Читать книгу An Accidental Honeymoon - Edward Barron - Страница 4
II
ОглавлениеFessenden turned to the right on the main road. At a little distance he paused to glance back at White Cottage.
There was nothing of the colonial manor-house in its lines. Clearly, it had always been the home of humble folk. He fancied that good Aunty Landis—whose husband supplied Sandywood “with eggs and milk and butter”—would be the last to lay claim to gentility.
It was a little disappointing to be compelled to abandon his dream of a Confederate colonel and of a decayed “first family.”
“But the little girl is perfectly charming,” he mused, and strode up the road humming:
“Oh, she smashed all the hearts
Of the swains in them parts,
Did Mistress Biddy O’Toole.”
The directions given him by the station-master at Sandywood Station had been so clear that, although a stranger to this part of the country, Fessenden had found his way thus far easily enough.
Now, as he topped the rise, his eyes fell at once upon Sandywood House: a buff-and-white structure, with the pillared expansiveness of a true colonial mansion. It was set upon a knoll, across an intervale, the wide expanse of the Chesapeake shimmering in front of it. Ardent Marylanders had been known to maintain that it was fully the equal of Mount Vernon itself.
The avenue leading up toward the back of the house from the main road wound a couple of hundred yards through a garden of box and lilac, then swept the pedestrian about an ell to the steps of a demilune porch, and almost vis-à-vis with half a dozen men and women drinking tea.
A plump, neutral-tinted woman, a trifle over-gowned, hurried forward to greet him.
“Why, Tom Fessenden!” she exclaimed. “So here you are at last! You bad man, you didn’t come on the right train. Your things arrived this morning, but when the car came back from the station without you, I thought you’d backed out. The next thing I was expecting was a letter from you, saying you couldn’t come at all, you irresponsible man!”
“I would have been a loser.”
“Ve-ry pretty. Really, though, we have a jolly crowd here. All complete except for Roland Cary. If Roland Cary hadn’t notions!”
“Is any man foolish enough to decline an invitation from you?”
“Any man? Oh, Roland Cary’s a cousin.”
“Lucky man! Madam, may I ask if he is so attractive that you wish he had come instead of me?”
“I wanted—wanted him to be here with you, silly. He—he is perfectly charming. You know, I’m half afraid of you. You’re such a superior old Yankee that I dare say you despise us Marylanders, and were as late in getting here as you dared to be.” The perennial challenge of the Southern belle was in her tones.
Fessenden laughed. “I ran across Danton in Baltimore. Blame it all on him.”
“Charlie Danton? Oh, isn’t he most exasperating! Now, come up and meet everybody. Boys and girls, this is Mr. Fessenden—Mrs. Randall and Dick Randall, over there. And Pinckney—Pinck, do get out of that chair long enough to be polite!—my lord and master, Tom. That’s my cousin, May Belle—May Belle Cresap—and Harry Cleborne; and this is Miss Yarnell, the celebrated Miss Madge Yarnell; and—and that’s all. How funny! I do believe I’m the only one of us you’ve ever met before.”
“That proves how benighted I’ve been,” he returned. “But what can you expect of a man who’s never been on the Eastern Shore?”
Detecting something proprietary in the manner of the young man who hung over the back of Miss May Belle Cresap’s chair, he abandoned his thought of taking a seat next that languid lady, and instead inserted himself deftly between Pinckney Cresap and Miss Madge Yarnell.
Cresap shook hands heartily. “Glad to see you, Fessenden. I’ve heard a lot of you from Polly ever since she knew you in New York—before she did me the honor to marry me. Glad you’ve got down to see us on our native heath at last.” He poked a rather shaky finger at the stranded mint-leaf in the empty glass before him. “A julep? No? You mentioned Charlie Danton just now. You’ve heard about his high doings, I suppose. Perhaps you’re in his confidence?”
“Not at all. He’s in mine, to the extent of persuading me to buy a small yacht of his this morning—sight unseen. He promised to telegraph over this way somewhere and have it sent around to your boat-landing—if you’ll allow me.”
“Of course. My man will take care of it when it turns up. Danton’s a queer one.” He rattled his empty glass suggestively at his wife.
“He seemed as cynical as ever,” commented Fessenden.
