Kitabı oku: «Sisters», sayfa 16
CHAPTER XXXV.
A BIRTHDAY CAKE
Miss Dearborn had returned to Hillcrest, and with her were a small girl and boy, the children of her dear college friend, who, with her baby, had been taken from this world. Jenny, with Lenora, had gone that afternoon to see her and had learned that Miss Dearborn was to make a home for the little ones for a year, during which time their father was to tour the world, then he would return and make a home for them himself. Neither Miss Dearborn nor Jenny spoke their thoughts, but oh, how the girl hoped that there would then be a happy ending to Miss Dearborn’s long years of sacrifice. If the young woman were thinking of this, her next remark did not suggest it. “Jenny, dear, we will have three classes in our little school next year to suit the ages of my three pupils.”
Then it was that Lenora said impulsively, “How I do wish, Miss Dearborn, that you could take still another pupil. My father and brother think best to have me spend the winter in California. Our Dakota storms are so severe. I am to live with the Warners just as I have been doing this past two months.” Miss Dearborn’s reply was enthusiastic and sincere: “Splendid! That will make our little school complete. I know how Jenny will enjoy your companionship. She has often told me that if she had had the choosing of a sister, she would have been just like you.”
Lenora glanced quickly at the speaker, wondering if Miss Dearborn knew who Jenny’s real sister was, but just then the little Austin girl ran to her “auntie” with a doll’s sash to be tied, and the subject was changed.
On that ride home behind Dobbin, Lenora wondered if Jenny would ever learn that Gwyn was her real sister. Charles had confided in her, and so she knew that in the autumn Gwynette would be her sister by marriage and that would draw Jenny and Lenora closer than ever. How she wished that she could tell Jenny everything she knew, but she had promised that she would not. When the girls returned home they found Susan Warner much excited about something. Gwynette had been over to call, actually to call, and she had remained on the side porch visiting with Grandma Sue even when she had learned that Jenny and Lenora had driven to Miss Dearborn’s.
“More’n that, she left an invite for all of us to come to a party Mrs. Poindexter-Jones is givin’ on Charles’ birthday. Gwyn said she hoped I’d make the chocolate cake with twenty-one layers like Harold wanted, just the same, but we’d have the party over to the big house.”
Jenny, at first, looked disappointed. Then her expression changed to one of delight. Clasping her hands, she cried, “Oh, Grandma Sue, that will be a real party, won’t it, and I can wear the beautiful new dress Lenora has given me. I was afraid I never, never would have a chance to wear it.”
The old woman nodded. Then she confided: “Thar’s some queer change has come over Gwynette Poindexter-Jones, and I’ll say this much for her, she’s a whole sight nicer’n she was, for it, whatever ’tis. I reckon her ma’s glad. I cal’late, on the whole, she’s been sort o’ disappointed in her.”
Then Jenny astonished them by saying: “Gwyn is a beautiful girl. No one knows how I want her to love me.” Susan Warner looked up almost suspiciously from the peas that she was shelling. That was a queer thing for Jenny to say, and even after the girls had gone indoors, that Lenora might rest, Susan Warner thought over and over again, now of the yearning tone in which Jenny had spoken, and then of the words, “No one knows how I want her to love me.” What could it mean? There wasn’t any possible way for Jenny to know that she and Gwyn were sisters. Tears sprang to Susan’s eyes unbidden. “If she ever learns that, she’ll have to know Si and me ain’t her grandparents.” Then the old woman rebuked her selfishness. “I reckon Si was right when he said ’twouldn’t make a mite o’ difference in Jenny’s carin’ for us. Si said nothing could.” But her hands shook when, a few moments later, she dumped the shelled peas into the pot of bubbling water that was waiting to receive them. Taking up one corner of her apron, she wiped her eyes. Jenny had entered the kitchen. At once her strong young arms were about the old woman, and there was sweet assurance in her words: “Grandma Sue, I love you.” Then, after pressing her fresh young cheek for a long, silent moment against the one that was softly wrinkled, the girl held the old woman at arm’s length as she joyfully cried, “Oh, Grandma Sue, isn’t it wonderful, wonderful, that you and Grandpa Si and Lenora and I are going to a real party, the very first one that I have ever attended?”
But the old woman protested. “Now, dearie, Grandpa Si an’ me ain’t plannin’ to go along of you young folks. ’Twouldn’t be right, no ways you look at it, us bein’ hired by Mrs. Poindexter-Jones.”
The brightness faded from Jenny’s flower-like face. She stepped back and shook a warning finger at her companion. Her tone expressed finality. “Very well, Mrs. Susan Warner, then we might as well take the party gown back to the shop it came from, for, if you and Granddad aren’t good enough to attend Gwynette’s party, neither am I. So the matter is settled.”
