cream freezer an’ lay it where I can see it; it’ll help me believe in the smell.”

Lucinda went away and brought the handle, but she did not light the lamp. The Fates were good to her, though, for Aunt Mary forgot the lamp in her disgust over the appearance of the handle.

“Take it away,” she said sharply. “Anybody’d know it wasn’t an automobile crank. I don’t want to look like a fool! Well, why ain’t you takin’ it away, Lucinda?”

Lucinda took the crank back to the freezer; but as the days passed on, the situation grew worse. Aunt Mary slept more and more, and awoke to an ever-increasing ratio of belligerency.

Before long Lucinda’s third cousin demanded her assistance in “moving,” and there was nothing for poor Arethusa to do but to take up the burden, now become a fearfully heavy one.

Aunt Mary was getting to that period in life when the nearer the relative the greater the dislike, so that when her niece arrived the welcome which awaited her was even less cordial than ever.

“Did you bring a trunk?” she asked.

“A small one,” replied the visitor.

“That’s something to be grateful for,” said the aunt. “If I’d invited you to visit me, of course I’d feel differently about things.”

Arethusa accepted this as she accepted all things, unpacked, saw Lucinda off, assumed charge of the house, and then dragged a rocking chair to her aunt’s bedside and unfolded her sewing. Ere she had threaded her needle Aunt Mary was sound asleep, and so her niece sewed placidly for an hour or more, until, like lightning out of a clear sky:

“Arethusa!”

The owner of the name started—but answered immediately:

“Yes, Aunt Mary.”

“When I die I want to be buried from a roof garden! Don’t you forget! You’d better go an’ write it down. Go now—go this minute!”

Arethusa shook as if with the discharge of a contiguous field battery. She had not had Lucinda’s gradual breaking-in to her aunt’s new trains of thought.

“Aunt Mary,” she said feebly at last.

Aunt Mary saw her lips moving; she sat up in bed and her eyes flashed cinders.

“Well, ain’t you goin’?” she asked wrathfully. “When I say do a thing, can’t it be done? I declare it’s bad enough to live with a pack of idiots without havin’ ’em, one an’ all, act as if I was the idiot!”

Arethusa laid aside her work and rose to quit the room. She returned five minutes later with pen and ink, but Aunt Mary was now off on another tack.

“I want a bulldog!” she cried imperatively.

“A bulldog!” shrieked her niece, nearly dropping what she held in her hands. “What do you want a bulldog for?”

“Not a bullfrog!” the old lady corrected; “a bulldog. Oh, I do get so sick of your stupidity, Arethusa,” she said. “What should I or any one else want of a bullfrog?”

Arethusa sighed, and the sigh was apparent.

“I’d sigh if I was you,” said her aunt. “I certainly would. If I was you, Arethusa, I’d certainly feel that I had cause to sigh;” and with that she sat up and gave her pillow a punch that was full of the direst sort of suggestion.

Arethusa did not gainsay the truth of the sighing proposition. It was too apparent.

The next day Aunt Mary slept until noon, and then opened her eyes and simultaneously declared:

“Next summer I’m goin’ to have an automobile!”

Then she looked about and saw that she had addressed the air, which made her more mad than ever. She rang her bell violently, and Arethusa left the lunch table so hastily that she reached the bedroom half-choked.

“Next summer I’m goin’ to have an automobile,” said the old lady angrily. “Now, get me some breakfast.”

Her niece went out quickly, and a maid was sent in with tea and toast and eggs at once. Their effect was to brace the invalid up and make the lot of those about her yet more wearing.

“I shall run it myself,” she vowed, when Arethusa returned; “an’ I bet they clear out when they see me comin’.”

It did seem highly probable.

“I don’t know how I can live if I don’t get away from here soon,” she declared a few minutes later. “You don’t appreciate what life is, Arethusa. Seems like I’ll go mad with wantin’ to be somewhere else. I can see Jack gets his disposition straight from me.”

There was a sigh and a pause.

“I shall die,” Aunt Mary then declared with violence, “if I don’t have a change. Arethusa, you’ve got to write to Jack, and tell him to get me Granite.”

“Granite!” screamed the niece in surprise.

“Yes, Granite. She was a maid I had in New York. I want her to come here. She must come. Tell him to offer her anything, and send her C.O.D. If I can have Granite, maybe I’ll feel some better. You write Jack.”

“I’ll write to-night,” shrieked Arethusa.

“No, you won’t,” said Aunt Mary; “you’ll get the ink and write right now. Because I’ve been meeker’n Moses all my life is no reason why I sh’d be willin’ to be downtrodden clear to the end. Folks around me’d better begin to look sharp an’ step lively from now on.”

