"What"s the matter?" asked Missy. "Is Ben a little--wild?"
"No--I don"t think so," replied Tess, but her tone was anxious. "I guess that it"s just that he"s used to Tim. Then I"m sort of out of practice driving."
"Well, we can just as well stop at Lester"s first, and come back by Raymond"s."
But when Tess attempted to manoeuvre Ben into Lester"s street, Ben still showed an inalienable and masterful preference for Maple Avenue.
Doggedly ahead he pursued his turkey-trotting course, un-mindful of tuggings, coaxings, or threats, till, suddenly, at the point where Maple runs into the Public Square, he made a turn into Main so abrupt as to send the inner rear wheel up onto the curb.
"My!" gasped Missy, regaining her balance. "He IS wild, isn"t he? Do you think, maybe--"
She stopped suddenly. In front of the Post Office and staring at them was that new boy she had heard about--it must be he; hadn"t Kitty Allen seen him and said he was a brunette? Even in her agitated state she could but notice that he was of an unusual appearance--striking.
He somewhat resembled Archibald Chesney, one of airy fairy Lilian"s suitors. Like Archibald, the stranger was tall and eminently gloomy in appearance. His hair was of a rare blackness; his eyes were dark--a little indolent, a good deal pa.s.sionate--smouldering eyes! His eyebrows were arched, which gave him an air of melancholy protest against the world in general. His nose was of the high-and-mighty order that comes under the denomination of aquiline, or hooked, as may suit you best.
However he did not shade his well-cut mouth with a heavy, drooping moustache as did Archibald, for which variation Missy was intensely grateful. Despite Lilian"s evident taste for moustached gentlemen, Missy didn"t admire these "hirsute adornments."
She made all these detailed observations in the second before blond Raymond Bonner, handsomer but less interesting-looking than the stranger, came out of the Post Office, crying:
"h.e.l.lo, girls! What"s up?--joined the circus?"
This bantering tone, these words, were disconcerting. And before, during their relentless progress down Maple Avenue, the expressions of certain people sitting out on front porches or walking along the street, had occasioned uncertainty as to their unshadowed empress.e.m.e.nt. Still no doubts concerning her own personal get-up had clouded Missy"s mind. And the dark Stranger was certainly regarding her with a look of interest in his indolent eyes. Almost you might say he was staring. It must be admiration of her toilette. She was glad she was looking so well--she wished he might hear the frou-frou of her silken skirt when she walked!
The consciousness of her unusually attractive appearance made Missy"s blood race intoxicatingly. It made her feel unwontedly daring. She did an unwontedly daring thing. She summoned her courage and returned the Strange Boy"s stare--full. But she was embarra.s.sed when she found herself looking away suddenly--blushing. Why couldn"t she hold that gaze?--why must she blush? Had he noticed her lack of savoir-faire? More diffidently she peeped at him again to see whether he had. It seemed to her that his expression had altered. It was a subtle change; but, somehow, it made her blush again. And turn her eyes away again--more quickly than before. But there was a singing in her brain. The dark, interesting-looking Stranger LIKED her to look at him--LIKED her to blush and look away!
She felt oddly light-headed--like someone unknown to herself. She wanted to laugh and chatter about she knew not what. She wanted to--
But here certain external happenings cruelly grabbed her attention. Old Ben, who had seemed to slow down obligingly upon the girls" greeting of Raymond, had refused to heed Tess"s tugging effort to bring him to a standstill. To be sure, he moved more slowly, but move he did, and determinedly; till--merciful heaven!--he came to a dead and purposeful halt in front of the saloon. Not "a saloon," but "the saloon!"
Now, more frantically than she had urged him to pause, Tess implored Ben to proceed. No local standards are so hide-bound as those of a small town, and in Cherryvale it was not deemed decently permissible, but disgraceful, to have aught to do with liquor. "The saloon" was far from a "respectable" place even for men to visit; and for two girls to drive up openly--brazenly--
"Get up, Ben! Get up!" rang an anguished duet.
Missy reached over and helped wallop the rains. Oh, this pain!--this faintness! She now comprehended the feeling which had so often overcome the fair ladies of England when enmeshed in some frightful situation.
They, on such upsetting occasions, had usually sunk back and murmured:
"Please ring the bell--a gla.s.s of wine!" And Missy, while reading, had been able to vision herself, in some like quandary, also ordering a "gla.s.s of wine"; but, now!... the wine was only too terribly at hand!
"Get up!--there"s a good old Ben!"
"Good old Ben--get up!"
But he was not a good old Ben. He was a mean old Ben--mean with inborn, incredibly vicious stubbornness. How terrible to live to come to this!
But Missy was about to learn what a tangled web Fate weaves, and how amazingly she deceives sometimes when life looks darkest. Raymond and the Stranger (Missy knew his name was Ed Brown; alas! but you can"t have everything in this world) started forth to rescue at the same time, knocked into each other, got to Ben"s head simultaneously, and together tugged and tugged at the bridle.
Ben stood planted, with his four huge feet firmly set, defying any force in heaven or earth to budge them. His head, despite all the boys could do, maintained a relaxed att.i.tude--a contradiction in terms justified by the facts--and also with a certain sidewise inclination toward the saloon. It was almost as if he were watching the saloon door. In truth, that is exactly what old Ben was doing. He was watching for Tim. Ben had good reason for knowing Tim"s ways since, for a considerable time, no one save Tim had deigned to drive him. Besides having a natural tendency toward being "set in his ways," Ben had now reached the time of life when one, man or beast, is likely to become a creature of habit. Thus he had unswervingly followed Tim"s route to Tim"s invariable first halt; and now he stood waiting Tim"s reappearance through the saloon door.
