Her door swung open. Celia stood on the threshold, her eyes wide with alarm. Lanse, lightly costumed in pink-and-white pajamas, gazed over her shoulder.
"Charlotte Birch!" cried Celia, and words failed her. But Lanse was ready of speech.
"What the d.i.c.kens does this mean?" he inquired, wrathfully. "Have we become an orphanage? I thought I heard singular sounds just after I got to bed. Is there any good reason why the family shouldn"t be informed of what strange intentions you may have in your brain before you carry them out? Whose youngster is it, and what are you doing with it here?"
Charlotte"s lips were seen to move, but the baby"s fright had received such an accession from the appearance of two more unknown beings in the room that nothing could be distinguished. What Charlotte said was, "Please go away! I"ll tell you in the morning." But the visitors, failing to catch the appeal, not only did not go away, but moved nearer.
"Why, it"s Annie Donohue"s baby!" cried Celia, and shrieked the information into Lanse"s ear. His expression of disfavour relaxed a degree, but he still looked preternaturally severe. Celia hobbled over to the baby, and sitting down in a rocking-chair, held out her arms. But Charlotte shook her head and motioned imperatively toward the door.
At this instant Jeff, in a red bathrobe, appeared in the doorway, grasped the situation, nodded a.s.surance to Charlotte, and hauled his elder brother across the hall into his own room, where he closed the door and explained in a few terse sentences:
"Annie died last night--to-night. We heard of it late, and Charlotte thought she wouldn"t disturb anybody. The doctor was there. He carried the baby home. We couldn"t leave her there. She was scared to death. She knows Fiddle, and she"ll grow quiet now if you people don"t stand round and insist on explanations being roared at you."
"But we can"t keep a baby here," began Lanse, who had come home late, unusually tired, and was feeling the customary masculine displeasure at having his hard-earned rest broken--a sensation which at the moment took precedence over any more humanitarian emotions.
"We don"t have to settle that to-night, do we?" demanded Jeff, with scorn. "Hasn"t the poor girl got enough on her hands without having you scowl at her for trying to do the good Samaritan act--at three o"clock in the morning?"
Jeff next turned his attention to Celia. He went into Charlotte"s room, picked up his elder sister without saying "by your leave," and carried her off to her own bed.
"But, Jeff, I could help Charlotte," Celia remonstrated. "The poor baby may be sick."
"Don"t believe it. She"s simply scared stiff at kimonos and pajamas and bathrobes stalking round her in a strange house. Charlotte can cool her down if anybody can. If she can"t, I"ll call the doctor. Now go to sleep. Charlotte and I will man the ship to-night, and in the morning you can go to work making duds for the baby. It didn"t have anything to wear round it but a summer cape and Mrs. O"Neill"s plaid shawl."
This artful allusion touched Celia"s tender heart and set her mind at work, as Jeff had meant it should; so putting out her light, he slipped away to Charlotte, exulting in having so promptly fixed things for her.
But Charlotte met him with anxious eyes. The baby was still screaming.
"See how she stiffens every now and then, and holds her breath till I think she"ll never breathe again!" she called in his ear. "I do really think you"d better call Mrs. Fields. You can wake her with a knock on her window. She sleeps in the little wing down-stairs."
As he hurried down the hall, the door of Captain Rayburn"s room opened, and Jeff met the quiet question, "What"s up, lad?"
He stopped an instant to explain, encountered prompt sympathy, and laid a hasty injunction upon his uncle not to attempt to a.s.sist Charlotte in her dilemma. That gentleman hobbled back to bed, smiling tenderly to himself in the dark--why, if he had seen him, Jeff never would have been able to guess.
CHAPTER VII
"I"ve got a sewing-machine that I know the kinks of," said Mrs. Fields to Celia and Charlotte and the baby, who regarded her with interest from the couch, where they were grouped. "The doctor"s going to be away all day to-morrow, and if you"ll all come over, we can get through a lot of little clothes for the baby. Land knows she ain"t anyway fixed for going outdoors in all kinds of weather, the way the doctor wants her to."
This was so true that it carried weight in spite of the difficulties in the way. So before he went off to school on a certain February morning, Jeff had carried Celia across to Mrs. Field"s sitting-room, and by ten o"clock three busy people were at work. Captain Rayburn had begged to be of the party, and although Mrs. Fields received with skepticism his declaration that he could do various sorts of sewing with a sufficient degree of skill, she allowed him to come, on condition that he look after the baby.
"Well, for the land"s sake!" cried the forewoman of the sewing brigade, as she opened the big bundle Captain Rayburn had brought with him. "I should say you haven"t left much for us to do!"
The captain regarded with complacency the finished garments she was holding up.
"Yes," said he, "I telephoned the big children"s supply shop to send me what Miss Ellen would need for out-of-doors. It seemed a pity to have her stay in another day, waiting to be sewed up. Aren"t they right? I thought the making of her indoor clothes would be enough."
Celia and Charlotte were exclaiming with delight over the pretty, wadded white coat which Mrs. Fields held aloft. There was a little furry hood to match, mittens, and a pair of leggings of the sort desirable for small travellers.
