Читать книгу The Key Note - Clara Louise Burnham - Страница 4

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For the next few days the right moment for Philip to desert Miss Burridge never seemed to arrive, and by that time the new establishment had come to be in very good running order, which was fortunate, as the expected boarders' dates were drawing near.

Diana approached Philip one morning with a pleased countenance. He was encouraging the hopeful little sweet peas that stood in a green row below the porch. She came and sat on the rail above and watched him.

"Miss Burridge is going to allow me to name our domicile," she announced.

"Brave woman!" said Philip, coaxing the brown earth up against the line of green with his trowel.

"Which of us is brave?" asked Diana, smiling,—"Miss Priscilla or myself?"

"What are you going to call it? Olympus?"

"Why should I?" Diana gave a soft, gurgling laugh.

"I thought perhaps it might bring happy memories and prove a palliation of nostalgia."

"I always have a feeling that you are amusing yourself with me, Mr. Barrison."

"Have you any objection to my seeing that you are a goddess? What have you done with Apollo, by the way? Couldn't you persuade him to leave the gallery?"

"To what gallery do you refer? I do not particularly care for handsome men," was Miss Wilbur's thoughtful response.

"I'm sorry I'm so beautiful, then," said Philip, extending his little earth barricade.

Diana looked down from her balcony on his tumbling blond hair.

"You have a very good presence for your purpose," she said.

"What is my purpose?"

"The concert stage, is it not? Perhaps even opera, later?"

"Yes, divine huntress, if I ever succeed in making it."

"You will make it unless you are unpardonably dilatory and neglectful. Every time you utter a musical tone it sends a vibration coursing through my nerves with a pleasant thrill."

Philip looked up at the speaker with his sea-blue, curious gaze, which she received serenely.

"Bully for you, Miss Wilbur. That's all I can say. Bully for you."

"I am glad if that encourages you," she said kindly. "It is quite outside my own volition."

"Then I don't need to thank you, eh?"

"Oh, not in the least."

Philip laughed and stooped again to his job.

"Let me see, Apollo—he struck liars and knew how to prescribe for the croup, didn't he, besides being a looker beyond all comers?"

Diana smiled. "You think of everything in terms of humor, do you not?" she rejoined.

"Perhaps—of most things, but not of you."

"Oh, I think of me most of all."

"Far from it," said Philip. "I wouldn't dare. If my voice gives you a thrill, yours gives me a chill."

"I can't believe that really," said Diana equably, watching Philip's expert handling of the trowel. "You are always laughing at me. I don't in the least understand why, but it doesn't matter at all. I think it is a quite laudable mission to make people laugh. What a good gardener you are, Mr. Barrison."

"Oh, isn't he, though!" exclaimed Miss Priscilla, emerging from the house. "Think of my luck that Phil really likes to fuss with flowers. Ox-chains couldn't drag him to do it if he didn't like to."

"Really?" returned Diana. "Is she not maligning you, Mr. Barrison? Are you really the slave of caprice?"

"I deny it," said Philip. "It doesn't sound nice."

"It would be a dire thing for you," declared the girl. "But you do not ask me what I am naming the Inn."

"Oh, it is an Inn, is it?"

"Yes," put in Miss Priscilla. "Since the leaks are mended, both pipes and roof, and the stove's up and the chimney draws, I think we can call it that."

"What is it, then? 'The Dew Drop'?" inquired Philip.

"I particularly dislike puns," said Diana quietly. "I like 'The Wayside.' Why shouldn't we call it 'The Wayside Inn'?"

"You have my permission," said Philip.

"We do not need anything original, but we do need a name that is lovely. 'The Wayside Inn' is lovely."

"So be it," said Philip.

"And you're not forgettin' what you are goin' to do to-morrow, are you, dear boy?" said Miss Priscilla ingratiatingly.

"Not if it isn't to go again for the plumber," replied Philip. "His wrenches and hammers are too handy; and I'm sure one more call up here would render him dangerous."

