CHAPTER TWO

ITS GUESTS

Rob walked up and down the platform of Fayre's small station waiting the train which was to bring her guests from New York to spend the day. It was a day that it seemed a pity to spend; it should have been laid by for the winter need of such weather, much as one would lay by a golden guinea against a dark day. And no guinea could have been more golden than this October day. The sunshine seemed to be filtered through its atmosphere till the very air was golden, and the trees sent their showers of yellow leaves down the shafts of sunshine in the brisk breeze, retaining more than they gave of their cloth-of-gold garments to brighten the quiet streets and illumine the hillsides.

Hester Baldwin had been a frequent visitor to Fayre since Rob's expedition to New York to save her father's patent had brought her into Hester's orbit.

An only child, with an inheritance of wealth on both sides, Hester lacked nothing in the way of opportunities, and had been introduced to society the previous winter, in which she had thus far found little to interest or attract her. She was a girl of considerable strength of character, with vaguely great aspirations; it was true that she had barely escaped being morbid. Thus far her vocation had not been revealed, and she moved dissatisfiedly through a life from which all outward reasons for dissatisfaction had been removed. Rob laughed at Hester, and told her that she was only a degree less serious than Lydia, but she sympathized with her none the less. Rob said in private that Hester had been misplaced; that she should have been the oldest daughter of a struggling family of sixteen members, for whom she would have been forced to exert herself into forgetfulness of her own soul, and her hair-splitting self-analysis. Rob herself had never had time to question, being early called upon to do without choice of action, and she did not underrate the advantages of her early disadvantages in forming her character and keeping her cheerful--though nature had more to do with the latter than Rob knew.

The more Hester came to Fayre the more she wanted not to leave it. Her father and mother--whom Rob had found perfect in those difficult rôles--were naturally wrapt up in this dear only daughter, but Hester revelled in the family life of the little grey house, and envied Rob her chum-sisters, thinking Rob richer in her simple home than was Hester Baldwin in her big house, with servants, society, and all the advantages of wealth which were hers alone, and which, being alone, she could not half enjoy.

Rob smiled to herself as she paced the platform, thinking how Hester's pale face was that moment lighting up with joy, for the train whistled around the bend, and in an instant would be in sight.

Hester, her cousin, an old woman, and the mail-bag were the only passengers for Fayre. The tall girl leaving the car would have been conspicuous, however, among many, and the young man, browned by Eastern suns, who followed her, not less so. Hester was as tall as Prue Grey. She had a keen, restless face, with hungry, eager grey eyes, and rather a melancholy droop to her well-cut lips. She was not a pretty girl, but she was distinguished looking, and would be fine looking at forty when many of her pretty contemporaries had become entirely commonplace. She was clad in that quiet elegance of material and style which is the perfection of taste, utterly unattainable except one has a purse long enough to pay for its expensive simplicity.

Rob realized that their modest competence would never let her look as Hester did that moment; she realized it anew every time she saw her friend again, but it troubled her no more than it troubles her namesake, the redbreast, that he is not clad like the oriole. For while Rob was too sensible to ignore the lesser things of life she was too light-heartedly happy to care for them greatly.

Hester sprang off the last step of the car, beyond the conductor's extended hand, and had Rob in her arms before her cousin could disentangle himself from the leisurely elderly passenger and her bag which had got between him and Hester when they were in the aisle, and now, by dismounting from the car sidewise, one step at a time, delayed him from following his cousin. At last he circumnavigated the old person's bulk and came forward, laughing, to be presented to Rob.

He looked so much like a younger edition of his uncle, John Lester Baldwin, two thirds of whose name he bore, that Rob gave him her friendship on the spot, and the three young people walked up the hill of Fayre's main street, talking gaily all the way to the little grey house.

"I asked Frances to luncheon, Lester," said Rob, as they turned in at the low gate.

"And this is the little grey house, is it?" asked Lester Baldwin at the same moment. "I have heard of it and dreamed of it in distant Japan."

"Just an every day, little colonial house; not worth dreaming of at the foot of Fusiyama, among the cherry blossoms and the chrysanthemums," smiled Rob. "But we love it dearly; it has been a little Grey house for five generations, including us, the present girls."

"_Present_ girls?" laughed Lester Baldwin. "Or _pleasant_ girls? And does that hint a future possibility; does it mean: Girls, at present?"