"If he hasn"t remembered everything!" cried Mrs. Fields, when this last article of apparel came to view. "Well, sir, I won"t say you haven"t saved us quite a ch.o.r.e. I"ve got the little flannel petticoats all cut out. Doctor Churchill bought flannel enough to keep her covered from now till she"s five years old. Talk about economy--when a man goes shopping!"
Mrs. Fields plunged into business with a will. The sewing-machine hummed ceaselessly. Celia, with rapid, skillful fingers, kept pace with her in basting and putting together, and Charlotte--well, Charlotte did her best. Meanwhile Captain Rayburn and the baby explored together mysterious realms of pockets and picture-books.
"For the land"s sake, Miss Charlotte!" cried Mrs. Fields, suddenly, in the middle of the morning. "If you ain"t made five left sleeves and only one right!"
Charlotte looked up, crimsoning. "How could I have done it?"
"Easy enough." Mrs. Field"s expression softened instantly at sight of the girl"s dismay. "I"ve done it a good many times. Something about it--sleeves act bewitched. They seem bound to hang together and be all one kind or all the other, anything but pairs."
"Why don"t you rest a little, and take baby outdoors in her new coat?"
Celia suggested. "Sewing is such wearisome work, if one isn"t used to it."
So Charlotte and her charge gladly went out. A neighbour had lent an old baby sled, and in it Miss Ellen Donohue, snuggled to the chin in the warmest of garments and wrappings, took her first airing since the night, a week before, when she had been brought home in Doctor Churchill"s arms.
She was a shy but happy baby, and had already won all hearts. n.o.body was willing to begin the steps necessary to place her in any of the inst.i.tutions designed for cases like hers. Charlotte, indeed, would not hear of it; and even the practical John Lansing, who had learned to figure the family finances pretty closely since he himself had become the wage-earner, succ.u.mbed to the touch of baby fingers on his face and the glance of a pair of eyes like forget-me-nots.
As for Captain Rayburn, he was the baby"s devoted slave at all times, his most jealous rival being Dr. Andrew Churchill, who was constantly inventing excuses for coming in for a frolic with Baby Ellen.
"If the doctor could look in on us now," observed Mrs. Fields, suddenly, in the middle of the afternoon, when Charlotte was again bravely trying to distinguish herself at tasks in which she was by no means an adept, "he"d be put out with me for having this party a day when he was away.
He sets great store by anything that looks like a lot of people at home."
"Is he one of a large family?" Celia asked.
"He was two years ago. Since then he"s lost a brother and a sister and his mother. His father died five years ago. He has a married brother in j.a.pan, and an unmarried one in South Africa. There ain"t anybody in the old home now. It broke up when his mother died, two years ago. He hasn"t got over that--not a bit. She was going to come and live with him here.
It was a town where she used to visit a good deal, and since he couldn"t settle near the old home, because it wasn"t a good field for young doctors, she was willing to come here with him. That"s why he"s here now, though I suppose it don"t begin to be as advantageous a place for him as it would be in the city itself. He thought a terrible lot of his mother, Andy did. Seems as if he wanted to please her now as much as ever. And he has some pretty homesick times, now and then, though he doesn"t show it much."
It was the first time the doctor"s housekeeper had been so communicative, and her three hearers listened with deep interest, although they asked few questions, made only one or two kindly comments, and did not express half the sympathy they felt. Only Captain Rayburn, thoughtfully staring out of the window, gave voice to a sentiment for which both his nieces, although they said nothing in reply, inwardly thanked him.
"Doctor Churchill is a rare sort of fellow," he said. "Doctor Forester considers him most promising, I know. But better than that, he is one whose personality alone will always be the strongest part of his influence over his patients, winning them from despair to courage--how, they can"t tell. And the man who can add to the sum total of the courage of the human race has done for it what it very much needs."
A few minutes after this little speech the subject of it quite unexpectedly came dashing in, bringing with him a great breath of February air. He stopped in astonishment upon the threshold.
"If this isn"t the unkindest trick I ever heard of!" he cried, his brilliant eyes flashing from one to another. "I suppose that arch-traitor of a Fieldsy planned to have you all safely away before I came home. I"m thankful I got here two hours before she expected me. See here, you"ve got to make this up to me somehow."
"Sit down!" invited Captain Rayburn. "You may hem steadily for two hours on flannel petticoats. If that won"t make it up to you I don"t know what will."
"No, it won"t," retorted the doctor. "Sewing"s all right in its way, but I"ve just put up my needle-case, thank you, and no more st.i.tching for me to-day. I want--a lark! I want to go skating. Who"ll go with me?"
"By the process of elimination I should say you would soon get at the answer to that," remarked the captain. "There seems to be just one candidate for active service in this company--unless Mrs. Fields--I"ve no doubt now that Mrs. Fields----"
"Will you go?" Doctor Churchill turned to Mrs. Fields. She glanced up into his laughing eyes.
"Run along and don"t bother me," she said to him. "Take that child there. She"s about got her stent done, I guess."