"Oh, this isn"t any of your afternoon-tea affairs, I can tell you that!"
declared Jeff, watching with pleasure the filling of the tall blue-and-white chocolate pot. "People know they are going to get something good when they come here. I warned the fellows not to eat too much supper before they came. Any more of those chicken sandwiches?"
"For the land"s sake, Mr. Jeff!" cried Mrs. Fields.
"What"s the matter, Jeffy?" asked Charlotte, coming out. Doctor Churchill was behind her, bearing an empty salad bowl.
"I want more sandwiches," demanded Jeff.
"Everybody fall to quick and make them," commanded Charlotte. "Norman Carter and Just have had seven apiece. That makes them go fast."
"Well, I never!" breathed the housekeeper once more. But Charlotte was slicing the bread with a rapid hand. The doctor, laughing, undertook to b.u.t.ter the slices, and Jeff would have spread on the chicken if Mrs.
Fields had not taken the knife from his hand.
Ten minutes later Jeff was able to announce that everybody seemed to be satisfied.
"That"s a mercy," said Mrs. Fields, handing him a tray full of pink and white ices, Captain Rayburn"s contribution to the festivities. "You"d have to give "em sody-crackers now if they wasn"t. Carry that careful, and tell Miss Charlotte to send out for the cake. I"ll light the candles."
Doctor Churchill came out alone for the cake. It stood ready upon the table, Charlotte"s greatest success--a big, old-fashioned orange "layer-cake," with pale yellow icing, twenty-three pale yellow candles surrounding it in a flaming circle, and one great yellow Marechal Niel rose in the centre.
"Whew-w, that"s a beauty!" cried Doctor Churchill. "Did you make it, Fieldsy?"
"Indeed I didn"t," denied Mrs. Fields, with great satisfaction. "Miss Charlotte made it herself, and I didn"t know but she"d go crazy over it, first for fear it wouldn"t turn out right, and then for joy because it had."
The doctor handed it about with a face so beaming that Doctor Forester leaned back in his chair and regarded his young colleague quizzically.
"You make this cake, Churchill?" he asked.
The doctor laughed. "It was joy enough to bring it in," he said.
"Who did make it?" demanded Forester. "It was no caterer, I know."
Charlotte attempted to escape quietly from the room, but Lanse barred the way. "Here she is," he said, and turned his sister about and made her face the company. A friendly round of applause greeted her, mingled with exclamations of surprise. They all knew Charlotte, or thought they did. To most of them this was a new and unlooked-for accomplishment.
"It"s not half so good as the sort Celia makes," murmured Charlotte, and would hear no more of the cake. But Celia, in her corner, said softly to Doctor Forester:
"It"s going to be worth while, my knee, for the training Charlotte is getting. She"ll be a perfect little housekeeper before I"m about again."
"It"s going to be worth while in another way too," returned her friend, with an appreciative glance at the face which always reminded him of her mother"s, it was so serenely sweet and full of character.
"It is? How?" she asked, eagerly, for his tone was emphatic.
"I have few patients on my list who learn so soon to bear this sort of thing as quietly as you are bearing it," he said. "Don"t think that doesn"t count." Then he rose to go.
Celia hardly heard the leave-takings, her mind was so happily busy with this bit of rare praise from one whose respect was well worth earning.
And half an hour afterward, as Lanse stooped to gather her up and carry her up-stairs to bed, she looked back at Captain Rayburn, who still sat beside her couch, and said, with softly shining eyes:
"The colonel _almost_ wouldn"t be the second lieutenant if he could, Uncle Ray."
Lanse, lifting his sister in his strong arms, remarked, "I should say not. Why should he?"
Celia and Captain Rayburn, laughing, exchanged a sympathetic, comprehending glance.
CHAPTER VI
Three times Jefferson Birch knocked on his sister Charlotte"s door. Then he turned the k.n.o.b. The door would not open. "Fiddle!" he called, softly, but got no reply.
"You"re not asleep, I know," he said, firmly, at the keyhole. "I can see a light from outside, if you have got it all plugged up here. Let me in.
I"ve some important news for you."
Charlotte"s lock turned and she threw the door open. "Well, come in,"
she said. "I didn"t mean anybody to know, but I"m dying to tell somebody, and I can trust you."
"Of course!" affirmed Jeff, entering with an air of curiosity. "What"s doing? Painting?"
The table by the window was strewn with artist"s materials, drawings, sheets of water-colour paper and tumblers of coloured water. In the midst of this confusion lay one piece of nearly finished work--the interior of an unfurnished room, showing wall decoration and nothing more. The colouring caught Jeff"s eye.
"That"s stunning!" he commented, catching up the board upon which the colour drawing was stretched. "What"s it for? Going to put in some furniture?"
Charlotte laughed. "No, I"m not going to put in any furniture," she said. "This is just to show a scheme for decorating a den--a man"s den.
Do you really like it?"
"It"s great!" Jeff stood the board up against the wall and backed away, studying it with interest. "Those dull reds and blues will show off his guns and pictures and things in fine shape. How did you ever think it up?"
Charlotte brought out some sheets of wall-paper, as Jeff thought, but he saw at once that they were hand-work. They represented in full-size detail the paper used upon the den walls. Jeff studied them with interest.
"So this is where you are evenings, after you slip away. You"re sitting up late, too. See here, this won"t do!"
"Oh, yes, it will. Don"t try to stop me, Jeff. I"m not up late, really I"m not--only once in awhile."
"I thought people couldn"t paint by artificial light."
"They can when they get used to the difference it makes. But I do only the drudgery, evenings--outlines and solid filling in and that sort of thing."
"Going to show this to somebody?"
"Oh, don"t talk about it!" said Charlotte, breathlessly. "If I can get my courage up. You know Mr. Murdock, with that decorating house where the Deckers had their work done? Well, some day I"m going to show him.
But I"m so frightened at my own audacity!"
"If he doesn"t like this, he"s a fool!" declared Jeff, vigorously, and although Charlotte laughed she felt the encouragement of his boyish approval. Putting away her work, she suddenly remembered the excuse her brother had given for forcing his way into her room.
"You said you had important news for me. Did you mean it, or was that only to get in?"
"Oh," said Jeff sitting down suddenly and looking up at her, his face growing grave. "You put it out of my head when I came in. I met the doctor just now. He"d been to see Annie Donohue. She"s worse."