Chapter VI: Expected Guests

It was fifteen minutes or more before he returned, and taking his seat, began: “Dot is so flurried and upset about them Tracys that she actually consulted me. You know they are comin’ to-night?”

“Who is coming?” Craig asked, rather relieved with a change from the Daltons to the Tracys.

“Why, Miss Freeman Tracy, from New York,” Uncle Zach replied. “Her grandfather was Gen. Allen, one of our big bugs,—lived in the house with the biggest brass knocker, and has that tall monument in the cemetery. She’s comin,’ and that’s why the west wing is bottom side up, and Dot don’t know whether she’s on her head or her feet. It’s somethin’ to brag about havin’ Miss Tracy here. She wrote for a saloon to eat in. We’ve gin her the west parlor and four bedrooms for herself and daughter and niece and maid. None of ’em can sleep together. Nobody can nowadays. They are comin’ to-night, on the eight train.”

Craig had been greatly interested in the Dalton story, though a little confused at the last, with so much heredity and environment and so many great-great-grandfathers. Still he managed to get a pretty good idea of it and was deciding in his mind to visit the old house again and go through the rooms where ’Tina’s ghost was said to walk on stormy nights. At the mention of Mrs. Tracy, who was coming with two young ladies, his thoughts were directed into a different channel.

“I think I have heard of Mrs. Tracy. Is she very wealthy?” he asked.

“Yes, piles of money, with diamond ear-rings as big as robins’ aigs. I’ve never seen ’em, but some woman from here was at Saratoga last summer, and said they was the talk of the town, and she never let ’em out of her sight. I hope she’ll bring ’em. I never seen such stuns. I wonder what they cost, and what do you s’pose she wants of a maid here, when we cook her victuals and serve it?”

Craig did not reply. He was thinking of Mrs. Tracy and her daughter, who was a great belle and notorious flirt. He had heard of them at Saratoga as occupying the finest suite of rooms at the United States, where the daughter kept around her a crowd of gentlemen, whom she attracted or repelled as the fancy took her. He had only seen her at a distance, when it was impossible to tell just how she looked, nor did he care for a closer acquaintance, and when asked to call upon her had declined to do so. He detested flirts, and was not particularly interested in girls of any kind. Certainly not in Miss Tracy. Still he was glad she was coming. It would be a change, and he was getting tired with no company but Browning. There was no possible danger of his falling a victim to her wiles. He was not a ladies’ man, and if he were, a coquette of Miss Tracy’s style would be the last woman he should select for a wife. Of the niece he scarcely thought at all, except to ask Uncle Zach her name. Zacheus didn’t know. Mrs. Tracy telegraphed that morning that she was coming, and there must be a room for her.

“Probably a poor relation,” came into Craig’s mind, and the niece was dismissed from it. The daughter, however, occupied a good share of his thoughts as the day wore on, and moving his seat from the north piazza to the south, he watched the settling of the west wing, which the Tracys were to occupy, with a good deal of interest. Once, in passing him, Mark stopped and said: “You would suppose the queen of England was coming instead of a woman with nothing to recommend her but money, or family, which sometimes counts more than money.”

He spoke a little bitterly, and Craig wondered if he were thinking of his own tarnished heritage. If it is possible for the future to turn backward and touch those whom its events are to influence, it would seem as if it had done so with Craig and Mark. Both were exceedingly restless that afternoon, and their restlessness manifested itself differently. Mark went to the cemetery,—a very unusual thing for him,—and stood by ’Tina’s grave and looked at the headstone, with only “Christina Dalton” upon it, and for a few moments rebelled against the fate which had linked him with the dead woman at his feet. He had heard the whole story of the tragedy; not one particular had been omitted in the telling of it to him, and now, as he went over it in imagination, he took a different view of it from what he had ever done before. Any thing like heredity had never troubled him, the relationship was so remote. But the possibility came to him now, and he said to himself: “Her blood is in my veins,—strongly diluted,—but it is there, and under provocation might work me harm if I yielded to it. But I will not. I’ll be a man for a’ that. She was only my great-grandmother, or great-great-grandmother, which was it? Poor ’Tina. Perhaps she was not guilty. She said she was not, except for liking another man better than her husband. Other women have done that.”