"Mr. Buell is a very pleasant man," said Diana. "So is Mr. Blake, the carpenter. I have learned such interesting expressions from them. Mr. Blake was showing me the fault in one of the gables of this house. He said the builder had given the roof a 'too quick yank.' Is not that quaint?"

"Ha, ha, ha," laughed Philip up into the girl's serious face. "Bully for Matt. You may get the vernacular, after all."

"I'm not quick," said Diana. "I'm afraid I should not prove an apt pupil."

"But, Philip," said Miss Priscilla, "about to-morrow. You know you'll have to get the early boat to go to meet Veronica. It's perfectly splendid of you to go, dear boy. I don't know how I could spare the time. I've got to get several rooms ready for to-morrow, and the child is such an utter stranger in this part o' the world."

"Oh, yes, I'll go," said Philip carelessly. "I think the Inn will be relieved that I can get a hair-cut. My tresses are nearly ready to braid now."

Diana smiled pensively. "I think you are very amusing, Mr. Barrison," she said.

Philip vaulted up over the railing and took a seat beside her, regarding his earth-stained hands and then her serene countenance, whose gaze was bent upon him. He shook his head to toss the blond forelock out of his eyes.

"So my voice gives you a thrill, eh?"

"Oh, decidedly," was the devout response.

"That's a good thing. I thought perhaps you couldn't really be roused from your dreaminess before the fourth of July, but I have some tones that in that case will be warranted to set you and the echoes going at the same time."

Diana clasped her hands. "Oh, utter them," she begged.

"Can't," laughed Philip, wiping his warm forehead with his shirt-sleeve. "The stage isn't set."

Diana continued to look imploringly ardent. "'Drink to me only with thine eyes,'" she suggested.

"That's the only way they'll let you do it nowadays," responded Philip, kicking the heels of his sneakers gently against the railing.

Miss Burridge looked over her spectacles at Diana in her beseeching attitude, and her eyes widened still further as the girl went on slowly with her brown gaze fixed on Philip's quizzical countenance:

"How can I bear to leave thee!

One parting kiss I give thee—"

"Dear me," thought Miss Priscilla. "I'd never have believed it of her." And it occurred to her for the first time that Philip Barrison was a handsome man.

"Farewell," went on Diana, with soft fervor. "'Farewell, my own true love—'"

"Farewell," sang Philip, falling into the trap and finishing the phrase. "'Farewe-ell, my own—true—love.'"

"Oh," breathed Diana, and the way her clasped hands fell upon her heart caused Miss Priscilla much embarrassment.

"I can scarcely wait," said the girl slowly, "to hear you sing a real song with a real accompaniment. There is such rare penetrating richness in the quality of your voice."

Miss Burridge cleared her throat. "I shouldn't wonder if Miss Wilbur was a real help to you, Phil," she said. "Young folks need encouragement."

"And soap-suds," added Philip, regarding his earthy hands and glancing merrily up at Diana, who was still standing in her attitude of adoration; but there was no answering merriment in those brown orbs. Her brain might tell her later that Miss Burridge's patronizing remark had been amusing, but she would be obliged to think it over.

Philip jumped off the railing, whistling, and followed Miss Priscilla into the house and to the sink, while Diana, reminiscently humming "The Soldier's Farewell," descended the steps and wandered away.

When, the next day in town, Philip stood in the Union Station waiting for Veronica's train, he wondered how he was to know her, but remembering that Miss Burridge spoke of having instructed her to go the first thing to the transfer office about her trunk, he turned his steps thither as the crowds poured off the train. All Boston seemed to have decided to come to Maine for the summer.

Soon he saw her—he felt at once it was she—looking about undecidedly as she came. She was a short, plump girl of seventeen or eighteen, at present bent a little sideways from the weight of the suitcase she was carrying. Philip strode forward and seized the suitcase with one hand while he lifted his hat with the other.

"Here, you let that alone!" said the girl decidedly, her round eyes snapping.

"Isn't this Miss Trueman?"

