CHAPTER III.

FREDA COMES HOME.

“_Tea, thou soft, thou sober, sage and venerable liquid!_”—_Colley Cibber’s, “The Ladies’ Last Stake.”_

Freda, as may be surmised, had no sympathy with her mother’s frantic social struggle. Her father, who until five years ago, had been one of Lockwood’s chief business men, was now idle, and, although he managed his idleness with remarkable grace, his wealth was meagre and insufficient to justify his wife’s social ambitions.

He had been general manager of the Lockwood Carpet Corporation until a disastrous fire not only robbed him of the position, but robbed the town of its cardinal industry as well. That big winter fire had blazed so furiously that it melted the icicles on houses for blocks around. It seemed, indeed, to have been the very work of Lockwood’s pursuing Nemesis. MacDowell had stood gaping from a water-drenched alley near by. Not until the large buildings had tottered and collapsed into hopeless ruin did he return to his home. His wife had made him a tasty cup of coffee.

“Lockwood is ruined,” he prophesied, and then added with a sparkling smile, “but this is good coffee.”

His prophesy was true. Hundreds of families left town as soon as it was learned that the Carpet Works would not be rebuilt. The weaving looms had been operated by steam and now the directors planned to rebuild in a place where electrical power was cheap. They offered him his position again, but he refused to leave Lockwood. They could not understand his stubbornness, nor the loyalty that made him “stay with the old town.” He at once blossomed out into the most ardent of local “boosters.” He assured Lockwood of a speedy return of local prosperity. “Gentlemen,” he had said to the Board of Trade, “I could not leave the old town which has had so pleasant a past, and which will have, I am confident, so brilliant a future.” To the undiscerning eye he gained, in his role of perpetual belief in Lockwood, a heroic character. Each New Year’s Day he published in the paper a long letter of cheer, courage and optimism, begging the citizens to be hopeful. It would not be long until some big industry would see the advantages of locating in Lockwood. “We have experienced the mercurial fluctuations of fortune, but the dead past must bury its dead. Here beside us is the great St. Lawrence with its unharnessed energy and its facilities for transportation. Some big industry is going to see the advantages. Here in our midst we have the best schools that money can operate, the finest churches that religion can claim, the highest degree of municipal efficiency in the country, and, as for beauty, have we not been called ‘The Garden of Upper Canada?’ Let us patiently wait, for prosperity will return. It must return.”

Little wonder that George MacDowell was acclaimed the first citizen. He was made mayor the very year of the fire and had remained in that office ever since by repeated acclamations. His tall, serious, reposeful figure struck confidence into the public activities. Such a strong, capable man would never have remained so long in Lockwood unless he believed in Lockwood’s future.

And yet the fact was that George MacDowell was posing all the time. His bluff was such a complete triumph that even Freda failed to see through it. It was merely his way of being graceful. Gloria insisted on remaining in the old Smith house. He would gladly remain with her and, at the same time, make the public think that he was inspired by municipal sentiment.

When Freda returned from Merlton he met her at the train. There was a time when he drove a motor-car, but of late years it was never taken out of the garage except when Freda drove it. He carried her valise across the platform, to be confronted by a mad platoon of taxi-drivers eager for patronage. They chose an old hack that had been on duty forty years. Few other towns would have tolerated the old-fashioned vehicle with its low, commodious seat, the extravagantly graceful curves of its body, its weather-beaten varnish and its quaint side-lamps of brass, designed like the wall-torches of a baronial castle. In most neighboring towns, more imbued with a spirit of progress, this picturesque conveyance would have been relegated long since to some backyard, or broken up for fuel. But Lockwood possessed a conservative cult who admired the symbols of leisure. This antiquated hack frequently moved down Station Street filled with the town’s elite, making no attempt to keep pace with the motors that rushed madly ahead, angry at having to return empty.

“I don’t see a single vacant house, Dad,” remarked Freda, as they started along Station Street.

“Nor do I by gad,” replied her father. “Lockwood is filling up, but with a rummy bunch of people. These houses should be tenanted by industrious workmen. Instead they are occupied by retired shopkeepers, farmers and clergymen from the country districts.”

“Why do you call ’em rummy?” Freda inquired.

“Cause they _are_ rummy, Freda. They’re no good to the town. They retired before the war on enough to keep ’em at six per cent. To-day, even at seven and a half, they’re swamped by increasing taxation and the H.C.L. They’re the growlers. Did you hear about the school fracas?”

