As for Olive and Shirley, there was nothing lacking in the way they showed their joy in having him at home again. Murray himself, during this long year of absence, was not the only one who had learned a few enlightening truths about the great business of living.
To the full, also, Murray enjoyed the surprising fact that the Bells were grouped about the fire in a way which indicated that they were entirely at home. He rejoiced in the heartiness with which the male members of that family gripped his hand--they seemed like brothers. And when the sweet-faced, bright-eyed lady in gray pressed his hand in both her own and looked at him as if her pleasure in his return was very great, Murray, quite unable to help it, stooped and kissed her also.
Surely, homecoming was a happier thing than he had dared to picture it.
He was off upstairs to his room presently, while word was sent to an exasperated cook to delay the dinner yet a little longer. In less time than could have been expected, however, Murray was down again, and in his evening clothes showed even more plainly than before the astonishing increase in his weight.
"These shoulders," cried Peter, inspecting them, "can they be the shoulders of the delicate young gentleman who went away last year looking so long and lean and lank? I wonder you could get them into your coat."
"I could n"t," Murray answered, laughing. "I had to borrow father"s dinner-jacket and one of his waistcoats."
"It was fortunate for you that the old coat was n"t given away when the new one came home," his father observed, regarding the shoulders in evidence with great satisfaction.
They went out to dinner in the gayest spirits, and if everybody remembered with regret the one absent, everybody still rejoiced that this promising son of the house was once more at its board. For there could be no question that the eldest son looked now a fit representative of the family of Townsend.
The dinner which followed was an elaborate one, for it was not within the range of the hostess"s notions to entertain in any simple fashion, even when the occasion was the birthday of a fourteen-year-old. But the young people at the board succeeded in infusing so much of their own joyousness into the affair that the time pa.s.sed swiftly. There were birthday gifts at Jane"s plate as well as at Shirley"s, and it would have been hard to tell, at the close of the feast, which pair of cheeks was the pinker, or which pair of eyes the brighter. It is safe to guess however, that there were elements in the pleasure of one recipient which must have been lacking in that of the other, and that the presence of one birthday guest counted for more to her than all the gifts put together. The fact that she could hardly look up without encountering the interested glance of the newly arrived traveller was just a trifle disconcerting, and it must be admitted that when Jane and Shirley gathered up their gifts at the close of the dinner, the little girl knew better than the older one just what she had received.
Dinner over, a short and not especially dramatic little scene took place behind closed library doors. Scenes which mean the most are often quietest of all.
"I just wanted to tell you, sir," said Murray to his father, "something I thought you might like to know right away. I--went West to make myself strong enough to--to go into the business, if you care to have me. I mean," he went on quickly, as his father looked at him as if he could not quite believe the purport of these words, "I mean in whatever capacity you can use me. Shipping-clerk, if you think I "d better begin at the bottom"--and his smile was not a smile which supplied "but of course you won"t."
Mr. Townsend stood looking at Murray, studying the straightforward gaze which met his; noting the tints of health, the signs of vigour in the fine face. "Murray, do you mean it?" he asked.
"I do, sir."
"And yet you don"t like the prospect of a business life any more than you ever did, do you?"
"Not much, sir."
"You make this offer knowing fully what it entails? I have little expectation that your brother will ever agree to my wishes."
"That"s what decided me."
"You are willing to give up your books? You could complete your college course now, with your renewed health."
If Murray winced at this he did not let it show.
"I think you need me now, sir. And as for the college course--and the books--I shall have my evenings."
Mr. Townsend studied his son"s face a full minute in silence. Then he held out his hand. Murray seized it with a grasp which banished the elder man"s doubts and showed him that his boy"s heart was in this offer of himself. The two shook hands without speaking. There seemed no need of further words just then.
It being Shirley"s birthday, that young person"s wishes ruled the hour.
Prompted by Rufus, who thirsted for something lively, she decreed a game of hide-and-seek over the whole house, and succeeded in enticing the elder people into the frolic. Mr. Townsend and Murray, coming from the library, found things in full swing.
Mr. Bell was just emerging from a small closet under the staircase, his hair much rumpled. Mrs. Bell, laughing blithely, had run round a corner of the reception-room and touched "goal" before her son Rufus could swing himself down the stairs and get in ahead of her. Mrs.
Townsend--and her husband could not quite credit his eyes as he saw her--was, with trailing skirts held close, squeezing out of a very small corner behind the grand piano in the drawing-room.
"Well, well!" cried the newcomers, enthusiastically. "Let us into the game."
"Come on!" shouted Rufus. "Father "s "it"! Let"s play it in another way, and hide for keeps. Everybody stay hid till found, and each man found join the hunt. Makes it nice and exciting for the last fellow."
"You "ll have to tell us our bounds pretty carefully," said Mr. Bell, smiling at his hostess. "In our excitement we may open the wrong doors."
"Open any door," responded Mrs. Townsend promptly, feeling more like a girl again than she had felt in many years of formal entertaining, and preparing, as she spoke, to hurry up the staircase to a retreat that she felt would be secure. It proved great fun, and a full half-hour went by before the last one was found. Murray had been the first to be discovered, his head so full of the late talk in the library that he had somewhat dazedly secreted himself in a position easily come upon by Mr.
Bell. So when the second round began, it was Murray who stood counting the tale of numbers in the hall below, while his quarry scurried away over the house.
