Читать книгу Donald and Dorothy - Dodge Mary Mapes - Страница 6

After supper, Uncle George, Donald, and Dorothy went into the library, where they found the soft light of a shaded lamp and another cheerful fire, – so cheerful, that Mr. George let down the windows at the top, and the two D's were glad to go and sit on the sofa at the cooler end of the spacious room.

"Liddy is determined that we shall not freeze before the winter sets in," remarked Mr. George, hardly knowing how to begin the conversation. He was not the first good man who has found himself embarrassed in the presence of frank young listeners waiting to hear him speak and sure to weigh and remember everything he may say.

The children smiled solemnly.

Thus began an interview which, in some respects, changed the lives of Donald and Dorothy.

"Liddy is a good, faithful soul," said Uncle George. "She has been with us, you know, ever since you were babies."

"And before too," put in Dorry, knowingly.

"Yes, before too," assented Mr. George. "Some years before."

Nero, lazing by the fire, snapped at an imaginary fly, at which the D's, glad of a chance to relieve themselves, and feeling that the interview was one of grave importance, indulged in a smothered laugh.

"And Nero, poor faithful old dog, you knew us!" continued Mr. George, changing to a more cheerful tone, while Nero's tail contentedly beat time to the remark (for the good creature knew well enough that Mr. George was speaking of him); "he was hardly a year old then, the friskiest, handsomest fellow you ever saw, and brave as a lion."

"Did he know Aunt Kate?" asked the audacious Dorothy.

Donald looked frightened; Uncle George coughed; and just as Dorothy, wretchedly uncomfortable, made up her mind that it was too cruel for anything, never to be able to speak of your own aunty without raising a storm, Mr. George came out of the bright light and seated himself on the sofa between the D's with an arm around each. Dorry, puzzled but almost happy, drew as close as she could, but still sat upright; and Donald, manly boy that he was, felt a dignified satisfaction in his uncle's embrace, and met him with a frank, questioning look. It was the work of an instant. Dorry's startling inquiry still sounded on the firelit air.

"Donald," said Uncle, without replying to Dorry's question. "Let me see. You are now fourteen years old?"

"Fourteen and ten days, – nearly half a month over fourteen," said Dorothy, promptly. "Aren't we, Donald? I'm so glad!"

Donald nodded, and Uncle placidly asked why she was glad.

"Because twins can't boss – I mean domineer – each other. If Don was the least bit older than me – I – me, it wouldn't be half so nice as starting fair and square."

Here she gave a satisfied little cough, and to her great surprise felt her uncle's arm immediately withdrawn.

"Stop your nonsense, Dorothy," said he, almost sternly, "and don't interrupt."

"Now Uncle's afraid again," thought Donald, but he felt so sorry for his sister that he said, in a tone of dignified respect: "Dorry didn't mean to be rude, Uncle."

"No, no. Certainly not," said that very puzzling individual, suddenly resuming his former position, and drawing the little lady toward him. "Where were we? Oh, yes! Fourteen years and ten days, is it?"

"Yes, sir, right to a minute," replied Donald, laughing.

"Well, there is no hurry, I am glad to say. I have been thinking of late, Donald, that a little boarding-school experience is a good thing for a boy."

Dorothy started; but she had resolved rather sullenly that people would have to wait a long while before they should hear another word from her.

"Yes, sir," assented Donald, quickly. It would be glorious to go, he thought, and actually be a boarding-school boy, belonging to a crack base-ball club, a debating society, perhaps even a secret society; to get boxes of fruit and cake from home, and share them with his room-mates; maybe have a fight or two, for a fellow must hold his own, you know; – but then how strange it would be to live without Dorry! Oh, if she only were a boy!

"I'd come home on Thanksgiving and Christmas?" asked Don, following up a rather lonesome feeling.

