"Most fittingly," commented Mr. Baldwin. "And now, 'Bobs bahadur,' I'm going to wire your mother not to act until she hears from me, and add that you're all right; she must be troubled about you. This warrants our holding off on this first offer." And Mr. Baldwin held up his friend's note in one hand, while with the other he drew a telegraph-blank toward him.
The telegram dispatched, Rob reached for her hat, and began to adjust it as she vainly tried to smooth her turbulent locks.
"What shall I do? Go back to Fayre to-night, or will you tell me which hotel to go to—am I needed here longer?" she asked, thrusting a hatpin through her braid.
"You are needed here, Roberta," said Mr. Baldwin. "My intention is to see certain people who may be interested in your father's invention, and if you really do understand it and can describe it, we can interest them sufficiently to get them to see the models. Can you do this?"
"Patergrey said one day that I could exhibit his invention as well as he could," said Rob, quietly. "That was with the models; describing it might be harder."
"If you can do one, you can do the other sufficiently well to give an idea of what there is to be seen," smiled Mr. Baldwin. "As to a hotel, my little girl, I strongly recommend one kept by a host called Baldwin. It is up in Seventy-third Street, and is fairly comfortable, and quite commodious enough for one person of sixteen. In it there is a landlady who loves such guests, and a girl—the daughter of the landlord and landlady—called Hester Baldwin, who is not rich in sisters as you are—has none, in fact, and who will welcome you as a traveller in the desert welcomes water. So I think there is no doubt that the Baldwin Inn is the best place for you, my dear; but of one thing I am sure—Sylvester Grey's little girl cannot go anywhere else, so make the best of it."
"How good you are, Mr. Baldwin!" cried Rob, gratefully. "How can I ever thank you?"
"By telling my girl all you have told me, and as much more as you can remember, of the little grey house, my dear," replied Mr. Baldwin, helping Rob into her coat.
"There are qualities in that little house and its occupants sadly out of fashion, and I'd like Hester to taste their flavor. She's a good girl, is Hester; she'll see their beauty. And now, come, my dear Rob, you brave little Casabianca; I'm going to take you home to rest and have a good time. But first I'm going to take you to lunch. Upon my word, we've neither of us tasted food! Why, Rob, you must be starving! And see how interested I have been! That's the first time I've forgotten my lunch-hour since I don't know when—probably not since my base-ball days!"
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ITS RESCUE
Rob followed Mr. Baldwin and her suit-case from the Sixth Avenue elevated station at Seventy-second Street northward a block, and then westward two blocks on Seventy-third Street, followed hanging back a little, and dreading the encounter with his wife and daughter which lay before her. But Mr. Baldwin drew her up the steps close to his side, with a reassuring gesture of protection, and before he could get his key fully into the lock, the door flew open, and a beautiful little woman, exquisitely gowned, stood before them, while over her shoulder peered a girl of Rob's age, but taller than she was.
"I am glad you came straight to us, my dear," said Mrs. Baldwin, with such quiet sincerity and informality that Rob drew a long breath of relief. "I am sure you are too tired to be as glad to see us as we are to see you, though. Hester, this is Roberta; take her to her room, and don't let Virginie bother her—you must be her maid to-night. Hester is delighted to have you here, my dear."
Rob returned the sweet woman's welcoming kiss with all the gratitude of her lonely, timid heart, and laid her hand in Hester Baldwin's. The two girls gave each other a penetrating look, and then moved at the same instant to kiss each other, as if the scrutiny had been mutually satisfactory. Hester was not pretty, but she had a keenly intelligent face, and one could see that she was going to make a noble-looking woman.
"We shall dine in half an hour," she said, in a rich alto voice. "Come with me, and I'll help you get ready. The maid will bring your case," she added, as Rob, accustomed to wait on herself, lifted and hastily set down, at Hester's suggestion, her former burden.
"We were pleased when father telephoned that he was bringing you here," Hester continued. "It is very nice to have a girl about; I never had an intimate friend, because I never went to school, and that separates a girl a good deal from others—makes her not fit in when she is with them. Father said you had lots to tell me that was wonderful, all about your beautiful life, and your little grey house, and that you weren't like the general run of girls of our age either. Please try to like me—father wants you to; I can see that."
"See it over the telephone?" laughed Rob, rather embarrassed by this appeal. "I'd do harder things for your father than that, after to-day! He has been heavenly kind, and made me believe I have been right, and brave, and wise when I was half frightened to death lest my obstinacy had ruined my family."
"That sounds mysterious, and positively thrilling," Hester declared. "But as to father, he is fine—you can't imagine how I love him!"
"Yes, I can," said Rob, with a quiver in her voice that brought a flush to Hester's cheeks.
"Oh, I beg your pardon—I didn't mean to speak of father to you," she cried. "But he told me you had been your father's comfort and help, and were now the only one to understand and fulfil his desires—save his reputation, I think he said. Now, maybe you are more fortunate than I, for I am no use at all, and I never shall do anything for my father in all my life, probably. I think that is worse than your sorrow."
"You can't help doing for him if you love him," said Rob, rather at a loss to answer this morbid speech, yet recognizing the tactful kindness prompting it. "It is all he wants, to know that you are good and love him. Patergrey loved my love for him more than my help on the machine. But it does comfort me to know I did help, and if your father really thinks I'm saving the day for dear Patergrey's invention now I shall almost learn after a while not to be sorry, but half glad that he is happy, and that I did something for him when he couldn't do it himself."