“He ought to be. They say that if it were befo’ de wah’ he’d have to meet a certain Baltimore man on the field of honor—a married man, you understand. Coffee and pistols for two!”
Fessenden was willing to elude the foreshadowed gossip. “We’re shocking Miss Yarnell, I’m afraid.”
The girl was, indeed, sitting with averted head, her face set rather sternly.
“Eh! Oh, I beg your pardon, Madge,” said Cresap, with real concern.
“I hardly heard what you were saying,” she rejoined. “I was thinking of something else.”
Her voice was unusually deep and mellow, and Fessenden’s sensitive ear thrilled pleasurably. He glanced toward her.
She was a decided brunette. Her eyes as they met his had a certain defiant challenge, a challenge at once bold and baffling. The distance between her eyes was a trifle too great for perfect beauty, but her complexion was transparently pale, and her teeth were wonderfully white and even. The poise of her head was almost regal, and she had a trick of coming very close to one as she talked, that was very disconcerting.
On the whole, Miss Yarnell was a charming person of twenty-three or four, and he began to have a decided appreciation of the adjective Polly Cresap had applied to her. Moreover, the sombre challenge in her dark eyes impelled him to further investigation, under the clatter of teacups and small talk about them.
“Why ‘celebrated,’ Miss Yarnell?” he began. “Why ‘celebrated’ rather than ‘beautiful’ or ‘stunning’ or downright ‘handsome’?”
“Polly’s rather silly,” said Miss Yarnell.
“Are you dodging?”
“I never dodge. But Polly is silly—yes, she’s unkind, although she’d be in tears if she dreamed I thought so. She ought not to have called me that. No, I don’t dodge, but I suppose I can refuse to answer.”
He declined to notice the ungraciousness of her response. “Oh, of course, but I’m certain to learn the reason you’re ‘celebrated’ from some one—badly garbled, too,” he laughed.
Contrary to the spirit of his badinage, she seemed resolved to take him seriously. “That’s true. I may as well tell you. I’m celebrated—‘notorious’ would be a better word—because of that affair in Baltimore last year. I was an idiot.”
“Hard words for yourself. I think I don’t understand.”
“You don’t know Baltimore, then?”
“Very little. The Club is about all, and that not more than once or twice a year.”
“The Club! If you’ve been there once this winter, I’m afraid you’ve heard of me. I’m Madge Yarnell, the Madge Yarnell, the girl who tore down the flag at the cotillion.”
“O-oh!” He gave her a long stare. “It was you.”
She winced before the contempt in his tone, and her eyes glistened suddenly. “I’m confessing to you,” she reminded him with a humility that he knew instinctively was wholly unwonted. “I’m not proud of what I did, although some of my friends”—her glance swept over Polly Cresap—“are still foolish enough to tease me about it.”
Compelled by his eyes and the light touch of his hand on her arm, she rose with him, and they sauntered together to the isolation of a pillar on the porch-edge.
The great bay, now purpling with the first hint of sunset, stretched from the foot of the knoll to the hazy hills of the western shore. Little red glints flashed from the surface of the water and seemed to be reflected in the depths of Miss Yarnell’s sombre eyes.
She stood with her hands behind her, her head turned a little from him, but held very proudly. A strong woman, evidently; a passionate one, perhaps; a devoted one, if the right man were found. Fessenden, studying her covertly, realized that for the second time that day he had encountered a girl who stirred in him an interest novel and delightful.
“Tell me about it, Miss Yarnell,” he said at last. “I’ve only heard that you refused to enter the cotillion room so long as the Stars and Stripes decorated the doorway, and that finally you took down the flag with your own hands. I remember the Evening Post had a solemn editorial on the sinister significance of your alleged performance. It couldn’t have been true—I realize that now that I know you. No one could accuse you—you of—that is——”
“Of vulgarity. Thank you for being too kind to say it. But I’m afraid most of it’s true.”
“I can’t believe it.”
She turned a grateful glance upon him. His steady, reassuring smile seemed to give her a long-needed sense of comfort and protection. In spite of herself, her eyes fell before his, and her cheeks reddened a little.
“I’ll tell you all about it,” she said. “I did it on a dare. A year ago I was unbelievably silly—I’ve learned a great deal in a year. A man dared me—and I did it.”
“I don’t acquit you—quite; but what an egregious cad the man must have been!”