"It means: Present girls," said Rob accenting the last syllable as Wythie and Prue appeared in the doorway, thus turning her adjective into a verb. "Let me present you, Mr. Baldwin, to my sisters, Oswyth and Prudence. And our friend, Miss Frances Silsby," added Rob, as she espied Frances in the hall.

Now Kiku-san, hearing Rob's voice, had come towards the door to welcome her. Being abnormally timid, especially fearing men, he swiftly turned and started to flee back to the kitchen for safety as he unexpectedly caught a glimpse of Lester Baldwin, where he had counted on finding only Rob. At the same instant that the white cat flew back from the door, Frances advanced towards it. There was a fearful shriek of terror and pain from Kiku, who thought that the worst he had feared had happened as Frances came down upon his paw; a scream of terror from Frances, who had not time to realize what was wrong, and she was launched headlong at the stranger, Hester's travelled cousin, before whom she, naturally, wanted to appear at her best.

The stranger received the sudden charge with a gravity that at once established him high in the fun-loving Greys' good opinion. Steadying himself against the casement he caught Frances in time to save her from being dashed headforemost down the low steps, and helped her to regain her feet.

"Customs have changed in the States since I left home," Lester said quietly. "We exceed the hospitality of the East--there the arriving guests are never offered more than tea, water for their hands and, possibly, flowers."

All five girls burst into such a peal of laughter that old Mrs. Dinsmore, the lawyer's mother, passing on the opposite side of the street, laughed to herself till she had long passed the little grey house.

"That reception was caused by the one Japanese member of our family," said Wythie. "Our white cat, Kiku-san, being timid, retreated from your presence and upset Frances."

"Kiku--chrysanthemum?" suggested Lester Baldwin. "Nice name for a white cat, but I was not prepared to find you speaking Japanese here."

"We have spoken all we know of it in naming Kiku. Won't you walk into our parlour? We are not spiders," said Rob. "Prudy, please tell Mardy we are come."

Prue disappeared, and the others entered the beautiful parlour of the little grey house. For it was a beautiful room with its extreme simplicity of green walls and high white wainscoting, its splendid old mahogany, fine pictures, books, and with the logs burning on the hearth, which the October wind made it just cool enough indoors to warrant.

Lester Baldwin threw himself into a hospitable chair with a long breath of appreciation. "I see why Uncle John said they had hard work to keep you at home, Hessie, and why you never dream of living in marble halls, but rather in a little grey house."

"Don't you?" said Hester, pulling out the fingers of her gloves, as she stood with one foot extended towards the warmth of the fire for the mere luxury of it, and not because she was in the least cold. "And you don't know it all yet."

"My cousin doesn't mean that for slang, Miss Roberta," said Lester Baldwin.

"Thanks," remarked Rob. "We love to have people like our house. There is something in the dear little old thing that I can't get anywhere else--Maybe it's my own love for it," she added.

"No, it's quality," said young Baldwin. "It has an atmosphere that is quite indescribable that is partly the result of your love for it, no doubt, but it is also the very delightful architecture of the house, its simplicity and harmony, and its venerableness. An artist would envy you it, Miss Roberta."

"Oh, I forgot for the moment that you were an architect," cried Rob, beaming gratefully upon him.

Lydia might be solemn, but she made everybody else light-hearted on such occasions as this. Mrs. Grey emerged from the kitchen to greet her young guests, looking flushed, but peaceful. She and Wythie had been helping Lydia all the morning, and the result was a luncheon that satisfied her housewifely soul.

It was a merry luncheon, too, and Lydia served it with a face so saddened by the constant laughter ringing around the table that Wythie and Rob telegraphed to each other their appreciation of its contrasting expression.

After luncheon Wythie, Frances, and Prue took Lester Baldwin to see the beauties of Fayre, which were well worth seeing; its lovely, quiet river; its great elms, and dignified mansions. Hester begged them to let her stay at home and keep Rob with her, and she bore Rob off at once, when she had obtained her way, for a long, confidential talk in the room which her friend shared with Wythie.

"Well, Hester, what is it this time?" asked Rob, when they had established themselves opposite to each other, one in a small, the other in a large rocking-chair, and were rocking for dear life at that cosey pace which seems at once to pursue and keep up with confidences. Rob's eyes wandered a trifle longingly out of the window at the perfect weather; though she was fond of Hester and interested in all that she could have to tell her, she, too, would have found the walk which the rest were enjoying pleasant had Hester been thus minded.

