CHAPTER IV
FATHER AND SON
When later they were alone, the girl looked at her mother, her eyes luminous.
“You see,” she began rather breathlessly, “even you must see, he is beginning to drive us away.”
“I do hope, Eloise, you are not going to indulge in any heroics over this affair,” returned Mrs. Evringham, who had braced herself to meet an attack. “Does the unpleasant creature suppose we would stay with him if we were not obliged to?”
“If we are obliged to, which I don't admit, need you demand further favors than food and shelter? How could you speak of Essex Maid! How can you know in your inmost heart, as you do, that we are eating the bread of charity, and then ask for the apple of his eye!” exclaimed Eloise desperately.
“Go away with your bread and apples,” responded Mrs. Evringham flippantly. “I have a real worry now that that wretched little cousin of yours is coming.”
“She is not my cousin please remember,” responded the girl bitterly. “Mr. Evringham reminded us of that to-night.”
“Now don't you begin calling him Mr. Evringham!” protested her mother. “You don't want to take any notice of the man's absurdities. You will only make matters worse.”
“No, I shall go on saying grandfather for the little while we stay. Otherwise, he would know his words were rankling. It will be a little while? Oh mother!”
Mrs. Evringham pushed the pleading hand away. “I can't tell how long it will be!” she returned impatiently. “We are simply helpless until your father's affairs are settled. I thought I had told you that, Eloise. He worshipped you, child, and no matter what that old curmudgeon says, Lawrence would wish us to remain under his protection until we see our way clear.”
“Won't you have a business talk with him, so we can know what we have to look forward to?” The girl's voice was unsteady.
“I will when the right time comes, Eloise. Can't you trust your mother? Isn't it enough that we have lost our home, our carriages, all our comforts and luxuries, through this man's bad judgment—”
“You will cling to that!” despairingly.
“And have had to come out to this Sleepy Hollow of a place, where life means mere existence, and be so poor that the carfare into New York is actually a consideration! I'm quite satisfied with our martyrdom as it is, without pinching and grinding as we should have to do to live elsewhere.”
“Then you don't mean to attempt to escape?” returned Eloise in alarm.
“Hush, hush, Goosie. We will escape all in good time if we don't succeed in taming the bear. As it is, I have to work single handed,” dropping into a tone of reproach. “You are no help at all. You might as well be a simpering wax dummy out of a shop window. I would have been ashamed at your age if I could not have subjugated any man alive. We might have had him at our feet weeks ago if you had made an effort.”
“No, no, mother,” sadly. “I saw when we first came how effusiveness impressed him, and I tried to behave so as to strike a balance—that is, after I found that we were here on sufferance and not as welcome guests.”
“Pshaw! You can't tell what such a hermit is thinking,” returned Mrs. Evringham. “It is the best thing that could happen to him to have us here. Dr. Ballard said so only to-day. What is troubling me now is this child of Harry's. I was sure by father's tone when he first spoke of her that he would not even consider such an imposition.”
“I think he did feel so,” returned Eloise, her manner quiet again. “That was an example of the way you overreach yourself. The word presumption on your lips applied to uncle Harry determined grandfather to let the child come.”
“You think he really has sent for her then!” exclaimed Mrs. Evringham. “You think that is what the telegram meant! I'm sure of it, too.” Then after a minute's exasperated thought, “I believe you are right. He is just contrary enough for that. If I had urged him to let the little barbarian come, he couldn't have been induced to do so. That wasn't clever of me!” The speaker made the admission in a tone which implied that in general her cleverness was unquestioned. “Well, I hope she will worry him out of his senses, and I don't think there is much doubt of it. It may turn out all for the best, Eloise, after all, and lead him to appreciate us.” Mrs. Evringham cast a glance at the mirror and patted her waved hair. “And yet I'm anxious, very anxious. He might take a fancy to the girl,” she added thoughtfully.
“I'm such a poor-spirited creature,” remarked Eloise.
“What now?”
“I ought to be strong enough to leave you since you will not come; to leave this roof and earn my own living, some way, any way; but I'm too much of a coward.”
“I should hope so,” returned her mother briefly. “You'd soon become one if you weren't at starting. Girls bred to luxury, as you have been, must just contrive to live well somehow. They can't stand anything else.”
“Nonsense, mother,” quietly. “They can. They do.”
“Yes, in books I know they do.”
“No, truth is stranger than fiction. They do. I have been looking for that sort of stamina in myself for weeks, but I haven't found it. It is a cruel wrong to a girl not to teach her to support herself.”
“My dear! You were going to college. You know you would have gone had it not been for your poor father's misfortunes.”
Eloise's eyes filled again at the remembrance of the young, gay man who had been her boon companion since her babyhood, and at the memory of those last sad days, when she knew he had agonized over her future even more than over that of his volatile wife.
“My dear, as I've told you before, a girl as pretty as you are should know that fortune cannot be unkind, nor the sea of life too rough. In each of the near waves of it you can see a man's head swimming toward you. You don't know the trouble I have had already in silencing those who wished to speak before you were old enough. They could any of them be summoned now with a word. Let me see. There is Mr. Derwent—Mr. Follansbee—Mr. Weeks—”
“Hush, mother!” ejaculated the girl in disgust.
“Exactly. I knew you would say they were too old, or too bald, or too short, or too fat. I've been a girl myself. Of course there is Nat Bonnell, and a lot more little waves and ripples like him, but they always were out of the question, and now they are ten times more so. That is the reason, Eloise,” the mother's voice became impressive to the verge of solemnity, “why I feel that Dr. Ballard is almost a providence.”
The girl's clear eyes were reflective. “Nat Bonnell is a wave who wouldn't remember a girl who had slipped out of the swim.”
