Part 14

Miss Judy's thoughts, however, were too full of Doris and the dancing-lesson and the events of the previous day to talk long about anything else. She accordingly told Sidney the whole story in minutest detail, as soon as she could get in a word, wondering somewhat that Sidney had not already heard it from Doris, until the circumstances were explained. With the mention of the young man the same thought stirred, silently and secretly, in both the women's breasts, naturally enough, since they were both true women. It had, indeed, stirred in Miss Judy's innocent heart while she lay dreaming with her blue eyes open in the darkness of the preceding night. But neither Miss Judy nor Sidney spoke of what they were feeling rather than thinking. Women rarely voice these subtle stirrings of the purely feminine instinct, if indeed they have any words for what they thus feel. All that Sidney said was to remark, in a matter-of-fact tone, that she must be going, as the sun was getting high, and she had several pressing engagements to keep before she would be free to fulfil her promise to help Kitty Mills entertain that gang of Millses, swarming down from Green River.

"If I can get away in time--for I'm engaged to take supper with Mrs. Alexander, as the doctor has gone 'way out on one of his long trips to the country--I'll drop in at old lady Gordon's and see what the old Hessian is about."

Miss Judy shook her little curly head at Sidney's calling any one such a hard name. She could not let such a serious matter pass without remonstrance. Yet at the same time she smiled and looked rather mysterious. She had secretly hit upon a nice little plan while talking about Doris and the young gentleman, and she could hardly wait till Sidney was out of hearing before disclosing it to Miss Sophia.

"Of course I couldn't mention it to Sidney until I knew your opinion, sister Sophia. I am sure, though, that I am only expressing your ideas--less well than you would express them yourself--when I say that it is our plain duty to do something at once, to show our high regard for Doris, something to place her in a proper social light at a single stroke. It is all important that a girl should be properly launched;" Miss Judy went on as though she had given long and deep consideration to the subject, and as if she and Miss Sophia were the all-powerful social dictators of a large and complicated circle of the highest fashion. "Just think what a difference it might have made for us, had our dear mother lived and Becky's too, poor child."

"Just so, sister Judy," responded Miss Sophia, with the greatest promptness and decision.

"I thought I could not be mistaken as to your views and wishes," said Miss Judy, truly gratified. "And you don't think, do you, that it is at all necessary for us to do anything very elaborate or--expensive?" she continued, as if it were solely a consideration of the finest taste. "To my notion a tea would be most genteel, most highly refined; but you are, of course, the one to decide. Your judgment is always more practical than mine. I should not dare rely upon my own in so important a matter. But as I look at it, a tea would serve as well or better than anything else we could do to show everybody--including old lady Gordon and her grandson, who may not, being a stranger, and seeing Sidney and Uncle Watty, understand how Doris has been brought up--the high estimation in which we hold the dear child."

"Just so, sister Judy," responded Miss Sophia, with positively inflexible firmness and almost abrupt promptness, when she now began to understand that eating was in question.

"It is really a very simple matter to arrange a tea," Miss Judy went on eagerly, her sweet face growing rosy. "There's mother's sea-shell china, so thin, so pink, and so refined. And there's her best tea-cloth that she planted the flax for, and bleached and spun and wove and hemstitched--all with her own dear hands. I am sure that the darn in the middle of it won't show at all, if we set the cut-glass bowl over it. And we can fill the bowl so full of maiden's blush roses that the nick out of the side will never be seen. Mother's sea-shell china and the blushes are about the same color. Why, I can actually see the table now--as if it were a picture--all a delicate, lovely pink!" cried little Miss Judy, blushing with eagerness, and all a delicate, lovely pink herself. "And the food must be as dainty as the table. Something very light and appetizing. Isn't that your idea, sister Sophia?"

Miss Sophia assented as usual, but not quite so promptly, nor quite so cordially, and anybody but Miss Judy must have seen how her face fell. She had known so many things that were light and appetizing, and so few that were really satisfying--poor Miss Sophia!

"Delicate slices of the thinnest, pinkest cold tongue will be the only meat necessary. Anything more would be less genteel, and I am almost certain that Mr. Pettus would exchange the half of a beef's tongue for the other head of early york. Don't you remember, sister Sophia, how much he liked the other two--the ones he took in exchange for the sugar?" Miss Judy chirruped on, with growing enthusiasm. "And Merica could make some of her light rolls, and shape a little pat of butter like a water-lily, and put it in the smallest tin bucket with the tight top and let it down in the well by a string, till it got to be real cool and firm. For dessert we've the tiny jar of pear preserves which we've been saving so long. Nothing could be more delicate than they are, clear as amber, with the little rose-geranium leaf at the bottom of the jar, giving both flavor and perfume, till you can't tell whether it looks prettiest, tastes nicest, or smells sweetest."

