Kitabı oku: «The Inner Flame», sayfa 6

CHAPTER VIII
AN INTERRUPTED TEA

More bewildered every moment, Eliza hurried along, obediently, and in a minute more found herself in a paved yard on which faced a stable built of stone similar to the fine house backing upon it.

Phil threw open a side door and disclosed the round, good-natured face of a man, leaning back in a ragged Morris chair, his feet on a deal table.

"Hello, Pat. I've brought my best girl to show her my room."

The Irishman sprang to his feet, and grinned politely.

"They have old girls in New York," remarked Eliza drily.

"Whativer age ye are, mum," said Pat gallantly, "ye don't look it."

They passed him and ascended a narrow stair. "This is cement, Mr. Sidney," said Eliza, "and probably no mice."

"That settles it, Pluto," remarked Phil. "You for the island."

He ushered his companion into a room, empty but for a deal table and chair, an oil stove with a saucepan on it, and a couple of piles of Indian blankets, two of which were spread on the floor in place of rugs. One end of the table was piled with sketches.

"Well!" exclaimed Eliza. "Why did you – "

"Because," interrupted Phil laconically, and pointed to a double window facing north.

"Take off your things, Eliza," he added joyously, beginning to unbutton her coat.

"There were no horses that I saw," said the bewildered visitor.

"Family in Europe," returned Phil.

"But it's warm and comfortable."

"Have to keep fires on account of the plumbing. The coachman was a family man before master and mistress departed, and they kept house in two rooms up here. I have succeeded to Mrs. Maloney's kitchen. Behold the running water. The other room is used for storage. Being single, Pat got the job of caretaker and sleeps downstairs. Can you suggest an improvement?"

If Eliza had thought Phil handsome before, she stared now at the illumination of his triumphant face as his eyes questioned her.

She smiled, and there was a protesting scramble in the basket.

"Come out, Katze, of course," said the host, and, stooping, released the prisoner.

Pluto leaped forth and made a tour of the room, smelling daintily of the blankets.

"Of course, when I get Aunt Mary's things, you know," continued Phil.

"I wish they'd come," said Eliza, dazed and smiling. "I'd like to see how they're goin' to look."

"They'll be here before you leave. Now, take the Turkish armchair, Miss Brewster, and loll back while I talk to you; and pretty soon we'll have some tea."

As he spoke the host doubled a striped blanket over the kitchen chair and deposited Eliza. She felt dumb in the change from dismal loneliness to this atmosphere charged with vitality.

Phil threw himself on the blanket at her feet, and leaning on one elbow looked up into the eyes which wandered about the plastered room.

"Made to order, Eliza, made to order," he assured her. "No one but Mrs. Fabian knows where I am, and she's not likely to interrupt me."

"Stables ain't just in her line," said Eliza. "I was afraid, comin' up the street, that she had led you into extravagance."

"Oh, she is very kind," laughed Phil. "She was appalled when I told her what I had found, and seemed to think my oil stove the most pathetic thing in the world."

"Yes," remarked Eliza. "Her son Edgar'd find some trouble livin' this way."

"I haven't met him yet."

"Nor Miss Kathleen?"

"No, she's at school, you know. Mrs. Fabian has been very good to me. No one could be kinder, and I'm afraid I've been a rather absent-minded guest, but getting started has been so glorious. Eliza, I'm the most fortunate fellow in the world. Just think! Even no paper on these walls!"

Eliza looked with disfavor at the rough greyish plaster.

"'Twould be more cheerful with some real pretty pattern," she said.

Phil laughed and caught Pluto by the back of the neck as he was passing, and lifted him over into the hollow of his arm.

"I like it this way," he explained.

Eliza looked down at him admiringly. "I wish Mrs. Ballard could see you now," she said.

"I wish she knew what she has done for me. It seems as if this is the first time since my childhood that I have known peace."

At the word there came a sound of voices from below.

"The expressman!" exclaimed Phil, and springing to his feet opened the door.

"Sure; go right up," they heard in Pat's rich brogue.

"I'd better help him," said Phil, and went to the head of the stair.

