Lizbeth of the Dale Part 23

She visited Mother MacAllister once a week, of course, and was some real help to her, as she was to poor Susie Martin. But she had outgrown her schoolmates, or grown away from them, even had her aunt approved of her a.s.sociating with them. The Price girls had spent all their father's substance in riotous dressing, and were now in domestic service in Cheemaun. Rosie was living away up north on the McQueen farm, a new, practical, careful money-making little Rosie. And Martha Ellen Robertson even was gone. Martha Ellen was married and now lived on an Alberta ranch and had many gold watches and all the dresses she could desire. The only familiar sight in Forest Glen for Elizabeth was Noah Clegg. He was still superintendent of the Sunday school, still wore the same squeaky Sabbath boots, and though he had never quite regained his old-time cheerfulness since the day his a.s.sistant left, he still smilingly urged his flock to "sing up an' be 'appy."

Elizabeth often wondered what had become of old Sandy and Eppie. She had not quite outgrown her childish desire to right poor Eppie's wrongs, and often, even yet, she told herself that some day she would intercede with Mrs. Jarvis, and Eppie would be brought back to Forest Glen.

But in spite of her buoyant nature Elizabeth was not happy. Great new aspirations were springing up in her heart. She had submitted to a well-known magazine her little verses, born of that night of moonrise and sunset, when the boys said good-by. They had not been accepted, but the reviewer, a lady of some insight, had written the young poetess a long and encouraging letter. Miss Gordon must read and study nature, she advised, and she would do something some day. So Elizabeth tried to obey. Studying nature was like breathing and came very easily, and reading was always a joy; but she grew restless in spite of it all, not knowing what was the matter with her.

"I wish I could go away and do something, John Coulson," she said to her brother-in-law on an afternoon which he and Annie and the baby were spending at The Dale. "I'm no use here. I have horrible suspicions that I'm a c.u.mberer of the ground."

"You're surely not going to develop into a new woman, Betsey," said John Coulson with alarm. "One never knows which way the wild streak is going to shoot off next."

Elizabeth was kneeling by the old dining-room sofa, upon which the Vision rolled from side to side, waving his bare pink toes in the air.

She had just been busy saying over for the fifth time, "Dis 'itty pig went to market," and had evoked such gurgles and coos and giggles from the owner of the "'itty pigs," that it was hard to give her attention elsewhere.

"Maybe I am," she said at last, looking up at him with serious gray eyes. "I don't know. But I do know I don't want to sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam forever and ever like the lady in Baby's book. The rest are working hard. I wonder if I couldn't earn my living somehow."

John Coulson looked at her gravely. He generally treated his young sister-in-law as a joke, but evidently she wanted to be taken seriously.

"What do you think you would like to be?" he asked gently.

Elizabeth chucked the Vision under the chin, rolled him from side to side, and kissed each separate dimple in his plump hand before answering.

"Oh, I don't care. I'd just as soon be one thing as another."

"Well, well," John Coulson's eyes twinkled again. "Have you no ambition at all, Betsey Bobbett?"

Elizabeth looked across at him, her eyes half-veiled by her long lashes, in that way she had when she wished to hide her thoughts. The forced reticence of her childhood had grown to be a fixed habit, and for all her love for her brother-in-law, which had grown steadily with the years, she could not confide in him. For Elizabeth had ambitions, though her aunt would have found it hard to believe in them. They were quite as radiant as her old dreams of Joan of Arc, though different.

They were such conflicting aspirations, too, that she was puzzled by them herself. She was filled with vague golden dreams of one day overturning the world and righting all wrongs, and making all Eppies rich and Susies happy, and giving all Mother MacAllisters their rewards. And side by side with these glorious visions lived the desire, very real and very deep, to be like Estella Raymond and have a half-dozen boys expiring for love of her. Elizabeth would have died rather than confess this wish--even to herself. Nevertheless, it was there, and back of it lay another, still hazy, but also very real, the ambition to be an Annie and have a John Coulson and a brick house with white pillars and a Vision lying on a sofa waving ten pink rosebud toes in one's face. But these were things one would not breathe, so Elizabeth answered lightly.

"I guess I haven't--much. I think I'd like to teach school--maybe. At least I'd like it just as well as anything else, but you see I can't, now."

"My, but you're enthusiastic. But isn't there something you'd like better than anything else?"

Elizabeth's long lashes drooped again. That was forbidden ground. She shook her head, and poked the Vision's ribs until he screamed with laughter.

"Some of the girls in your cla.s.s have gone to Toronto to learn nursing.

