Stubble Part 5

"Won't you pull your chair up?" Joe invited.

Mr. Claybrook decided he would. He was a big man, a grave man, a man of considerable poise, and possessed of whimsical crow's-feet in the corners of his eyes. Mary Louise's apathy seemed to retire a little at his approach.

"Glad to see you survived last night," he said to her with a faint smile.

She flushed, and Joe felt a little roughness under his collar.

"How's the tea room coming? Roused out any hard drinkers yet?"

"Oh, we're not looking for that. We hope to make a few steady friends, but we're depending on the ebb and flow." Her colour was mounting, and had not Joe been so uncomfortable he would have seen how pretty she was. But he sank deeper and deeper into a sullen and unreasoning discomfort. The two had evidently had considerable in common before.

He felt awkward--knew of nothing to say. Claybrook, on the other hand, was enjoying himself.

And apparently sensing the tension in Joe's mind, and seeking to lighten it a bit, she volunteered:

"Captain Claybrook is going to help us put the tea room across. He was one of our best little patrons in Camp Taylor."

Claybrook looked self-conscious; Joe even more embarra.s.sed. And suddenly a strange look crossed her face and she broke off her explanation. Joe turned and looked in the direction toward which she was staring wide-eyed.

And across the room, weaving through the labyrinth of tables and bearing straight down upon them, came a strange apparition. With unsteady gait, his hand stretched out in caution before him and a watery smile upon his lips, came Uncle Buzz. An incongruously picturesque figure amidst smartness and glitter. His head was as sleek as ever and he had waxed the tips of his moustaches so that they stuck out jauntily as did the tips of his black bow tie. But his jacket was short and rusty and in need of pressing, of which fact he seemed blissfully unaware. For, having sighted them, he was coming on steadfastly, past pitfalls that yawned, with a smile upon his face.

Joe felt a peculiar exulting glow pa.s.s over him, whether at the sight of a familiar, friendly face or for some less creditable reason.

Distress was plainly written on the face of Mary Louise. Claybrook talked on, unconscious of what was coming.

And then Mr. Mosby drew up alongside and favoured them with an elaborate bow from the centre of the aisle. A hurrying waiter, being thus perilously presented with an unexpected hazard, made a desperate swerve in mid-flight and menaced an adjoining table with the contents of his tray. A gla.s.s crashed, a woman shrieked, and Uncle Buzz serenely proceeded.

"Don't get up. Pray, don't get up," he said to Joe and Claybrook. "Saw you from the door and merely came to pay my respects. Miss Mary Louise, we miss you in the old town." He turned to her gracefully, and Joe could catch the faint aroma of Bourbon, thus immediately accounting to his own satisfaction for the easy poise and manner. Mary Louise was lost. She watched Claybrook, who seemed amused, and Uncle Buzz went on, turning his attention to Joe. "And by the way, Joseph, if you can arrange to, your Aunt Loraine and I would like for you to spend Sat.u.r.day and Sunday with us."

Joe knew how much his Aunt Loraine would subscribe to this courtesy.

It meant work to do, that was all. But he was amused, felt singularly light-hearted instead of embarra.s.sed. Who can say he was depraved? His voice was kind and cajoling as he replied:

"What are you doing in town, Uncle Buzz? Isn't the store open to-day?

Mr. Claybrook! Mr. Mosby!"

Uncle Buzz acknowledged the honour and then he turned on Joe a dignified but hurt surprise. "I come to town quite frequently," he said, clipping his words. "A Mr. Forbes of Boston wrote me to meet him here about some saddle horses." This was said quietly but with proper emphasis. Joe wondered how far it strayed from the truth. There were only two saddlers left, he knew. Uncle Buzz was swaying slightly to and fro and the little table was rapidly becoming the cynosure of all eyes. Mary Louise looked about her desperately. Uncle Buzz, smiling sweetly in the aisle, and threatening at any moment to shatter the illusion by falling prostrate, was entirely ignorant of her distress.

The tables were reversed. Claybrook was silent; Joe held the centre of the conversational stage.

Suddenly Mary Louise arose. "We must be going," she said. She paused, gave them all an uncertain smile, and then she started rapidly for the door. Old Mr. Mosby looked mildly surprised, then accepted the situation as one too complex for his muddled brain. And Joe, after a first flare of anger, followed her in silence, leaving Claybrook and Uncle Buzz to contest the honours after him.

They parted in the lobby; Mary Louise with a bright spot on either cheek and her lips set in their tightest line; Claybrook suave and genial; Uncle Buzz bewildered and in some way wistfully regretful.

His watery blue eyes held in them an unanswered question that seemed too ponderous for utterance. Joe was silent.

He took her home, along the deserted streets as quickly as possible.

For a long time neither spoke. Then it was some trivial amenity that she uttered to which he made even shorter reply. Up in the elevator they went, silently watching the floor. At the door of her apartment he inclined his head. "Good-night," he said, without offering to shake hands.

"What's the matter, Joe?" she asked, suddenly coming to herself and realizing the oversight.

"Not a thing," he said. "It's perfectly all right with me." He turned to go.

"Oh!" The exclamation was almost involuntary. She shrank back a little into the shadow. "It was a nice party."