"Oh, yes," cried Hester, with conviction. "I think I shouldn't feel badly if I were you—I don't mean I shouldn't miss him, but you have been your father's comfort. It is perfectly dreadful to be of no use."
"Everybody is of use, I guess," said Rob. "And the best ones don't know it. What a lovely room!"
"Is it?" said Hester. "I don't care much for it—I'd like a little house in the country. I think maybe I shall go into a college settlement when I'm old enough."
"Dear me," thought Rob, "what a queer girl! She ought to do housework, and bother about money for a while, and then she'd find out!" But she only said: "You'd like the little grey house, then. It's old-fashioned, and not a bit handsome, but it is dear, and Fayre is a small place—country enough."
"How pretty it is, calling the house 'the little grey house'! It is because your name is Grey, isn't it?" asked Hester.
"Both reasons—we're Grey, and the house is all time-and-weather-stained grey, too," Rob answered, shaking her hair out over the dressing-sacque Hester laid over her shoulders. "I haven't anything to put on, except clean collars and cuffs."
"It doesn't matter; we're alone, and black is always full dress and full undress," said Hester. "If I had your hair I shouldn't care about dresses. Are your sisters pretty, too?"
"They are very pretty. Wythie—Oswyth—is older than I, a year, and she's just sweetness—looks, and character, and all. And Prue, the youngest, is a beauty," said Rob, proudly.
"To think of having two sisters!" sighed Hester, laying out Rob's fresh little hemstitched "turnover" collar.
At dinner Rob's shyness returned, but the Baldwins were most kind, and spared her the necessity of more conversation than was required to make her feel thoroughly welcome. The beautifully appointed dining-room, the perfect service, brought before Rob's eyes in a new light the little grey house, the patient cheerfulness of the dear Grey Mardy through all the past years of drudgery and petty economies, the perfect breeding of the mistress of the little house, and the careful training of its daughters, in spite of adverse circumstances. For the first time Rob realized the difference between wealth and poverty, and that there were hundreds of people who had never felt the wheels of life jar. And for the first time, though she had always worshipped her mother, she fully realized what that hidden, unselfish life had accomplished in keeping life in the little grey house on the plane on which she and Wythie and Prue had been taught to live and think. She caught her breath in a wordless prayer that her mission might not be vain, and that, in the midst of grief, her brave mother might be set free of her long struggle.
Mr. Baldwin and his wife left the girls to themselves after dinner, sitting across the room from their elders, and soon Rob was telling Hester, with more detail and far more humor than she had shown her father, all that there was to tell of Fayre, the river, the little grey house, the Rutherfords and Frances, Cousin Peace and Aunt Azraella, Kiku-san, Wythie and Prue, her mother, their queer adventures in economy, her story-telling, Mr. Flinders and Polly, and all the sorrows and joys which she saw, from this distance and in this beautiful home, in a totally new and impersonal light.
Hester went off into such peals of laughter that she grew hysterical, and her father and mother came over to share the fun. Rob did not mind them; she had got so excited over her own narrative, and so interested in it, that she could have told the story to the President.
"Why, it's like the nicest sort of a girls' story, Rob," cried Hester. "How perfectly lovely to live such adventures! And here am I all alone!"
"And here are you seeing plays, studying whatever you like, going to concerts, and doing all kinds of things!" retorted Rob. "It's funny enough to tell, but let me assure you, Miss Hester Baldwin, there are times when the mercury gets pretty low in the little grey house."
"It's going to climb, and stay up," said Mr. Baldwin. "And now, Hester, take Rob to bed—she is more tired than she realizes. And to-morrow, while I set in motion the wheels which are to prove the wheel of fortune to her, you show Rob all of New York you can crowd into a day. I suppose we mustn't try to keep you a moment longer than can be helped, Bobs bahadur?"
"No, please, Mr. Baldwin," said Rob. "I should be happy here, and you are all only too good to me, but they are troubled at home, and need me."
"I can believe they need you, my dear, in joy or sorrow," said Mrs. Baldwin, affectionately giving Rob her good-night kiss.
"Oh, you're up, are you, Rob?" cried Hester, trailing into Rob's room in her pale blue, eiderdown wrapper. "I came to call you. If you're strong enough, I'm going to take you from Dan to Beersheba to-day—or at least from Nellie to Columbia. Nellie's the seal down in the Aquarium, and——"
"Please, Hester, don't tell me Columbia is the college, because even in Fayre we've heard of Columbia College," interrupted Rob. "I'm strong, and shall be ready soon."
Hester was an energetic and resolute young person. She had set out to show Rob New York, and she rushed from one end to the other of the long-drawn city until Rob cried her mercy. "It's a whirl of a Battery, with imaginary old Dutchmen airing themselves by the harbor waves, and high buildings, as modern as a minute ago, and rattling trolleys, and rising elevated roads bending around dizzy curves, and splendid college libraries, and impressive tombs overlooking the Palisades, and guarding soldiers' ashes and tattered flags, and swarming Harlem flats, and gorgeous Fifth Avenue mansions, and cathedral spires," Rob said at last, sinking wearily down on a seat before the entrance to the Art Museum. "I can't go in, Hester, not if all the pictures in Europe and Michelangelo's Moses are in there. I didn't think I should give out, but let's risk New York and I meeting again, and finishing up. If we don't, I know one of us will be finished up this time for good."
