The Late Mrs. Null Part 18

Roberta could not help thinking that the sudden turn in the new track began with the visit of her uncle to this house, and that the old lady need not have inflicted upon her the disagreeable necessity of witnessing a hostess taking a very repulsive cold plunge; but all she said was that she hoped the families would now live together in friendly relations; and that she was sure that, if this were to be, it would give her uncle a great deal of pleasure. She very much wanted to ask Mrs Keswick how Mr Croft happened to be here at this time, but she felt that her very brief acquaintance with the lady would not warrant the discussion of a subject like that.

"She is very much the kind of woman I thought she was," said Roberta to herself, when, after some further hospitable remarks from Mrs Keswick, the two went to the parlor together to find Mr Croft. But that gentleman, having been deserted by all the ladies, was walking up and down the greensward in front of the house, smoking a cigar. Mrs Keswick went out to him, and greeted him very cordially, begging him to excuse her for not being able to see him as soon as he came.

Lawrence set all this aside in his politest manner, but declared himself very much disappointed in not seeing Mr Keswick, and also remarked that from what she had said to him on his last visit he had expected to find quite a little party here.

"I am sorry," said the old lady, "that Junius is away, for he would be very glad to see you, and it never came into my mind to mention to you that he was obliged to be in Washington at this time. And, as for the party, I thought afterwards that it would be a great deal cosier just to have a few persons here."

"Oh, yes," said Lawrence, "most certainly, a great deal cosier."

Mrs Keswick ate supper with her guests, and behaved very well. During the evening she sustained the main part of the conversation, giving the company a great many anecdotes and reminiscences of old times and old families, relating them in an odd and peculiar way that was very interesting, especially to Croft, to whom the subject matter was quite new. But, although her three companions listened to the old lady with deferential attention, interspersed with appropriate observations, each one made her the object of severe mental scrutiny, and endeavored to discover the present object of her scheming old mind. Roberta was quite sure that her invitation and that of Mr Croft was a piece of artful management on the part of the old lady, and imagined, though she was not quite sure about it, that it was intended as a bit of match-making. To get her married to somebody else, would be, of course, the best possible method of preventing her marrying Junius; and this, she had reason to believe, was the prime object of old Mrs Keswick's existence. But why should Mr Croft be chosen as the man with whom she was to be thrown. She had learned that the old lady had seen him before, but was quite certain that her acquaintance with him was slight. Could Junius have told his aunt about the friendship between herself and Mr Croft? It was not like him, but a great many unlikely things take place.

As for Lawrence, he knew very well there was a trick beneath his invitation, but he could not at all make out why it had been played. He had been given an admirable opportunity of offering himself to Miss March, but there was no reason, apparent to him, why this should have been done.

Miss Annie, watching her aunt very carefully, and speaking but seldom, quite promptly made up her mind in regard to the matter. She knew very well the bitter opposition of the old woman to a marriage between Junius and Miss March; and saw, as plainly as she saw the lamp on the table, that Roberta had been brought here on purpose to be sacrificed to Mr Croft. Everything had been made ready, the altar cleared, and, as well as the old lady's grindstone would act, the knife sharpened. "But," said Miss Annie to herself, "she needn't suppose that I am going to sit quiet and see all this going on, with Junius away off there in Washington, knowing nothing about any of it."

Miss Roberta retired quite early to her room, having been fatigued by her long drive, and she was just about to put out her light when she heard a little knock at the door. Opening it slightly, she saw there Junius Keswick's cousin, who also appeared quite ready for bed.

"May I come in for a minute?" said Annie.

"Certainly," replied Miss March, admitting her, and closing the door after her.

"I have something to tell you," said the younger lady, admiring as she spoke, the length of her companion's braided hair. "I intended to keep it until to-morrow, but since I came up stairs I felt I could not let you sleep a night under the same roof with me without knowing it. I am not Mrs Null."

