Otherwise Phyllis Part 31

She tossed the book on the table, as though dismissing a disagreeable subject.

"Well," she said, "about going?"

"You're not going," he replied with decision. "I won't let you go. I don't know how we're going to work it all out, but it won't be so bad.

The girls have got to take it."

She caught a gleam of humor in his eye. The displeasure of his other sisters at her return clearly had no terrors for him. It may have been that she herself shared his pleasure in the thought of their discomfiture. She crossed the hall, wandering aimlessly about, while he waited and wondered. When she returned she said with the brisk manner of one given to quick decisions:--

"I'm going to stay, Amzi. But let us understand now that if I'm a trouble to you, or the rest of them make you uncomfortable, I'll clear out and go to the hotel, or set up a house of my own. So don't be silly about it. I'm a practical person and can take care of myself. I'm not on your hands, you know, financially speaking or any other way."

"Thunder! No!"

This was the first time she had touched upon money matters. While she turned the leaves of the alb.u.m, the clumsy baggage-men had pounded laboriously up the back stairs with her trunks, emphasizing the prosperity of which her visible apparel spoke. He was not without an acute curiosity as to the state of her fortunes. Lois had always been a luxurious person, but she was, unaccountably, the only one of his sisters who had never asked him for money. He had made what they called "advances" to all of them and these had increased as their fortunes dwindled. There was something bafflingly mysterious here. It was a fair a.s.sumption that Jack Holton had spent Lois's money long ago, and the fact that she had floated home with her flags flying and had just announced her ability to set up an establishment for herself was disquieting rather than rea.s.suring. He was ashamed of his fears, but it was against reason that she should have escaped the clutches of a worthless blackguard like Jack Holton with any of her patrimony.

Now that she had announced her determination to remain her spirits rose buoyantly. The thought of meeting Phil had shaken her; and yet that had been but a moment's fleeting shadow, as from a stray cloud wandering across a summer sky. When she referred to Phil again, it was with a detachment at which he marveled. If he had not loved her so deeply and if his happiness at her return had been less complete, he should have thought her heartless. She had called herself "different"; and she was, indeed, different in ways that defied his poor powers of a.n.a.lysis. She was a mystifying creature. Her a.s.surance, her indifference toward the world in general, the cool fashion in which she had touched off on her pretty fingers the chief incidents of her life did not stagger him so much as they fascinated him. She was of his own blood, and yet it was almost another language that she spoke.

She had brought down a box of bon-bons which she now remembered and urged him to try, moving fitfully about the room and poking at the box from time to time absently, while he volunteered information touching old friends. Her interest in local history was apparently the slightest: he might have been talking of the Gauls in the time of Caesar for all the interest she manifested in her contemporaries and their fortunes. He finally mentioned with dogged daring the Bartletts whom she had known well; they had been exceedingly kind to Phil, he said. Her manner was so provokingly indifferent that he was at the point of bringing Kirkwood into the picture in a last effort to shatter her unconcern. She bit a bon-bon in two, made a grimace of dissatisfaction, and tossed the remaining half into the fire.

"Oh, the Bartlett girls! Let me see, which was the musical one--Rose or Nan?"

"Rose. Nan's literary. They're fine women, and they've been a mighty big help to Phil," he persisted.

"Very nice of them, I'm sure," she said, yawning.

The yawn reminded her that she was sleepy, and without prelude she kissed him, asked the breakfast hour, and went up to bed.

He followed to make sure that she had what she needed, surveyed the trunks that loomed in the hall like a mountain range, and went below to commune with the fire.

As he reviewed the situation, to the accompaniment of her quick, light patter on the guest-room floor, he was unable to key himself to a note of tragedy. The comedy of life had never been wasted on him, and it was, after all, a stupendous joke that Lois should have come back almost as tranquilly as though she had been away for a week's visit. The longer he brooded the more it tickled him. She either was incapable of comprehending the problems involved in her return or meant to face them with the jauntiness which her troubled years had increased rather than diminished.

Life with her, he mused, was not a permanent book of record, but a flimsy memorandum, from which she tore the leaves when they displeased her and crumpled them into the wastebasket of oblivion. It was a new idea; but it had, he reflected, its merits. He went to the front door, as was his habit, to survey the heavens before retiring. The winter stars shone gloriously, and the night was still. The town clock boomed twelve, ushering in Christmas. He walked a little way down the path as he counted the strokes, glanced up at Lois's window, then across the hedges to the homes of the other daughters of the house of Montgomery, chuckled, said "Thunder!" so loudly that his own voice startled him, and went hurriedly in and bolted the door.

CHAPTER XVI

MERRY CHRISTMAS

On every Christmas morning it was the custom of Amzi's sisters to repair with their several families to his house, carrying their gifts and bearing thence such presents as he might bestow. The Fosd.i.c.ks and the Watermans had children, and these were encouraged to display themselves frequently at their uncle's. And Amzi was kind and generous in his relations with all of them. Amzi Waterman and Amzi Fosd.i.c.k, still in short trousers, had been impressed at their respective homes with the importance of ingratiating themselves with Uncle Amzi, and Amzi, fully cognizant of this, was an ideal uncle to each impartially. Mrs. Fosd.i.c.k hoped that her little Susan would be as thoroughly established in Amzi's regard as Phil; there was always Phil,--that unbridled, unbroken, fearless young mustang of a Phil.