"Oh, yes! but you're not off yet, my boy. The fact is, I did think seriously of sending you this autumn, and I even looked up a few good places, intending to make a selection. But there's no special hurry. This boarding-school business has its uncomfortable side. It breaks up a household, and makes little sisters lonesome. Doesn't it, Dorry?"

Dorry couldn't speak now, though she tried, and Mr. George considerately went on: "Besides, there's another, a very good reason, why we should wait awhile. You are needed here, Donald, just now."

"Needed here?" thought Dorry. "I should say so!" Uncle might as well remark that the sunshine, or the sky, or the air was needed here as to say that Don was needed. A big tear gathered under her lashes – "Besides, she was no more his little sister than he was her little brother. They were just even halves of each other – so now." And the tear went back.

Meantime, Uncle's remarks flowed slowly on, like a deep stream passing between two banks – one with its sunny leaves and blossoms all astir in the breeze, the other bending, casting its image in the stream, and so going on with it in a closer companionship.

"You are needed here, Donald; but, as I said before, there is plenty of time. And though I shall bear this boarding-school matter in mind, I cannot well spare you just now. I shall require, perhaps, some vigilance on your part, and coolheadedness, – not that anything very serious is likely to occur; in fact, there is no reason why it should – but a brother naturally guards his sister even when no danger threatens."

"Certainly," said Don.

"Humph!" thought Dorothy, "I don't want to be guarded, thank you." But, for all that, she felt proud that Uncle should speak of her in this way to Donald. Probably he was going to mention fire, and remind them of the invariable rule that they must not, on any account, carry matches into the barn, or light a bonfire anywhere without express permission. Meanwhile, Donald watched his uncle's face, following every word.

"There is really nothing to be apprehended," continued Uncle George, with some hesitation; "but it is important that you – that Dorothy – I should say – well, my children, perhaps you have observed – indeed, you spoke to-day, Dorothy, of having seen something of a person who has been about here several times of late."

"Oh, yes, Uncle," responded Dorry.

But Donald waited to hear more. He had talked previously with his uncle about this same person, whom he had seen more than once lounging about the grounds.

"Well," said Mr. George, slowly, "this man, 'long and lank,' as Dorry truly described him, is not a very dangerous man, – at least, we'll believe he is not, – but he is one whom I wish you both to avoid. His company will do you no good."

"Wouldn't it be better, Uncle," suggested Dorry, now eager to help matters, "for Jack to order him off the place whenever he comes on?"

"Well, no," said Uncle George. "After all, he may not come again. But if he should, I wish you to have as little to do with him as possible."

"We could set Nero on him. Nero can't bite, but he'd scare him pretty well," insisted Dorry, with animation. "The idea of his calling me 'Sis!' the great, horrid, long – "

"There, there; that will do," said Mr. George. "All you need do is to remember what I say. Do not fear this man. Above all, do not let him imagine that you fear him. But avoid him. Keep within the gates for the present."

"O-h, Uncle!" exclaimed Dorry, in consternation, while even Donald broke forth with a plaintive "Both of us, Uncle?"

"Yes, both of you, – for a few days at least, or until I direct to the contrary. And while out of doors, keep together."

"We'll do that anyway," replied Dorry, half saucily.

"The man," continued Mr. George, "probably will not trouble either of you. He is a ne'er-do-weel, whom I knew as a boy, but we lost sight of him long ago. I suspect he has been steadily going down for years."

"I can't see wh – ," began the irrepressible Dorry; but she was met by a firm, "You need not see, nor try to see. Only remember what I have told you, and say nothing to any one about it. Now we may talk of other things. Oh, by the way, there was one pretty good reason for thinking of making a change in schooling. Dr. Lane is going to leave us."

"Dr. Lane going to leave!" echoed Donald, in regretful surprise.

"Good! No more old algebra!" exclaimed Dorry, at the same time clapping her hand to her mouth. Her vivid imagination had instantly pictured relief and a grand holiday. But second thoughts made her feel vexed with herself, especially when her uncle resumed:

"Yes, the good man told me yesterday that his cough grows steadily worse, and his physician has ordered him to go south for the winter. He says he must start as soon as I can find a tutor to take his place."

