CHAPTER SIXTEEN

ITS DENIAL AND ITS GIFT

Bartlemy was painting Prue. Not that there was anything novel in this; he had been painting Prue at every opportunity since he had first known her, but this attempt was an ambitious one, not a portrait, nor a study of the single figure in some pretty pose as usual, but a larger canvas and a difficult composition.

Under the splendid trees of the hill place where the little Hasbrooks and their mother were reigning what Aunt Azraella might have considered a reign of terror, Prue posed for Bartlemy with the four children around her whose eager hands she was filling with daisies. The picture was to be called: "My Lady June," and on it Bartlemy built high hopes of early fame. It was progressing slowly; neither bribes, threats nor prayers could keep Ted and Bobby Hasbrook still long at a time; Doris was an ideal model, but lively little Betty was as reliable as a butterfly, and Bartlemy had to take what he called "snap-shot strokes" on her restless little figure.

The picture bade fair to be something well worth doing if Bartlemy proved equal to his own conception. Prue, lovely beyond words in her floating white draperies, swaying downward to the children as she enriched them with the dower of June, was like the incarnation of the summer-time, so exquisite that the young artist had to fight to keep his hand steadily at his work, and his mind from wandering from Prue as a model to the Prue whom he daily feared more and more beyond his reach.

Basil newly married and engrossed in his happiness, Bruce working hard under Dr. Fairbairn's strict requirements left Commodore Rutherford very much to the society of his youngest son, between whom and the big sailor there sprang up a beautiful intimacy of friendship, founded on their differences. Bartlemy was sufficiently an artist to talk of himself quite simply, and he and his father had discussed the probability of Prue, at some future day, making him happy as Wythie had made Basil.

"You are only a boy, my great son, but I think you know perfectly well what you will want when you are ready to take it, and though you are so young I should be delighted if beautiful Prudence cared enough for you to wait for you. It would not necessarily be long; you have as much to start upon as Basil has," said this comrade-father, wise in reading the set of tides and winds. "But, my son, though Prue is fond of you in her frank sisterly manner of established custom, it is Arthur Stanhope whom she will marry, and not my boy, who must find his consolation in the galleries of Europe as many another disappointed artist has found it before him."

"Not without a try at a better fate, father," said Bartlemy with a certain compression of the lip that meant determination.

Prue, bending forward that day, under the glorious trees, amid the waving grass, and holding out the daisies to wriggling Bob and Ted, felt the determination and preoccupation of the painter's mind, and dreaded a scene that would be painful to them both. So she chatted on in a ceaseless flood of varying topics, wondering if this really could be only Bartlemy with whom she felt so ill at ease.

"See here, boys, I'm going to chloroform you the next time," cried Bartlemy at last. "How do you think I can paint a perpetual motion--let alone two motions? Oh, say, Betty, now don't jump out of the picture like that, not even if you do want to reach that tassel grass!"

"Betty, Betty, try to be quiet!" begged Prue. "Poor Bartlemy! he can't paint, and you will have spoiled our beautiful picture!"

"It's so hot!" sighed Betty.

"Yes, and what do we care for pictures? You can get better ones'n this'll be at the grocer's, swapping for soap wrappers," grumbled Bobby.

"'N Doris wants to finish Tobias' collar, though she's too polite to say so," added Ted.

"Doris is a comfort, a model model," said Bartlemy. "We might as well let the kiddies off, Prue; they've stood it as long as they can, and the rest of the time they would be no good. I've got what I wanted most to-day, and can work it up without models for a day or two."

The children had scattered at the first suggestion of dismissal, all but Doris, who paused to pick up some tubes and a brush which Bartlemy had dropped before walking sedately away to resume the collar which she was making for old Tobias, who found his declining years sunshine-flooded by the coming of this little maid.

Bartlemy set his boxes in order, and folded up his easel, then he looked up at Prue, who said hastily: "I think I'll go on up to the house and see Myrtle Hasbrook for a little while."

"No; don't, Prue. Let me tell you what I was thinking," said Bartlemy. "I was thinking," he continued, disregarding Prue's gesture of dissent, "that I should like to paint you as Romola."

"Romola? Among these Connecticut hills?" laughed Prue.

"No, indeed, but Romola in Florence," said Bartlemy. "Get an old Florentine costume, and the Florentine background, and wouldn't you make a dandy model for Romola?"

"It's not very easy to get the Florentine background--" began Prue.

