CHAPTER II

“HE ALIGHTED AT NETHERBY GATE”

The question of meeting the little stranger from Crescendo was solved by sending Nurse Hummel to the station, as probably any one of the Graham family could have prophesied that it would be. Most things in that household connected with a child fell into Nurse Hummel’s hands. She had come to take charge of Sydney when he was a youth one month old, with more nebulous features than are considered desirable for perfect beauty. Consequently she had presided over the earliest moments of the life of each of the succeeding Graham babies; had nursed them with love no mere money could recompense through childish and more serious illnesses, and cherished them with all the warmth of her big German heart, early bereft of the love of her husband and her own only little child.

To Nurse Hummel the Grahams repaired with their griefs, not to their busy mother; and “Hummie” was so fond of them that while they were small they did not realize that there were children whose mothers could give them more attention than theirs did, and that mother-love is more satisfactory than any other.

Mrs. Graham found at the last moment that she could not send Henry with the horses all the way over to the West Twenty-third Street Ferry; but Nurse Hummel was despatched, with instructions to select a hansom drawn by a lively horse, and to come up-town by the way of Fifth Avenue, so “Miss Lochinvar” would certainly enjoy her drive--probably enjoy it more than if she had been shut up in the Grahams’ more elegant brougham.

The new cousin was not to arrive until afternoon, a fortunate thing, for though it never occurred to either Gwendoline or Gladys to go to meet her, they were most curious in regard to her, and very anxious to be in the house when she reached it.

They were ensconced behind the long lace curtains of the library on the second floor, perfectly hidden, yet seeing perfectly, when the hansom drove up.

Janet Howe had not talked much during that drive, though Nurse Hummel tried in her most motherly way to draw her out. She thought that the little girl was bewildered into silence by the splendor, confusion, and hubbub of the second city of the world, but though this was in a measure true, it was not the main cause of Janet’s quietness.

All the way during the last half of her two days’ journey--the first half being given up to longing for the beloved faces and little house which she had left behind--Janet had let her thoughts leap forward to the dear cousins, the aunt and uncle who were awaiting her. She was all ready to love them; she _did_ love them, for they were her blessed mother’s kindred, who were so good to her in taking her into their hearts and home, in letting her share the wealth she knew they possessed, and in sharing one another with her. She knew the names and ages of each one of them; that Sydney was very handsome and Gwen very clever. All the Howes knew their Eastern cousins literally by heart, for they occupied in the minds of the little folk in the plain house in Crescendo a position something between an embodiment of perfect kinship and the princes and princesses of the fairy tales. And Janet knew and loved her Aunt Tina and her dearest Uncle Howard with positive worship, heightened, if possible, by their kindness to her in offering her this winter in New York. Her mother had talked to the children of her happy girlhood with her brother, until every little brook, every shaded path and meadow in the distant New Hampshire home, and every trick of voice and manner of this favorite brother Howard were as familiar to them as were their own lives and one another. Janet felt quite sure that when she descended upon the platform in the station and found all the Grahams drawn up in line to meet her, waving their hands and laughing--for that was the way the Howes always welcomed a stray guest to Crescendo--that she should be able to pick out each one with perfect accuracy. She should make no mistake as to which was Sydney, and which was Jack--she couldn’t very well, since there was nearly six years’ difference between them--nor which was Gwen and which Gladys, and quiet Viva, and dear little Geraldine, for whom she hungered most of all because she was precisely the age of her own precious youngest sister, her pet Poppet, as she called little Elizabeth. When she did descend upon the platform on the Jersey City side, a trifle sobered by the vastness of the station, the rush of the crowd, and the babel of sounds, there was no line of merry young faces anywhere in sight, no one that could be Uncle Howard or Aunt Tina, not even one who could be Sydney, Gwen, or Gladys. Janet caught her breath with a sharp pain, half fright, half bitter disappointment, and looked wildly around at the mad-appearing passengers, tearing through the chilly station with as frantic haste to catch the lumbering ferry-boat as if it had been as fast as a Bandersnatch.

Just at that dreadful moment a woman in iron gray--all round, face, body, gait, and all--came toward Janet, smiling with sufficient expansiveness to cover the lack of several other smiles. “Is this little Miss Janet Howe from Crescendo?” she asked, with just enough of the German accent familiar in the West to make this meek, girlish Lochinvar feel comforted.

“Oh, yes. Where are my aunt and uncle, and my cousins?” cried Janet. “And who are you, if you please?”