“Very wise of him,” returned Mrs. Evringham emphatically. “He can't afford to. Nat is—is—a—decorative creature, just as you are,—decorative. He must make it pay, poor boy.”
Meanwhile Mrs. Forbes had sought her son in the barn. He and she had had their supper in time for her to be ready to wait at dinner.
“Something doing, something doing,” murmured Zeke as he heard the impetuosity of her approaching step.
“That soup was hot!” she exclaimed defiantly.
“Somebody scald you, ma? I can do him up, whoever he is,” said Zeke, catching up a whip and executing a threatening dance around the dimly lighted barn.
His mother's snapping eyes looked beyond him. “He said it was cold; but it was only because he was distracted. What do you suppose those people are up to now? Trying to get Essex Maid for Mamzell to ride!”
Zeke stopped in his mad career and returned his mother's stare for a silent moment. “And not a dungeon on the place probably!” he exclaimed at last. “Just like some folks' shiftlessness.”
“They asked it. They asked Mr. Evringham if that girl couldn't ride Essex Maid while he was in the city!”
'Zekiel lifted his eyebrows politely. “Where are their remains to be interred?” he inquired with concern.
“Well, not in this family vault, you may be sure. He gave it to them to-night for a fact.” Mrs. Forbes smiled triumphantly. “'I didn't know Eloise remembered her father,'” she mimicked. “I'll bet that got under their skin!”
“Dear parent, you're excited,” remarked Zeke.
She brought her reminiscent gaze back to rest upon her son. “Get your coat quick, 'Zekiel. Here's the telegram. Take the car that passes the park gate, and stop at the station. That's the nearest place.”
Ezekiel obediently struggled into the coat hanging conveniently near. “What does the telegram say?—'Run away, little girl, the ogre isn't hungry'?”
“Not much! She's coming. He's sending for the brat.”
“Poor brat! How did it happen?”
“Just some more of my lady's doings,” answered Mrs. Forbes angrily. “Of course she had to put in her oar and exasperate Mr. Evringham until he did it to spite her.”
“Cutting off his own nose to spite his face, eh?” asked Zeke, taking the slip of paper.
“Yes, and mine. It's going to come heavy on me. I could have shaken that woman with her airs and graces. Catch her or Mamzell lifting their hands!”
“Yet they want her, do they?”
“No, Stupid! That's why she's coming. Can't you understand?”
“Blessed if I can,” returned the boy as he left the barn; “but I know one thing, I pity the kid.”
Mr. Evringham received a prompt answer to his message. His son appointed, as a place of meeting, the downtown hotel where he and his wife purposed spending the night before sailing.
Father and son had not met for years, and Mr. Evringham debated a few minutes whether to take the gastronomic and social risk of dining with Harry en famille at the noisy hotel above mentioned, or to have dinner in assured comfort at his club—finally deciding on the latter course.
It was, therefore, nearly nine o'clock before his card was presented to Mr. and Mrs. Harry, to whom it brought considerable relief of mind, and they hastened down to the dingy parlor with alacrity.
“You see we thought you might accept our invitation to dinner,” said Harry heartily, as he grasped his parent's passive hand; “but your business hours are so short, I dare say you have been at home since the middle of the afternoon.” As he spoke the hard lines of his father's impassive face smote him with a thousand associations, many of them bringing remorse. He wondered how much his own conduct had had to do with graving them so deeply.
His wife's observant eyes were scanning this guardian of her child from the crown of his immaculate head to the toes of his correct patent leathers. His expressionless eyes turned to her. “This is your wife?” he asked, again offering the passive hand.
“Yes, father, this is Julia,” responded Harry proudly. “I'm sorry the time is so short. I do want you to know her.”
The young man's face grew eloquent.
“That is a pleasure to come,” responded Mr. Evringham mechanically. He turned stiffly and cast a glance about. “You brought your daughter, I presume?”
“Yes, indeed,” answered Mrs. Evringham. “Harry was so glad to receive your permission. We had made arrangements for her provisionally with friends in Chicago, but we were desirous that she should have this opportunity to see her father's home and know you.”
Mr. Evringham thought with regret of those friends in Chicago. Many times in the last two days he had deeply repented allowing himself to be exasperated into thus committing himself.
“Do sit down, father,” said Harry, as his wife seated herself in the nearest chair.
Mr. Evringham hesitated before complying. “Well,” he said perfunctorily, “you have gone into something that promises well, eh Harry?”
“It looks that way. I'm chiefly occupied these days in being thankful.” The young man smiled with an extraordinary sweetness of expression, which transfigured his face, and which his father remembered well as always promising much and performing nothing. “I might spend a lot of time crying over spilt milk, but Julia says I mustn't,”—he glanced across at his wife, whose dark eyes smiled back,—“and what Julia says goes. I intend to spend a year or two doing instead of talking.”
“It will answer better,” remarked his father.
“Yes, sir,” Harry's voice grew still more earnest. “And by that time, perhaps, I can express my regret to you, for things done and things left undone, with more convincingness.”
The older man made a slight gesture of rejection with one well-kept hand. “Let bygones be bygones,” he returned briefly.
“When I think,” pursued Harry, his impulsive manner in strange contrast to that of his listener, “that if I had been behaving myself all this time, I might have seen dear old Lawrence again!”
Mr. Evringham kept silence.
“How are Madge and Eloise? I thought perhaps Madge might come in and meet us at the train.”
“They are in the best of health, thank you. Eh—a—I think if you'll call your daughter now we will go. It's rather a long ride, you know. No express trains at this hour. When you return we will have more of a visit.”
