CHAPTER TEN

ITS AFTERMATH

The day after great festivities is a trying time. Everybody feels mentally out-at-elbows; it is a day like those fifteen minutes between the ebb and flow of the tide when the waters seem to lie motionless. No one feels like ordinary duties, and there is a general impression that they may be neglected, though it is not avowed. It takes a day for energies to wake up and get into harness.

The boys had set out early in their workaday tweeds for college and business. Velvets, queues, laced hats and swords discarded for the commonplace, the girls' partners in the gavotte had been forced back to the actual world with the wintry dawn, but the girls revelled in reminiscent laziness and the joys of "talking it over."

Hester had stayed till an afternoon train, and she lay across the foot of Wythie and Rob's bed, her mind vibrating like a pendulum between the events of the preceding night and their results, between recalling some little point which had not been mentioned, and wondering how many cripple children they would now be able to afford. Wythie lolled in the rocking-chair in a relaxed attitude unlike her usual compact little self. Rob reclined on her elbow beside Hester, with her unruly hair tumbled into the many ringed disorder in which it was always prettiest, and most comfortable. Prue, who was staying home from school that day in charitable allowance of time in which to descend from her pedestal and readjust her mind to study, sat on the edge of the bed at its head with the pillow whose place she occupied "laid as tenderly across her knees as if it were one of the cripples," Rob said.

"One might think there wasn't a chair in the room," remarked Wythie languidly, as she glanced at the unused ones standing about. "I wonder why all girls love to pile on a bed together?"

"They like to be on a bed because it suits 'a rosebud garden of girls,'" suggested Rob. "That seems to lack the suggestion of a garden bed that I was aiming for--as a pun it is a failure. Confidences and caramels are best enjoyed on a bed, among pillows. Please pass me another caramel, Hester, and let me see your Christmas ring again. I like emeralds!"

"Speaking of rings," said Hester as she complied, "I wonder if I am betraying confidence in telling you what Lester said?"

"You might try it and see," said Rob. "We'll tell you frankly after you have repeated it whether or not it is a betrayal of confidence."

Hester laughed. "I'll risk it," she said. "Lester has taken a great fancy to Frances Silsby, and he says he is seriously going to try to make her care for him. He is in business with his father, representing the Japanese end of the firm, as his older brother represents it in London, so he would be able to think of marrying as far as being established in the world goes."

"Marrying!" cried Prue, dropping both hands into the pillow with a thump as she sat erect in her surprise. "Do you mean to say he is going to marry Francie right off?"

"I don't know that he can ever marry her; I don't know that she will ever see the charm in him that I see--he's the dearest boy and the best cousin in the world! But I think it's safe to say that he won't marry her right off, Prudy; certainly not before Easter," laughed Hester. "There are other reasons for not doing so besides canonical ones."

"Yes; comical ones," amended Rob. "But only think of France, my playmate, with a wooer in serious earnest! I think it is fearful the way we are getting on in life."

"Mrs. Silsby wouldn't think of letting Frances marry for ever so long," said Wythie, her colour mounting. "She is such a good, sensible mother! But I wish when the time does come Lester would have his way. He is right to choose Frances; she is as true and trusty and good as a girl can be. Wouldn't you like it, Hester?"

"Yes; I like Frances, but I could find it in my heart to wish it were a Grey girl," said Hester. "Only there aren't enough to go around, and Lester stayed too long in Japan."

"Fiddle-dedee!" remarked Rob. "Grey girls aren't going around--do you take us for tops, Hester?"

"Yes; tip-tops," said Hester, scoring that time.

Rob gave her a withering look of pretended reproach, and Prue said: "Who was that interesting young man whom your father introduced to me? That Mr. Stanhope?"

"Is he interesting, Prudy? He has lots of interest, if that's what you mean," said Hester. "You have just said nearly all I know about him. He is Mr. Arthur Stanhope. I know a little more. He had a cautious and conservative father, who had a million to leave this boy, so he appointed my father his guardian, and left the money so that the son could use only the interest until he was thirty. Then he comes into his million, and in the meantime is not starving on its interest. Father says he is a good youth, not spoiled by his prospects, and I know that if he is it is largely owing to my father, who has been a faithful guardian, and has influenced this boy's tastes and aims. I don't know him particularly well myself, though he has been to the house a great deal; we never seemed to get on together.'"

"I thought he was as nice as he could be," remarked Prue with her grown-up air, which made it trying to have Rob suggest quickly that none of us could be more than that, and to have the older girls laugh.