Amzi was down early giving the final revision to his list of presents.

Having found in years gone by that it was decidedly unsafe to buy gifts for his sisters, as they were never satisfied with his selections and poorly concealed their displeasure, he had latterly adopted the policy of giving each of them one hundred dollars in gold.

Ten was the usual hour for the family gathering, and as the clock struck, Amzi began wandering through the house restlessly. Occasionally he grinned, and said "Thunder!" quietly to himself. In the night watches he had pondered the advisability of warning Lois's sisters of her return; but he saw nothing to be gained by this. Something of Lois's serene indifference had communicated itself to him; and as an attentive student of the continuing human comedy he speculated cheerfully as to the length and violence of the impending storm. Kirkwood had never partic.i.p.ated in these Christmas morning visits, and Phil usually dropped in after her aunts had departed. It seemed easier to let Fate take charge of the disclosure.

A door slammed in the upper hall, and Amzi heard the colored woman descending the back stairs. Lois was having her breakfast in her room, an unprecedented circ.u.mstance in the domestic economy. Then Jeremiah was summoned to distribute the much-belabeled trunks. Amzi's sensations during these unwonted excitements were, on the whole, not disagreeable.

The invasion of his bachelor privacy was too complete for any minute a.n.a.lysis of what he liked or didn't like. It was a good deal of a joke,--this breakfasting in bed, this command of the resources of his establishment to scatter trunks about. As he crossed the hall he was arrested by a cheerful "Merry Christmas."

Lois, in a pink kimona, smilingly waved her hand from the top step where she sat composedly watching him.

"Merry Christmas!" he called back.

"Here's a present for you,--got it in Paris, special. If you don't like it, I'll trade you another for it. Catch!"

She tossed him a box containing a scarfpin, and she nursed her knees, humming to herself and clicking her slipper heels while he examined it.

She interrupted his stammered thanks to ask whether any of the "folks"

had been in yet.

She had dressed her hair in the prevailing pompadour fashion, which was highly becoming; and the kimona imparted to her face a soft rose color.

She was a pretty rose of a woman, and he leaned against the newel and regarded her with appreciation.

"I slept like a top; it's as still as the woods around here. I suppose Montgomery's never going to grow much; and it's just as well. What's property worth a front foot on Main Street,--oh, say within a couple of blocks of the court-house?"

"About five hundred dollars, I guess."

She lifted her head as though thinking deeply.

"Real estate's the only thing, if you get into it right. You were never much on speculation, were you, Amzi? Well, you were wise to keep out of it. It takes imagination--" She brushed the subject away gracefully.

"You still own a farm or two?"

"Yes."

"I always thought I'd like to go in for farming sometime. I've looked into the fruit business out West and there must be a lot of cheap land in Indiana that would do splendidly for apples. There's no reason why you should have to pay the freight on apples all the way from Oregon.

Ever tackled apples?"

"Yes; I have an orchard or two," he admitted wonderingly.

If he had spent the night guessing what subject she would choose for a morning confab, apple culture would not have been on the list. He had thought that perhaps the day would bring a torrent of questions about old friends, but she seemed more aloof than ever. The pearl in his scarfpin was a splendid specimen; he roughly calculated that it represented an expenditure of at least a hundred dollars; and she had flung it at him as carelessly as though she were tossing cherries from a tree.

"Can I do anything for you about the trunks? You can have Jerry as long as you like."

"Oh, I shan't work on that job all day. It's too much bother. I'll dig the stuff out gradually. I'll have to throw most of it away anyhow. I've got everything I own in that pile. I suppose I'd better get dressed--What did you say about the morning gathering,--is it a ceremonial affair?"

"Well, the girls have liked to do it that way,--all come in a bunch after their home doings."

"That's very nice, really picturesque! I suppose they're all a lot of comfort to you, living alone this way. Do they dine here to-day? How about Tom and Phil?"

It was clear from her tone that the ident.i.ty of his guests was a negligible matter. She mentioned her former husband without emotion, and her tone implied no particular interest in the answer.

"We were all of us to dine with Josie to-day; we sort o' move around, and it's her turn; but if you'd rather stay here we'll have dinner together or any way you like. Tom never mixes up in the dinner parties.

But Phil will be here after a while; say about eleven. You'd better be ready."

"Certainly; I'll get into some other clothes right away." She stood, lifted her arms, and stretched herself lazily. "It's nice to see you looking so well; but Sarah confided to me when she brought up my breakfast that you eat altogether too much. Sarah's very nice; I like Sarah. And I can see that Jerry dotes on you. You're pampered, Amzi; I can see that you don't resist the temptation to stuff yourself with Sarah's cooking. I'd be a roly-poly myself if I didn't cut off starch and sweets now and then."

There was a sound of steps at the front door, followed by a prolonged tinkle of the doorbell. Amzi glanced up to make sure she was out of sight. He heard her humming as she pa.s.sed down the hall to her room and then he rubbed his head vigorously as though rallying his wits in readiness for the invasion, and flung open the door.

The two young Amzis and little Susan greeted him effusively and he yielded himself with avuncular meekness to their embraces. They had come bearing gifts which they bestowed upon him noisily, while the remainder of the delegation crowded in. His three sisters kissed him in succession, in the ascending order of age, and he shook hands with his brothers-in-law.