Kate gasped at such a supposing. “I simply can’t imagine having missed it, never read it, can you? If that had happened, well, everything would be different. It has made so many things different, hasn’t it—reading it?”
“Yes, for us both, I think. That’s why I am sure it is a great book, because it does make such a difference to you, having read it or not. And I understand your wanting it with you to-day. Try to get Aunt Katherine to read it, if you can. She has enough literary appreciation to realize its beauty, and the rest of it, what it does to you—well, it wouldn’t hurt to have it do a little of that to her, too!”
At that minute Sam and Lee whistled from the road, out at the back of the house, and in a second they were around and in at the big front door calling for Kate’s bag and anything that was to be carried. Katherine hurried to finish the sandwiches and tie up the lunch, Kate gave her hair a last boyish, brisk brushing, put on her hat, took her cape on her arm, and they were off, hurrying down to Broad Street and the bus there waiting the minute of starting in front of the Hotel.
“Don’t let your father work Mother too hard on that old catalogue,” Kate besought the boys. “And do write me sometimes about everything, the tennis court and all.”
Sam and Lee promised that they would take turns writing, much as they disliked it, and Kate should not lack for news. “And bring Elsie back with you to repay us,” they commanded. “The Hotel has let us borrow the roller, and the court will be in fine shape. We’ll be all practised up, too. You’d better do some practising yourself while you’re there. Elsie is probably a shark, anyway.”
They reached the bus in good time and stood chattering a few minutes before the bus driver facetiously sang out, “All aboard!” Kate was the only passenger that morning. One quick hug and kiss passed between mother and daughter while Sam put in the suitcase and Lee dropped “The King of the Fairies” and the box of lunch in at the window. The busman himself had climbed into his seat and was sitting with his back to them. The Hotel piazza was deserted for the minute. There was no one besides themselves on the street. Sam kissed Kate on one cheek, and Lee kissed her on the other, quick, sound, affectionate, brotherly kisses. The driver blew his horn twice just to make sure no traveller was belated in the Hotel, started his engine, and the adventurer was off.
Kate stood in the little vestibule, hanging to the door and looking back as long as she could see the three people she was leaving. Katherine was between the boys, hatless, in a blue smocked dress; she was waving and blowing kisses. She looked like a sister to the boys, and not even an older sister from the distance of the speeding bus. Then the vehicle jerked around a corner and Kate sat down, faced about the way they were going, and contemplated her own immediate future.
In school she had often sat watching the big clock over the blackboard in the front of the room; just before the minute hand reached the hour it had a way of suddenly jerking itself ahead with a little click. That was what had happened on the instant of parting from her mother—time, somehow, or at least her place in time, had jerked suddenly and unexpectedly ahead. Now the hour must be striking, she reflected whimsically, and she was at the beginning of a new one. So much the better. She expected it to be a wholly fascinating hour, and Elsie the unknown comrade was waiting in it.
CHAPTER III
THE COMRADE DOES NOT APPEAR
Although Kate kept her book “The King of the Fairies” on her lap in bus and trains, she did not look into its pages at all. Still it had its meaning and its use on the journey. It was something well known and dearly loved going with her into strangeness and uncertainty. Its purple cloth binding spoke to her through the tail of her eye even when she was most busy taking in the fleeting landscape. One would have thought her a seasoned traveller and a very well-poised person if he had seen her sitting so still, her hands lightly touching the closed book, her gaze missing little of interest in country and town as the train rushed along. But in reality her mind was as busy as the spinning wheels, and her thoughts ranged everywhere from the commonplace to the inspired; and as for her emotions, they were in a whir.
But the thought that recurred over and over and from which she never entirely escaped during the whole five hours of travel was this: was any one else in the world so happy and elated as she? People she saw looking from windows, people working in factories, people working in meadows, people walking on streets—how dull and uneventful their present hour was compared to her present hour! And the Hart boys back at home! How could they bear the commonplaceness of going on in the same spot all summer, doing the same things, and seeing the same people! And only one week ago she herself had been more than contented, happily expectant even, when she was facing just such a summer!
Of course, she wondered about Elsie a lot. In fact, she scarcely thought of Great Aunt Katherine at all. Would Elsie meet her at the South Station in Boston? Great Aunt Katherine’s letter had said Elsie’s maid would meet her. But surely Elsie herself would be there, too. Kate, for a minute, imagined herself in Elsie’s place, eagerly waiting among the crowds at the great terminal for the appearance of the new friend, wondering and speculating about her, just as Kate herself was wondering and speculating about Elsie.
