Brenda's Ward Part 31

"Martine," said Mrs. Stratford, as her daughter entered the sitting-room at the left of the hall, "the wall paper was very successful. What would this room have been without it?"

"These pale yellow roses certainly brighten it up, and the color is not only cheerful, but increases the size of the room. This little cupboard in the wall is fascinating, and when we get some of our china in, it will be truly aesthetic."

"If only it opened on a piazza," sighed Mrs. Stratford. "It is singular enough that so many New England houses are built without any pretence of a porch or piazza."

"Oh, that can be remedied," responded Martine cheerfully. "There's a very attractive nook between those two trees, and we can send to town for an awning, and if we lay down a rug, and move out a sofa, and some chairs and a table, why we'll have a regular little summer house."

Martine, pausing almost out of breath, noted with regret that her mother did not smile. A shadow crossed Mrs. Stratford's face.

"Mother does not like it here," thought Martine, "neither do I, but I must like it."

"Come, mother," she said aloud, taking her mother by the arm. "Wasn't it a good idea to have the walls of this dining-room painted blue? You see it gets so much sun, and this gives it the effect of coolness."

"I dislike oak furniture." Mrs. Stratford did not answer the question that Martine had put indirectly to her. Her attention was now centred on the ugly extension table and the uncomfortable chairs ranged stiffly around the wall.

"We'll have to put up with the chairs, I suppose, but I have a lovely old blue cotton curtain in one of the trunks that will hide the table and give the room any amount of style."

"You are trying to make the best of everything, my dear, and I dare say you are right. But the house is so much smaller and plainer than I remembered it, that I fear we shall hardly be comfortable."

"Oh, no; come, let me show you, already I have made ever so many plans;"

and impressed by Martine's vivacious optimism, Mrs. Stratford at last began to see the pleasanter possibilities of the red cottage.

Martine was not deceiving either her mother or herself in pointing out the best side of things, and yet in her heart there was a certain disappointment in her first survey of "Red Knoll."

"We must have a name for the house," she had said the very afternoon of their arrival. "'Red Farm,' no, that isn't exactly the thing; 'Red Top,'

no, the roof isn't red, and besides, that name has been used by some one else. 'Red Knoll'--there, why not, it combines the color of the house and the situation on a knoll--why not, mamma?" and as Mrs. Stratford had no adverse answer, Red Knoll it was from the beginning.

A house needs something besides a picturesque name to make it attractive even to an optimistic girl anxious to see the bright side of things.

The little farm-house that Mr. and Mrs. Stratford had so impulsively bought, was barely large enough for the three persons who were now to make it the summer home. The two square rooms on each side of the front door, if thrown together, would have been smaller than the bedroom which had been Martine's in her father's house. Over them, originally, had been two rooms of equal size. One of these was now to be Mrs.

Stratford's bedroom. The other had been divided by a part.i.tion into two rooms each, resembling the so-called hall bedroom of many city houses.

The one nearest her mother Martine appropriated for herself. The second she named euphemistically the guest-room; but for the present she intended to use it as a studio or writing-room, and had removed one or two other pieces of furniture to make room for a large deal table.

Beyond this room, connected by a narrow door, were two ell rooms, one of which was a.s.signed to Angelina. Downstairs in the ell were kitchen and wash-room, both with white-washed walls.

"A small house, but our own," said Martine cheerfully, as she first walked through it. "I'll try to forget how different it is from the place we used to have at Oconomowoc. When father first sold it, he said some time he would buy a place on the New England coast, but he certainly hadn't Red Knoll in mind then."

As the first evening in their new home came on, Martine felt lonely. The shadows gathering around the little cottage seemed to shut her out from the world.

"Will things ever come right? I feel so--so miserable. I wonder what it is--mother, where are you?"

Two or three times she called, before her mother's voice came to her from a corner of the little garden.

"What are you doing out in the damp?"

"Is it damp, my child? But the sunset was too beautiful to miss. You should have been out here with me. Where were you, dear?"

"Helping Angelina."

"That was right; it will take her some time to get perfectly adjusted.

You are going to be a great comfort, Martine."

Her mother's praise sounded sweet to Martine, yet she could not shake off a certain strange feeling, that she would have called homesickness had her mother not been with her.

When they reached the house, they sat for a moment by the open window.