"Oh, don't let him wait a day, Uncle," exclaimed Dorry, earnestly, – "please don't, if going south will cure him. We've noticed his cough, haven't we, Don? We can study our lessons by ourselves, and say them to each other."

Some boys would have smiled knowingly at this somewhat suspicious outburst, but Donald knew Dorothy too well for that. She was thoroughly sincere and full of sympathy for the kind, painstaking man who, notwithstanding one or two peculiarities which she and her brother could not help observing, was really a good teacher. For more than a year, omitting only July and August, and Saturday holidays, he had been coming to Lakewood every week-day to instruct the two young Reeds in what he called the rudiments of learning. There were two visiting teachers besides Dr. Lane, – the music-master, Mr. Penton, and Mademoiselle Jouvin, the French teacher. These came only twice a week, and on different days, but Dr. Lane and they managed to keep the D's very busy. Mr. Reed had preferred that his nephew and niece should receive their early education at home; and so Donald and Dorothy thus far knew nothing of school life.

What could be the matter with Uncle George? Again Dorothy's look and tone – especially her sudden expression of kindliness for her tutor – evidently had given her uncle pain. He looked down at her for an instant with a piteous and (as Donald again thought) an almost frightened expression; then quickly recovering himself, went on to tell Donald that Dorry was right. It would be best to release Dr. Lane at once, and take the chances of obtaining a new teacher. In fact, he would see the doctor the very next morning, if they would let him know when the lesson-hours were over.

"Uncle!"

"Well, sir, what is it?"

"Did you go to boarding-school, when you were a boy?"

"Oh, yes! but I was older than you are now."

"Did Aunt Kate?" asked Dorry.

"There, there; that will do," was the reply. Uncle George frequently had to say, "There, there; that will do," to Dorry.

"Well," she insisted timidly, and almost in a whisper, "I have to ask about her, because you wasn't a girl," – Donald, reaching behind Mr. George, tried to pull her sleeve to check the careless grammar, but her soul had risen above such things, – "you wasn't a girl, – and I don't expect to go to a boys' boarding-school. Oh, Uncle, I don't, I really don't mean to be naughty, but it's so hard, so awfully hard, to be a girl without any mother! And when I ask about her or Aunt Kate, you always – yes, Uncle, you really do! – you always get mad. Oh, no, I don't mean to say that; but it makes you feel so dreadfully sorry, that you don't know how it sounds to me! You actually don't, Uncle. If I only could remember Mamma! But, of course, I can't; and then that picture that came to us from England looks so – so very – "

"It's lovely!" exclaimed Donald, almost indignantly.

"Yes, it's handsome, but I know Mamma wouldn't look that way now. It's so pale and stiff. May be it's the big lace collar, – and even Liddy can't tell me whether it was a good likeness or not. But Aunt Kate's picture in the parlor is so different. I think it's because it was painted when she was a little girl. Oh, it's so sweet and natural, I want to climb up and kiss it! I really do, Uncle. That's why I want to talk about her, and why I love her so very much. You wouldn't speak cross to her, Uncle, if she came to life and tried to talk to you about us. No, I think you'd – Oh, Uncle, Uncle! What is the matter? What makes you look so at me!"