"Oh, Rob, here comes Mr. Armstrong!" cried Wythie from her post at the window.

"So early!" exclaimed Rob. "Yet we might have known that he wouldn't linger in Fayre for luncheon. And we were having such a heavenly, halcyon time! Prue, do get out my brown dress while I smooth this demented hair of mine!"

Rob pulled out her pins and brushed her unruly locks into her hand, head downward, and with the brush, like the Red Queen's, in "Alice," in danger of getting lost, in the bright and beautiful rings of which Hester telegraphed to Wythie an admiration which Rob would have resented had it been audible.

Wythie always seemed to be ready for any one's arrival, from the king to the ashman. She placidly smoothed her soft hair, of which not a lock was misplaced, pulled down her shirt-waist, made sure her belt covered the line of her skirt--which it invariably did--and was ready to go down to help her mother receive their caller, leaving Rob to Hester and Prue's mercies to be helped into her street gown.

"Because I've got to go up to Aunt Azraella's when I take you to the station, and I can't go through the agony of dressing three times a day," she explained frantically struggling with a hook that refused to find its affinity in a loop half buried in the shoulder seam.

"Not faded by late hours, Miss Roberta?" said Mr. Armstrong, rising to greet Rob as she entered looking radiant from her hurried toilette.

"Only my glories of last night are faded, sir," said Rob, giving her hand to the old gentleman whose kindly voice and manner she found even more likable than her memory of them.

"Now, my dear Grey young ladies, all of you, for my daughter must be older than these lassies' mother, I have not many minutes to spare if I want to lunch in town, as I mean to do," began Mr. Armstrong. "I want to hear the history of the child whose singing last night was so remarkable."

"It is easily told, Mr. Armstrong," said Mrs. Grey. And she briefly related Polly's story, and that of the Flinders family.

Mr. Armstrong listened attentively. "Now, for my reasons for asking," he said. "I have a sum of money entrusted to me, the principal well invested, and the interest left for the education of young girls whose talents and industry make them worth helping. Your little Polly is certainly wonderfully gifted, and there is a gap now in the application of the money; we can take another girl at once. I propose to make your Polly Flinders--what an extraordinary name!--our next experiment. What do you say to it?"

"How could it be done?" asked Mrs. Grey considering, while Wythie and Rob flushed with pleasure over the proposition. "She is so little, so sensitive and frail that I do not feel like giving her over to strangers, even though her mother should consent to it."

"If you are willing to keep her here it would add the much-needed touch to our methods," said Mr. Armstrong. "There are five of us joined in administering this fund, of whom I am chairman, or president, or whatever you choose to call an informal board officer. Our trouble always is to find a place where our girls can get home training while they are educating, until they are old enough to be placed in a good boarding-school. If you will keep this child, I will see that the funds are provided for the musical education which she deserves. She should begin to be taught piano at once, and every year as she grows older suitable instruction shall keep step with her development. If she proves as talented as we now think her, and you will contribute her maintenance, as your part of her provision, the sum which her support would have cost shall be laid aside to send her to Germany to study, if, when she is grown, it seems better for her to go there."

"It is the most delightful thing I have heard in years, Mr. Armstrong," cried Mrs. Grey. "I have wondered and wondered whom we could interest in little Polly, and how we might get for her the training she should have. I have taught her the beginnings of the piano, and she recites her lessons daily to my daughter Oswyth, but we are not rich people, as you know, and I have never been able to see what I wanted to see in Polly's future. You have solved it, and I can't tell you how thankful I am. I must write her poor mother to-night; poor creature, she needs good tidings, I fear."

"I don't know what you call rich, my dear madam," said the old gentleman decidedly. "This little house has always seemed to me, and remained in my memory, as the most richly endowed spot I know. The money which is at my disposition can give the girl her opportunity in life, but you will give her far more than that; an education far surpassing mere schooling, and a training that will fit her to use her opportunity and to live her life aright. I suppose you would rather have the money given to crippled children." he added, turning sharply to Rob. "I'm sorry, but it is a trust fund, its purpose distinctly limited and defined."