Arethusa went to the desk at once and wrote:

DEAR JACK:
Aunt Mary wants the maid that she had when she was in New York. For
the love of Heaven, if the girl is procurable, do get her. Hire her
if you can and kidnap her if you can’t. Lucinda has played her
usual trick on me and walked off just when she felt like it. I
never saw Aunt Mary in anything like the state of mind that she is,
but I know one thing—if you cannot send the maid, there’ll be an
end of me.

Your loving sister, ARETHUSA.

Jack was much perturbed upon receipt of this letter. He whistled a little and frowned a great deal. But at last he decided to be frank and tell the truth to Mrs. Rosscott. To that end he wrote her a lengthy note. After two preliminary pages so personal that it would not be right to print them for public reading, he continued thus:

I’ve had a letter from my sister, who is with Aunt Mary at present. She says that Aunt Mary is not at all well and declares that she must have Janice. What under the sun am I to answer? Shall I say that the girl has gone to France? I’m willing to swear anything rather that put you to one second’s inconvenience. You know that, don’t you? etc., etc., etc. [just here the letter abruptly became personal again].

Jack thought that he knew his fiancée well, but he was totally unprepared for such an exhibition of sweet ness as was testified to by the letter which he received in return.

It’s first six pages were even more personal than his own (being more feminine) and then came this paragraph:

Janice is going to your aunt by to-night’s train. Now, don’t say a word! It is nothing—nothing—absolutely nothing. Don’t you know that I am too utterly happy to be able to do anything for anyone that you—etc., etc., etc.

Jack seized his hat and hurried to where his lady-love was just then residing. But Janice had gone!

Chapter Twenty-Two “Granite”

Joshua was despatched to drive through mud and rain to bring Aunt Mary’s solace from the station.

Aunt Mary had herself propped up in bed to be ready for the return before Billy’s feet had ceased to cry splash on the road outside of the gate. Her eagerness tinged her pallor pink. It was as if the prospect of seeing Janice gave her some of that flood of vitality which always seems to ebb and flow so richly in the life of a metropolis.

“My gracious heavens, Lucinda” (for Lucinda was back now), she said joyfully, “to think that I needn’t look at you for a week if I don’t want to! You haven’t any idea how tired I am of looking at you, Lucinda. If you looked like anything it would be different. But you don’t.”

Lucinda rocked placidly; hers was what is called an “even disposition.” If it hadn’t been, she might have led an entirely different life—in fact, she would most certainly have lived somewhere else, for she couldn’t possibly have lived with Aunt Mary.

The hour that ensued after Joshua’s departure was so long that it resulted in a nap for the invalid, and Lucinda had to wake her by slamming the closet door when the arrival turned in at the gate.

“Has he got her?” Aunt Mary cried breathlessly. “Has he got someone with him? Run, Lucinda, an’ bring her in. She needn’t wipe her feet, tell her; you can brush the hall afterwards. Well, why ain’t you hurryin’?”

Lucinda was hurrying, her curiosity being as potent as the commands of her mistress, and five seconds later Janice appeared in the door with her predecessor just behind her—a striking contrast.

“You dear blessed Granite!” cried the old lady, stretching out her hands in a sort of ecstasy. “Oh, my! but I’m glad to see you! Come right straight here. No, shut the door first. Lucinda, you go and do ’most anything. An’ how is the city?”

Janice came to the bedside and dropped on her knees there, taking Aunt Mary’s withered hand close in both of her own.

“You didn’t shut the door,” the old lady whispered hoarsely. “I wish you would—an’ bolt it, too. An’ then come straight back to me.”

Janice closed and bolted the door, and returned to the bedside. Aunt Mary drew her down close to her, and her voice and eyes were hungry, indeed. For a little she looked eagerly upon what she had so craved to possess again, and then she suddenly asked:

“Granite, have you got any cigarettes with you?”

The maid started a little.

“Do you smoke now?” she asked, with interest.

“No,” said Aunt Mary sadly, “an’ that’s one more of my awful troubles. You see I’m jus’ achin’ to smell smoke, an’ Joshua promised his mother the night before he was twenty-one. You don’t know nothin’ about how terrible I feel. I’m empty somewhere jus’ all the time. Don’t you believe’t you could get some cigarettes an’ smoke ’em right close to me, an’ let me lay here, an’ be so happy while I smell. I’ll have a good doctor for you, if you’re sick from it.”

The maid reflected; then she nodded.

“I’ll write to town,” she cried, in her high, clear tones. “What brand do you like best?”

