Cloudy Jewel Part 25

"You dear, old, blind Cloudy, of course he does! Who on earth else would he come to see?"

"But," said Julia Cloud, tears coming into her eyes, "he mustn't. I don't want to see him! Mercy!"

"That's all right, Cloudy; you should worry! I'll go tell him so if you want me to."

"Allison! You wouldn't!" said Julia Cloud, aghast.

"No, of course not, Cloudy, but we'll find a way to get rid of the old pill if we have to move away for a while."

Nevertheless, the old pill continued to come early and often, and there seemed no escape; for he was continually stealing in on their privacy at the most unexpected times and acting as if he were sure of a welcome. The children froze him, and were rude, and Julia Cloud withdrew farther and farther; but nothing seemed to faze him.

"It's too bad to have so much sweetness wasted," mocked Leslie one night at the supper-table when their unwelcome visitor had been a subject of discussion. "Miss Detliff is eating her heart out for him.

She's always noseying round in the hall when his cla.s.s is out, and it's about time for hers to begin, just to get a word with him. She kept us waiting for our papers ten whole minutes the other day while she discussed better cla.s.sroom ventilation with him. 'O Doctah, don't you think we might do something about this mattah of ventilation?'"

she mimicked, convulsing Allison with her likeness to her English teacher.

"That's an idea!" said Allison suddenly. "No, don't ask me what it is.

It would spoil things. Cloudy, may I bring a guest to dinner to-morrow night?"

"Certainly, anybody you please," replied Julia Cloud innocently; and the incorrigible Allison appeared the next afternoon with Miss Detliff, smiling and pleased, sitting up in the back seat of the car.

Julia Cloud received her graciously, and never so much as suspected anything special was going on until later in the evening, when Dr.

Bowman arrived and was ushered in to find his colaborer there before him. He did not look especially pleased, and Julia Cloud caught a glance of intelligence pa.s.sing between Leslie and Allison, with a sudden revelation of a plot behind it all. During the entire evening she sat quietly, saying little, but her eyes dancing with the fun of it. What children they were, and how she loved them! yes, and what a child she was herself! for she couldn't help loving their pranks as well as they did.

However, though Dr. Bowman had to take Miss Detliff home, and got very little satisfaction out of his call that evening, it did not discourage him in the least, and Julia Cloud decided that extreme measures were necessary to rid them of his presence.

"We might go away during Thanksgiving week; only there's the Christian Endeavor banquet," said Leslie. "We couldn't be away from that. And then I wanted to have Jane to dinner. She's gone up to college this week to live. She's doing office work there, and she'll be alone on Thanksgiving Day."

"Yes, and there's Howard. I thought we'd have him here," put in Allison dubiously.

"Of course!" said Julia Cloud determinedly. "And we don't want to go away, anyway. You children run up to your rooms this evening and study. Stay there, I mean, no matter who comes. Do you understand?"

With a curious look at her they both obeyed; and a little later, when the knocker sounded through the house, they sat silently above, not daring to move, and heard their aunt open the door, heard Dr. Bowman's slow, scholarly voice and Julia Cloud's even tones, back and forth for a little while, and then heard the front door open and shut again, and slow steps go down the brick terrace and out to the sidewalk.

What pa.s.sed in that interview no one ever knew. Julia Cloud came to the foot of the stairs, and called them down, and her eyes were shining and confident as she sat by the lamp and sewed while they studied and joked in front of the fire; but the unwelcome guest came no more, and whenever they met him in the street, or at receptions, or pa.s.sing at a college game, he gave them a distant, pleasant bow; that was all. Julia Cloud had done the work well, however she had done it.

The little Bowmans need not look to her to fill their mother's place, for she was not so minded.

Meantime, the winter had been going on, and the little pink-and-white house was becoming popular among the students at college as well as among the members of the Christian Endeavor Society of the little brick church. Many an evening specially picked groups of girls or boys or both spent before that fire, playing games, and talking, and singing. Sometimes the college glee-club came down and had dinner.

Again it was the football team that was feasted. Another time Allison's frat came for his birthday, aided and abetted by his sister and aunt.

Jane Bristol became a frequent visitor, though not so frequent as they would have liked to have her, for her time was very much taken up with her work and her studies. Julia Cloud often wished she might lift the financial burden from the young shoulders and make things easier for her, both for her own sake and Leslie's, who would have liked to make her her constant companion; but Jane Bristol was too independent to let anybody help her, and there seemed no way to do anything about it.

Meantime, Myrtle Villers improved each idle hour, and kept Leslie busy inventing excuses to get away from her, and Julia Cloud busy worrying.

Leslie was so dear, but she was also self-willed. And she would go off with that wild girl in the car for long rides. Not that Julia Cloud worried about the driving; for Leslie was most careful, and handled a car as if she had been born with the knowledge, as indeed she did all things athletic; but her aunt distrusted the other girl.

And then one clear, cold afternoon in December Leslie went off for a ride in the car with Myrtle. Of course Julia Cloud did not know that the girl had pestered the life out of Leslie for the ride, and had finally promised that, if she would go, she would stop going with a certain wild boy in the village of whom Leslie disapproved. Neither did she know that Leslie had resolved never to go again without her aunt along. So she sat at the window through the short winter afternoon, and watched and waited in vain for the car to return; and Allison came back at half-past six after basket-ball practice, and still Leslie had not appeared.