Before Dorry fairly knew what had happened, Donald was at his uncle's feet, looking up at him in great distress, and Uncle George was sobbing! Only for an instant. His face was hidden in his hands, and when he lifted it, he again had control of himself, and Dorry almost felt that she had been mistaken. She never had seen her uncle cry, or dreamed that he could cry; and now, as she stood with her arms clasped about his neck, crying because he had cried, she could only think, with an awed feeling, of his tenderness, his goodness, and inwardly blame herself for being "the hatefullest, foolishest girl in all the world." Glancing at Donald, sure of his sympathy, she whispered, "I'm sorry, Uncle, if I did wrong. I'll try never, never to be so – so – " She was going to say "so wicked again," but the words would not come. She knew that she had not been wicked, and yet she could not at first hit upon the right term. Just as it flashed upon her to say "impetuous," and not to care a fig if Donald did secretly laugh at her using so grand an expression, Mr. George said, gently, but with much seriousness:

"You need not reproach yourself, my child. I can see very clearly just what you wish to say. Don and I can rough it together, but you, poor darling," stroking her hair softly, "need just what we cannot give you, – a woman's, a mother's tenderness."

"Oh, yes, you do! Yes, you do, Uncle!" cried Dorothy, in sudden generosity.

"And it is only natural, my little maid, that you should long – as Donald must, too – to hear more of the mother whom I scarcely knew, whom, in fact, I saw only a few times. Wolcott, I should say, your Papa, and she sailed for Europe soon after their marriage, and from that day we never – "

He checked himself, and Dorry took advantage of the pause to say, timidly:

"But it wasn't so with Aunt Kate. You knew her, Uncle, all her life. Wasn't she sweet, and lovely, and – "

"Yes, yes! Sweet, lovely, everything that was noble and good, dear. You cannot love her too well."

"And Papa," spoke up Donald, sturdily, "he was perfect. You've often told us so, – a true, upright, Christian gentleman." The boy knew this phrase by heart. He had so often heard his uncle use it, in speaking of the lost brother, that it seemed almost like a part of his father's name. "And Mamma we know was good, Dorry. Liddy says every one liked her ever so much. Uncle George says so too. Only, how can he talk to us about our mother if he hardly knew her? She didn't ever live in this house. She lived in New York; and that made a great difference – don't you see?"

"Yes," admitted Dorry, only half satisfied; "but you would have known her, Uncle George, – yes, known Mamma, and Aunty, and our Uncle Robertson [they had never learned to call that uncle by his first name] – we would have known them all – no, not all, not poor dear Papa, because he never lived to set sail from England, but all the rest, even our dear little cousin, Delia, – oh, wouldn't she be sweet, if we had her now to love and take care of! We should all have known each other ever so well – of course we should – if the ship had landed safe."

"Yes, my darlings, if the ship had not gone down, all would have been very, very different. There would have been a happy household indeed. We should have had more joy than I dare to think of."

"But we have each other now, Uncle," said Dorothy, soothingly and yet with spirit. "It can't be so very miserable and dreadful with you and Donald and me left!"

"Bless you, my little comforter! – No. God be praised, we still have a great deal to be thankful for."

"Yes, and there are Liddy and Jack, and dear old Nero," said Donald, partly because he wished to add his mite toward this more cheerful view of things, but mainly because he felt choked, and it would be as well to say something, if only to prove to himself that he was not giving way to unmanly emotion.

"Oh, yes – Jack!" added Dorry. "If it were not for Jack where should we twins be, I'd like to know!"

Said in an ordinary tone of voice, this would have sounded rather flippant, but Dorry uttered the words with true solemnity.

"I think of that often," said Donald, in the same spirit. "It seems so wonderful, too, that we didn't get drowned, or at least die of exposure, and – "

Dorothy interrupted him with an animated "Yes, indeed! Such little teenty bits of babies!"

"It does seem like a miracle," Uncle George said.

"But Jack," continued Donald, warmly, "was such a wonderful swimmer."

"Yes, and wonderful catcher!" said Dorothy. "Just think how he caught us – Ugh! It makes me shiver to think of being tossed in the air over those black, raging waves. We must have looked like little bundles flying from the ship. Wasn't Jack just wonderful, to hold on to us as he did, and work so hard looking for – for the others, too. Mercy! if we only get our feet wet now, Liddy seems to think it's all over with us, – and yet, look what we stood then! Little mites of babies, soaked to the skin, out in an open boat on the ocean all that terrible time."