“What’s the argifyin’?” a genial voice inquired from the open door, and there, coming in with a brimming pail of milk, was Grandpa Si.
Jenny turned and flung at him her ultimatum. The old man pushed his straw hat back on his head and his leathery face wrinkled in a smile. “Ma,” he said, addressing his wife, “I reckon I’d be on your side if ’twan’t that I give my word of honor to Harry and Charles, and now it’s give, I’ll not go back on it. They said ’twouldn’t be no party to them if you’n me weren’t at it. An’ what’s more, Mrs. Poindexter-Jones sent Harry over special to give us a bid.”
Jenny nodded her golden brown head emphatically. “There, now, that’s settled. Oh, good, here’s Lenora, looking fresh as a daisy from her long nap.” Then, beaming at the pretty newcomer, she exclaimed, “Come this way, Miss Gale, if you want to see Grandma’s masterpiece.”
“Tut, tut, Jenny-gal; ’twan’t me that prettied it up,” the old woman protested. Jenny threw open a pantry door, and there, on a wide shelf, stood a mountain of a chocolate cake. “Honestly, there are twenty-one layers. They’re thin, to be sure, but light as feathers, for I ate up the sample. And the chocolate filling is just foamy with whipped cream.”
“How beautiful it is.” There were tears in Lenora’s eyes, as she added wistfully: “How I wish our dear mother could see the cake you have made for her son’s twenty-first birthday.”
Then, going closer, she added, admiringly, “Why, Jenny, however did you make those white frosted letters and the wreath of flowers? They look like orange blossoms.”
Jenny flashed a smile of triumph around at her grandparents. “There,” she exclaimed, “doesn’t that prove that I am an artist born? Miss Gale recognizes flowers. See, here is the spray I was copying. We’re going to put a wreath of real blossoms around the edge of the plate.”
“But I thought orange blossoms meant a wedding – ” Lenora began. She wondered if Charles’ secret was known, but Jenny, in a matter of fact way, replied: “A twenty-first birthday is equally important. Our only other choice would have been lemon blossoms, and, somehow, they didn’t seem quite appropriate.”
Grandma Sue had again busied herself at the stove, while Grandpa Si strained the milk.
“Come, girls,” she now called, “everything’s done to a turn. You’ll be wantin’ a deal o’ time to prink, I reckon.”
The old man removed his straw hat, washed at the sink pump, and, as he was rubbing his face with the towel, his eyes twinkled above it.
“I cal’late it’ll take quite a spell for me’n you to rig up for this here ball, Susie-wife,” he said as he took his place at the head of the table.
The old woman, at the other end, shook her gray curls as she protested: “I sort o’ wish yo’ hadn’t been so hasty, makin’ a promise on your honor like that to Harry. We’ll feel old-fashioned, and in the way, I reckon.”
“Wall, I’m sort o’ squeamish about it myself, but the word of Si Warner can’t be took back.” The old man tried to assume a repentant expression.
“You’re a fraud, Grandpa Si!” Jenny laughed across at him. “I can see by the twinkle in your eyes that you intend to lead the dance tonight.”
* * * * * * * *
Such a merry, exciting time as they had in the two hours that followed. Jenny insisted on helping her grandparents to dress in their best before she donned her party gown. Grandma Sue had a black silk which had been turned and made over several times, but, being of the best of material, it had not grown shabby.
“Old Mrs. Jones gave it to me,” she told Lenora, “when Si and I were figgerin’ on gettin’ married.” Susan Warner’s cheeks were apple-red with excitement.
“Oh, Grandma Sue,” Lenora suddenly exclaimed, “I have the prettiest creamy lace shawl. It belonged to my grandmother, and there’s a head-dress to go with it. She’d just love to have you wear it. Won’t you, to please me?”
“I cal’late I will if you’re hankerin’ to have me.” Lenora darted to her trunk and soon returned with a small but very beautiful shoulder shawl of creamy lace, and a smaller lace square with a pale lavender bow which she placed atop of Susan Warner’s gray curls. Grandpa Si arrived, dressed in his best black, in time to join in the general chorus of admiration.
“Grandma Sue, you’ll be the belle of the ball!” Jenny kissed both of the flushed cheeks, then flew to her room, for Lenora was calling her to make haste or their escort would arrive before they were ready. And that was just what happened, for, ten minutes later, wheels were heard without, and a big closed car stopped at the side porch. Harold bounded in, and, when he saw Grandma Sue, he declared that none of the younger guests would be able to hold a candle to her. “It’s a blarneyin’ batch you are.” The old woman was nevertheless pleased. A moment later Jenny appeared, arrayed in her blue silk party gown, her glinting gold-brown hair done up higher than ever before, and her flower-like face aglow. For a moment Harold could not speak. He had not dreamed that she could be so beautiful. Then Lenora came, looking very sweet indeed in a rose chiffon.