"What!" exclaimed Roberta, in a tone which made Annie lift up her hands and implore her not to speak so loud, for fear that her aunt should hear her. "I know she hasn't come up stairs yet, for she sits up dreadfully late, but she can hear things, almost anywhere. No, I am not Mrs Null.

There is no such person as Mr Null, or, at least, he is a mere gaseous myth, whom I married for the sake of the protection his name gave me."

"This is the most extraordinary thing I ever heard," said Roberta. "You must tell me all about it."

"I don't want to keep you up," said Annie, "you must be tired."

"I am not tired," said Roberta, "for every particle of fatigue has flown away." And with this she made Annie sit down beside her on the lounge.

"Now you must tell me what this means," she said. "Can it be that your aunt does not know about it?"

"Indeed, she does not," said Annie. "I married Freddy Null in New York, for reasons which we need not talk of now, for that matter is all past and gone; but when I came here, I found almost immediately, that he would be more necessary to me in this house than anywhere else."

"I cannot imagine," said Roberta, "why a gaseous husband should be necessary to you here."

"It is not a very easy thing to explain," said the other, "that is, it is easy enough, but--"

"Oh," said Roberta, catching the reason of her companion's hesitation, "I don't think you ought to object to tell me your reason. Does it relate to your cousin Junius?"

"Well," said Annie, "not altogether, and not so much to him as to my aunt." "I think I see," said Roberta. "A marriage between you two would suit her very well. Are you afraid that she would try to force him on you?"

"Oh, no;" said Annie, "that would be bad enough, but it would not be so embarra.s.sing, and so dreadfully unpleasant, as forcing me on him, and that is what aunt wants to do. And you can easily see that, in that case, I could not stay in this house at all. I scarcely know my cousin as a man, my strongest recollection of him being that of a big and very nice boy, who used to climb up in the apple-trees to get me apples, and then come down to the very lowest branch where he could drop the ripest ones right into my ap.r.o.n, and not bruise them. But, even if I had been acquainted with him all these years, and liked him ever so much, I couldn't stay here and have aunt make him take me, whether he wanted to, or not. And, unless you knew my aunt very well, you could not conceive how unscrupulously straightforward she is in carrying out her plans."

"And so," said Roberta, "you have quite baffled her by this little ruse of a marriage."

"Not altogether," said Annie with a smile, "for she vows she is going to get me divorced from Mr Null."

"That is funnier than the rest of it," said Roberta, laughing. And they both laughed together, but in a subdued way, so as not to attract the attention of the old lady below stairs. "And now, you see," said Annie, "why I must be Mrs Null while I stay here. And you will promise me that you will never tell any one?"

"You may be sure I shall keep your queer secret. But have you not told it to any one but me?"

"Yes," said Annie, "but I have only told it to one other, Mr Croft. But please don't speak of it to him."

"Mr Croft!" exclaimed Roberta. "How in the world did you come to tell him? Do you know him so well as that?"

"Well," said Annie, "it does seem out of the way, I admit, that I should tell him, but I can't give you the whole story of how I came to do it.

It wouldn't interest you--at least, it would, but I oughtn't to tell it.

It is a twisty sort of thing."

"Twisty?" said Roberta, drawing herself up, and a little away from her companion.

Annie looked up, and caught the glance by which this word was accompanied, and the tone in which it was spoken went straight to her soul. "Now," said she, "if you are going to look at me, and speak in that way, I'll tell you every bit of it." And she did tell the whole story, from her first meeting with Mr Croft in the Information Shop, down to the present moment.

"What is your name, anyway?" said Roberta, when the story had been told.

"My name," said the other, "is Annie Peyton."

"And now, do you know, Annie Peyton," said Roberta, pa.s.sing her fingers gently among the short, light-brown curls on her companion's forehead, "that I think you must have a very, very kindly recollection of the boy who used to come down to the lowest branches of the tree to drop apples into your ap.r.o.n."

CHAPTER XVI.

