"I do, d.i.c.k," said Phineas fervently. "Monday morning I put my shoulder-blade to the wheel somewhere."
"Well, if the ladies"ll stand for this month," said the man, evidently anxious to get away, "I"ll wait a week longer on the back rent."
Miss Lady was preoccupied and silent on the way home. The world sometimes seemed desperately sordid, and human nature a baffling proposition.
At her gate Mrs. Ivy halted suddenly: "Do you know," she said, "it has just occurred to me! I shouldn"t be one bit surprised if that horrid one-eyed man was the very one Mr. Morley shot!"
CHAPTER XVI
Christmas night on Billy-goat Hill, and twinkling lights, beginning with candles set in bottles in the humblest cottages in Bean Alley, dotted the hillside here and there, until they all seemed to converge at one brilliant spot on the summit, where a veritable halo of light hung above the hilltop.
For Angora Heights was having a house-warming, and never since old Bob Ca.r.s.ey brought home his young bride from Alabama, had such preparations been known for a social function. All the carriages in the neighborhood had been pressed into service, and a half dozen motors had been sent out from town to convey the guests from the station to the house.
Within the mansion everything was magnificently new. Period rooms, carried out with conscientious accuracy, opened into each other through arcaded doorways. Ma.s.sive gilt mirrors accentuated the wide s.p.a.ces of the hall, and repeated the lights of innumerable chandeliers. If a stray memory or an old a.s.sociation had by any chance crept into the Christmas ball, it would have found no familiar object on which to dwell. The atmosphere was as formal and impersonal as that of a museum.
In the middle of the drawing-room, like a general issuing last orders before a battle, stood Mrs. Sequin, her ample figure encased in an armor of glistening black spangles, and her elaborately puffed coiffure surmounted by an incipient helmet of blazing gems.
"Pull those portieres back a trifle," she commanded, "and lower that window from the top. Has Jimpson gone to the station for the Queeringtons?"
"Yes, madam, half an hour ago," answered the maid.
"The moment he returns tell him that he is to take the small wagon and go back to the station at ten o"clock. The caterer has just "phoned that he is sending the extra ices out on the last train, but that he cannot send another waiter. Jenkins, leaving the way he did, has upset everything. I suppose it is too late to get anybody now; the special car gets here at nine. What is that noise? It sounds like some one singing in the dining-room."
"It"s the new furnace man, madam, that Mrs. Queerington sent. It looks like he can"t keep himself quiet."
"I"ll quiet him!" said Mrs. Sequin, who was as near irritation as full dress would permit.
Phineas Flathers, having replenished the fire, was pausing a moment to admire himself in the Dutch mirror above the mantel when Mrs. Sequin startled him by inquiring peremptorily if he was the new man.
"I am," said Phineas with p.r.o.nounced deference, "_the_ new man and _a_ new man. Regenerated, born again, mam, the spirit of evil having departed from me."
Mrs. Sequin gasped. "What is your name?"
"Flathers, mam."
"Dreadful! I will call you Benson."
"Benson it is. Better men than me have changed their names. There was Saul now, Saul of Tarsus--"
"Turn the drafts off in the furnace and don"t come up-stairs again on any account. But no,--wait a moment." Mrs. Sequin"s keen eye swept him from head to foot. "Have you ever had any experience in serving?"
Phineas, whose only claim to serving was that "they also serve who only stand and wait," dropped his eyes.
"Only the communion, mam, and the collection. But I ain"t above lending a hand, mam. You"d do as much for me. I was just saying to the lady in the kitchen, that anybody was fortunate to work for a person with as generous a face as yours."
"Clean yourself up, and put on Jenkins" coat, and if another waiter is absolutely necessary, they can call on you," directed Mrs. Sequin hurriedly, then calling to the maid, "Has Miss Margery come down yet?"
"She"s in the library, mam."
Margery, pale and listless, turned from the window as her mother entered.