“Oh, dear; no!”

“Interested?”

“Terribly.”

“Good! The school was overcrowded; they were holding classes in the basement. Henry Dover came to me and asked if I thought the collegiate could be enlarged. Said he had eleven teachers now and needed room. Did I think it could be done? I said it was as plain as the nose on his face. It _had_ to be done or we’d lose the pupils. But when the Board of Education put it to a vote—wow! What a wail from the retired element! Motion defeated, of course!”

“But you can’t blame them, Dad.”

“No. Admitted! I don’t blame them.”

Presently, as they turned upon Queen Street, MacDowell made a gesture toward the spectacle of broad, tarvia pavement, bulwarked on both sides with cluster lamps and high brick shops.

“Where will you find a better looking main street?” he asked, almost automatically. “And, do you know, our population, by the latest census, shows an increase of three?”

“Oh, surely, not just three!” exclaimed Freda.

“Why, that’s good,” said MacDowell, with a lurking smile of cynicism that his daughter did not notice. “We’re not growing very rapidly. _But just you wait._ One of these days some big concern is going to see the advantages of locating in Lockwood. As electric power is developed we’re going to get the advantage. Think of that river! Some day we’ll be a city. _Just you wait!_”

Lockwood had already been waiting for half a century. Freda had heard her father’s words so often that she knew them by heart: “One of these days some big concern—” And her heart that knew the words so well caught her with needless pity for the man she considered so incurably optimistic.

When the hack arrived at their home, Freda was not in the least surprised to discover an afternoon tea in full progress on the rear verandah. She knew just how essential afternoon teas were in Queen Street East, but she could not suppress a certain impatience.

“Heavens, mother is right at the post of duty!” she exclaimed as they drove up near the verandah. “Apparently the home-coming of the prodigal daughter has caused a feast to be set!”

“Never mind,” chuckled MacDowell, good-naturedly. “Your mother never liked your staying at that place on Franklin Street and probably will never forgive you. But she’s glad to see you just the same.”

“Mother is a woman of one idea,” sighed Freda.

“Course she is,” he laughed. “She had planned this tea before she knew when you were coming.”

Mrs. MacDowell gracefully left the verandah to greet Freda with a kiss, and then led her straight back to her guests. Most of them had a word of welcome, with the exception of Mrs. Courtney, who contributed merely a stiff, little nod of her silver-grey head. It was just like Freda to accept this as a challenge. She paused and directed her most obsequious attentions upon the wealthy widow who had long been a thorn in her flesh.

“Oh, Mrs. Courtney,” she said, extending her hand with feigned good-will and adopting at once a Lockwood type of afternoon-tea formality, “How awfully well you look! Are you playing much golf this summer?”

“Child, you _know_ I never play golf,” responded Mrs. Courtney, with evident ill-relish.

“Oh, of course, not. How stupid of me! You must forgive me! I was thinking of Mrs. Beecher.”

Mrs. Courtney flushed and glanced sharply at Freda who, wreathed in smiles, bowed to the others and went into the house. The arrow had found its mark. In the first place, the huge figure of Mrs. Courtney playing golf would have made a screamingly funny and grotesque cartoon. But to be confused in any way whatsoever with her social enemy, Mrs. Beecher, was an unforgivable mistake.

“I do wish,” remarked Mrs. MacDowell, caustically, while she and Freda were later engaged with washing the dinner dishes, “that you would try to use a slight degree of sense. Your _faux pas_ this afternoon offended Mrs. Courtney, visibly.”

“Dear heavens,” laughed Freda, so heartily that she had to drop into a chair; “I’m glad if it did, Mother. She’s one of the most exalted persons I ever heard of.”

“And you, my girl, are one of the most reckless,” quickly rejoined her mother.

“Do you remember,” asked Freda, “how miserable she made things for me about six years ago when she was afraid that I was going to get her darling young Teddie?”

“I do, indeed, Freda.”

“How she cut me, more than once?”

“I remember it, quite,” nodded Mrs. MacDowell. “But such revenge as yours is merely senseless.”

“You think I ought to be more thorough-going, do you?” asked Freda. “Perhaps you think a better revenge would be to marry Ted Courtney, even yet—”

Mrs. MacDowell cast a long, steady look at Freda, a look full of her grey-eyed criticism, full of her tranquil-faced reserve, full of her Family-Compact self-sufficiency; but she said not a word more.