Brenda's Ward Part 7

"Your father has to go to South America on very important business. It is too long a journey for me, although I am much stronger than a year ago. We think the wisest plan would be for me to go to Boston to be near you and Lucian, and I am writing Mrs. Weston to see if we may not engage her apartment for the next six months."

"Hurrah!" cried Martine, turning to Brenda, who had just finished reading the letter Mrs. Stratford had written her. "Of course you'll say 'yes.' Oh, how perfectly happy I shall be to have mother with me."

"Of course I will say 'yes.' But please spare my feelings; if you are too happy you will forget to miss me."

"Oh, never, never; but then mother must be feeling much stronger, and I have seen her so little the past few years. She has been under the doctor's care or travelling, and our Chicago house has been closed so long, and hotels are so unhomelike. But now, with this apartment to ourselves, and Lucian coming in from college--oh! it will be delightful."

Again Brenda protested that Martine was unfeeling in counting her out so completely.

"But I can't count you in, when you calmly and deliberately plan to turn your back on Boston and me. You know that I shall miss you, but to have mother here--of course that makes all the difference in the world."

For the Christmas holidays Lucian and Martine joined Mr. and Mrs.

Stratford in New York. A day or two after Christmas, Mr. Stratford sailed for England, whence he was to embark for South America. Martine could but notice that the sadness that her father showed during these last days seemed due to something besides the fact that he was to be absent from his family for a few months. He had often before gone on long journeys, but usually he made an effort to have his departure particularly cheerful.

"Your father is worried," her mother said; "his business is not going just as it should. He hopes that this visit to South America will straighten out some things. If it does not--well, we needn't talk of the future now. I am glad that we are all together this Christmas. You and Lucian must do all you can to divert your father, he has so much to trouble him."

Martine took this advice to heart, and though Mr. Stratford spent some hours each day downtown, after luncheon she always insisted that he must entertain her. By this she meant that she must entertain him, and in consequence she thought out all kinds of odd ways of amusing him. One day they sailed on the Ferry to Staten Island to visit Sailors' Snug Harbor. Another afternoon they went up to Van Cortland Park to see the old Van Cortland house. One day they wandered for an hour in the Bowery, but Martine admitted that this wasn't as entertaining an expedition as she had imagined it would be from the accounts she had read of it. The shops on the whole seemed commonplace, and the crowded cross-streets of the East Side looked far more interesting, as she caught glimpses of them in pa.s.sing.

She had to let these glimpses satisfy her, as she had promised her mother not to explore any out-of-the-way corners of the tenement district; and so obedient was she in this that she would not even go inside a certain Bowery p.a.w.nshop in whose windows she saw a fascinating little guitar. Instead she urged her father to price it, and when he came outside with it under his arm she accepted it with delight.

"It's neither a violin nor a guitar," Mr. Stratford explained, "but the little instrument that the Sandwich Islanders love."

Martine was delighted by this account of her new treasure, and she carried it home with great pride. But unconventional expeditions were not the only pleasures that Martine shared with her father. One day Mrs.

Stratford drove with them through the Park up beyond Riverside and Grant's tomb. Two or three afternoons they spent with relatives, of whom Mr. Stratford had a number in New York. Lucian was little with his father during the holidays. Cla.s.smates at Ardsley and Trenton and Germantown claimed short visits from him. But on Christmas Day he joined his parents at the small uptown hotel where they were staying.

"Martine," he said as they sat at breakfast, "Elinor Naylor was at the Harbins' dance night before last in Germantown. She took a lot of trouble to introduce me to some of her best friends just because I was your brother. I tell you what--you made a great impression on her."

"I certainly did--the first time we met," responded Martine, smiling, and Lucian did not quite understand, because his sister had never really explained the circ.u.mstances under which she and Elinor had first met.

With slight urging from Martine, however, Lucian plunged into a description of the Harbins' dance, and though boy-like he could not describe what Elinor wore, he declared that whatever it was it just suited her, and that she certainly was a regular peach, "and the funniest thing about it is that you don't think about her being pretty when you first see her. It's only when you begin to remember her that you realize how good-looking she is."

"Poor Priscilla," sighed Martine in mock sorrow, "I fear her nose is out of joint."

"Oh, no--at least, what do you mean?" asked Lucian, and at this moment the entrance of Mr. and Mrs. Stratford put an end to their fun.

The Christmas breakfast, in spite of Martine's efforts, pa.s.sed off rather quietly. Her parents both seemed sad and disinclined to talk.

