In Apple-Blossom Time Part 34

"But I shan't need--" began Geraldine.

Mrs. Barry interrupted her. "It is always hard to foresee just what one will need even in a week's time. We may as well take everything."

"Such a small everything," added Geraldine.

A little pulse was beating in her throat. She dreaded to find herself alone with this _grande dame_. She believed that Ben had kept his promise and that this move of his mother was being made of her own volition, but in what capacity was she being invited? Was it a case of giving a piece of employment to a needy girl in her son's absence, or was she being asked on the footing of a friend? In any case, she knew her lover would wish her to go, and as for Miss Upton she would use violence if necessary.

She went upstairs and came down wearing the black sailor hat of the Keefe brand, and carrying a suit-case. Miss Mehitable followed with sundry boxes which she took to the motor. Lamson jumped out and came to the shop to get the suit-case.

"One moment more, please," said Miss Upton, and vanished upstairs. She returned bearing a large hatbox.

"Oh, no, Miss Upton!" exclaimed Geraldine as Miss Mehitable had known she would. "Keep that till I come back. It's a seash.o.r.e hat."

"It is not," said Miss Mehitable defiantly. "It is a town hat. She got the present of a beautiful hat, Mrs. Barry--"

"Dear Miss Upton doesn't say that she gave it to me herself," put in Geraldine.

No, dear Miss Upton did not; for she had a New England conscience; but she continued firmly:

"She may want to wear it; she's got a white dress."

Geraldine colored. Mrs. Barry had seen her white dress.

"By all means let us take the hat," said that lady, and Lamson bore off the box.

"_Au revoir_, then," said Geraldine, trying to speak lightly, and kissing Miss Mehitable. "I'll let you know what day I am coming back.

Say good-bye to Mrs. Whipp for me."

Mrs. Barry's face became inscrutable as Geraldine spoke. She had seen the counter, and the phonograph, and in fancy she could see the impending excursionists.

"Good-bye, Miss Upton." And the shining motor started. "To Rockcrest, Lamson."

Miss Mehitable went back into the house. She suspected she should find Charlotte weeping, and she did.

"I s'pose I can't never say anything right," sniffed the injured one upon her employer's entrance.

"Never mind _us_, Charlotte," responded Miss Upton. "That's a very big thing that's just happened. I'm so tickled I'd dance if I thought the house would stand it."

"I don't see anything so wonderful in that stuck-up woman givin' the girl a job o' sewin'," returned Mrs. Whipp, blowing her nose. "When will Gerrie come back? How we'll miss her!"

"I think," said Miss Upton, impressively--"I think it is very safe to say--Never!"

"Why, what do you mean!"

"I mean Mrs. Barry ain't goin' to let that girl stand behind my counter this summer." Miss Mehitable gave a sudden, sly laugh. "I wasn't goin'

to let her anyway," she added, in a low tone as if the walls might have ears, "but Mrs. Barry don't know that, and I'm glad she don't."

Miss Upton sat down and laughed and rocked, and rocked and laughed until Mrs. Whipp began to worry.

"Thumbscrews," said Miss Mehitable, between each burst, "thumbscrews!"

"Where shall I git 'em?" asked Charlotte, rising and staring about her vaguely.

"Nevermind. Let's have some tea," said Miss Mehitable, wiping her eyes.

CHAPTER XV

The Clouds Disperse

And so with the entrance into that automobile began still another chapter in Geraldine Melody's life. While they drove through the attractive avenues of the resort and Mrs. Barry pointed out the cottages belonging to well-known people, the young girl was making an effort for her own self-possession. To be alone with the mother of her knight was exciting, and her determination was not to allow any emotion to be observable in her manner. She did not yet know whether she was present as a seamstress or as a guest. She felt that in either case she had been summoned for inspection, for of course Ben had left his mother in no doubt as to his sentiments. Mrs. Barry evinced no embarra.s.sment. Her smooth monologue flowed on without a question. Perhaps she suspected the tumult in the fluttering heart beside her, and was giving the young girl time. At all events, nothing that she said required an answer, and Geraldine obediently looked, unseeing, at every object she pointed out.

