CHAPTER SIX

ITS LEAN-TO ROOM

Bruce went away on Monday, with Basil and Bartlemy to support him, and with his arms and hands still bound up. He resolutely turned his back on the temptation to let his wounds serve as an excuse for prolonging days which had been among the pleasantest of his life, in spite of physical suffering.

Miss Charlotte had been persuaded by the council of all her friends to abandon indefinitely her intention of rebuilding her house. It was irreplaceable; nothing could restore to her the walls permeated with the love and associations of a lifetime, and there was room for her and need of her, as Mrs. Grey urged her to remember, in the little grey house. So, for that winter at least, the little house was the richer by another inmate, and the Greys set about fitting for her use the room in the lean-to, to which Rob had been wont to repair through her childhood and big-girlhood for solitude and inspiration. It really was a dear room, although one could not stand erect in all parts of it to view its charms. On either side of the door by which it was entered sat a low rush-bottomed chair, with yellow stripes running around its grooved back much dimmed and worn by years of service. At each end of the room was a window; between the corner and one of these windows stood a mahogany bedstead, with rolling head and footboard of equal height. Beside the other window stood a high mahogany bureau, with carved columns unnecessarily upholding its swelled front upper drawer, and with two small drawers raising its top into a second story. Above this bureau hung an old gilt mirror, divided across its top by a strip of gilt framing a pleasing representation of two white houses facing a common, through which a walk, bordered by the stiffest of trees, mounted to the village church. The lean-to roof slanted rapidly down from these windows on each side of the room towards the south, but the few feet between the ceiling and the floor on that side were broken by two half windows, their tiny panes contriving to let in a little of the southern sunshine and breeze, and a glimpse of the apple-trees beyond. It really was a most lovable and harmonious room, and its quaintness seemed the proper setting for Cousin Peace's sweet aloofness from the world of to-day.

Rob came alone to begin dismantling the room of its mementos of the time when she had been the Scheherazade of Fayre, and had told stories to the children for money which the Grey family had then so sorely needed. These mementos were the absurdities which Battalion B had showered upon her. The mottoes which Bartlemy had illuminated still adorned the walls; Rob smiled and then sighed as she took them down, one after the other--"Young Robin Grey came a-Courtin' We," "Plain Tales for the Bills," and other ridiculous sentiments which the boys had contributed for her to hang in her auditorium, so they declared, but which had hung here all this time, here where Rob used to come to prepare her stories. Battalion B's other contributions to her enterprise were also piled on the chairs and in the corners of this room--rattan rods, slates, primers, a pedagogue's cap, and an impossible false front of yellow flax, with its wide cotton parting; this Bruce had sent her.

Rob laid her treasures in the clothes-basket, amusement and regret written on her face. She was still young--just over the line, childhood not out of sight behind her, but its very nearness made it worse to know that it was inaccessible. Those had been hard days, but they had been pleasant ones, and sixteen was a delightful age! Eighteen's two additional years made great differences.

Rob folded the false front down its parting and smoothed its flaxen locks meditatively. No shadow had come over the jolly comradeship that had been established between her and Bruce at their first meeting; he was still her boy friend, treating her with that fine mixture of consideration, perfect understanding and equality which is the ideal of American boy and girl friendship. But Rob felt quite sure that Bruce's chummy manner hid quite as much of another sort of affection for her as Basil quietly, but frankly showed for Wythie, and which Wythie accepted with her sweet, honest single-mindedness. Rob had no desire to exchange her most precious comradeship for love, and Bruce was too keen-eyed not to know that, and not to retain the good he had by the utmost vigilance, biding his time in the hope of making himself indispensable to Rob. Bruce was nineteen; Rob felt sometimes, and for a brief moment as if she were drifting towards a trap, for she was a little girl at heart still, and shrank like a wild bird from a retaining hand.

"It is a great pity to be eighteen, and it's a greater pity that your friends have to grow up," Rob said aloud, depositing the false front on the top of her collection in the clothes-basket, and recalling Bruce's expression when he left the little grey house on Sunday night to be ready for an early start to college Monday morning. He had bidden her good-bye with his old chummy pat on the shoulder, given with the finger-tips which protruded from the bandages of his right hand. All that he had said was: "Good-bye, Bobs Bahadur; you've been to me the trump you always are. I'll pour oil on the troubled waters for you if ever you get into trouble--hot water, I suppose I could more appropriately have said. I don't suppose I'll ever have a chance to tend you wounded, as you did me, because Bobs Bahadur is a general that doesn't know defeat, but I'll read to you if you are laid up, and return my obligations in any other way, if I have the chance. A wounded hero might have worse nurses than you and Wythie, and Prue, too, between her pursuit of knowledge."