What met his astonished gaze was a large black velvet hat ascending. It was willowy with drooping feathers, and in the dimness of the narrow stair it eclipsed the motive power which was lifting it. In his amazement Philip stepped back and presently met a slender face whose dark eyes were lifted to his.

"We're taking you by storm, Mr. Sidney," said a low, slow voice. "I hope it's not inconvenient."

Edgar followed close behind. "I tried to send your man up ahead," he said stridently, "but he seemed to think this sort of thing was all right."

Philip stood back a pace further in actual bewilderment, and Kathleen Fabian extended her delicately gloved hand.

"We're the Fabians," she said, examining her host with quick appraisement, and her smile was alluring.

"Oh!" exclaimed Phil, recovering himself and taking the hand. "Very kind of you, I'm sure."

"If you think you're easy to find," said Edgar as they greeted, "you're much mistaken. Mother got it all wrong, as usual."

Philip took in at a glance the dapper form of his visitor. He had not been insensible of Edgar's neglect of him in the young man's own home; and had decided that Eastern and Western ideas of hospitality must differ with more than the width of a continent.

"Very good of you, I'm sure, to stick to it," he returned composedly. "Come into my suite and overlook its shortcomings if you can."

Eliza had risen, startled.

"I suppose you both know Eliza Brewster," continued Phil. "She made life comfortable for Aunt Mary so many years."

Edgar Fabian jerked his blond head in Eliza's direction. "How do," he said; but the host's tone and manner constrained Kathleen to approach the grey-haired woman, and again hold out the delicate hand.

"Was it you who made those good cookies Aunt Mary used to give us?" she asked slowly, looking curiously at Phil's guest.

Eliza allowed the white glove to take her bony fingers a moment, then she stepped behind the solitary chair and set it forward for the visitor.

The girl would have accepted it, but Phil interposed.

"Sit down, Eliza," he said good-humoredly. "Miss Fabian can get chairs at home. I am going to treat her with truly Oriental magnificence. Try this, Miss Fabian." The host indicated a pile of Indian blankets, and Kathleen sank upon them.

Then Phil turned to Edgar, who reached to the host's ear as he stood in high-chested superiority looking about the apartment with disfavor.

"The choice of soft spots is small," said Phil, "but help yourself. There's room beside your sister here."

Edgar moved to the pile of blankets and sat down; while Phil dropped, Turkish fashion, at Eliza's feet and faced them.

"What a splendid cat!" said Kathleen.

"Yes," agreed Phil. "Come here, Katze, and see the lady." He seized Pluto and handed him over to Kathleen."

"Oh, get out," said Edgar. "I hate cats."

His sister moved Pluto over to her other side where he drove his claws into the blanket with satisfaction while she caressed him.

"He'll soil your glove," said Eliza; "his hair comes out some." She resented the Fabian touch on her pet, and Edgar's remark had sent color to her sallow cheeks.

"I'd like a muff made of him," drawled Kathleen.

"Too late," said Phil. "He's going to Maine to-night with Eliza."

"He isn't your cat, then?" said the girl, and brushed her glove.

"No, Eliza refuses to give him to me."

"There's that oil stove," remarked Edgar. "I don't know what there is so particularly virtuous about an oil stove; but mother throws yours at me every time we have an argument."

Philip regarded the speaker speculatively. Edgar's voice had an arrogant quality, which gave no idea of its beauty when he broke into song. "I'd give you a glimpse of its virtues if the expressman would come," replied the host. He smiled up at Eliza while Kathleen watched him. "Did you put in cups enough for all of us?"

"Six cups and saucers," returned Eliza, "and six plates, and six knives and forks, and six spoons. I gave you the plated ones 'cause then you wouldn't care if they were stolen."

"But I should care," returned Phil gravely. "I shall search every departing guest."

"Indian blankets," said Edgar. "They suggest the pipe of peace. Let's make it a cigarette." He took out his case.

"Only one room here," remarked Phil. "Perhaps the ladies object."

Edgar grinned at his sister. "Do you object to a cigarette, Kath?" he asked, offering her the open case.

"Perhaps Mr. Sidney is not a smoker," she said, "and it would be unsociable."

