The Wishing Carpet

MRS. BOB LEE took competent charge of the situation. Before dark she was making the rounds of the Tenafee clan with all its ramifications. Her color was high and her eyes very bright, and she held her head gallantly.

“Now, Cousin Ada,” she said crisply, when she reached Glen Darrow’s house and marched briskly upstairs to the spinster’s room, “there isn’t a bit of use in taking it like this! You’re just making yourself sick, when we’ve got to hold up our chins and act like a Family!” (She seemed actually to sound the capital F.)

Miss Ada was reclining on her bed with a cold compress on her forehead and she answered only with a shuddering moan.

“Exactly,” said her connection. “That’s just how I feel, but it’s not the way I act, Cousin Ada.” She sat down wearily and pulled off her tight little persimmon-colored felt hat and ran her fingers through her bob. “Lordy!” she sighed gustily. “Been to all the tribes and kinnery, bucking them up, putting a face on the affair.”

“But—Mary-Lou, how can you? There isn’t any face to put on it,” Miss Ada wailed. “What is Cousin ’Gene going to do? Can’t he have the marriage annulled?”

“Not without first slaying the dumb-bell, bird-headed blushing bride—which would be rather a good job, if you ask me.”

“Mary-Lou!”

“Well, it would! Sickening little fool!”

“But what shall we say to people?”

Mrs. Bob Lee made a grimace, kicked a little tufted hassock across the room and sank her voice to honeyed sweetness—“Isn’t it the most romantic thing you ever heard in all your born days? It positively sounds like a story—and it looks like a movie! That gorgeous young mountaineer, worshiping his employer’s daughter, hopelessly, of course, and our blessed little Nancy—she’s always been sort of different, don’t you know, from the run of modern girls, dreamy, idealistic—losing her heart— No, he won’t stay on at the mill. Peter Parker, the junior partner, has a lot of innovations he wants to make, and Cousin ’Gene’s going to put the turtle-doves on ‘Evergreen,’ that big old plantation he took over ten years ago—remember? He’s always wanted to develop it, and it just works out beautifully. Yes, it was a surprise, at the very last, though I had been suspecting for a long time——”

She jumped up and gave herself a brisk shake. “Plain and fancy lying taken in here! Now, you get up and bathe your eyes and powder your nose, Cousin Ada, and put on a fine public front, and I’ll drop in to see you now and then, and we can blow off steam in private.”

Her kinswoman dragged herself off the bed and got feebly to her feet. “I pray God,” she said fervently, “that I shall never have to see him again as long as I live! I could not endure it.” The traditional little dabs of crimson stung on her cheekbones. “And aside from the crushing shame of it for the Family, think of his perfidy! He was betrothed to Glen Darrow—she was to marry him next month, and he was—or he seemed to be—in his savage fashion, quite mad about her.”

“And still is, I’ve no doubt,” Mary-Lou nodded. “That is the ugliest part of it all, Cousin Ada. He merely married that poor little nit-wit Nancy to save his skin. Well, he’s lost Glen, and he’ll see her married to Peter Parker, and I imagine that’ll be the rack for him, but—oh, golly,” she kindled to the thought, “if my Bob Lee was alive he’d manage some nice, natural-looking way to murder him!”

Miss Ada had made herself presentable by the time Glen tapped at her door and told her supper was ready. They went down to the quaintly clever little dining room in silence, and in almost unbroken silence they ate black Phemie’s savory meal. Sometimes Miss Ada pressed her handkerchief to her eyes for an instant, and she took little beyond three cups of extra strong tea, and Glen’s frank and hearty young appetite was in eclipse, but whenever she met her duenna’s eye she smiled faintly and shyly. It was a totally new smile for the doctor’s daughter, and Miss Ada noted that she had put on the dress of pale buff crêpe.

The spinster went upstairs directly they had finished and Glen sat alone in the sitting room. She felt a strange and curious sense of shock, of unreality. She did not seem to hear or to see distinctly; it was as if all the former facts, the tangible things of life, were separated by a daze of distance....

