The drive to Oaklea was so short that the Judge and Mrs. Moore were welcoming them at the door before Gay had fairly begun her account of the day"s happening. Dinner was announced almost immediately, and she was ushered into one of the largest dining-rooms she had ever seen, and seated at the long table. Such a large Christmas tree formed the centrepiece that she could catch only an occasional glimpse through its branches of Lloyd, seated on the other side between Malcolm and John Baylor.
Gay was between Ra.n.a.ld and Rob. While she kept up a lively chatter, first with one and then the other, a sentence floating across the table now and then made her long to hear what was being said on the other side of the Christmas tree. She heard Malcolm say, in a surprised tone: "Maud Minor! No, indeed, I didn"t! Why, I scarcely mentioned you. Don"t you believe--"
A general laugh at one of the old Colonel"s stories drowned the rest of the sentence, and left Gay wondering which one of Maud"s many tales was not to be believed.
"I"ll ask her after dinner," thought Gay. But it was a long time till all the courses that followed the turkey gave way in slow succession to plum pudding and the trifles on the Christmas tree. Then Gay had no opportunity to ask her question, for Malcolm still stayed by Lloyd"s side when the company broke up into little groups in the hall and the adjoining parlours.
"The children are growing up, Jack," said the old Judge, laying his hand on Mr. Sherman"s shoulder, as several couples pa.s.sed on their way to the music-room. "There"s Rob, now, the young rascal, taller than his father; and it seems only yesterday that he was riding pickaback on my shoulders, and tooting his first Christmas trumpet in my ears. And young MacIntyre there is nearly a full-fledged man. He"ll soon be eighteen, he tells me. Why, at his age--"
The Judge rambled off into a series of reminiscences which would have been very entertaining to the younger man had his eyes not been following Lloyd. He did not like to think that she was growing up. He wanted to keep her a child. In his fond eyes she was always beautiful, but he had never seen her look as well as she did to-night. The scarlet dress and the holly berries gave her unusual colour. He fancied that there was a deeper flush on her face when Malcolm leaned over her chair to say something to her. Then he told himself that it was only fancy.
Looking up, Lloyd caught sight of her father in the doorway, and flashed him a smile so open and rea.s.suring that he turned away, thinking, "My honest little Hildegarde! She asked for her yardstick, and I can surely trust her to use it as she promised."
Presently Malcolm, hunting through his pockets for a programme he was talking about, took out a bunch of letters. As he hastily turned them over, several unmounted photographs fluttered out and fell at Lloyd"s feet. An amused smile dimpled her mouth as her hasty glance showed her that they were all of the same girl,--evidently kodak shots he had taken himself. Probably that was the girl and these were the letters that Keith had teased him about at the picnic.
Neither spoke, and he reddened uncomfortably at her amused smile, as he put them back into his pocket. At that moment, Rob turned toward them, holding his new watch in his hand.
"I have just been showing Ra.n.a.ld the present Daddy gave me," he said to Lloyd. "It reminded me that I hadn"t told you,--I"ve put that same old four-leaf clover into the back of this watch that I had in my silver one. I wouldn"t lose my luck by losing your hoodoo charm for anything in the world."
At the sight of the clover Lloyd blushed violently. But it was not the little dried leaf that deepened the quick colour in her cheeks. It was the thought of the last time he had shown it to her, and the scene it recalled at the churchyard stile, when Malcolm had begged for the tip of a curl to carry with him always as a talisman; as a token that he was really her knight, as he had been in the princess play, and that he would come to her on some glad morrow.
"He"ll have a pocket full of such talismans by the time he"s through college," she thought, recalling the kodak pictures she had just seen.
"I"m _mighty_ glad that I didn"t give him one."
Over at The Beeches, Elise and her little friends had arranged to give a Christmas play, so promptly at the hour agreed upon the party "progressed" in Mrs. Walton"s wake. There they found the third royal welcome, and the gayest of entertainments. It had been an exciting day for all of them, and, as Kitty expressed it, they were all wound up like alarm-clocks. They would go off pretty soon with a br-r-r and a bang, and then run down.
