Читать книгу Cherry Square - Grace S. Richmond - Страница 6

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"What they doing now? Couldn't you sit by the window and tell me, Lucy? Seems 'sif you keep looking out 'sif you saw something interesting, but you don't say a word. I can hear 'em down there."

Miss Clarinda Hunt's voice was both tremulous and eager. It was hard to lie in bed and see Lucinda for ever running to peer out between the half-closed blinds of the second-story bedroom at the lawn and garden which lay between the Hunts' home and the old Cherry place. It was so long since there had been anything to see except the still windows behind which had sat Miss Eldora Cherry, lingering out her existence. And now, apparently, there was everything to see, and Lucinda always seeing it, and failing to report more than half of it.

"There isn't so much to see," replied Lucinda, gazing, however, as if she couldn't take her eyes off what she did see. "And nothing to hear, except the children shouting, and you can hear that yourself. Sally Chase is having tea out there under the big beech—Miss Jenney's just brought it out. I declare, I'd never have thought—Miss Jenney—and she acts just like a servant, too—as if she'd never seen a schoolhouse. How she can do it! They call her Josephine."

But she and Clarinda had been over all that, over and over it, since they had first heard the astounding news. Clarinda was impatient for other details. Her little pale face was turned toward Lucy at the window, her faded blue eyes fixed upon her sister's sharp profile—sharp yet rather attractive still. Lucinda was only forty to Clarinda's fifty-five.

"Sally Chase isn't having tea all by herself, is she?" the invalid asked eagerly, in her high-keyed voice. "Who else is there?"

"I don't know—except her cousin, that Sturgis girl, lying back in her chair, same as she always is. There's a man with his back to us—I can't make out who he is. Might be Harry Liscomb, only I never saw Harry wear white clothes. But he's just about Harry's size. There—there comes somebody in the gate—two women. If I wasn't so far away I could tell who 'tis. All dressed up—— Oh, it's the Gildersleeves, sure's you're born. Mis' Gildersleeve and Alice. I hadn't seen them clothes before, I didn't recognize 'em. I didn't see their car stop, but there 'tis, outside the gate—and they living just six doors away! And making an afternoon call, just as formal!"

"Pity sakes!" exclaimed Clarinda. "As if 'twouldn't be more neighbourly to just step over, so near an' all. What have they got on, Lucy?"

"Mis' Gildersleeve's got on a sort of ashes-of-roses sort of colour—silk, it looks from here. And a hat to match. And gloves. Alice's wearing white, and a wide straw hat with a ribbon flopping down one side. Alice's carrying her gloves. I shouldn't think she'd even have 'em with her, such a hot day. Sally Cherry isn't dressed up any more'n usual—just sort of straight, plain things, kind of a light tan shade. Adelaide's wearing the same sort of things, only she's got a scarf. They never do seem much dressed up. I s'pose they think, being out o' the city, they don't have to dress up. But the Gildersleeves—they certainly do look as if they were going to a party."

"Maybe they were invited," Clarinda suggested. "Oh, dear, I wish I could see 'em."

"Well, I wish you could," agreed Lucinda. "I don't think they were invited, though as near as I can tell from here there's cups enough."

"Did you say Miss Jenney was there?" Clarinda now asked.

"She's handing the tea."

"Did you see if the Gildersleeves spoke to her?"

"I've been watching for that," Lucinda reported, with evident relish. "An' I couldn't make out that they did."

"Two of the Gildersleeve children were in her room at school last year," Clarinda remembered. "Do you suppose they didn't recognize her, in that cap an' all?"

"Recognize her—nothing!" Lucinda spoke sharply. "Could anybody mistake Josephine Jenney? She's far and away prettier than Alice Gildersleeve, who thinks herself a beauty. They don't intend to speak to her, being in the place of hired help now."

"She was hired when she was in the school," murmured Clarinda.

"Well, you know it's different now. When she put on that cap an' apron she must have known people like the Gildersleeves would cut her right off their list. I don't understand yet how she come to do it."

But Clarinda cared more for reports of what was taking place upon the lawn than for going over again the extraordinary unknown motives of Josephine Jenney. At this moment she received an excited bulletin.

"My goodness, who's that driving up? He's getting out an' coming in. I never saw him before!"

"What's he look like?"

"Looks like he was Governor of the State. Tall, an' straightbacked, an' awful good-looking light clothes. Little bit of gray over his ears, but he doesn't appear old. He's coming across the grass with his hat in his hand. Sally Cherry's going to meet him—she's got both her hands out. . . . They're laughing and seeming terribly pleased. Even that lazy cousin of hers is getting up—must be somebody important, or she'd never stir herself. When it's young men, she don't move to greet 'em. Oh, Mis' Gildersleeve and Alice are pruning and primping to meet him—I can see 'em. Now they're all setting down again, and the Governor or whoever he may be is sitting right by Sally. He could have set down by Mis' Gildersleeve or Alice—they made room enough on that high-backed bench they're setting on. He just grabbed a chair and pulled it right around by Sally. . . . Now Miss Jenney's handing him tea, and bread and butter. I wonder what she thinks of all this. . . . Seems funny, Sally's husband going off on that long voyage, and her receiving so much comp'ny. That man isn't her brother or her cousin, I'll venture."