The journey seemed very short. Kate could not believe they were actually in Boston until the conductor coming through assured her that in less than two minutes they would be in. But for Kate the next two minutes seemed longer than all the rest of the journey put together. She sat on the edge of the seat, one hand grasping the handle of her suitcase, the other clutching “The King of the Fairies.” And even in her tense excitement the long-drawn-outness of those two minutes made her think about the King of the Fairies and what he had taught, or rather shown, the girl and boy in the book about time—what a mysterious thing it was, quite man-made and not real. She could well believe it now. However, even that two minutes came to an end, as such eternities will.
At the train steps there were “red caps” galore clamouring for baggage to carry, and a pushing crowd of passengers who had poured down from the long line of coaches. Kate shook her head as a matter of course to the porters, and marched along, her rather heavy leather bag, marked with the initials K. M. in white chalk, in one hand, the book and her purse—not a very good balance—in the other. No one could come out into the train shed to meet you, Kate remembered now from the two or three times she had been in that station with her mother. Well, Elsie would be up at the entrance, standing on tiptoes, looking off over heads until their eyes met. How should they know each other? No special arrangement had been made to insure Kate’s being recognized. But Katherine had said, “Don’t worry. Aunt Katherine’s not one to bungle anything. She or Elsie or the maid, probably all three, will spot you at once. And if they don’t, all you have to do is to find a telephone booth and call up the Oakdale house.” And now, coming up through the shed, straining her eyes toward the gate, Kate had not the slightest doubt that the minute her eyes met Elsie’s eyes they would know each other. She had lived in anticipation of this minute now so steadily for so long that she would feel confident of picking Elsie out in a crowd of a thousand girls all of the same age.
But she was getting near the gate and still she had seen no one that might be Elsie. Then, walking on tiptoes for a second, a difficult feat when you are as loaded down as she was, she did see a girl standing a little way back from the gate and watching the passengers with impatient eagerness as they came through. For an instant the eyes of the two girls met. Kate went suddenly, unexpectedly shy at that encounter. But instantly an inner Kate squared her shoulders, in a way the inner Kate had, and forbade the outer Kate to tremble. And when Kate, in a flash, had restored herself to herself, she knew that the girl waiting there was certainly not Elsie; she was too utterly different from anything she had imagined about her. There! She was right. The girl had greeted the woman just ahead of Kate and they hurried off together talking volubly. Kate drew a relieved sigh. She never could have liked that overdressed girl as well as she knew she was going to like Elsie. They would never have become chums and comrades.
But now she herself was outside the gate. She suddenly realized that her suitcase was very heavy and put it down. Simultaneously she looked around confidently for a friendly, welcoming face, for the eyes of the new comrade. There was no such face, no such eyes. But she did become aware of a youngish woman, in a very smart gray tailored suit and Parisian looking black hat with a gray wing, bearing directly down upon her. She was certainly too young to be Great Aunt Katherine; but it was hard to believe that such smartness and apparent distinction could belong to a maid.
“Miss Marshall?”
“Yes, I’m Kate Marshall. And you?”
“Bertha, Miss Elsie’s maid.” She turned toward a middle-aged round little Irishman in brown livery. “Timothy,” she said, “it’s her.” Alas, for the distinction of the black toque!
Timothy stepped briskly forward and picked up Kate’s suitcase, touching his cap, but giving her a quick, keenly interested glance at the same time. “Your trunk checks, if you please, Miss?” he said, holding out his free hand for them.
“Why, there isn’t a trunk. The suitcase is all.”
“Didn’t the trunk catch this train?” Bertha asked, and added in a commiserating tone, “Service is wretched—Miss Frazier says so.”
“I didn’t have any trunk at all. The suitcase holds everything.”
Bertha’s ejaculation of surprise was suddenly turned into a flow of tactful words. “All the better, all the better. That makes things very simple, very simple. We’ve only to go out to the automobile then, and we’ll be in Oakdale in no time.”
Little round Timothy led the way with the bag and book, Kate followed him, and Bertha came behind her. She was not used to walking in processions like this, and she felt distinctly strange and lonely. But the thought that Elsie might be waiting in the car braced her up. Even so she couldn’t imagine why Elsie hadn’t come in and been the first to greet her at the gate. If she were Elsie she would never sit calmly waiting out in the car.
But the car was empty. It was a very handsome, big, luxurious affair, painted a light glossy brown, the very shade of Timothy’s uniform. It had a long, low body, much shining nickel plate, windshields before the back seat as well as the front, and Great Aunt Katherine Frazier’s monogram in silver on the door.