Harry and his wife exchanged a glance. “Why Jewel is asleep,” answered the young man after a pause. “She was so sleepy she couldn't hold her eyes open.”
“You mean you've let her go to bed?” asked Mr. Evringham, with a not very successful attempt to veil his surprise and annoyance.
“Why—yes. We supposed she would see us off, you know.”
“Your memory is rather short, it strikes me,” returned his father. “You sail at eight A.M., I believe. Did you think I could get in from Bel-Air at that hour?”
“No. I thought you would naturally remain in the city over night. You used to stay in rather frequently, didn't you?”
“I've not done so for five years; but you couldn't know that. Is it out of the question to dress the child again? I hope she is too healthy to be disturbed by a trifle like that.”
Mrs. Evringham cast a startled look at her father-in-law. “It would disappoint Jewel very much not to see us off,” she returned.
Mr. Evringham shrugged his shoulders. “Let it go then. Let it go,” he said quickly.
Harry's plain face had grown concerned. “Is Mrs. Forbes with you still?” he asked.
“Oh, yes. I couldn't keep house without Mrs. Forbes. Well,” rising, “if you young people will excuse me, I believe I will go to the club and turn in.”
“Couldn't you stand it here one night, do you think?” asked Harry, rising. “The club is rather far uptown for such an early start.”
“No. I'll be on hand. I'm used to rising early for a canter. I'll take it with a cab horse this time. That will be all the difference.” And with this attempt at jocularity, Mr. Evringham shook hands once more and departed, swallowing his ill-humor as best he could. Any instincts of the family man which might once have reigned in him had long since been inhibited. This episode was a cruel invasion upon his bachelor habits.
Left alone, Harry and his wife without a word ascended to their room and with one accord approached the little bed in the corner where their child lay asleep.
The man took his wife's hand. “I've done it now, Julia,” he said dejectedly. “It's my confounded optimism again.”
“Your optimism is all right,” she returned, smoothing his hand gently, though her heart was beating fast, and the vision of her father-in-law, with his elegant figure and cold eyes, was weighing upon her spirit.
Harry looked long on the plain little sleeping face, so like his own in spite of its exquisite child-coloring, and bending, touched the tossed, straight, flaxen hair.
“We couldn't take her, I suppose?” he asked.
“No,” replied the yearning mother quietly. “We have prayed over it. We must know that all will be right.”
“His bark is worse than his bite,” said Harry doubtfully. “It always was; and Mrs. Forbes is there.”
“You say she is a kind sort of woman?”
“Why, I suppose so,” uncertainly. “I never had much to do with her.”
“And your sister? Isn't it very strange that she didn't come in to meet us? I was so certain I should put Jewel into her hands I feel a little bewildered.”
“You're a trump!” ejaculated Harry hotly, “and you've married into a family where they're scarce. Madge might have met us at the train, at least.”
“Perhaps she is very sad over her loss,” suggested Julia.
“In the best of health. Father said so. Oh well, she never was anything but a big butterfly and Eloise a little one. I remember the last time I saw the child, a pretty fairy with her long pink silk stockings. She must have been just about the age of Jewel.”
The mother stooped over the little bed and the dingy room looked pleasanter for her smile. “Jewel hasn't any pink silk stockings,” she murmured, and kissed the warm rose of the round cheek.
The little girl stirred and opened her eyes, at first vaguely, then with a start.
“Is it time for the boat?” she asked, trying to rise.
Her father smoothed her hair. “No, time to go to sleep again. We're just going to bed. Good-night, Jewel.” He stooped to kiss her, and her arms met around his neck.
“It was an April fool, wasn't it?” she murmured sleepily, and was unconscious again.
The mother hid her face for a moment on her husband's shoulder. “Help me to feel that we're doing right,” she whispered, with a catch in her breath.
“As if I could help you, Julia!” he returned humbly.
“Oh, yes, you can, dear.” She withdrew from his embrace, and going to the dresser, took down her hair. The smiling face of a doll looked up at her from the neighboring chair, where it was sitting bolt upright. Her costume was fresh from the modiste, and her feet, though hopelessly pigeon-toed, were encased in bronze boots of a freshness which caught the dim gaslight with a golden sheen.
Mrs. Evringham smiled through her moist eyes.
“Well, Jewel was sleepy. She forgot to undress Anna Belle,” she said.
Letting her hair fall about her like a veil, she caught up the doll and pressed it to her heart impulsively. “You are going to stay with her, Anna Belle! I envy you, I envy you!” she whispered. An irrepressible tear fell on the sumptuous trimming of the little hat. “Be good to her; comfort her, comfort her, little dolly.” Hastily wiping her eyes, she turned to her husband, still holding the doll. “We shall have to be very careful, Harry, in the morning. If we are harboring one wrong or fearful thought, we must not let Jewel know it.”
“Oh, I wish it were over! I wish the next month were over!” he replied restively.
CHAPTER V
BON VOYAGE
At the dock next morning the scene was one of the usual confusion. The sailing time was drawing near and Mr. Evringham had not appeared.
Harry, with his little girl's hand in his, stood at the foot of the gang plank, peering at every newcomer and growing more anxious every moment. Jewel occupied herself in throwing kisses to her mother, who stood at the rail far above, never taking her eyes from the little figure in the blue sailor suit.
The child noted her father's set lips and the concentrated expression of his eyes.
“If grandpa doesn't come what shall I do?” she asked without anxiety.
“You'll go to England,” was the prompt response.
“Without my trunk!” returned the child in protest.
Her father looked again at the watch he held in his hand. The order to go ashore was sending all visitors down the gang plank. “By George, I guess you're going, too,” he muttered between his teeth, when suddenly his father's tall form came striding through the crowd. Mr. Evringham was carrying a long pasteboard box, and seemed breathless.