"I can hear 'em laughing," commented Clarinda wistfully. "Anyhow, I can hear the man—and I guess that sort of shrill one is Alice Gildersleeve."

"Yes, she's trying to join in. Trust Alice Gildersleeve for joining in when any man comes round. I notice she never gets one to stay by her very long."

"Maybe she laughs too shrill," suggested the invalid. Clarinda was gazing sympathetically at Lucinda. She hadn't so much minded not being married herself, but there was a sore place in her heart because the younger sister had had no chance. She considered Lucinda still attractive, and though her tongue was a trifle sharp in comments like this upon Alice Gildersleeve, Clarinda could hardly wonder. Alice was the village's most conspicuous young person, because the Gildersleeves had the most money. She was not quite what used to be known as the small-town "belle," because she hadn't enough good looks for that; but whatever she did was noted, and when she drove her small coupé up to the village shops and went in with her little air of importance, the clerks hastened to do her bidding. To please or not to please the Gildersleeves, individually or as a family, was, whether it knew it or not, one of Cherry Hills' chief concerns.

"Now what are they doing?" Clarinda asked again, when she had waited during what seemed to her a long interval of Lucinda's silence, while her sister continued to watch with avid gaze the proceedings upon the lawn below.

"Oh, nothing in particular, nothing you can describe," Lucinda answered, with an impatient sigh which meant that it was tiresome always to have to tell everything to the invalid. Nevertheless, she meant to do it, and really understood, as fully as it is possible for the well to understand the ill, how much the most trivial incident means in a life as empty of interest as a blank wall. "They're just setting and talking, and the tall man sticks by Sally, and the other one tries to be polite to everybody, and Alice Gildersleeve keeps watching the tall man—and I don't think he knows anybody's there except Sally Chase. I declare, I don't see how Sally keeps looking so much like a girl. She must be all of thirty-two or three. It's that light hair of hers, I suppose. And I guess more'n likely she paints—so much colour couldn't be natural."

"Paints! A minister's wife!" Clarinda's tone was horrified. "Oh, no, Lucy—she couldn't! Why, they wouldn't have her in the church!"

"City churches are different," averred Lucinda wisely. "They have all kinds of doings we wouldn't countenance here. I guess a church that lets its young people dance—has a place for 'em to dance in—wouldn't think so much of its minister's wife painting her face. Maybe she don't—I can tell when I go to see her. I'm going to go to-morrow. If she's going to have tea parties right under our windows, it's time she knew we're neighbours."

"We'll seem just a couple of old women to her," sighed Clarinda. "But I do think—and our living next door to Miss Eldora Cherry all the days of her life. . . ."

But Lucinda wasn't listening. Her gaze was fixed upon the amazing thing which was happening upon the lawn. Sally Chase and the tall man who looked like the Governor of the State had risen and were walking slowly across the lawn, not toward the gate, outside which his expensive motor with its liveried chauffeur stood waiting, but toward the house. A moment afterward the pair disappeared through the French window which opened upon the rear porch, leaving, as Lucinda Hunt's shocked eyes noted, the other guests alone by the tea table. To be sure, Adelaide Sturgis, Sally's cousin, was still there to do the honours. But—should a hostess leave her guests for a moment, unless upon an errand to provide more food and drink? And Jo Jenney was at hand for that.

"What's the matter? What's happened?" cried old Clarinda from her bed.

"Sally Chase and that tall man have gone into the house and left the rest," was Lucinda's testimony to an atrocity.

"For pity's sake!" breathed Clarinda.

Inside the cool square parlour, with its white-and-gold-striped walls, its old square piano, its rectangular gilt mirror above the chimney-piece reflecting the gay colours of a bowlful of garden flowers, and its quaintly formal furnishings relieved by a more modern touch here and there of Sally's placing, she and the "tall man" faced each other. Out of sight of the rest the social mask of light-hearted convention dropped from them both, and they regarded each other as people do when they know there is no need for masks.

"I want to know if you're really going to rest here," demanded Dr. Richard Fiske. "Or am I going to find you always dispensing tea and being nice to such total losses as those people out there? Can't you drop that sense of obligation to be all things to all women, and be nobody but yourself? I swear, Sally, you need it. With Schuyler gone you ought to get it, and the Cherry Hillites let to go to the deuce."

"Of course I'm benighted enough to feel like that," admitted Sally. "And it would be wonderful to get away from everything except the green fields. But, Rich—how exactly am I to do it? You know I can't, entirely."