The play pa.s.sed off without a hitch in the performance, and ended in a blaze of spangles and red light, when the fairy queen, trailing off the stage, went through the audience showering on her guests Christmas roses, supposed to have been called to life by her magic wand, and distributed as souvenirs of her skill.
Then somebody came up to Gay with her violin. With Allison to play her accompaniments, she chose her sweetest pieces, and threw her whole soul into the rendering of them. She was so grateful to these dear people who had taken her in like one of themselves, and given her such a happy, happy holiday-time that she did her best, and Gay"s best on the violin was a treat even to the musical critics in the company. Kitty was so proud of her she could not help expressing her pleasure aloud, much to Gay"s embarra.s.sment. To hide her confusion, she started a merry jig tune, so rollicking and irresistible that hands and feet all through the rooms began to pat the time. Keith seized his Aunt Allison around the waist and waltzed her out into the floor.
"Come on, everybody!" he cried.
Lloyd was standing in the doorway, talking to Doctor Shelby, the white-haired physician of the village, one of her oldest and dearest friends.
"Go on, Miss Holly-berry," he said. "If I wasn"t such a stiff old graybeard, I"d be at it myself. There"s Ra.n.a.ld wanting to ask you."
Lloyd waltzed off with Ra.n.a.ld, as light on her feet as a bit of thistle-down, and the old doctor"s eyes followed her fondly.
"She"s like Amanthis," he said to himself. "And she will grow more like her as the years go by, so spirited and high-strung. But they"ll have to watch her, or she"ll wear herself out."
Presently he missed the flash of the scarlet dress, in and out among the others, and he did not see it again until the music had stopped and the revel was ending with the chimes, rung softly on the Bells of Luzon.
As he stepped back to allow several guests to pa.s.s him on the way up to the dressing-room, he caught sight of Lloyd in an alcove in the back hall. She was attempting to draw a gla.s.s of ice-water from the cooler.
Her hands shook, and her face was so pale that it startled him. "What"s the matter, child?" he exclaimed.
"Nothing," she answered, trying to force a little laugh. "It"s just that I felt for a minute as if I might faint. I nevah did, you know. I reckon it"s as Kitty said. We"ve been wound up all day, and we"ve run so hah"d we"ve about run down, and we have to stop whethah we want to or not."
He looked at her keenly and began counting her pulse. "You are not to get wound up this way any more this winter, young lady," he said, sternly. "Go straight home and go to bed, and stay there until day after to-morrow. The rest cure is what you need."
"And miss Katie Mallard"s pah"ty?" she cried. "Why, I couldn"t do it even for you, you bad old ogah."
She made a saucy mouth at him, and then, with her most winning smile, held out her hand to say good night, for the guests were beginning to take their departure. "_Please_, Mistah _My_-Doctah,"--it was the pet name she had given him years ago when she used to ride on his shoulder,--"please don"t go to putting any notions into Papa Jack"s head or mothah"s. I"m just ti"ahed. That"s all. I"ll be all right in the mawning."
"Come, Lloyd," called Mrs. Sherman. "We"re ready to start now." She saw with a sigh of relief that her mother was bringing her coat toward her, so she would not have to climb the stairs for it. She was tired, dreadfully tired, she admitted to herself. But it had been such a happy day it was worth the fatigue.
As she drove homeward in the sleigh, she slipped her hand out of her m.u.f.f, and turned it in the moonlight to watch the sparkle of the new ring. She wondered if the two girls who had worn it in turn before her had had half as happy a fifteenth Christmas as she.
CHAPTER X.
THE DUNGEON OF DISAPPOINTMENT
IT was nearly noon when Lloyd wakened next morning. Her head ached, and she wondered dully how anybody could feel lively enough to sing as Aunt Cindy was doing, somewhere back in the servants" quarters. The sound of a squeaking wheelbarrow had wakened her. Alec was trundling it around the house, with the parrot perched on it. The parrot loved to ride, and its silly laugh at every jolt of the squeaking barrow usually amused Lloyd, but to-day its harsh chatter annoyed her.