He made no reply but acknowledged this with another slight inclination of the head. And then he started down the hall.

For a moment she stood and listened to the m.u.f.fled sound of his footsteps upon the thick hall carpet, and then she softly closed the door.

CHAPTER IV

Joe had been right. There was a difference between an enterprise backed by popular sentiment and practically the same elements with the backing removed. In the first place, the patronage of the new tea room was not so brisk and what there was was more skeptically critical.

There was not that carefree acceptance of things that overlooked deficiencies in the light of the cause they existed under. In fact, the helpful pressure that had held it all cemented had loosened. At the end of the first week the two cooks suggested a raise in pay amounting to ten dollars a month apiece. They did this in accord. And then, contrary to what might be expected now that the war was over, there was an insidious rising in the cost of everything, from table napkins to canned asparagus. Mary Louise began to feel that profits might not be so easy to estimate, after all.

Her coordinate, too, was const.i.tutionally apathetic. She was a bovine creature who positively refused to get ruffled over obstacles, criticisms, or fate. Her name was Maida Jones. Two large pans of buns had burned. Mary Louise, seeking to fix the responsibility, had failed in doing so and was wracked at the prospect of frequently recurring waste. Responsibility to be effective must be undivided. Maida had only laughed. And Mary Louise removed herself from the scene of her defeat and stood in the doorway of the tea room proper and stared bleakly across a vista of deserted tables at a languid and heat-ridden thoroughfare. It was going to be a "hit-or-miss" proposition, a careless, slipshod affair--this tea room--unless she did something to prevent it--and it was too hot. That was what was the matter. It was too hot. She brushed back the hair from her face and slumped. Behind her came the clatter of dishes. And then someone laughed, a coa.r.s.e, raucous laugh. Mary Louise shuddered. The post-office clock boomed six and she suddenly realized that the day was over. There would be no belated custom, for the service stopped at six and the room was empty.

Irritation gave way to discouragement. The day's receipts had been slim indeed. Just then she noticed an automobile roll up to the curb outside, and a man got out. She saw him start for the door, and for a moment she pondered whether she would accomodate him or turn him away.

He opened the door. It was Claybrook.

"Hullo," he said, catching sight of her. "Afraid I'd be too late. Come take a ride."

That was exactly what she wanted to do. "I can't," she said. "I have to wait till they get through back there," indicating with a jerk of the head those uncertain regions which had become suddenly quiet.

"Oh, let them take care of themselves. What is help for if you have to watch it every minute? Come on. It's too hot to work any longer, anyway."

She yielded. First she spent a moment or two before a mirror, tidying herself up, feeling as she did so a little thrill of antic.i.p.ation. And then she stuck her head through the kitchen door and announced that she was leaving. "Don't burn the whole place up, Maida," she cautioned with a laugh as she caught sight of her sitting, humped forward in a kitchen chair, fat elbows resting on a table, placidly viewing a vast clutter of dishes that had not yet been put away.

Mary Louise escaped and clambered into the waiting car, into the vacant seat beside the driver.

They whirled away, turned a corner sharply, and soon were leaving the narrow, restricted streets of the down-town district which had been pulsing and glowering with heat all day. She caught a look at Claybrook in the seat beside her. He was as fresh and cool as though he had not been exposed to the weather at all. Instinctively she reached a restraining hand to her hair. It was blowing in wild disarray. A sudden stretch of stately old houses sitting well back on either side of the street, partly hidden by double rows of trees, caused her fresh doubts as to the fitness of her attire. In her shirtwaist and skirt she felt like an intruder.

A man from the sidewalk bowed to them. So busy was she with her hat that she could not see who it was.

"There goes Wilkes," said Claybrook. "You remember Wilkes out at Camp?

Had charge of the Post Exchange."

She hoped she had escaped recognition. As if for protection she slipped farther down in the seat and was less troubled by the wind.

The neighbourhood through which they were pa.s.sing was becoming even more fashionable, and aristocratic nurse-maids with their aristocratic charges, alike in white, starchy, frilly things, were dotting the sidewalks on either side of the street, supplying a live motif to a prospect that might otherwise seem too orderly and remote. The lawns were beautiful, close cropped and freshly green, and frequent fountains sent a delightful mist across the pavement even to the street. It was all very cool and refreshing. She began to see where certain phases of city life might prove to be quite pleasant. The modern fleshpots may seem alluring not alone in retrospect.

At length they pa.s.sed from the asphalt paving on to a roadway of yellow-red gravel, and up ahead, Mary Louise could see a stretch of open country and beyond, a ridge of misty blue hills. There was a double line of young maples on either side of the boulevard and the fresh young leaves were rustling vigorously in the evening breeze as they pa.s.sed. Claybrook settled down in his seat us they gained the boundary between paving and roadway with what seemed almost like a sigh of relief. He turned upon his companion a satisfied smile, meanwhile cutting down their speed appreciably.

"This is something like it," he said. "Pretty hot down your way to-day?"

"Terrible," admitted Mary Louise. "I don't believe those walls will get cool again before Christmas."

He smiled without answering, being occupied at the moment with a little difficulty in the traffic. Directly he was free.

"Rare old boy--the other night," he said, still watching the road.

For a moment she did not catch the reference.