“No, no, don’t think that. He never dreamed I would really dare. But I was determined to show him I wasn’t afraid—wasn’t afraid of anything—not even of him.”
“Of him?”
“Yes.”
“O-oh!” he said slowly. “I see. Well, were you afraid—afterward?”
She swung her hands from behind her back and struck them together with a sudden gesture of anger.
“No, but I hated him. I hate him! Not that he wasn’t game. When I turned to him with that dear flag dangling in my hand, he swept me off in a two-step, flag and all. But he smiled. Oh, how he smiled!” She drew a long breath. “D—— his smile!” Her desperate little oath was only pathetic. “I can see that triumphant twist about the corner of his mouth now, like a crooked scar.”
“Good Lord! Charlie Danton!”
Her startled look confirmed the guess her words denied. “No, no.”
“By Jove! don’t I know that smile? We were in college together, you know, and I’ve made him put on the gloves with me more than once on account of that devilish smile. But I’ll do him the justice to believe that he didn’t really suppose you’d take that dare.” He interrupted himself to laugh a little. “How seriously we’re talking! After all, it’s no great matter if a—a rather foolish girl did a rather foolish thing.”
She refused to be enlivened. “I had it out with him,” she said. “And since then we haven’t seen anything of each other. You heard what Pinckney Cresap said just now?”
“About Danton and the possibility of a duel?”
“Yes. I’m afraid that’s partly my fault. I sent him away, and——”
“I see. If he’s weak enough to seek consolation in that way, he deserves to lose you.”
She smiled frankly. “You’re very, very comforting. I’m glad I confessed to you—it’s done me good.”
The clatter of the group at the tea-table behind them had effectually muffled the sound of their voices. Their eyes and thoughts, too, had been so preoccupied that it was only now they became aware of a small boy standing on the gravelled walk in front of them. He wore a checked shirt and patched trousers on his diminutive person, and freckles and a disgusted expression on his face.
“Gee Whilliken!” exclaimed this apparition, with startling vehemence. “I been standin’ here ’most an hour, I bet, without you lookin’ at me oncet. I’m Jimmy Jones.”
“Welcome, scion of an illustrious family!” said Fessenden. “What is your pleasure?”
“Ah, g’wan,” returned Master Jones. “I got a letter, that’s what. I got a letter here for——” He broke off to scan his questioner closely. “You’re the man, ain’t you? Tall, good-looker, wet pants. Say, Mister, ain’t your name Puddin’ Tame?”
“ ‘Puddin’ Tame’?” asked Miss Yarnell, smiling. “Is it a game you want to play, kiddy?”
“No, ma’am, ’tain’t a game. I want to see him. Say, ain’t you Puddin’ Tame?”
“I’ve been called so,” admitted Fessenden, surprised but greatly diverted. “But I’ll let you into a secret, Jimmy: it’s not my real name.”
“Aw, who said it was? Don’t I know it’s a nickname? Guess I heard of Puddin’ Tame before you was born.”
“I believe your guess is incorrect, James.”
“No, ’tain’t neither. Say, here’s the letter for you. There ain’t no answer.” He thrust an envelope into Fessenden’s fingers, and disappeared around the corner of the house with a derisive whoop.
The sound served to divert the tea-drinkers from their chatter.
“What! A billet doux already?” said Mrs. Dick Randall. “This is rushing matters, Mr. Fessenden. I think it’s only fair you should let us know who she is.” A chorus of exclamations followed, in which, however, Miss Yarnell did not join.
“Polly,” said Cresap at last, “don’t tease Fessenden. Rather, if your inferior half may venture the humble suggestion, I would urge a casual glance at his trousers. What do you see, Little Brighteyes?”
“Goodness, Tom! They’re wet. Positively dripping!”
“I lost my way coming over, and had to wade through a brook.”
“And I never noticed it until now. And I declare I haven’t given you a chance to get to your room yet. Pinck, why didn’t you remind me? Ring the bell, please. Tom, you must change your things right away.”
Alone in his room, Fessenden read the note delivered by the cadet of the house of Jones.
Dear Mr. Puddin’ Tame:
Shall we have it for a secret that you’re coming to supper at our house to-morrow? We aren’t quality folk, and maybe Mrs. Cresap wouldn’t like it. So please don’t breathe it to a soul, but just steal away, and come.
Betty.