Would you care about that?"

"I suppose that would do to earn my own living; only John makes me sick when he talks about operations. Look, Sweetie; pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man."

"I suppose you wouldn't like to hammer a typewriter in my office? I need a girl, but perhaps Aunt Margaret wouldn't think it was genteel."

"That would do, if I wouldn't bother you too much; and I'd just love to be with you, John Coulson, only--oh, oh, look at the darling pet swallowin' him's own pinky toes. Oh, John Coulson, just look!"

John Coulson laughed indulgently.

"Oh, Betsey!" he said in despair, while his eyes were very kind, "you're no use in the world. We'll just have to get you married."

Nevertheless, he thought much about the girl after his return home and talked over her case with his wife. "Send her a note and tell her to come here for a week," was his final decision. "We must do something for the poor kid."

So Annie very willingly wrote her sister, and on the day her letter arrived at The Dale Elizabeth received another. This one was from Estella. It was an ecstatic letter, as everything emanating from Estella generally was. It chronicled page after page of her trials with her beaux. An embarra.s.sment of riches was what troubled Estella.

She did wish Beth would come to Cheemaun and take some of them off her hands. But of course Beth didn't care about boys, she had forgotten.

Madeline Oliver was just as bad, boys never looked near her. And speaking of Madeline, what did Beth think? Since they'd left school she had been putting on frightful airs, and was just perfectly, dreadfully horrid to all the girls except the Annsleys and the Delafields and a few others of those n.o.bs on Sunset Hill. Madeline seemed to forget she'd ever known half her old chums. And Mrs. Oliver gave Bridge parties in the afternoon now, and didn't ask half the people she used to ask. And it was all on account of Mrs. Jarvis. She had just come back from the Old Country, and the Olivers were making a terrible fuss about her. They said she intended to spend the winter in California, and Madeline was working to get taken with her. And the Olivers had given a great big reception last week for Madeline's coming out, and such airs Beth never saw, and Mrs. Jarvis was there dressed like a queen. And she, Estella, had asked Madeline if she wasn't going to ask Beth Gordon to her party, seeing she'd been called for Mrs.

Jarvis, and Madeline just tossed her head and said, "Oh, Aunt Jarvis never thinks about her now." And Horace was there; it was down in the ice-cream parlor where Frank Harper had taken her--really, he was getting perfectly awful he called so often--and Horace spoke up and said he bet his Aunt Jarvis would just like jolly well to see Beth, and he'd a good mind to drive out and fetch her in; and Madeline looked crosser than ever. And so now, here was Estella's plan. She was just going to show Madeline Oliver, see if she wasn't! She was going to "come out," and mamma was going to give a reception--one far bigger and grander than the Olivers' had been, too. And they were going to ask Mrs. Jarvis, of course, and Mrs. Oliver daren't refuse because papa had a hold on Mr. O. in business, and the whole family would just have to come. And darling Beth was to come, too--with Mrs. Coulson, and wear her white dress and the blue bows in her hair, and Mrs. Jarvis would see her, and be certain sure to love her. She couldn't help it. And between them they'd spite that nasty Madeline, see if they wouldn't.

Horace himself had said he knew his aunt would like to see Beth. He told her that, going home one evening from choir practice. Horace had done that twice, and Frank Harper and Will Drummond were both just wild about it. But of course there was nothing at all between her and Horace, and if Beth minded the tiniest bit she'd never speak to him again as long as she lived, etc., etc.

The letter went on in this strain for many more pages. Elizabeth laughed and handed it to her aunt, antic.i.p.ating some fun when Miss Gordon gave her opinion of it. But to Elizabeth's intense surprise the lady made no comment upon the writer's manners and heartily approved of her niece accepting the invitation. Elizabeth had fully expected Estella to be p.r.o.nounced entirely ungenteel, and no sort of person to a.s.sociate with a Gordon. But Elizabeth did not yet understand her aunt, any more than her aunt understood her.

So very joyfully an acceptance of both invitations was written, and Miss Gordon helped Elizabeth prepare for her visit to Annie's with hope once more rising in her heart. Surely, surely, upon this occasion, this one unsuccessful member of her family would grasp opportunity before he pa.s.sed her for the last time.

They were debating as to how Elizabeth was to reach town, for both the gray horse and the old phaeton were now tottering on the verge of dissolution, when Auntie Jinit McKerracher came across the brown shaven fields, to make a call and an offer. Auntie Jinit had heard of Elizabeth's proposed visit to Cheemaun, for the lady knew minutely the downsitting and the uprising of everyone in the valley. She, too, was bent on a journey thither, on the morrow,--on important business, she said mysteriously,--and she invited Elizabeth to accompany her.

