Strawberry Acres Part 36

"No, no, thank you--I'd rather see my own family first. I can wait.

I'll go up and get off these travelling things and unpack my bag--that will take up a little time," and Sally prepared to put her suggestion into action.

"Just let me go up first, Miss Sally," urged Joanna. "Not expecting you so soon the room's no linen in it--it won't look like home to you. I won't be ten minutes. It's too bad--Miss Josephine was going to have the house all trimmed up with flowers for you."

Seeing that to refuse to allow this would disappoint Joanna, Sally submitted and went out to the open front door again, to stand looking off into the wet night where a row of distant lights glimmering vaguely through the mist outlined the course of the trolley connecting Wybury with the city.

"Anyhow, I'm at home," she consoled herself. "I might be content with that, for an hour or two, but it does seem as if I could never wait. If I could only see my garden--"

She went to the end of the porch and tried to make out some sign that would indicate its presence, but the mist was too thick. Yet the light from the living-room windows shone directly down that way. "I believe if I were out there I could see something," she reflected. "I'm going to change my clothes--I might as well soak them a little more." She ran back into the hall, caught up her blue coat, and pulling it on flew out again and plunged off the porch into the darkness, the April rain, more mist than drops, falling on her fair curls. The gra.s.s was long and wet, but she cared for nothing now, and dashed on till she came to the first box-border, lying distinct in one of the shafts of light from the windows.

Hunting expectantly about she explored the whole garden, laughing softly to herself at the absurdity of the performance, for she was growing wetter every minute. She felt of the ground where she could not see it, exulting in the discovery of ranks of tulips, where she had planted their bulbs last fall, just breaking into bud.

"You dear things," she said, under her breath, "how enchanting of you to be out to welcome me home, when you had never met me before!--Over there's the sweet pea trellis--I wonder if Bob put the seeds in as I wrote him? Can I tell by the feel of the ground? Oh, the light falls there--I can see."

She was so absorbed in this entertaining exploration that she did not hear the distant closing of a door beyond the pine grove, nor the footsteps which presently came that way and paused, just beyond the orchard. Neither did she guess at the quiet approach of a tall figure through the mist, until it stood upon the edge of the garden. The first she knew of its presence was the sound of a familiar voice, speaking quietly so that it might not startle her, yet with a note of joy plainly perceptible through its control.

"Can I believe my eyes--or am I dreaming that I see you, Sally Lane?"

"Oh, Jarvis!" The cry was a startled one, in spite of his precaution.

Then the blue figure flew toward the gray one in the shadow, both hands out, as Sally forgot everything except that here at last was one who seemed to belong to her own household.

"My dear girl! When did you come? Have we missed getting a message?"

Jarvis, meeting her more than half way, held the small hands tight, stooping to try to see into her face.

"No, no--I didn't send any--I wanted to surprise you all. Uncle Tim decided to stop off in Washington for a week, and I couldn't bear to wait. He is perfectly well now, and said I might come on. So I came. I never dreamed that every one would be away."

"It's a confounded mischance," his lips said heartily, but his thoughts added--"_for everybody but me_." He went on quickly, "You mustn't stay out here. How long have you been out?" He touched her hair. "Why, it's soaking wet. Come in, child."

He kept firm hold of one hand and drew her with him in a rapid progress to the porch. The moment the light fell on her face he was expectantly studying it, and when he had her in the hall under the stronger rays he stood still and looked at her as if he wanted to make up for months of deprivation. She turned a rosy red under his scrutiny, her cheeks looking like moist but vivid flowers, drops of rain sparkling in her hair and clinging even to her lashes.

"Come in by the fire and dry your hair," he commanded.

She shook her head and drew away her hand. "No, I'll run up and dry everything at once."

"You won't be all the evening about it?" he questioned, with suspicion, for her att.i.tude suggested flight.

"How can I tell?" The old mischief looked out of her eyes.

He took a step toward her. "Come and get the first wet off by the fire," he urged.

But, laughing, she fled up the stairs.

"I didn't know he was such a distinguished-looking person," she was owning to herself as she ran along the upper hall. "Why, he's grown so much heavier and handsomer I'm actually afraid of him--it doesn't seem like the same Jarvis Burnside I've known so long. He's--he's--what Dorothy Chase would call stunning! I never supposed that farming would have that effect on anybody."