"I was just watching for Miss Lady," she said; "it will be rather amusing to see her and Connie at their first big party."
"I hope she won"t wear that childish dress she was married in. It is all right for Connie to affect white muslin and blue ribbons, but Cousin John"s wife ought to wear something that makes her look older. Why, with that short gown, and the way she wears her hair, she looks like a schoolgirl!"
"She looks very beautiful."
"Of course she does, but what good does it do her? Here at the end of four months she has made practically no headway. Not that she didn"t have every opportunity! People were quite ready to take her up, but she simply wouldn"t let them. What can you expect of a person who says that bridge and boned gowns make her back ache? She hasn"t an idea in her head beyond the Doctor, the children and a lot of paupers. I must say I am terribly disappointed in her. But then I ought to be used to disappointments by this time. What will she be when she"s middle-aged?"
"She"ll never be middle-aged," Margery smiled; "she"ll go on being young and making people around her feel young. Father says she is the only person he knows who makes him forget his age. By the way, where is Father?"
"Delayed in town as usual. He"ll probably motor out when the evening is half over and be too tired to be polite. I"ve never seen him so upset.
Of course it"s your broken engagement. He says we may have to close the house, now that we"ve gotten into it, and go abroad to reduce expenses, but of course that"s ridiculous! That reminds me, did the Hortons send regrets?"
"She did," said Margery absently.
"Oh, dear, that means he"ll be here! He"s so horribly fastidious, he"s sure to make remarks about my putting an Italian loggia on a Louis XVI drawing-room. It does seem that with all the time and money we"ve spent on this place--Isn"t that the carriage?"
"Yes, I hear Miss Lady laughing."
As the front door swung open two bundled-up figures hurried into the hall, bringing a gust of youth and merriment along with the keen night air.
"I hope we are the first guests," cried Miss Lady, shaking a scarf from her head, "because we have had an accident. We both fell down. Connie slipped on the step and I sat down on top of her. There was an awful rip and we don"t know whose it is! I"m afraid to take my coat off!"
"But where is the Doctor?" cried Mrs. Sequin in dismay.
"Father would love to have come," began Connie glibly, but Miss Lady broke in: "I don"t think he really wanted to come, Mrs. Sequin. He said he would be ever so much happier up in his study, playing pinocle, than sitting out here in a straight-back gilt chair eating ice cream. Perhaps you think I oughtn"t to have come without him?"
"Nonsense!" exclaimed Mrs. Sequin. "I get perfectly exasperated when Cousin John does this way. There were at least a half dozen people I"d promised to introduce to him. If he had no consideration for me he ought to have for you. He has been keeping you at home entirely too much. He forgets that you are twenty years his junior; he expects you to act as if you were forty."
"No, he doesn"t," protested Miss Lady loyally; "the Doctor never expects anything of anybody that isn"t right. He urged me to come, didn"t he, Connie?"
But Connie was absorbed in a trailing flounce that hung limply about her feet.
"Look!" she cried tragically; "it"s torn clear across the front. What shall I do?"
"Margery"s gowns would all be too long for you," said Mrs. Sequin, viewing the rent through her lorgnette, "perhaps Marie can do something with this."
"I won"t wear it all tacked up!" cried Connie on the verge of tears; "I"ll go home first--"
"No, you won"t," said Miss Lady; "this is your first grown-up party and you"ve been counting on it for weeks. You are going to change dresses with me. I don"t mind a bit being hiked up a little, and, besides, n.o.body"s going to notice me."
"That"s perfectly absurd!" exclaimed Mrs. Sequin indignantly; "you _must_ remember who you are, and that everybody is noticing you. Why can"t _you_ wear one of Margery"s dresses, and let Connie have yours?"
"All right, I"ll wear anything you say. Don"t you dare cry, Connie! I"ll never forgive you if you make your nose red. Listen! The musicians are tuning up! May I have the first waltz, madam?" and seizing Mrs. Sequin by her plump gloved hands, she danced that august person down the long hall.