So Hester reluctantly postponed exhibiting the remainder of her city's glories, and took home a thoroughly tired Rob. They found Mr. Baldwin had come home early, and was waiting them impatiently.
"Rob," he cried. "I've great news for you. I have found the very concern which is most interested in bricquette machines, and most ready to purchase the best thing of the sort on the market. They told me to-day that, on general principles, if the concern represented by Mr. Marston would give four thousand dollars for your father's invention, it would be worth not less than ten thousand to them. I am to take you to see them in the morning, and their representative will probably follow you to Fayre in a few days. At least, you see, we have undoubtedly gained a great deal by waiting, and you are already justified in your wisdom."
Rob turned pale. "You don't know how frightened I have been. Do you think I can go home to-morrow?" she said.
"So tired of us?" suggested Mr. Baldwin, lifting the quivering face by its chin.
"So anxious to get back, because I know how they want me," said Rob, simply. "And just now I cannot stay away from the little grey house. But please don't think me dreadful—I never could tell you how I feel about your kindness. Some day, if Hester will come to the little grey house, all the Greys will try to give her the best time that small edifice can hold."
"We understand, Rob, and I'm coming, just as you're coming back here, for we're going to be friends forever," said Hester.
"And as to kindness," added Mr. Baldwin, "Sylvester sent you to me, and I only do what he would do for my girl, if the case were reversed."
In the morning Rob left the house which she had dreaded to enter, feeling that the beautiful woman who was its mistress, and the tall girl with her vague dissatisfactions, but ready affection, who had proved a friend at sight, were something that had been part of her life for years, instead of less than forty-eight hours. She went away as she had come, with Mr. Baldwin and her suit-case, for she meant to go back to Fayre as soon as this formidable interview before her was over, but she went reluctantly, and at the corner, when she turned back to wave her hand a last time to Hester and her mother, watching her depart, she could scarcely see them for the tears she was trying to hide from Mr. Baldwin.
Mr. Baldwin took Rob to his office to rid themselves of her cumbersome case, and at once carried her off again to meet the possible purchasers of the invention.
"Stop fluttering, Robin Redbreast," said Mr. Baldwin, feeling the girl's heart palpitating against the arm through which he had drawn her left one, tucking her up protectingly.
"Oh, that's what Cousin Peace calls me!" cried Rob. And the home pet-name helped to steady her.
"They won't devour robins, my dear, and they won't be too business-like with a slip of a sixteenyear-old girl, so don't be frightened. Just tell them as clearly as you can your recollections of the construction and working of your father's invention, and for his sake, and the dear Mardy's and the girls', do your best."
"I will," said Rob, bracing herself, as Mr. Baldwin felt sure she would. "But I feel so incompetent and ridiculous."
Everything swam before Rob's eyes as Mr. Baldwin opened a door and ushered her into an office where she dimly perceived three or four gentlemen, and solid mahogany desks and chairs. Into one of the latter she felt herself sink, as someone placed it for her, while Mr. Baldwin presented her in words that seemed to be intended to set her at her ease, but which she hardly heard.
Just what happened first Rob never knew, but she found the oldest of these solid, business-like personages asking her questions, and heard her own voice answering as from afar. Then before her eyes flashed a vision. She saw the wainscoted room at home, and her father—Patergrey—bending his thin form over the models, and saying: "You could explain this as well as I could myself, Rob, my son." And now there was none else to do it—she was acting for Patergrey, saving the work of his life from being lost. She felt as though his wistful eyes were upon her, and she knew that she must not fail him. With that vision fear left her. Straightening herself, she leaned slightly forward in her chair, and said, with a new note of confidence in her voice—confidence in herself and in the machine she had come to explain: "I think, sir, if you please, I can tell you better just how the machine is built and how it works, if you will let me describe it in my own way. If I do not make it clear to you, you will stop me, please, and ask me to explain fully."
The big man with the iron-grey hair stared at this sudden transformation, but Mr. Baldwin understood, with instinctive sympathy, something of what had passed in Rob's mind, and he felt a lump come into his throat as he realized how bravely and loyally Rob loved her father.
Without a moment's hesitation Roberta began her description. Forgetting herself more and more in the interest of her own words, seeing not the stately New York office, but the low-ceiled, dear old wainscoted workroom at home, she rose to her feet, illustrating what she said with articles borrowed from the desk and table before her. Her eyes were dilating and flashing, her color went and came, her voice trembled, but words never failed her, even technical words unconsciously retained from hearing her father use them, words which she could not have used except under the exaltation of her mood and motive.
No one interrupted her; she told her story quite to the end, not noticing the silence in which they heard her. When she ended, and had dropped back into her big chair, her audience stirred. "You are a wonderful young girl, Miss Grey," said the gentleman, who evidently was the person most concerned in the matter. "Your father was singularly fortunate in such a daughter and assistant. We have perfectly understood your description. The invention has important advantageous points of difference from any machine on the market intended for this purpose. I am speaking within bounds in saying that our firm will certainly purchase it, if you will sell to us, and that we shall certainly offer you a fair price, dealing honestly with you. The offer you have received was so dishonest that it is a pity there is no law punishing a rascal for making it, trying to take advantage of women in their new sorrow. We will, by your permission, go to Fayre to see your models, and will then lay before you the offer upon which we will, in the meantime, decide. I can only repeat, Miss Grey, that we want the machine."