Timothy held back the monogrammed door while Kate stepped in. Then he slid into the driver’s seat, leaving Bertha to follow him. So there was Kate bobbing around on the wide back seat that was richly though slipperily upholstered in smooth leather. Her baggage was in front with the servants. She had not even the cherished book to sustain her. She wondered, a little whimsically, that they had let her carry her purse.
Where was Elsie? Kate gave herself up to speculation as they crawled through the crowded city streets. They crawled, but it was smooth and beautiful crawling, for Timothy was an artist among chauffeurs. Kate looked all around her interestedly and happily in spite of the sharpness of her disappointment at Elsie’s absence. But although it was exciting and stimulating to her to be moving through the streets of the big city she realized the heat uncomfortably and, used to her high hill air, was over-conscious of the unsavoury odours that met her on every side. She unbuttoned and threw back her cape and resisted just in time an impulse to lift her hat from her head by the crown, the way a boy does, and toss it into a corner of the seat so that her head might be a little cooler. But another inclination she did not resist in time. She leaned forward and spoke to Bertha over the windshield: “Elsie, Miss Elsie, couldn’t she come? Is she well?” she asked.
What an idiotic question! Why was she always saying things so abruptly, things she hardly meant to say! Bertha turned her smooth, distinguished-looking profile. “She is very well. She will be at dinner.”
Now they were out of the city and they gained speed; but they gained almost without Kate’s noticing, for the car was so luxurious and Timothy was such an artist. But when she observed how the trees and fences and houses were beginning to rush by she braced her feet against the nickel footrail and laid her arm along the padded armrest. She leaned back, relaxed. She began to feel that she quite belonged in the car, as though such conveniences had always been at her service, almost as though private chauffeurs and ladies’ maids were an everyday matter. Or was she dramatizing herself? Anyway, it was fun and very, very new. She hoped there would be time to write her mother all about it to-night. She profoundly wished the Hart boys could see her!
But Bertha had turned her smooth profile again. “We are just entering Oakdale,” she informed her, speaking impersonally, so decorously that it might have been to the air. And instantly Kate’s composure and assurance were shivered, her relaxed muscles tensed themselves, her mind became just one big question mark.
Oakdale was a charming suburb. Most of the houses seemed to have lawns and gardens that justified the name of “grounds,” and wealth spoke on every side, but in a tone of good taste and often even beauty. Elms and maples lined the street down which the adventurer’s chariot was bowling.
Oh, which house, which house was Great Aunt Katherine’s? Would Elsie be standing in the doorway? Would Kate know the house by that? Or would she be at a window, or keeping a watch for them on some garden wall?
They suddenly swerved from the main residential street and rolled down a delightful lane bordered by older, more mellowed houses. At the very end of the lane, before a large white house with green blinds, the car came to a stop. What a gracious, dignified house it was, and every bit as imposing and mansionlike as Kate’s mother had described it. There were balconies gay with plants and hanging vines, tall windows, and an absence of anything ambiguous or superfluous. The wide front door, with its shining brass knocker and rows of potted plants at either side, was approached by a dozen or so wide, shallow stone stairs bordered by tall blue larkspur and a golden bell-shaped flower for which Kate did not know the name. The steps were almost upon the lane, but Kate knew that there were extensive “grounds” at the back, and somewhere there the little orchard house.
No Elsie stood at the top of those stone steps or came running around the house from the gardens at the sound of the stopping car. Not even Aunt Katherine made an appearance. Timothy held open the automobile door, Bertha took the suitcase and book, and Kate, with a “Thank you,” to Timothy, started off on the last stage of her journey, that of the climb of the stone steps to her aunt’s front door. Bertha followed close behind. Kate wondered whether she should ring the bell, or wait and let Bertha ring it for her. Or would Bertha open the door and they go in without ringing? Oh, dear! Why hadn’t she asked her mother more explicitly about correct usage when there is a lady’s maid at your heels? But then, perhaps Mother couldn’t have helped her much, for certainly Mother had never been so attended. And then the inner Kate asserted herself. “Don’t be a silly,” it said. “How can it matter which of you rings the doorbell?—and certainly you’re not going to go in without ringing. Bertha’s hands are too full either to ring the bell or open the door. Ring.”
But before her finger had time to reach the button, the door swung open before her as though by magic and Kate stepped in. A maid had opened the door and now stood half-concealed behind it with her face properly vacant. Kate, when she discovered her, gave her a nod and a faint “Thank you.” Then she stood still in the hall, looking about for her aunt. She had almost given up Elsie for the present; but surely her aunt would come now from some part of the house hurrying to greet her with hospitality and show her her room.
