Chapter Two.

Di Breaks a Promise

It was a good car, and this uncle was a good driver.

“And I’m afraid I’ve got soft,” thought Di. “Demoralized. For I really don’t care much where I’m going if only I don’t have to struggle for a while. Or perhaps I’m just tired.”

Whatever it was, she was well content to sit back in the little car, to feel the Spring wind in her face, to look at the streets in the bright morning sun.

“Poor Mrs. Frick!” she thought. “So suspicious… _What_ would she have thought of Angelina?”

Her uncle did no talking in the city traffic, but after they were out of that, and headed toward Pelham, he began:

“Your Aunt Emma,” he said. “Y’know--very remarkable woman. Very!”

“Is she?” said Di, politely.

“Very!” he assured her. “She’s a professor. And a doctor.”

“Oh!”

“Psychology,” he said. “And so on. It’s all too deep for me… But…” He was silent for a time. “Did your father ever tell you anything about her?”

“I think I remember his mentioning her,” said Di, who remembered very well that her father had occasionally mentioned a sister who was, he had said, “hard as nails.”

“Too bad!” her uncle continued. “But poor old Harvey couldn’t seem to hit it off with the rest of us. Always _was_ like that. I hope he never said anything to set you against us?”

“Oh, no!” said Di.

“Well…” he said. “I hope you’ll be happy now--with your own people.”

He spoke kindly enough, yet, she thought, with a curious lack of warmth. An odd little man altogether; looking at him now in the bright sunlight, she saw that his weather-beaten face was deeply lined with a net of little wrinkles at the corners of his blue eyes.

“Is he old?” she thought. “Or just--battered?” And aloud she asked: “Are you--Father’s younger brother?”

“Eh? Yes. Two or three years. Now, I almost hate to ask this--but did you ever hear your father speak of Uncle Rufus?”

“Yes,” said Di. “Several times.”

“Hm. I’m afraid Harvey didn’t care much for the old man.”

“I’m afraid he didn’t,” said Di.

She remembered a letter her father had got from Uncle Rufus, and what he had said about it.

“I simply asked him to make me a little loan,” he had cried to his child, “and the damned old skinflint treats me as if I were a beggar!”

He had also spoken of Uncle Rufus quite often as “that damned old hyena.”

“Of course,” Uncle Peter went on, apologetically, “the old man’s got his little weakness… But he’s a very remarkable man. Writes books, and so on. Very remarkable!”

“Is he at your house?”

“Not now. But he’ll be coming, for a visit. Y’know, I think you’ll like him. You’re clever, aren’t you? Fond of books and so on?”

“I’m fond of books,” said Di, “but I’m afraid I’m not clever at all.”

“I bet you are!” he said, and added, sadly. “I’m the fool of the family.”

She murmured some polite contradiction, and then, to change the subject:

“It was awfully nice of you to look me up,” she said. “I really do appreciate it.”

“Oh, rats!” said he, cheerfully, and they both laughed.

The countryside was beautiful that April morning, and the girl’s spirits rose and rose. She asked so very little of life, expected so very little; a chance of earning a moderate living, and a morning like this were enough. She was not even especially curious. She was going off bag and baggage, with this man she had never set eyes on before, to a house unknown, unknown people, and she had scarcely asked a question. That was her way. Since childhood, she had had to depend upon her own fortitude, and there was, beneath her half-shy manner, a fine, careless spirit of adventure, an odd little recklessness.

In those days with her father there had been so many disasters.

“I don’t know where the money’s coming from for the next meal!” he often said.

But it had come. He had often said he was ruined, but somehow they had gone on. And somehow Di, with her patchy education, her one-sided experience, had been able to keep on after she was left alone. No one else had been able to suit the beautiful Angelina, but she had. She had done impossible things; she, who had never had two dollars in her purse, had somehow managed to keep Angelina’s chaotic check-book balanced. She, who was so diffident, had been able to talk to the strangest people, to give orders to servants, to confront tradesmen with exorbitant bills.

“I seem to fall on my feet!” she thought. “Look at this! If Uncle Peter hadn’t come… But he _did_ come!”

He turned the car now up a road so lovely that she gave a cry of delight. It was a road in the very heart of a wood of birches and pines and oaks; only the pines were dark, the other trees, just budding, were exquisitely delicate against the pure, blue sky. There were no houses, nothing to disturb the sun-dappled peace.

“Nice, isn’t it?” said Uncle Peter. “Belongs to me… One of these days, I’m going to develop it--cut down most of the trees, and put up some nice little houses--what d’you call ’em?--that stucco, y’know, with timbers--Elizabethan, isn’t it?”