Rob arose, trembling in every limb. "If you will send me word when you're coming, I'll meet you at the station; Fayre is rather crooked," she said, faintly.
The gentlemen smiled, and Mr. Baldwin drew Rob's arm through his again, and patted her hand as though she had been Hester.
"Not a bad little girl, is she?" he said, proudly. "You see, she has done her best, and now longs to run away. I am obliged to you for your courtesy, gentlemen, and so is Miss Roberta."
"Oh, yes; thank you ever so much for listening to me," said poor Rob, wondering if she were going to be able to get out of that office without crying like a baby.
"It has been the pleasantest, most interesting, most exceptional business interview I ever had, my dear young lady," said the old gentleman. "I shall go to Fayre myself, for I should like to see your mother. Good-morning, and I shall be obliged to you if you will consider the invention mine until you have refused my offer for it."
"Yes, sir," said Rob, and Mr. Baldwin, to her intense relief, bore her away.
"Not another night, dear little Robin?" hinted Mr. Baldwin. "Couldn't you, wouldn't you, telegraph your mother, and come back with me to gladden Mrs. Baldwin and Hester's eyes with the sight of you, and their hearts with our good news?"
"Oh, no; please not this time, dear, kind Mr. Baldwin," cried Rob. "Don't you see how I must ache to get back? It was such a dreadful thing to do, and now it's done, I must go home to my little grey house and blessed Grey people."
"I know you must—you shall," said Mr. Baldwin. "I'll take you to lunch, and then put you on the train myself, and speed you away to Fayre."
At the Grand Central Station Mr. Baldwin established Rob in luxury in the parlor-car, and held her hands fast. "I can't tell you how glad I am you have come into our lives, Robin Bobs bahadur," he said. "You shall not slip out again, I promise you."
"Wait till you see Wythie and Prue," said Rob, smiling through her tears.
"Rob will do for me," said Mr. Baldwin, and, stooping, kissed her cheek, "for her dear father, and for herself," he added, kissing the other. And so, victorious, and with new friends, Rob set out on the journey back to Fayre.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
ITS LIBERATION
Rob watched the fields which bordered Fayre, and the splendid, bare-boughed elms fly past the window against which she pressed her face, eager for the first glimpse of the station. It seemed to her that she had been gone for months; she wondered at finding them the same fields and the same elms which she had seen on her departure—another Rob was returning to them, who, she vaguely felt, must be welcomed by changes in the surroundings of her childhood corresponding to those within herself.
There was no one to meet her at the station; she had been too uncertain of her return to announce it, and, leaving her single, but insistent, piece of baggage at the station, she hurried to the little grey house.
She opened the door and came in quietly, yet not so quietly but that Prue heard her step, and came tumbling out of the sitting-room, crying: "Rob, Rob! Rob's come!" in an ecstasy of joyous excitement.
Wythie nearly tripped up her mother in her haste to follow Prue, but Rob brushed past them both, throwing her arms around her darling Mardy, and hugging her close, crying with joy at getting back to her, and for grief of the loneliness of finding her in her widow's black.
"Rob, my dear, precious girl, I'm so thankful you're here I can't care how your mission ended," cried Mrs. Grey, holding Rob off at arm's length to see her better, and folding her closer than before. "I have seen you crushed by trolleys, lost, weary, frightened, till I could not forgive myself for letting you go."
"Dear Mardy-goosie, you see I'm all right, and you'd better care how my mission ended, for it's worth caring about," cried Rob. "You see I didn't come home on my shield, so maybe you can guess who's the victor."
"Rob, have you good news?" cried Wythie.
"I have a lovely old gentleman coming up here to see the invention, and he is positively going to make an offer for it, but he couldn't tell how much it would be. The only thing he could say was that it would be considerably more than Mr. Marston's offer," said Rob, busying herself with her coat-buttons, and trying to speak demurely.
"You splendid, splendid Rob!" cried Prue, throwing herself on her sister's neck in a rapture.
"That's because I succeeded; if I'd failed, and sticking to my guns had lost us the first offer, without getting a second one, you'd hardly have forgiven me, Prudy. I begin to see why this is called an unjust world," said Rob, wisely. "But I'm ravenous, dear folkses—can't you feed a poor wanderer, while she tells her story?"
"Rob, dear, we are devouring you so hard with our eyes and ears and hearts we forget how tired you must be!" exclaimed Wythie, self-reproachfully. "We made some fresh gingerbread, in case of company from the metropolis, and we've some freshest fresh eggs from Mr. Flinders to-day—you shall not starve long, dearie." Wythie felt as though her sister were undefinably changed by this short absence, and was half afraid that Rob was growing up.
"And little Polly Flinders?" asked Rob. "How's the poor mite?"
"Wonderfully well; she begged to be allowed to stay up to see if you wouldn't come to-night," smiled Mrs. Grey.