The same curiosity which had grown in Phil's eyes as he regarded young Fabian, now stole into them as they met Kathleen's.

"I'm almost sure Eliza doesn't indulge," said the host, "and perhaps she doesn't like it."

"Don't think of me, Mr. Philip," exclaimed Eliza hastily. "This is your house."

"My stable, you mean." He smiled. "No, it's yours this afternoon, Eliza. You're to give orders."

"Then you may smoke to your hearts' content," she responded promptly; and she sent an inimical look toward the graceful girl in the drooping hat. Let her smoke! Eliza hoped she would, and let Philip Sidney see what the Fabians were.

"Remove my sister's scruples, won't you, Sidney?" said Edgar, offering his case.

Phil took a cigarette, and Edgar passed them back to Kathleen.

"No, thanks," she replied. She had seen the cool curiosity in the host's eyes as they rested upon her a moment ago.

"Oh, go ahead," urged Edgar.

"I don't like your cigarettes," she returned shortly, annoyed by his persistence. A deep color grew in her cheeks.

"Wait till you know Kath better," said Edgar with a wink toward Philip. "You'll welcome any little human touches about her. She's at the most painful stage of her college career where she knows everything; and she's one of these high-brows; saves money – good money – and buys microscopes with it!" The utter scorn of the speaker's tone, as he offered Phil a light, caused the latter to smile.

"What are you doing with a microscope, Miss Fabian?" he asked.

"Hunting for an honest man," she returned in her lingering speech.

"Stung!" remarked her brother. "Say, I don't see any symptoms of painting up here," he added, looking around.

"No; you'll have to come down to the academy to see the works of art I'm throwing off," said Phil. "I've been there two days."

Now there was another stir belowstairs and this time it really was the expressman; and Philip's effects began to come upstairs.

"I'm afraid we're dreadfully in the way," said Kathleen; while Edgar held his cigarette between two fingers and moved about, watching the invasion of barrels, boxes, and bedstead, uncertain whether to lend a hand. "Aunt Mary's old duds, as I'm alive!" he thought, seeing Eliza's anxious supervision of each piece as Phil came carrying it in.

"A great way to entertain you, Miss Fabian," said the host brightly.

"What can I do?" inquired Edgar perfunctorily, continuing to get in Phil's way with the assiduity of a second Marcelline.

"If you won't mind being put on the shelf for a minute," said Phil, tired of avoiding him, "I'm going to tote in one more and then we're done." And picking up the astonished Edgar he set him on a barrel which had been placed in a corner, and so succeeded in bringing in the heaviest of the boxes undisturbed.

Edgar, very red in the face, swung his patent leather feet for a minute and then jumped down. "We must be going, Kath," he said stiffly.

"Not till you've found the mahl-stick," she drawled, with stars in her eyes. "My brother is so curious about your painting implements, Mr. Sidney."

"They're in these boxes," responded Phil. "The very ones that dear little Aunt Mary used."

He had paid the expressman and was pulling down his cuffs. His guests were both standing.

"Personally," he continued, "I think the contents of the barrel more interesting just now. You mustn't go without a cup of tea. One moment and I'll make a raid on Pat for a hammer."

Phil left the room and Edgar still stood, quite flushed under his sister's smile.

"Do you want any tea?" he asked severely.

"I think I do," replied Kathleen.

"I'll send the car back for you, then."

"Not at all," she answered; and when the girl's voice took this tone and her eyes narrowed, her brother usually paid attention. After all, Kathleen was a useful court of last appeal. It was unwise to offend her.

"What's the matter? Eliza can chaperone you," he protested.

Simultaneously with Phil's disappearance Eliza had moved to the window and looked out on the advancing twilight. She heard the words, and her thin lips tightened.

"That's the very cat that assaulted and battered mother," went on Edgar, and although he lowered his voice Eliza heard the words and smiled grimly at a neighboring stable.

Kathleen frowned and motioned with her head toward the black alpaca back.

Edgar shrugged his immaculate shoulders.

"Well, tell me when you have had enough of it," he said, and threw himself back on the pile of blankets.

Kathleen was just planning some civil overture to Eliza when the host reappeared, a hatchet in his hand.