“Mitchell’s,” said Aunt Mary. “But you can’t get those because he made ’em himself an’ sealed ’em with a lick. Oh!” she sighed, with the accent of a starving Sybarite, “I do wish I could see him do it again! Do you know,” she added suddenly, “he wrote me a letter and he’s goin’ to come here.”

“When?” asked Janice.

“After a while. But you must take off your things. That’s your room in there,” pointing toward a half-open door at the side. “I wanted you as close as I could get you. My, but I’ve wanted you! I can’t tell you how much. But a good deal—a lot—awfully.”

Janice went into the room that was to be hers, and hung up her hat and cloak.

When she returned Aunt Mary was looking a hundred per cent, improved already.

“Can you hum ‘Hiawatha’?” she asked immediately. “Granite, I must have suthin’ to amuse me an’ make me feel good. Can you hum ‘Hiawatha’ an’ can you do that kind of ‘sh—sh—sh—’that everybody does all together at the end, you know?”

Janice smiled pleasantly, and placing herself in the closest possible proximity with the ear trumpet, at once rendered the desired _morceau_ in a style which would have done credit to a soloist in a _café chantant_.

Aunt Mary’s lips wreathed in seraphic bliss.

“My!” she said. “I feel just as if I was back eatin’ crabs’ legs and tails again. No one’ll ever know how I’ve missed city life this winter but—well, you saw Lucinda!”

The glance that accompanied the speech was mysterious but significant. Janice nodded sympathetically.

“I hope you brought a trunk. I ain’t a bit sure when I’ll be able to let you go,” pursued the old lady. “I don’t believe I can let you go until I go, too. I’ve most died here alone.”

“I brought a trunk,” Janice cried into the ear trumpet.

“I’m glad,” said Aunt Mary. She paused, and her eyes grew wistful.

“Granite,” she asked, “do you think you could manage to do a skirt dance on the footboard? I’m ’most wild to see some lace shake.”

Janice looked doubtfully at the footboard. It was wide for a footboard, but narrow—too narrow—for a skirt dance.

“But I can do one on the floor,” she cried.

Aunt Mary’s features became suffused with heavenly joy.

“Oh, Granite!” she murmured, in accents of greatest anticipation.

The maid stood up, and, going off as far as the limits of the spacious bedroom would allow, executed a most fetching and dainty _pas seul_ to a tune of her own humming.

“Give me suthin’ to pound with!” cried her enthusiastic audience. “Oh, Granite, I ain’t been so happy since I was home! Whatever you want you can have, only don’t ever leave me alone with Lucinda again.”

Janice was catching her tired breath, but she answered with a smile.

“Can’t you get my Sunday umbrella out of the closet now an’ do a parasol dance?” the insatiate demanded; “one of those where you shoot it open an’ shut when people ain’t expectin’.”

The maid went to the closet and brought out the Sunday umbrella; but its shiny black silk did not appear to inspire any fluffy maneuvres, so she utilized it in the guise of a broadsword and did something that savored of the Highlands, and seemed to rebel bitterly at the length of her skirt. Aunt Mary writhed around in bliss—utter and intense.

“I feel like I was livin’ again,” she said, heaving a great sigh of content. “I tell you I’ve suffered enough, since I came back, to know what it is to have some fun again. Now, Granite, I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” when the girl sat down to rest; “you write for those cigarettes while I take a little nap and afterwards we’ll get the Universal Knowledge book and learn how to play poker. You don’t know how to play poker, do you?”

“A little,” cried the maid.

“Well, I want to learn how,” said the old lady, “an’ we’ll learn when—when I wake up.”

Janice nodded assent.

“Excuse me shuttin’ my eyes,” said Aunt Mary—and she was asleep in two minutes.

Chapter Twenty-Three “Granite” Continued.

Mary and Arethusa—Aunt Mary’s two nieces—were not uncommonly mercenary; but about three weeks after the new arrival they became seriously troubled over the ascendancy that she appeared to be gaining over the mind of their aunt. Lucinda’s duties had included for many years the writing of a weekly letter which contained formal advices of the general state of affairs, and after Janice’s establishment, these letters became so provocative of gradually increasing alarm that first Mary, and then Arethusa thought it advisable to make the journey for the purpose of investigating the affair personally. They found the new maid apparently devoid of evil intent, but certainly fast becoming absolutely indispensable to the daily happiness of their influential relative. Mary feared that a codicil for five thousand dollars would be the result; but Arethusa felt, with a sinking heart, that there was another naught going on to the sum, and that, unless the tide turned, the end might not be even then.

Aunt Mary was so cool that neither niece stayed long, and Lucinda’s letters had to be looked to for the progress of events. Lucinda’s letters were frequent and not at all reassuring. After the sisters had talked them over, they sent them on to Jack.