Miss Judy's flax-flower eyes, bright with delightful excitement, were fixed on Miss Sophia's face, without seeing, as grosser eyes would have seen, that Miss Sophia's mouth actually watered. There was a momentary silence; and then an uneasy thought suddenly clouded Miss Judy's beaming, blushing countenance.

"I had forgotten about that new-fashioned dish. Of course we must have some of those delicately fried potatoes, some like we had at old lady Gordon's supper; they are cut very, very thin and browned till they are crisp and beautiful--dry and rustling, as the golden leaves of the fall. Yes, I am afraid the tea will not be really complete, will not be quite up to the latest fashion, unless we have a little dish of those. And we haven't any potatoes, except the handful of peach-blows that we have saved for planting." She sighed in perplexity, looking at her sister.

"Just so, sister Judy," responded Miss Sophia, more promptly and more firmly, if possible, than she had yet spoken.

Miss Judy sat for a moment in dejected silence, turning the matter over in her mind. Miss Sophia rocked heavily, the sleepy creak of her low chair mingling pleasantly with the contented murmur of the bees in the honeysuckle.

"Oh!" exclaimed Miss Judy, her face illuminated by a bright inspiration. "How dull of me not to think of it before. _Now_ I see how we can eat the peach-blows and plant them too! We have only to pare them very thin, being very, very careful to leave all the eyes in the peel. Then we can plant the peel and fry the inside."

"But they won't grow," protested poor Miss Sophia, almost groaning and quite desperate, foreseeing the long winter fast which must follow this short summer feast.

"Oh, but they'll have to, if we plant them in the dark of the moon," said Miss Judy, with unabated enthusiasm.

Miss Sophia, now on the verge of tears, turned her broad face away, so that Miss Judy should not see how overcome she was, and that eager little lady sprang up, without suspecting, and ran to climb on a chair in order to look in the tea-caddy. This always stood on the mantelpiece in their room. It was drier there, Miss Judy said; it was also safer from Merica's depredations, but Miss Judy said nothing about that. There was a momentary dismayed silence as a single quick glance noted the stage of its contents. She set the caddy in its place, and descended slowly from the chair, thinking deeply.

"Sister Sophia, do you happen to know whether Mr. Pettus has been getting any boxes of tea lately?" she asked casually, almost indifferently, as though it were an entirely irrelevant matter of but small consequence.

Miss Sophia, who kept better advised as to the edible side of the general store than she did regarding most things, nodded with reviving spirit.

"Then I really must go down there at once. It's a shame for me to have neglected a plain duty so long. You and I both know, sister Sophia, how much it means to Mr. Pettus to be able to tell his customers what we think of his teas. He has certainly told us often enough that our opinion has a considerable commercial value. For this reason--and on account of his being so obliging about exchanging things--it isn't right for us to be unwilling to taste any other variety than the one we like. Mr. Pettus unfortunately is aware that we care personally for no kind except the English breakfast. That no doubt makes him backward in asking us to sample the other varieties. And that is not right, nor at all neighborly, you see, sister Sophia," so Miss Judy argued, believing every word she said, with all her honest, kind little heart.

"Just so, sister Judy," responded Miss Sophia, as readily and unreservedly as Miss Judy could have wished.

Forthwith Miss Judy began to get ready for going to the store. She got out the lace shawl, which had been her mother's, and which was darned and redarned till little of the original web was left. She took it out of its silver paper and folded it again with dainty care, so that the middle point would just touch the heels of her heel-less prunella gaiters. Any crookedness in the location of that middle point would have shocked Miss Judy like some moral obliquity. The strings of her dove-colored bonnet of drawn silk must also be tied "just so" in a prim little bow precisely under her pretty chin. Miss Sophia was always anxiously consulted as to the size and the angle and the precision of that little bow, as if she had been some sharp critic, who was most difficult to please. And then, when Miss Judy had drawn on her picnic gloves of black lace, she unrolled the elaborate wrapping from her sunshade, which was hardly bigger than a doll's parasol, and turned it up flat against its short handle. Finally, having pinned a fresh handkerchief in a snowy triangle to the left side of her small waist so that her left hand might be free to hold up her skirt, she took the dainty pinch of black bombazine between her forefinger and thumb, and, with the sunshade in the other little hand, sailed off down the big road, smiling back at Miss Sophia.

