"I don"t believe you ever enter it now," Mrs. Fair continued discontentedly.
"The spinet won"t mind that; it is used to being alone," Celia answered cheerfully, standing before the mirror, fastening an oak leaf on her dress. It reminded her that even if her heart was heavy and her life full of difficulties, she could still be courageous.
"Things are sure to come right in the Forest," she had said to herself again and again. Not because she believed it, but because she longed to, and sometimes she did believe it,--just for a little while,--as she looked from Patricia"s Arbor across to that bit of sunny road.
Since the adventure of the Arden Foresters the cellar windows of the Gilpin house had been securely fastened, and its bolts and bars made proof against more experienced house breakers than they. And now preparations for the sale became evident. Circulars containing an inventory of the things to be disposed of were spread abroad, and it was known that the proprietor of the new mills, a stranger in Friendship, had been through the house with the idea of purchasing.
As she unlocked the door of Saint Cecilia"s room, Celia could not help remembering the days when she had looked forward so happily to owning the spinet, and seeing it stand beneath her great-grandmother"s portrait.
From the cushioned window-seat, where there was a glimpse of the river through the trees, she had loved to survey the calm orderliness of the little room. At heart something of a Puritan, the straight-backed chairs and unreposeful sofa, the secretary with its diamond-paned doors and gla.s.s k.n.o.bs, the quaint old jardinieres brought from China a century ago, pleased her fancy.
How Genevieve Whittredge had smiled and shrugged her shoulders! In those days their half antagonistic friendship had not suffered a complete break.
She must have color and warmth and lavishness, and Celia acknowledged her unerring taste and admired the beauty and richness Genevieve found necessary to her happiness, even while she returned contentedly to her own prim little room.
It had been her dreaming place, and when dreams were crowded out by an exacting present, she had closed the door and turned the key. It was so much the less to take care of.
"I don"t see why Mr. Gilpin couldn"t have left you some money," her mother said, following her. "It would be such a help just now. How are we to keep Tom at the university another year?"
Mrs. Fair had a way of bringing up problems just when her daughter had succeeded in putting them aside.
"I think we can manage in some way, mother. Don"t worry," she said.
"But some one has to worry."
"Then let me do it," Celia answered, smiling.
Half an hour later she was standing by the spinet, absently touching the tuneless keys, when a voice from the window startled her. It was Morgan, who with his elbows on the sill, was looking in.
"Better sell it, Miss Celia."
Sell it! The idea had never occurred to her. "What could I get for it?"
she asked, going to the window.
"Two hundred--maybe more."
Two hundred dollars would be a great help toward Tom"s expenses, but to give up her grandmother"s spinet? It took on a new value.
"Let me have it to do over and I guarantee you two hundred dollars," said Morgan.
"I"ll think of it and let you know," was Celia"s answer.
"It seems like the irony of fate," she told herself, "to have to sell it almost before it is really mine; and yet when two hundred dollars lie within my reach, I can"t refuse to take them. Poor old spinet, it is too bad to send you away. I shouldn"t do it if I could help it; but you don"t fit in with these times. Or rather, you are helping me out; that is the way to look at it."
So it was that the spinet did not long keep company with the portrait of Saint Cecilia, its original owner, but was harked away to the shop of the magician and the society of the clock case and the claw-footed sofa.
Here Allan Whittredge saw and recognized it one day, and questioned Morgan. Allan remembered the prim little sitting room, and how Celia had looked forward to owning the spinet, and it troubled him to think she was compelled to part with it. When he left the shop he went over to Miss Betty"s.
After talking for a while about other things, he asked, "Betty, is it true that Dr. Fair left his family with very little?"
"True? Of course it is. Have you just found that out? Celia is working her fingers to the bone, and I wish I were sure those boys are worth it," was her reply.
"How did it happen?"
"Well, I don"t think Dr. Fair had the best judgment in the world when it came to investments; at the same time, a lot of other people lost in the West View coal mines. His death was a great shock; I loved Dr. Fair."
"I too," said Allan. "He was a good man."