"Perfectly easy," said Bartlemy eagerly, interrupting her. "Prue, I'm going over this autumn. I have enough money to afford never to sell a picture--as much as Bas has. Come with me to Florence; let me show you, let us see together for the first time the pictures we all dream of, and let me see the people in the galleries turn away from the Titians, and the golden hair which Henner paints to look at the golden-haired American girl, more beautiful than any of them, my pride, my model, my inspiration, my----"

"Bartlemy, wait!" cried Prue in distress, hardly knowing this eager, earnest pleader for her old chum. "I may go to Italy, too--not this autumn, but by spring. We are such old friends that I can tell you, and you'll understand, though I would not have any right to speak of this to any one else. Perhaps you may paint me as Romola in Florence, if we meet there. I want to go to Europe to stay for a long time--on my wedding-trip. Arthur Stanhope--Oh, Bart dear, please don't look so hurt. He hasn't told me that he cares for me, not yet, but I know that he does care and will say so, and I shall go to Italy with him, not with my dear old chum, Bartlemy. But I'll see you there, and you shall paint me as Romola, Bart dear. I'd love to be painted as Romola, not Romola in black and serious under Savonarola's influence, but radiant, beautiful, golden-haired, young Romola, as she was when Tito found her."

"And you'll always care for me; why don't you add that, Prue--it's what girls say in novels when they don't care a hang for a fellow," muttered Bartlemy.

"Oh, I do care for you, I shall always care for you," protested Prue eagerly. "I didn't say it because I know you are sure of it! Aren't you my special property, the member of Battalion B that belonged to me, just as Basil and Bruce belonged to Wythie and Rob?"

Bartlemy looked up at the girl with a new anxiety that made the noble lad forget his own misfortune for an instant. She spoke like a child, with entire unconsciousness of the sting this assurance must bear for Bartlemy.

"Say, Prue, you are fond of Stanhope? You--you aren't making a mistake, are you? Because if you are I should think you would see what all this is to me," he said. "I don't understand how you can help knowing that kind of caring doesn't comfort a fellow much, not if you've felt the other kind of love yourself."

"I'm not making a mistake, Bart dear. I'm as fond of you as I can be, but Mr. Stanhope is ever so much older than I am, and it's quite, quite different. We are chums, Bart, and we shall be always, shall we not?" Prue held out her hand with a cheerful kindness that made Bartlemy catch his breath as he took the little white thing that seemed to understand as well as the girl's brain did what she was denying and what she was offering him.

"It isn't likely that I shall change much to you," he said, and even Prue saw the mute misery he was trying to hide.

"It's only because I am pretty and you are an artist, Bartlemy; if it wasn't for that and my being the youngest, the one you always walked and talked with most, you would not care more for me than for Rob--everybody admires Rob. You mustn't imagine that you are unhappy, Bart dear, because that would distress me beyond anything. You won't mind, will you? And if we should be in Florence we'd have the nicest times, don't you think we should? I mean if we met there? Because we're like Joe Gargery and Pip: 'Ever the best of friends,' aren't we, dear Bartlemy--chum?" And Prue smiled, radiant in her beauty with the breeze dappling her faultless face with the shadows of the branches. She thought privately that she was showing wonderful skill and insight in the difficult task of adjusting her best friend and first lover, tactfully giving him the clue to their future intercourse.

Bartlemy seemed less pleased with the interview. He was wise enough to see that no mere protestations on Prue's part could so effectually deny him hope of winning her as did her careless indifference, her childish lack of understanding of how hard it was for him to stand there with her smiling at him, forever out of reach.

"I think I'll go home, Prue," he said a trifle unsteadily. "You're going up to Mrs. Hasbrook. Good-bye, Prue."

"Good-bye, Bartlemy? Well, till to-night then. We shall see you after tea. Good-bye," said Prue still smiling, but with a troubled look creeping over her face as she watched Bartlemy gather together his painting tools and walk slowly down the hill without looking back. For she guessed that the picture would never be finished; that for the young painter of whom she was, in her insufficient way, so very fond, "My Lady June" would remain but a sketch upon the canvas, symbol and reminder of his first romance.

Bruce went alone to the little grey house that evening. Bartlemy remained with his father till late at night, and when they parted with the handshake which spoke them friends as well as father and son, it was arranged that Bartlemy should at once go away to begin the European study to which he had been looking forward throughout his college days, though then he had not meant to go alone.

Commodore Rutherford was to go with the lad as far as England, possibly into France. It was all so sudden that the Greys had hardly time to adjust their minds to the fact that Bartlemy was going before he came to say good-bye. Basil and Wythie were at home and this first real break in the sextette of beautiful comradeship, as well as their disappointment in its cause, threw a shadow over the other five who without Bartlemy would be so incomplete.

