The Camerons of Highboro Part 2

They spent the rest of the afternoon making plans and Elizabeth went home walking on air.

But Mother, alas! proved a stumbling-block. "That would be very nice,"

she said, "very nice indeed; but Elliott Cameron has plenty of relatives. They will make some arrangement among them. I should hardly feel at liberty to interfere with their plans."

"But her Aunt Elinor is going to France, and you know the James Camerons' house is in quarantine. That leaves only the Vermont Camerons--"

"Oh, yes. I remember, now, there was a third brother. They have their plans, probably."

And that was absolutely all Bess could get her mother to say.

"But, Mother," she almost sobbed at last, "I--I _asked_ her!"

"Then I am afraid you will have to un-ask her," said Mrs. Royce. "We really can't get another person into the house this summer, with your Aunt Grace and her family coming in July."

Then it was that Elliott discovered the _impa.s.se_. Try as she would, she could find no way out, and she lost a good deal of sleep in the attempt. To have to do something that she didn't wish to do was intolerable. You may think this very silly; if you do, it shows that you have not always had your own way. Elliott had never had anything but her own way. That it had been in the main a sweet and likable way did not change the fact. And how Stannard would gloat over her! He had had to do the thing himself, but secretly she had looked down on him for it, just as she had always despised girls who lamented their obligation to go to places where they did not wish to go. There was always, she had held, a way out, if you used your brains. Altogether, it was a disconcerted, bewildered, and thoroughly put-out young lady who, a week later, found herself taking the train for Highboro. The world--her familiar, complacent, agreeable world--had lost its equilibrium.

CHAPTER II

THE END OF A JOURNEY

Hours later, from a red-plush, Pullmanless train, Elliott Cameron stepped down to three people--a tall, dark, surprisingly pretty girl a little older than herself, a chunky girl of twelve, and a middle-sized, freckle-faced boy. The boy took her bag and asked for her trunk-checks quite as well as any of her other cousins could have done and the tall girl kissed her and said how glad they were to have the chance to know her.

"I am Laura," she said, "and here is Gertrude; and Henry will bring up your trunks to-morrow, unless you need them to-night. Mother sent you her love. Oh, we're so glad to have you come!"

Then it is to be feared that Elliott perjured herself. Her all-day journey had not in the least reconciled her to the situation; if anything, she was feeling more bewildered and put out than when she started. But surprise and dismay had not routed her desire to please.

She smiled prettily as her glance swept the welcoming faces, and kissed the girls and handed the boy two bits of pasteboard, and said--Oh, Elliott!--how delighted she was to see them at last. You would never have dreamed from Elliott's lips that she was not overjoyed at the chance to come to Highboro and become acquainted with cousins that she had never known.

But Laura, who was wiser than she looked, noticed that the new-comer's eyes were not half so happy as her tongue. Poor dear, thought Laura, how pretty she was and how daintily patrician and charming! But her father was on his way to France! And though he went in civilian capacity and wasn't in the least likely to get hurt, when they were seated in the car Laura leaned over and kissed her new cousin again, with the recollection warm on her lips of empty, anxious days when she too had waited for the release of the cards announcing safe arrivals overseas.

Elliott, who was every minute realizing more fully the inexorableness of the fact that she was where she was and not where she wasn't, kissed back without much thought. It was her nature to kiss back, however she might feel underneath, and the surprising suddenness of the whole affair had left her numb. She really hadn't much curiosity about the life into which she was going. What did it matter, since she didn't intend to stay in it? Just as soon as the quarantine was lifted from Uncle James's house she meant to go back to Cedarville. But she did notice that the little car was not new, that on their way through the town every one they met bowed and smiled, that Henry had amazingly good manners for a country boy, that Laura looked very strong, that Gertrude was all hands and elbows and feet and eyes, and that the car was continually either climbing up or sliding down hills. It slid out of the village down a hill, and it was climbing a hill when it met squarely in the road a long, low, white house, canopied by four big elms set at the four corners, and gave up the ascent altogether with a despairing honk-honk of its horn.