"He knows every nook and corner of it, of course," whispered Ross to Jane, as they ran lightly up the second flight of stairs, "so we "ll have to hide pretty close to escape him. I "m for a closet I know of where there"s a pile of blankets as big as a barn. Will you come?"
"No--I know a better place," and Jane slipped away by herself. She meant to be the last found, and to elude Murray as long as she could, a very girlish feeling having taken possession of her that the time to run away is the time when you see somebody looking uncommonly as if he would like to be with you. Although she longed to hear the outcome of the conference in the library, she was somehow just a little afraid of the new Murray, and it was with a delightful sense of exhilaration that she made her quick and quiet way up a third flight of stairs to one of Shirley"s haunts in an unused portion of the regions under the eaves.
It was a long time before she heard the sounds of the hunt, in which at last the whole party had come to join, approaching her hiding place. But suddenly a lower door was thrown open, and Murray"s voice sounded far down in a determined challenge:
"We"ll have you now, Jane--it"s no use. Shirley "s kept us away so far--the rascal--but your time "s up!"
She _could not_ be caught! There was a tiny door low down in the side of the closet where she was hiding, and dark though she knew it must be in the unknown region beyond this door, she opened it, slipped through, closed it, and crept along the bare beams beyond.
Murray was carrying a little electric searchlight, which he was flashing into every nook and crevice. Its sharp beam had penetrated the hole in the blankets Ross had kept for a breathing s.p.a.ce. It had likewise sought out the hems of skirts, the soles of shoes, fingers clutching concealing draperies, and elbows sticking unwarily out from sly nooks. Jane saw its rays outline the edges of the small door beyond which she crouched; then she heard Murray"s triumphant cry, "O-ho, she"s dropped her handkerchief! Now we "re hot on the trail. She"s gone through this door, the crafty lady!"
There was a shout of mingled laughter and expostulation. "She wouldn"t go through that rat-hole! It"s too dark in there for a girl. There "s no floor, either."
But Murray was attempting to open the door. It was a sliding door, not a hinged one, and for a moment it delayed him, for he was not familiar with these regions, so dear to Shirley.
During that moment, Jane, with the breathless unreadiness to be discovered which takes hold of the hiding one, even in a game, had desperately retreated over the rafters, in the hope of coming upon some sheltering corner. The next instant, with a smothered cry, she had fallen over the edge of something, _splash_ into three feet of water!
n.o.body had heard her, and somehow, in the intensity of the game, Jane"s second emotion, after the startling sensation of her sudden immersion, was one of absurd relief at finding herself, after all, safe from discovery. For, as the little door at last flew open, and Murray"s brilliant light leaped into the s.p.a.ce under the eaves, it disclosed to Jane that she had dropped into a cistern, the top of which lay level with the floor beams, and at the bottom thereof, where, having scrambled to her feet, she stood stooping, was out of sight of the faces peering in at the small door.
"Not here," was Murray"s disappointed observation, after one wave of his light round the small s.p.a.ce, "unless she"s in mother"s special rain-water tank, white frock and all. Come on. I thought we had her then, sure. Where can she be? She"s been here--witness that handkerchief. And if there"s a cranny we have n"t explored, I "ll----"
The little door closed with a slam; the light faded away from its edges.
The voices of the party were heard retreating down the stairs, and Jane was left alone to realise the humour of the situation.
It was undoubtedly humorous. It could hardly be dangerous, for October had been a mild month, and Jane was well used to cold plunges. The wetting of the pretty frock was of no consequence, for it was quite washable. It was fairly easy to scramble back to the rafters--Jane had done that the moment the searching party was out of hearing, and was carefully wringing out her drenched skirts. Her impromptu bath had wet her to the shoulders, besides bruising her arm rather badly. But the trying thing was to get downstairs and away without being discovered--and the whole company in full cry over the house!
Jane laughed rather hysterically, shivering a little, more from excitement and chagrin than from chill. She crept carefully to the small door, meaning to push it open and listen, when suddenly it began to slide quietly aside of itself. The next instant she saw a sunburned hand upon its fastening, and heard a cool voice, close by, say quietly:
"It"s all right. n.o.body knows but me. They "ve given it up, and sat down to await your own sweet will in showing up. Here "s a big steamer rug. Will you have it to wrap up in? I "ll get you home without a soul knowing, and we "ll play it off as a joke, somehow."
"Thank you," answered Jane, in a very meek voice, which shook with mingled irritation and merriment, as the rug came through the opening.
"Perhaps I could put it on better if I were not balancing myself on these rafters."
"I beg your pardon. I "ll get out of this closet, and you can get in.
I just thought you would n"t leave so--so damp a trail behind you if you were wrapped up in something. Here are a--er--a pair of Olive"s rubbers for your feet, so you won"t show any tracks."
Murray"s voice was shaking also, and in a minute more the two were laughing together. Jane, shrouded in her rug, emerged from the closet into the attic, and Murray regarded her by the light of his electric searcher.
"You don"t look much the worse for having taken such desperate measures to escape me," he remarked, noting with keen enjoyment the rich colour on the cheek near which he was rather mercilessly holding his torch.
"Rather meet a cold ducking than a warm friend any time, wouldn"t you?"
"Not at all. I--you know how one hates to be caught."