Chapter 9

"Oh, Mr. Wortley," she urged, "it isn't that I don't see what you mean--partly. You think I don't, but I do. There's awful mistakes made in marryin', we all see 'em; even 'way back here in the country dreadful things happen, an' the papers--we c'n read 'em, that's enough an' more'n enough. There's things that ought to be changed, I know, but not the way you want to change 'em--oh, not that way! It can't help any, not marryin', don't you see--folks must just take pains and marry more careful, 'cause we've begun this way and now we can't stop without somebody gettin' hurt--and that won't be you, nor any other man. Marryin's all we've got to tie to, Mr. Wortley, us women, an' we can't quit now!"

The boy looked thoughtfully at her: "I--I think perhaps you are right," he said slowly. He appeared unaccountably older; small, worried lines were cutting themselves deep around his eyes and mouth.

He threw back his head in an attempt to regain the old, masterful manner.

"I hope I am too sincere not to state honorably that I--I feel sure you are right!" he announced, "that is, in this particular instance. I have no desire to establish any point at the expense--at the expense...."

He frowned into space; his lips tightened obstinately.

"But it will _have_ to be at somebody's expense!" he cried irritably. "Shall we _always_ go on like this, putting off, putting off, letting this shameful, unsatisfactory state of things continue, just because it would be _our_ wives that would suffer...."

"I guess that's about it," Luella answered, seriously.

"Then all I have to say is, we're damned cowards, all of us!" he cried, with the old flash of rage.

But it was the last time. Beaten, yet triumphant, he stooped for his harness and himself assumed it, with set teeth.

"I--I shouldn't have said that," he said, gravely. "It's--it's a very difficult thing ... a man has so many responsibilities...."

They waited patiently.

"It seems one must compromise--something--anyway," he went on, thinking his way painfully along. "I don't know why it seems so difficult to me now; ... they talked enough, all the others, and of course I shall never speak to your Aunt Ethel again--you may use your own judgment, Dorothy--because there are some insults...."

He shook himself again and drew the girl to her feet.

"Dearest," he said, and there was a sad little ring in his voice, but a strangely kind one, "I--we have been mistaken. It wouldn't do. I think--" he looked anxiously at Luella--"the sooner we get some one--to--to--a clergyman, you know, or a--a legal person of some kind--"

"I'll get Mr. Andrews right away," Luella assured him briskly. "He's Cong'ational, and he's a real pleasant young man--new here. Car'line, you run right down cross-lots to that first white house an' there he'll be, callin' this minute on the Wilkinses, 'cause she told me he would. You say Luella Judd wants him right away, an' he'll come."

"Yes, Luella, I will," said Caroline but her eyes were fastened on the girl.

She was in the boy's arms, her head on his shoulder; she clung to him tightly, shivering a little, hiding her face.

"You don't mind, darling?" he begged her earnestly, "you believe I am doing it for the best? You won't blame me for changing, after all I've said?"

She lifted her head and through her loving gray eyes looked out at him the woman she would be in ten years. A little tender smile curved her lips; she patted his shoulder as a mother caresses her headstrong, dearest son.

"Whatever you think is best, Frank dear," she said, "let's do that."

* * * * *

"I only hope to heaven she don't understand!" Luella muttered nervously, glancing unguardedly at Caroline.

Caroline stamped her foot angrily. Her sensitive little body had thrilled in the girl's arm; she had felt all the pathos and dignity of Luella's appeal, the young man seemed to her mysterious and noble. And now she was distrusted, grudged her free part in this exciting afternoon! She scowled at Luella.

"You must think I'm a baby, Luella Judd!" she cried irritably. "I understand all about it, just as well as you do! Didn't we have just the same thing in the family, ourselves?"

Luella gasped.

"For heaven's sakes, Car'line, wha' do you mean?" she demanded; "it's perfectly awful the things you city children know! I do declare, I don't think it's right!"