"I don"t know whether you know it, Allan. Perhaps I ought not to tell you; but there was some talk of Dr. Fair"s treatment having done your father harm. I really believe your mother was out of her mind with anxiety, and you know she disliked the doctor. He was dismissed, you remember; and this was whispered about and exaggerated until I think it almost broke his heart. Of course there was no truth in it--that was made clear in the end--and his death put a stop to the talk, for everybody loved and respected Dr. Fair; but it has been terribly hard on Celia."
Allan sat looking at Miss Betty absently. "Terribly hard on Celia,"--the words repeated themselves over and over in his mind.
"This is the first I ever heard of it," he said at length.
Miss Betty watched him as he walked away. "As usual I have been minding some one else"s business," she said to herself; "but he ought to know it.
Allan is a fine fellow."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST.
UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE.
"Must you then be proud and pitiless?"
The book containing the const.i.tution of the Arden Foresters lay on the garden bench. The Foresters themselves were spending the afternoon at the creek at the foot of Red Hill. All was quiet in the neighborhood. The bank doors had closed two hours ago, and Friendship seemed to have retired for its afternoon nap.
Allan Whittredge unfolded the _County News_ and glanced over it, then laid it on his knee and gazed across the lawn with a thoughtful frown. The _County News_ presented no problems, but life in this quiet village of Friendship did. His talk with Miss Betty had brought him face to face with them. He was conscious now that his att.i.tude had been one of complacent superiority. He had held himself above the pettiness of village life only to discover, as he admitted frankly, that he had been a conceited fool.
His own indignation helped him to realize something of what Celia must have felt at the cruel affront to her father. And his silence all this while made him seem a party to it. It was an intolerable thought, but Allan was not one to brood over difficulties; a gleam of what Miss Betty called the Barnwell stubbornness shone in his eyes as he made an inward vow to find some way to convince Celia of his ignorance of much which had happened at the time of his father"s death, and to gain from his mother an admission of her mistake. The question how to accomplish this, filled him with a helpless impatience.
He took up the book that lay beside him and opened it. "The secret of the Forest: Good in everything," he read. "To remember the secret of the Forest, to bear hard things bravely--" He turned the leaves and saw under Morgan"s straggling characters the once familiar writing of Celia Fair,--the firm, delicate backhand, so suggestive, to one who knew her, of the determination that lay beneath her gentleness. Did Celia believe there was good in everything? Surely not in all this trouble. Yet she was bearing hard things bravely, if all he heard were true. It hurt him to think of her carrying a load of responsibility and care. His own life seemed tame from its very lack of care.
He closed the book with decision. His task was to unravel these twisted threads of hatred and misunderstanding, and he would do it.
Meanwhile, he found time for other things. He began to cultivate the society of the Arden Foresters, and to be a boy again in earnest.
Boating on the picturesque little river was one of the pleasures of Friendship. Jack Parton and his brothers owned a boat, the _Mermaid_; and Allan now provided himself with one, which he delighted Rosalind by naming for her. After this the _Mermaid_ and the _Rosalind_ might frequently be seen following the narrow stream in its winding course, making their way among water lilies and yellow and purple spatter-dock, between banks fringed with willows and wild oats and here and there a dump of cat-tails.
What pleasanter way than this of spending the early summer mornings? And then to find some shady anchorage, where lunch could be eaten and the hours fleeted away merrily until the cool of the afternoon.
With only three in each boat, it was light work for the oarsman; and as rowing was something Maurice could do, and as the girls liked to take their turn, it often happened that Mr. Whittredge had nothing to do but enjoy himself.
Allan smiled sometimes to think how much pleasure he found in the society of these young people. He usually carried a book or magazine, but as often as not it was unopened.
"I suppose the real Arden Foresters did not read books," he remarked one day as, after glancing through the pages of a late novel, he tossed it disrespectfully into the empty lunch basket.
They had eaten their picnic dinner and were resting in easy att.i.tudes on the gra.s.s,--Miss Betty not being present to mention spines,--in sight of their boats, swinging gently at anchor.