"I wish to heaven I could snatch you out of it," declared Doctor Fiske violently. "You ought to have gone farther away—though if you had I couldn't have looked after you as I intend to now. Well, just promise me you'll do your best not to be a minister's wife to this place. Leave that to the present incumbents of that office—drab women, no doubt, who are better used to it than you."

"I'm used to it."

"Too used to it. It'll make you drab some day. No, it won't—I retract that. Nothing ever could. But it'll wear you down. Schuyler himself is wearing you down——"

"Rich!"

"I'm your old friend, and his, and your physician besides. Nobody admires Schuy more than I, but just the same he's taking it out of you, and this summer's got to put it back."

"It will. But I'll not let you say that about Schuyler. I miss him," said Sally Chase, looking her old friend in his cool gray eyes and noting there the somewhat hard expression which was apt to come into them now and then when he was dealing with facts he did not like. "I miss him dreadfully."

"You don't need to be so emphatic about it, my dear. I don't doubt you do. Schuyler's a habit—like dope. He's got you—you can't get away from him. It's up to me to get you far enough away from him this summer to give you a chance to recover."

"Why, Richard!" Sally's head had come up proudly, her eyes were fiery. "Do you realize the kind of thing you're saying?"

"Mighty well, little Sally, whom I've known all your life. I'll admit it sounds radical, but it's none the less true and it's got to be faced. Schuyler Chase, without in the least realizing it—I'll give him that credit—is living on your flesh and blood. And worse—on your spirit, that fiercely loyal spirit of yours that lets him do it. He'd be nothing without you, whether he knows it or not, and I think he does."

Sally walked away from the tall man with the touch of gray in his brown hair and the commanding air which makes people listen, whether they will or no. She looked out of the window and saw her guests upon the lawn. The Gildersleeves were looking fixedly and injuredly toward the house. She turned back to Doctor Fiske.

"I must go back to them—I told you I could stay in here only a minute. But before I go I must say this, Rich: I'll have to forgive you—doctors think they have the right to say anything. But—when I married Schuyler I went into the Service with him, and if I can be of service through him, or he through me, it's to be done. What does it matter how much he gets from me—or I from him—so that together we accomplish something?"

"Then you admit——"

"I admit nothing—except that you are very impertinent—and very kind—and that I'm going to send you off now. Trust me to be as selfish this summer as I can manage without being too disagreeable. The saddle horses are coming to-morrow, and I intend to gallop away from all cares at least twice a day."

She held out her hand. He took it and kept it, eyeing her closely. "There are two little lines between your very lovely eyes," he said, "that I never saw before. Gallop away in the morning and come back at night. If I could I'd meet you at the farthest point, and we'd gallop together. As it is, I shall come up as often as I can get away to see for myself how you are obeying orders."

"Don't come too often. Cherry Hills will note and condemn without a hearing, you know. No, don't say it, Rich! Good-bye, I'm going back to the total losses and be a total loss with them."

"You couldn't be that in a thousand years."

They parted at the point where the flat stones, sunk deep in the grass, led down to the white gate, and Doctor Fiske saw himself off while Sally returned to the group by the tea table.

"I'm afraid we must be going," said Mrs. Gildersleeve, rising as stiffly as one who knows herself to be the First Lady of the Town may. "I'm glad to have seen something of you, Mrs. Chase. It's a pleasure to have you and your children here, and I hope we may make you one of us—and Miss Sturgis, too."

"Thank you, Mrs. Gildersleeve." Adelaide's rising was the thing of lazy grace she knew how to make it. She stood surveying the departing pair before her as if they were something new and amusing in her experience, the hint of a smile touching her lips. Adelaide's silences always made people like Mrs. Gildersleeve uncomfortable, in spite of the superior social poise the elder woman might be supposed to have acquired. It was Sally who had to play the gracious hostess with more warmth than she felt, to offset Adelaide's effect of insolence. She sent the Gildersleeves away charmed with her, critical of her, and almost unendurably curious about her. What more could one short call have achieved?

(From Josephine Jenney's Note-book

Enjoy atmosphere of this house—when one or two of its inmates happen to be out of it! Everywhere signs of Mrs. Chase and her personality and tastes. Without her it would simply be quaint, stiff old place, in spite of fine antiques which furnish it, stately portraits on walls, pairs of tall flowered vases on the mantelpiece which would bring terrific price at any decorator's. In each room some sign of her, usually in dash of colour for which she is responsible. Flame silk pillows on black horsehair davenport; orange scarf on big mahogany table in library; blue taffeta hangings in her own room; gay chintzes in other bedrooms. My little room under eaves, which I like best of all, really, has gay quilt on bed matched by runner of Chinese embroidery on bureau which give me a fresh thrill of pleasure every time I come in. Those embellishments appeared the next morning after the family arrived. Just wondering if they would have been put there if—well—if Mrs. Lawton's younger sister had been maid! But why should I flatter myself? Very likely I'm just neat, quiet young person, in Mrs. Chase's eyes, who merely deserves pleasant room. Brought a few books with me, favourites I can't live without. Why should I?