Only an Incident Part 6

Halloway looked silently at the upright, angular, large script. "It's legible, certainly."

"But you don't like it?"

"Miss Phebe, I am torn between conflicting truth and politeness. It is like a man's hand, if I must say something."

"And so are her letters like a man's. Read it and see. Oh, she wouldn't mind! There is nothing in it, and yet somehow it seems just like Gerald.

Do read it. Oh, I want you to. Please, please do."

And led half by curiosity, half by the eagerness in Phebe's pretty face, Denham opened the letter and read, Phebe glancing over it with him as if she couldn't bear to lose sight of it an instant.

"DEAR PHEBE," so ran the letter, "your favor of 9th inst. rec. I had no idea of intruding ourselves upon you when I asked you to look up rooms, but as you seem really to want us"--("seem!" whispered Phebe, putting her finger on the word with a pout)--"I can only say we shall be very glad to come to you. You may look for Olly and myself Friday, July 15th, by the P.M. train. Olly isn't really ill, only run down. He is as horrid a little bear as ever. All are well, and started last week for Narragansett Pier. I shall rejoice to get away from the art school and guilds, which keep on even in this intemperate weather, and I shall be glad to see you again, Phebe, my dear,"

(Phebe looked up triumphantly in Denham's face as she reached the words.) "Remember me to Mrs. Lane and Miss--, I can't think of her name,--Aunt Lydia, I mean.

"Sincerely yours

"GERALDINE VERNOR,

"P.S.--Olly only drinks milk."

Phebe took back the letter and folded it up. "Well?" she said.

"Well?" said Denham, looking at her and smiling.

"It's just like her," declared Phebe. "It's so downright and to the point. Gerald never wastes words."

"You said it was like a man's letter," said Denham. "But I must beg leave to differ with you there. I don't think it is at all such a letter as _I_ would have written you, for instance."

"Of course not. It wouldn't be proper for you to say 'Phebe, my dear,' as Gerald does. Yours would have to be a very dignified, pastoral letter."

"Yes, addressed to 'My Lamb,' which you couldn't object to in a pastoral letter of course, and which sounds nearly as affectionate, blaming you for having caused me to lose the valuable information I might have gained about the Baroness Bunsen. I never got much farther than her birth in that famous history. I see poor Miss Delano casting longing glances in here. I'll smuggle her in among you young people."

He departed on his errand of mercy, and soon had the timid little old maid in the more congenial atmosphere of the parlor, where little by little, though in a very stealthy and underhand way, the talk grew more general, and the restraint slackened more and more, until sewing and reading were both forgotten and the fun became fast and furious, culminating in the sudden appearance of Jake Dexter dressed up as an ancient and altogether unlovely old woman, whom d.i.c.k Hardcastle presented in a stage whisper as "Baroness Bunsen in the closing chapter," and who forthwith proceeded to act out in dumb show the various events of that admirable woman's life, as judiciously and sonorously touched upon by Mr.

Webb in the drawing-room opposite. Jake was a born actor, and having "done up" the Baroness, he proceeded to "do up" several other noted historical characters, not omitting a few less celebrated contemporaries of his own, each representation better and truer to life than the last; and winding up with s.n.a.t.c.hing away their work from the young ladies' not unwilling hands, and piling it in heaps on the floor around him, he sat himself in the middle with an armful hugged close and an air of comically mingled resignation and opulence, and announced himself as "a photo from life of ye dest.i.tute poor of Joppa."

Mrs. Upjohn may have had suspicions that all was not going on precisely as she had planned in that other half of her domains which she had surrendered to Maria's feeble guardianship, but it certainly could not be laid to her blame if young people would amuse themselves even at her house. If they wilfully persisted in neglecting the means of grace she had conscientiously provided for them, so much the worse for them, not for her; and if Mr. Upjohn found the contemplation of Mrs. Bruce's profile, and her occasional smiles at him as she bent over her ugly work, not sufficient of an indemnity for his enforced silence, and chose to sneak over to the young people's side and enjoy himself too, as an inopportune and hearty guffaw from thence testified just at the wrong moment, when Mr. Webb had reached the culminating point of the Baroness' death, and was drawing tears from the ladies' eyes by the irresistible pathos of his voice,--why, Mrs. Upjohn owned in her heart that it was only what might be expected of him, and that she couldn't help that either.

So at last the reading came to an end. Everybody said it had been unprecedentedly delightful, and they should never forget that dear Baroness so long as they lived, and they thought Mrs. Upjohn herself might have sat for the original of the biography, so identical were her virtues with those of the departed saint, and so exactly did she resemble her in every particular except just in the outward circ.u.mstances of her life. And Mrs. Upjohn modestly entreated them to desist drawing so unworthy a comparison, and said it was an example of a life they should each and all do well to imitate so far as in them lay, and then she went about collecting the nightgowns, and (oh, cruellest of all!) inspecting the b.u.t.ton-holes. It was an excellent day's work, she reported, fanning herself vigorously, and Miss Brooks, as champion b.u.t.ton-hole-maker, having made three more than any one else, should have the post of honor and be taken in to supper by Mr. Upjohn, who was routed out from the parlor for the purpose, very red in the face, and still convulsed with laughter. Mrs. Bruce may have suspected this to be designed as a neat way of cutting her out, but there is no knowing to what lengths a flippant widow's imagination will not go, and any way Mr. Upjohn quite atoned afterward for any temporary neglect, by paying her the most a.s.siduous attentions right in the face of his wife, who apparently did not care a straw, and only thought her husband a little more foolish than usual. Did not everybody know that it was only Mr. Upjohn's way, and that it did not mean any thing?