The year before he had planted a white rose at Mr. Dalton’s grave. It was the running species, and one long arm had reached out and twined itself around ’Tina’s headstone, on the top of which was a half opened rose nestled among a quantity of leaves. Mark was fond of flowers, and cut the rose carefully from its stalk, intending to put it in the office.

“I guess there’s nothing of ’Tina about it,” he said, as he picked a few leaves and weeds from the grass on her grave, examined the stone to see if it were secure, and then returned to the hotel.

Craig had been differently employed. He always made some changes in his toilet before supper, and this afternoon he took a little more pains with it than usual, although it was not likely that he would see the ladies that night. As his mother was gone, he took his supper alone, and with his quick eye saw that two or three pieces of china and glass were missing. He might not have given it a second thought if he had not heard Mr. Taylor telling a boarder that the rooms for Miss Tracy were in apple pie order, and the table sot for supper in the _saloon_, with the best linen and china and silver. The missing articles were accounted for. They were adorning the table in the _saloon_. Boston had gone down in the scale, and New York was in the ascendant.

“I don’t object,” he thought, “so long as she leaves us a china tea cup. I should not like those thick things I see on some of the tables.”

After his supper he went round to the west piazza, and, walking up and down, glanced into the room where the table was laid for three, and looked very inviting with its snowy linen, china and glass. He recognized the cream jug and sugar bowl which had done duty for his mother and himself, and was glad they were there. It seemed right and proper that the Tracys, as new-comers, should take the precedence. He was getting quite interested in them, and when he saw there were no flowers on the table he asked Sarah, the house-maid, if she had forgotten them.

“We hain’t any but flag lilies, and I didn’t know as they’d be pretty. I’ll pick some if you say so,” she said.

He knew she meant the fleurs-de-lis, of which he had seen great clumps from his window. They were blue,—his color,—and he followed Sarah to the garden, where she gathered a large bunch of the lilies together with some young ferns growing near them.

“They do look pretty,” she said, admiring the effect, as she placed them in the centre of the table. “Be you acquainted with the ladies?”

“No, I am not, but I know city people like to find fresh flowers in their rooms when they go into the country,” Craig replied, and then, as it was nearly time for his mother’s train from East Ridgefield, he went to meet her.

As he was walking with her up the long hill from the station he told her of the expected arrivals, and asked if she had ever seen the ladies.

“Once when I called on some friends at the United States, in Saratoga, the mother and daughter were in the parlors, and were pointed out to me. I remember thinking them very showily dressed, and that Mrs. Tracy’s diamond ear-rings were quite too large for good taste. The daughter had half a dozen young men around her,” was Mrs. Mason’s reply, and her chin gave a tilt in the air, which Craig knew was indicative of her disapproval of the Tracys.

Craig told her of Mrs. Taylor’s elation on account of her distinguished guests, and of the removal of the cream jug and sugar bowl from the table to the salon.

“Boston is nowhere, and we may come down to two-tined forks and plated spoons,” he said laughingly, while his mother laughed in return.

She had no anxiety about the forks or the spoons, but she was a little anxious with regard to the young lady, of whose outrageous coquetry she had heard a great deal, and, mother-like, she dropped a word of warning.

“No danger for me,” Craig said. “Forewarned is forearmed, but I am glad she is coming. We want something to brighten us up.”

Meanwhile Mark Hilton had also made the tour of the west piazza, and glanced in at the table with its centrepiece of fleurs-de-lis and ferns.

“I didn’t know you had so much taste,” he said to Sarah, who was putting some napkins at the plates.

“’Twasn’t me; ’twas Mr. Mason thought of it,” Sarah replied, and Mark was conscious of a feeling of not wishing to be outdone by Craig.