"Pooh!" said Caroline grandly. "I should hope I knew more'n that! Why, my Uncle Joe's own sister, her man that she was engaged to, he didn't believe in church weddings, either, and he told my mother if he had to stand up in gray trousers with those six girls in pink hats and the bishop all togged out and the whole town glaring at 'em he'd run away with Cousin Elizabeth, and he didn't know whether he'd marry her at all! And they cried and they begged 'em, and I was to be a flower girl and wear my white silk stockings, but still they wouldn't. And Cousin Elizabeth cried, too, and she said she'd never feel married in a travelling dress, but Cousin Richard said he guessed she would. And everybody was terribly angry with them, but they just had it in her aunt's house that was paralyzed and couldn't ever go out, and it was right next door to Cousin Richard's father's house, too, just like this! Not one bridesmaid and nobody had any cake in a box to take away. It was awful, just like Luella says, but afterwards we all forgave 'em. They ran off and did it in the afternoon--there was only her father and that paralyzed aunt."

She drew a long breath and smiled importantly at them.

Dorothy put an arm over her fat little shoulders.

"You must be my bridesmaid and my flower girl, too," she said softly.

"You'll go get your father, o' course, Mr. Wortley?" Luella appeared unconscious of the possibility of any refusal, and though he started, scowled, and shook his head, her warning glance in Caroline's direction checked him, and he plunged out of the door.

* * * * *

"And may God bless you both," the Reverend Mr. Andrews concluded unofficially, noting with a certain curiosity, the impeccable riding breeches of the groom, and the bride's looped-up linen habit--he had never married a couple attired in precisely that manner, and he scented romance.

"Your generosity, Mr. Wortley, to say nothing of your father--" He paused helplessly. "Mrs. Judd knows what this will mean to us this winter," he finished. "No, I thank you, Mr. Wortley, I thank you sir, but I never touch liquor in any form. But I drink their health in this excellent iced coffee, I do indeed."

Caroline slipped around to Luella, who sat mopping her eyes behind the kitchen door.

"I wish Mr. Wortley--Mr. Grumpy Wortley--wouldn't kiss me any more, Luella," she complained, "it prickles my face dreadfully. I don't see why I can't go with 'em as far as the Mountain Road--I'd love to ride on his horse. I was bridesmaid--why can't I? Do you think my mother'll let me keep this pin? What did you cry for, Luella? What was it he said to you? He's going to drive me down to the village to write some telegrams to New York with him, after they've started. And then he'll speak to mother about the pin, but we have to get the telegrams written first. Why do they always put it into the papers the first thing, Luella? When you were married, were there telegrams about it in the papers, up here?"

Luella tied on her checked apron and attacked the soiled dishes heaped on the kitchen table; her cheeks were deeply flushed and her hands trembled a little. She smiled affectionately at Caroline.

"I'll drive down with you, I guess, an' stop off at your ma's," she answered.

"No, it wasn't telegraphed 'round much when I was married, but then," with a humorous twinkling of her deep-set eyes, "I hadn't never studied into the marryin' question so thorough as some!"

VI

HIS FATHER'S HOUSE

Caroline stopped abruptly at the edge of the little pine-encircled glade that edged the pond-lily pond and waved her hand in warning.

"Hist! there are human creatures there!" she whispered loudly.

It would be evident to anyone not absolutely stone blind that she was a fairy. A lace-edged, snowy nightgown was caught up by a sky blue ribbon about her hips, trailing gloriously behind her over the grass; two large wings artfully constructed of wrapping-paper flopped behind her surprisingly bare shoulders--the nightgown was decidedly _décolleté_, and had been made for a person several sizes larger than Caroline.

"Hooma keecha da!" crooned the General. His conversation was evidently based on the theory that the English language is a dark mystery, insoluble by system, but likely to be blundered into fortuitously, at any moment, if the searcher gabble with sufficient steadiness and persistence. His costume, consisting merely of the ordinary blue denim overalls of commerce, would have been positively commonplace were it not for the wings of bright pink tissue paper, which he wore with a somewhat confusing obstinacy, pinned firmly to his chest. Miss Honey assisted his wavering footsteps rather sulkily; she longed for the white and lacy draperies in front of her and regarded her ballet skirts of stitched newspaper with bare tolerance. It is true she wore a crown of tinfoil and carried a wand made of half a brass curtain rod; but her laced tan boots, stubbed and stained, showed with disgusting plainness, and nobody would take the trouble to make her a newspaper bodice.

"If you don't stop tickling me with that arrow, Brother Washburn, I'll go back!" she declared, snappishly.