A lady rose from the wide veranda of the white house, laid something gray on a table, and came smilingly down the steps. A little girl of eight followed her, two dogs dashed out, and a kitten. The road ran into the yard and stopped; but behind the house the hill kept on going up. Elliott understood that she had arrived at the Robert Camerons'.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Laura took the new cousin up to her room]

The lady, who was tall and dark-haired, like Laura, but with lines of gray threading the black, put her arms around the girl and kissed her.

Even in her preoccupation, Elliott was dimly aware that the quality of this embrace was subtly different from any that she had ever received before, though the lady's words were not unlike Laura's. "Dear child,"

she said, "we are so glad to know you." And the big dark eyes smiled into Elliott's with a look that was quite new to that young person's experience. She didn't know why she felt a queer thrill run up her spine, but the thrill was there, just for a minute. Then it was gone and the girl only thought that Aunt Jessica had the most fascinating eyes that she had ever seen; whenever she chose, it seemed that she could turn on a great steady light to shine through their velvety blackness.

Laura took the new cousin up to her room. The house through which they pa.s.sed seemed rather a barren affair, but somehow pleasant in spite of its dark painted floors and rag rugs and unmistakably shabby furniture. Flowers were everywhere, doors stood open, and breezes blew in at the windows, billowing the straight scrim curtains. The guest's room was small and slant-ceilinged. One picture, an unframed photograph of a big tree leaning over a brook, was tacked to the wall; a braided rug lay on the floor; on a small table were flowers and a book; over the queer old chest of drawers hung a small mirror; there was no pier-gla.s.s at all. Very spotless and neat, but bare--hopelessly bare, unless one liked that sort of thing.

There was one bit of civilization, however, that these people appreciated--one's need of warm water. As Elliott bathed and dressed, her spirits lightened a little. It did rather freshen a person's outlook, on a hot day, to get clean. She even opened the book to discover its name. "Lorna Doone." Was that the kind of thing they read at the farm? She had always meant to read "Lorna Doone," when she had time enough. It looked so interminably long. But there wouldn't be much else to do up here, she reflected. Then she surveyed what she could of herself in the dim little mirror--probably Laura would wish to copy her style of hair-dressing--and descended, very slender and chic, to supper.

It was a big circle which sat down at that supper-table. There was Uncle Robert, short and jolly and full of jokes, who wished to hear all about everybody and plied Elliott with questions. There was another new cousin, a wiry boy called Tom, and a boy older than Henry, who certainly wasn't a cousin, but who seemed very much one of the family and who was introduced as Bruce Fearing. And there was Stannard. Stannard had returned in high feather from Upton and intercourse with a cla.s.smate whom he would doubtless have termed his kind. Stannard was inclined for a minute or two to indulge in code talk with Elliott. She did not encourage him and it amused her to observe how speedily the conversation became general again, though in quite what way it was accomplished she could not detect.

But if these new cousins' manners were above reproach, their supper-table was far from sophisticated. No maid appeared, and Gertrude and Tom and eight-year-old Priscilla changed the plates.

Laura and Aunt Jessica, Elliott noticed, had entered from the kitchen.

It was no secret that all the girls had been berrying in the forenoon.

Henry seemed to have had a hand in making the ice-cream, judging by the compliments he received. So that was the way they lived, thought the new guest! It was, however, a surprisingly good supper. Elliott was astonished at herself for eating so much salad, so many berries and m.u.f.fins, and for pa.s.sing her plate twice for ice-cream.

After supper every one seemed to feel it the natural thing to set to work and "do" the dishes, or something else equally pressing; at least every one for a short time grew amazingly busy. Even Elliott asked for an ap.r.o.n--it was Elliott's code when in Rome to do as the Romans do--though she was relieved when her uncle tucked her arm in his and said she must come and talk to him on the porch. As they left the kitchen, the boy Bruce was skilfully whirling a string mop in a pan full of hot suds.