Then she rushed into her own room to find it in spotless order, with evidences of Joanna's recent presence in a brisk little fire burning in the small bedroom fireplace, the freshest of appointments everywhere, and a trimly bright lamp upon the old cherry dressing-table which had come from New Hampshire among Uncle Timothy's furniture.

"My trunk isn't here--what in the world shall I put on?" was her first anxiety. She opened the door of her closet, to find all her last summer's frocks newly "done up" and hanging there in inviting daintiness. She caught at the lilac muslin, now faded by many washings into a mere tint, but looking so like home and good times that it seemed the fitting thing to don, in the absence of her heavier dresses, even upon an April night.

A half-hour later, her hair crisply dried by the fire and curling blithely from its recent bath, herself sweet with the soap-and-water and clean-clothes freshness which is the only fragrance worth cultivating, Sally stole on tiptoe to the top of the stairs and peeped down. She beheld Jarvis pacing up and down the hall, and as she looked saw him take his watch out and scan its face as if he had an appointment to keep. She stood still, her pulses beating rather quickly. This was not exactly the sort of home-coming she had planned, this reception by one person. But it was nearly ten o'clock already, she had managed to consume so much time upstairs. Also, upon Joanna's return to her room to inquire if there were anything else she wanted, the young mistress of the house had imperatively commanded the presence in the living-room of the middle-aged housekeeper until such time as Max and the boys should arrive. Joanna, with her neat black dress and smooth hair, was certainly fitted in appearance for the duties of duenna, and Sally had felt no hesitation whatever in requiring her to a.s.sume that role.

So Joanna now waited in the living-room--rather reluctantly, it must be admitted, for it seemed to her that this was carrying chaperonage unnecessarily far. But Jarvis was in the hall, and the door had been closed between. Sally did not realize this latter fact until she had almost reached the bottom of the stairs, where Jarvis, the moment that he had caught sight of her, had advanced to meet her. She looked at the door with a startled expression. It was ordinarily kept open, except in very cold weather.

"Yes, I know it's shut," said the young man at the foot of the stairs, with a smile. "Awful situation, isn't it? But you can escape back up the stairs--if you are quick. I warn you that you'll have to be very quick!"

"Will you give me sixty seconds' start?"

"Not I. You've had five months' start--that's enough. Now you are back--how well you are looking!"

She stood still, two steps above him. Even so, she had not much the advantage of him in height.

"So are you," she retorted. "But we don't need to stay out here to tell each other that. Let's--"

"Are you so eager to see Joanna again? She's looking very well also--for Joanna--but she can wait a minute or two to hear it."

"Joanna has been so good--she's cleaned the whole house for me. She--"

"I know. She's a treasure--but I haven't time to think about her now. All I can think of is that--I'm looking at you again! I told you in my last letter that I wanted to tell you how I felt about your coming home. Do you care to know?"

"Are you really glad?" Sally tried to ask it as she would have done a year ago, in the old friendly time when it was a matter of course that she and Jarvis should be glad to see each other.

"Am I? What do you think?"

"I should be very disappointed if you were not, of course. I want everybody to welcome me home--I've missed it so."

"But you still don't want the welcoming done--'_two and two_'? Sally, it's a long lane that has no turning. Am I never to come to one?"

"I'm not a very 'long Lane,'" expostulated the girl, laughter on her lips but her eyes shy.

"That may be. But though you have so many turnings it seems to me as if I had been kept a good while on the straight stretch. What if you should let me see just a little way round the corner? You know what I want to find there! You know how dearly I--love you!"

There was a moment's silence.

"Will you be contented to see a very little way?"

"I can't promise to be contented, but I'll agree to be patient, if I can get even a glimpse of where my lane may lead in the end."

Sally tried to look frankly at him, in the old way. It proved less easy than she would have supposed. His whole personality seemed to have grown so dominant, so compelling. She put out one hand. He grasped it eagerly, and would have drawn her down to where he stood, but she prevented this with a warning gesture.

"No, no--" she said quickly--"it's only round the corner you're to look!

That only means--I'm willing to be very good friends--better than we have been, perhaps. I don't want to be--tied--by any promises. I want to be a girl yet--only not--perhaps--quite so little a girl as before.

Meanwhile--you're not tied, either."

A short laugh interrupted her. "There's nothing on earth I should like so much!"

"There's such a lovely girl next door--I've heard--"

"What have you heard?"

Sally did not seem to be willing to tell.