The fourth member of the crew, whose bathing trunks and jersey, fitted with surprisingly life-like muslin wings, pointed to Puck, though the quiver slung across his shoulder woke conflicting memories of Diana, chuckled guiltily and took a flying leap from the big boulder into the center of the glade. His wings stiffened realistically, and as he landed, poised on one classically sandalled foot with arms outspread, the picnic party before him started violently, and one of them clutched the other's sleeve with a little cry.

"What the--oh, it's all right! He's the real thing, isn't he, now?"

The young man patted the girl's shoulder reassuringly and chuckled as the rest of the crew emerged from the pines and peered over the boulder.

"They're only children," he said.

She dropped her eyes and tightened her fingers around the shining drinking cup.

"Why, yes, they're only children," she repeated carelessly.

Now, each of these picnic people had said the same words, but it was entirely obvious to their fascinated audience that the words meant very different things. For this reason they sidled around the young lady impersonally, avoiding with care the edges of her pale-tinted billowy skirts, and lined up confidently beside the young gentleman.

Not that he controlled the picnic. It was spread out in front of her, bewitching, intimate, in its suggestion of you--and--I; two shiny plates, two knives, two forks, two fringed and glossy napkins. A dark red bottle was propped upright between two stones, a pile of thin, triangular sandwiches balanced daintily on some cool lettuce leaves, and a fascinating object that glistened mysteriously in the sun, held the platter of honor in the middle.

"The Honorable Mr. Puck," suggested the young man, in the tone of one continuing an interrupted conversation, "is figuring out how the chicken got into the jelly without busting it--am I not right?"

Brother grinned, and Caroline moved a little nearer. Miss Honey stared at the young lady's fluted skirts and glistening yellow waves of hair, at the sweeping plume in her hat, and her tiny high-heeled buckled slippers.

"I am obliged to admit," the young man went on, slicing into the quivering aspic, "that I don't know myself. I never could find out. Perhaps the young person in the--the not-too-long skirts, waved her wand over the bird and he jumped in and the hole closed up?" He slipped a section of the bird in question upon the lady's plate and held the red bottle over her cup.

"There was hard-boiled eggs stuck on those jelly things at our wedding," Brother remarked, "on the outside, all around. But they were bigger than yours."

"I don't doubt it for a moment," the young man assured him politely. "Have you been married long, may I ask? And which of these ladies--"

"Brother doesn't mean that _he_ was married," Miss Honey explained, "it was his oldest sister. She married a lawyer. I was flower girl."

"Ima fow guh," murmured the General, thrusting out a fat and unexpected hand and snatching from a hitherto unperceived box a tiny cake encased in green frosting.

"Oh, dear, it's got the pistache!" said the yellow-haired lady disgustedly.

Miss Honey fled after the General, who, though he was obliged to wear whalebone braces in his shoes on account of youth and a waddling and undeveloped gait, scattered over the ground with the elusive clumsiness of a young duckling. Brother blushed, but scorned to desert his troop.

"He's awfully little, you know--he doesn't mean to steal," he explained.

"Twenty-two months," Caroline added, "and he does go so fast." She smiled doubtfully at the lady, who selected a cake covered with chocolate and looked at the young man.

"Don't forget that Mr. Walbridge wants to use the car at six," she said, "and you have to allow for that bad hill."

He looked a little uncomfortable. "Don't you want to speak to the children, Tina, dear?" he asked, dropping his voice; he sat very close to her.

"They have both spoken directly to you, you see, and children feel that so--not being noticed. They're trying to apologize to you for the cake."

She bit her lip and turned to Miss Honey, who arrived panting, with the General firmly secured by the band of his overalls. An oozy green paste dripped from his hand; one of the pink wings intermittently concealed his injured expression.

"That's all right," she said, "don't bother about the cake, little girl, the baby can have it."

Miss Honey sniffed.

"I guess you don't know much about babies if you think they can eat cake like that," she answered informingly.

"Hush, now, General, don't begin to hold your breath? Do you want a nice graham cracker! It's _so_ nice!"

"_So_ nice!" Caroline repeated mechanically, with a business-like smile at the General, helpfully champing her teeth.