She [thus Lucinda invariably began] is the same as ever. It’s cross the heart and bend the knee, an’ then you ain’t down far enough to suit her. But she’s gettin’ so afraid she’ll go that she’s wax in her hands. It would scare you. She won’t let her out of her sight a minute. I must say that whatever she’s giving her, she certainly is earning the money, for she works her harder every day. The poor thing is hopping about, or singing, or playing cards, from dawn to dark, and unless it’s a provision in her will I can’t see what would pay her enough for working so. Lord knows I considered I earned my wages without skipping around with my legs crossed like she does, and she has no end of patience too, even if she won’t ever let her take a walk. She’s getting as pale as she is herself. Seems like something should be done.

Respectfully, L. COOKE.

Three days later Lucinda wrote again:

She does seem to be getting worse and worse. She makes her sleep on a sofa beside her, and she begins to look dreadfully worn out. I do believe she’ll kill her, before she dies herself. I told her so to-day, but she only smiled. It’s funny, but I like her even if I am bolted out all the time. I ain’t jealous, and I’m glad of the rest. I should think her throat would split with talking so much, but she certainly does hear her better than anyone else. I think something must be done, though. She’s getting as crazy as she is herself. They play cards and call each other “aunty” for two hours at a stretch some days.

Respectfully, L. COOKE.

At the end of the week Lucinda wrote again:

I think if you don’t come, she will surely die. She is very feeble herself, but that don’t keep her from wearing her to skin and bone. She keeps her doing tricks from morning to night. Every minute that she is awake she keeps her jumping. It’s a mercy she sleeps so much, or she wouldn’t get any sleep at all. I can’t do nothing, but I can see something has got to be done. She’s killing her, and she’s getting where she don’t care for nobody but her, and if she’s to be kept in trim to keep on amusing her she’ll have to have some rest pretty quick.

Respectfully, L. COOKE.

If the sisters were perturbed by the general trend of these epistles, Jack was half wild over the situation. He swore vigorously and he tramped up and down his room nights until the people underneath put it in their prayers that his woes might suggest suicide as speedily as possible. In vain he wrote to Mrs. Rosscott to restore Janice to her proper place in town; Mrs. Rosscott answered that as long as Aunt Mary desired Janice at her side, at her side Janice should stay. Jack knew his lady well enough to know that she would keep her word, and although he longed to assert his authority he was man enough to feel that he had better wait now and settle the debt after marriage.

Nevertheless the whole affair was unbearably vexatious and at last he felt that he could endure it no longer.

“I’m a fool,” he said, in a spirit of annoyance that came so close to anger that it led to an utter loss of patience. “I’ll take the train for Aunt Mary’s to-day, and straighten out that mess in short order.”

It was Saturday, and he arranged to leave by the noon train. He laid in a heavy supply of bribes for his aged relative and of reading matter for himself, and went to the station with a heart divided ’twixt many different emotions. It was an unconscionably long ride, but he did get there safely about ten o’clock.

It was a pleasant night—not too cold—even suggestive of some lingering Indian summer intentions on the part of Jack’s namesake. The young man thought that he would walk out to his childhood’s home, and his decision was aided by the discovery that there was no other way to get there.

So he took his suit-case in his hand and set off with a stride that covered the intervening miles in short order and brought him, almost before he knew it, to where he could see Lucinda’s light in the dining-room and her pug-nosed profile outlined upon the drawn shade. Everyone else was evidently abed, and as he looked, she, too, arose and took up the lamp. He hurried his steps so that she might let him in before she went upstairs, but in the same instant the light went out and with its withdrawal he perceived a little figure sitting alone upon the doorstep.

His heart gave a tremendous leap—but not with fright—and he made three rapid steps and spoke a name.

She lifted up her head. Of course it was Janice, and although she had been weeping, her eyes were as beautiful as ever.

“Oh, Jack!” she exclaimed, and happy the man who hears his name called in such a tone—even if it be only for once in the whole course of his existence.

He pitched his suit-case down upon the grass and took the maid in his arms.

What did anything matter; they both were lonely and both needed comforting.

He kissed her not once but twenty times,—not twenty times but a hundred.

“It’s abominable you’re being here,” he said at last.

“I am very, very tired,” she confessed.

“And you’ll go back to the city when I go?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said, doubtfully. “I don’t know whether she’ll let me.”

Jack laughed.

“To-morrow I will beard Aunt Mary in her den,” he declared; “now let’s go in and—and—”

The hundred and first!

