Lizbeth of the Dale Part 26

"Oh, that would be lovely!--to eat a rose. But mine was a chicken, and before I thought I cut his poor little pink head off with my spoon.

And it reminded me of the day when we were little and my brother John made me hold our poor old red rooster while he chopped his head off with the ax, and of course it made me sick, and I just had to run away."

"You mustn't let your imagination play tricks with your digestion that way."

"It shows that the refined part of me must be just a thin veneer on the outside," said Elizabeth, her eyes twinkling. "I don't believe my insides are a bit genteel, or I'd never have thought of the rooster."

"Well, you are a treat," said the lady--"Miss--Miss--why, I don't even know your name, child."

"It's Elizabeth Gordon," said the owner of the name, adding with some dignity--"Elizabeth Jarvis Gordon."

"Elizabeth Jarvis Gordon!" repeated the lady, half-rising, an expression of pleasure illuminating her face, "Why--surely, my little namesake! Don't you remember me?"

"Oh," cried Elizabeth, overwhelmed by the memory of her indiscretions.

"It isn't--is it--Mrs. Jarvis?"

"It really is!" cried the lady very cordially. She drew the girl down and kissed her. "And I'm delighted to meet you again, Elizabeth Jarvis Gordon, you're the most refreshing thing I've seen in years!"

CHAPTER XIV

WHEN LIFE WAS BEAUTY

No. 15, Seaton Crescent, Toronto, was a students' boarding-house. Mrs.

Dalley, the landlady, declared every day of the university term that they were the hardest set going for a body to put up with.

Nevertheless, being near the college buildings, she put up with them, both going and coming, and No. 15 was always full. A short street was Seaton Crescent proper, running between a broad park which bordered the college campus, and a big business thoroughfare. At one end street-cars whizzed up and down with clanging bells, and crowds of busy shoppers hurried to and fro; at the other end spread the green stretches of a park, and farther over stood the stately university.

buildings. A street of student boarding-houses it was, and No. 15 stood midway between the clanging and the culture.

But Seaton Crescent presented much more than a double row of boarding-houses. Pa.s.sing out of its narrow confines, it curved round one side of the park bordered by a grand row of elms. Here the houses were mansions, set back in fine old gardens that had smiled there many a summer before the boarding-houses were built. The last house in the row, Crescent Court, was of a newer date. It was a pretentious apartment house, set up on the corner commanding a view of the campus and the park. Just far enough removed from the boarding-house region was Crescent Court to be quite beyond the noise of the street-cars and the shoppers, and consequently its inmates felt themselves far removed from the work-a-day world.

In one of its front rooms, a little rose-shaded boudoir, luxuriously furnished, sat a lady. She had been handsome once, but her face now bore the marks of age--not the beautiful lines of years gracefully accepted, but the scars of a long battle against their advance. She wore a gay flowered dressing-gown much too youthful in style, her slippered toes were stretched out to the crackling fire, and a cup of fragrant tea was in her hand. Her cosy surroundings did not seem to contribute much to her comfort, however, for her face had a look of settled melancholy, and she glanced up frowningly at a girl standing by the window.

"I sometimes think you are growing positively frivolous, Beth," she complained. "I don't understand you, in view of the strict religious training both your aunt and I have given you. When I was your age, all church-work appealed strongly to me."

The girl looked far across the stretches of the park, now growing purple and shadowy in the autumn dusk. Her gray, star-like eyes were big and wistful. She did not see the winding walks, nor the row of russet elms with the twinkling lights beneath. She saw instead an old-fashioned kitchen with a sweet-faced woman sitting by the window, the golden glow of a winter sunset gilding her white hair. There was an open Bible on her knee, and the girl felt again the power of the words she spoke concerning the things that are eternal. She breathed a deep sigh of regret for the brightness of that day so long ago, and wondered if her companion's accusation was true.

"I didn't mean to be frivolous," she said, turning towards the lady in the chair. "I do want to be some use in the world. But all the girls who are getting up this new charitable society are--well, for instance, Miss Kendall belongs."

"And why shouldn't she? There's nothing incompatible in her being a fine bridge-player and doing church-work. You must get rid of those old-fashioned ideas. Take myself, for instance. You know I never neglect my social duties, and nothing but the severest headache ever keeps me from church."

The wistful look in the girl's eyes was being replaced by a twinkle.

"But you know a Sunday headache is always prostrating," she said daringly.

The lady in the deep chair looked up with an angry flash of her dark eyes; but the girl had stepped out into the light of the fire, revealing the mischievous gleam in her dancing eyes. She knew her power; it was a look the elder woman could rarely resist. For with all their vast differences in temperament there had grown up a warm attachment between these two, since that day, now several years past, when they had run away together from an afternoon tea.

The lady's frown faded; but she spoke gravely.