"Indeed, I wouldn't rather have it used for cripples," cried Rob. "The one thing I ever wanted to do in this world--except to found a home for dogs and cats and horses--is to give girls a chance, girls who would use the chance and are hungry for it. To tell the truth I have drifted into cripples because Mr. Baldwin's daughter made me--she is the one who started all this. I have helped her, because, after all, I am sorry for maimed little things in those awful tenements and when a good cause takes hold of one and pulls one's hands--well, of course, you can't make a fist! But little girls, like Polly, or even bigger, appeal to me most. I don't want one penny of the fund for cripples, Mr. Armstrong. I haven't forgotten the days before you bought the invention, and how hungry I was for a chance, even with such people as my mother and the father you did not know. So I can imagine how girls feel who long for education and who have no home, or worse than none."

"I might have known that you would have cared more for minds and souls than for bodies, you strong, warm, sensitive child!" said Mr. Armstrong. "And I see that your quiet sister sympathizes with you, though I suspect that she dearly loves to comfort and cuddle suffering bodies. Now see here; about your cripple home," added Mr. Armstrong rising. "How much money have you?"

"We don't know yet, but enough to take care of three or four children anyway, if only we had a house for them," said Rob.

"You tell me that this Flanders--Flinders'--farm is not rented. Why not hire that, and begin? I'll pay the rent, and if the work is inspired it will grow, and something else will come from this small beginning. If not, no harm is done; you have made your experiment, and will turn your energies to the next work at hand. What say you?" And Mr. Armstrong paused, looking from Wythie to Rob, excluding the mother as if he wanted to deal here with the girls only.

"Well, why did we never once think of the Flinders' place?" gasped Wythie. "That would help the Flinders, as well as start our home. It is a wonderful idea, Mr. Armstrong!"

"The farm would rent for a hundred a year," said Rob, eying their would-be benefactor doubtfully.

"Very probably. Well, will you accept my offer?" asked Mr. Armstrong.

"Oh, you kindest of fairy godfathers!" cried Rob, laughing, yet very much in earnest. "I should think we would accept it, and bless you every day. We will call the farm the Sweet William Farm," she added slyly.

"Nonsense!" cried the old gentleman, much pleased. "Then it is a bargain. Baldwin and I talked it over coming out on the train last night and made up our minds to help you children, he with his legal lore and I with my wealth galore. Well, I shall lose my train!" he cried hastily, consulting a watch very thin and small in proportion to its owner. "Good-bye, little Grey girls. Goodbye, Mrs. Grey. I shall come out again, purposely to see you, and to complete our arrangements, after you have heard from Polly's mother. This is a blessed little grey house, and I believe that it is going to prove like the mustard tree, whose branches reach out and shelter the helpless creatures."

He was gone in an instant, and Wythie and Rob fairly flew up-stairs to announce to Hester their startling news, news which made that young woman sit up, her eyes dilating as she realized that it rendered the beginning of her beloved project possible with no further delay.

Rob and Wythie took Hester to the station, from which point Wythie returned home, while Rob went on up the hill to Aunt Azraella's. Her mother and Cousin Peace had prepared Rob's mind for something out of the ordinary in this visit by telling her that Mrs. Winslow had something important to discuss with her, the nature of which they were under solemn promise not to reveal.

Rob was not greatly interested in the matter; her mind was so full of the prospect for Polly, and of the events of the night before. She was tired, and yet the echoes of the gavotte still haunted her. Aunt Azraella's momentous announcements usually proved less impressive to others than to herself.

Roberta found Mrs. Winslow seated in the westerly window enjoying the declining sun, with Tobias, who was of late allowed to visit other rooms than the kitchen, sitting solemnly blinking near her.

"Good-afternoon, Aunt Azraella. How are you, Tobias? I hope you remember that I saved your life?" said Rob, bringing into the room the freshness of her beautiful colouring, and the bright January air.

"You do not look tired, Roberta," said Mrs. Winslow. "Last night was a great success, I hear. Elvira and Aaron were full of it when they got home, but I have heard from others to-day that it was really a beautiful entertainment, and that while all three Grey girls were more than pretty, that Prue was very handsome."

"She was magnificent, Aunt, really," said Rob. "Prue is going to be so handsome that I don't know what is to be done with her."

"She'll do it all for herself," remarked Mrs. Winslow with unusual brevity and wisdom.

"Roberta, lay off your coat and furs, and take that chair and bring it over here. There is something I must talk to you about. Has your mother told you?"

"She told me that you wanted to see me about something, yes, Aunt," said Rob as she obeyed. "Is it something that I can do for you?"

"It is something that I want to do for you," said her aunt. "Once I should have sent for Oswyth under these circumstances, but since you showed so much character and business ability at the time that you held out against us all in selling your father's invention I regard you as the cleverest of your family in business matters. Now, first of all, Roberta, I want you should understand that I have an incurable disease."