But Bertha had no such idea. She did not look about as though expecting any one. “I will lead the way,” she offered, “if you please. There are a good many turns.” And still carrying Kate’s suitcase she walked off up the narrow strip of thick gray velvety material that carpeted the polished stairs. Kate followed. It was a very complicated house, she decided, as they went through doors, down unexpected passages, up steps, and finally around a sharp turn, around two turns, up two steps, and Bertha threw open a door. There Bertha stood back for Kate to pass in ahead of her.
The bedroom that had been assigned to her was exquisitely lovely. It was a little room of beautiful proportions facing the “grounds.” So much care had been spent on its decorations and furnishings that one never thought of all the money that had been spent with the care. Its three long windows, their sills almost on the floor, opened out on to a flowery balcony hung above the garden. The windows were wide open now because of the heat and stood back against the walls like doors. The finest of spiderweb lace was gathered against the panes, and at their sides hung opal-coloured curtains of very soft silk. The same colour, in heavier silk, was used in the spread for the narrow ivory bed, with its painted crimson ramblers at footboard and top. There was a low reading table by the bed and in the centre of it a little crystal lamp with an opal shade. Across from the bed and table stood an ivory dressing table reflecting the balcony’s brilliant plants in its three hinged mirrors. An ivory-coloured chair with a low back and three legs was placed before the dressing table. On one creamy wall hung LePage’s “Joan of Arc,” and on the opposite wall a painting of a little girl with streaming hair leaping across a bright flower bed. Through a door with long crystal mirrors panelled into either side Kate glimpsed a white bathroom with a huge porcelain tub with shining taps and a rack hung thick with wide, creamy towels.
“What a heavenly room!” she exclaimed, enraptured. “Is it mine?”
“Yes, this is your bedroom.” Bertha spoke almost deprecatingly of it. “But there is a sitting-room just across the hall. It is Miss Elsie’s, but while you are here Miss Frazier says you are to share it. That is much more comfortable.”
Kate went directly to a window, hoping to find the orchard house in its view. She was not disappointed. Beyond lawns and flower gardens there was the old orchard with its gnarled, twisted trees, and back among the trees the outlines of a little gray house. Kate was quite moved by this her first glimpse of her mother’s home.
Bertha came up behind, and now was engaged in unbuttoning her cape for her and taking off her hat. But Kate was almost unconscious of these ministrations. She was unconscious, too, when Bertha turned to unpacking her bag.
“There won’t be time for you to change to-night, Miss Frazier said,” Bertha was informing her. “So we’ll just wash you up a bit and brush your hair. Miss Frazier said you were to go down directly, and there’s the first gong anyway.”
A musical note was sounding through the house.
Reluctantly, Kate turned from the window. Bertha followed her into the bathroom, filled the bowl for her with water, and then stood at hand with soap and a towel. For one wild instant Kate wondered whether Bertha meant to wash her face for her! She had a definite feeling of relief when she put the soap and the towel down at the side of the bowl and left her alone. Quickly and efficiently Kate removed the grime of travel. When she went back into her room Bertha was standing by the dressing table, brush in hand.
Kate sat down on the three-legged chair. She thought she had never looked into clearer mirrors than the three hinged ones before her. “Please, I can brush my own hair, it’s so short. I would rather.” Just a few quick strokes, a poke or two, and the bobbed hair with the wing brushed across the forehead was perfectly tidy and crisp.
“I’ll take you to the top of the stairs,” Bertha offered. “You mayn’t have noticed the way very carefully as we came along.”
“No, I am not sure I could find it. But tell me first, where does that door, the other door, in the bathroom go?”
“Oh, that’s Miss Elsie’s door.”
“Miss Elsie’s room! So near! Oh, do you suppose she’s in there?”
“Why, I don’t know. I dressed her for dinner before starting to town for you. She’s more probably downstairs. Dinner is served three minutes after that first gong.”
Kate gave one more glance toward the door that now had become of so much interest to her, before following Bertha. She was glad that she and Elsie were to sleep so near each other. Why, it was a suite of rooms they had. There was something splendid about occupying a suite of rooms. And there was even a sitting-room for them across the hall. How jolly it was and how independent! But where was Elsie?
Kate thanked Bertha when she had been guided to the top of the staircase. “Am I just to go down?” she asked, a little timidly.
