Chapter 17

A Reposeful Interval

The next date upon the little gold and ivory memorandum card which hung beside Aunt Mary’s watch was that set for Burnett’s picnic, but its dawning found both host and guest too much attached to their beds to desire any fêtes champêtre just then.

Burnett was in that very weak state which follows in the immediate wake of only too many yachts,—and Aunt Mary was sleeping one of her long drawn out and utterly restorative sleeps.

Jack went in and looked at her.

“It did storm awfully,” he said to Janice, who was sitting by the window. The maid just smiled, nodded, and laid her finger on her lip. She never encouraged conversation when her charge was reposing.

Jack went softly out and turned his steps toward the room of the other wreck.

“Well, how are stocks to-day?” he asked cheerfully on entering.

Burnett was stretched out pillowless and looked black under his hollow eyes. But he appeared to be on the road to recovery.

“Jack,” he said seriously, “what in thunder makes me always so ready to go on the water? I should think after a while I’d learn a thing or two.”

Jack leaned his elbows on the high carved footboard and returned his friend’s look with one of equal seriousness.

“What makes all of us do lots of things?” he asked. “Why don’t we all learn?”

Burnett sighed.

“That’s a fact; why don’t we?” he said weakly. And then he shut his eyes again and turned his back to his caller.

Jack went down to lunch. Clover and Mitchell were playing cards in the library.

“Well, how is the hospital?” Clover asked, looking up while he shuffled the pack.

“Never mind about Burnett,” said Mitchell, “but do relieve my mind about Aunt Mary. Is the one sheet still taking effect, or has she begun to rally on a diet of two?”

“She’s asleep,” said the nephew.

“God bless her slumber,” declared Clover piously. “I very much approve of Aunt Mary asleep. When our dearly beloved aunt sleeps we know we’ve got her and we don’t have to yell. Shall I deal for three?”

“They are bringing up lunch,” said the latest arrival,—“no time to begin a hand. Better stack guns for the present.”

“So say I,” said Mitchell, “with me everything goes down when lunch comes up. It’s quite the reverse with Burnett, isn’t it?” He laughed brutally at his own wit.

“To think how enthusiastic Burr was,” said Clover, evening the cards preparatory to slipping them into their holder on the side of the table. “He’s always so enthusiastic and he’s always so sick. In his place I should feel that, if a buoyant nature is a virtue, I didn’t get much reward.”

The gong sounded just then, and they all went down to lunch, not at all saddened by the sight of their comrade’s empty chair.

“Now, what are we going to do next?” Clover demanded as they finished the bouillon.

“Have a meat course, I suppose,” said Mitchell.

“I don’t mean that; I mean, what are we going to do next with Aunt Mary?”

“She hasn’t but two days more,” said Jack meditatively. “Of course—even if she was all chipper—this storm has knocked any picnic endways.”

“I am not an ardent upholder of picnics, anyhow,” said Mitchell. “They require a constant sitting down on the ground and getting up from the ground to which I find our respected aunt very far from being equal. Burnett mentioned that we should go to the scene on a coach. That also did not meet my approval. Going anywhere on a coach requires a constant getting up on the coach and getting down from the coach to which I also consider the lady unequal. The events of yesterday have left a deep impression on my mind. I—”

“Go on and carve,” interrupted Clover, “or else shove me the platter. I’m hungry.”

“So’m I,” said a voice at the door. A weak voice—but one that showed decision in its tone.

They looked up and saw Burnett, dressed in a pink silk negligée with flowing sleeves.

“I’m ravenous,” he exclaimed explanatorily. “I haven’t had anything since day before yesterday at breakfast. I didn’t know I wanted anything till I smelt it,—then I dressed and came down.”

“How sweet you look,” said Clover. “The effect of your pajama cuffs and collar where one greedily expects curves and contour is lovely. Where did you find that bath-robe?”

“In the bureau drawer,” said Burnett. “It appeared to have been hastily shoved in there some time. I would have thought that it was a woman’s something-or-other, only I found one of Jack’s cards in the pocket.”

They all began to laugh—Clover and Mitchell more heartily than the owner of the card.

“Sit down,” said Mitchell finally with great cordiality. “You may as well sit down while they mess you up some weak tea and wet toast.”

“Tea and toast?” cried the one in pink. “I’m good for dinner. _Um Gotteswillen_, what do you suppose I came down for?”

“I wasn’t sure,” said his friend mildly; “you must admit yourself that your attire is misleading. My book on social etiquette says nothing as to when it is correct to wear a pink silk robe over blue and white striped pajamas. However, there’s no denying your presence, and what can’t be denied must be supplied, so what will you have?”

“Everything.”