Shortly after Peggy arrived with her mistress at the Keswick residence, her mind began to be a good deal disturbed. She had been surprised, when the carriage drew up to the door, that "Mahs' Junius"

had not rushed down to meet his intended bride, and when she found he was not in the house, and had, indeed, gone away from home, she did not at all know what to make of it. If Miss Rob took the trouble to travel all the way to the home of the man that the Midbranch people had decided she should marry, it was a very wonderful thing, indeed, that he should not be there to meet her. And while these thoughts were turning themselves over in the mind of this meditative girl of color, and the outgoing look in her eyes was extending itself farther and farther, as if in search of some solution of the mystery, up rode Mr Croft.

"Dar _he!_" exclaimed Peggy, as she stood at the corner of the house where she had been pursuing her meditations. "He!" she continued in a voice that would have been quite audible to any one standing near. "Upon my libin' soul, wot brung him h'yar? Miss Rob don' wan' him round, nohow. I done druv him off wunst. Upon my libin' soul, he's done brung his bag behin' him on de saddle, an' I reckon he's gwine to stay."

As Mr Croft dismounted and went into the house, Peggy glowered at him; sundry expressions, sounding very much like odds and ends of imprecations which she had picked up in the course of a short but investigative existence, gurgling from her lips. "I wish dat ole Miss Keswick kunjer him. Ef she knew how Miss Rob hate him, she curl he legs up, an' gib him mis'ry spranglin' down he back."

The hope of seeing this intruder well "kunjered" by the old lady was the only thing that gave a promise of peace to the mind of Peggy; and though her nature was by no means a social one, she determined to make the acquaintance of some one or other in the house; hoping to find out how Mrs Keswick conducted her conjurations; at what time of day or night they were generally put into operation; and how persons could be brought under their influence.

The breakfast hour in the Keswick house was a variable one. Sometimes the mistress of the establishment rose early and wanted her morning meal before she went out of doors; at other times she would go off to some distant point on the farm to see about something that was doing or ought to be done, and breakfast would be kept waiting for her. The delays, however, were not all due to the old lady's irregular habits. Very often Letty would come up stairs with the information that the "bread ain't riz;" and as a Virginia breakfast without hot bread would be an impossibility, the meal would be postponed until the bread did conclude to rise, or until some subst.i.tute, such as "beaten biscuit" had been provided.

On the morning after his arrival, Lawrence Croft came down stairs about eight o'clock, and found the lower part of the house deserted; and glancing into the dining-room as he pa.s.sed its open door, he saw no signs of breakfast. The house was cool, but the sun appeared to be shining warmly outside, and he stepped out of the open back door into a small flower garden, with a series of broad boards down the walk which lay along the middle of it. Up and down this board walk Lawrence strode, breathing the fresh air, and thinking over matters. He was not at all satisfied at being here during Keswick's absence, feeling that he was enjoying an advantage which, although it was quite honorable, did not appear so. What he had to do was to get an interview with Miss March as soon as possible, and have that matter over. When he had been definitely accepted or rejected, he would go away. And, whatever the result might be, he would write to his rival as soon as he returned to the Springs, and inform him of it, and would also explain how he had happened to be here with Miss March. While he was engaged in planning these honorable intentions, there came from the house Mrs Keswick's niece, with a basket in one hand, and a pair of scissors in the other, and she immediately applied herself to cutting some geraniums and chrysanthemums, which were about the last flowers left blooming at that season in the garden. "Good morning," said Croft, from the other end of the walk. "I am glad to see you out so early."

"Good morning," she replied, with a look which indicated that she was not at all glad to see him, "but I don't think it is early."

Croft had noticed on the preceding day that her coolness towards him still continued, but it did not suit him to let her know that he perceived it. He went up to her, and in a very friendly way remarked: "There is something I wish very much you would tell me. What is your name? It is very odd that during all the time I have been acquainted with you I have never known your name."

"You must have taken an immense interest in it," she said, as she snipped some dried leaves off a twig of geranium she had cut.

"It was not that I did not take any interest," said Croft, "but at first your name never came forward, and I soon began to know you by the t.i.tle which your remarkable condition of wedlock gave you."