Flamsted quarries Part 25

"I was only smiling at my thoughts."

"Will you be so good as to state what they are? They may prove decidedly interesting to me--at this juncture," she added emphatically.

Aileen's look of amus.e.m.e.nt changed swiftly to one of surprise.

"To be honest, I was thinking that what she writes about Mr. Googe doesn't sound much like love, that was all--"

"That was all!" Mrs. Champney echoed sarcastically; "well, what more do you need to convince you of facts I should like to know?"

Aileen laughed outright at this. "Oh, Mrs. Champney, what's the use of being a girl, if you can't know what other girls mean?"

"Please explain yourself."

"Won't you please read that part again where she mentions the people invited for the cruise."

Mrs. Champney found the paragraph and re-read it aloud.

"Falkenburg--that's the name--Ben Falkenburg."

"How did you ever hear of this Ben Falkenburg?"

"Oh, I heard of him years ago!" The mischief was in her voice and Mrs.

Champney recognized it.

"Where?"

"When I was in New York--in the asylum; he's the one that danced the minuet with the Marchioness; I told you about it years ago."

"How do you know he was the boy?"

"Because Alice told me his name then, and showed me the valentine and May-basket he sent her--just read the postscript again; if you want to crack a letter for its kernel, you'll generally find it in a postscript, that is with girls of Alice's age."

She spoke as if there were years of seniority on her part. Mrs. Champney turned to the postscript again.

"I see nothing in this--you're romancing again, Aileen; you'd better put it aside; it will get you into trouble sometime."

"Oh, never fear for me, Mrs. Champney; I'll take care of all the romancing as well as the romances--but can't you see by those few words that it's Mr. Ben Falkenburg who is going to make the yachting trip for Miss Van Ostend, and not your nephew?"

"No, I can't," Mrs. Champney answered shortly, "and neither could you if your eyes weren't blinded by your infatuation for him."

Aileen rolled up her work deliberately. If the time had come for open war to be declared between the two on Champney Googe's account, it was best to fight the decisive battle now, before seeing him again. She rose and stood by the window.

"What do you mean, Mrs. Champney?" Her temper was rising quickly as it always did when Mrs. Champney went too far. She had spoken but once of her nephew in a personal way to Aileen since she asked that question a year ago, "What do you think of him?"

"I mean what I say." Her voice took on an added shrillness. "Your infatuation for my nephew has been patent for a year now--and it's time you should be brought to your senses; I can't suppose you're fool enough to think he'll marry you."

Aileen set her lips close. After all, it was not best to answer this woman as she deserved to be answered. She controlled the increasing anger so far as to be able to smile frankly and answer lightly:

"You've no need to worry, Mrs. Champney; your nephew has never asked me to be his wife."

"His wife!" she echoed scornfully; "I should say not; and let me tell you for your own benefit--sometime you'll thank me for it--and mark my words, Aileen Armagh, he never will ask you to be his wife, and the sooner you accept this unvarnished truth the better it will be for you.

I suppose you think because you've led Romanzo Caukins and young Poggi a chase, you can do the same with Champney Googe--but you'll find out your mistake; such men aren't led--they lead. He is going to marry Alice Van Ostend."

"Do you _know_ this for a fact, Mrs. Champney?" She turned upon her sharply. She was, at last, at bay; her eyes were dark with anger; her lips and cheeks white.

"It's like you to fly off at a tangent, Aileen, and doubt a person's word simply because it happens to contain an unpleasant truth for you--here is the proof," she held up a letter; "it's from my cousin, Henry Van Ostend; he has written it out in black and white that my nephew has already asked for his daughter's hand. Now disabuse your mind of any notion you may have in regard to Champney Googe--I hope you won't disgrace yourself by crying for the moon after this."

The girl's eyes fairly blazed upon her.

"Mrs. Champney, after this I'll thank you to keep your advice and your family affairs to yourself--_I_ didn't ask for either. And you've no need to tell me I'm only Aileen Armagh--for I know it perfectly well.

I'm only an orphan you took into your home seven years ago and have kept, so far, for her service. But if I am only this, I am old enough to do and act as I please--and now you may mark _my_ words: it's not I who will disgrace you and yours--not I, remember that!" Her anger threatened to choke her; but her voice although husky remained low, never rising above its level inflection. "And let me tell you another thing: I'm as good any day as Alice Van Ostend, and I should despise myself if I thought myself less; and if it's the millions that make the difference in the number of your friends--may G.o.d keep me poor till I die!" She spoke with pa.s.sionate earnestness.

Mrs. Champney smiled to herself; she felt her purpose was accomplished.

"Are you going up to Mrs. Caukins'?" she asked in a matter-of-fact voice that struck like cold iron on the girl's burning intensity of feeling.

"Yes, I'm going."

"Well, be back by seven."

The girl made no reply. She left the library at once, closing the door behind her with a force that made the hall ring. Mrs. Champney smiled again, and proceeded to re-read Alice Van Ostend's letter.

Aileen went out through the kitchen and across the vegetable garden to the boat house. She cast loose one of the boats in the float, took her seat and rowed out into the lake--rowed with a strength and swiftness that accurately gauged her condition of mind. She rounded the peninsula of The Bow and headed her boat, not to the sheds on the north sh.o.r.e, but towards the west, to "lily-pad reach". To get away from that woman's presence, to be alone with herself--that was all she craved at the moment. The oars caught among the lily-pads; this gave her an excuse for pulling and wrenching at them. Her anger was still at white heat--not a particle of color as yet tinged her cheeks--and the physical exertion necessary to overcome such an obstacle as the long tough stems she felt to be a relief.

"It isn't true--it isn't true," she said over and over again to herself.

She kept tugging and pulling till by sheer strength she forced the boat into the shallow water among the tall arrowhead along the margin of the sh.o.r.e.

She stepped out on the landing stones, drew up the boat, then made her way across the meadow to the shade of the tall spreading willows. Here she threw herself down, pressing her face into the cool lush gra.s.s, and relived in thought that early morning hour she had spent alone with him, only a few weeks ago, on the misty lake among the opening water lilies.

She had been awakened that morning in mid-July by hearing him singing softly beneath her open window that same song which seven years ago made such an unaccountable impression on her child's heart. He had often in jest threatened to repeat the episode of the serenade, but she never realized that beneath the jest there was any deeper meaning. Now she was aware of that meaning in her every fibre, physical and spiritual.

"Aileen Mavoureen, the gray dawn is breaking--"

And hearing that, realizing that the voice was calling for her alone in all the world, she rose; dressed herself quickly; beckoned joyously to him from the window; noiselessly made her way down the back stairs; softly unbolted the kitchen porch door--

He was there with hands outstretched for hers; she placed them in his, and again, in remembrance of their fun and frolic seven years before, he raced with her down the slate-laid garden walk, across the lawn to the boat house where his own boat lay moored.

It was four o'clock on that warm midsummer morning. The mists lay light but impenetrable on the surface of the lake. The lilies were still closed.

They spoke but little.

"I knew no one could hear me--they all sleep on the other side, don't they?"

"Yes, all except the boy, and he sleeps like a log--Tave has to wake him every morning; alarm clocks are no good."

"Have you ever seen the lilies open, Aileen?"

"No, never; I've never been out early in the morning, but I've often seen them go to sleep under the starlight."