It seemed to Di that “developing” was hardly the word for this place, but she said nothing. They were going up a gentle rise now, and as they rounded a curve, she saw before her a very peculiar house, a large, wooden building, lavishly ornamented with little balconies and gables, a forlorn old place, with uncurtained windows, weather-beaten and in great need of paint.

“It’s a nice house,” said Uncle Peter. “The Swiss style…”

She glanced at him to see if he were laughing, but he looked melancholy.

“It’ll have to come down,” he said. “Nobody’ll buy a place like that, nowadays.”

The road led under a portico before the front door; he jumped out nimbly, and held out his hand to assist Di. Then he ran up the steps and knocked at the door, which was opened almost at once by a dismal little man with red hair.

The interior of the house surprised Di. They entered what was obviously a hotel lounge, furnished with wicker chairs and settees, and with a counter at one end, behind which were pigeon-holes for mail. It was all very neat, and quite empty, no clerk at the desk, not a sound to be heard.

“I didn’t know…” she began, but her own voice sounded too loud here. She turned to her uncle and found him whispering to the red-haired man. And she could not help hearing what he said.

“Then _eggs_, you damned fool!”

The red-haired man raised his eyebrows sadly, and went off through a door at the right, and Uncle Peter took up her bag.

“This way!” he said, and began to mount the stairs.

“I suppose they run the hotel,” thought Di. “But it doesn’t seem very popular. Or perhaps this isn’t the season.”

At the top of the first flight they came upon the usual hotel corridor, long, narrow, red-carpeted.

“Still,” she thought, “it’ll be rather nice to be in a hotel. More lively…”

Her uncle had stopped, and now turned toward her, with an anxious frown.

“I don’t know…” he said. “Maybe I should… Your aunt… Very remarkable woman!”

As he spoke, a door at the end of the corridor opened, and a woman in a surgeon’s white overall came out, and behind her, single file, came two children.

“Emma!” said Uncle Peter. “Here she is--”

The woman had stopped, and was looking at him with a sort of steady scorn. Then she turned and pushed the two children gently back into the room they had come out of, closed the door on them, and advanced to Diana.

“So this is Diana!” she said.

She was a sturdy, solid, little gray-haired woman, very erect, and she was smiling pleasantly now. But Di was incapable of answering at that moment. She had caught a glimpse of those children’s faces--pasty, yellowish faces, with blank, dull eyes, and loose mouths, hanging open…

“They’re idiots!” she thought, appalled.

“I wish I had known Peter was bringing you to-day,” Aunt Emma went on. “We could have made some little preparations. Why didn’t you telephone, Peter?”

“Never thought of it…” he muttered, apologetically. “Sorry, Emma.”

“I’m afraid it’s my fault,” said Di, making an effort to speak brightly. “I accepted your kind offer so very quickly.”

Aunt Emma held out her hand, and Di took it, felt her fingers caught in a strong grasp. This aunt was shorter than herself, a rather dumpy little woman, with a plain enough face, yet there was something unusual about her, an assurance that was curiously impressive. Her blue eyes were fixed upon the girl’s face in candid appraisal; she was studying her, with a disconcerting keenness.

“She’s looking right through me,” thought Di. “She sees that I’ve got a safety pin instead of a button in the back of my dress, and that I never remember dates.”

“See about lunch, Peter,” said Aunt Emma.

“I did, Emma,” he said. “I spoke to Wren.”

“Then show Diana a room,” she said. “You’ll understand, Diana, that I’m very busy… Make yourself at home!” And with a pleasant smile she went into the room again and closed the door.

“What does she--do?” Diana asked her uncle, in a whisper.

“Too deep for me!” he answered.

“But--those children--?”

“Don’t ask me! I don’t understand these things.”

“But I mean--” she went on, resolutely, “are they any--relation--?”

“Oh, Lord, no!” he said. “Emma’s adopted them, that’s all.”

He opened a door.

“Here’s a room,” he said, and hurrying on, opened another door. “And here’s one--and here’s one. Take your choice! They’re all pretty much alike.”

So they were; bare hotel bedrooms, close and dusty, with stripped beds.

“Well, this one, thank you!” she said, taking the one furthest from that in which those children were.

“Good!” said he, and hurried off down the corridor.

Di looked about her in dismay.

“I almost wish I hadn’t come,” she thought. “No, I don’t! That’s silly. It’s a wonderful piece of luck for me. And perhaps more people will come--perhaps there are people here already that I haven’t seen.”