He had gone off laughing, speaking like a schoolboy, but though Bruce could control his tongue, and include Rob with the other two girls, he could not keep his eyes from regarding her with a look that told her there was only one girl in all the world for Bruce Rutherford.

"Bother such nonsense!" ejaculated Rob impatiently, shaking her shoulders as she saw her clouded face in the gilt mirror, below the village green and the white cottages.

"What nonsense, Robin?" asked Miss Charlotte's soft voice, and Rob turned towards her, glad for the moment that her cousin could not see her face.

"Only growing up, being a young woman, Cousin Peaceful," she said. "I was taking down these trophies of my story-telling days, the absurd things Battalion B used to send me, and I was thinking what good times we used to have, and what a pity it was that we couldn't be boys and girls forever instead of sober men and women."

"I haven't noticed any very great sobriety so far, Robin dear," remarked Miss Charlotte quietly. "Do you feel sorry to see the story unfolding for Wythie and Basil?"

"Oh, I hate it! No, I don't!" cried Rob. "I'm glad about it, of course--Wythie goes on as quietly as if she were a little rosebud opening--sunflower, would be a better simile, because she looks up to Basil in the most sunflowerish way imaginable. But it is rather horrid, though it is nice, now don't you think so, Cousin Peace?"

"I think Robin is not fully fledged yet," said Cousin Peace wisely, and Rob was silenced by the portentous little word at the end of her sentence.

Cousin Peace had firmly refused to consider becoming one of the family in the little grey house unless she were allowed to use the lean-to room which was never occupied; no one, she declared, should be disturbed by her coming, though Rob promptly reminded her that they were sure to be disturbed by her wherever she might be, for she was such a disturbing element. Rob was constantly caressing Cousin Peace by loving pretence of her being a great trial.

The Greys had all objected to giving Miss Charlotte the lean-to room, but when it was ready for her Wythie cried out in surprised delight: "Why, it's the very nicest room in the whole house!"

It was a dear little room. The old-fashioned, fine furniture remained in its place. Soft green and white short curtains framed the small paned windows, plain green carpet covered the floor, long boxes of flowers stood before the half windows on the south side of the room, under the lean-to, and a few good pictures hung on the straight sides of the walls. Though Cousin Peace could never see her surroundings, her senses were so delicate that one felt impelled to surround her with the finest beauty, beauty which she, more than most people, would have revelled in had she not been debarred from seeing it. But Rob said truly that "Cousin Peace's insight was much keener than most people's outsight"; it was hard to believe that she did not get all the colour and outline of every picture, flower, and sunset that came before her.

Over Miss Charlotte's bed Wythie had hung a fine photograph of St. Lucy, with her lamp and the palm of a martyr's victory. It was like Oswyth to remember the significance of St. Lucy's legend, her sacrifice of her beautiful eyes and her reward of others more beautiful than those which she had lost, and her name's meaning--light. To remember how peculiarly appropriate to blind Cousin Charlotte, whose inward vision revealed to her more than mere eyes could have shown, was the legend of Santa Lucia.

"It seems kind of quiet, like a place to be good in," said little Polly Flinders, surveying the result of the girls' work in the lean-to room with serious gaze, as she nursed Prue's old doll, Hortense.

It grew to be just that to all the Grey family. When annoyances came, when those days dawned which dawn for every one, in which nothing seems right and many things seem wrong; when nerves quivered and other people seemed suddenly aggressive and unkind, then Wythie, Rob, and Prue fell into the habit of creeping up to Cousin Peace's little lean-to room to be set straight.

"It is like having a domestic chapel," said Rob, who most of the three was subject to perturbed spirits and the variability, which, she said herself, was due to the reddish shade of her bright brown hair.

Little Polly Flinders loved dearly to crawl off into the corner, as far under the lean-to as the low rocking-chair, which had served all the Greys in turn, would go, and quietly to sit rocking Hortense, watching Miss Charlotte with awe-struck eyes that never got to the end of the charm and the lessons of that gentle face.

It became Polly's task to water the flowers in the boxes under the windows in the lowest dip of the lean-to, because she most easily of any of the inmates of the little grey house could crawl up to them as they thirstily awaited her. Perhaps it was because Polly was so faithful to them, perhaps because Charlotte Grey loved them so dearly, but for some reason the flowers in the lean-to room blossomed as no others in Fayre seemed to blossom, and filled the air with the sweetness of mignonette, heliotrope, and roses, brightening the quiet room with their glad colours.