She was always a brisk walker, and she had nearly reached the front of the store before Mr. Pettus knew that she was coming. But Uncle Watty, fortunately, saw her approach from his post of lookout over the whole village, as he sat on the goods-box in the shade, whittling happily, the pile of red cedar shavings rising high and dry through the windless, rainless summer days. Without stirring from his comfortable place, Uncle Watty was thus enabled, by merely putting his head in the door, to give Mr. Pettus instant warning of Miss Judy's nearness. Even then there hardly would have been time for Mr. Pettus to make the usual preparation for the little lady's visit, had she not stopped to shake hands with Uncle Watty and to inquire about the misery in his broken leg. She lingered still a moment longer to ask, with all the deference due a weather prophet of Uncle Watty's reputation, when he thought there would be rain, this being indeed a matter of importance, with the consideration of the planting of the peach-blow peel lying heavy in the back of her mind.

Mr. Pettus, meanwhile, made good use of the limited opportunity. Hastily taking up a large clean sheet of brown paper, he quickly divided it into six squares with the speed and skill of long practice. These squares he then hastily laid at regular spaces along the counter. Reaching round for his scoop, he ladled out a generous quantity of tea, all of a kind. He had but one chest of tea, yet when the contents of the scoop was distributed in six separate heaps, it looked quite as different as he meant it to look, and as Miss Judy believed it to be.

She came in, radiant with smiles, fanning herself almost coquettishly with her sunshade, and congratulating Mr. Pettus on the growth of his business, as her beaming gaze fell upon the array of teas. To think that he should find demand for half a dozen varieties! And, by the way, that was the very thing which she had come expressly to see him about. Then followed the usual long and polite conversation. Mr. Pettus again apologized for asking Miss Judy to sample so many kinds of tea, knowing that she really liked but one kind. Miss Judy, never to be outdone in politeness, protested on her side that it was not the slightest trouble to herself or Miss Sophia, whose judgment was more reliable than her own, to test the six varieties, and, indeed, as many more as might be necessary. She really would feel hurt, so she said, if Mr. Pettus ever again thought of hesitating to send them every variety in his stock. She admitted that she should never have been so thoughtless as to let him find out that her sister and herself had a preference for one kind above another. But she begged him to believe that it was mere thoughtlessness, not any wish to be disobliging. The upshot of it all was, that the six heaps of tea were made into a parcel too large for Miss Judy to carry, and Uncle Watty, who had been an interested listener from his seat on the goods-box, kindly offered to bring it with him and leave it at Miss Judy's door on his way home that evening.

Miss Judy thought Uncle Watty's offer most kind, so very kind, indeed, that she straightway began to be troubled about inviting him to the tea-party. She, herself, did not mind his leg at all; it only made her more sorry for him, and she knew that the same was true of Miss Sophia. It was not his fault, poor soul, that his leg had been set east and west, instead of north and south, as Sidney said. Maybe young Mr. Gordon would not mind either; he certainly seemed to be kind-hearted. But there was his grandmother, who was such a game-maker. Old lady Gordon did not mean any harm, perhaps; Miss Judy never believed that any one meant any harm. Still, Doris might be mortified if she thought Uncle Watty was being criticised--which would be the cruelest thing that Miss Judy could imagine, and the furthest from the secret object of the entertainment. She was frightened, and ready for the moment to give up the tea-party. Then, brightening, she began to hope that something would occur to spare Uncle Watty's feelings--and yet keep him away from the tea-party. Thus she thought as she went home, and thus she continued thinking aloud after she fancied that she was consulting Miss Sophia.

"For of course we can't give the tea without inviting old lady Gordon. Her social position makes it essential that she shall be invited if Doris is to be properly launched," Miss Judy said just as though she were some artful, calculating schemer, dealing with some keen and suspicious stranger who was likely to raise objections. "And I am sure that I merely express your views, when I say that we could not be so discourteous as to invite old lady Gordon without also inviting her grandson, when he is a guest at her house."

And Miss Sophia answered all this artfulness firmly, even sternly, as if she were an able abetter, standing ready to carry out the dark, deeply laid plot.

XV

SIDNEY DOES HER DUTY

These pleasant plans were entirely unsuspected by Sidney. She felt, however, the need of something of the kind, and--with characteristic energy--entered forthwith into the making and the carrying out of some of her own, of a different kind, though leading in the same direction.

The call upon old lady Gordon, a first step, turned out a good deal of a disappointment. Lynn Gordon was, to be sure, in attendance upon his grandmother when Sidney appeared, and she thus secured a glimpse of him, but nothing more satisfactory, nothing nearly approaching acquaintance. As ill luck would have it, old lady Gordon, who rarely left home, chanced to be just starting to "make a broad," as the Oldfield people described visiting beyond the village. The ancient family carriage, with its fat pair of old grays, already waited at the front gate in the shade of the cypress tree. On the back of the coach was a trunk-rack, put there, doubtless, at the building of the vehicle in the days when the country gentry travelled far in their own coaches, and had need of their wardrobes on the road. Under the reign of the present mistress, who had not for years gone farther than a single day's journey from home, the trunk-rack had been turned to other than its original uses, and on that particular morning it bore a large hamper of food. This was so full and heavy that it had been all that Enoch and Eunice could do to carry it between them; and, now when it was securely strapped in its place and Enoch was seated upon the box of the coach, Eunice stood leaning over the fence, with her arms rolled in her apron, giving Enoch final directions for the serving of the luncheon, so that there might be no trouble with the mistress.