She tried to make herself summon the events of the day in an orderly review—Miss Ada’s fluttering delivery of Peter’s message, and her instant conviction that she was free, Heminway, with his green eye shade and his black alpaca office coat, and his prim, henlike clucking, and Mr. ’Gene Carey’s rage and grief, her own horror over Luke, over the breaking, the shattering, no, the besmirching and befouling of the golden legend which was overlaid, shamelessly, radiantly, with gladness, the amazing, theatric entrance of Luke and Nancy Carey, Peter Parker’s wordless grasp of her hand, Miss Ada’s tearful prostration....

But the events of the day refused utterly to march in line; they serpentined, they hurdled, they paper-chased, they flew dizzily, waving dazzling-bright wings....

“I’m not fool enough, no, nor knave enough, to pull the ‘dying father’s wish on you,’” Glenwood Darrow had said, and—“Well, now remember, you haven’t made any deathbed promise!”

He would understand; he must be—understanding. And her mother, pale Effie, would go further; she would not only understand but rejoice. Tears stung suddenly in Glen’s eyes; she wished she could have her there, in the grave and charming room, sitting in the sedate little rocker on the Persian rug, to tell her everything that was to be....

She thought Peter would come to her soon after eight, but she did not want the hour to come too swiftly and she looked often at Janice Jennings’s clock on the mantel in a swiftly mounting panic of happiness. There was a stumbling step on the porch and she sprang up, flushing hotly, and sat down again, laughing at herself. Old Pap Tolliver had never been able to grasp the fact that Gloriana-Virginia was actually and forever gone; he crept over, sometimes, after dark, and huddled in the shadows of the porch with his wheezing and short-breathed harmonica, or the wailing accordion. “She craves to hyar my tune, Glory does,” he apologized. “I won’t pester nobody.”

“There is—a—hap ... pee ... land....”

It was a quavering but very positive assertion, and his listener agreed with him absolutely.

“Far—far—a ... way....”

Ah, there he was wrong! Not so far away—traveling swiftly up the clock! At eight, or between eight and eight-thirty, before nine at the very latest——

But at a quarter after eight that evening the Altonia Mill was blown up, and calling became, for the time, a lost art. Glen stayed at home, though all the rest of the community rushed down, even from The Hill, that abode of the blest, to the blazing building. The telephone rang just as she was leaving the house and she ran back to answer it.

“It’s all right,” said Peter Parker’s voice blithely. “There wasn’t a soul in it. I know, because Heminway and I left ten minutes before it happened (I rather think he—they—counted on my spending a long quiet evening there) and we went all through, and there was nobody. The watchman was gagged and tied, but at a decent distance. He wasn’t hurt. Don’t come down, please. Just—wait for me.”

So she waited, as nearly pale as her rich coloring would ever make possible, and trembling, alternately shuddering with the horror of it, and pulsing with thankfulness at the miracle of his escape, and presently there was another step on the porch and she sprang up again, rosy and starry-eyed, and Janice Jennings walked in, grinning derisively.

“Sorry, old thing! Me. Me, only. Not yet but soon. He sent me up here, away from all the excitement (I adore fires) to tell you he is coming very soon. I thought you might almost have guessed it, but he was very firm with me.” She sighed. “Sunk, without a trace, Peter Piper is, and he glories in his shame.” She sat down in Miss Ada’s father’s chair and looked about her appreciatively. “One nice room, I’ll tell the hotel and Pullman world....” She sighed and shut her bright little eyes with their heavily beaded lashes. “Well, I suppose you’ll let the vestal virgin stay on here, so you can see it when you come back for Old Home Week at the model mill?”

“I—we haven’t—nothing is settled yet,” said Glen flushing still more warmly. If only she would go away before——

“I’m not going till he comes,” grinned her guest, “but I’ll go then, on my honor as a gentleman! He made me promise to park here till he came. I think he’s afraid you’ll vanish into thin air, or that the sheik, having wrung the lily neck of his bride, may come to collect his first love. And while we are on that pleasing topic, was I or was I not right about Nancy and the apostle? Certainly I was right. And was I right about Peter Parker? Again yes. (Is there no limit to the woman’s perspicacity?) Well, my child,” she studied her critically, “that hair of yours is now going to be your best parlor trick. I can just imagine the drool the society editors will write about it. And won’t they have a marvelous time dressing you? And doing your rooms for you, and your motors—” she broke off and stared. “I actually believe it hasn’t occurred to you until this moment that you can have anything and do anything and see anything and go anywhere you want, from henceforward and forever!”