Even the un.o.bservant Lucian at last noticed this and tried to turn the conversation into cheerful and impersonal channels, with poor success.

Their Christmas dinner was at the house of an elderly cousin of the Stratfords in Washington Square. The guests were nearly all relatives of Martine's father, and the young visitor received abundant criticism, favorable or unfavorable, according to the dispositions of the various critics.

But even those who thought Martine a little forward or too self-possessed for a girl of her age could but admire her frank, cheery manner and the consideration that she constantly showed for older people. The less conservative found her charming and complimented her on her clever way of telling a story. Some said she looked like her father, some like her mother, and the oldest cousin of them all, taking her aside said, "You are just like your father's mother when she was your age. She had your coloring and your bright brown eyes. I knew her well when I was a girl. She was said to be the image of her French grandmother, and I can wish you nothing better than to grow up like her," and as the old lady kissed her Martine felt her own eyes moistening.

"I am glad that I have some French blood in my veins," she said a little later; "the Huguenots were so wonderful. I wish that papa and I had time to go up to New Roch.e.l.le, for although I believe there's little left there of the Huguenots now except the name, I should like to see the place because my forefathers lived there."

Lucian found the Washington-Square dinner rather a bore, although he managed to conceal his feelings until with his family he was back at the hotel.

"They might have asked at least one girl near my age," Lucian said. "No wonder you were such a belle, Martine, among all those antiquities," a compliment that Martine refused to accept until Lucian admitted that she possessed qualities that would make her popular even in a younger crowd.

One of Martine's Christmas gifts did not surprise her,--a complete set of brushes, mirror and little boxes to replace those she had lost in the Windsor fire. This did, however, surprise Lucian, who knew that his father had promised Martine a full set of silver.

"Why, how is this?" he asked, as Martine spread out her new possessions before him on a table. "Is plain black wood more in fashion than silver?

It must be, or you wouldn't have it."

"But this is pretty; don't you think so?" asked Martine, always anxious for her brother's approval.

"It's rather neat, with your initial in silver, but it couldn't have cost as much as the other, and I thought you always preferred the most expensive things." For the moment Martine did not explain that her preference was still for the silver, but that she had chosen the other because of a chance word or two from her mother on her tendency toward extravagance.

"I know you have generally whatever you wish, Martine, and your father and I generally give you what you ask. You are seldom unreasonable, although we may have been overindulgent. For now--"

Here Mrs. Stratford broke off suddenly.

"But now, mamma, are things very different? I know we usually stay at a larger hotel, and still--"

"Oh, no, dear. Things are not very different. Perhaps they will not be.

Yet your father has so much care now that you will surely do your best to relieve him from needless burdens."

Therefore, when Mr. Stratford took Martine downtown to choose her present, she could not be shaken from her determination to have something simpler than silver.

"It will be so much better in case I am caught in another fire, papa.

Things that are burnt up are gone forever, and as I seem to be a rather unlucky person, this plainer set is much better--and besides I like it, papa."

In the end it seemed to Martine that Mr. Stratford was rather pleased by her choice, for when the matter was decided he patted her hand gently as he slipped it within his arm, saying,--

"After all, daughter, you are getting to be a very sensible girl. I have noticed a great change within the past year."

"Oh, thank you, papa. Do you really think I've improved? Then it's partly on account of the company I have kept. I am sure of that."

"I am pleased that you are on the right track, and when I am far from you, as I shall be now for some time, it will be a great satisfaction to think that you are doing your best."

A few days later Martine and Lucian, with their mother, stood on the dock watching the receding ocean-liner that was carrying Mr. Stratford to England. There was a great lump in Martine's throat as she wiped away her tears with the handkerchief that a moment before she had been waving frantically at her father.

"Goose, goose!" whispered Lucian. "You are too big a girl to cry."

"Oh, I hate saying good-bye," murmured Martine.

"Why, we've hardly been together--all four of us--for years."

"That's just it! It's been so pleasant lately--and now to have father in South America!--it's just dreadful."

"Nonsense, child! South America isn't so very far away. The trouble is, you've had too long a vacation. It's well we're going back to Boston to-morrow, and that in a day or two you'll be at your books again."

"'At my books'--as if I were a six-year-old! I can't see why Harvard College gives even a day's vacation to its students, since their chief use of time seems to be to tease their sisters," and with this little burst of temper Martine's tears were blown away.

CHAPTER V

ANOTHER PARTING