Old lady Gordon was coming down the front walk of mossy, greening bricks, leading from the door to the gate; and she looked a handsome, stately figure in her flowing white dress, notwithstanding her age and her weight. But Sidney's gaze and Sidney's interest were not for old lady Gordon; they were for the tall young man on whose arm she leaned, as if she liked to lean on it, not as if she needed its support. It was the first time that Sidney had seen him nearer than across the meeting-house. When she now observed how like his grandmother he was, she suddenly stopped quite still and, laying her knitting on the gate-post, took off her bonnet and let her hair down and twisted it up again, very, very tight indeed.

"Good morning, Sidney. You know my grandson," old lady Gordon said carelessly, going straight on to the carriage.

She liked Sidney as she liked everybody who never bored her, but it did not occur to her to allow Sidney's--or anybody's--coming to interfere with her "making a broad" or doing anything that she wished to do. Accordingly she now ascended the folding steps of the coach, which were already unfolded for her convenience, and with her grandson's assistance deliberately settled herself in perfect comfort by unhasting degrees. Her bag, which a little negro boy presently came running to bring, was then hung inside the carriage close to her hand.

"Now!" said old lady Gordon. "Jump in, Sidney, and I'll take you home. It will not be at all out of my way, and you can tell me the news as we go along."

Sidney, surprised, stood hesitating. She had been looking on, taking notes for future conversational uses. It was not every day that she could gather such good materials; and she had not lost a detail of this starting of old lady Gordon to "make a broad." And, while busily laying these matters away in the rich storehouse of her memory, Sidney had, at the same time, been calculating with certainty upon the fine opportunity for making the young man's acquaintance which old lady Gordon's going would give her. It is the first instinct of a wise mother to learn all that she can,--advantageous or otherwise--of any man who may look toward her young daughter. It is the last instinct of the wise mother to learn anything to the disadvantage of any man at whom her daughter may look. Sidney, wise enough in her blunt, straightforward way, was far from being a designing woman; she was merely trying, in her blundering manner, to do what she believed to be her duty by Doris. Naturally, then, she hesitated, unwilling to lose this good chance of making Lynn Gordon's acquaintance, the best that she was ever likely to have.

Old lady Gordon glanced at her impatiently, as she would have done at any hindrance. She had not the faintest inkling of what was passing through Sidney's mind. She had never thought it as well worth while to try to understand Sidney, as Sidney had always found it useful and easy to understand her. Old lady Gordon simply wished to take Sidney along in order that she might hear the news, as she would have taken the morning paper,--had Oldfield had one,--to toss it aside after turning it inside out. She saw plainly enough that for some reason Sidney was unwilling to come with her, but she did not care about people's unwillingness if they did what she wished. Old lady Gordon never made any mystery of her selfishness. She was too scornful of the opinion of others to care what anybody else felt or thought, or said or did, so long as she got what she wanted. All this was well known to Sidney; it was also perfectly plain to her that, if she did not take the seat in the carriage, old lady Gordon would make Lynn take it and go at least part of the way. Like the philosopher that she was, Sidney accordingly took the seat. One of the wide folding steps was then shut up, and on the remaining step the little negro perched himself,--just as Lady Castlewood's page used to perch on hers. No reason for his going was apparent then, or ever. But a little negro boy always had ridden on the step of old lady Gordon's coach, and the fact that a thing always had been done, has always been a good and sufficient reason for many singular things in this Pennyroyal Region--as already remarked ere this. And thus, everything now being settled to old lady Gordon's entire satisfaction, the ancient coach rumbled heavily away through the dust.

However, the heavy wheels had hardly made a dozen revolutions before they were at the Watson homestead, which was the place nearest to old lady Gordon's. There Sidney called to Enoch Cotton to put her down; and get down she would and did, in spite of old lady Gordon's impatient protest that there had been no time for the telling of news; regardless even of her hasty, half-contemptuous offer to send Uncle Watty and the children a bag of flour. Sidney had her own ideas of dignity and self-respect; moreover, she held to them more firmly than prouder people, having finer ones, often hold to theirs. Yet she was always good-natured, no matter how firm, and she now merely laughed, as old lady Gordon drove away as angry as she ever thought it worth while to be over anything save some interference with the regularity and the perfection of her meals.