"That bold son of Erin dares to imply that I borrowed his hammer yesterday," he announced. "If I did, it is in Mrs. Maloney's closet; and if there it is as a needle in a haystack; for that closet, Miss Fabian, is responsible for the air of chaste elegance you observe in this apartment. If you'll all stand aside, not to be bombarded when I open the door, I will give one glimpse within."

Phil opened the closet door cautiously, and deftly caught a mandolin as it bounded forth.

"Sole relic of glee-club days," he remarked. "I don't know why I brought it, for I couldn't play 'Yankee Doodle' on it now."

He delved further into the closet, and Edgar, picking up the mandolin as one friend in a strange land, removed it from its case with slow and condescending touch.

"Here's the hammer on the sink," said Eliza suddenly.

"Saved!" exclaimed Phil, pushing back billowing folds of grey. "I was just about losing in a combat with a bath-wrapper. Now, with these chairs and the hammer, what is to prevent our salon from being the most delightful success?"

"Nothing!" exclaimed Kathleen, standing at the end of the table. "I have found some sketches, Mr. Sidney. May I look at them?"

"Certainly." The artist took the hammer and began an attack on the barrel which caused Edgar to raise his eyebrows in annoyance. He was testing the strings of the mandolin.

"Shall I light the stove?" asked Eliza.

"No, you're the guest of honor. Sit down, Eliza, and watch us. Mr. Fabian will light the stove."

"Heaven forbid," exclaimed Edgar devoutly, "that I should touch the enemy of my peace!"

Kathleen, her lip caught between her teeth as she turned the sketches with concentrated interest, sent an ironical glance toward her brother, strumming the mandolin on the blanket couch.

"Yes, you're elected, Fabian," said Phil, deftly removing the barrel-hoop. "You have the matches. You see the peace and calm on my brow? That is because I am serene in the knowledge of a lemon and a bag of sugar outside on the window ledge."

Reluctantly Edgar laid down the mandolin and approached the stove.

"What do you do?" he asked superciliously. "Turn on something at the bottom, and light it at the top?"

"Edgar," warned his sister, "it isn't gas."

"Marrow-bones, Fabian, get down on them," said Phil good-humoredly; and disgustedly Edgar knelt to his bête noir.

Eliza's fingers itched to help him. She obeyed Phil's warning gestures to keep her seat until the match was finally applied to the wicks. Then, seeing that they were turned too high, she pounced down on the floor beside the young man, and pushing his immaculate arm away she lowered the wicks.

Edgar stared at the familiarity. "Excuse me," she said shortly.

"Must have a finger in the pie, eh?" remarked Phil.

"Do you know how long it'd take to get this room so full o' soot we couldn't stay in it?" asked Eliza. "I wonder what sort of a mess you're goin' to live in here, Mr. Sidney, if you don't know that?"

"It's a smokeless one," protested Phil meekly.

"The cat's foot!" quoth Eliza scornfully. "Don't tell me! There's no such thing." She partly filled the kettle and placed it on the stove, watching the wicks with a jealous eye.

Edgar removed himself from danger and looked with exasperation at Kathleen, who with eyes aglow was turning the sketches.

"If I ever worked as hard for tea as this I'll be hung!" he thought, and returned to the mandolin as the one congenial object in a forlorn abode.

Even its long silent strings spoke plaintively against the vulgar banging which was removing the barrel-head.

"There!" exclaimed Phil presently. "I rather fancy the way I did that. I can use that barrel again."

"Yes," assented Edgar as he strummed, "for kindlings for the oil-stove."

Phil drew the barrel nearer the table.

"Now for the plums in the pudding," he said, and began to draw forth some papered cups from the excelsior.

Kathleen dropped the sketches and unwrapped the packages. She had stood three cups and saucers on the table before Eliza turned from her labors about the stove.

"What delightful old things!" exclaimed the girl.

"Now, aren't you glad you stayed?" asked Phil, bringing forth a silver cream pitcher of long ago.

Eliza caught sight of the table, and suddenly threw up both hands with an exclamation.

"Mr. Sidney!" she cried. "I've given you the wrong barrel!"

"What? What's happened?" inquired Phil, halted by her tragic tone.