"Why, yes, it is," she returned, but she still looked suspicious and clung to her suitcase. Nobody need think she wasn't up to all the tricks. "Did my aunt send you to meet me?"

"She certainly did."

"Then you know her name. What's her name?" The upward look was so childlike in its shrewdness that it stirred the spirit of mischief.

"Why—let me see, Lucilla, isn't it?"

"You give me that suitcase this minute." The girl pulled on the handle with a muscular little hand.

"Why, Veronica," Philip's smile became a laugh. "Santa Veronica, what a very unsaintlike voice and expression you're using."

She laughed, too, then, and relinquished her burden. "You do know me. Who are you?"

"Miss Burridge's man-of-all-work. Name, Philip Barrison."

"So she gave you such a job as this. How did you pick me out?"

"That wild look around for the transfer office." They were now moving toward it.

"It wasn't wild. I didn't need you at all. Aunt Priscilla needn't have bothered. I have a tongue in my head and money in my pocket, and Puppa said that's all anybody needs if she has any brains."

"But I have to do what my employer orders, you see," replied Philip.

Veronica looked him over. Fresh from the barber and in correct summer garb, he was an extremely good-looking object.

"Oh, yes, it isn't your fault," she returned generously, "but is it a swell place Aunt Priscilla's got?" She looked him over again while he stopped at the transfer window and checked her trunk.

"The Wayside Inn," replied Philip with dignity.

"Well, I've come to help her," said the girl. "But I've never done any serving. I haven't any uniform or anything like that."

"It isn't necessary. Look at me. I don't look like a footman—or a butler—or anything like that, do I?"

"No," said Veronica, her round eyes very serious. "You look like a—like a common—gentleman."

"Thank you, Miss Trueman. I'll try to deserve your praise."

Philip took her and her suitcase across town in a cab, and aboard the little steamer, and found the best spot he could for them to sit.

"Puppa says this bay is noted for its picturesqueness," said Veronica, when they were settled.

"Quite right," returned Philip, putting in her lap one of the magazines he had bought on the wharf.

"No, thank you," she returned. "I shan't read. I'm going to look. Puppa'll expect me to tell him all about it. He was delighted at my having a chance to come to the seashore. He thought it would do my health so much good."

Philip regarded her round cheeks, round eyes, and round, rosy mouth.

"Your health? You look to me as though if you felt any better you'd have to call the doctor."

"Yes, I'm not really ailing—but I freckle. Isn't it a shame?" She put one hand to her nose which had an upward tilt.

"Oh, that's all right," laughed Philip. "Call 'em beauty spots."

She sat, pensively continuing to cover her nose with her silk-gloved hand.

"Perhaps you're hungry. I ought to have bought you some chocolates," said Philip. "Perhaps there's time still." He looked at his watch.

Veronica smiled. It was a pleasant operation to view and disclosed a dimple. "Did Aunt Priscilla give you money to buy me candy? Don't bother. I have some gum. Would you like some?" As she spoke, she opened her handbag.

Philip bent a dreadful frown upon her. "Do you chew gum?" he asked severely.

"Yes, sometimes, of course. Everybody does."

"Then you deserve to freckle. You deserve all the awful things that can befall a girl."

"Well, for a hired man," said Veronica, her hand pausing in its exploration, "you have the most nerve of any one I ever saw."

She seemed quite heated by this condemnation, and instead of the gum drew out a vanity box and, looking in the mirror, powdered her nose deliberately.

Philip opened his magazine. The whistle blew and the boat began to back out of the slip. Veronica regarded her companion from time to time out of the tail of her eye, and at a moment when his manner indicated absorption in what he was reading, she replaced the vanity case in her bag and when her hand reappeared, it conveyed something to her mouth.

"I wouldn't," said Philip, without looking up. She colored hotly.

"Nobody asked you to," she retorted.

Then all was silence while the steamer, getting its direction, began moving toward the islands that dotted the bay.

The girl suddenly started.

"If there aren't those people!" she ejaculated.

"What people?" asked Philip.