Mitchell dived into the edibles generally and Burnett’s void was provided with fulfillment.

“We were talking about Aunt Mary,” Clover said presently. “We were saying that neither you nor she would be up to a coach or down to a picnic for one while.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Burnett. “I feel up to pretty nearly anything now that I can eat again. Pass over the horseradish, will you?”

“You’re one thing, my sweet pink friend,” said Clover gently, “but Aunt Mary’s another. I’m not saying that New York has not had a wonderfully Brown-Sequardesque effect on her, but I am saying that if she is to be raised and lowered frequently, I want to travel with a portable crane.”

“Hum, hum, hum!” cried Jack. “May I just ask who did most of the heavy labor of Aunt Mary yesterday?—As the man in the opera sings twenty times with the whole chorus to back him—‘’Twas I, ’twas I, ’twas I, ’twas I—’”

“Hand over the toast, Clover,” said Burnett. “I don’t care who it was—it was a success anyhow, for she’s upstairs and still alive, and I say she’d enjoy coaching out Riverside way, and—” he choked.

“Slap him anywhere,” said Mitchell. “On his mouth would be the proper place. Such poor manners,—coming down to a company lunch in another man’s bath-robe and then trying to preach and eat dry toast at once.”

Burnett gasped and recovered.

“There,” said Clover, who had risen to administer the proposed slap, “he’s off our minds and we may again pick up Aunt Mary and put her back on.”

“We want to send her home in a blaze of glory,” said Jack thoughtfully. “I want her to feel that the fun ran straight through.”

“That’s just what I mean,” interposed his particular friend; “we want her to go home on the wings of a giant cracker, so to speak.”

“How would it do,” said Clover suddenly, “to just make a night of it and take her along? Stock up, stack up, and ho! for it. You all know the kind of a time I mean.”

“Clover,” said Jack gravely, “does it occur to you that Aunt Mary belongs to me and that I have a personal interest in keeping her alive?”

“Nothing ever occurs to him,” said Mitchell. “Occasionally an idea bangs up against him inadvertently, and as it splinters a sliver or two penetrate his head—that’s all.”

“I don’t see why the last sliver he felt wasn’t to the point,” said Burnett, turning the cream jug upside down as he spoke. “I think she’d enjoy it of all things. She enjoys everything so. I’ll guarantee that when she gets back home she’ll even enjoy the yachting trip. Lots of people are made like that. In the winter I always enjoy yachting, myself. Pass me the hot bread.”

“Burnett,” said Mitchell warmly, “I wish that you would remember that a collapse invariably follows an inflated market.”

“Is it Aunt Mary who is on the market, or myself?”

“You.”

“Oh, the rule is reversed in my case—the collapse went first. I’m only inflating up to the usual limit again. Is there any gravy left?”

“No, there isn’t,” said Clover, looking in the dish, “there isn’t much of anything left.”

“Let’s go to the library,” said Mitchell, rising abruptly. “It always makes me ill to see goose-stuffing before Thanksgiving. Come on.”

“I’m done,” said Burnett, springing up and winding his lacey draperies about his manly form. “Come on yourself; and once settled and smoking, let us canvass the question and agree with Clover.”

“You know there are nights about town and nights about town,” said Clover, as they climbed the staircase. “I do not anticipate that Aunt Mary will bring up with a round turn in the police station, as her young relative once did.”

“Well, that’s some comfort,” said Mitchell. “I did not feel sure as to just where you did mean her to bring up. You will perhaps allow me to remark that making a night of it with Aunt Mary in tow is a subject that really is provocative of mature reflection. Making a night of it is a frothy sort of a proposition in which our beloved aunty may not beat up to quite the buoyancy of you and me.”

As he finished this sage remark they all re-entered the library and grouped themselves around the table of smoking things.

“That’s what I say,” said Jack. “I think she’s much more likely to beat out than to beat up—I must say.”

“I’ll bet you she doesn’t,” cried Burnett eagerly. “I’ll bet five dollars that she doesn’t.”

“I declare,” said Clover, “what a thing a backer is to be sure. I feel positive that Aunt Mary will go through with it now. I had my doubts before, but never now. Six to five on Aunt Mary for the Three-year-old Stakes.”

“The best way is to hit a happy medium,” said Mitchell thoughtfully, scratching a match for the lighting of his new-rolled cigarette. “I think the wisest thing would be for us just to take Aunt Mary and sally forth and then keep it up until she must be put to bed. What say?”

“Well,” said Jack, reflectively, “I don’t suppose that taking it that way, it would really be any worse than the other nights—”

“Worse!” cried Clover. “Hear him!—slandering those brilliant occasions, everyone of which is a jewel in the crown of Aunt Mary’s bonnet.”