“Why, yes. Miss Frazier will be in the drawing-room. It’s at the left. You can’t miss it.”
Bertha faded discreetly back as she spoke, into the shadows of the upper hall, leaving Kate suddenly to her own resources. But after an instant’s hesitation, during which the inner indomitable Kate was summoned up, she passed quietly and with dignity down the gray velvet stair carpet.
CHAPTER IV
LITTLE ORCHARD HOUSE, BEWARE!
The drawing-room extended for almost half the length of the big house. It was the largest room that Kate had ever seen or imagined outside of a castle. Just at first she could not discover her aunt in it. But soon her glance found her sitting down at the farthest end near one of the French doors that stood wide open into the garden. Her head was turned away, but the shape and pose of that head and the way she sat in her chair, with a book but not reading, reminded Kate sharply and poignantly of her mother. Why hadn’t Katherine warned her that they were so much alike?
She went toward her softly because of her shyness, her feet hardly making a sound on the Persian rugs, past the tables and divans and lamps. It was seven o’clock of a July evening now, and the shadows lent a lovely charm to the big room that was peculiarly charming even in broadest daylight. Kate felt as she went toward her aunt that she was walking in a dream. And it was a very nice dream, too, for that glimpse of the likeness of her aunt to her mother had reassured her completely. All her previous ideas of her aunt were swept away, and the anticipations of this visit, which for a little had been dampened, now returned with fresh life.
Miss Frazier turned as Kate came near. Hastily she put her book, still open as Kate’s mother would have, on a table at her hand and rose. She kissed Kate with warmth and dignity and then held her off, the tips of her fingers on her shoulders.
“You’re not one bit like your mother,” she affirmed. “Not one least bit.”
“Don’t accuse me,” Kate said, laughing. “I would have been if I could, of course. But wouldn’t it have been rather confusing to have had three of us so much alike? The names are confusing enough.”
If someone could have told Kate an hour—no, two minutes—ago that on first meeting her aunt she would speak so easily, so without self-consciousness, she would not have believed. She had expected to be constrained, awkward. But then she had never expected Aunt Katherine to be so agreeable as she apparently was.
Aunt Katherine was smiling quite brilliantly. Kate had instantly touched and pleased her. “Does it really seem to you that I am anything like your mother?”
Kate nodded. But even as she nodded, she saw the difference suddenly. Aunt Katherine was taller, of course; but that was not it. Her firm, squarish chin was not neutralized by melting gray eyes as Katherine’s was. Aunt Katherine’s eyes were dark and their expression echoed the strong chin; it was a sure expression, penetrating and above all intellectual. And the lines about the mouth and eyes were lines that Katherine would never have at any age. They were lines of loneliness and trouble.
Even as Kate was thinking all this—lightning-quick thinking it was, of course—she saw the lines deepen and the mouth and eyes harden perceptibly. “It is past dinner time. Didn’t Elsie come down with you?” The hardening was not for Kate’s tardiness; it was for Elsie’s.
“I haven’t seen her. I don’t believe she was in her room or she would have heard me.”
“Haven’t seen Elsie? That is strange! She must be in the orchard or somewhere, and not realize the time.”
Aunt Katherine moved to the garden door, her hand still on Kate’s shoulder. “There she comes now, from the orchard.”
They stepped over the sill and waited for Elsie on the stone flags outside. She was floating through the gardens directly from the orchard. Floating is a better word for it than hurrying because she was such a light and airy creature and above all so graceful. Her approach was almost in the nature of a dance. She was dressed in white, a narrow belt of periwinkle blue at the low waistline.
It was evident when she came nearer that she had not seen the two waiting for her. Her eyes were dropped a little and she was smiling! There was a radiance of happiness about her. At first, in this impression of her, happiness was even more obvious than prettiness. But she was pretty, too, quite enchantingly pretty. Kate, who was not pretty herself, loved it all the more in others. Her appreciation always leapt to meet it.
Elsie was slim, with a fairy grace of face and figure. Her hair, a net of sunlight even now in the growing dusk, was tied at her neck, and its curls straying on her shoulders and at her cheeks shone like fairy gold. Her face was delicately moulded and faintly tinted. It was her chin that struck Kate most. It was an elfin, whimsically pointed chin. In fact, she was such an exquisite creature that Kate, standing there waiting for the instant when she should look up and their eyes meet, felt as though her own sturdy young body belonged to another world.
But Elsie was so absorbed in her happiness that she did not raise her eyes until she was almost upon them. It was Aunt Katherine’s voice that recalled her, and she stopped short a few feet from where they were standing. “Well, Elsie?”