“Horse fell down. Devil of a time! Roses for your wife.”
Harry grasped the box, touched his father's hand, kissed the child, and strode up the plank amid the frowns of officials.
Jewel's eager eyes followed him, then, as he disappeared, lifted again to her mother, who smiled and waved her hand to Mr. Evringham. The latter raised his hat and took the occasion to wipe his heated brow. He was irritated through and through. The morning had been a chapter of accidents. Even the roses, which he had ordered the night before, had proved to be the wrong sort.
The suspense of the last fifteen minutes had been a distressing wrong to put upon any man. He had now before him the prospect of caring for a strange child, of taking her out of town at an hour when he should have been coming into it. She would probably cry. Very well; if she did he determined on the instant to ride out to Bel-Air in the smoking car, although he detested its odors and uncleanness. The whole situation was enormous. What a fool he had been, and what an intelligent woman was Mrs. Forbes! She had seen from the first the inappropriateness, the impossibility, of the whole proposition. His attention was attracted to the fact that the small figure at his side was hopping up and down with excitement.
“There's father, there's father!” she cried, as Harry joined his wife at the rail and they lifted the wealth of roses from the box and waved them.
“We've wronged him, Harry!” exclaimed Julia, trying to see the little face below through her misty eyes. “How I love him for bringing me these sweet things! It gives me such a different feeling about him.”
“Oh, father would as soon forget his breakfast as roses for a woman he was seeing off,” returned Harry without enthusiasm, while he waved his hat energetically.
The steamer pulled out. The faces in the crowd mingled and changed places.
“I've lost them, I've lost them!” cried Julia. “Oh, where are they, Harry.”
“Over there near the corner. I can see father. It's all right, dear,” choking a little. “Jewel was skipping and laughing a minute ago. It will only be a few weeks, but confound it,” violently, “next time we'll take her!”
Julia buried her face in the roses, on which twinkled a sudden dew, and tried to gather promise from their sweet breath.
Jewel strained her eyes to follow the now indistinguishable forms on the lofty deck, and her grandfather looked down at the small figure in the sailor suit, the short thick pigtails of flaxen hair tied with large bows of ribbon, and the doll clasped in one arm. At last the child turned her head and looked up, and their eyes met for the first time.
“Jove, she does look like Harry!” muttered Mr. Evringham, and even as he spoke the plain little face was illumined with the smile he knew, that surpassingly sweet smile which promised so much and performed nothing.
The child studied him with open, innocent curiosity.
“I can't believe it's you,” she said at last, in a voice light and winning, a voice as sweet as the smile.
“I don't wonder. I don't quite know myself this morning,” he replied brusquely.
“We have a picture of you, but it's a long-ago one, and I thought by this time you would be old, and—and bent over, you know, the way grandpas are.”
Even in that place of drays and at eight o'clock A.M. these words fell not disagreeably upon irritated ears.
“I think myself Nature did not intend me to be a grandpa,” he replied.
“Oh, yes, you're just the right kind,” returned the child hastily and confidently. “Strong and—and handsome.”
Mr. Evringham looked at her in amazement. “The little rascal!” he thought. “Has she been coached?”
“I suppose we may get away from here now,” he said aloud. “There's nothing more to wait for.”
“Didn't the roses make mother happy?” asked the little girl, trotting along beside his long strides. “I think it was wonderful for you to bring them so early in the morning.”
Mr. Evringham summoned a cab.
“Oh, are we gong in a carriage?” cried Jewel, highly pleased. “But I mustn't forget, grandpa, there's something father told me I must give you the first thing. Will you take Anna Belle a minute, please?” and Mr. Evringham found himself holding the doll fiercely by one leg while small hands worked at the catch of a very new little leather side-bag.
At last Jewel produced a brass square.
“Oh, your trunk check.” Mr. Evringham exchanged the doll for it with alacrity. “Get in.” He held open the cab door.
Jewel obeyed, but not without some misgivings when her guardian so coolly pocketed the check.
“Yes, it's for my trunk,” she replied when her grandfather was beside her and they began rattling over the stones. “I have a checked silk dress,” she added softly, after a pause. It were well to let him know the value of her baggage.
“Have you indeed? How old are you, Julia? Your name is Julia, I believe?”
“Yes, sir, my name's Julia, but so is mother's, and they call me Jewel. I'm nearly nine, grandpa.”
“H'm. Time flies,” was the brief response.
Jewel looked out of the cab window in the noisy silence that followed. At last her voice was raised to sound through the clatter. “I suppose my trunk is somewhere else,” she said suggestively.
“Yes, your trunk will reach home all right, plaid silk and all.”
Jewel smiled, and lifting the doll she let her look out the window upon the uninviting prospect. “Anna Belle's clothes are in the trunk, too,” she added, turning and speaking confidentially.
“Whose?” asked Mr. Evringham, startled. “There's no one else coming, I suppose?”
“Why, this is Anna Belle,” returned the child, laughing and lifting the bisque beauty so that the full radiance of her smile beamed upon her companion. “That's your great-grandfather, dearie, that I've told you about,” she said patronizingly. “We've been so excited the last few days since we knew we were coming,” looking again at Mr. Evringham. “I've told Anna Belle all about beautiful Bel-Air Park, and the big house, and the big trees, and the ravine, and the brook. Isn't it nice,” joyfully, “that it doesn't rain to-day, and we shall see it in the sunshine?”
“Rain would have made it more disagreeable certainly,” returned Mr. Evringham, congratulating himself that he was escaping that further rain of tears which he had dreaded. “It is a good day for your father and mother to set out on their trip,” he added.