"Let me go get her; it won't hurt her to bring her down, wrapped up in her gown. She'll like to hear me tell my story, even if she doesn't understand much about it." And without waiting for an objection Rob disappeared, and came back quickly, bearing a sleepy but happy Polly done up in a scarlet dressing-gown, who was fondling her face as she carried her, and whom she deposited in a dining-room chair, tucking her feet up well in the wrapper before she took the place Wythie and Prue had hastily prepared for her at the old table.
"How thankful I am this mahogany didn't go!" sighed Rob. "We're going to be prosperous Greys henceforth, though I don't know yet the extent of our riches. Now, sit ye down, my bonny, bonny lassies, Mardy, Wythie, and Prue, and I will sing the adventures of Roberta the Bold in the Great City of Gotham. No, I don't want any more bread than this, Mardy, but if I did I'd get it—please sit down and listen."
Prue pulled up a chair, and leaned on her elbows well over toward the middle of the table, drawing a long breath of contented yet impatient interest. Wythie placed her chair close to Rob's side, and laid her arm over her sister's shoulders, while the mother Grey took her favorite low rocker, and folded her hands, looking with eyes warm with love and moist with tender, proud tears at her husband's "son Rob," as she told the story of her defence of his invention.
"And that's all," ended Rob, at last, having related every incident of her visit, from her bewilderment as she left the station, and the big policeman's kindness, to Mr. Baldwin's fatherly parting from her in the Grand Central. "I did hold out against you all not to take the offer, but nothing else is due to me. It is all that blessed Mr. Baldwin, and I only hope I can some day make him understand how grateful I am—and to his sweet wife and Hester, too; they were like—well, you can't say like one's own kindred, for they were more thoughtful and loving to me than some of our kindred are."
"But my brave Rob did it all, none the less," said her mother. "I can't thank her for her loyal courage, but I hope her Patergrey can do it for me." And she kissed Rob with a long, clinging kiss that the girl, happy through her tears, felt was not from her mother only.
Polly fell asleep again as Rob talked, and when the triumphant traveller's repast was over, and Prue had volunteered to clear away the reminders, as if, for the first time in her life, she welcomed the chance to serve Rob, the little grey house was closed for the night, and lights appeared in its low upper windows, for Mrs. Grey insisted that tired Rob must be got to bed.
It took a long time getting there, however; Prue flitted in and out of her sisters' room, not to be deprived of any part of the steady flow of talk going on there, for the mere telling of facts is never all of any story worth telling. Long after Prue had reluctantly subsided, the "ss-ss-s" of whispering drifted out in the darkness from Wythie and Rob's bed, but finally they whispered themselves to sleep, and silence rested over the little grey house which its brave daughter had saved.
Breakfast was scarcely over, when Polly, wiping dishes, announced: "Here's father!" and the Greys saw Mr. Flinders approaching, his right hand bearing a yellow envelope, held with the handle of a large basket tightly grasped, and his face bearing a most unwonted smile. "I come to see Roberta—Mr. Abbit, down to the depot, said you'd got back—and my wife she said she thought you'd like some 'f her jelly," said Mr. Flinders. "She said she'd like to know if Polly wasn't about ready to come home."
Polly looked doubtful. "I'd like to come, if Rob wasn't here," she said.
"I'll go away, Pollykins, go away again, if you say so," smiled Rob. "I think she's well now—don't you, Mardy? Perhaps you ought to go see your mother, dear. She's lonely with no little Polly Flinders among her cinders."
"Polly is quite welcome, Mr. Flinders," said Mrs. Grey, "but if you need her I think she is well enough to be dismissed from our little grey hospital."
Farmer Flinders shuffled his feet uneasily. "She said I'd ought to tell you, but I d' know's I know how," he began, embarrassed. "We're a good deal obliged to you for all you've done for Maimie, an' I can see my way to carryin' on this place on equal shares next summer, countin' from now. I guess half 'll be 'bout what I'll take in the future, 'stead of two-thirds."
"That's very good of you, Mr. Flinders!" cried Mrs. Grey, appreciating the sacrifice this offer cost. "Come next week, and we'll talk about accepting your proposition. We hope the Greys may be much better off by that time. Roberta has been to New York in reference to her father's patent, and we believe it is going to prove very valuable; we are waiting for news of its purchase now." Poor Mrs. Grey was not guileless in thus taking Farmer Flinders into her confidence. She knew that he would set afloat rumors of Sylvester Grey's posthumous success, and she was impatient for tardy justice to be done her husband.
"I want to know!" exclaimed Mr. Flinders now, opening his eyes to their widest. "And that's what Roberta went away for—we was wonderin'. Very valuable, is it? I want to know! And Roberta went to attend to it! She's young for such business, seems's if! Still, she's al'ays been smart, Roberta has. Well, I'm sure I'm glad; you do deserve it. Sho! I've got a telegraph for you in my hand this minute! Here 'tis; I forgot it. I guess I'll be goin'. I'm comin' for Maimie on Saturday, so you be ready, Maimie. I sh'd think you'd want to see your folks. Hope the telegraph is good news; you do deserve it." And Mr. Flinders tore himself away—to spread the tidings of the Greys' approaching prosperity, Mrs. Grey felt contentedly sure.
Wythie had torn open the telegram. "Will be in Fayre on ten-ten from New York on Thursday," she read. "It's signed William Armstrong; is that any of the gentlemen you saw, Rob?"