Chapter Twenty-Four Two Are Company

To the large square room where he had slept (on and off) during a goodly portion of his boyhood life, Jack went to repose from his journey, there to meditate the situation which he had come to comfort, and to try and devise a way to better its existing circumstances.

It was a pleasant room, one window looking down the driveway, and the other leading forth to a square balcony that topped the little porch of the side entrance. There were lambrequins of dark blue with fringe that always caught in the shutters, and a bedroom suite of mahogany that had come down from the original John Watkins’s aunt, and had been polished by her descendants so faithfully that its various surfaces shone like mirrors. Over the bed hung a tent drapery of chintz; over the washstand hung a crayon done by Arethusa in her infancy—the same representing a lady engaged in the pleasant and useful occupation of spinning wheat with a hand composed of five fingers, and no thumb. In the corner stood a cheval-glass which Jack had seen shrink steadily for years until now it could no longer reflect his shoulders unless he retired back for some two yards or more. There was a delectable closet to the room, all painted white inside, with shelves and cupboards and little bins for shoes and waste paper and soiled clothes.

Oh! it was really an altogether delightful place in which to abide, and the pity was that its owner had spent so little time therein of late years.

To-night—returning to the scene of many childish and boyish meditations—Jack placed his lamp upon the nightstand at the head of the bed and sat himself down on a chair near by.

It was late—quite midnight—for he and Aunt Mary’s new maid had talked long and freely ere they separated at last. From his room he could hear the little faint sounds below stairs, that told of her final preparations for Lucinda’s morning eye, and he rested quiet until all else was quiet and then leaned back upon the chair’s hind legs and, tipping slowly to and fro in that position, tried to see just what he had better do the first thing on the following day.

It was a riddle with a vengeance. It is so easy to say “I’ll cut that Gordian knot!” and then pack one’s tooth-brush and start off unknotting, but it is quite another matter when one comes face to face with the problem and is met by the “buts” of those who have previously been essaying to disentangle it.

“She won’t let me go,” Mrs. Rosscott had declared, “she won’t consider it for a minute.”

“But she must,” Jack had declared on his side. “My dearest, you can’t stay and play maid to Aunt Mary indefinitely, and you know that as well as I do.”

“Yes, I know that,” the whilom Janice then murmured. “It’s getting to be an awful question. They want me to come home for Thanksgiving. They think that I’ve been at the rest-cure long enough.”

Jack had laughed a bit just there, and then he suddenly ceased laughing and frowned a good deal instead.

“You were crying when I came,” he said. “The truth is you are working yourself to death and getting completely used up.”

“It is wearing, I must confess,” she answered. “Yesterday I played poker until I didn’t know a blue chip from a white one, and she won the whole pot with two little bits of pairs while I was drawing to a king. I begin to fear that my mind will give way. And yet, I really don’t see how to stop. She is so sick and tired of life here and she isn’t strong enough to go to town.”

“I know a very short way to put an end to everything,” said Jack. “I see two ways in fact,—one is to tell her the truth.”

“Oh, don’t do that,” cried his fiancée affrightedly. “The shock would kill her outright.”

“The other way,—” said Jack slowly, “would be for me to marry you and let her think that you are Janice in good earnest.”

“Oh, that wouldn’t do at all,” said the pretty widow. “In the first place she would go crazy at the idea of her darling nephew’s marrying her maid,—and in the second place—”

“Well,—in the second place?”

“I wouldn’t marry you,—I said I wouldn’t and I won’t. You’re too young.”

“But you’ve promised to marry me some day.”

“Yes, I know—but not till—not till—”

“Not till when?”

“I haven’t just decided,” said Mrs. Rosscott, airily. “Not for a good while, not until you seem to require marrying at my hands.”

“I never shall require marrying at anyone else’s hands,” the lover vowed, “but if you are so set about it as all that comes to, I shall not cut up rough for a while. Aunt Mary is the main question just now—not you.”

“I know,” said his lady in anything but a jealous tone, “and as she is the question, what are we to do?”

“You will go to bed,” he said, kissing her, “and I will go to think.”

“Can you see any way?” she asked anxiously.

Then he put his hands on either side of her face and turned it up to his own.

“You plotted once and overthrew my aunt,” he said. “It’s my turn now.”

“Are you going to plot?”

“I’m going to try.”

“I’ll pray for your success,” she whispered.

“Pray for me,” he answered, and shortly after they had achieved the feat of saying good-night and parting once more, and the result of it all had been that Jack found himself tipping back and forth on the small chair, in the big room, at half-past midnight, puzzled, perturbed, and very much perplexed as to what to do first when the next morning should have become a settled fact. He was not used to conspiring, and being only a man, he had not those curious instinctive gifts of inspiration and luminous conception which fairly radiate around the brain of clever womankind.