The General wavered. He allowed one sticky paw to be cleaned with a handful of grass, but his expression was most undecided, and he was evidently in a position to hold his breath immediately if necessary.

Miss Honey nodded to Caroline. "You've got 'em, haven't you?" she asked.

Caroline fumbled at the interior of the nightgown and produced a somewhat defaced brown wafer.

"General want it?" she said invitingly. There was another moment of disheartening suspense. Brother assisted gallantly.

"They're fine, General!" he urged, "try one!" And he, too, nodded and chewed the empty air. Instinctively the strange young gentleman did the same.

The General looked around at them cautiously, noted the strained interest of the circle, smiled forgivingly, and reached out for the brown wafer. Peace was assured.

"If you could only see how ridiculous you looked," the young lady remarked, wiping her shining pink finger nails carefully, "you'd never do that again, Rob. Have a cake?"

He laughed, but blushed a little at her tone.

"I suppose so," he admitted. "No, thanks, I'll pass up the cake. Isn't there enough to go 'round, perhaps?"

He examined the box.

"By George, there are exactly three left!" he said delightedly. "Will the fairy queen hand one to her brother--the big brother--and one to--to the angel?"

Caroline moved firmly to the front. "I am the Queen," she explained, "but I let Miss Honey take the crown and the wand, or she wouldn't be anything. Brother isn't her brother--that's just his name. Brother Washburn. The General's her brother. I'll take that strawberry one. We're much obliged, thank you."

The cakes vanished unostentatiously and the young gentleman filled his cup and disposed of it before anyone spoke.

"We were such a big family, you see," he explained to the pursed red mouth beside him, "and I know just how it is. You never get enough cake, and never that dressy kind. It's molasses cake and cookies, mostly."

Brother moved nearer and nodded.

"Well, but you can have all the cake you want, now, thank goodness," said the lady, glancing contentedly at the tea basket, complete with its polished fittings, at the big box of bonbons beside her, and the handsome silk motor coat that was spread as a carpet under her light dress.

"Oh, yes, but now I don't want it," he assured her, "I want--other things." He flashed a daring glance from two masterful brown eyes, and she smiled indulgently at him for a handsome, spoiled boy.

"Am I going to get them?" he persisted.

She laughed the light little laugh of the triumphant woman.

"My dear Bob," she said, "anybody who can buy all the cake he wants can usually get the--other things!"

His face clouded slightly.

"I hate to hear you talk like that, Christine," he began, "it's not fair to yourself--"

"How'd you know I was Puck?" Brother inquired genially. He made no pretense of including the lady in the conversation; for him she was simply not there.

"Oh, I'm not so ignorant as I look," the young man replied. "I don't believe you could stump me on anything you'd be likely to be--I've probably been 'em all myself. We were always rigging up at home. Didn't you use to do that, Tina?"

The lady shook her head decidedly.

"If I'd ever got hold of a--well, if I'd had a chance of things as nice as that biggest one's dragging through the dirt there, I'd have been doing something very different with it, I can assure you, Mr. Armstrong! I'd have been saving it."

"But at that age--" he protested.

"Oh, I knew real lace from imitation at that age, all right," she insisted.

"But you don't think of those things--you go in for the fun," he urged.

"It wasn't exactly my idea of fun."

"No?" he queried, "why, I thought all children did this sort of thing. We had a regular property room in the attic. We used to be rigged out as something-or-other all day Saturday, usually."

"What were you?" Brother demanded eagerly. Unconsciously he dropped, hugging his knees, by the side of the young man, and Caroline, observing the motion, came over a little shyly and stood behind them. The young lady raised her eyebrows and shot a side glance at her host, but he smiled back at her brightly.

"Well, we did quite a little in the pirate line," he replied. "I had an old Mexican sword and Ridgeway--that was my cousin--owned a pair of handcuffs."

"Handcuffs!" Brother's jaw dropped.

"Yes, sir, handcuffs. It was rather unusual, of course, and he was awfully proud of them. An uncle of his was a sheriff out in Pennsylvania somewhere, and when he died he left 'em to Ridge in his will. That was pretty grand, too, having it left in a will."

Caroline nodded and sat down on an old log behind the young man. A long smear of brown, wet bark appeared on the nightgown, and one end of the blue ribbon dribbled into a tiny pool of last night's shower, caught in a hollow stone.