"They came on in the same car with me from Boston. See that dark man over there with a young boy? I couldn't help noticing them on the train. You see how stupid the boy looks. He seemed so helpless, and the man just ignored him when he asked questions, and treated him so mean. I just hate that man."

Philip regarded the couple. They presented a contrast. The man was heavily built with a sallow, dark face, his restless eyes and body continually moving with what seemed an habitual impatience. The boy, perhaps fourteen years of age, had a vacant look, his lips were parted, and his position, slumped down in a camp-chair, indicated a total lack of interest in his surroundings.

"Tell me about Aunt Priscilla," said Veronica suddenly. "I haven't seen her since I was twelve years old. My mother died then. She was Aunt Priscilla's sister and Aunt Pris was willing to take me if Pa wanted her to, but he didn't and we moved away, and I've never seen her since. Of course, she writes sometimes and so do I. Has she many boarders?"

"Only one so far, but then she's a goddess. You've read your mythology, haven't you? This is the goddess Diana."

"Say, you're awfully fresh, do you know that?" remarked Veronica. "You treat me all the time as if I was a baby. I've graduated from high school and very likely I know just as much as you do."

"I shouldn't doubt that," returned Philip. "On the level, you'll see when you get to the Inn that I'm telling the truth. Diana is passing for the present under the title of Miss Wilbur."

"One boarder!" exclaimed Veronica with troubled brow. "Why, Aunt Priscilla doesn't need two helpers like you and me."

"Oh, there are plenty more boarders coming," said Philip. "This boat may be full of them for all we know. She is expecting people to-night. Let's look around and decide who we'll take up there with us."

"I'll tell you one person I'd choose first of all. See that woman with her back to us with a blue motor veil around her shoulders? I noticed her just when I was pointing out that devil and the boy to you."

"You use strong language, Miss Trueman. Couldn't you spare my feelings and call our dark friend Mephisto?"

"Sounds too good for him. I'd like to use me-fist-o on him, I know that." Veronica giggled, and went on: "Do you see her?"

"I do. My vision is excellent."

"Well, she was on the train, too, and once I saw her smile at that poor shy boy and show him how to get a drink of water. We were all in a day car. Chair car crowded. You can't see her face, but she's the sweetest thing." Then with a change of voice: "Oh, wouldn't it jar you! There's fuss-tail. See that dame with the white flower in her hat, looking over the rail? I suppose she's watching to see if the fishes behave themselves. She was on the train, too, and nothing suited her from Boston to Portland. She was too hot, or she felt a draught, or she didn't like the fruit the train-boy brought, or something else was wrong, every minute."

"We won't take her, then," said Philip.

"I should say not. She'd sour the milk. What's the island like?"

"Diana says it resembles Arcadia strikingly, and she ought to know."

"But I never was in Arcadia," objected Veronica.

"Well, it is just a green hill popping right up out of the Atlantic, with plenty of New England rocks in the fields, and drifts of daisies and wild roses for decoration, and huge rocky teeth around the shore that grind the waves into spray and spit it up flying toward the sky."

"What kind of folks? Just folks that come in summer?"

"Not at all. Old families. New England's aristocracy. These islands are the only place where there are no aliens, just the simon-pure descendants of Plymouth Rock. As I say aristocrats. I was born there."

"You were?" returned Veronica curiously.

"I were."

"Well, I was born in Maine, in Bangor. I guess that's just about as good."

"No, it's not as good," said Philip gravely. "Nevertheless, I forgive you."

"Tell me more about the island."

"Well, it has one road."

"Only one street?"

"No, no street. Just one road which has its source in a green field on the south and loses itself in the beach on the north after it has passed the by-path that leads to the haunted farm."

"Oh, go away!" scoffed Veronica.

"I can't. The walking won't be good for another hour."

"Who lives at the farm?"

"The ha'nts."

"Nobody else?"

"No, it isn't likely. It's at the head of Brook Cove where the pirates used to come in at a day when it was laughable to think that passenger boats would ever touch at this island."

Veronica's eyes grew rounder than before.