Wythie and Rob kissed the tall boy with tears which they did not try to keep back, and the dear Grey mother held him close.

"Good-bye, my dear; good-bye, dear Bartlemy," she whispered. "I am so sorry, but I fear we can do nothing but be sorry. Learn to be happy; one disappointment in the beginning of life will not harm, but will strengthen you, and remember we all love you, and shall watch your every step with anxious pride."

"Good-bye, Mardy Grey. The little grey house has given me much, but it has denied me its best gift," said Bartlemy. He looked once more at Prue, standing a little aloof, pale, sorry, ashamed, but not relenting, and last of all he took her hand without a word. The door closed behind him, and with his footsteps down the flags died away the last echo of the unbroken tramp of Battalion B, which had brought cheer to the little grey house for more than four years.

"For just you and Basil can never be the battalion," said Rob reproachfully to Bruce, as if it were his fault.

Wythie and Basil went away to their new home and Bruce went with them. Bartlemy was to start on a train that stopped on signal at Fayre at half-past three in the morning. It was a dismal going away, and the Greys remembered how much they should miss not only Bartlemy but the kind Commodore whose very voice was a cordial. He would return in two months, leaving Bartlemy abroad to study.

"Of course time, and the work he loves so much, and the glorious pictures and architecture he is to see for the first time, will heal Bartlemy's wound, Rob," said Mrs. Grey, as she and her second daughter lingered after Prue had gone soberly up-stairs, leaving them to themselves. "And Rob, only fancy! I have had a letter from Arthur Stanhope in the last mail to-night announcing his coming here to-morrow, avowedly to ask little Prudy to marry him. I must take to cap and spectacles, for she is my baby--yet after all, she is eighteen."

"To-morrow! The very day poor Bartlemy sails! It is altogether too much like that game you used to play with us when we were babies, sticking bits of paper on your finger-tips, and crying: 'Fly away, Jack, fly away, Jill! Come again, Jack, come again, Jill!' I do think he might have waited! Yet how could he know?" cried Rob.

"It is a good letter, manly, straightforward--I left it up-stairs, or I would show it to you," said her mother with a half laugh at Rob's vehemence. "He says he will not assume that I know that he wants to marry our Prue, though he feels sure that we must have seen how profoundly he admires her. He wants me to receive him to-morrow with the intention of asking her to marry him. I suppose I must say yes, Rob?"

"I suppose you must, Mardy. Really, I can't feel about Prue's marrying as I did about Wythie's," said Rob. "Though I do feel very badly that it isn't dear old Bart."

"And I feel much more about it, in a certain way," returned her mother. "Wythie's marriage held no risk; it was the natural and lovely outcome of a charming romance, but Prue, foolish, ambitious, beautiful Prue is going into a different world from ours, and I am less sure of her fate."

"She wouldn't be satisfied in our world, Mardy; she never was. So isn't it best to be glad that another has opened to her?" suggested Rob.

"Wise Robin!" smiled her mother. "I suppose it is."

Mrs. Grey had telegraphed to Arthur Stanhope her permission to come, as he had asked her to do. A box of rare and costly flowers preceded him, and Prue was making herself ready to receive him with triumph in her eyes, and without a shadow of doubt or regret to confirm her mother's fears. But she was so young; did she really know what she wanted? Mrs. Grey could not answer her own question. It lurked behind the eyes smiling at Prue in the glass as the girl made herself ready to receive her coming fate. She turned to meet the eyes with a little laugh of satisfaction, pardonable to the possessor of such beauty as she had just been contemplating.

"I think we weren't half sympathetic enough with Lydia in having a young man come out from New York to see her--it's really very nice, Mardy," she cried, shaking out of its box a single pink rose from among the many long-stemmed beauties filling the room with their odour. "I suppose you and Rob, and Wythie, if she were here, would rather have one of those old-time blush roses from the bush some one planted ages ago," Prue continued, "but I wouldn't; I'd rather have this magnificent thing that came from a hot-house after ever so long cultivating and selecting to make it what it is."

"Only that you may be good and happy, Prudy; that granted, your mother will not quarrel with you for loving the splendours of a world that never for a moment has appealed to her," said Mrs. Grey gently.

"Kiss me then, you dear, sweet mother," said Prue. "It's a pity I'm not like you, but I am a worldly Prudence--oh, I never thought of it before! Why did you name me Prudence if you did not want me to love this world's goods prudently?"

"It has always seemed to me imprudent to love them, Prue. But here's your kiss, my baby, and all good attend you, darling."

The faint blush tint of her floating gown, deepening into the pink of the rose he had sent her seemed to Arthur Stanhope, as Prue glided into the room, like the dawn, for he saw that she had come to fulfil his dreams.

