Читать книгу The Carter Girls of Carter House - Emma Speed Sampson - Страница 3

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“Oh, Helen! What a shame!” cried Douglas Carter, and she began reading from the Richmond paper whose news had so distressed her. “‘Died at her home, Grantley, Sept. 28, in the sixty-ninth year of her life, Louise Garland Grant. She is survived by an only sister, Ellen Spottswood Grant’”

“Poor, poor, old Miss Ellen, what in the world will she ever do alone?” and Helen left the letter she had been writing and went to her sister, bending her glossy brown head close over the paper as if by scrutiny she could change Miss Louise’s destiny.

Helen had been particularly fond of this peculiar old lady, perhaps more so than her sisters because she knew her better than the others. Often during the long winter the Carters had spent in the overseer’s cottage they had rented from the Misses Grant, Helen had been the confidante of these queer spinster ladies. While really devoted to each other, they had continually quarreled about trifles, and Helen had always had both sides of the slightest disagreement poured into her unwilling but polite ear. Helen, being the housekeeper in the Carter family since their fallen fortunes, was the possessor of innumerable of the Grants’ choicest receipts. She was so greatly beloved by both ladies that Lucy, the youngest of the Carter girls, declared “those old dames have made a little tin god out of Helen ever since the night of Count de Lestis’ ball.”

Indeed, since that memorable night when Helen and Dr. George Wright had come in answer to the summons of the old ladies, arriving at Grantley just in time to quell by their cleverness and courage an insurgent mob of negroes, incited by de Lestis, who were planning to burn the old mansion, the Misses Grant had looked on Helen Carter as a heroine. Dr. Wright, called from the de Lestis’ ball in place of their family physician, who was unavailable at the time, had also had his due share of adulation from these lonely women.

“You know, Helen,” said Nan, abruptly closing the book of verse she had been reading, “I think you ought to go right up to Grantley and see Miss Ellen. She is simply devoted to you and if anybody can be of any comfort to her, you can.”

Nan was the quiet, dreamy, poetry-loving member of the Carter family, but she had the added characteristic of being practical, too, a characteristic not often found with these other qualities. She could make up her mind quickly as to what was the best course for her to carry out and could give useful advice as to what was the best line of action for the other members of her family to follow. She was extremely tactful and gentle, her opinion was always asked for and her advice was frequently taken, a thing which does not often happen to advice. Consequently, when Nan said that she thought Helen ought to go up to Grantley, Douglas, the business head, and Lucy, the coming business woman, immediately agreed.

“But,” objected Helen, “while of course I want to help Miss Ellen if I can, I hate to leave you girls to attend to the closing of camp all by yourselves.”

The Carter Girls’ week-end camp had become a famous place for week-enders during the two summers they had run it. It had served the two-fold purpose of giving them a home for the summer and a means of support for themselves and their mother and father while Mr. Carter’s overworked nerves had an opportunity for a much-needed rest. The same people came to the camp again and again, bringing new friends with each return, and the girls had had more applicants for board than they could possibly accommodate. The readiness with which these girls had taken hold of their muddled affairs and crippled finances had won them the admiration of all their friends and the respect of even the few relations, who had said at one time that Robert Carter’s daughters were spoiled butterflies and selfish ones, too, else they would never have let their father work himself into his pitiable condition that they might live in luxury. They had just finished another profitable summer and were packing up camp things prefatory to returning to Richmond, where they intended, Douglas and Helen, to open an arts and crafts shop combined with a small tea-room.

“That’s allright, Helen,” Lucy reassured her. “You catch the 1.50 to Grantley and Nan and I will just work a little bit harder to make up for not having you.”

“Very well, then,” consented Helen, “I’ll run tell mother I am going.” It was always a matter of ‘telling’ Mother, never of ‘asking’ Mother, as the girls had discovered that their pretty, helpless mother was utterly incapable of assuming any responsibility or of rendering a decision.

At the beginning of their father’s long and tedious illness, Douglas had come to the realization that on her young and inexperienced shoulders rested the cares that had so bent her father. In addition to her air of general helplessness Mrs. Carter had added that of semi-invalidism, an affectation that the girls rather encouraged as Mrs. Carter’s fancied ill-health somewhat reconciled her to her forced withdrawal from society and to some degree curbed her extravagances. This little lady seemed unable to learn that money and credit were not synonymous and was totally unable to adjust herself to her altered circumstances.

Her daughters had assumed a half-amused, protective air towards her and treated her in much the same way they would a spoiled child. They made every endeavor to keep her from worrying her husband about money matters, always keeping her recurrent, useless expenditures from him, and paying her bills themselves. The previous winter she had kept herself fairly happy by playing the sick game, but since she had learned that they were again to live in Richmond and in their own attractive house that had hitherto been rented, her invalidism and negligees were dropped at once and she spent her time busily looking at the fashion in ‘Vogue.’ It was with a feeling of apprehension that her daughters thought of her coming shopping expeditions.