“We’ll begin by dining out,” said Burnett. “I’ll give the dinner. One of the souvenir kind of affairs. A white mouse for every man and a canary bird for the lady. We’ll have a private room and speeches and I’ll get megaphones so we can make her hear without bustin’.”

“My dear boy,” said Mitchell, “where is this private room to be in which the party can converse through megaphones? I had two deaf uncles once who played cribbage with megaphones, but they were influential and the rest of the family were poor. Circumstances alter cases. I ask again where you can get a private dining-room for the use of five people and four megaphones?”

“I’ll see,” said Burnett; “I wish,” he added irritably, “that you’d wait until I finished before beginning to smash in like that, you knock everything out of my head.”

“It’ll do you good to have a little something knocked out of you,” said Mitchell gently. “It may enlarge your premises, give you a spare room somewhere, so to speak. I should think that you’d need some spare room somewhere after such a breakfast.”

“I’ll tell you what I think;” said Clover. “I think it’s a great scheme. It’s a sort of pull-in-and-out, field-glass species of idea. We can develop it or we can shut it off; in other words, we can parade Aunt Mary or bring her home just when we darn please.”

“That’s what I said,” said Burnett. “Begin with my dinner, white mice and all, and when all is going just let it slide until it seems about time to slide off.”

“Yes,” said Mitchell dryly, “it’s always a good plan to slide on until you slide off. It would be so easy to reverse the game.”

“And then, too,—” began Burnett.

“Excuse me,” said a voice at the door,—a woman’s voice this time.

It was Janice, very pretty in her black dress and white decorations, hands in pockets, smile on lips.

“What’s up now?” the last speaker interrupted himself to ask, “Aunt Mary?”

“No, she’s not up,” said the maid; “but she’s awake and wants to know about the picnic.”

“There, what did I say!” cried Burnett; “isn’t she a hero? I tell you Aunt Mary’d fight in the last ditch—she’d never surrender! She’s one of those dead-at-the-gun chaps. I’m proud to think we have known the companionship of joint yachting results.”

“She says she feels as well as ever,” said Janice, opening her eyes a trifle as she noted Burnett’s pink silk negligée, “and wishes to know when you want to start.”

“Bravo,” said Mitchell; “I, too, am fired by this exposition of pluck. I like spirit. She reminds me of the horse who was turned out to grass and then suddenly broke the world’s record.”

“What horse was that?” asked Burnett.

“Pegasus,” said Mitchell cruelly; “I didn’t say what kind of a record he broke, did I?”

“What shall I tell Miss Watkins?” asked the maid.

Jack, who had risen at her entrance and gone to the window, faced around here and said:

“Tell her that if she’ll dress we’ll go out bonnet-shooting and afterwards drive in the park.”

Janice hesitated.

“She will surely ask where you are to dine,” said she, half-smiling.

Jack looked at the crowd.

“Fellows,” he said, “we must save up for to-morrow’s blow-out; suppose you let Mitchell and me dine Aunt Mary somewhere very tranquilly to-night and we’ll get her home by eleven.”

“Yes, do,” said Janice, with sudden earnest entreaty. “Honestly, there is a limit.”

“Of course, there is a limit,” said Mitchell. “Even cities have their limits. This one tried to be an exception, but San Francisco yelled ‘Keep off’ and she drew in her claws again. Aunt Mary, possessing many points in common with New York, also possesses that. She has limits. Her limits took in more than we bargained for,—for they have taken us into the bargain. Still they are there, and we bow to necessity. A cheerful drive, a quiet tea, early to bed. And _pax vobiscum_.”

“No wonder,” said Burnett, “it’s easy for you to agree when you’re to be one of the dinner party.” “I don’t mind being left out,” said Clover contentedly. “I shall sit on the sofa and whisper to ‘the one behind.’ Whispering is an art that I have almost forgotten, but inspired by that pink—”

“Then I’ll tell Miss Watkins to dress for the going out,” said Janice, pointedly addressing herself to Jack.

“Yes, please do.”

The maid left the room and went upstairs. Aunt Mary was tossing about on her pillow.

“Well, what’s it to be?” she asked instantly.

“The storm has made it too wet to picnic,” replied Janice. “Mr. Denham wants to take you to drive and afterwards you and Mr. Mitchell and he are to dine—”

“And Burnett and Clover?” cried Aunt Mary in appalled interruption; “where are they goin’?”

“Really, I don’t know.”

“I don’t like the idea,” said Aunt Mary; “we’d ought to all be together. I never did approve of splittin’ up in small parties. Did Jack say anythin’ about my gettin’ another bonnet?”

“Yes, he thought that you would go to a milliner first.”