"It's one of them," cried Rob, eagerly seizing the telegram from Wythie's hand. "It's the old gentleman, and he's coming to-morrow! Oh, Mardy and other girls, don't you hope it will be all right?"
"What will be all right? Hallo, Rob! We heard you were back, and we came to see the city polish you had acquired," cried Bruce. Battalion B had come in the front way unheard.
"Oh, hallo, nice big boys," cried Rob, turning to meet them with outstretched hands and her most April face. "I didn't get much polish in two days, I fear me, but I think and hope I got what I went for."
"Of course you did! We knew what would happen!" cried Basil. "We're going down to get your bag—our bag! We're anxious about it, so we're going to bring it up. Abbott told us you left it with him. And we're going to take you with us to identify us, so get your hat and come along, and on the way you can tell us all that you and Gotham did to each other."
"I suppose I might go to market with these foolish but spotless giraffes, Mardy," said Rob.
"Come with the giraffes, you little brown deer," remarked Bruce, in an undertone.
"And order something special for luncheon to-morrow when Mr. Armstrong is here," continued Rob, ignoring Bruce.
"Run along, Robin, and get ready while Wythie and I make out our list for you," said Mrs. Grey, with a brighter smile than her face had worn since the little grey house had lost its master.
Mr. Armstrong had come and gone. Roberta had taken him into the wainscoted room, and while her mother and Wythie listened in wondering admiration, showed their guest the working of the models, explaining each part, and making clear, through her memory of her dear Patergrey's words, that which none other of the family had understood.
A strange half-consciousness took possession of Rob as she talked—she imagined that it was not she herself, not young Rob Grey speaking, but that she was the mouth-piece for the wistful eyes so often raised to hers in that old room, and that Sylvester Grey spoke through her. As in the office in New York, her self-diffidence dropped from her, and she performed her part, absorbed in doing well her father's commission. Mr. Armstrong, as before, had listened silently, but now he was gone, and the Greys sat around the old mahogany dining-table, gazing, awestruck and motionless at the slip of paper lying on it. It was Mr. Armstrong's check for fifty thousand dollars.
The bricquette machine was sold, the arrangements made for packing and shipping the models to its owner, and the result of Sylvester Grey's "dreaming"—securing peace and plenty to his family—lay, radiating hope and joy to his wife and daughters, on the old table where once the baby Sylvester had sat by his father's side.
"I never expected to see so much money in all my life," said Prue, speaking first, and sighing like one awakening from a dream.
"Oh, if only your dear, hard-working, misunderstood father could have known!" cried Mrs. Grey, dropping her head beside the check, her whole frame shaken by sobs.
Wythie arose and laid her own head softly on the heaving shoulder. "Mardy, Mardy darling, we will be quite sure that he does know; we will believe he helped Rob stand firm against us all, and win us this great good—we say we believe in the communion of saints, and we will be quite, quite sure that dear papa has this joy, with all the rest," she whispered, her sweet face kindled into rapture, though her tears fell fast.
Rob leaned across and took her mother's hand. "This has done something wonderful for me, Mardy," she said, slowly. "I don't know that I can explain, but it seems to me that all his dear, pathetic, dreaming life Patergrey was but partly alive, and that now he is living, truly living, and his life is complete. I feel as though he had come back to us."
The door opened, and Aunt Azraella entered, stopping short, as she saw the group around the table. "For pity's sake, Mary," she cried, "has something else bad happened to you? I've only just got back, and I have been frantic to hear how Roberta came out. I suppose you've lost that offer, and see now how right I was. Well, I warned you."
"Rob has saved us, Azraella," said Mrs. Grey, raising her head quickly—Aunt Azraella had the gift of drying tears. "Look at this."
Aunt Azraella took the magic slip of paper her sister-in-law handed her. She nearly dropped it, and fell into a chair herself as she scanned it, catching her breath in the magnitude of her surprise.
"Fifty thousand dollars! A check for fifty thousand! Mary, tell me this instant what this means," she gasped.
"It means that our brave, wise Roberta was right; that the first offer was a dishonest one, and that through the old college mate of Sylvester's, the lawyer, to whom he was to have written himself for advice, Rob was brought to honest men, who have given us the real value of the patent," said Mrs. Grey. "It means that we are rich, Azraella, and that in the midst of our sorrow we have been freed from the corroding anxiety of poverty. And we owe it to Sylvester's years of visionary, impractical dreaming, which you so denounced, and to brave Rob's good judgment and firm purpose."
For once Mrs. Winslow was silenced. At last she rallied. "It's more than wonderful, Mary," she said, "but who in the world could have foreseen it? Of course, I'm perfectly delighted. Roberta, I am truly surprised at you; I didn't think you had it in you. But I congratulate you, child, and I'm proud of you. There's nothing in all this world much better to have than a keen business sense, and judgment to know when you're right and to stick to it. I am proud of you. What are you going to do with the money, Mary? It's most important to invest it properly."
"It will go to Mr. Baldwin, and he will invest it for us—he wrote me, offering to do this, yesterday," Mrs. Grey began, but Rob interrupted her with a glad cry.
"Oh, Aunt Azraella, what do you think we are going to do? Right away—a check for it has already gone to the bank, for we received two thousand more than this big check."
"Put up a fine stone to your father's memory," replied Mrs. Winslow, with a characteristic guess.