“It—frightens me!” said Glen, paling.

“Well, I’d like a chance to be scared to death that way, myself,” Miss Jennings lighted a cigarette. “Ah—he comes!” She leaned back in the great chair enjoyingly.

Peter Parker came quickly up the steps and across the porch and into the room, with Henry Clay Bean following solemnly at his heels, and he looked at Glen and away again, and greeted the other girl warmly.

“’Lo, Babe! Thanks a lot for coming and staying.”

She got lazily to her feet. “But thanks still more for going, eh, wot, old top?” She paused and looked from one to the other. “No, no, positively, in spite of your pleas, I must exit merrily! I’m going back to the fire.”

“It’s under control,” Peter stated.

“Just my luck! Well, then, back to the B.V.D., and I bid you a very good evening!” She went close to Glen and gave her a brisk hug. “I could vivisect you!” she said between grinding teeth. “Peter Pan, darling, you’re too maudlin to realize now what you’re letting yourself in for—with a mother and a wife full of good works!”

“I shudder,” he said, shaking his head.

“When you get too fed up, send me an S.O.S. and we’ll throw a party. Happy days, old dear!” She kissed him thoroughly. “Don’t wince, Glen. I’ve kissed Peter many times before, and with any sort of luck I expect to kiss him many times again! Cheerio!” She sped away and left the three of them alone together, the pale youth with his bandaged head, the glowing girl with the flame of coppery hair about her face, and the small, preternaturally grave child.

Peter Parker walked to the Persian rug and stood looking down at it. “After to-night,” he said, “we’ll have it framed and hung on the wall. It’s entirely too potent. Remember how I wished that somebody would make a good job of burning down the Altonia? It isn’t safe to have the thing about, for one drops wishes as a tree drops leaves.”

“Have you any idea who it was?”

He shook his head. “Perhaps your little playmate Black Orlo, sneaking back to complete his chore; perhaps one of his chums. It doesn’t matter. We must make gestures of inquiry of course, but in reality I’m pleased to the bone. And now,” he stopped and looked at the child, “Henry Clay, would you like to go out and sit in the front seat with Hopkins?”

“I ’druther stay with yo’, suh,” the little boy replied earnestly.

“Very well, then.” He sighed slightly. “We will regard you merely as part of the stage setting.” He stepped on to the Wishing Carpet. “Now, Beany, old son, you’ll see how this thing works! I wish,” he said solemnly and urgently, holding out his arms to Glen Darrow, “I wish you would come here.”

She came to him, walking slowly and steadily, her eyes on his face.

“You see, Beany?” He caught her in his arms so that she, too, stood upon the rich and mellow tones which had delighted Glenwood Darrow’s pale bride. “I’ve never kissed you, have I? I’ve planned, and pictured, and imagined, and of course, when I was off my head—but I’ve never actually kissed you, have I?”

She shook her head, but the little place in the center of her palm gave a sudden warm throb.

“No. We are arrived, then, at the longed-for, dreamed-of moment when I begin to kiss you.”

She stirred in his arms and they tightened about her.

“I am still frail,” murmured Peter Parker reproachfully, “and I wish you would remain quite still while I ... begin ... to ... kiss you....”

There in the quaintly lovely room which fragile Effie Darrow’s yearnings had brought into being, with Miss Ada, blushing, tearful, creeping out in her crocheted slippers to hang over the stair rail, looking and listening, with the Altonia perishing in cleansing flame, with Mrs. Eugenia Adams Parker exulting in her room at the Bella Vista, and Janice Jennings, halted on a dim street, smudging her vivid make-up with a torrent of wild weeping, with a mocking bird tuning up for his night’s engagement, they stood upon The Wishing Carpet in a high oblivion of young joy.

But a sound, so strange and unwonted that it pierced even that armored moment, made them turn and stare.

Henry Clay Bean was laughing!

The End