"Mother," cried Martine, "I have an idea--I mean a special idea.

Wouldn't it be better after this to have tea later, just as it begins to grow dark. Then we needn't miss the sunset."

"Wouldn't that make Angelina's dish-washing come rather late?"

"Oh, listen, listen," cried Martine, with something of her old eagerness. "It is part of my plan to leave the dish-washing until morning. There are only three of us, and so we need not follow old-fashioned housekeeping rules."

"I am not so sure of that," and Mrs. Stratford shook her head as if in doubt. "But we can try the late tea to-morrow, so that we can go up in the meadow behind the house for our sunset. It is a better place for a view than my corner of the garden."

It pleased Martine to hear her mother speak so cheerfully.

"I'll try not to mind the melancholy twilights, and all those strange chirping things and the feeling of being shut off in a corner of the world, if only this place is good for mother."

The later tea hour proved feasible, and Martine at the table with her mother after their little stroll to Sunset Hill forgot the melancholy twilight. Nor had she in their busy first week much time for discontent.

The village boy whom Mrs. Stratford engaged to unpack their trunks and boxes was bewildered by their number.

"There are some, Angelina, that are not to be unpacked now, please get him to put them in the unfinished ell room."

"Yes, Miss Martine, I know just which they are, and I'll hurry back to help you hang those pictures."

When all the pictures were hung, when artistic draperies covered some of the ugliest chairs, when pretty sofa cushions softened ugly angles, when books and bric-a-brac were distributed in carelessly homelike fashion, and when a number of really valuable rugs were used to tone down the crudeness of the carpets, Angelina surveyed the result with a pride that could not have been greater if she had been the owner of the cottage.

"There," she cried. "It looks just like a city house, only more so, if anything. Don't you think so, Miss Martine, and I do hope you'll have some callers right away. Why, I almost feel as if I was back at the Belhaven when I look from this Cashmere rug to that Arts and Crafts silver bowl on the mantle-piece. No one can say that we haven't shown perfect taste, can they, Miss Martine?"

"I am glad we brought all these things," replied Martine, "mother thought I was packing too much, but if we are to be here three or four months, we must make it seem as homelike as possible."

"It certainly is homelike," continued Angelina, "especially that picture of Miss Brenda. Mrs. Weston, I mean; when I first saw her I always thought she was stylish, and that was years ago. Of course I hadn't been acquainted with many Back Bay ladies then, excepting one that taught in our Sunday School. But still, after all I've known I just think Mrs.

Weston's at the very head of them. You are something like her, too, Miss Martine, in fact I should say you're almost as stylish, and to-day when I rode down to the village I saw a lot of young ladies that are just your kind, in white muslins and high-heeled shoes, and I hope they'll call on you soon. As far as I could make out from something I heard some one on the seat behind me say, they were going to a tea, and it's likely to be a gay summer. I'm glad of this for your sake, Miss Martine, for you've been too quiet lately for one of your age."

Martine was not altogether pleased with Angelina's familiarity, though for the moment it seemed hardly worth while to rebuke her.

Consequently Angelina, unreproved, continued her monologue:

"I noticed a good many people in bathing when I pa.s.sed the beach, but when I went up I found they were chiefly nurse-maids, employees of the cottagers. There were a lot of pleasant-looking nurses and children playing in the sand, and one that I spoke to, a nurse, I mean, was very accommodating, and told me lots about the cottagers. They bathe at noon every day, and it's a great sight. I presume when I do go in, I'll have to go in with the employees, for I suppose I'll be cla.s.sed with the nurses and children that generally bathe in the afternoon."

"You'll be cla.s.sed with the children, if you babble on in this way, Angelina. But as to the bathing, you must ask mother."

"Well, I wish you had been going to that tea, Miss Martine; the young ladies looked just your style. I asked the nurse about it, and she said it was given by Miss Peggy Pratt of Philadelphia."

These last words of Angelina's made more impression than all the others.

"Peggy Pratt." Martine felt on further reflection particularly aggrieved.

"Elinor must have written Peggy regarding her summer plans, for Elinor was a person of her word, and she had promised to do this. If Elinor had not promised, of course I should have written myself. But now I am glad I did not, for probably I should have been treated just the same. Yet it doesn't seem just like Peggy."