Nancy Of Paradise Cottage Part 14

When Charlotte had taken her departure, Nancy, who had walked over to the station with her, struck out through the village for a good walk before luncheon. The country beyond Broadmore was picturesque, and Nancy loved nothing better than to swing along without plan or purpose, cutting across a field here, or turning into a bit of glowing woodland there, as her fancy prompted. In her short full skirt, her small feet laced into st.u.r.dy low-heeled boots, she could negotiate fences and brooks with the freedom of a boy, revelling in a feeling of adventurousness and liberty. The sun had melted the frost of the early morning, the ground was soft, and the air mild though bracing. In the wide puddles which had gathered in the depressions of the country roads, a sky mottled with huge, lazy clouds was reflected. A c.o.c.k crowed on some distant haystack. Now and then a mischievous wind rose, bending the long brown gra.s.s as it swept along, and making Nancy catch her breath in a sort of jubilant excitement, as it blew into her face, and spun out wisps of her hair behind her.

She had turned after about two miles of walking, and was approaching the pike on the school side of the railroad station, when she heard behind her the patient creaking of the old hack, and the familiar clucking of the driver to his lean and melancholy steed. As it came beside her, she glanced up curiously; then her eyes grew round, and she stared in incredulous amazement. For, bolt upright on the decrepit back seat, his head erect under its wide-brimmed black felt hat, his thin hands folded on the crook of his cane, sat--her Uncle Thomas. She lacked breath to speak to him; but just then he turned his eyes and saw her. For a moment he merely gazed at her without a glimmer of recognition and she had half persuaded herself that his brief visit to the cottage had not been long enough to have fixed her features in his mind, when his face suddenly broke into an almost boyish smile.

"Hey, driver--stop! Whoa! Why, my dear child--bless me, this is very fortunate!" With one foot on the step, he leaned out and clasped her hand. "Get in, get in, my dear--I was on my way to see you. And I nearly missed you, eh?" Nancy clambered up beside him, and the driver, not receiving any orders to the contrary, clucked to his steed, which continued on its interrupted way.

"Were you really going to visit us, Uncle?" asked Nancy. "It's a pity that Alma isn't here. She went in to the city--and it was just luck that I didn't go, too." She smiled to herself, wondering if, after all, Providence had had some hand in the events of the morning which had kept her where she was.

"Luck? Well, I should say so. I'd have been badly disappointed if my surprise had fallen through," chuckled Uncle Thomas, who was evidently in the best of spirits. "Well, well--you're as ruddy as a ripe pomegranate, my dear."

"I've just walked four miles," said Nancy.

"Walked? By yourself? Now, that's a taste you've inherited from me.

Fond of walking, aren't you? Now, tell me how you are getting along--at school, I mean. Like it, eh?" He looked at her keenly, a twinkle hiding just under the surface of his gray eyes.

"Yes, I like it. I'm working awfully hard--I have to, or I wouldn't get anywhere, because it would be awfully easy to loaf at Miss Leland's," laughed Nancy; she had a feeling that he was waiting to get her opinion of the school, and she was afraid of sounding priggish, or as if she were trying to impress him with an idea of her industry. So she chatted away about the girls, telling him about Charlotte particularly, describing the teachers, giving him an account of the routine, and so on, to all of which he listened as intently as if he were her father.

"So you're swimming along. Good. And how is my other niece? Is she working very hard? Has she made lots of friends, eh?" Again Nancy felt that he was pumping her, but she told him casually about Alma, taking care to say nothing that might sound as if she said it for effect, and he listened, nodding his head, and smiling.

"Well, now--even if we can't have Alma with us, what do you say to giving up a holiday to an old gentleman? Is that too much to ask? The whim took me to run over here to-day and kidnap my two nieces; but if I can only have one, I'll take her, if she'll let me. Will your 'schoolma'am' let you come away with me? I'd like to have you until to-morrow, and I'll get you back safe and sound."

Nancy laughed. Six months before, if anyone had told her that she would be going to visit her Uncle Thomas on that particular day, she would have thought the prophet quite mad; as it was she could hardly believe her ears.

"I'd _love_ to do it. Here's the school now--it won't take me a minute to get ready. You speak to Miss Leland, Uncle Thomas. I'm quite sure that I can go."

A little more than an hour later Nancy found herself turning in the very old gate through the unfriendly bars of which she and Alma had peered on that distant rainy afternoon, feeling that they were gazing into a forbidden country. Yet now nothing, it seemed, could be more natural than that she should be sitting beside her uncle, chatting away with him unconstrainedly. Only the fact that he never mentioned her mother, nor suggested that she should even peep into the little brown house, made her feel uncomfortable. Furthermore, he showed the same coldness on the subject of Alma, so that, in a way, Nancy felt that somehow she had almost unfairly won his affection for herself alone, and that she was enjoying a pleasure in which her mother and sister should have had an equal share. On the other hand, she decided, at length, to say nothing either to Alma or to Mrs. Prescott about her visit; only because she was afraid that the knowledge of it might again lead them to false hopes, and to follies stimulated by those hopes.