Then at last the eyes of the destined comrades met! Kate was smiling, the corners of her mouth uptilted little wings. Her whole face spoke her delight in Elsie’s extraordinary prettiness and her own expectation of comradeship. No one could have missed what her look meant. But Elsie’s response was a strange one. Instantly the elfin smile vanished, the elfin chin became set, the pretty face and violet eyes hardened. But she took the few remaining steps forward and gave Kate her hand. In a correctly polite but delicately cool way she said, “How do you do?”
Aunt Katherine showed some chagrin at that tone. “This is your cousin, Elsie,” she said. “You are not going to stand on any formality with a cousin who has come for the express purpose of being cousinly. Dinner was announced some minutes ago. Let us go in.”
But what had happened to Kate? She hardly knew herself. She had turned sick, physically sick and faint, when Elsie had looked at her so coolly and indifferently. No one had ever treated her so in all her life before. She had had spats, of course, with her contemporaries, now and then. There had been days when either Sam or Lee or some girl in school refused to speak to her. There had been angry glances, sharp words. But she had never been treated like this. Nothing before had ever turned her sick.
As they moved down the long drawing-room and across the hall to the dining-room Kate asked herself desperately whether she had imagined it all. Could she have heard Elsie’s voice aright? Was the cool, hard glance from Elsie’s eyes insultingly indifferent? How could it be? Why should it be? What had she done? She had done just nothing at all. There was no reason in the world for Elsie to hate or despise her. And so, fortified by her reason and by the wise inner Kate that never wholly forsook her, Kate decided before they reached the dining-room that it had been imagination—partly, anyway. Elsie might not have liked her looks at first, but she had no reason to hate her.
Even so, she did not have the courage to look directly at Elsie when they were finally seated at the table. They were in high-backed carved Italian chairs at a narrow, long, black, much-oiled table. In the centre of the table two marvellously beautiful water lilies floated in an enormous shallow jade bowl. The napkin that Kate half unfolded in her lap was monogrammed damask and very luxurious to her fingers’ touch. The dinner was simple, as simple as the dinners to which Kate was accustomed at home, but it was served with such dignity by a lacy-capped and aproned waitress that before they were finished with the prune-whip dessert Kate felt they had banqueted.
Very early in the meal Kate learned that she need not avoid looking directly at Elsie, for Elsie’s own eyes were averted. Apparently she was languidly interested in the portraits on the opposite wall. At any rate, her gaze was always just a little above Kate’s head or to the right or left of her shoulder. When Aunt Katherine spoke to her she looked at her as she replied. But aside from those polite and clearly spoken answers, she contributed nothing to the conversation.
In contrast to Elsie Aunt Katherine was giving her whole mind to being entertaining and making Kate feel at home. She drew her out about the life in Ashland, the barn that had so ingeniously been turned into a house, Kate’s school in Middletown, the Hart boys, their mother and father, the life at Ashland College, everything that concerned Katherine and Kate. Although Kate hardly realized it, during the course of that first meal she had given her aunt a pretty complete picture of her background, and incidentally of herself.
Just as the finger bowls were brought in Aunt Katherine said, “The little orchard house beyond the garden was your Grandfather Frazier’s, you know, Kate. You will want to explore it, I imagine. To-morrow at breakfast I shall give you the key.”
Kate was delighted. “Oh, may I go into it? Mother wasn’t at all sure it wouldn’t be rented. She wanted me to see it if I possibly could, and tell her all about it.”
“Of course it’s not rented. It is too much part of my grounds, altogether too connected with everything here. A family there would be intolerable. And besides, I consider that the house belongs to your mother. It is only waiting for her.”
But now the eyes of the two girls did meet for the second time. Kate gasped. Fear and anger spoke in Elsie’s direct stare. And Kate was sure she was not imagining now—all the delicate tint had been swept from Elsie’s face. She was pale.
They got up at that minute and followed Aunt Katherine from the dining-room. Elsie turned her head away as they walked. But Kate was too curious now to be definitely unhappy. She wanted only to know the reason of Elsie’s behaviour. And she surprised herself more than a little by finding herself drawn to the sulky, ungracious, frightened girl. Nothing was at all the way she had dreamed it and expected it, it is true. But in some ways it was better. Elsie was more of a person than her dreams had made her, and friendship with her, if only they ever did become friends, might be quite wonderful. Kate did not think this out. It was just her feeling.