“Yes, and they're only to be gone six little weeks,” returned Jewel, smoothing her doll's boa; “and I'm to have this lovely visit, and I'm to write them very often, and they'll write to me, and we shall all be so happy!” Jewel trotted Anna Belle on her short-skirted knee and hummed a tune, which was lost in the rattle of wheels.
“You can read and write, eh?”
“Oh ye—es!” replied the child with amused scorn. “How would I get my lessons if I couldn't read? Of course—big words,” she added conscientiously.
“Precisely,” agreed Mr. Evringham dryly. “Big words, I dare say.”
A sudden thought occurring to his companion, she looked up again.
“You pretty nearly didn't come,” she said, “and just think, if you hadn't I was going to England. Father said so.”
At the sweet inflections of the child's voice Mr. Evringham's brows contracted with remembrance of his wrongs. “I should have come. Your father might have known that!”
“I suppose he wouldn't have liked to leave me sitting on the dock alone, but I should have known you'd come. The funny part is I shouldn't have known you.” Jewel laughed. “I should have kept looking for an old man with white hair and a cane like Grandpa Morris. He's a grandpa in Chicago that I know. He's just as kind as he can be, but he has the queerest back. He goes to our church, but says he came in at the eleventh hour. I think he used to have rheumatism. And while I was sitting there you could have walked right by me.”
“Humph!”
“But then you'd have known me,” went on Jewel, straightening Anna Belle's hat, “so it would have been all right. You'd have known there would be only one little girl waiting there, and you would have said, 'Oh, here you are, Jewel. I've come. I'm your grandpa.'” The child unconsciously mimicked the short, brusque speech.
Mr. Evringham regarded her rather darkly. “Eh? I hope you're not impudent?”
“What's that?” asked Jewel doubtfully.
Her companion's brow grew darker.
“Impudent I say.”
“And what is impudent?”
“Don't you know?” suspiciously.
“No, sir,” replied the child, some anxiety clouding her bright look. “Is it error?”
Mr. Evringham regarded her rather blankly. “It's something you mustn't be,” he replied at last.
Jewel's face cleared. “Oh no, I won't then,” she replied earnestly. “You tell me when I'm—it, because I want to make you happy.”
Mr. Evringham cleared his throat. He felt somewhat embarrassed and was glad they had reached the ferry.
“We're going on a boat, aren't we?” she asked when they had passed through the gate.
“Yes, and we can make this boat if we hurry.” Mr. Evringham suddenly felt a little hand slide into his. Jewel was skipping along beside him to keep up with his long strides, and he glanced down at the bobbing flaxen head with its large ribbon bows, while the impulse to withdraw his hand was thwarted by the closer clinging of the small fingers.
“Father told me about the ferry,” said Jewel with satisfaction, “and you'll show me the statue of Liberty won't you, grandpa? Isn't it a splendid boat? Oh, can we go out close to the water?”
Mr. Evringham sighed heavily. He did not wish to go out close to the water. He wished to sit down in comfort in the cabin and read the paper which he had just taken from a newsboy. It seemed to him a very long time since he had done anything he wished to; but a little hand was pulling eagerly at his, and mechanically he followed out to where the brisk spring wind ruffled the river and assaulted his hat. He jerked his hand from Jewel's to hold it in place.
“Isn't this beautiful!” cried the child joyfully, as the boat steamed on. “Can you do this every day, grandpa?”
“What? Oh yes, yes.”
Something in the tone caused the little girl to look up from her view of the wide water spaces to the grim face above.
“Is there something that makes you sorry, grandpa?” she asked softly.
His eyes were fixed on a ferry boat, black with its human freight, about to pass them on its way to the city.
“I was wishing I were on that boat. That's all.”
The little girl lifted her shoulders. “I don't believe there's room,” she said, looking smilingly for a response from her companion. “I don't believe even Anna Belle could squeeze on. Do you think so?”
Mr. Evringham, holding his hat with one hand, was endeavoring to fetter the lively corners of his newspaper in such shape that he could at least get a glimpse of headlines.
“Oh, I see a statue. Is that it, grandpa? Is that it?”
“What?” vaguely. “Oh yes. The statue of Liberty. Yes, that's it. As if there was any liberty for anybody!” muttered Mr. Evringham into his mustache.
“It isn't so very big,” objected Jewel.
“We're not so very near it.”
“Just think,” gayly, “father and mother are sailing away just the way we are.”
“H'm,” returned Mr. Evringham, trying to read the report of the stock market, and becoming more impatient each instant with the sportive breeze.
“Julia,” he said at last, “I am going into the cabin to read the paper. Will you go in, or do you wish to stay here?”
“May I stay here?”
“Yes,” doubtfully, “I suppose so, if you won't climb on the rail, or—or anything.”
Jewel laughed in gleeful appreciation of the joke. Her grandfather met her blue eyes unsmilingly and vanished.
“I wish grandpa didn't look so sorry,” she thought regretfully. “He is a very important man, grandpa is, and perhaps he has a lot of error to meet and doesn't know how to meet it.”
Watching the dancing waves and constantly calling Anna Belle's attention to some point of interest on the water front or a passing craft, she nevertheless pursued a train of thought concerning her important relative, with the result that when the gong sounded for landing, and Mr. Evringham's impassive countenance reappeared, she met him with concern.
“Doesn't it make you sorry to read the morning paper, grandpa?”
“Sometimes. Depends on the record of the Exchange.” There was somewhat less of the irritation of a newsless man in the morning in the speaker's tone.
“Mother calls the paper the Daily Saddener,” pursued Jewel, again slipping her hand into her grandfather's as a matter of course as they moved slowly off the boat. “I've been thinking that perhaps you're in a hurry to get to business, grandpa.”