“I am Nurse Hummel, and I’ve come to take you to your friends,” said the rotund creature, with such assurance that “all was right in the world” that Janet began to suspect herself of unreason in expecting her relatives to meet her.

“None of them could get down here to-day, but that doesn’t matter. You’ll soon find out that Nurse Hummel looks after all of you. I have taken care of every Graham child of them all since Master Sydney was a month old. Give me your check.”

Nurse Hummel led the way, and Janet followed, somewhat reassured, but still with the lurking sense of disappointment. The capable woman gave the check for Janet’s battered little trunk to a transfer express, and put the child into a cab, drawn by the most frisky, high-headed horse at the New York side of the ferry. Then she got in herself, not without audible maledictions on joints that were less limber than in her youth.

When the interesting, but confusing, drive ended in the frisky horse being pulled up so short before the Graham’s door that he almost sat down on his pathetic, docked tail, Janet looked up and down the house which was to be her home for many months. She saw a high, brownstone structure, differing not at all, apparently, from a long line of such edifices stretching westward from Fifth Avenue as far as she could see, and eastward again across it. Not a sign of life could she espy; not a curtain moved; not a face smiled at her; not a hand waved, still less was there the shouting, gesticulating bevy of cousins on the front steps which she had hoped to see.

But she was not arriving unnoted. Behind the curtains on the second floor five eager faces peered out to catch the first glimpse of her. The Graham children saw a short girl, not quite as tall as Gladys, with soft, rounding curves throughout her body; a face that was decidedly pretty, but very pathetic; with big, wistful brown eyes, looking as if they might quickly be hidden by tears; brown hair, curling around a broad, white forehead; a skin with a hint of brown beneath its whiteness, and full, red lips meeting in soft curves, fashioned, unmistakably, for smiling, but now drooping at the corners in an attempt to keep them from quivering. They saw also a brown skirt and jacket, with reddish tints occasionally, showing wear, and revealing, to more experienced eyes, the fact that they had originally been made up with the other side of the goods out. A hopelessly unstylish hat surmounted the beautiful masses of red-brown hair, and woolen gloves completed a costume that made Gladys groan aloud at its confirmation of her worst fears. But Gwen, truly artistic, and with truer standards of judgment than her sister’s, unguided though they were, saw the facts which the shabbiness of her new cousin’s garments could not conceal from her more observant eyes.

“She’s awfully pretty, Gladys,” she said. “And she looks like a lady, and she looks sweet, and--and--oh, I don’t know--trusty, like a dog. And, dear me, she is really _awfully_ pretty; ever so much prettier than either of us.”

Gladys gave a derisive sniff. “Pretty! Well, so she might be, if she looked decent, but, for goodness’ sake, what clothes! Why, our laundress’s girl looks better! Fancy taking such a guy to school! I shall die of mortiffication.”

Gwen actually laughed. “Mor_tif_-fication, Gladys? Maybe bad pronunciation is as bad as old clothes, if you stop to think about it. And Mary Ellen Flynn does wear citified things, and frizzes and cheap lace, and so on, but I don’t know that I think she looks better than that girl down there. At any rate, I suppose there are other clothes in New York, and if it would save your life, we might make her look decent.”

“I think she looks as though she could fish and sail a boat, too,” said Jack, who, while his sisters were frivolously discussing mere externals, had been silently considering the new cousin from the more important viewpoint of her possible inheritance of her mother’s talents.

In the meantime, Norah, the waitress, had admitted Nurse Hummel and her charge, and poor Janet was heavy-heartedly climbing the long flight of stairs, without a voice to hail her coming. “We always meet people at home, Mrs. Hummel,” she said at last, in a trembling voice, as she paused at the landing to turn back to her guide, following with shortened breath. “Aren’t they glad to see me?”

“What nonsense; just nonsense!” declared Nurse Hummel, with the increase of accent always perceptible when she was moved. “There iss different customs, that’s all. Ve iss not der same as you in der Vest. My younk ladies iss vaiting you in der library, alretty. Yet it vouldn’t haf hurt if someone came out mit greetings vonce,” she added to herself, half minded to be indignant for the coldness shown the little stranger, whose sweet and charming ways had immediately won her affection.

As Nurse Hummel’s solid tread, passing Janet’s light one in the hall, fell on the ears of the group in the window, all but Jack and Viva stepped hastily forward, anxious not to appear to have been indulging in surreptitious curiosity.

Nurse Hummel opened the door. “My dears,” she said, “here iss your cousin, quite safe, und as glad to see you as you are to see her.” And she gently pushed Janet past her toward her relatives.