“I’ll contribute my moiety,” he thought, and bringing the rose from the office, he placed it on the table.

It was very fragrant, and filled the room with perfume, and Mark smiled as he thought: “They can’t help noticing it, but will not know it came from ’Tina’s grave.”

It lacked but half an hour of the time for the New York train. The scorching heat of the day had given place to a feeling of rain. In the west great banks of clouds had obscured the setting sun, while growls of thunder, growing louder and nearer, heralded the storm, which came on so fast that by the time the hotel carriage was ready for the station the wind was blowing a gale, and the rain falling in torrents.

“Great guns!” Uncle Zacheus exclaimed as he saw one of the horses rear on his hind feet when a peal of thunder, which shook the house, broke over its head. “If Jake hain’t got out the bloods! They are as ’fraid of thunder and lightnin’ as they can be. He can’t hold ’em a minit. Somebody’ll have to go with him and see to the ladies. Mark, do you feel like it?”

“Certainly,” Mark answered, and Craig saw him in the hall a few minutes later habited in his mackintosh and wide-rimmed hat, which shed water like an umbrella.

Owing to the storm the train was late, and Mrs. Taylor was greatly worried lest her broiled chicken and coffee should be spoiled. She had put on her second best dress, with a pretty little cap and lavender bow, and with her white apron looked the embodiment of the buxom landlady, as she hovered between the kitchen and the salon and the front door, giving a sharp reproof to Jeff, who came sliding down the banister, nearly upsetting her as, with a summersault, he landed on his feet. Jeff was also interested in the expected guests, and if the future had stretched backward and touched both Mark and Craig, it had grasped him as well, making him seem more possessed than ever as he rolled around the house wherever there was room for his athletics.

“There they be,” he exclaimed, as the carriage drove up with Mark on the box, the water dripping from his hat and coat, for it was still raining heavily.

With a bound he sprang to the ground just as Jeff came darting out with an umbrella and opened the carriage door. On the walk were pools of water, and Mark’s feet splashed in them as he stepped to the side of Jeff just as one of the ladies put her head from the door and then, with a cry of dismay, drew back.

“I can never go through all that water; it is actually a pond,” she said, and Mrs. Taylor, who was holding a lamp in the door, felt sure that the voice belonged to the matron of the party.

“Let me assist you,” Mark said, and, taking her in his arms, he ran up the walk with her and deposited her in the hall.

A second foot was on the carriage step when he went back,—a very small foot,—though to which of the young ladies it belonged he could not tell. He had seen neither distinctly at the station, it was raining so hard, but he felt intuitively that it was Miss Helen whom Jeff was advising to keep still till Mr. Hilton came to fetch her.

“Oh, thanks; don’t drop me, please,” she said, putting her arms around his neck as if afraid of falling.

He felt her breath through the dampness of the night, and as Mrs. Taylor just then held her lamp higher, he caught sight of two bright, laughing eyes, and if he held her a little closer than he had held the older woman, it was not strange. He was young, and she was young, and would have flirted in her coffin had she life to do it.

“I hope you are not very wet. It is a nasty night,” he said, as he put her down by her mother.

“Not wet at all, thanks to your kindness; but please go back for Alice,” the lady said, as he showed signs of having forgotten there was another to be cared for.

Alice didn’t need him. Jeff was attending to her.

“I don’t want to be lifted. I’m not afraid of a little wetting; but hold the umbrella over me. I shouldn’t like to spoil my hat,” she said, and, gathering up her dress, she ran swiftly into the house, followed by a girl, presumably the maid, as she carried several bags and began to talk to the ladies in what to Jeff was an unknown tongue.

Mrs. Mason’s rooms were on the other side of the hotel, but Craig was in the office when the carriage drove up, and saw Mark carrying two of its occupants into the house, and saw a third dashing like a sprite through the rain under the cover of Jeff’s umbrella, while the fourth followed more leisurely. Bidding Uncle Zach goodnight, he went to his mother’s room and said to her: “The Tracys have come.”