"Is it Chinese-missionarying, adopting a baby, teaching new Italian citizens, or what, Hester?" she continued. Hester had been full of each of these projects at various times.

Hester sat up straight in the energy of her reply. "Everything is beginning, Rob," she cried, "and I can't stand it!"

"It does sound rather awful, though vague," retorted Rob, settling herself back in her chair as Hester grew rigid, and moving her head about until her hair got comfortably loose, and fitted over the chair top.

"Ah, you know what I mean!" said Hester reproachfully in her alto voice, which was her greatest charm. "Invitations, and teas, and all those things! If I let myself drift into it all it takes every bit of my time--strength too--and I shall never amount to one thing."

"Well, I suppose it's true that it will take all your time, but I don't see that the rest of your proposition follows," said Rob sensibly. "Your mother keeps up her social duties, and, except--loyally excepting, you know--Mardy-mine, I don't know any woman who amounts to much more. Amounting to something doesn't depend on circumstances, but conquers them. We've gone over this ground a good many times already, Hessie, and, really, what's the use?"

"My mother married, and her duty is to do exactly what she does," said Hester. "She is a great help to father, entertaining his business acquaintances, and furthering all his interests. But I am not helping any one when I go butterflying about, and it is for me to choose now what sort of a woman I will be."

"I suppose I can't enter into this tremendous earnestness of yours as I ought," sighed Rob. "It seems to me that we both have only to lead good, kind, sweet tempered lives, and be ready for our work when it comes. I think a vocation ought to mean being called, and not calling--with a megaphone, too--to all sorts of distant duties to come and switch us off our track. We are young, Hester."

"Eighteen; quite old enough to find ourselves, Rob," said Hester.

"Yes, and I'm wearing my hair in full blown young-lady fashion; my bow is gone--did you notice, Hester?" said Rob, refusing to rise to Hester's heights. "But for mercy's sake, Hessie dear, don't adopt soulful slang! I've heard seven separate women, one lecturer and six private--geese?--talk about 'finding ourselves' lately! There's something in set soulful phrases that affects my stout nerves."

"Yes," assented Hester with entire sympathy. "I didn't know I said it; those things are so catching! You see, Rob, you wouldn't care for a society life, any more than I do! It is full of catch phrases and catch ways."

"Hessie, Hessie, what are you trying to get at?" cried Rob. "You know I have as much desire for a society life as there is prospect of my leading one! But I don't see why you can't 'just be happy'; wasn't that the burden of one of James Whitcomb Riley's poems? Why can't you dance and play, and be eighteen, only, with all your might, and let the future take care of itself? I declare you are very like our Lydia! She convulsed Wythie last night by suddenly demanding, when poor Wythiekins came into the kitchen, if she didn't think she ought to take the pledge! Wythie felt satisfied with her naturally temperate tendencies, but Lydia thought she should sign as an example, chiefly to the Rutherfords, who are sobriety itself! Don't you think you magnify your office more as Lyddie does than as St. Paul did?"

Hester laughed. "I think one ought to make up one's mind definitely to something," she insisted. "Rob, truthfully, do you think you would like to marry?"

Rob laughed long and merrily. "Not this afternoon," she cried. "I'll let you know if I feel differently to-morrow."

"No, but don't you think if a girl knows positively that she will never marry, and nothing can change her mind, that she ought to act differently from a girl who is willing to entertain the thought?"

Rob laughed again. "I notice the thought entertains most girls," she said. "We have spoken on this tremendous subject also, Hessie. It never occurs to me to make up my mind for good and for all about anything. I have lived only eighteen years, but I have changed my tastes lots of times, for food, for people, for amusements--for lots of things. I don't know how I shall feel at twenty, much more at five and twenty. I'm perfectly happy, and I'm not over the border of little girlhood--I wish I could romp and play dolls without shocking people. And I've had a hard fight, and tasted care and even sorrow, so it seems to be almost wrong to go on twisting and distorting these lovely young days the way you do, Hessie dear. You haven't told me what it is that has set you out this time, however?"

"It is something I saw the other day," said Hester sadly. "I wish I could be sunny and light-hearted like you."