“I am going to help Helen pack her things,” declared Lucy, dashing off after Helen. She was her sister’s most ardent admirer and copied her fashion of dress and hair to the minutest detail, with a result sometimes laughable as there was four years’ difference in their ages.

“Douglas,” said Nan, as Lucy left them alone, “I don’t want to seem unfeeling—”

“As if you could.” Her sister smiled at her, amused at the thought of Nan as ‘unfeeling’ because they had often accused her of having so much feeling that it almost amounted to sentimentality. “But what?”

“I was thinking that now there is only one Miss Grant she can’t live at Grantley, and I was wondering what would become of all that wonderful old furniture. You know they are the last Grants. There is no relation to have it. Oh! Douglas, don’t you think we might take a flyer in antiques and buy it up and put it on sale at the shop? We must have enough money in bank that we made at camp this summer.”

“‘A flyer in antiques!’ Heavens, Nan, what a way to put it! It is a sudden idea, but I should think it ought to be a good investment. Do you suppose Miss Ellen will sell, though?”

“Helen is a tactful soul. She can find out and if so, get first chance on it all. I imagine Miss Ellen will sell Grantley and most of the old things, and come into Richmond and board. It seems the logical thing to do, but I am just guessing. Any way, we will have to talk it over with Helen and Lucy.”

This was the rule: that all matters pertaining to all must be discussed by all, that is, by all but Bobby, who was a young and mischievous brother, deeply loved but not considered responsible enough to have the privilege of lifting his voice in sober and solemn conclave.

“What did Mother say?” demanded Nan as Lucy and Helen returned to the tent.

“‘Wear a veil, dear. It is so sunny. Do you think I might have a brown velvet dinner dress this winter? Of course, tan is the popular shade, but it is not becoming to me since my recent illness has left me so pale.’” In spite of themselves, the girls laughed at Helen’s mimicry of their mother. Helen herself loved beautiful clothes and was always exquisitely dressed, and so naturally was more lenient towards her frivolous mother than her sisters. But even she was sometimes exasperated by her mother’s persistent talk of styles, shades and fabrics.

Nan and Douglas unfolded their plan to Lucy and Helen, who accepted it enthusiastically.

“We ought to be able to sell that lovely old mahogany at a good profit and yet give Miss Ellen a fair price, too. She could never find appreciative purchasers out there in the country, and it would hardly be worth while for her to send it all into town on the chance of finding buyers. We would give her more than any of the antique shops would, I am sure. It seems to me that it would be an ideal arrangement all around.” This was Helen’s opinion, delivered as she dutifully pinned on the veil her mother had suggested.

“Helen, you have about three hours’ wait in Richmond, don’t you think you could drop around to Dr. Wright’s office and talk over this new scheme with him? He has such excellent judgment,” Douglas asked.

Helen was thankful for her veil, as she had discovered lately that she always blushed violently at the mention of George Wright’s name. Moreover, a visit to his office was exactly what she had planned to do with her three hours’ wait in Richmond.

“Whoa, there, Josephus! Can’t you do what we-uns tell you?” demanded Bobby from his seat beside Josh as he proudly drove the spring wagon and the old mule up to the tent. He and Josh were to take Helen and her bag down the mountain side to the train. Helen was grateful to this sudden appearance of Bobby and Josh as it covered the confusion she could not help feeling.

Completely ignoring Bobby’s flourish of the whip, Josephus slowly ambled off with Helen sitting between Bobby and the little mountain boy, Josh. Josh’s appearance had undergone a marked change from the time the Carters first met him. He had been attractive looking always, but ragged and intensely dirty. Bobby had been seduced by his filth, as he was thoroughly opposed to the lavish use of soap and water himself. However, the preceding summer Lewis Somerville had introduced Josh to the mysteries of a cold shower, and since that occasion he had been transformed into a gleamingly clean little boy. At first Bobby had been disgusted at this traitorous streak in his new friend but soon had been so won over that he gleefully joined Josh in his morning ablutions. Bobby was his ardent admirer and constant companion. He had labored manfully to acquire the mountain form of speech and never lost a chance to substitute ‘we-uns’ for ‘I,’ an accomplishment that distressed his mother and delighted his father.

“Helen, will you set we-uns up to a bottle of pop?” demanded Bobby as they jogged along the mountain road.

“I’ll set you-uns up to a bottle a-piece,” laughed Helen.

“An’ tell Dr. Wright I will be—I mean we-uns will be back in town day after tomorrow and will be ready to start a-shoverin’ for him again.” Bobby and Dr. Wright were sworn allies.

“Very well, if I see him. You had better let Josh drive Josephus now as he has got his short leg down the hill and the next curve is a sharp one. We had better hurry up, too, as I can hear the train blowing for the stop before this one,” and Helen hastened to change the subject.

Josephus and the train pulled in at the same time, and after kissing Bobby and giving him and Josh each a dime for the promised pop, Helen got aboard, there to wonder on the confidence she and her entire family had grown to have in that young nerve specialist, Dr. George Wright.