The motor rolled across a bridge. "Here you see Keefeport even boasts a little river," said Mrs. Barry. "The young people can enjoy a mild canoe trip as well as their exciting yachting. I am going to stop at my cottage and give a few orders, so long as I am here."

Another five minutes of swift riding brought them to the driveway leading to a cottage placed on a rocky height close to the sea. "We have a rather wonderful view, you see," Mrs. Barry's calm voice went on.

"Perhaps you would like to get out and walk about the piazza while I speak with the caretaker."

Geraldine followed her out of the luxurious car, feeling very small and insignificant and resenting the sensation made upon her by the imposing surroundings. She wished herself back with Miss Upton and the cat; but she mounted the steps and stood on the wide porch looking on the jagged rocks beneath. The sea came hissing in among them, flinging up spray and dragging back noisily in the strong wind to make ready for another onslaught. The vast view was superb and suggested all the poems she had ever read about the sea. Mrs. Barry had gone into the house and now came out with the caretakers, a man and wife, with whom she examined the progress of flowers and vines growing in sheltered nooks. Geraldine resolutely shut out memories of her knight. The girls whose summers were spent among these scenes were his friends, and among them his mother had doubtless selected some fastidious maiden who had never encountered disgraceful moments.

"I belong to myself," thought Geraldine proudly, forcing back some stinging drops, salt as the vast waters before her. "I don't need anybody, I don't." She fought down again the memory of her lover's embraces. Ever afterward she remembered those few minutes alone on the piazza at Rockcrest, overwhelmed by the sensation of contrast between herself on sufferance in her cheap raiment, and the indications all about her of the opposite extreme of luxury--remembered those moments as affording her a poignant unhappiness.

"I won't ask you to come into the cottage," said Mrs. Barry, approaching at the close of her interview. "The rugs haven't been unrolled yet, and it is all in disorder. Isn't that a superb show of sky and sea, and never twice alike?"

"Superb," echoed Geraldine.

"You are shivering," said her hostess. "It is many degrees colder here than over in the sheltered place where Miss Upton has her shop. I have quite finished. Let us go back."

They went down to the car and were soon speeding toward Keefe. Beside Lamson sat the imposing hatbox. Somehow it added to Geraldine's unhappiness, as if jeering at her for an effort to appear what she was not.

She must talk. Her regal companion would suspect her wretchedness.

"What are you going to make your curtains of, Mrs. Barry?" she asked.

The commonplace proved a most felicitous question. The lady described material, took her measurements out of her purse, and discussed ruffles and tucks and described location and size of windows, during which talk the young girl was able to throw off the spell that had held her mute.

She did not suspect how her companion was listening with discriminating ears to her speech, and the very tones of her voice, and watching with discriminating eyes her manner and expression. Ben had told his mother to take her magnifying gla.s.s and she had begun to use it.

When the motor entered the home grounds at Keefe, Geraldine resisted the a.s.sociations of her last arrival there. A faint mist of apple blossoms still clung in spots to the orchard.

Lamson carried her poor little effects and the hateful, grandiose hatbox into the living-room where one day she had regained her scattered senses.

"You may take these things up to the blue room," Mrs. Barry said to the maid who appeared, "and you will give Miss Melody any a.s.sistance she requires."

Geraldine followed the girl upstairs to the charming room a.s.signed to her. Every dainty convenience was within its walls. The pleasant maid's manner was all alacrity. It was safe to believe that she knew more than her mistress about Geraldine, and the att.i.tude toward her of the young master of the house. The guest looked about her and recalled her room at the Carder farm, the patchwork quilt at the Upton Emporium, and her last shakedown under the eaves of the Keefeport sh.e.l.l house.

Between the filmy white curtains at these windows she could see the rosy vestiges of the orchard bloom. The furniture of the room was apparently ivory, the bathroom silver and porcelain. Azure and white coloring were in all the decorations. The maid was unpacking her boxes. Geraldine was ashamed of her own mortification in allowing her to see the contents.