“Silas,” Grandma Sue directed, “you’ll have to set up front, along of Harry, an’ hold the cake on you’re knees. I do hope ’twon’t slide off. It’s sort o’ ticklish, carryin’ it.”
But in due time the big house was reached, and the cake was left at the basement kitchen door. Jenny felt a thrill of excitement course over her, yet even she could not know how momentous that evening was to be in her own life.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
SISTERS
The big house was brilliantly illuminated and yet there were delightful twilight nooks, half hidden behind great potted palms which had come from a florist’s in Santa Barbara. Guests had been arriving in motors from the big city all the afternoon. Gwynette was in her element. Tom Pinkerton, the roommate of Charles, had been summoned by phone to round up a few of their classmates, and be there for the gala occasion. Gwyn had asked Patricia, Beulah and a few other girl friends, while Harold had sent telegraphic invitations to his pals at the military school. There had only been two days to perfect arrangements, but had there been a week, the big house could not have been more attractively arrayed, for the wisteria arbor was in full bloom and great bunches of the graceful white and purple blossoms filled every vase and bowl in the house.
There were flowers in each of the ten guest rooms where the young people who had arrived in the afternoon had rested until the dinner hour.
* * * * * * * *
The musical chimes were telling the hour of eight when Harold led his companions into the brilliantly lighted hall and up to the rooms where they were to remove their wraps. Jenny glanced through the wide double doors into the spacious parlors and library where the chairs and lounges had been placed around the walls, leaving the floor clear for dancing. Beautifully dressed girls and young men in evening clothes sauntered about in couples visiting with old friends and meeting others. Jenny did not feel real. She had often read stories describing events like this one, and she had often imagined that she was a guest. She almost had to pinch herself as she was ascending the wide, softly-carpeted stairway to be sure that this was real and not one of her dreams.
When they had removed their wraps and had descended, they were greeted by Mrs. Poindexter-Jones, who, beautifully gowned, sat in her wheeled chair, with Gwynette, lovely in a filmy blue chiffon, standing at her side. Miss Dane had reluctantly consented to permit her patient, who had grown stronger very rapidly in the last few days, to remain downstairs for one hour.
When the hidden orchestra began to play, Miss Dane pushed the invalid chair to a palm-sheltered nook, wherein Susan Warner and her good man had at once taken refuge, and there, at their side, the patrician woman sat watching the young people dance, talking to her companions from time to time. Then she asked Miss Dane to tell her daughter that she would like to speak to her. “I don’t see her just now. You may find her in her room. She had forgotten her necklace.”
Miss Dane, after glancing about at the dancers, went upstairs. There was someone in the room where the wraps had been removed. Rushing in the open door, the nurse said: “Miss Gwynette, your mother wishes to speak to you.”
The girl turned and, smiling in her friendly way, said, “You are mistaken, Miss Dane. I am Jenny Warner.”
Miss Dane hesitated, gazing intently at the apparition before her. “Pardon me, Miss Warner,” she then said. “It must be because you and Miss Gwynette are both wearing blue that you look so much alike.”
She turned away and met Gwyn just ascending the stairway. The nurse had been so impressed with the resemblance that she could not refrain from exclaiming about it. “Really,” she concluded, “you two girls look near enough alike to be sisters.”
Gwyn did not feel at all complimented, and her reply was coldly given. “Tell Mother that I will come to her as soon as I get my necklace.”
Jenny was leaving the bedroom, whither she had gone for her handkerchief, just as the other girl was entering. One glance at the haughty, flushed face of her hostess and the farmer’s granddaughter knew that something of a disturbing nature had occurred, but she did not dream that she was in any way concerned in the matter. She was very much surprised to hear Gwyn saying in her haughtiest manner: “Miss Warner, my mother’s nurse tells me that she spoke to you just now, believing that you were me. I recall that the girls in the seminary once alluded to a resemblance they pretended to see. Will you do me the favor to stand in front of this long mirror with me, that I may also find the resemblance, if there is one, which I doubt!”
Jenny, her heart fluttering with excitement, stood beside the older girl and gazed directly at her in the mirror.
Gwyn continued, appraisingly: “Our eyes are hazel and we both have light brown hair, but so have many other girls. I cannot understand, can you, why Miss Dane should have said that we look near enough alike to be sisters.”
On an impulse Jenny replied, “Yes, Gwynette, I can understand, because we are sisters.”
Instantly Jenny regretted having revealed the long kept secret, for Gwynette sank down on a lounge near her, her hand pressed to her heart, every bit of color receding from her face until she was deathly pale.
Jenny, all solicitude, exclaimed: “Oh, are you going to faint? I ought not to have told you. But you asked me! Forgive me, if you can.”