"Much we cared for that," was Don's comment. "Probably we laughed, or played pat-a-cake, or – "

"Played pat-a-cake!" interrupted Dorry, with intense scorn of Donald's ignorance of baby ways – "babies only six weeks old playing pat-a-cake! I guess not. It's most likely we kicked and screamed like anything; isn't it, Uncle?"

Uncle nodded, with a strange mixture of gravity and amusement, and Donald added, earnestly:

"Whether we cried or not, Jack was a trump. A real hero, wasn't he, Uncle? I can see him now – catching us; then, when the other boat capsized, chucking us into the arms of some one in our boat, and plunging into the sea to save all he could, but able to get back alone, after all." (The children had talked about the shipwreck so often that they felt as if they remembered the awful scene.) "He was nearly dead by that time, you know."

"Yes, and nearly dead or not, if he hadn't come back," chirped Dorothy, who was growing tired of the tragic side of Donald's picture, – "if he hadn't come back to take charge of us, and take us on board the big ship – "

"The Cumberland," said Don.

"Yes, the Cumberland, or whatever she was called; if the Cumberland had not come along the next day, and Jack hadn't climbed on board with us, and wrapped us in blankets, and fed us and so on, it wouldn't have been quite so gay!"

Now, nothing could have been in worse taste than the conclusion of this speech, and Dorothy knew it; but she had spoken in pure defiance of solemnity. There had been quite enough of that for one evening.

Uncle George, dazed, troubled, and yet in some vague way inexpressibly comforted, was quietly looking first at one speaker, then at the other, when Liddy opened the door with a significant, "Mr. Reed, sir, did you ring?"

Oh, that artful Liddy! Uncle read "bed-time" in her countenance. It was his edict that half-past nine should be the hour; and the D's knew that their fate was sealed.

"Good-night, Uncle!" said Donald, kissing his uncle in good, hearty fashion.

"Good-night, Uncle!" said Dorothy, clinging to his neck just an instant longer than usual.

"Good-night, my blessings!" said Uncle George, reluctantly. And as he closed the library door behind them, Nero, shut up in Liddy's room, was barking furiously.

Two more orderly, well-behaved young persons never left an apartment. But I must tell the truth: when they were fairly in the hall, Donald started to go up stairs on the outside, holding on to the balusters, and Dorry ran to the front door, in spite of Liddy's remonstrances, with a frisky, "Oh, do let me have just one breath of fresh air!"

She came back instantly, rushed past Lydia, who was slowly puffing her way up the stairs, met Donald at the first landing (he had condescended by this time to leap over to the regulation side of the balusters), and whispered:

"Upon my sacred word, I saw him! He's out there standing at the front steps!"

"Uncle ought to know it!" exclaimed Donald, turning to run down again.

But he stopped on the next step, for Mr. George came out from the library, opened the front door, and disappeared.

The two D's stole from their rooms, after Liddy bade them good-night, and sat on the top stair, whispering.

"Why did you open your window just now, Donald?"

"Why, because I wanted to look out, of course."

"Now, Don, I know better. You coughed, just to let Uncle know that you were around, if there should be any trouble. You know you did."

"Well, what if I did?" admitted Donald, unwillingly. "Hark!" and he sprang up, ready for action. "No, he's back. It's Uncle. I say, Dorry, it will come hard on us to stay on this side of the hedge, like sheep. I wonder how long it will last."

"Goodness knows! But he didn't say we couldn't go to the Danbys'. I suppose that's because we can get there by going round the back way."

"I suppose so," assented Donald. "So long as we keep off the public road, it's all right."

"How queer!"

"Yes, it is queer," said Donald. "However, Uncle knows best."

"Dear me, how good we are, all of a sudden!" laughed Dorry; but she kissed Donald soberly for good-night, and after going to bed lay awake for at least fifteen minutes, – a great while for her, – thinking over the events of the day and evening.