"Beth, don't be so nonsensical. You know it is your duty to me--to yourself, to join the Guild. We have not established ourselves socially yet. Toronto is ruined by pandering to wealth. I've seen the day when the name of Jarvis was sufficient to open any door, but times have changed, and we must make the best of it. But you are culpably careless regarding your best interests. Now, I particularly want you to cultivate Blanche Kendall; the Kendalls are the foremost people in St. Stephen's Church, and if you join this society it will make your position a.s.sured. Only the best people are admitted. Mrs. Kendall a.s.sured me of that herself. Now, don't trifle with your chance in life."

"A chance in life? That's what I've been looking for ever since we came to Toronto," said the girl, gazing discontentedly into the fire.

"But I don't think it's to be found in St. Stephen's Church. I hate being of no use in the world."

The elder woman looked amused in her turn, now that she felt she was gaining her point.

"You talk like a child. Will you never grow up, I wonder?"

"Not likely," said the girl in a lighter tone. She stepped across the room and picked up a fur-lined cloak from a chair. "My body got into long dresses too soon, my soul is still hopping about with a sun-bonnet on, and you really mustn't expect me to be proper and fashionable until I've turned ninety or so. Is there any reason why I shouldn't run over and have dinner with Jean and the boys to-night?"

"Certainly there is. Didn't I tell you Mr. Huntley is just back from the West? He's coming to dinner."

"But you won't want a frivolous person like me round. He'll want to talk business to you all evening."

"That doesn't matter. You ought to be interested in my business.

Besides, he's a charming bachelor, so I want you to behave nicely."

"I couldn't think of it. I feel sure I'd make a better impression if I stayed away, anyway." She was gathering the dark folds of her cloak about her light evening dress as she spoke. "He might feel embarra.s.sed if we met again. The last time he laid his fortune at my feet and I spurned it with scorn."

"What are you talking about, you absurd child? Did you ever meet Blake Huntley in Cheemaun?"

The girl came back to the fire, her eyes dancing. "No, it was in prehistoric times--at Forest Glen. I remember I was dressed mostly in a sunbonnet and the remains of a pinafore--and I think I was in Highland costume as to shoes and stockings. Mr. Huntley evidently felt sorry for me and offered me a silver dollar, which was too much for my Gordon pride. Even Aunt Margaret approved of my refusing it, though she felt it might have been done in a more genteel manner."

The lady in the lounging chair laughed, and her astute young companion saw her chance. "I'm going to run over and see Jean and the boys just for five minutes," she said in a wheedling tone. "I shall be back in time for dinner."

"Well, see that you are." The elder woman's voice had lost all its fretfulness. She looked quite pleased. "You must remind Blake Huntley of your former acquaintance. What was he doing at The Dale?"

"He had come to see about"--the girl hesitated--"selling old Sandy McLachlan's farm." Her big gray eyes looked steadily and solemnly into her companion's.

The lady poured herself another cup of tea. She gave an impatient shrug. The old subject of Eppie Turner's wrongs had become unbearably wearisome. "Well, don't air any more of your romantic ideas concerning her. You'll never find her anyway. And don't stay long at No. 15.

You go there so often I shall soon begin to suspect you have lost your heart to that bonny Prince Charlie--he's handsome enough."

"Charles Stuart?" The girl laughed aloud at the absurdity. "The poor Pretender! Don't hint your horrible suspicions to him, please, he'd never get over it."

"I'm glad you think it ridiculous. In view of the chances you are likely to have this winter, you'd be a fool to think of him. I hope you have some ambition, Beth."

The girl had turned away again and was carefully tucking a magazine into the folds of her cloak. Her long eyelashes drooped--that old subject of her ambition was still forbidden ground.

"Yes, I have a burning ambition at this very minute to go and see Jean and John," she said lightly, and whipping her cloak about her slim figure she waved her hand in a gay farewell and danced away out of the room.

The lady by the fire sighed. "Was there ever such a monkey?" she said to herself, and then she smiled. And as the girl ran down the stairs, she also sighed and said to herself: "I wonder how much longer I can bear this life. Pshaw, what does it matter anyway?" And then she laughed.

The short autumn day had closed and lights twinkled along the street and blazed on the busy thoroughfare--violet electric stars half-hidden high in the trees and golden gas lamps nearer the earth. The glow of one shone on the girl as she mounted the steps of No. 15 with a graceful little run. It showed her tall and willowy, lit up her sweet face, and the gray, star-like eyes that looked out from beneath heavy ma.s.ses of nut-brown hair, and was reflected from them with a gleam as of bronze.

She opened the door, as one familiar with the place, and hurried up the steps of the stairs.

"I'm prowling round as usual, Mrs. Dalley," she called to the landlady who was pa.s.sing through the lower hall.

The woman's tired face brightened. She liked this Miss Gordon and was always glad when she dropped in to see her brother and sister. She was ever willing to listen to complaints concerning maids and medical students.