"Oh, deah!" she groaned, sitting up in bed and yawning. "I feel as if I could sleep for a week. I wouldn"t get up at all if it wasn"t for Katie Mallard"s pah"ty. I hate this day-aftah-Christmas feeling, as if the bottom had dropped out of everything."
She dressed slowly and went down-stairs. "Where"s mothah, Mom Beck?" she asked, pausing in the dining-room door. The old coloured woman was arranging flowers for the lunch-table.
"She"s done gone ovah to Rollington, honey, with the old Cun"l. Walkah"s mothah is sick, and sent for "em. I"m lookin" for "em to come home any minute now. Come right along in, honey. I"ve kep" yoah breakfus" good and hot."
"I don"t want anything to eat. I"m not hungry now. I"d rathah wait till lunch. Where"s Betty, Mom Beck?"
"Now listen to that!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the old woman, sharply. "Don"t you remembah? She went off on the early train this mawning to that place you all calls the Cuckoo"s Nest. I packed her satchel befoah daylight."
"I had forgotten she was going," exclaimed Lloyd, turning to the window with a discontented expression, which only the s...o...b..rds on the lawn could see. She had come down-stairs expecting to talk over all the happenings of the previous day with Betty, and to find her gone gave her a vague sense of injury. She knew the feeling was unreasonable, but she could not shake it off.
The flash of the new ring gave her a momentary pleasure, but she was in a mood that nothing could please her long. When she strolled into the drawing-room, everything was in spotless order, and so quiet that the stillness was oppressive. Even the fire burned with a steady, noiseless glow, without the usual crackle, and the ashes fell on the hearth with velvety softness.
Some of her new books lay on a side table. She picked them up and glanced through them, catching at a paragraph here and there. But one after another she laid them down. She was not in a mood for reading.
Then she took a candied date from the bonbon dish, but it seemed to lack its usual flavour. After nibbling each end, she threw it into the fire.
Slipping her new opera-gla.s.s from its case, she went to the window and turned the lens on the distant entrance gate. The road in each direction seemed deserted. So she put the gla.s.s back in its case, and, after strolling restlessly around the room, walked over to the harp and struck a few chords.
"It"s all out of tune!" she exclaimed, fretfully, thrumming the faulty string with impatient fingers. "Everything seems out of tune this mawning!"
As she spoke, the string broke with a sudden harsh tw.a.n.g that made her jump. She was so startled that the tears came to her eyes, and so nervous that she flung herself face downward on the pillows of the long-Persian divan, and began sobbing hysterically. The strain of the last few weeks had been too much for her. Miss Gilmer"s prophecy had come true. The ice had given away under the extra weight put upon it.
She was sobbing so hard that she did not hear the sound of carriage wheels rolling softly up the avenue through the snow, and when the front door banged shut she started again, and began trembling as she had done when the harp-string broke. She was crying convulsively now, so hard that she could not stop, although she clenched her fists and bit her lips in a strong effort to regain self-control.
Mrs. Sherman, her face all aglow from the cold drive, and looking almost girlishly fair in her big hat with the plumes, and her dark furs, hurried in to the fire. The Colonel, throwing back his scarlet lined cape, pushed aside the portiere for her to enter. He was the first to catch sight of the shaking form on the divan.
"Why, Lloyd, child, what"s the matter?" he demanded, anxiously. "What"s the matter with grandpa"s little girl?"
Mrs. Sherman, with a frightened expression, hurried to her, and, bending over her, tried to get a glimpse of the tear-swollen face buried so persistently in the cushions.
"Nothing"s happened! No, I"m not sick," came in smothered tones from the depths of the pillows. "It"s j-just crying itself, and I--I--I c-can"t stop-p-p!"
A long shiver pa.s.sed over her, and Mrs. Sherman, stroking her forehead with a soothing hand, waited for her to grow quiet before plying her with questions. But the old Colonel paced impatiently back and forth.