Other volunteer a.s.sistants, in hordes, hordes, and laughing as if this awful calamity were a huge joke, had joined Raymond and the Other. Missy was flamingly aware of them, of their laughter, their stares, their jocular comments.
But they all achieved nothing; and relief came only when Ben"s supreme faith was rewarded when Tim, who had been spending his afternoon off in his favourite club, was attracted from his checker-game in the "back room" by some hubbub in the street and came inquisitively to the front door.
Ben, then, p.r.i.c.ked his ears and showed entire willingness to depart.
Tim, after convincing himself that he wasn"t drunk and "seeing things,"
climbed up on the "box"; the two girls, "naturally covered with confusion," were only too glad to sink down un.o.btrusively into the back seat. Not till they were at the sanitarium again, did they remember the undelivered invitations; but quickly they agreed to put on stamps and let Tim take them, without empress.e.m.e.nt, to the Post Office.
All afternoon Missy burned and chilled in turn. Oh, it was too dreadful!
What would people say? What would her parents, should they hear, do? And what, oh what would the interesting-looking Stranger think? Oh, what a contretemps!
If she could have heard what the Stranger actually did say, she would still have been "covered with confusion"--though of a more pleasurable kind. He and Raymond were become familiar acquaintances by this time. "What"s the matter with "em?" he had inquired as the steed Ben turkey-trotted away. "Doing it on a bet or something?"
"Dunno," replied Raymond. "The blonde one"s sort of bughouse, anyway. And the other one, Missy Merriam, gets sorta queer streaks sometimes--you don"t know just what"s eating her. She"s sorta funny, but she"s a peach, all right."
"She the one with the eyes?"
Raymond suddenly turned and stared at the new fellow.
"Yes," he a.s.sented, almost reluctantly.
"Some eyes!" commented the other, gazing after the vanishing equipage.
Raymond looked none too pleased. But it was too late, now, to spike Fate"s spinning wheel. Missy was terribly cast down by the afternoon"s history; but not so cast down that she had lost sight of the obligation to invite to her dinner a boy who had rescued her--anyhow, he had tried to rescue her, and that was the same thing. So a carte must be issued to "Mr. Ed Brown." After all, what"s in a name?--hadn"t Shakespeare himself said that?
At supper, Missy didn"t enjoy her meal. Had father or mother heard? Once she got a shock: she glanced up suddenly and caught father"s eyes on her with a curious expression. For a second she was sure he knew; but he said nothing, only looked down again and went on eating his chop.
That evening mother suggested that Missy go to bed early. "You didn"t eat your supper, and you look tired out," she explained.
Missy did feel tired--terribly tired; but she wouldn"t have admitted it, for fear of being asked the reason. Did mother, perhaps, know? Missy had a teasing sense that, under the placid, commonplace conversation, there was something unspoken. A curious and uncomfortable feeling. But, then, as one ascertains increasingly with every year one lives, Life is filled with curious and often uncomfortable feelings. Which, however, one would hardly change if one could, because all these things make Life so much more complex, therefore more interesting. The case of Ben was in point: if he had not "cut up," it might have been weeks before she got acquainted with the Dark Stranger!
Still pondering these "deep" things, Missy took advantage of her mother"s suggestion and went up to undress. She was glad of the chance to be alone.
But she wasn"t to be alone for yet a while. Her mother followed her and insisted on helping unfasten her dress, turning down her bed, bringing some witch-hazel to bathe her forehead--a dozen little pretexts to linger. Mother did not always perform these offices. Surely she must suspect. Yet, if she did suspect, why her kindness? Why didn"t she speak out, and demand explanations?
Mothers are sometimes so mystifying!
The time for the good night kiss came and went with no revealing word from either side. The kiss was unusually tender, given and received.
Left alone at last, on her little, moon-whitened bed, Missy reflected on her great fondness for her mother. No; she wouldn"t exchange her dear mother, not even for the most aristocratic lady in England.
Then, as the moon worked its magic on her fluttering lids, the flowered wall-paper, the bird"s-eye maple furniture, all dissolved in air, and in their place magically stood, faded yet rich, lounges and chairs of velvet; priceless statuettes; a few bits of bric-a-brac worth their weight in gold; several portraits of beauties well-known in the London and Paris worlds, frail as they were fair, false as they were piquante; tobacco-stands and meerschaum pipes and cigarette-holders; a couple of dogs snoozing peacefully upon the hearth-rug; a writing-table near the blazing grate and, seated before it--
Yes! It was he! Though the room was Archibald Chesney"s "den," the seated figure was none other than Ed Brown!...
A shadow falls across the paper on which he is writing--he glances up--beholds an airy fairy vision regarding him with a saucy smile--a slight graceful creature clothed in sh.e.l.l-pink with daintiest lace frillings at the throat and wrists, and with a wealth of nut-brown locks brought low on her white brow, letting only the great grey eyes shine out.
"What are you writing, sir?" she demands, sending him a bewitching glance.
"Only a response to your gracious invitation, Lady Melissa," he replies, springing up to kiss her tapering fingers... The moon seals the closed eyelids down with a kiss.
The day of days arrived.
Missy got up while the rest of the household was still sleeping. For once she did not wait for Poppy"s kiss to awaken her. The empty bed surprised and disconcerted Poppy--that is, Fifine--upon her appearance.
But much, these days, was happening to surprise and disconcert Poppy--that is, Fifine.