It was some time—a very long time indeed—before any light stole in upon his Stygian darkness, and then, when the light did come, it came in skyrocket guise, and had its share of cons attached to its very evident pros.

“But I don’t care,” he declared viciously, as he rose and began to undress; “something’s got to be done,—some chances have got to be taken,—as well that as anything else. Perhaps better—very likely better.”

Then he laughed over his unconscious imitation of his aunt’s phraseology, and made short work of finishing his disrobing and getting to bed.

It was when Lucinda crept forth to begin to unlock the house at 6.30 upon the morning after, that the fact of the nephew’s arrival was first known to anyone except Janice.

Lucinda saw the coat and hat,—recognized the initial on the handkerchief in the inside pocket, threw out her arms and gave a faint squeak in utter bewilderment, and then tore off at once to the barn to tell Joshua.

She found Joshua milking the cow.

“What do you think!” she panted briefly, with wide-open eyes and uplifted hands; “Joshua Whittlesey, _what_ do you think?”

“I don’t think nothin’,” said Joshua. “I’m milkin’.”

“What would you say if I told you as _he_ was come.”

“I’d say he was here.”

“Well, he is. He must ’a’ come last night, an’ Lord only knows how he ever got in, for nothing was left open an’ yet he’s there.”

Joshua made no comment.

“I wonder what he came for?”

Joshua made no comment.

“I wonder how long he’ll stay?”

Still Joshua made no comment.

“Joshua Whittlesey, before you get your breakfast, you’re the meanest man I ever saw, and I’ll swear to that anywhere.”

“Why don’t you get me my breakfast then?” said Joshua calmly; and the effect of his speech and his demeanor was to cause Lucinda to turn and leave him at once—too outraged to address another word to him.

Aunt Mary herself did not awake until ten o’clock. She rang her bell vigorously then and Janice flew to its answering.

“I dreamed of Jack,” said the old lady, looking up with a smile. “I dreamed we was each ridin’ on camels in a merry-go-round.”

Janice smiled too, and then set briskly to work to put the room in order and arrange its occupant for the day.

“Did there come any mail?” Aunt Mary inquired, when her coiffure was made and her dressing-gown adjusted. “I feel jus’ like I might hear from Jack. Seems as if I sort of can’t think of anythin’ but him.”

“I’ll go and see,” said Janice pleasantly, and she went to the dining room where the Reformed Prodigal sat reading the newspaper with his feet on the table—an action which convinced Lucinda that he had not reformed so very much after all.

“Suppose you go to her—instead of me,” suggested the maid, pausing before the reader and usurping all the attention to which the paper should have laid claim.

“Suppose I do,” said Jack, jumping up, “and suppose you stay away and let me try what I can accomplish single-handed.”

“Only—” began Janice—and then she stopped and lifted a warning finger.

Jack listened and a stealthy creak betrayed Lucinda’s proximity somewhere in the vicinity.

It was plain to be seen that there were many issues to be kept in mind, and the young man grit his teeth because he didn’t dare embrace his betrothed, and then walked away in the direction of Aunt Mary’s room.

If she was glad to see him! One would have supposed that ten years and two oceans had elapsed since their last meeting the month before.

She fairly screamed with joy.

“Jack!—You dear, dear, _dear_ boy! Well, if I ever did!—When did you come?”

He was by the bed hugging her. “And how are they all? How _is_ the city? Oh, Jack, if I could only go back with you this time!”

“Never mind, Aunt Mary; you’ll be coming soon—in the spring, you know.”

Aunt Mary sank back on the pillows.

“Jack,” she said, “if I have to wait for spring, I shall die. I ain’t strong enough to be able to bear livin’ in the country much longer. I’ve pretty much made up my mind to buy a house in town and just keep this place so’s to have somewhere to put Lucinda.”

“Do you think you’d be happy in town, Aunt Mary?” Jack yelled; “I mean if you lived there right along?”

“I don’t see how I could be anythin’ else. I don’t see how anyone could be anythin’ else. I want a nice house with a criss-cross iron gate in front of it an’ an automobile. An’—I don’t want you to say nothin’ about this to her jus’ yet—but I’m goin’ to keep Granite to look after everythin’ for me. I don’t ever mean to let Granite go again. Never. Not for one hour.”

Jack smiled. He felt as if Fate was playing into his hands.

“I want you to live with me,” Aunt Mary continued, “an’ I want the house big enough so’s Clover an’ Mitchell an’ Burnett can come whenever they feel like it and stay as long as they like. I don’t want any house except for us all together. Oh, my! Seems like I can’t hardly wait!”