"All Mrs. Ballard's best things are in that barrel; the old china that was her mother's, and the solid silver, and everything; and I've gone and sent yours with the substantial crockery and the beddin' to the island!"

Edgar Fabian regarded Eliza as inimically as his stepmother might have done. So this old servant had been carrying off the heirlooms and been discovered.

He sat up very straight on his blanket couch.

"I'll speak to my mother," he said. "She can come over to-morrow and get them, and buy the right sort of thing for a bachelor" – he threw a glance around the plastered room – "apartment!"

Phil, not realizing the sensitiveness of the subject, laughed.

"Good work, Eliza! We'll have one aristocratic tea in the Sidney studio, before we fall to stone china and mugs."

"The others ain't stone china and mugs," cried Eliza. She was trembling from head to foot, as frightened and enraged by Edgar's suggestion as if her own life had been at stake. "They're all good, comfortable things. If it was safe I'd leave all these for you, Mr. Philip, just as liefs to as not, for she loved you; but you are gone all day; they'd be stole – just as Mr. Fabian says."

Edgar blinked, then his face grew scarlet as the servant's implication grew upon him.

"What do you mean – you – !"

He leaped to his feet and faced Eliza, who glared back at him. "These things should belong to my mother," he said, "and it's a good thing you didn't succeed in getting away with them. She may set some value on the old stuff. I don't know."

"Edgar!" exclaimed Kathleen, as scarlet as he, while the duel had all happened so suddenly that the host stared, dazed.

He had just lifted another silver piece from the barrel and taken it from its flannel bag.

"They do not belong to your mother," returned Eliza angrily. "They belong to me, to have and to hold, or to give away as I see fit."

Edgar shrugged. "Oh, in that case – " he returned. He didn't like Eliza's eyes.

"In that case," said Phil to him gravely, "I think you'll feel better to apologize to the woman who has put Aunt Mary's relatives under lifelong obligation for her devoted care."

Edgar tossed his head with a scornful grimace.

"Yes, I understand perfectly," went on Phil, coloring; "Aunt Mary was no kin to you, and I understand that she was a person held in little consideration by your family." The host's attitude was tense now, and his look compelling. "Nevertheless, Eliza Brewster happens to be my honored guest to-day, and I'm sure you will be glad to express your regret for your choice of words."

"Edgar, you didn't understand," said Kathleen. "Say so. Why, of course, you're glad to say so."

"No, I didn't understand," remarked Edgar with a languid air, strumming the mandolin, "and now that I do, I don't know that it is very interesting."

Phil saw Kathleen's acute distress.

"Very sorry, I'm sure," continued the young man, nodding toward Eliza. "You can run away with your barrel and welcome. The Fabians will still have cups and saucers. I think," returning Phil's grave gaze contemptuously, "if your honored guest should apologize for her attack on my mother, it would be quite as much to the point. You heard her say that mother would come over and steal her trash, didn't you? Come, Kathleen." The speaker dropped the mandolin, squared his shoulders, and started for the door.

"No; oh, no!" exclaimed Phil, all his hearty Western hospitality in arms at the sight of his girl guest's expression.

Edgar turned on him again. "I fancied that my mother had been rather civil to you since your arrival. I'll tell her how you guard her dignity."

Edgar was fairly swelling with emotion, one fourth of which was indignant defence of his mother, and three fourths joy at a clear case against the poverty-stricken artist who had dared set his own sacred person on a barrel and make him light an oil-stove.

Kathleen's scarlet face and lambent eyes spoke her distress. Phil, faced with condoning the slur on his kind hostess, was bewildered and uncertain.

Eliza saw it all and was the most disturbed of the four.

"Oh, Mr. Fabian, it's all my fault!" she exclaimed, looking appealingly at Edgar. "Please stay for tea."

"Really, you know," said Phil, "this is all a tempest in a tea-pot." He held up Aunt Mary's graceful old-colonial silver. "This one would be too big to hold it."

"Come, Kath," said Edgar, ignoring them. "Will you come with me or shall I wait for you in the car?"

Kathleen gave him an imploring look, but he was already moving to the door.