CHAPTER XXI

There had been a little friction between Allison and Leslie about the use of the car. Allison had always been most generous with it until his sister took up this absurd intimacy with Myrtle Villers. It has been rather understood between them that Leslie should use the car afternoons when she wanted it, as Allison was busy with basket-ball and other things; but several times Allison had objected to his sister's taking her new friend out, and Leslie told him he was unfair.

After a heated discussion they had left the question still unsettled.

In fact, it did not seem that it could be settled, for Leslie was of such a nature that great opposition only made her more firm; and Julia Cloud advised her nephew to say nothing more for a time. Let Leslie find out for herself the character of the girl she had made her friend. It was really the only way she would learn not to be carried away by flattery and high-sounding words. Allison, grumbling a little, a.s.sented; but in his heart he still boiled with rage at the idea of that girl's winding his sister around her little finger just for the sake of using the car when she wanted it. It was not, perhaps, all happening that for two or three days Allison had left the switch-key where his sister could not find it, and a hot war of words ended in Leslie's quietly ordering a new switch-key so that such a happening would be impossible in future, She would have one of her own. A card had come that very morning from the express office, notifying Leslie that there was a package there waiting for her; so, when she started out with Myrtle, she stopped and got it. She tossed it carelessly into the car with a feeling of satisfaction that now Allison could not hamper her movements any longer by his carelessness.

"Which way shall we go?" she asked as she always did when taking her friends out, and Myrtle named a favorite pike where they often drove.

Out upon the smooth, white road they sped, rejoicing in the clear beauty of the day and in the freedom with which they flew through s.p.a.ce. Myrtle had chosen to sit in the back seat, and lolled happily among rugs and wraps, keeping a keen eye out on the road ahead and chattering away like a magpie to Leslie, telling her what a darling she was--she p.r.o.nounced it "dolling"--and how this ride was just the one thing she needed to recuperate from her violent study of the night before, incident to an examination that morning. Myrtle professed to be utterly overcome and exhausted by the physical effort of writing for three whole hours without a let-up. If Leslie could have seen her meagre paper, through which a much-tortured professor was at that moment wearily plodding, she would have been astonished. Leslie herself was keen and thorough in her cla.s.s work, and had no slightest conception of what a lazy student could avoid when she set herself to do so.

Five miles from home two masculine figures came in sight ahead, strolling leisurely down the road. Any one watching might have seen Myrtle suddenly straighten up and cast a hasty glance at Leslie. But Leslie with bright cheeks and shining eyes was forging ahead, regardless of stray strollers.

At exactly the right moment Myrtle leaned forward, and clutched Leslie's shoulder excitedly:

"O Leslie! That's my cousin Fred Hicks! And that must be his friend, Bartram Laws! They're out for a hike. How lucky! Stop a minute, please; I want to speak to my cousin."

At the same moment the two young men turned, with a well-timed lifting of surprised hats in response to Myrtle's violent waving and shouting.

Leslie of course slowed down. She could not carry a girl past her own cousin when she asked to stop to speak to him; besides, it never occurred to her not to do so.

Myrtle went through the introductions glibly.

"Mr. Laws, meet my friend Miss Cloud; my cousin, Fred Hicks, Leslie.

Pile in, boys! Isn't this great that we should meet? Out for a hike?

We'll give you a lift. Which way are you going? Fred, you can sit in front with Leslie. I want Bart back here with me."

Leslie caught her breath in a troubled hesitancy. This wasn't the kind of thing she had bargained for. It was the sort of thing that her aunt and brother would object to most strenuously. Yet how could she object when her guest had asked them? Of course Myrtle didn't realize that it was not quite the thing for them to be off here in the country unchaperoned, with two strange young men, though of course they weren't strangers really, both of them friends of Myrtle's, and one her cousin. Myrtle could not be expected to think how it would seem to her.

But the young men were not waiting for Leslie's invitation. They seemed to feel that their company would be ample compensation for any objections that might be had. They scrambled in with alacrity.

The color flew into Leslie's cheeks. In her heart she said they were altogether too "fresh."

"Why, I suppose we can give you a lift for a little way," said Leslie, trying to sound patronizing. "How far are you going? We turn off here pretty soon."

"Oh, that's all right," said Cousin Fred easily; "any old road suits us so it's going in this direction. Want me to take the wheel?"

"No, thank you," said Leslie coldly, "I always drive myself. My brother doesn't care for me to let other people use the car."

"That's all right; I thought you might be tired, and I'm a great driver. People trust me that won't trust any one else."

"That's right, Leslie," chimed in Myrtle. "Fred can drive like a breeze. You ought to see him!"

Leslie said nothing, but dropped in the clutch, and drove on. She was not prepossessed in Fred Hicks's favor. She let him make all the remarks, and sat like a slim, straight, little offended G.o.ddess. But Fred Hicks was not disturbed in the least. He started in telling a story about a trip he took from Washington up to Harrisburg in an incredibly brief s.p.a.ce of time, and he laughed uproariously at all his own jokes. Leslie was a girl of violent likes and dislikes, and she took one of them now. She fairly froze Cousin Fred, though he showed no outward sign of being aware of it.

"Here's a nice road off to the right," he indicated, reaching out a commanding hand to the wheel suddenly. "Turn here."

Leslie with set lips bore on past the suggested road at high speed.

"Please don't touch my wheel," was all she said, in a haughty little voice. She was very angry indeed.

They were nearing an old mansion, closed now for the winter, with a small artificial lake between the grounds and the highway.