And so the doors were thrown open, supper was announced, and Joppa, as it swarmed around the loaded tables, felt that its hour of merited reward was come; and Mr. Hardcastle, when at last he could eat and drink no more, stood up and p.r.o.nounced, in the name of the united a.s.sembly, that Mrs. Upjohn's entertainment had been a very, very great success, as all that dear Mrs. Upjohn undertook always was sure to be, and particularly those devilled crabs were unapproachable for perfection. n.o.body could make him believe that even the Baroness Bunsen with all her learning could ever have spiced them better.

CHAPTER V.

FRIENDS.

Several days later, as Mr. Halloway was leaving the rectory one afternoon, he saw Phebe standing in her door-way, and crossed to speak to her.

"Alone?" he asked, smiling. "I supposed that now you would never be without a shadow."

"Gerald is up-stairs dressing. She is going to ride with Mr. De Forest.

He has been to see her twice already, and you have not called yet." There was the faintest possible reproach in her voice and in her eyes.

"I have been really busy the last few days, Miss Phebe. You may know there is always some desperate reason when I am long absent. But here I am now. Shall I send in my card for Miss Vernor? Must I do it up in New York or Joppa style?"

Phebe laughed. "Never mind the card, Gerald will be down soon. It is nearly time, and she is always so punctual. What is it, Olly, dear?"

An ugly little boy, with a pale, pinched face and impish eyes, was pulling smartly at her dress.

"I say, Pheeb, can I have a cookie?"

"Does Gerald let you have cookies between meals, Olly?"

"Yes," answered Olly, unhesitatingly. "Always."

"What's that?" broke in an unexpected voice behind,--a clear, ringing, decided voice. "I will not have you tell such lies, Olly!

Why will you do it!"

"I'll have the cookie anyhow," said Olly, starting on a run. "Pheeb said I could, and this is Pheeb's house, and I will."

"And you won't," said the voice, sharply. There was a scuffle, a rush, the sound of a smart box on the ear, a sudden childish howl, and Olly fled back to Phebe and buried his face in her dress. Phebe folded her arms protectingly around him, and looked up appealingly at the tall, slender figure approaching.

"Oh, Gerald, must you?"

"Phebe, I can't have you spoil that boy so. I won't have him a liar and a gourmand; he's bad enough without that. Olly, stop bawling this moment."

"I won't," screamed Olly. "You hurt me, you did, and if I can't have a cookie I'll cry just as loud as ever I can; so there!"

"Then you'll cry in the house and not on the front steps. I won't have it. Come in immediately."

And holding up her habit with one hand, the young lady reached out with the other,--a very small and white but determined-looking little hand Denham noticed (from where he stood he could not see her face)--and wrenching the child by no means gently away from Phebe, she dragged him with her toward the parlor.

"I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!" cried Olly, vociferously, doing battle valiantly with hands and feet as he went. "I hate you every day worse than ever!"

"Hate me all you like," said Gerald, with utmost coolness and disdain. "I leave you perfectly free in that direction, but you shan't tell lies or disobey me. Now stay in there and be still."

And closing the door on the sobbing culprit, she came slowly back to Phebe, still scowling and pressing her lips firmly together as she drew on her gauntlets. "Little wretch!" she muttered.

"Gerald, please," said Phebe, flushing scarlet with mortification, "here is Mr. Halloway. I want to introduce him to you."

Gerald stopped abruptly and looked up. She had not seen him before. A fleet, faint color tinged her clear cheeks an instant, but there was no other sign of embarra.s.sment or annoyance as her dark blue eyes met his with the singularly penetrating gaze with which they looked out on all the world. There was no denying it. With her clear-cut, aristocratic face, and her slim, straight figure, stately perhaps rather than graceful, and a trifle haughty in its unbending erectness, Gerald Vernor was very, very handsome.

"I am happy to meet you at last, Miss Vernor," said Denham, with his pleasant smile. "But you are no stranger to me, I a.s.sure you. Miss Phebe made us all friends of yours long since."

Gerald's brows contracted. "Phebe is very kind," she said, with quite the opposite from grat.i.tude in her voice, "but I hate to be talked about beforehand. One starts on a false basis from the first. Besides, it gives every one else the advantage over one."

"To be sure," replied Denham, "we cannot expect you to know us as well from hearsay. It would be too much to hope that Miss Phebe should have had as much to say for any of the rest of us." He turned laughingly to Phebe as he spoke, and she looked at him with eyes full of implicit faith.