The child did not quote his words about the ingoing ferry boat lest he should feel regret at having spoken them.
“Well, there's no use in my being in a hurry this morning,” he returned.
“I was going to ask, couldn't you show me how to go to Bel-Air, so you wouldn't have to take so much time?”
A gleam of hope came into Mr. Evringham's cold eyes and he looked down on his companion doubtfully.
“We have to go out on the train,” he said.
“Yes,” returned the child, “but you could put me on it, and every time it stops I would ask somebody if that was Bel-Air.”
The prospect this offered was very pleasing to the broker.
“You wouldn't be afraid, eh?”
“Be what?” asked Jewel, looking up at him with a certain reproachful surprise.
“You wouldn't, eh?”
“Why, grandpa!”
“Well, I believe it would do well enough, since you don't mind. Zeke is going to meet this train. I'll tell the conductor to see that you get off at Bel-Air, and when you do, ask for Mr. Evringham's coachman. You'll see Zeke, a light-haired man driving a brown horse in a brougham. He'll take you home to his mother, Mrs. Forbes. She is my housekeeper. Now, do you think you'll understand?”
“It sounds very easy,” returned Jewel.
Mr. Evringham's long legs and her short skipping ones lost no time in boarding the train, which they found made up. The relieved man saw the conductor, paid the child's fare, and settled her on the plush seat.
She sat there, contentedly swinging her feet.
“Now I can just catch a boat if I leave you immediately,” said Mr. Evringham consulting his watch. “You've only a little more than five minutes to wait before the train starts.”
“Then hurry, grandpa, I'm all right.”
“Very well. Your fare is paid, and the conductor understands. You might ask somebody, though. Bel-Air, you know. Good-by.”
Hastily he strode down the aisle and left the train. Having to pass the window beside which Jewel sat, he glanced up with a half uneasy memory of how far short of the floor her feet had swung.
She was watching for him. On her lips was the sweet gay smile and—yes, there was no mistake—Anna Belle's countenance was beaming through the glass, and she was wafting kisses to Mr. Evringham from a stiff and chubby hand. The stockbroker grew warm, cleared his throat, lifted his hat, and hurried his pace.
CHAPTER VI
JEWEL'S ARRIVAL
When her grandfather had disappeared, Jewel placed Anna Belle on the seat beside her, where she toed in, in a state of the utmost complacence.
“I have my work to do, Anna Belle,” she said, “and this will be a good time, so don't disturb me till the train starts.” She put her hand over her eyes, and sat motionless as the people met and jostled in the aisle.
Minutes passed, and then some one brushed the child's arm in taking the seat beside her. “Oh, please don't sit on Anna Belle!” she cried suddenly, and looked up into a pair of clear eyes that were regarding her with curiosity.
They belonged to a man with a brown mustache and dark, short, pointed beard, who carried a small square black case and had altogether a very clean, fresh, agreeable appearance.
“Do I look like a person who would sit on Anna Belle?” he asked gravely.
The doll was enthroned upon his knee as he set down his case, and the train started.
“If she annoys you I'll take her,” said Jewel, with a little air of motherliness not lost upon her companion.
“Thank you,” he replied, “but I'm used to children. She looks like a fine, healthy little girl,” keeping his eyes fixed on the doll's rosy cheeks.
“Yes indeed. She's very healthy.”
“Not had measles, or chicken pox, or mumps, or any of those things yet?” pursued the pleasant voice.
“Oh dear!” gasped Jewel. “Please let me take Anna Belle.” She caught her doll into her arms and met her companion's surprised gaze.
“I haven't any of them,” he returned, amused. “Don't be afraid.”
“I'm not afraid,” answered the child promptly. “There is nothing to be afraid of.”
“I was only going to say,” said the young man, “that if she was ailing I could prescribe for her. I have my case right here.”
Jewel's startled look fell to the black case. “What's that! Medicine?” she asked softly.
“It certainly is. So you see you have a doctor handy if anything ails the baby.”
The child gazed at him with grave scrutiny. “Do you believe in materia medica?” she asked.
The young doctor threw back his head and laughed heartily. “Well, yes,” he answered at last. “I am supposed to.”
To his surprise his neighbor returned to the attitude in which he had found her, with one hand over her eyes.
He ceased laughing and looked at her in some discomfiture. Her mouth was set seriously. There was no quiver of the rosy lips.
To his relief, in a minute she dropped her hand and began to hum and arrange her doll's hat.
The conductor approached, and as the doctor presented his ticket, he said, “This little girl's fare is paid, I believe.” The conductor nodded and passed on.
“I'm to get off at Bel-Air,” said Jewel. “I hope he doesn't forget.”
“If he does, I shan't,” said the doctor, “for I'm going to get off there myself.”
The child's eyes brightened. “Isn't that nice!” she returned. Then she lifted Anna Belle and whispered something into her ear.
“No secrets,” said the doctor.
“I was just reminding Anna belle how we are always taken care of,” returned Jewel.
The young man regarded her with increasing interest and curiosity.
“Don't you wonder how I knew that your fare was paid?” he asked.
“How did you?”
“I met Mr. Evringham hurrying through the station. He said his granddaughter was on this train and asked me to look out for a little girl with a doll.”
“Oh,” returned the child, pleased, “then you know grandpa.”
“I've known him ever since I was no bigger than you are. But even then,” added the doctor mentally, “I hadn't supposed him capable of sending this baby out from the city alone.”
Jewel watched the kind eyes attentively. “So you see,” he went on, “all I had to do was to look for Anna Belle.”
“And you nearly sat on her,” declared the child.
“I deny it,” returned the doctor gravely. “I deny it. You weren't looking. For one second I was afraid you were crying.”