A considerable noise outside brought her into the hall, and she saw Uncle Peter and the red-haired man bringing her trunk up the stairs. With a praiseworthy, but not very effectual, impulse to help, she stepped back into the room and opened the door wide, back against the wall. And as she stood there, out of sight, another door opened.

“What’s all this noise?” demanded Aunt Emma’s voice, sternly.

“We’re getting up the girl’s trunk,” said Uncle Peter, in his usual apologetic tone.

“Make less noise!” she said. “You disturb me. You shouldn’t have brought the girl like this, without warning me.”

“But you told me to make her come!”

“Very well. Now hold your tongue,” said Aunt Emma, and her door closed again.

The trunk was now carried past Di and set down, and without so much as a glance at her, Uncle Peter hurried off again. Wren, the little red-haired man, stood wiping his hands on his coat.

“I’ll make up the bed for you, Miss,” he said. “And air the room, while you’re down at lunch.”

He was such a subdued little man, so shabby, so forlorn in appearance, that Di suddenly gave him her last quarter.

“Thank you, Miss!” he cried. “I--thank you, Miss!”

Pocketing the coin, he stood before her, as if irresolute.

“I’ll bring you towels, Miss,” he said. “And if there’s anything else you want, there’s a bell here, Miss. Better ring several times, Miss, in case I’m not within hearing at the moment… Thank you, Miss.”

With his hand on the knob, he added:

“And if you’ll excuse me, Miss--I’d advise you to keep your door locked when you’re not in the room. Those--little ones is very _mischeevous_. Thank you, Miss!”

He went out, closing the door behind him.

“I certainly shouldn’t like those children to get in here,” she thought. “I--don’t think I like being here, very much.”

Then it occurred to her that it would be a matter of considerable difficulty to leave this house now. She had no money for train fare, no money at all.

“Of course if I asked him, Uncle Peter would drive me back to the city, I suppose,” she thought. “Only, it would be pretty awkward to say I’d changed my mind. Although they’re not very hospitable. ‘The girl’--I wonder why they asked me? Out of charity? No; because they couldn’t possibly have known how bad things were for me.”

The room seemed unbearably close to her; she went to the window and opened it. And there before her were the trees, the dark pines, the old oaks, so close to the house, too close, shutting out all the rest of the world…

Something stirred in her heart, a formless and nameless fear. Wasn’t this like a prison?

“What nonsense!” she said to herself. “I’m tired, that’s all. It’s been a worrying morning. After I’ve had some lunch--”

There was running water in the room; she washed, and brushed her hair, and then began to unpack her bag.

“There may be other people staying here,” she thought. “I hope so. And I must telephone to Mrs. Frick.”

She thought of Mrs. Frick with an unreasonable friendliness now. She was impatient to telephone to her.

There was a knock at the door, and opening it, she found Uncle Peter there.

“Lunch, if you’re ready,” he said.

Since they had reached the house, his manner was undeniably changed; there was a worried, absent-minded air about him now.

“I’m ready,” she said. “And, by the way, what’s the address here, please? I’d like to telephone it to a friend.”

“Well…” he said. “You’d better ask your Aunt Emma.”

She stared to him in astonishment.

“I mean--” he said. “She doesn’t like her work interfered with.”

“But that won’t interfere with her work, will it?”

“Better ask her!” he said, and stood aside to let her go down the stairs.

As they passed through the lounge, she turned her head to make sure that she had really seen a telephone on the desk, and she was curiously relieved to see that there was one.

At the end of the lounge were sliding doors, pushed a little open now and revealing a big dining-room. And her heart sank at the sight of it. The tables were drawn up against the walls, and the chairs stacked on top of them; near the window was one small table laid with cloth, and at which Aunt Emma was already seated.

“I suppose the season hasn’t begun yet,” said Di.

“What season?” asked Aunt Emma.

“I mean--don’t more people come here, in the Summer?”

“Nobody comes here unless by my invitation,” said Aunt Emma. “This isn’t a hotel any longer.”

“Just--you and Uncle Peter?”

“That’s all.”

“It’s--” said Di, glancing about the big, empty room. “It seems--such a large place.”

“It is a large place,” said Aunt Emma.

Silence fell. Presently Wren came in, bringing a remarkably meager and unappetizing lunch, a burnt and curdled little omelette, bread and margarine and tea, and one banana each.

Di thought of past lunches, in Angelina’s house; she thought of broiled chicken, rice croquettes, mushrooms, crisp salads.

“I’m spoilt!” she thought. “This will do me good.”

At least there was plenty of bread; she ate three slices and drank the black bitter tea, and felt better.

“Aunt Emma,” she said. “Do you mind if I just telephone this address to a friend?”

“The telephone is disconnected,” said Aunt Emma.