She felt sure that her uncle had come to see her, only because he had taken her at her word; that is to say, that he counted on her not in any way misunderstanding the purpose of his visit, or fancying that it gave promise of his relenting in his long-standing determination not to solve their financial problems for them.

Aside from the fact that, although within a mile of the little brown cottage, she might have been a league away, and that she experienced several bad qualms of homesickness, Nancy thoroughly enjoyed that day.

She lunched with her uncle in the big dining-room, sitting at the head of his table, while he placed himself at the foot. And afterwards he showed her about the huge old house, taking her to his laboratory, explaining a great deal about scientific experiments which she did not understand, showing her his books and his curios. As they pa.s.sed along the corridor on the second floor, he paused a moment outside a room which was closed. Then as if on a sudden impulse, he took a key out of his pocket, and opened the door, without saying anything. It was a small room, rather bare, furnished with an almost Spartan simplicity; the sunlight beamed in, striking its full, red rays on the faded wall above the narrow, white iron bed, over which hung a picture of a lion-hunt, evidently cut out of some book or magazine--just such a picture as would strike the imagination of a lad of twelve. The rest of the wall was mottled with other pictures, many of them unframed, clipped out of colored newspapers, and fixed to the wall-paper with pins; pictures of horses and steeple-chases, and Greek athletes, and American heroes; one, the largest, was a vivid representation of the Battle of Trafalgar, showing a perfect inferno of red and yellow flames and bursting bombs, and splintered ships, and drowning sailors clinging to planks and spars. On the table between the windows stood a row of books, a few ill-treated looking lesson books hobn.o.bbing like poor relations with other more self-confident works on "Woodcraft" and "Adventure." The mantelpiece was burdened with a heterogeneous collection of boyish knickknacks, such as a sling, a bird's-nest, a rusty bowie-knife, and a decrepit old horse-pistol.

For a moment Nancy looked about her in astonishment, then, as she understood, the tears came to her eyes, and she looked up at her uncle.

The room had not been changed since her father had left it for boarding-school, twenty, thirty years before. Mr. Prescott said nothing; but after a moment closed the door, locked it again, and walked away.

"I'm going to have visitors for tea," he remarked, to turn the subject.

"It's quite an eventful day for me; I rarely see anyone, as you know.

But I thought that it might be pleasant for you to renew an acquaintance with a lady who seems to have taken a great fancy to you, and who, incidentally, is the only woman I know who has a full-sized allowance of common sense. Though at times she is very unreasonable and quite as inconsistent as any of her s.e.x."

Nancy looked at him inquiringly, and he explained:

"Miss Elizabeth Bancroft." Whether he considered Miss Bancroft in the plural, as being a lady of many parts, or whether he had used the word "visitors" because she would be accompanied or followed by others, and if so how many others he expected he did not trouble himself to make clear; but the matter explained itself, when toward five o'clock, the sound of carriage wheels rattled out on the gravel drive, and in due time, Miss Bancroft laboriously descended from her equipage, a.s.sisted by her nephew, George Arnold.

"My dear child, how delightful this is! I'm so really glad to see you," exclaimed Miss Bancroft, taking Nancy's hands in both her own, as if she had known her all her life. Her frank cordial manner sent a glow of pleasure to Nancy's cheeks. "I hope you remember that you met my nephew--for his sake. The idea that you might possibly have forgotten him has been troubling his vanity for a good eight hours."

Nancy laughingly murmuring that she did remember Mr. Arnold, and blushing with shyness, shook hands with him. She noticed, without dreaming of connecting the fact with herself, that he seemed to be in remarkably good spirits, and that they quite overflowed when he told her how nice it was to see her again, and what a jolly, funny sort of party the whole thing was anyway.

"I wasn't going to bring George," observed Miss Bancroft. "He's usually so tiresomely lazy about tearing himself away from his books or his own company, that I thought I wouldn't bother him to-day. Then lo, and behold, he gets into an unbearable fit of sulks, complains that I'm always ready enough to drag him around with people who bore him to death, and leave him alone whenever anyone interesting turns up--in a word goes into a tantrum, and all but weeps with rage, so I had to bring him." With that she indulged in a chuckle of mischievous laughter, and patted Nancy's cheek.

A big wood-fire crackled noisily inside the huge stone chimney place in the living-room, and around it they all gathered in that comfortable, sociable spirit which is the characteristic mood for tea-time; everyone felt that they had really known everyone else rather longer than they had, and while Miss Bancroft poured out their tea, and chattered away with Uncle Thomas, who stood upright on the hearth-rug, drinking his tea from the mantelpiece, Nancy and Mr. Arnold chatted away as if it were impossible to say everything they wanted to in the course of one short hour or so. As a rule Nancy had a very hard time overcoming her shyness when she had to talk to a young man. She always felt that she might say something that they wouldn't understand, or which they might think affected or priggish--which were the two last sins in the world which she would have wished to be accused of, or with which anyone could accuse her. But with Mr. Arnold, she lost every atom of self-consciousness. He had travelled a great deal, and he had seen the world through a prism of mingled humor and sensitiveness, which gave his conversation the charm of a very original viewpoint on everything.