Rob caught her breath, and gazed speechlessly at Aunt Azraella, not knowing how to reply to such a statement made with as little emotion as if Mrs. Winslow had told her that she was going to the post-office.

"I have seen Dr. Fairbairn, and he brought up two physicians from the city," Aunt Azraella continued, after waiting an instant for Rob to speak. "They tell me that I may live three years, but I am entirely without hope of living longer than that. There isn't any particular hurry--" here Aunt Azraella paused, and Rob sat helplessly waiting. Surely Aunt Azraella did not mean that there was no hurry about dying! And could it be that she was hearing aright? Aunt Azraella could not possibly be talking in this indifferent way of her doom!

"But I thought," Mrs. Winslow went on, "that I should like to have everything settled. All the money that your uncle left me will go to you three girls, as it should. But I don't seem to care about leaving what came from my family to my own relations. I always liked all the Winslows, and I can't find any particular affection for the Browns in my heart when I search it--there's no one nearer than cousins and two nieces on that side anyway. So I'm going to leave you and Oswyth and Prudence--" Aunt Azraella used the full names, as befitting testamentary intentions--"thirty thousand dollars each, and I'm going to leave you this house."

"Aunt Azraella!" protested Rob, between laughing and crying, for her nerves were getting the upper hand in this singular interview. "Please don't tell me such things; please don't talk about dying!"

"Roberta, I want you should be sensible," her aunt rebuked her. "There is no reason why people should not face facts and admit them. Within three years I shall be no more, and you three girls will have the bulk of my property. If you marry those wealthy Rutherfords you won't need it--"

"Aunt Azraella, I'm not going to marry the Rutherfords!" cried poor Rob. "And you are not really ill."

"You are not going to marry all three of them, but Wythie will marry Basil, and you will marry the second one, the one that is going to study with Dr. Fairbairn, and very likely Prue will have the youngest," said Aunt Azraella with deadly certainty. "For the rest, I have already told you that I am incurable, and I have suffered a good deal at times that I haven't told any one about. But that is neither here nor there. It doesn't matter about me just now, nor about marrying. What I wanted to ask you was this: I'm going to leave you this house. Now, would you rather have it for yourself, or would you like to have me leave it to you for this cripple home you are getting up?"

"Oh, it's your house; you must do what you like to with it! This is the most dreadful thing to ask me, Aunt Azraella! You know I don't want to take your house," protested Rob.

"I suppose you know, Roberta, that when I am dead it will not be my house, and that I must leave it behind for some one," said Aunt Azraella with the same resolute common sense. "It will be yours, but shall it be for yourself, or for your charity?"

Rob made an effort and succeeded in forcing herself to meet her aunt on her own ground.

"I would rather the house were used as pleased you, Aunt Azraella," she said. "But we must remember one thing: The home for crippled children may fall through. Don't you think you ought to wait to see if it succeeds before you give it this beautiful, big house?"

"You are sensible, as usual, Roberta, when you put your mind on a thing," said her aunt in a tone of relief. "To tell the truth I prefer to leave you the house, but I thought you might like it given outright to this charity, which really is a good one. I shall will the house to you, and you will remember that we have had this talk, and feel free to live in it, sell it, or donate it to charity, just as you prefer. I wanted to please you; that's all."

"Mr. Armstrong is going to hire the Flinders' farm for us to begin on," said Rob, realizing that this was not the proper remark, but utterly unable to say anything else.

Aunt Azraella seemed relieved that she had modified the subject. "That's a good notion!" she exclaimed. "Tell me about it."

And Rob found herself telling Aunt Azraella the story of Mr. Armstrong's call, as if this were the most ordinary visit of the many which she had paid her aunt at this hour between daylight and dark.

Aunt Azraella seemed pleased by the tidings, and Rob rose to go, wondering if the tragic news that had been imparted to her had been heard in a dream.

"I appreciate your coming, Roberta," said Aunt Azraella. "And I appreciate the way you have behaved, after your first shock was over. I want all you girls should behave in your ordinary manner to me right along. I'm not going to be pitied, nor coddled because I've come to where we must all be some day, only most of us won't know it so long ahead. Good-night."

"Good-night," said Rob faintly, not daring so much as to put out her hand.

The crescent moon shone low in the west as she left the big house on the hill to cross the dry fields to the little grey house.

"Oh, poor, hard, shut-in woman! Poor Aunt Azraella!" Rob found herself saying aloud.