The Wishing-Ring Man Part 23

Joy declined to take any of Phyllis' much-needed time, and went off to fill her suitcase. It was not until she had put in almost everything she intended to take that she thought of the wishing ring again. She looked down at the heavy Oriental carving with what was almost terror. She had wished for something on it, and once more her wish had come true. She was going over to be in the house with John, to see him whenever he was there, to have him--yes, he would have to pretend, at least, that they were lovers, because of his mother. She had as nearly what she had wished for as it was possible for a ring to manage.

"I almost feel as if I had made that poor old lady have the rheumatism," she thought with a thrill of fear. Then she pulled herself up--that was nonsense.

"But anyway," Joy told the ring severely, "I won't touch you when I make wishes after this. I might wish for something in a hurry, and be terribly sorry afterwards."

But one thing she did wish then, deliberately. She sat back on her heels and clasped her fingers over the heavy carving of it. "Please, dear wishing ring, let John be in love with me!" she begged. The next moment she was scarlet at her own foolishness. The ring couldn't do that, if it had belonged to Aladdin himself.

So she went on packing. She was a little afraid and excited, going off to live in the very house with John, but she couldn't help being a little glad. She would see him for hours and hours every day.

"And oh, dear ring," she whispered, forgetting that she had promised not to wish any more, "don't let him get tired of having me around!"

She was not quite done when she heard the impatient wail of Mrs.

Hewitt's horn. She stuffed the last things into the heavy suitcase and ran down, dragging it after her.

Phyllis went out to the car with her, kissing her good-by.

"Now mind, this is only a loan," she told Mrs. Hewitt.

"Nothing of the sort," retorted Mrs. Hewitt with an air of certainty. "Good-by, my dear. Give my love to Mrs. De Guenther.

Perhaps when you get back I may give an afternoon tea and allow you to see Joy for a few minutes."

Phyllis laughed, and patted Mrs. Hewitt's gloved hand where it lay on the steering-wheel.

"Use our place all you like, as usual," she said in sole reply, "and don't forget to miss me."

"That's one of the loveliest girls that ever lived," said Mrs. Hewitt as they sped away. "Anybody but Phyllis I _would_ begrudge you to.

Oh, my dear, we're going to have the best time!"

Joy squeezed the hand that should have been, but wasn't, helping the other hand steer. Mrs. Hewitt was so adorably a young girl inside her white-haired stateliness!

"We're going to the next village to buy materials," she told Joy blithely, "and then we're going home to make them up, or I am. It won't hurt to get a bit of the trousseau under way, and you know I haven't sewed a thing for my daughter for thirty-four years--not since the wretched child turned out to be John, and I had to take all the pink ribbons out and put in blue!"

Mrs. Hewitt's inconsequent good spirits, somehow, took away some of the dread with which Joy had been looking forward to her sojourn in John's house. She allowed herself to be motored over to the next town, where there was fairly good shopping, and went obediently into the stores. It was not until she saw the lady ordering down for inspection bolts of crepe de Chine and wash satin and glove silk in whites and pinks and flesh-colors, that the full inwardness of the thing dawned on her. For evidently Mrs. Hewitt had every intention of paying for all this opulence, and Joy didn't quite see what to do about it. Nor did the pocket-money her grandfather had given her when she left him warrant her paying for the things herself, even if she used it all.

"Please don't get these things," she whispered when she found a chance. "I--I think I oughtn't to."

"Oughtn't to, indeed," replied Mrs. Hewitt coolly. "'n.o.body asked you, sir, she said!' I'm getting them myself. I may be intending to make up a set of wash-satin blankets for the Harrington bulldog for all you know. I don't think he'd be surprised--they treat him like a long-lost relative now. Now be sensible, darling. Do you think valenciennes or filet would be better to trim the blankets? Or do you like these lace and organdy motifs? They'd look charming on a black bulldog."

Joy laughed in spite of herself.

"There's no doing anything with you," she said.

"Not a thing!" said the triumphant spoiled child whom the world took for an elderly lady. "Now we'll get down to business. Would you rather have crepe or satin for camisoles? Half of each would be a good plan, I think, if you have no choice."

There _wasn't_ any doing anything with Mrs. Hewitt. She was having a gorgeous time, and she carried Joy along with her till the girl was choosing pink and white silks and satins, and patterns to make them by, with as much enthusiasm as if no day of reckoning loomed up, three and a half weeks away.