Prue came home one afternoon with a face that would have betrayed her perturbed state of mind to her family had there been any one about to have seen it. But her mother had gone to Aunt Azraella's, Wythie and Rob were out, Lydia sat in the kitchen darning long black hose to a wailing accompaniment, and Kiku-san was too sleepy at that hour to be observant of Prue's expression.

But the instant she crossed the threshold of the lean-to room, Miss Charlotte dropped her knitting--as usual she was making soft wrappings for little babies--and said: "Why, Prudy, dear girl, what has happened?"

"No one ever sees things as quickly as you do, Cousin Peace!" exclaimed Prue, taking off her hat before the landscape mirror, and lightly "fluffing" her golden hair before she took the low stool opposite Cousin Peace. "There hasn't anything really happened, Cousin Charlotte, but there is a chance for something to happen."

"There usually is," remarked Cousin Peace, resuming her knitting. "Fourteen chances of sixty minutes each, at the very least, in each day, and I think we may as well count them as twenty-four, because the greatest event of my life was that dreadful fire, and that happened in the night."

"Yes, but I mean that I have a chance, right here in my hand, for something nice to happen to me, and I'm afraid mama won't let it happen," said Prue dubiously.

Miss Charlotte reached over and touched the letter that Prue held.

"What is it all about, Prue?" she asked, leaning back again.

"First of all, Cousin Peace, do you think it is so very dreadful to be ambitious?" asked Prue.

"I think it is very dreadful to lack ambition, Prudy. I think it all depends on the direction one's ambitions take," returned Miss Charlotte.

"Mama warns me all the time not to be ambitious, to be content--I think she means humdrum," said Prue. "Of course there is no one half as good as mama, but just think a minute, Cousin Peace. She married early, and she has been swallowed up in her home, living for us and for poor papa. Now, couldn't a woman be good and happy if she was called to a different life? Is this the only way to be good?"

"Prue, that is a foolish question, because you know quite well that a great many people are being good, in a great many different ways and places," said Cousin Peace. "Just what have you in mind? Don't you think you had better tell me exactly what you have to decide? What is the text of your address?"

"Yes, it is this that has set me off, but I think of these things a good deal," said Prue slowly. "This is a letter from Hester Baldwin. She knows I want dreadfully to go to New York for music, and drawing, and languages, and such special studies. She has told me that her father can get me into a perfectly fine school--I think I mean a fashionable school," Prue interrupted herself to say, with the honesty that was a Grey characteristic. "She says that they would be delighted to have me spend the winter with them, with the Baldwins, Cousin Charlotte, who entertain and go out a lot, and where I should have a chance to meet the people I want to know, and to see the life I want to see--Oh, I know mama will say no!" Prue broke off with almost a sob.

"Prue, you are but sixteen," began Miss Charlotte.

"Just at the age when impressions are keenest!" cried Prue. "It would do me heaps of good! Don't disapprove, Cousin Charlotte! Please don't! I want you to make mama see it my way."

"My dear little Prudy, come nearer; put your head on my lap. There!" said Cousin Charlotte, running her long fingers through the hair that glistened like spun gold between them. "Now, dear, listen to me. You are getting a good education in Fayre; better, very possibly, than you would have in that fashionable school--certainly as good as one could ask. Look at the question honestly, Prudence, and as a truthful girl tell me if I am not right when I say that I think you are far better off to be denied this doubtful opportunity that has come to you. You have good society in Fayre; the companionship of gentlemen and gentlewomen, and it is society within the scope of your income to go into and to receive in your turn. In New York you would meet well-bred people too, dear, because the Baldwins would not admit other into their home, but fashionable people are not necessarily well-bred; as soon as you went beyond the Baldwin's immediate circle you would probably find many things less satisfactory than they are here. This is an age in which notoriety is mistaken for fame, and success is measured by a standard very like the circus posters which adorn the barns around Fayre in June. You have been taught by example and precept that success is not always measured by results, but is always measured by the end for which one works and lives. Dear Prue, keep your ideals; never for one moment lose your hold on the vision of perfection in character and the ends for which you labour. It is a dream which brings its own fulfilment, if not in outward surroundings, at least in the character of the dreamer. Your mother fears, dear Prue, your tendency to be attracted by glitter and by the noise of plaudits which are not the echo of truth. Neither of the other girls will be drawn away from their poise of mind, which enables them to distinguish relative values very exactly. But you, my Prudy, are less content, and your mother wants you to find happiness within yourself, since outward belongings never give it."

"But, Cousin Peace, I only want to see and be seen; I can't help knowing what I look like, and I want to use my gifts in a larger field," said Prue, very low, and rather glad that her cousin could not see her handsome face as she claimed its possession. "Now, do you despise me?"