"Do you suppose there's gold packed in around there if people could only find it?"

"I don't, but a great many people thought there might be. It is much more fun to hunt for pirate gold than to go fishing in squally weather, and it has been hunted for, faithfully."

"And not any found?" said Veronica sympathetically.

"That's the mournful fact."

"But who were the farmers, and why did they stop farming? Was it the ghosts?"

"No, I think it was the rocks. It was found more profitable to farm the sea. You know abandoned farms are fashionable in New England, anyway, so the ghosts have a rather swell residence at the old Dexter place. I spent the first eight years of my life on the island. Then it was an undiscovered Arcadia. Now—why, you will go up to The Wayside Inn in a motor—that is, if I can get hold of Bill Lindsay before somebody else grabs him. Lots of people know a good thing when they see it, and lots of people have seen the island."

The wharf was full of people to welcome the little steamer as it drew in, and there was a grand rush of passengers for the coveted motor. It seemed to Veronica that she heard her aunt's name on many lips, and Philip found himself feeling responsible for the trunk checks of everybody who was seeking Miss Burridge.

The upshot of it all was, by the time he had safeguarded the baggage of the arrivals and sent them on their way, he and Veronica were left to climb the road and pursue the walk toward home.

"Didn't that old hawk-nose say he was going to Aunt Priscilla's?"

"It's a very good-looking nose," remarked Philip. "But so far as I could see, all your friends of the train were bound for the same place."

"He'll be lucky," said Veronica viciously, "if I don't put Paris green in his tea. Oh, what a beautiful view of the sea!" she exclaimed as they reached the summit of the hill.

They had not walked far when Bill Lindsay's Ford came whirring back over the much-traveled road, and he turned around for them.

"After all," said Philip, as the machine started back up the island, "your lady of the blue veil should set off the affliction of Mephisto's presence."

"Did she come?" asked Veronica delightedly.

"Yes, didn't you see me pack her in with the woman whose halo won't fit? The dull boy sat between them."

"Well," said Veronica, "then there's no great loss without some small gain."

When the motor reached the Inn, Miss Priscilla was pleased with the way Veronica dropped her hat and jacket in the kitchen, and after drinking the one cup of cocoa upon which her aunt insisted, was ready to help her carry in the late supper for the new guests with whom Philip sat down at table. Veronica, coming and going, tried to make out his status in the house.

"That Mr. Barrison you sent to meet me," she said to her aunt when the meal was over, "told me he was your man-of-all-work. He don't act much like it."

"Law, child," Miss Priscilla laughed. "He has been lately. Phil's a dear boy when he isn't a wretch, and he's helped me out ever since I came. I won't ever forget how good he's been. Now, let's sit down and let me see you eat this fresh omelette and tell me all about yourself. I see you're just like your mother, handy and capable, and let me tell you, it takes a big load off me, Veronica."

Just as she finished speaking, Diana Wilbur came in from the twilight stroll she had been taking.

"Miss Wilbur, this is my little niece, Veronica Trueman," said Miss Priscilla. "She has come to help me, and high time, too. Four people came to-night and there will be more to-morrow."

Diana approached the newcomer and looked down upon her kindly after taking her offered hand.

"You must have had an inspiring ride down the bay, Miss Veronica," she said. "I have been taking a walk to see the sun set. It was heavenly to-night. Such translucent rose-color, and violet that shimmered into turquoise, and robin's-egg blue. How fortunate for the new people to get that first impression! Well, Miss Burridge," Diana sighed. "Of course we must be glad to see them, but it has been a very subtle joy to retire and to waken with no human sounds about us. I shall always remember this last two weeks."

"I'm glad you feel that way," said Miss Priscilla. "I thought, though, that you'd heard lots o' sounds. Phil makes enough noise for a regiment when he is dressin' in the mornin'."

"You can scarcely call such melodious tones noise, can you?" replied Miss Wilbur gently. "His flute is more liquid than that of the hermit thrush."

"I never heard him play the flute." Miss Priscilla looked surprised.