“Crying! What would I be crying for, coming to have a lovely visit at grandpa's!”
“I suppose you are in a hurry to see your aunt and cousin?” remarked the doctor.
“Yes, but I don't know them. You see,” explanatorily, “they aren't my real relations.”
“Indeed?”
“No, aunt Madge is my uncle's wife and cousin Eloise is her little girl, but not uncle Lawrence's.”
The doctor thought a minute.
“Really? She is a very charming little girl, is your cousin Eloise. Aren't you going to tell me your name?”
“My name is Jewel.”
“And I am Dr. Ballard, so now we are properly introduced.” He smiled upon her with merry eyes, and she responded politely:—
“I'm very glad you found us.”
Arrived at Bel-Air, the doctor picked up his case and Jewel followed him from the train. He looked about expectantly for Mrs. Evringham or her daughter. They were not there.
The little girl's quick eyes discerned a light-haired driver and a brown horse coming around a curve of the pretty landscape gardening which beautified the station. At the same moment Dr. Ballard recognized the equipage with relief.
“They've sent for you. That is all right,” he said, and 'Zekiel, with one side glance at the little stranger, drew up by the platform.
“Good-morning, Zeke. Here is your passenger.” He lifted Jewel to her place beside the driver, whose smooth, stolid face did not change expression.
“Do I wait for Mr. Evringham?” he asked, without turning his head in its stiff collar.
“No, Mr. Evringham remained in town.”
“Is there a trunk?” pursued Zeke immovably.
“How about your trunk, little one?” asked the doctor.
Jewel produced a paper check. “A man gave grandpa this for it at the boat place.”
“I'll see to having it sent up then.” The doctor looked along the platform. “It didn't come this trip.” He took the child's hand in his. “I shall see you again before long. Good-by.”
Jewel looked after his retreating figure with some regret. Her present companion seemed carved out of wood. His plum-colored livery fitted without a wrinkle. His smooth, solemn face appeared incapable of speech.
The swift horse trotted through the village street at a great pace, and the visitor enjoyed the novel experience so intensely that she could not forbear stealing a look up at the driver's face.
He caught it. “Ain't afraid, are you?” he asked.
She looked doubtful. “Is it error for the horse to go so fast?” she returned.
“Error?” 'Zekiel regarded the child curiously. “Well, I guess it's considered one o' the biggest virtues a horse can have.”
“Then why did you ask me if I was afraid? You're the third person who's asked me that this morning,” returned Jewel, with wondering inflections in her soft voice. “Are New York people afraid of things?”
“Well, not so's you'd notice it as a rule,” returned Zeke. “I'm glad if she ain't one o' the scared kind,” he pursued, as if to himself.
“Oh, this is splendid,” declared Jewel, relieved by her companion's smile; “I don't know as Anna Belle ever had such a good ride. See the trees, dearie! How the leaves are coming out! They aren't nearly so far out in Chicago; but oh,” as the horse turned, “there's a big storm coming! What a black cloud! We're just in time.”
“I don't see any cloud,” said Zeke, staring about.
“Why, right there in front of us,” excitedly, pointing at the long opaque mass against the sky.
“That? Why, that's hills.” Zeke laughed. “The mountain they call it here. Pretty sickly mountain we'd think it was up Berkshire way.”
“Oh, it's a mountain, Anna Belle,” joyfully, “we're really seeing a mountain!”
“No you ain't,” remarked Zeke emphatically. “Not by a large majority. Guess Chicago's some flat, ain't it?”
“We don't have hills, no. So now we're going to see grandpa's park, and the ravine, and the brook, and—and everything!”
Zeke stole a furtive look at the owner of the joyous voice. The voluminous ribbon bows behind her ears were mostly in evidence, as she bent her face over her doll in congratulation.
“Left Mr. Evringham in town, did you?” he asked.
“Yes, he was busy, and in a hurry to get to his office. Grandpa's such an important man.”
“Is he?” asked Zeke.
“Why ye—es! Didn't you know it?”
“I surmised something of the kind. So Dr. Ballard looked after you.”
“Yes,—and I do hope my trunk will come.”
Jewel looked wistfully at the driver. In spite of his stiff and elegant appearance he had been surprisingly affable. “I have a checked silk dress,” she added modestly.
“You don't say so!” ejaculated Zeke, wholly won by the smile bent upon him. “Well, now, if that trunk don't show up by noon, I'll have to do something about it.”
“Oh, thank you!” exclaimed the child.
They now sped through the gates of the park and by the porter's lodge, and began the ascent of a winding road. Handsome residences were set among the fine trees, and at sight of each one Jewel looked expectant and eager.
“I expect mother'll be kind of looking out for us,” continued Zeke. “Poor kid!” he added mentally.
“Grandpa said something about your mother.”
“His housekeeper, Mrs. Forbes.”
“Oh yes, of course I know about Mrs. Forbes,” returned Jewel hastily and politely. “He told me your name too,” she added suggestively.
“Yes, I'm Zeke. And you just remember,” emphatically, “that I come when I'm called. Will you?”
“Yes,” replied the child, laughing a little. “Do you know my name?”
“It's Julia, isn't it?”
“Yes, but if you called me by it perhaps I shouldn't come, for I'm used to the name of Jewel.”
“Pretty name, all right,” returned Zeke sententiously. “Now you can see your grandpa's house. The one with the long porch.”
Jewel jumped up and down a little in the seat and held Anna Belle to get a good view. The brown horse trotted with a will, and in a minute more they had passed up the driveway and paused beneath the porte-cochere.
Mrs. Forbes threw open the door and stood unsmiling.
“Where is Mr. Evringham?” she asked, addressing her son.