Miss Charlotte laughed. "My dear, my dear, my dear!" she cried. "It is very natural to want to see and to be seen, though it does sound a little odd to hear you claiming beauty so frankly. But, Prudy, don't you expect to use your eyes to good purpose, wherever you are, and is it a little thing that your bonny face will give pleasure to your loved ones? I am afraid you want an audience, my little cousin, but remember that anything outside doesn't matter seriously; it is the close heart things that count, especially to women. I don't mean to underrate your gift of beauty, Prue, nor to have you underrate it, but don't overrate it. Wythie is very sweet and pretty, and Rob's charm exceeds her good looks, which are not insignificant. You have fallen into the Grey heritage--that's all. The Greys are usually more or less handsome. But that does not necessitate foolish ambitions. There is another side to this plan of going to New York for the winter which does not seem to have occurred to you. You would be cultivating tastes which you have not the means to gratify. You have a comfortable, dear little old home, Prudy, as much of this world's goods as you need, but you could not maintain the habits of the girls whom you would meet in that fashionable school, not for one month. Can you afford a great many expensive dresses, carriages, flowers, theatre tickets unlimited, all the costly nothings that make up tremendous sums in a season? And if you can not, why should you want to make yourself miserable by acquiring tastes which you have no reason to suppose that you can ever gratify? If you are vaguely restless now what would you be after a winter in that atmosphere, to which, at first, you would take only too kindly?"

"I could manage," said Prue. "They would not know what I could afford."

"Don't you think, Prue, that is not quite honest?" suggested Cousin Peace gently. "Don't you think upright, self-respecting honesty demands that one should take that place in the world which belongs to him? And common sense will tell you it is the only way to be happy. I don't mean to preach, my dear, but when you look around you and see how many people are false to their ideals, and sink to incredible baseness for the love of display, it seems to me that when one is but slenderly equipped with money it is an obvious duty to safeguard one's self by cultivating simple tastes, and by living with perfect integrity on that basis which is his rightfully, striving of all things for contentment. I do not approve of your feeding your love of luxury, your desire for a wider field, even though I can easily forgive you for knowing that you are a remarkably pretty girl. You should not accept Hester's invitation, Prue; you should stay in your own place until you are old enough to carve your way through to what you want, and by that time I hope very much that you will see how lovely it is to live in the simple, noble, unworldly atmosphere in which you have been born and bred. If I were you I wouldn't ask my mother to let me go to Hester this winter."

"There wouldn't be any use in my asking her if you disapprove," said Prue, half tempted to resentment, though she liked to be preached to by Cousin Peace.

"There wouldn't be if I did approve, you rebellious child," smiled her cousin. "Mary would never expose her baby to the danger of having her golden head filled with the sort of ambition which leads to bitterness of soul." Cousin Peace stroked the golden head very kindly as she spoke, and Prue lifted it with a sigh.

"Worldiness is beautiful to think about," she said, "but I wonder if worldliness isn't rather splendid to live? I can't help thinking it would be fine to enter a vast room, magnificently attired, and hear people catch their breath and whisper: 'There's the beautiful Miss Grey!'"

Miss Charlotte laughed long and merrily. "Prue, you are just a little girl after all, and in spite of your great height! You haven't changed at all since the time that you used to get on that ragged old silk from the attic and trail about playing you were Mary of Scotland. Do you remember how you used to add: 'Before she was beheaded,' when we asked who you were, and you used to say: 'Mary Queen Scots'? I think I needn't have preached such a long sermon to you, if you have only such a childish ambition as that!"

"Who's talking of ambitions?" cried Rob in the doorway. "Here is Polly going to have a birthday next week and be nine years old, and I have found out that her ambition is to have a lovely doll, all her own, so that she can feel that her child is not an adopted one, like Hortense."

Rob came in, all fresh and glowing from the out-of-doors. Miss Charlotte put out her hand and Rob dropped Polly's little hand to clasp it.

"What are your ambitions, Robin Redbreast?" asked Cousin Peace, using Rob's childish nickname.

"I believe I haven't one; isn't it disgraceful?" cried Rob. "Only to be happy, happy, with Mardy and the girls--and you, dearest Cousin Peaceful--in the little grey house, forever and ever without change or decay."

"Dear Robin!" murmured her cousin. "If only that might be! But your ambition may be, it _will_ be realized, for love is eternal."

"Oh, yes! I believe I am ambitious to resume my story-telling successfully, to help Hessie's little cripples," added Rob with a light pressure of her cheek on Miss Charlotte's hand as her only answer.