Phil took an impulsive step toward her. "Perhaps you will stay," he said, in supreme discomfort. She gave him a little smile. "No, I mustn't," she answered gently. "I'm sorry I hadn't finished looking at the sketches."

"May I bring them over to you?"

She shook her head. "I go back to school in the morning. Good-bye, I wish you all success."

Eliza stood with tight-clasped hands. It had been her fault that the bud of an acquaintance which might have been serviceable to her young friend had been blighted. They would tell Mrs. Fabian. She might visit her anger upon him. Eliza had never expected to feel gratitude toward one of the name, but her surprise was mingled with that sentiment when Kathleen now approached her, laying her smooth gloved hand on the rough clasped ones to say good-bye.

"You are going to Brewster's Island?" she asked. "It is a strange time of year."

"'Twas my home once," replied Eliza, tragedy of past and present so evident in her haggard face that a touch of pity stirred the girl's heart.

"I heard," said Kathleen, "that Mrs. Wright is staying there. How can she in the desolate winter?"

"I guess angels can live anywhere," responded Eliza. Her disturbed eyes met Kathleen's. "Miss Fabian," and her hard hand grasped the gloved one, "I don't care how cold the winter's goin' to be if only you'll promise me that I haven't done any harm to this boy here by my foolish talk. He ain't to blame if I seemed to – to speak about your mother. Don't, don't let her blame him for it. If I thought she would – if I thought I'd cut him off from friends – some day when I get to thinkin' about it up there on that hill I feel as if I should jump into the water and done with it."

"I'll explain," said Kathleen gently. "I hope you'll have a good winter. I'm glad you will have Mrs. Wright."

When the girl turned back, Edgar had gone; and the veil of perfunctoriness had fled from her host's eyes. He was looking at her as friend at friend.

He escorted her downstairs, and out through the alley to the waiting limousine within which, with elevated feet, Edgar was already solacing himself with a cigarette. At sight of the approaching pair, he leaped from the car, and received his sister with hauteur.

"Good-bye," said Phil composedly, when they were inside; "very good of you to come."

He closed the door, the machine started, and he returned to the stable, where Pat received him with a grin, still standing where he had risen when Kathleen passed through a minute ago. "I say, me bye," he said huskily, jerking his thumb in the direction of the stairway, "the auld one above there – she's yer second best girl, I'm thinkin'. That one," pointing to the street, "she do be a princess all roight. She turned them lamps on me when she first come in and asked for you, and I felt chape 'cause the stairs wasn't marble; but look out, me son, I know that breed. She'll make ye toe the mark."

Phil smiled. "To be honest with you, Pat, I have just one best girl," he said emphatically.

Pat looked up at him with admiration.

"Is she in New York, thin?"

"Sometimes I think I shall get a glimpse of her here."

"Sure if she knows where ye are ye will, thin!" said Pat devoutly. "How does she dress so I'll know her? I'll be on the watch."

"Just now in scarlet and gold," said Phil, lifting his head and gazing beyond the stable wall.

"Faith, she knows a thing or two," nodded Pat. "'Tis an old dodge, 'Red and Yeller, ketch a feller.'"

"In winter she goes all in white," said Phil, "soft, pure, spotless."

"Moighty wasteful fer the city!" said Pat seriously. " 'Twill be hard on yer pocket, me bye."

"In spring she's in golden-green among the browns, but in summer, full, glorious green, Pat. Oh, she's a wonderful girl, a goddess!"

"Sure she is if she knows that green's the best of all the game," exclaimed the Irishman. "Whin'll she be comin'?"

"Ah, I have to go to her, Pat."

"'Tis better so," agreed the other.

"I've thought she might meet me sometime out in the park."

"She can, sir." Pat gave Phil's shoulder a sounding slap.

"But I notice the park gate is kept locked."

"It is," agreed Pat, with shining face, "and 'tis meself has a key. 'Twill be yours for the askin' any day in the week."

"Great!" responded Phil. "I'll remember that."

"And sure I'll be lookin'," thought Pat, watching the artist take the stairway in bounds. "The women'll mob that bye afore he gets through. Sure I'd like to see the gurl brings that look to his eyes."