In the drawing-room Aunt Katherine sat down at her reading table and picked up her book. “It is after eight,” she told the girls, “and I’m sure Kate should go to bed early. But you may walk in the garden together a little first.”
Now Kate glimpsed the Aunt Katherine of tradition. Neither she nor Elsie had any thought but to obey the command. They went out together to walk in the garden. “Just like that,” Kate said to herself, inwardly smiling. But there was no rebellion in her thought. She distinctly liked Aunt Katherine and was ready to take commands from her. And this command was particularly welcome. Now Elsie must unbend! Now they must find each other.
For a minute they walked in silence and then Kate said, “Let’s go into the apple orchard. I want to see my mother’s house nearer. Do you know I can hardly wait until morning when I shall see it inside, too. Mother has told me so much about it!”
“It isn’t your mother’s house,” Elsie answered quite unexpectedly. “It’s Aunt Katherine’s. And there’s nothing to see in the dark. Just a little old gray house with weeds in the front walk. Even the road to it is all grown over with grass now, for no one goes there ever.”
“I want to see it all the same. It’s where my mother and my grandmother and my grandfather lived. I’m going whether you come or not.”
“Oh, all right,” Elsie acquiesced, sulkily. “But a lot you’ll see in the dark.”
It was just as Elsie had said. It was a little old gray house set down in the centre of the apple orchard with no road leading to it. And weeds stood high in the gravel front walk.
“Why, it’s a fairy house by starlight!” Kate exclaimed, quite forgetting Elsie’s mood in her own.
Elsie spoke in a rather high voice then, a voice that carried all through the orchard: “If it is a fairy house,” she called, “Fairies, beware! Orchard house, beware! If there are fairies in the house put out all lights, hurry away. Aunt Katherine’s nieces are here and Aunt Katherine doesn’t want the house occupied.”
Kate was surprised but quickly pleased, too. Elsie had entered into a game whole-heartedly. Perhaps she was just an ordinary girl, after all! Perhaps she had been imagining absurd things about her. This Elsie calling out into the starry dimness, warning the little house of their approach, was Elsie as she should be, with her fairy-gold curls and elfin chin.
Kate involuntarily drew nearer to her. And then she raised her voice and called in her turn to the little orchard house. “But Aunt Katherine’s not here,” she called. “She is deep in a deep book. So light all your lights, if you wish, look out of your windows, open your doors. Little enchanted house, wake up!”
She was laughing as she finished and holding Elsie’s hand, for she was quite carried away by her own fancy. This was the kind of nonsense she loved, and the little house did seem alive and awake. She felt it responding there in its dim starlight!
Elsie allowed her hand to be held. But she cried, softly, but still in a carrying voice, “No, no, no. Don’t look out! Don’t wake up. There are two of us here. Two. Not one!”
And then the girls stood silent. The game had become so real that Kate would not have been at all astonished to see fairy lights at the windows, to hear windows opening and fairy laughter. But she heard nothing except the crickets in the uncut grass and Elsie’s hurried breathing.
“Come,” she whispered. “Let’s go all around the house”—and off she started, still holding Elsie’s hand. Elsie could only go, too. And at the back of the house, the side that was in view only of the orchard and vacant fields beyond, Kate noticed two windows wide open in the second story.
“Does Aunt Katherine let those windows stay open like that?” she asked, curiously. “Those are the windows in the study. I know from Mother’s telling. Suppose it should rain to-night? It must be an oversight. Let’s go back and get the key from Aunt Katherine now to-night and close them for her. Won’t it be fun to go in by starlight, just we two alone!”
Elsie shook her head violently and pulled her hand away at the same time. There was a break in her voice almost as though she were in danger of bursting into tears.
“You needn’t go being a busybody the very first hour you are here,” she exclaimed. “I guess Aunt doesn’t need your advice about such things. Come away. Come out of the orchard.”
Kate followed her, nonplussed, at sea. “What is the matter?” she demanded. “What are you afraid of, Elsie Frazier?” Then, stopping suddenly, “What was that? Listen!” Surely a door had closed softly up there in the room with the windows open!
“What was what?”
“Didn’t you hear?”
“No, of course I didn’t hear anything.”
“A door closed up there.”
“Nonsense! How could a door close up there?”
“Well, it did. I heard it just as plain. But perhaps it was a breeze that closed it. Only I don’t feel any breeze.”
“It must have been a breeze.”
“Well, it was a careful breeze. It shut the door ever so gently. Quite as though a door knob was turned. Oh, Elsie, do you suppose it is fairies—or something weird?”