He told her droll stories about his school days in England and Switzerland; recounted innumerable anecdotes about the various people he had seen, many of whom were celebrated for their brains or their follies; and altogether managed to make an hour shorter than many a minute. And in some way, while he talked, he had a way of flattering the shy young girl not by words, but by a hundred indescribable little attentions, paid unconsciously, no doubt, and simply because he was thoroughly delighted to see her again.

"My dear, you mustn't fail to pay me a visit during the holidays," Miss Bancroft urged. "Remember that your father was a very great favorite of mine--and I should like to be a favorite of yours, if Uncle Thomas doesn't supplant me, quite."

The old lady bent and kissed Nancy warmly as she prepared to take her departure.

When the carriage had driven away Nancy and her uncle sat before the fire for a long time. To remember that afternoon was always a delight to Nancy; and she particularly liked to recall the memory of sitting there, as the dusk grew deeper in the room and the daylight faded away into pale tints, and then into a deep, quiet blue, while they sat and watched the fire. The flames had died down, but the long logs were wrapped in a hot, red glow, and every now and then they would pop softly and a spark would drop down into the ruddy embers.

When dinner was over they sat by that fireside until bedtime, chatting away with a thoroughly delightful sense of camaraderie.

Absolutely forgetting her mother and sister's ground of interest in Uncle Thomas, Nancy talked to him quite freely about her ambitions without the slightest feeling of constraint, impressing him unconsciously more than she could have done by the most fervid protestations with her sincerely eager wish to make her life for herself and by herself. And he liked her earnest, youthful spirit of independence, perfectly innocent of any pose of "strong-mindedness"--which to a man like Mr. Prescott would have const.i.tuted one of the most unforgivable of feminine failings, ranking equally with the other extreme, of which poor, pretty, helpless Mrs.

Prescott was an example.

"So you want to work your way through college? What's the idea?" he asked a bit gruffly. "A pretty girl like you, I should think, would only be planning to marry and settle down in a home of her own."

Nancy colored.

"That would be awfully nice, but one can't make it a business, Uncle Thomas, or all the niceness would go out of it. I think one ought to plan out all the difficult things, and leave all the--the dreadfully nice things to Chance, or Providence,--or--well, just let them happen where they belong."

"You're a little Madame Solomon, aren't you, eh?" said Uncle Thomas with a short chuckle. "And how are you going to work your way through college? I shouldn't think that Miss Leland's would be exactly the place for a young lady with your ideas."

"It wouldn't be, if I aired them all over the place--but I've learned to keep my ideas to myself," said Nancy, thinking how Mildred Lloyd would scoff at her "highbrow" ambitions. Uncle Thomas shot a quick, keen glance at her from under his bushy brows.

"Well, you are a wise young lady. Now, who in the world taught you that--to keep your ideas to yourself? Eh?"

"Why, there's nothing very wise in that," said Nancy, surprised at his tone of warm approval. "I know what I want, and if I'm with people who think it's a foolish thing to want, why, I don't talk about it--that's all."

"Well, my dear, permit me to say that I think that in time you are going to have even more sense than my good Elizabeth."

"You--you aren't laughing at me, Uncle Thomas? Do you think I'm trying to show off?" asked Nancy timidly, unwilling to believe his sincere praise; and she looked anxiously and shyly into his face to detect a smile if there was one. But there wasn't.

"Laughing at you? My dear child--what nonsense! Bless my soul, but you are certainly my boy's daughter!"

Then, after a short silence, and just as Nancy was on the point of telling him an amusing little incident about Charlotte, he interrupted her abruptly and irrelevantly:

"I say,--you like that young man, eh?"

"What young man?" gasped Nancy, turning scarlet.

"_That_ young man," repeated Uncle Thomas, pettishly. "Elizabeth's boy--Arnold--that author-person."

"Author?"

"Yes. Bless me, didn't he tell you how famous he is? Do you like him, I say?" Uncle Thomas was quite fierce.

"Why, yes. I think he's awfully nice. I--I don't know him very well,"

said Nancy, in astonishment.

"Hum. Well, he's a nice fellow. Clever chap. Elizabeth dotes on him, but he doesn't let her think for him. But he's not good enough for you. You go along to college. If you won't get any silly notions about marrying and all that nonsense, I--I'll--well, maybe I'll give you a lift here and there, though it's strictly against my principles."

After which involved and very cryptic remark Uncle Thomas stiffly offered her his cheek to kiss, and sent her to bed.