There was no way out. Of course, she would leave the things behind.

The thought gave her a pang already, for Joy had been dressed by her grandfather's ideas only as far as frocks went. Her grandmother had seen to everything else, and was devoted to a durable material known as longcloth, which one buys by the bolt and uses forever.

But they sped merrily home, after a festive luncheon, with about forty dollars' worth of silk and lace and ribbon aboard, not to speak of patterns, and a blue muslin frock which was a bargain and would just fit Joy, and which she had invested in herself.

_"Oh what a tangled web we weave When first we practise to deceive!" _

Joy thought of that quotation so often now that she was beginning to feel it was her favorite verse. But she touched the big parcel with a small, appreciative foot, and remembered that the blue frock, at least, would be saved out of the wreck, and that John liked blue.

Mrs. Hewitt showed her her bedroom when they got back, and left her to take a nap. But she did not want to rest. She lay obediently against the pillows and stared out the window at a great, vivid maple tree, and felt very much like staying awake for the rest of her natural life.

"How on earth was I to know that mothers-in-law were like this?" she demanded of herself indignantly. "All the ones I ever heard about made your life a misery."

It is rather calming to remember that you really couldn't have foreseen what is happening to you. So Joy presently rose happily, smoothed her hair and tidied herself generally, and came sedately down the stairs, prepared to go on playing her part. Only it was getting to feel more like a reality than a pretense. The other life, the one she would go back to, seemed the dream now.

"John will be here soon," Mrs. Hewitt greeted her. "It will be a surprise to him: you know, he hasn't an idea you are here. I wouldn't tell him what Phyllis said."

Joy dimpled.

"Do you suppose he'll mind?" she ventured.

"Oh, I think he'll bear up," said Mrs. Hewitt amiably. "Come here, Joy; I've cut out a half-dozen of the silk ones already. Do you know how to do them? They're just a straight piece--see----"

Joy knelt down by her, absorbed in the pretty thing and in seeing how to make it. The day was chillier than any had yet been, and a fire had been built in the deep fireplace of the living-room. Mrs.

Hewitt was sitting near it, with the pretty sc.r.a.ps of silk and lace all over her lap, and an ever-widening circle of cut-out garments around her.

"We can do the most of these by hand," she mused. "Indeed, we shouldn't do them any other way."

Joy rooted sewing things out of a basket near by and sat down just where she was, between Mrs. Hewitt and the large, fatherly Maltese cat who occupied a wonted cushion on the other side of the fireplace. And so John found her when he came in. The lamp had just been lighted, and its soft rays shone on Joy's bronze head and down-bent, intent little face. She had on a little white ap.r.o.n that Mrs. Hewitt had fastened around her waist, and she was sewing hard.

Before Joy heard John come in she felt him. No matter how tired he was, there was always about John an atmosphere of well-being and sunniness, of "all's right with the world," that made faces turn to him instinctively when he stood in a doorway. But Joy did not raise her eyes to look at him, nor did she move.

His mother rose and came over to greet him. Joy did not hear her whisper: "The child feels a little shy. She'll be more at ease now you've come."

John came swiftly over to where she sat on the floor, very still, with her hands flying, and her eyes on her work.

"Why, Joy dear, this is a lovely thing that I didn't expect," he said gently. "Welcome--home!"

He smiled down at her and held out his hands to help her up. Quite unsuspectingly, she pushed her work into the pocket along the hem of her sewing-ap.r.o.n and laid her hands in his, and he drew her easily to her feet. But, instead of releasing her then, he drew her closer--and kissed her, quite as calmly as he had his mother a moment before.... No, not quite as calmly. Joy felt his arms close around her, as if he was glad to have her in his hold.

"Let me go," she said in too low a voice for Mrs. Hewitt to hear.

"Who has drawn the wine must drink it," he told her in the same low voice. He went on, still softly, but more seriously, "My child, this sort of thing is necessary, if you want Mother to be satisfied while you are here. It's--a courtesy to your hostess. I promise to do no more of it than is necessary, as it seems to trouble you so.

But--don't you see?"

He released her, and she stepped away.

"I--see," she answered him a little uncertainly. "Th--thank you....

I--I couldn't help coming, John."

Then she fled upstairs to dress for dinner.