“I don’t suppose anything. And Aunt Katherine will be expecting us in. Come.”
As they went Kate turned to look back several times at the orchard house. But no fairy lights twinkled for her in the windows, no doors or windows opened, no fairy stood on the doorstone beckoning her back. It was just a little old gray house in an orchard. But even so Kate felt it alive, awake somehow. Elsie could not spoil her feeling about it.
Just outside the lighted drawing-room Elsie turned about and faced Kate. She was not quite so tall and she was slighter. But her whole body was drawn up with extraordinary force and her face, in spite of its delicate elfin quality, was determined.
“Kate Marshall,” she said in a quiet tone, “you’re not to say one word to Aunt Katherine about those windows. Not one single word! And what’s more, you’re not to use the key that she will give you to-morrow. It’s not your mother’s house any more. You’ll only be disappointed. There’s nothing of her in there at all. I shall hate you and hate you and HATE you if you use that key. You’ve got to promise me.”
Kate did not flinch before this unexpected attack. But she was amazed. “Of course I sha’n’t promise you,” she contradicted. “You’re a silly to think you can make me. What’s the matter with you, anyway?”
Elsie still looked at her, but her firmness, her determination melted. Her lips trembled. Unshed tears glistened in her eyes. When she spoke her tone was changed completely. “Please, please,” she besought Kate. “You are just a girl even if you are—well, even if you are Kate Marshall. Please promise me that you’ll wait a week before exploring the orchard house. After that I won’t care. Go and live in it, if you like. But just for a week, promise me.”
“No, I won’t promise.” But Kate was softening. “I won’t promise. But perhaps, since you care so much, I won’t go in to-morrow or the next day. Perhaps I’ll stay away a week. Only I think you’ll have to tell me why.”
But Elsie shook her head. “I can’t tell you why. You’ll know for yourself within a few days. You’ve promised?”
“I have not promised. And I think you ought to explain to me. Are you sure you won’t? I’m a pretty good person at keeping a secret. If I knew, I might promise.”
Elsie shook her head. Kate saw the tears still glistening in her eyes. She felt brutal to have made a fairy cry!
“Don’t, don’t cry,” she begged softly. “I won’t use the key to-morrow, anyway. I promise you that. And I’ll tell you before I do use it. I don’t see why I shouldn’t put it off for a week if you care so much. I’m not a pig.”
“And you won’t even prowl around the orchard house during that week?”
Kate, instantly forgetting her momentary pity, grew hot. “I never prowl. What a nasty word!”
“You prowled to-night.”
“I didn’t. We were playing a game with the house. I’m going in.”
With high-held head, flaming cheeks, and bright eyes Kate stepped into the drawing-room. Elsie was at her side, cool, calm, no trace of recent tears. In spite of Kate’s flash of real anger Elsie was well satisfied with the outcome of their “walk in the garden.” For she felt that Kate would be one to keep her word. Elsie might breathe freely, for a day more at any rate, and not live in hourly terror of the discovery of her secret, and the secret of the orchard house.
Aunt Katherine had been watching them through the glass of the long door. She smiled, apparently well pleased, as they came in now. She said, “I am glad that you are getting acquainted. You should have a very nice month together, you two. Kate must be tired, and I advise you both to go right to bed. Breakfast is at quarter to eight.”
“She was watching us while we talked at the door,” Elsie whispered as they went up the stairs. “She thought we couldn’t leave off talking. She imagines we’re bosom friends already.”
But Kate walked on up with a set face. She did not trouble to answer.
CHAPTER V
KATE MAKES UP A FACE
As they neared their doors Elsie said, “Please tell Bertha if she’s in your room that I shall be in the sitting-room when she’s through helping you. I’m going right to bed then.”
She stopped with her hand on the knob. “Wouldn’t you like to see the sitting-room? It’s yours, too, now.”
Kate looked in as Elsie opened the door and stood back. Now she knew why Bertha had said that room was more “comfortable” than her bedroom. In contrast to it her bedroom was almost nun-like. There were deep chairs upholstered in gay cretonne, cretonne with parrots and poppies and birds of paradise glowing against its yellow background. There was even a little lounge, heaped with yellow pillows, drawn up under the windows. In the centre of the room stood a square cherry-wood reading table, and the walls were almost lined with bookshelves already about one third filled with books. On the table stood a glass bowl filled with red roses. A Japanese floor lamp cast a mellow light over everything. In one corner a practical old Governor Winthrop desk with many drawers and a wide writing leaf drew Kate’s eyes. Imagine having a desk like that just for one’s own!