“How do you do?” said Gladys, in her most grown-up, and, as she fondly flattered herself, most elegant air. “I hope you are not too tired after your journey.” With which enthusiastic speech of welcome she bent gracefully forward and lightly pecked Janet’s cheek, apparently not seeing that the fresh young lips were ready to be met by hers.

Now Gladys’s affectations always exasperated Gwen beyond bearing, no matter what called them forth, and she was really sorry for her cousin, who looked as bewildered as hurt by this piece of nonsense. So it was a commingling of temper and kindliness which made her own manner more than usually simple and hearty as she put her arms around Janet and kissed her, saying, “You look very nice, Janet, and I hope you will like New York and us.”

Janet raised her wet eyes to the tall girl above her, returning the kiss with warmth and interest. “You’re Gwen, the clever one; I am sure I shall just love you,” she said, and Gwen smiled with sincere pleasure.

“Hallo, Jack! hallo, Viva!” cried Janet, partly restored to cheerfulness by Gwen’s welcome, and glad to display her ready knowledge of her family. “Come out here, and let me see you better. You don’t know how I miss Bob and Nannie; they’re your ages. And Geraldine! If I don’t love babies, then I don’t love anything on this whole earth! Do you think I’d scare her if I kissed her? Is she shy? Poppet is--just at first, you know.”

“Oh, I don’t think she’s at all shy!” said Gladys. “She sees so many people; mamma receives a great deal, and Jerry sees quantities of people, because they always think they have to ask for the youngest. She isn’t much to rave over; she’s a cross, spoiled little kid, I think.”

Janet stared at this remark, both because she had been taught that slang was not well-bred, and Gladys was so very fine-ladified, and because she could not imagine any one taking that attitude toward her baby sister. Jerry stamped her foot. “I’m not tross! You are tross, Tladys Traham! I love dis new one better’n you.” And she turned with an angelic smile to throw herself into Janet’s outstretched arms, which closed on her as their owner gave a quick sob, fancying they held Poppet to her breast.

“You’re a darling, pretty, little petsy-cousin,” declared Janet, with such unmistakable sincerity that Jerry melted still more.

“An’ you’re a darlin’, pretty, _bid_, pets’ tousin,” she retorted. And from that instant Janet had one devoted adherent in her new home.

“Why do they call you Miss Lochinvar?” asked Viva, suddenly. She had been considering Janet with her own grave thoughtfulness, and her question fell like a bomb upon the ears of her shocked sisters.

Janet looked quickly from one to the other of her two elder girl cousins.

“I hope you won’t mind, Janet; Syd called you that the morning we heard you were coming, and it was so nice we couldn’t help adopting it,” said Gwen, her color mounting high. “He didn’t mean it unkindly; neither did we. It was only because you were coming ‘out of the West,’ you know. You don’t mind, do you?”

“No, I don’t mind. Why should I?” replied Janet, with an uneasy little laugh. “Young Lochinvar carried everything before him. It is rather complimentary. And you might as well call me Jan. They always do at home; Janet seems so long. Though, of course, if you like it better, it doesn’t matter.”

“No; Jan is cozy, and it suits you somehow,” said Gwen. “Don’t you want me to take you to your room? You must be tired, and feel all over cinders; I always do after I have been traveling.”

“Thanks. Is Aunt Tina away?” asked Janet timidly.

“Oh, mamma is out; she has no end of things to attend to; she isn’t at home much,” said Gladys. “We are all dreadfully busy; I never have a moment myself! Papa dines here--no, he doesn’t either! Papa and mamma dine out to-night. Well, that’s just the way. You’ll find New York rather different from a little town.”

“You’ll find New York very nice, and full of all sorts of things; it’s too big to be all one way,” said Gwen, filled with an unsisterly desire to shake Gladys’s high-and-mighty air out of her, as she saw the blank look of loneliness that came over the pretty, sensitive face before her. “Come up-stairs with me.--Gladys, you may tell the girls I won’t be around to-day.--Viva, you go with Hummie and Jerry.--Come on, Jan.”

Janet followed the one friendly person, except the big nurse Gwen called “Hummie,” whom she had met in this strange household. Gwen put her arm around the little brown figure, and Jan returned her pressure, yet she kept her eyes down on the way up-stairs, lest Gwen should see the tears, and she could not help feeling that she had passed through a sort of mental Russian bath, plunging from the warm affection of her own humbler home, and her loving anticipations of this new one, into the actual chill of her welcome to it.