The offer was gladly accepted, though Miss Gordon would have preferred that her niece make a more dignified entry into the town than could be accomplished in Wully Johnstone's old buck-board with the bunch of hay sticking out behind, and Auntie Jinit leaning far forward slapping the old gray mare with the lines. But little cared Elizabeth. She was going on a tour into the unknown--she was to enter Cheemaun society, and it mattered little to her how she got there, she was sure to have a good time.

The day they set out was a glorious October morning, warm and bright, with a hint of that soft blue-gray mist on the horizon which in the afternoon would clothe the landscape in an amethyst haze. Auntie Jinit's old gray horse ambled along easily, and Elizabeth gave herself up to hilarity. To go abroad with Mrs. McKerracher was to have one's entertainment insured. She was a highly diverting lady, with a youthful twinkle in her eye contradicting the shining gray hair that, parted demurely in the middle, waved down over her ears. There was youth, too, in her round plump face and the soft flush of her cheeks.

Plainly Auntie Jinit had been a pretty girl once and had not yet outlived the memories of that potent fact.

As the white road dipped into the first hollow, where the crimson leaves of the maples and the gold of the elms softly floated down from the blue above, there arose from a barnyard on their right the sound of loud, uproarious singing.

"_Oh, and it's whippity whoppity too, And how I'd love to sing to you!

I'd laugh and sing, With joy and glee, If Mrs.--ti-dee-dilly-dee-dilly-dee!_"

The singer had fortunately caught sight of the familiar gray horse, with the accustomed bunch of hay sticking out behind, and had saved his life by an adroit improvisation. For Tom had been in the habit of subst.i.tuting another name for "Mrs. McQuarry," and though he might take liberties with his neighbor across the way, well he knew the dire consequences of taking Auntie Jinit's name in vain.

Elizabeth crumpled up with silent laughter; but either Mrs. McKerracher did not notice, or designedly ignored the singer. She was looking in the opposite direction, examining with a critical eye the trim fields of Jake Martin's prosperous-looking farm.

"Yon's no a place to be sneezed at, Lizzie," she remarked tentatively.

"The place is lovely, Auntie Jinit," Elizabeth returned, with marked emphasis. "Only--only----"

Auntie Jinit gave a little giggle. There was a queer mixture of girlish coquetry and masculine strength about her that was disconcerting. Elizabeth paused, afraid to go on.

Auntie Jinit gave her trim bonnet-strings a jerk, flapped the old gray mare with the lines and began her confidences in a business-like manner.

"Ye're a wise la.s.sock, Lizzie," she said, by way of introduction, "an'

ah'm gaun to hae a bit private crack wi' ye. Ye're aunt's brocht ye up weel, an' ah ken ah'm takin' nae risk in confidin' in ye. Some o' the neeighbors 'll be sayin' ye're a' that prood, but ah've always stood up for the Gordons, an' said ye were nae mair prood than ye ocht to be.

Noo, aboot this business. Ah wanted tae get yer help." The girlish manner had returned, she hesitated and gave Elizabeth a half-shy, half-sly glance over her shoulder. "It's aboot him--yonder, ye ken."

She jerked her thumb over her shoulder towards the receding farm-house.

"There's a pint o'--o' beesiness ah'd like ye tae see Maister Coulson aboot, Lizzie--if ye would'na mind obleegin' an' auld neeighbor buddy."

Elizabeth's risibilities were nearly upsetting her composure.

"Yes," she faltered, "I--I'll do anything I can for you, and I'm sure John Coulson will, too, in your--business."

"It's no jist what a buddy might ca' beesiness, exactly." There was another coquettish glance and a toss of the pink roses in Auntie Jinit's bonnet. "But it's a thing a lawyer buddy would ken a' aboot.

An' ye ken, la.s.sie, a modest buddy like me disna like to talk aboot sich like things to a--a man, hersel." She gave another glance, quite shy this time. Her companion was silent, afraid to speak lest her laughter break forth. The contrast between Auntie Jinit's staid, middle-aged appearance, and the gay, naughty glance of her eye was almost too much for a frivolous person like Elizabeth.

"Ah want his advice, ye ken, because ah dinna ken jist whit's the best to dae. Ah ken whit ah want to dae,"--another coquettish toss of the roses,--"but ah'm no so sure jist whit's best--aboot--merryin', ye ken."