There was a hard, glinting light between the arrowed lids of the older girl. “Jenny Warner, I do not believe you! Why should you know more of my parentage than I do myself?”
Sadly Jenny told the story. She deeply regretted that her impulsiveness had rendered the revelation necessary. “One stormy day, several years ago, while I was rummaging around in the attic of the farmhouse, I found pushed way back in a dark cobwebby corner a small haircloth trunk which interested me. I did not think it necessary to ask permission to open it, as I did not dream that it held a secret which my dear grandparents might not wish me to discover, and so I dragged it over to the small window. Sitting on one of the broken backed chairs, I lifted the lid. The first thing that I found was a darling little Bible, bound in soft leather. It was quaint and old-fashioned. Miss Dearborn had taught me to love old books, and I at once looked for the date it had been published, when two things dropped out. One was a photograph. There were four in the group. The man was young and reminded me of Robert Burns; his companion was a very beautiful girl, and yet under her picture had been written ‘Mother’ and under the other ‘Father.’ I judged that was because with them were two children. Beneath them was written, ‘Gwynette, aged three; Jeanette, just one today.’ And then there was the date. The other was an unfinished letter, written in purple ink that had faded. Its message was very sad, for it told that the girl-mother had died and the young wandering missionary, our father, feared that he had not long to live because of frequent heart attacks. He wanted his little girls to know that they came of a New England family that was above reproach, the Waterburys of Waltham, Mass.
“How well I remember the last message that dear hand had been able to write. ‘My darling little baby girls, I have had another of those dread attacks, but I do want to say with what strength I have left, as the years go by, love ye one another.’ That was all. Then the pen had fallen, I think, for there was a blot and an irregular blurred line of ink.”
Gwyn, crushed with an overwhelming sense of self-pity, had buried her head in the soft silken pillows at one end of the lounge and was sobbing, but Jenny did not try to comfort her, believing that she could not, and so she continued: “I put the letter and the photograph into the little old Bible and replaced it. Then I dragged the haircloth trunk back into its dark corner. I was greatly troubled to know whether or not I ought to tell grandmother what I had learned. I asked the advice of my dear teacher and she said: ‘Do not tell at present, Jeanette. If your grandmother does not wish you to know, perhaps it would be wiser to wait until she tells you. Then she told me that she had a college friend living in Waltham, and that she would make inquiries about our family. In time the reply came. Our father’s father and grandfather had been ministers in high standing, philanthropists and scholars. Our father had been the last of the family, and, as they had given all they had to the poor, there was no money to care for us. Oh, Gwynette!”
Jenny touched the other girl ever so tenderly on the shoulder. “How grateful I have been; how very much more I have loved my dear adopted grandparents since I realized what they had saved me from. Had they not taken me into their home, and shared with me the best they had, I would have been sent to a county orphanage, and no one knows to what fate.”
Gwynette was sitting erect, her hands crushingly clasped together. Jenny paused, wondering what she would say. It was a sincere cry of regret. “Oh, to think how ungrateful I have been to that wonderful woman who has given me every advantage and who would have loved me like an own daughter if I had not been so selfish, ever demanding more.”
Gwyn turned and held both hands out to her companion. “Jenny, forgive me. I am not worthy to call you sister. From this hour, forever, let us carry out our father’s last wish. Let us truly love one another.”
Rising, she went to her jewel box, took from it the necklace for which she had come, and turning, she slipped it about the neck of her companion. Kissing her flushed cheek, she said: “Sister, this is my first gift to you. Keep it forever in remembrance of this hour.” Then, after removing all traces of tears, she held out her hand, saying: “Come, dear, let us go down together.”
Mrs. Poindexter-Jones had wanted to ask Gwynette if she would like to have her engagement announced at this party. The woman was amazed to see the girl’s lips quivering. Gwyn bent low to listen, then, after assenting, she said in a low voice, tense with feeling. “Mother, I love you.”
Jenny had slipped at once to the side of Susan Warner, and held her wrinkled old hand in a loving clasp. There was an expression in her face they had never seen before.
Charles Gale, seeing that his fiance had returned, went at once to her side. The music had stopped, and Miss Dane pushed the invalid chair forward. The dancers, standing in groups about, were hushed, realizing that an announcement of some kind was to be made.
Mrs. Poindexter-Jones spoke clearly: “Friends of my daughter and of my son, I have the great pleasure of announcing Gwynette’s engagement to a young man of whom we are very proud, Charles Gale of Dakota.” Not one word about English ancestry. Mrs. Poindexter-Jones truly had changed. Then before the guests could flock about the young couple to congratulate them, Gwynette had quickly stepped back, and taking Jenny by the hand, she led her out to where Charles was standing. Slipping an arm lovingly about the wondering girl, Gwyn said, “And I wish to introduce to you all my own dear sister, Jeanette.”