She leaned back and shut her eyes in a sort of impatient ecstasy of joys been and to be.

Jack reached forward to get a cigarette from the box on the table at the bedside.

“Do you smoke now, Aunt Mary?” he inquired, as he took a match.

“No, Granite does.”

“Janice does!” he repeated, quickly knitting his brows.

“Yes, she does it for me—I’m so happy smellin’ the smell. They made her a little sick at first but she took camphor and now she don’t mind. Not much—not any.”

Jack arose and walked about the room. The idea of his darling sickening herself to provide smoke for Aunt Mary braced him afresh to the conflict.

“What do you do all day?” he asked, presently.

“Well, we do most everythin’. When Lucinda’s out she does Lucinda for me an’ when Lucinda’s in she does Joshua. It’s about as amusin’ as anythin’ you ever saw to see her do Lucinda. I never found Lucinda amusin’, Lord knows, but I like to see Granite do her. An’ we play cards, an’ she dances, an’—”

“Aunt Mary,” said Jack abruptly, “do you know the people who had Janice want her back again?”

“I didn’t quite catch that,” said his aunt, “but you needn’t bother to repeat it because I ain’t never goin’ to let her go. Not never.”

Jack came back and sat down beside the bed, and took her hand.

“Aunt Mary,” he said in a pleading shriek, “don’t you see how pale and thin she’s getting?”

“No, I don’t,” said his aunt, turning her head away, “an’ it’s no use tellin’ me such things because it’s about my nap-time and I’ve always been a great believer in takin’ my nap when it’s my nap-time. As a general thing.”

Jack sighed and watched her close her eyes and go instantly to sleep. Janice came in a few minutes later.

“No—no,” she whispered hastily, as he came toward her,—“you mustn’t—you mustn’t. I don’t believe that she really is asleep and even if she is, Lucinda is _everywhere_.”

“Where can we go?” Jack asked in despair. “It’s out of all reason to expect me to behave all the time.”

“We can’t go anywhere,” said Mrs. Rosscott; “we must resign ourselves. I’ve learned that it’s the only way. Dear me, when I think how long I’ve been resigned it certainly seems to me that you might do a little in the same line.”

“Well, but I haven’t learned to resign myself,” said her lover, “and what is more, I positively decline to learn to resign myself. You should do the same, too. Where is the sense in humoring her so? I wouldn’t if I were you.”

Janice lifted up her lovely eyes.

“Oh, yes, you would,” she said simply. “If somebody’s future happiness depended upon her you would humor her just as much as I do.”

Jack was touched.

“You are an angel of unselfishness,” he exclaimed, warmly, “and I don’t deserve such devotion.”

“Oh, don’t be too grateful,” she replied, dimpling. “The person to whose future happiness I referred was myself.”

They both laughed softly at that—softly and mutually.

“Nevertheless,” Jack went on after a minute, “if to all the other puzzles is to be added the torture of being unable to see you or speak freely to you, I think the hour for action has arrived.”

“For action!” she cried; “what are you thinking of doing?”

“This,” he said, and straightway took her into his arms and kissed her as he had kissed her on the night before.

“Oh, if Lucinda has heard or your aunt has seen!” poor Janice cried, extricating herself and setting her cap to rights with a species of fluttered haste that led Jack to wonder suddenly why men didn’t fall in love with maids even oftener than they do. “I do believe that you have gone and done it this time.”

“Nobody heard and nobody saw,” he assured her, but he didn’t at all mean what he said, for his prayers were fervent that his kiss had been public property.

And such was the fact.

Lucinda bounced in on Joshua with a bounce that turned the can of harness polish upside down, for Joshua was oiling the harnesses.

“He kissed her!” she cried in a state of tremendous excitement.

“Well, she’s his aunt, ain’t she?” Joshua demanded, picking up the can and privately wishing Lucinda in Halifax.

“I don’t mean her;—I mean Janice.”

“I don’t see anythin’ surprisin’ in that,” said Joshua,—“not if he got a good chance.”

“What do you think of such goin’s on?”

“I think they’ll lead to goin’s offs.”

“I never would ’a’ believed it,” said Lucinda; “Well, all I can say is I wish he’d ’a’ tried it on me.”

“You’ll wish a long time,” said Joshua, placidly; and his tone, as usual, made Lucinda even more angry than his words; so she forthwith left him and tore back to the house.

Aunt Mary had also had her eyes open, and in this particular case it was impossible to have one’s eyes open without having one’s eyes opened. So Aunt Mary had both.

She shut them at once and reflected deeply, and when Janice went out of the room at last she immediately sat up in bed and addressed her nephew.

“Jack, what did you kiss her for?”

