Brenda's Ward Part 42

"Help me!" cried Martine scornfully.

"'Oh, Phoebe you have torn your dress!

Where are your berries, child?'

"There, Herbert, that is the way I feel. To think that I must go back to the village for a second bottle of cream! We are all in a hurry, and they are waiting for me. Angelina herself could not have done worse."

"Of course you won't turn back. Go home with the other things, and I will bring you your cream."

So eager was Herbert to be of use that he hardly listened to Martine's thanks, and Martine, to her own great surprise, for once in her life found herself ready to obey one to whom she was not in the habit of looking up. For Herbert, although nearer Lucian's age than Martine's, always seemed to the latter like a younger boy whom she could order around. In the present emergency she was thankful for Herbert's help and pleased enough to receive the cream that he brought from the village.

When her guests arrived at the appointed hour, Martine was fairly proud of the appearance of Red Knoll. She had had the gra.s.s clipped the day before, and the lawn, if stubbly on close inspection, at least was of a vivid green. The old-fashioned garden at the side that had been the pride of the former occupants of the farm, was now in full bloom, and almost all the chairs had been brought from the house to be set under the trees or farther up in the meadow, where those who wished could enjoy the rather unusual view.

With the chairs removed, the dining-room seemed almost s.p.a.cious, and there Peggy at one end of the table and Clare at the other served chocolate and lemonade. The afternoon pa.s.sed quickly away. Martine forgot her first anxiety when she saw that her friends were evidently enjoying themselves.

"I am surprised to see you here," Peggy exclaimed to Herbert. "Isn't it a great condescension? I thought you had vowed never to go to a tea at York."

"Generally this kind of thing is a bore, and I had fairly hard work to get the other fellows to come. But I told them that anything Martine did was sure to pa.s.s off well, and it's true."

"This is just like any other tea," protested Peggy, remembering that Herbert had never accepted one of her invitations.

"Oh, it's smaller than others," responded Herbert, "and every one knows every one and we all feel that we can do as we like--and no one is wearing white gloves," he concluded, as if he had made a special discovery.

"There are no gloves of any color so far as I can see," retorted Peggy.

"That's just it, we can have a good time here, because everything is unconventional. But, alas, here is Carlotta--" and Herbert moved rapidly in the opposite direction from his sister.

Although Carlotta seldom said really disagreeable things, something in her manner excited Martine's antagonism.

"She need not have referred to the spilt cream," thought the latter, after a word or two with Carlotta. "She must know I hate to be reminded that I cut a ridiculous figure."

"Oh yes," she continued aloud, "I am too busy to do much pleasuring this summer. The house gives me plenty to do, and I have some extra studying."

"We heard you were going to college," said one of Martine's friends.

"Yes," added Carlotta, "but I shouldn't think you'd quite like to. It makes a girl so conspicuous to go to college."

"A college girl isn't half so conspicuous as a golf-champion. Why, I saw your picture in a Sunday paper last month, Carlotta, beside a prize bicycle rider's, and your weight and height and all kinds of things about you were there, too."

Martine spoke hotly, as she was apt to when excited, and Carlotta made no reply.

"If I go to college," continued Martine, "I fear I'll never be distinguished enough to have my portrait in print." Then, remembering that personal speeches of this kind were not in good taste from a hostess to a guest, she changed the subject to something less irritating. But Carlotta turned away, only half mollified.

"Elinor," cried Martine, as the last of her guests went home, "this tea has been bad for me; it has given me a taste for society that will worry me the rest of the summer."

"There's no reason why you shouldn't be a little gayer."

"Oh, yes, there is, every reason. If things go better, I'll have my turn in a year or two when I am really out, and if things go ill, why I shall bury myself in work. Really, I meant what I said to Carlotta. I do mean to try for college. It would be fun to pa.s.s the examinations with Priscilla, even if I couldn't go through. For, of course, if we are very poor, I shall have to work for a living."

"Martine," cried Elinor, "you are very absurd. When I think of your cousin Mrs. Stanley at Bar Harbor--"

"Yes, and my cousin Mrs. Blair, who has one of the handsomest places on the North Sh.o.r.e. But unluckily what is theirs is not mine, and I have never been a beggar."

"Of course not, but from one extreme you have gone to the other, and I think that you ought to hope for the best."

"If hoping were having," murmured Martine.

Mr. Gamut was one of the guests whom Martine invited in Elinor's honor.

"Where's your young conductor?" he asked, when he had a moment alone with her.

"We invited him, but he wrote that he couldn't get off. Mamma felt pretty sure he wouldn't have come, even if he had time to spare. He is in this part of the world for business, not pleasure."

"Just so, just so, he's a fine fellow, though, and I mean to keep an eye on him. I can offer him a good place when he's through studying. I have no prejudice against the college man in business, and he'll be none the worse for taking his degree. I liked the way he ran after that fellow the other night, and he's done some clever detective work since. You'll hear about it soon."

"Martine," said Mrs. Stratford, when her daughter later told her what Mr. Gamut had said; "you may congratulate yourself on this one thing, if on nothing else this summer. By bringing Mr. Gamut and Balfour together you have accomplished more than you realize."

"But it was the burglar and not I," said Martine, "who really had the most to do with it. It was the way Balfour ran that impressed Mr. Gamut the most."

"However it came about, you have had a good share in bringing them together, and with Mr. Gamut's good will, Balfour is sure to prosper."

"I'm glad of that, mamma. Sometimes I feel that I have been so useless this summer."

"My dear--" and then Mrs. Stratford said no more. She was really afraid of spoiling Martine by praise, but she thought it better for the latter to find out certain things for herself.

CHAPTER XXIII

QUIET LIFE

When Elinor left York for the mountains, she took the little trunk with her, after carefully removing the Belhaven label. The label itself she carried in her card-case. "I shall need it," she said, "to ill.u.s.trate my tale of a trunk when I tell it. Every one who has heard it thus far thinks it the most amusing story that ever was--and if it hadn't happened no one could believe it. This label is a proof of its truth."

Martine missed Elinor more than she admitted even to her mother. It was part of her summer plan to seem perfectly contented with everything.

Mrs. Stratford noted with some concern that Martine was growing paler, if not a little thinner. Could it be that she was less happy than she professed to be, less contented?

Whatever she did, she did with her utmost energy, and in summer it was possible for a young girl to have too much of housework, gardening and study. It had become almost a pa.s.sion with her to make up one or two deficiencies before her return to school. Strangely enough, it was Herbert now, on whom she began to depend for help in carrying on her work, and this is how it came about.

Herbert, after the so-called rescue on the Piscataqua, made light of the affair, in spite of Martine's reiteration that except for him she knew that she and Clare--not to mention Angelina--must have capsized.

"We might not have met a watery grave--but we certainly should have reached sh.o.r.e very wet."

"Well, perhaps," responded Herbert, "but even if it meant something to you to be saved from your 'peril' as you call it, you must admit that Atherton and I ran no risk."

"That doesn't alter the fact that you were thoughtful as well as brave, and really, Herbert, if only you wouldn't pretend to be so lazy, you'd--"

Martine did not finish the sentence, for Herbert immediately tried to prove that he was not lazy.