"No, no—oh, no," cried Wythie, hastily, while Rob said: "Don't you see what it is? It is already practically done. We have paid the mortgage on the little grey house, and the dearest little old home in the world is all our own, free and all our own, once more. We shall get the papers in the morning."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
ITS SUNSHINE
The long winter was past, and Fayre lay basking in the warmth of May. The little river reflected the bright green of its newly clad willows, through which gleams of sunshine, too warm for mortals, rejoiced the minnows darting through the shallows. The air was sweet with blossoms and tender verdure, and the song-birds filled it with rejoicing. It was impossible to be sad on such a day, and Wythie, Rob, and Prue, standing in the doorway of the little grey house, absorbing the beauty through every sense, felt their pulses thrill with young joy in living, like the May's.
The little grey house modestly announced to all the world that its winter, too, was over and gone. Newly painted in its own soft grey, the lawn with which its daughters had once vainly struggled, smooth shaven by skilful hands, flowers, once beyond its reach in the strict economy of its finances, now flaming gayly against its low walls, all spoke of the prosperity with which its last son had endowed it.
No great changes had been made in the beloved little home—too well beloved as it was to admit of them—but it had been made beautiful on its own simple lines, and the girls could hardly help feeling it knew and was glad of its physical well-being. And these girls, too, showed the bettering of their lives in many subtle small ways. Wythie's fresh prettiness was blooming in the brightness it was intended to wear, Rob's variable face was losing its strained look, and Prue's beauty was unspoiled by the discontented expression it had too often worn. Pretty, fresh white gowns, with their black ribbons fluttered by the May wind, were reminders of a loss which was fast growing to be rather a tender memory than a poignant regret. For sorrow of the higher sort brings with it heights of thought and consolations with which to bear it, but the daily struggle to live, the petty cares and vain effort to make too little suffice, eats out heart and brain, with no uplifting to render it endurable.
From their cradle the Grey girls had fought this fight, and won in it nobly, but now that it was over, and an income which to them was abundant was assured them, they drew a long breath, casting off sordid frets forever, and began to expand as nature had meant them to, into light-hearted young creatures, full of their own May-time.
Seeing them happier, and relieved herself of her hard burden, Mrs. Grey, too, was learning to bear her loss, and give herself up to her hard-earned rest and to her girls' petting, with her anxious mental strain relaxed. It was a day of peace, and, to complete it, "Cousin Peace" was coming to spend it with them.
For the first time in years the little grey house was awaiting guests. The Baldwins, all three, were coming from New York to see the house and its inmates which they had been so fortunate in befriending, and Rob burned to make the occasion some approximate expression of her gratitude, and some return for their hospitality to her.
She and Oswyth and Prue were waiting for Battalion B and Frances to go to the woods after dogwood with which to turn the little grey house into a bower, and as they waited on the step Miss Charlotte came.
"Come in, dear Cousin Peace," cried Wythie, kissing her lovingly as soon as Rob gave her a chance. "Mardy is upstairs resting and writing letters. I wonder how long it will take us to get used to the luxury—the unspeakable delight—of seeing Mardy rest, and knowing that Lydia is in the kitchen doing the work!"
"Blackening the stove particularly," added Rob. "I find now that, on the whole, I hated most of all to blacken the stove."
"Well, I find that what I hated most was what I happened to be doing," remarked Prue.
"You're not to think that we are living in idleness, Cousin Peace," Wythie said, as they led the gentle Cousin Charlotte into the house. "There's only one of Lydia, and one person can't do it all, but it is such a relief to have 'help'!"
"There's enough to be done in any house; I understand, lassies," said Miss Charlotte. "But you were tired lassies, and I am more glad than you know to see your burdens lifted—still more glad for your mother, because I know how happy Sylvester would be—is—to see her resting."
"Oh, I know that, too, Cousin Peace!" cried Rob. "I know how Patergrey felt about 'pretty Mary Winslow,' as he called her to me, having had a hard life because she married him. I'm beginning almost to be glad—though I miss him most of us all—that he won his fight just as he did; I know he would have chosen it so."
"And I'm beginning to feel as though he had not gone away at all," said Wythie, softly; "as though all this comfort and greater ease were he himself, his love and presence around us, and that in having it we had him. I can't explain, but it is such a comfort!"
"I can understand that, dear Wythie," said Cousin Peace.
"Aunt Azraella is coming over to luncheon, and to teach Lydia her famous short-cake," said Rob, after a little pause, as they halted before their mother's door. "She does make wonderful strawberry short-cake, and we are going to stun the Baldwins with it. And she's quite a different Aunt Azraella. She has such a respect for bonds and stocks and coupons, and such little appurtenances, that she regards us through the rose-colored glasses of an invested fifty thousand dollars. She never criticises us—you see we can afford to do what we please—and her respectful manner to me beggars description. Oswyth is nowhere now; flighty Roberta is her favorite niece, all because of my obstinacy and defiance of her opinion! But I stand for the source of gold, and she regards me no longer as fighting 'Bobs,' but as a sort of Kimberley."
"Oh, Rob!" exclaimed Wythie, "don't hunt for motives! It's so much pleasanter to take people at their face value, when it doesn't matter. And Aunt Azraella is really quite nice now, Cousin Peace."
She opened her mother's chamber-door as she spoke, and Mrs. Grey sprang from her big chair to fold in a close embrace her husband's nearest of kin and most of kind.