Jack was fairly wild with joy at the brilliant way in which he had begun. Mrs. Rosscott had laid one scheme for the overthrow of Aunt Mary and her plan of attack had been absolutely successful. Now it was his turn and he, too, was in it to win undying glory or else—well, no matter. There wouldn’t be any “also ran” in this contest.

“You don’t deny that you kissed her, do you?” said his aunt severely. “Answer this minute. I’m a great believer in answerin’ when you’re spoken to.”

“Yes, I kissed her,” he said easily.

“Well, what did you do it for?”

“I’m very fond of her;” the words came forth with great apparent reluctance.

“Fond of her!” said Aunt Mary with great contempt.

Jack lifted his eyes quickly at the tone of her comment.

“_Fond_ of her! Do you think a girl like that is the kind to be fond of! Why ain’t you in _love_ with her?”

The young man felt his brains suddenly swimming. This surpassed his maddest hopes.

“Shall I say that I am in love with her?” he cried into the ear-trumpet.

Aunt Mary raised up in bed,—her eyes sparkling.

“Jack,” she said, almost quivering with excitement, “_are_ you in love with her?”

“Yes, I am,” he owned, wondering what would come next, but feeling that the tide was all his way.

Aunt Mary collapsed with a joyful sigh.

“My heavens alive,” she said rapturously, “seems like it’s too good to be true! Jack,” she continued solemnly, “if you’re in love with her you shall marry her. If there’s any way to keep a girl like that in the family I guess I ain’t goin’ to let her slip through my fingers not while I’ve got a live nephew. You shall marry her an’ I’ll buy you a house in New York and come an’ live with you.”

Jack sat silent, but smiling.

“Do you think she will want to marry me?” he asked presently.

“You go and bring her to me,” said the old lady vigorously. “I’ll soon find out. Just tell her I want to speak to her—don’t tell her what about. That ain’t none of your business an’ I’m a great believer in people’s not interfering in what’s none of their business. You just get her and then leave her to me.”

Jack went and found Janice. He was sufficiently mean not to tell her what had happened, and Janice—being built on a different plan from Lucinda—had not kept near enough to the keyhole to be posted anyway.

“Mr. Denham says you want me,” she said, coming to the bedside with her customary pleasant smile.

“I do,” said her mistress. “I want to speak to you on a very serious subject and I want you to pay a lot of attention. It’s this: I want you to marry Jack.”

Poor Janice jumped violently,—there was no doubt as to the genuineness of her surprise.

“Well, don’t you want to?” asked Aunt Mary.

“I don’t believe I do.”

At this it was the old lady’s turn to be astonished.

“Why don’t you?” she said; “my heavens alive, what are you a-expectin’ to marry if you don’t think my nephew’s good enough for you?”

“But I don’t want to marry!” cried poor Janice, in most evident distress.

Aunt Mary looked at her severely.

“Then what did you kiss him for?” she asked, in the tone in which one plays the trump ace.

Janice started again.

“Kiss—him—” she faltered.

Aunt Mary regarded her sternly.

“Granite,” she said, “I ain’t a-intendin’ to be unreasonable, but I must ask you jus’ one simple question. You kissed him, for I saw you; an’ will you kindly tell me why, in heaven’s name, you ain’t willin’ to marry any man that you’re willin’ to kiss?”

“There’s such a difference,” wailed the maid.

“I don’t see it,” said her mistress, shaking her head. “I don’t see it at all. Of course I never for a minute thought of doin’ either myself, but if I had thought of doin’ either, I’d had sense enough to have seen that I’d have to make up my mind to do both. I’m a great believer in never doin’ things by halves. It don’t pay. Never—nohow.”

Janice was biting her lips.

“But I don’t want to marry!” she repeated obstinately.

“Then you shouldn’t have let him kiss you. You’ve got him all started to lovin’ you and if he’s stopped too quick no one can tell what may happen. I want him to settle down, but I want him to settle down because he’s happy an’ not because he’s shattered. He says he’s willin’ to marry you an’ I don’t see any good reason why not.”

Janice’s mouth continued to look rebellious.

“Go and get him,” said Aunt Mary. “I can see that this thing has got to be settled pleasantly right off, or we shan’t none of us have any appetite for dinner. You find Jack, or if you can’t find him tell Lucinda that she’s got to.”

Janice went out and found Jack in the hall.

“Is this a trap?” she asked reproachfully.

Jack laughed.

“No,” he said “it’s a counter-mine.”

“Your aunt wants you at once,” said Janice, putting her hands into her pockets and looking out of the window.

“I fly to obey,” he said obediently, and went at once to his elderly relative.