"The reason of the difference is partly in our temperaments, but it is a good deal because I had to be happy in self-defence from the trials that began early for me," said Rob, with the keen wisdom that underlay her merry ways. "You had your path made smooth; I had to be jolly to keep up myself and the others. If you had worked as I did with a frail, sensitive, beloved father, and had seen your brave mother trying to win a fight where the odds against her were too heavy to count, you'd have learned what virtue lay in a laugh. I don't mean to preach, Hester, but you ought to be satisfied to love and to be loved, and wait your life's meaning cheerfully. But what did you see?"

"Father had to go to a tenement district to look over some property there which a client talked of buying," said Hester. "I begged to be taken with him, and, though he objected, saying I was sober enough without seeing misery, he let me have my way--as he usually does, the dear, kind father! I saw, Robin, a cripple boy that was heartrending. I never, never shall forget him, nor get over the feeling that I have no right to my comforts while there is such as he. No; don't interrupt. I know all that reason can tell me on that head, because father talked to me, and he is not merely just--though that's the highest sort of kindness--but he is tenderly kind as well, we both know that. But the feeling remains after I have reasoned and reasoned. Then, after that poor, poor child, I saw others, crippled, maimed, and all incurable. What can be done with them, except leave them in the slums, to be maimed in mind as well as in body?"

Hester stopped, her eyes overflowing. Rob put out her hand with a responsive moisture in her own bright eyes.

"Dear Hessie, I beg your pardon. I suppose our point of view is different, and very likely I am wrong, and you are right in taking life so hard," she said.

"No, Rob; but you have your work in your family, which needs you, while I am free, and I can't help thinking I ought to find mine. Such sights make me sure that having money, I have no right to use it for teas, receptions, dancing gowns--all that sort of thing," said Hester earnestly.

"While we Greys, though we are freed from all our old worries, have only enough income to live plainly, and help one another," added Rob, finishing the thought Hester felt afraid to voice. "Then, here in Fayre there is no such misery as you see in town, and when I go in to visit you I see only New York's splendour. Go on, Hester; what have you in mind?"

Hester flushed, and rose. "I don't know precisely, and I see the others, coming back, so I can't talk my thoughts into shape with you as I meant to. It will have to wait. But I know one thing: I can not possibly rest till I find out exactly what it is that is in my mind. Isn't Lester fine; don't you like him?"

"How can I help it, when he is so like his uncle?" retorted Rob. "There is no other man in the world equal to your father, Hester, or whom I love so much."

"Not Battalion B?" suggested Hester, fearing to narrow her question to one member of that battalion.

"Battalion B are boys," retorted Rob. "Your cousin seems to find our Prudy beautiful."

"Lester is an artist," said Hester. "Prue is the handsomest girl I ever saw, but she isn't Roberta." And Hester twined an admiring and loving embrace of both eyes and arms around the friend in whose mobile face she found a beauty more entrancing than Prue's.

"We must go down, Hester dear," said Rob, patting the arm under her right hand. She had grown quiet since Hester had told her of the sad children, and the deep womanliness which lay hidden in her merry girl-heart, and which had grown deeper and more apparent since her father's death, softened the sparkling face into a most becoming gravity. "Perhaps something can be done, Hester. Perhaps something good may come, and through you, to the poor mite whom you saw! And perhaps, after all, your discontent is that 'divine discontent,' which makes the world better."

Hester smiled gladly; it was a comfort to feel that Rob did not think her ridiculous.

The Greys' guests departed after an early tea to which they were easily persuaded to remain. All three Grey girls saw them off on the edge of the October twilight, and came home under Fayre's elms and the young moon, discussing Hester's newly presented cousin, with unanimous praise.

"He may be an artist, but he liked the little grey house," said Prue, as they stood in a sisterly row, warming their feet, first the right ones and then the left, like a kind of drill, before the wood fire on the hearth.

"He likes it _because_ he is an artist; not in spite of being one, as you imply, Prudy," said Wythie.

"I am glad that he has come home to Hester, instead of becoming the Mikado's prime minister," said Rob, as if Lester Baldwin had narrowly missed that as an alternative.

"Tired, Mardy?" asked Wythie, turning to her mother as she entered, and Rob and Prue made room for her between them on the hearth.

"What lovely, lovely times we do have in the little grey house!" she added. It was the refrain that the Greys had sung to all their pleasant times ever since the old anxieties had been laid to rest.