“Stayed in town.”
The housekeeper stepped forward and helped down the little girl, who had risen and was looking brightly expectant.
“How do you do, Julia,” she said. “Did you come out alone on the cars?”
“No. Dr. Ballard came with me.”
“Oh, that was the way of it. Zeke, hitch up the brougham. The ladies are going out to lunch.”
“Why didn't they let me know?” grumbled Zeke. “Could have hitched up the brougham just as well in the first place.”
“Don't ask me,” returned his mother acidly. “Where is your bag, Julia? I hope you haven't left it in the train?”
“No, I didn't have any. I used mother's. She knew I'd have my trunk to-night.”
“Then come in and I'll show you where your room is.”
The child looked eagerly and admiringly from side to side as she followed Mrs. Forbes up two flights of broad shallow stairs and into an apartment which to her eyes seemed luxurious.
“Was this ever my father's room?” she asked.
“Why yes, I believe it was,” returned Mrs. Forbes, to whom that circumstance had not before occurred.
“How kind of grandpa to let me have it!” said Jewel, highly pleased.
“He wasn't in it much, your father wasn't. Away at school or some other place mostly. Where's your trunk?”
“It's coming. Zeke said he'd attend to it.” Jewel looked up happily. “I have a”—she was intending to communicate to Mrs. Forbes the exciting detail of her wardrobe when the housekeeper interrupted her.
“My son's name is Ezekiel,” she said impressively.
“Oh,” returned Jewel abashed. “He told me Zeke.” She still stood in the middle of the large white room, Anna Belle in her arms, and with the surprised look in her serious face drew upon herself an unflattering mental comment.
“The image of Harry,” thought Mrs. Forbes.
“Can I see aunt Madge and cousin Eloise?” asked the child, beginning to feel some awe of the large woman regarding her.
“They're getting ready to go out to lunch. They can't be disturbed now. You can sit here, or walk around until lunch time. You'll know when that is ready, because the gong will sound in the hall. Now when you go downstairs be careful not to touch the tall clock on the landing. That is a very valuable chiming clock, and you mustn't open its doors, for fear you would break something. Then if you go into the parlor you must never play on the piano unless you ask somebody, for fear Mr. Evringham might be trying to take a nap just at that time; then you mustn't go into the barn without permission, for it's dangerous where the horses are, and you might get kicked. If you're tired from your journey you can lie down now till lunch time; but whenever you do lie down, be sure to turn off this white spread, for fear you might soil it. Now I'm very busy, and I shan't see you again till lunch.”
Mrs. Forbes departed and Jewel stood for half a minute motionless, feeling rather dazed by a novel sensation of resentment.
“As if we were babies!” she whispered to her doll. “She's the most afraid woman I ever saw, and she looks so sorry! She isn't our relation, so no matter, dearie, what she says. This is father's room, and we can think how he used to run around here when he was a little boy.”
Tiptoeing to the door, Jewel closed it and began to inspect her new apartment.
The sweet smelling soap on the marble stand, the silver mountings of the faucets, the large fine towels, the empty closet and drawers, all looked inviting. Throughout her examination the little girl kept pausing to listen.
Surely aunt Madge and cousin Eloise would look in before they went out to their engagement. Mother had so often said how nice it was that they were there. Surely they didn't know that she had arrived. That was it, of course; and Mrs. Forbes was so sorry and anxious she would probably forget to tell them.
Some altercation was just then going on in the apartments of those ladies.
“We ought to speak to her before we go,” said Mrs. Evringham persuasively. “Father would probably resent it if we didn't.”
“I have told you already,” returned Eloise, “that I do not intend doing one thing henceforward that grandfather could interpret as being done to please him.”
“But that is carrying it ridiculously far, not to greet your cousin, who has come from a journey and is your guest.”
“My guest!” returned the girl derisively. “We are hers more likely. I will not go to her. The sooner grandfather sends us away the better.”
Mrs. Evringham looked worried.
“This is mania, Eloise!” she returned coaxingly. “Very well, I shall go and speak to the child. She shan't be able to tell her grandfather of any rudeness.”
In a few minutes Jewel, sitting by her window, Anna Belle in her lap, heard the frou-frou of skirts in the hall, and with a knock at the door, a lady entered. She was arrayed in a thin black gown and wore a large black hat, that was very becoming.
Jewel's admiration went out to her on the instant and she started up.
The lady swept toward her, and bending, a delicate perfume wafted about Jewel as she felt a light touch of lips on her cheek.
“So this is Julia Evringham,” said the newcomer.
“And you are aunt Madge,” returned the child gladly, clinging to the gloved hand, which endured for a moment, and then firmly disengaged itself.
“Your father and mother got off all right I hope?” went on the airy voice. “I'm always afraid of winds at this season myself, but they may not have them. Your cousin Eloise and I are hurrying away to a luncheon, but we shall see you at dinner. You're very comfortable here? That's right. Good-bye.”
She swept away, and the light again faded from Jewel's face as she went slowly back to her seat.
“Aunt Madge is afraid, too,” she said to the doll. “We know there won't be winds, don't we, dearie? God will take care of father and mother.”
An uncomfortable lump rose towards the child's throat.
Mrs. Evringham followed Eloise into the brougham, smiling.
“It couldn't be better,” she announced with much satisfaction as they drove away.
“What?”
“She is plain—oh, plain as possible. Small eyes, large mouth, insignificant nose. She will never get on with father. He never could endure ugliness in a girl or woman. I have heard him say it was unpardonable. If it hadn't been that we were what we are, Eloise, I should never have dreamed of doing as I have done. Now if only some good fairy would open your eyes to see which side your bread is buttered on! You could do marvels with such a foil for contrast.”