"It was a toss-up who'd be pirate king," the young man went on, smiling over his shoulder at Caroline, "because I was older than he was, handcuffs or not, and after all, a sword is something. This one was hacked on the edge and every hack may have meant--probably did--a life."

He paused dramatically.

"I bet you they did!" Brother declared, clapping his hands on his knees.

"Weren't there any girls?"

Caroline slipped from the log and sprawled on the pine needles.

"Dear me, yes," said the young man, "I should say so. Four of them. Winifred and Ethel and Dorothea and the Babe--about as big as your General, there, and dreadfully greedy, the Babe was. Winifred had the brains and she made up most of the games; I tell you, that girl had a head!"

"Just like Caroline," Brother inserted eagerly.

"Probably," the young man agreed. "She was pretty certain to be Fairy Queen, too, I remember. But Thea sewed the clothes and begged the things we needed and looked after the Babe."

"And what did Ethel do?"

"Why, now you speak of it, I don't remember that Ethel did much of anything but look pretty and eat most of the luncheon," he said. "She used to be Pocahontas a good deal--she's very dark--and I usually was Captain John Smith. Ridge was Powhatan. And Ethel's married now. Good Lord! She has twins--of all things!--and they're named for Ridge and me."

"I'm glad General isn't twins," said Miss Honey thoughtfully, pulling her brother back from the fascinations of the tea basket and comforting him with the curtain-rod wand.

"Still, we could do the Princes in the Tower with him--them, I mean," Caroline reminded her, "and then, when they got bigger, the Corsican Brothers--don't you remember that play Uncle Joe told about?"

The young man laughed softly.

"If that's not Win all over!" he exclaimed. "She always planned for Ridge to be Mazeppa on one of the carriage horses, when he got the right size, but somehow, when you _do_ get that size, you don't pull it off."

"I did Mazeppa," said Brother modestly, "but of course it was only a donkey. It wasn't much."

"We never had one," the young man explained. "Nothing but Ridge's goat, and she was pretty old. But she could carry a lot of lunch."

He turned suddenly on his elbow and smiled whimsically at the lady.

"Come on, Tina, what did _you_ play?" he asked.

"Is it possible you have remembered that I still exist?" she answered, half mockingly, half seriously vexed. "I'm afraid I'm out of this, really. I never pretended to be anything, that I remember."

"But what _did_ you do when you were a youngster?" he persisted, "you must have played something!"

She shook her head.

"We played jackstones," she said indulgently, after a moment of thought, "and then I went to school, of course, and--oh, I guess we cut out paper dolls."

Caroline looked aghast.

"Didn't you have any dog?" she demanded.

"I hope not, in a four-room flat," the lady returned with feeling. "One family kept one, though, and the nasty little thing jumped up on a lovely checked silk aunty had just given me, and ruined it. I tried to take it out with gasolene, but it made a dreadful spot, and I cried myself sick. Of course I didn't understand about rubbing the gasolene dry then; I was only eleven."

The children looked uncomfortably at the ground, conscious of a distinct lack of sympathy for the tragedy that even at this distance deepened the lovely rose of the lady's cheek and softened her dark blue eyes.

"But in the summer," the young man said, "surely it was different then! In the country--"

"Oh, mercy, we didn't get to the country very much," she interrupted. "You know July and August are bargain times in the stores and a dressmaker can't afford to leave. Aunty did all her buying then and I went with her. Dear me," as something in his face struck her, "you needn't look so horrified! It's not bad in New York a bit--there's something going on all the while; and then we went to Rockaway and Coney Island evenings, and had grand times. To tell you the truth, I never cared for the country--I don't sleep a bit well there. Of course, to come out this way, with everything nice, it's all very fine, but to stay in--no, thanks."

"I know what you mean, of course," he said, "but the city's no place for children. I'm mighty glad I didn't grow up there. And I've always had the idea the country would be the best place to settle down in, finally. You can potter around better there when you're old, don't you think so? I remember old Uncle Robert and his chrysanthemums--"

"Dear me, we all seem to be remembering a good deal this afternoon!" she broke in. "Since we're neither of us children and neither of us ready to settle down on account of old age, suppose we stick to town, Bob?"