"I refer to the marvelous, God-bestowed instrument that dwells within him," explained Diana.

"I think myself," said Miss Priscilla, clearing her throat, "that it's kind o' cozy to hear a man whistlin' and shoutin' around in the mornin' while he's dressin'. I suppose he'll be leavin' us pretty soon now. I hate to see him go, he's gettin' the plants into such good shape; and wasn't he good about scythin' paths so we wouldn't get wet to our knees every time we left the house? I don't know how you ever had the courage to wade over to this piazza before I came, Miss Wilbur."

"Mr. Barrison certainly did smooth our paths."

"He told me he was Aunt Priscilla's man-of-all-work," said Veronica, busy with her omelette.

"So he has been," replied Diana seriously: "out of the goodness of his heart and the cleverness of his hands; but he is a great artist, Miss Veronica, or at least he will be."

"Do you mean he paints?"

"No, he sings: and it is singing—such as must have sounded when the stars sang together."

"Dear me," said Veronica, "I wish I'd asked him to pipe up when we were on the boat."

Diana let her gaze rest for a moment of silence on the sacrilegious speaker, then she excused herself, saying she would go up to her room.

As soon as the door had closed behind her, Veronica looked up and bestowed upon her aunt a meaning wink.

"She's got it bad, hasn't she?" she said.

Miss Burridge put her finger to her lips warningly. "Sh!" she breathed. "Sometimes I think she has: but, law, Phil's nothing but a boy."

"And she's nothing but a girl," said Veronica practically. "That's the way it usually begins."

Miss Burridge laughed. "What do you know about it, you child?"

"Not so much as I'd like to. Puppa would never let anybody stay after ten o'clock, and you don't really get warmed up before ten o'clock."

"Why, Veronica Trueman, how you talk!"

"Don't speak of how I talk!" said Veronica. "Hasn't that Miss Wilbur got language! I guess Mr. Barrison likes her, too. He told me she was a goddess."

"Oh, Phil's just full of fun. He always will be a rapscallion at heart, no matter how great he ever gets to be."

"Well, he doesn't want anybody else to stop saying prunes and prisms. He didn't even want me to chew gum. Anybody that's as unnatural as that had better marry a goddess. Now, let's go for those dishes, Aunt Priscilla."

"You good child!" said Miss Burridge appreciatively. "I can't really ask Genevieve to stay in the evenin'. She's the little girl who comes every day and prepares vegetables and washes dishes. Now, one minute, Veronica, while I get the names o' these new people straight. I've got their letters here." Miss Priscilla took them down from the chimney-piece. "There's Mrs. Lowell, she's alone, and Miss Emerson, she's alone, and Mr. Nicholas Gayne and his nephew, Herbert Gayne. I wonder how long I'll remember that."

"I know them all," said Veronica sententiously. "The whole bunch came on in the same car with me from Boston. It's my plan to poison Mr. Gayne."

"Don't talk that way, child."

"You'll agree to it when you see how mean he is to his nephew. The boy isn't all there."

"What do you mean?"

"Has rooms to let in the upper story, you know." Veronica touched her round forehead. "Mrs. Lowell is a queen and Miss Emerson isn't; or else Miss Emerson is a queen and Mrs. Lowell isn't. I'll know which is t'other to-morrow."

"You seem to have made up your mind about them all."

"Oh, yes!" said Veronica. "You don't have to eat a whole jar of butter to find out whether it's good. All I need is a three-minute taste of anybody, and I had three hours and a half of them. Now, come on, Aunt Priscilla, let's put some transparent water in the metal bowl, and the snowy foam of soap within it." She rolled up her naughty eyes as she spoke.

Miss Burridge gave the girl a rebuking look, and then laughed. "Don't you go to makin' fun of her now," she said. "She's my star boarder, no matter who else comes, I'm in love with her whether Phil is or not. She's genuine, that girl is,—genuine."

"And you don't want me to be imitation," giggled Veronica. "I see."

Then the two went at the clearing-up and dish-washing in high good-humor.