It was moonlight, and Rob, sitting chin in hand by the window which Wythie had loved best in the room that had been theirs, saw her younger sister walking in its rays, and knew that she alone was now wholly the daughter of the little grey house.

The next morning saw Prue stirring early in a rapture of plans and gratified desires which the day was not long enough to allow her to tell to her mother and to Wythie and Cousin Peace who came in to wish joy to little Prudy.

The girl walked on air and the air was rainbow-tinted. Arthur's aunt, one of the leaders of the best social set in New York, had sent a loving note to the girl whom he had chosen, asking her to come to her at Newport for August, and then to go with them to the Berkshires, to her other house, for the supplementary season there.

"Only fancy," cried Prue, lifting her arms in a rapture that seemed to call upon all the world to witness and to share it. "I, I, Prue Grey, who used to go to school shabbily clad, who had to look at goodies in the shops till my mouth watered, I am going to Newport, to the Berkshires, to walk on velvet and to eat off of gold plate like a queen, and to take my place among everything and everybody I want! Oh, it is a dream! It can't be true!"

"But your blood is the best in the land; you talk as if you were a beggar maid, and Arthur Cophetua!" cried Rob indignantly.

"He is giving me everything I want," said Prue. "He thinks he is not worthy to untie my shoe, so don't be afraid that he undervalues me."

"Wouldn't you rather be all alone, just with him this summer when you are first engaged?" asked Wythie timidly. She really felt afraid of this new Prue who swept everything before her like an empress.

Prue laughed. "You dear, sentimental little Wythie-goose!" she cried patronizing her favourite sister. "Of course I wouldn't! I wouldn't rather anything were anyway but just as it is! But I'll tell you what Arthur says--he says I'm so pretty he would not dare to let them all see me unless I had first promised--Oh, no; I won't tell you, either--it's silly!"

"We might conjecture what you had omitted--let me see--three words, I should think," remarked Rob.

"Dear little Prudy, I hope you will be happy every minute of this life that you think is to prove fairyland to you," said Cousin Peace gently.

Suddenly Rob seemed to shake herself mentally. "I really don't see why we all have an ill-concealed feeling that Prue is liable to be anything but happy!" she cried. "It is all because we love Bartlemy, and our thoughts are following him across the deep. Of course you will be happy, Prudy, and of course it is fine to be going to Newport and way stations, dancing and looking lovely with nothing to distract your attention from newly-found bliss, 'with the world so new-and-all,' as Kipling says. You are going to enjoy your little eighteen-year-old self till you won't believe it's you. And Arthur is a nice fellow, who has behaved beautifully all through this trying period, and I'm glad you are to be set in such a way as to show our jewel to her best advantage. We are envious old foxes, looking at your grapes! Ask us, Wythie and me, to your splendid mansion--when you get one--and you'll see how worldly we shall be, too!"

Prue laughed, but she did not need Rob's consideration. She had been too engrossed in the wonderful splendour awaiting her to be sensitive to the misgivings of her family. And after all why should she not be happy who had always longed for luxury, and to whom poverty in the old days had been more irksome than to her sisters?

"I'll ask you," she said, "to my fine mansion, to my box at the opera, to drive behind my splendid horses, to dine with my brilliant friends. Oh, girls, won't it be lovely?"

Prue ran down-stairs to meet Frances and Hester, whom she saw coming, and to tell them of her glories before any one else could take the edge off of her tidings.

"I wish she realized more, were less young. She seems scarcely different than when her father bought her that little blue silk parasol in her third year, and she refused to eat except beneath its shade," said Mrs. Grey.

"She was not unhappy after she got used to the parasol, although it no longer held her spellbound, Mardy," said Rob, the philosopher. "Why should she be unhappy after she has grown accustomed to a million? Prudy is so happy now that her parasol would not interest her. Let us believe that by and by she will be so much happier than now that this beginning too will be forgotten in greater bliss."

"Prue is one of the Grey girls, your daughter, Mary; I am sure wealth will not spoil her, and only think, with her great beauty and her great wealth what royal opportunities she will have for doing good!" added Cousin Peace. "Dear little golden-haired Prudy! She is only very young, and that will be but too soon corrected in her."

"Walk up the street part way with me, Robin; my husband will be waiting lunch for me," said Wythie with such a happy smile that Rob remarked, as she snatched a parasol:

"Dear me, how fine that sounds! Happiness seems to be a drug in our market. I'll come, Mrs. Rutherford; Hester and Frances will have to listen to Prue a while but they won't mind."