“I don’t know about lookin’ sillier,” said Aunt Mary. “Strikes me a woman can’t look more foolish than she does without a bonnet. However, I don’t feel like makin’ a fuss over anythin’ to-day. I’ve had a good rest and I feel fine. I’ll dress and go out with Jack, an’ I know one thing, I’ll enjoy every minute I can, for this week is goin’ like lightnin’ and when it’s over—well, you never saw Lucinda, so it’s no use tryin’ to make you understand, but—” she drew a long breath and shook her head meaningly.

Janice did not reply. She busied herself with the cares of the toilet of her mistress, and when that was complete the carriage was summoned for the shopping tour.

Jack saw that the bonnet was attended to first of all and then they went to another store and purchased a scarf pin for Joshua and a workbox for Lucinda. After that Aunt Mary decided that she wanted her four friends each to have a souvenir of her visit, so she insisted upon being conducted to that gorgeous establishment which is lighted with diamonds instead of electricity and ordered four dressing-cases to be constructed, everything with gold tops, to be engraved with the proper initials and also the inscription, “from M.W. in memory of N.Y.” Jack rather protested at this, asking her if she realized what the engraving would come to.

“I don’t know,” said Aunt Mary recklessly and lavishly. “I don’t care what it comes to either. It’s comin’ to me, anyhow, ain’t it? I rather think so. Seems likely.”

The clerk took down the order, and then as he was ushering them door-wards he fell by the wayside and craved permission to show some tiaras of emeralds and some pearl dog-collars. Jack rebelled.

“You don’t want any of those,” he exclaimed, trying to propel her by.

“I ain’t so sure,” said Aunt Mary. “I might have a dog some day.”

But her nephew got her back into their conveyance, and they drove away. It was so late that they could not consider the park and so had to make a tour of Fifth Avenue to use up the time left before dinner. Then when they headed toward the café they were delighted to observe Mitchell awaiting them just where he was to have been.

“I see him,” said Aunt Mary. “My! I’d know him as far off as I’d know anybody.” But then she sighed. “I wish the others were there, too,” she said sadly; “seems awful—just three of us.”

The dinner which followed echoed her sentiment. It was a very nice dinner, but painfully quiet, and Aunt Mary grew very restless.

“Seems like wastin’ time, anyhow,” she said uneasily. “I don’t see why the others didn’t come. Well, can’t we go to Coney Island or the Statue of Liberty or somewhere when we’re through?”

Mitchell looked at Jack.

“Why, you see, Aunt Mary,” the latter promptly shrieked, “we thought we’d be good and go home early and sort of rest up to-night so as to have a high old time to-morrow.”

Aunt Mary’s face, which had fallen during the first part of their speech, brightened up at the last words.

“What are we goin’ to do?” she inquired with unfeigned interest.

“Burnett’s going to give us a dinner,” Jack answered, “and then afterwards we’re going to help you see the town.”

“Oh!” said Aunt Mary. A pleasant gleam fled over her face.

“I never was a great believer in bein’ out nights,” she said, “but I guess I’ll make an exception to-morrow. I might as well be doin’ that as anythin’, I presume. Maybe better—very likely better.”

“Oh, very much better,” said Mitchell. “It is the exceptions that furnish all the oil in life’s machinery. The exceptions not only generally prove too much for the rule, but they also generally prevent the rule from proving too much for us. They—”

“But I don’t see why we couldn’t go to two or three vaudevilles to-night, too,” said the old lady, suddenly. “I feel so sort of ready-for-anythin’.”

“You always feel that way, Miss Watkins,” screamed Mitchell. “It is we that are the blind and the halt. You are ever fresh, but we falter and faint. You see it’s you that go out, but it’s we that you get back. You—”

“We could go to one vaudeville, anyway,” said Aunt Mary abstractedly; “an’ if we saw any places that looked lively we could stop a few minutes there on our way back. I’ve never been into lots of things here.”

Jack looked at Mitchell this time.

“I’m sorry, Miss Watkins,” he roared, “but _I’ll_ have to go home, anyhow. You see, I’m not used to the lively life which has been enlivening us all this week and, being weakly in my knees, needs must look out.”

Aunt Mary looked very disappointed.

“Then Jack and I’ll go, too,” she said, “but oh! dear, I do hate to waste my stay in the city sleepin’ so much. I can sleep all I want after I get home, but—” she paused, and then said with deep feeling, “Well, you don’t understand about Lucinda an’ so you don’t understand about anythin’.”

Both the young men felt truly regretful as they put her into the carriage for the return trip. Her deep enjoyment was so genuine and naive that they sympathized with her feelings when cut off from it.

But it was best that this one night should pass unimproved, and so all five threw themselves into their respective beds with equal zest and slept—and slept—and slept.