"Try to bear up under the infliction, Mardy," said incorrigible Rob. "We know you are afflicted when Cousin Peace comes, but don't let her see it so plainly."
For Mrs. Grey was radiating the pleasure she felt in the coming of sweet Miss Charlotte.
"There are the boys and Frances coming down the street, saucy Robin," said her mother. "Take yourselves off, girls, and let me have Cousin Peace all to myself for a while. Wait one moment, Charlotte; Kiku-san is in that chair—he claims it—but I'll lay him on my bed."
She raised the white cat like a round mat, just as he lay, and Miss Charlotte seated herself in the vacated rocking-chair where the breeze blew in on her. Kiku-san rose from his coiled position, sat up sleepily for a moment on the foot of the bed, then, stretching and yawning, walked over into Cousin Peace's lap, where he contentedly curled up to continue his nap.
They all laughed. "Trust a cat to carry his point!" cried Rob. "That chair is Kiku's, and Kiku will have it, whether Cousin Peace or a down pillow is in it."
"We're off for dogwood, Kiku-san," said Prue, laying her cheek on the cat for a farewell. "And we'll bring it home with plenty of bark for bad kittens."
Mrs. Grey watched the seven young people out of the gate, and her eyes and lips were smiling. Miss Charlotte said, as if she, too, saw the pretty picture: "They are fine boys, Mary, and there are no girls so sweet and pretty as our Grey ones. Do you ever wonder if a lifelong affection, of a stronger sort, may grow out of this beautiful triple friendship?"
"I suppose it would be impossible not to dream of it, Charlotte, but Wythie and Rob are simple girls, and too unconscious to dream of it themselves," said their mother. "I should be glad if it were to be. Yes, I do think of it, and I realize my girls are hovering on the verge of womanhood. They have been too busy, too home-keeping, to cross the line early. Sometimes I think Basil and Bruce, with their half a year advance of Wythie and Rob, are already building a little romance, and I see that Basil finds Wythie just about perfect in all ways, as Bruce evidently considers all other girls mere sawdust beside bright Robin, but it all lies folded in the future, and no one can foresee. It would be a lovely little idyl, and I dare to hope for it; almost to feel sure it will come some day."
"I think it will," said Miss Charlotte, quietly, and the two women smiled at each other, full of loving pride in the girls who were to them both dearest of all girls, prettiest, bravest, sweetest.
It was high noon, and very warm, when the faint sound of distant singing announced to Mrs. Grey and Miss Charlotte and to Mrs. Winslow, who had by that time arrived, that the seven were returning. The singing grew louder, clearer, and at last developed into nothing more classic than the darky song, "Won't you come home, Bill Bailey?" chosen as appropriate, and rendered with immense expression.
Almost at once the procession came in sight. Prue and Bartlemy ahead, Prue more than ever beautiful under the great boughs of dogwood, which, like the rest, she bore. Oswyth and Basil followed, Wythie's face looking out flushed and glowing with summer warmth and happiness under the great white, blotched, so-called blossoms of the shrub. Rob and Frances divided Bruce between them, making an arbor over his head, holding above it, by an effort, their spoils of the glossy green and dazzling white. All seven were singing at the tops of their fresh voices, and even Aunt Azraella could not resist the charm of this return, but smiled benignantly at them from the window.
"You never saw anyone so changed as Mr. Flinders," remarked Mrs. Grey at luncheon, as she busily served her guests to fresh peas. "Not only does he carry on the place on halves, instead of two-thirds profit—which is really much fairer—but, now that he has started in well-doing, he is going uphill in virtue, Rob says, as if he were on an inverted chute. He is truly grateful to us—to Rob especially—for taking Polly last winter; he and his wife insist that we saved her life, and I am surprised and delighted with the feeling he shows."
"Being disagreeable is like other habits," said Miss Charlotte. "When people once break off and get over the embarrassment of having their pleasant ways noted, it is quite easy to keep on, even to increase them daily. I believe half the cranky people are so just because they fell into the way of it, and feel awkwardly self-conscious when they behave like other people."
"You ought to know, Cousin Peace," said Rob, suggestively, and, before the laugh with which her hint had been received had died away, she pushed her chair back from the table. "Come on, you three big boys and little girls," she cried. "Do you realize that it is now half past one, and that the Baldwins arrive at four? That isn't long in which to decorate the little grey house, make the toilets of its inmates—Kiku-san's ribbon alone needs five minutes to tie—and get a triumphal procession of welcome down to the station to meet them. You can't have another piece of cake, really you cannot have it, Bartlemy—unless you put it in your pocket. Jump up, all of you!"
Rob's younger guests meekly obeyed her, and presently she had them all at work, filling every available vase and jar with water, and bringing them to her—"like Isaac's slaves returning from the well," Bruce said—in the cool pantry where the girls were arranging the dogwood.
It was not long before the little grey house was massed with the woodland beauty—old fireplaces, narrow mantels, every table and corner, all was full of the starry white, brown-blotched radiance of the dogwood.
Rob fell back to admire, leaning an elbow on Wythie and Frances's shoulders, and shutting one eye in exaggeration of Bartlemy's artistic manner of scrutinizing a sketch. "I think it will do, my brethren and sisters," she said, solemnly.