Under cover of animated chatter with her uncle Elliott viewed the prospect dolefully. Dish-washing came three times a day, didn't it?

The thing was evidently a family rite in this household. The girl understood her respite could be only temporary; self-respect would see to that. But didn't she catch a glimpse of Stannard nonchalantly sauntering around a corner of the house with the air of one who hopes his back will not be noticed?

Presently she discovered another household custom--to go up to the top of the hill to watch the sunset. Up between flowering borders and through a gra.s.sy orchard the path climbed, thence to wind through thickets of sweet fern and scramble around boulders over a wild, fragrant pasture slope. It was beautiful up there on the hilltop, with its few big sheltering trees, its welter of green crests on every side, and its line of far blue peaks behind which the sun went down--beautiful but depressing. Depressing because every one, except Stannard, seemed to enjoy it so. Elliott couldn't help seeing that they were having a thoroughly good time. There was something engaging about these cousins that Elliott had never seen among her cousins at home, a good-fellowship that gave one in their presence a sense of being closely knit together; of something solid, dependable and secure, for all its lightness and variety. But, oh, dear! she knew that she wasn't going to care for the things that they cared for, or enjoy doing the things that they did! And there must be at least six weeks of this--dish-washing and climbing hills, with good frocks on.

Six weeks, not a day longer. But she exclaimed in pretty enthusiasm over Laura's disclosure of a bed of maidenhair fern, tasted approvingly Tom's spring water, recited perfectly, after only one hearing, Henry's tale of the peaks in view, and let Bruce Fearing give her a geography lesson from the southernmost point of the hilltop.

It was only when at last she was in bed in the slant-ceilinged room, with her candle blown out and a big moon looking in at the window, that Elliott quite realized how forlorn she felt and how very, very far three thousand miles from Father was actually going to seem.

The world up here in Vermont was so very still. There were no lights except the stars, and for a person accustomed to an electrically illuminated street only a few rods from her window, stars and a moon merely added to the strangeness. Soft noises came from the other rooms, sounds of people moving about, but not a sound from outside, nothing except at intervals the cry of a mournful bird. After a while the noises inside ceased. Elliott lay quiet, staring at the moonlit room, and feeling more utterly miserable than she had ever felt before in her life. Homesick? It must be that this was homesickness. And she had been wont to laugh, actually laugh, at girls who said they were homesick! She hadn't known that it felt like this! She hadn't known that anything in all the world could feel as hideous as this. She knew that in a minute she was going to cry--she couldn't help herself; actually, Elliott Cameron was going to cry.

A gentle tap came at the door. "Are you asleep?" whispered a voice.

"May I come in?"

Laura entered, a tall white shape that looked even taller in the moonlight.

"_Are_ you sleepy?" she whispered.

"Not in the least," said Elliott.

Laura settled softly on the foot of the bed. "I hoped you weren't.

Let's talk. Doesn't it seem a shame to waste time sleeping on a night like this?"

Elliott tossed her a pillow. It was comforting to have Laura there, to hear a voice saying something, no matter what it was talking about.

And Laura's voice was very pleasant and what she said was pleasant, too.

Soon another shape appeared at the door Laura had left half-open. "It is too fine a night to sleep, isn't it, girls?" Aunt Jessica crossed the strip of moonlight and dropped down beside Laura.

"Are you all in here?" presently inquired a third voice. "I could hear you talking and, anyway, I couldn't sleep."

"Come in," said Elliott.

Gertrude burrowed comfortably down on the other side of her mother.

Elliott, watching the three on the foot of her bed, thought they looked very happy. Her aunt's hair hung in two thick braids, like a girl's, over her shoulders, and her face, seen in the moonlight, made Elliott feel things that she couldn't fit words to. She didn't know what it was she felt, exactly, but the forlornness inside her began to grow less and less, until at last, when her aunt bent down and kissed her and a braid touched the pillow on each side of Elliott's face, it was quite gone.

"Good night, little girl," said Aunt Jessica, "and happy dreams."

CHAPTER III