"The poor boy! I just know Edwin will think of something to do for him.
Although Edwin has taught girls always, he does understand boys thoroughly. If we can get board with the Laurens ladies we will be quite near Louis and his sister, and as we get to know them we can find out how to help the boy without hurting his pride. I think all of you girls have shown the "mettle of the pasture" in the way you have grappled with this very trying occasion."
""Twas Dee! She thought of asking Louis to lunch and everything. Dee has so much heart, I wonder she is not lop-sided," said Dum, who was as upset as Zebedee over Dee"s going to pieces. "You see, Dee and I have lots of fusses, but it is almost always my fault, because I am so mean.
Dee is the most wonderfullest person in the world."
Mrs. Green smiled and hugged the enthusiastic Dum.
"Yes, I know what a sister can be. My sister, Mildred, is not my twin in reality, but the Siamese twins cannot be closer than we are in spirit. I hardly ever see her now, either, as she lives in the northwest and I am at Wellington all winter and in Kentucky in the summer. Fortunately, love can work by wireless at any distance, so absence does not affect our affection for each other."
We told our lovely lady good night, and then it was she gave us the selfsame kind of kiss she had given Dee.
"Doesn"t it seem ridiculous that we have known her only since this afternoon? I feel as though I had known her all my life. If I go to New York to study at the League, she is going to have me meet her sister-in-law, Mrs. Kent Brown. She is the one Miss Ball told us about who got in such funny sc.r.a.pes at college--you remember, Judy Kean, who dyed her hair black?"
Dum and I were in the elevator, on our way downstairs to hunt up Zebedee to tell him how Dee was faring. We found him in the lobby, still talking to Professor Green. He was greatly relieved that Dee was herself again, and I a.s.sured him that by morning she would be better than herself.
"I have been telling Green all about that poor Louis Gaillard," he confessed. "I did not feel it to be a breach of confidence, after the way Dee had flopped, letting the cat out of the bag half-way, anyhow; besides, I want him to talk the matter over with his wife. I feel that perhaps they will know how to help the boy."
"Molly will, I feel sure. She always sees some way to help."
Dum and I burst out laughing at Professor Green"s words.
"That is just what she said about you," I laughed. "Dee wanted us to tell her all about Louis so she could talk it over with you, thinking there might be something you could suggest about helping him, and she said: "Edwin will think of something to do for him. He understands boys thoroughly, if he does teach girls.""
And so ended our first day in Charleston. What a day it had been! Rain and sunshine, wind and moonlight, poetry and prose, fiction and fact! A young life saved, and friendship born! Dee going off in hysterics, and Dum and I so tired at last that we could hardly crawl back into the elevator to be borne to our room!
We found Dee sleeping like a baby, and in five minutes we were sleeping like two more babies. I wonder if Louis Gaillard slept.
CHAPTER XIII
ENGAGING BOARD
Whether Louis slept or not on that night after his near-extinction, he was with us early the next morning to bring the glad news that the Misses Laurens would consent to receive us in their home. The Greens were as delighted as we were. Zebedee was to take the first available train to Columbia, and as Professor Green had some important mail to get off, arrangements were left to the females. We were to call on the Misses Laurens at eleven o"clock, accompanied by Claire Gaillard.
"Just to think that we are actually going to live in that old house!"
exclaimed Mrs. Green, who was quite as enthusiastic over anything that pleased her as any of us girls. "Do you think we can ever know the one who sang, well enough to ask her to sing to us?"
"I doubt it!" from Dum. "If they are as top-loftical in their home as they were in the bus the other morning, I doubt their even speaking to us. But I want to see their furniture and portraits whether they speak to us or not. I bet that house is just running over with beautiful things."
Claire, whom we picked up at her home on the way to the Misses Laurens", endeavored to prepare us for the stilted dignity of our prospective hostesses. We had seen them in the bus and knew how they could conduct themselves; but we had also seen them haggling for shrimps, so we knew they had their weaknesses; and we had heard one of them sing, and knew that she at least had a heart.
In answer to the bell, which, by the way, was the old-fashioned pulling kind that made a faint jangle "way off in the most remote end of the house, a gawky, extremely black girl opened the door that led from the street to a great long porch or gallery. Steps from this porch led to a tangled old garden with palmettos and magnolias shading the walks, sadly neglected and gra.s.s-grown, that wound around flower beds long since given over to their own sweet will. A fat stone Cupid, heavily draped in c.u.mbersome stone folds, was in the act of shooting an iron arrow at a snub-nosed Psyche some ten feet from him. There was a sun-dial in the center of the garden, and every now and then one spied an old stone bench, crumbling and moss-grown, through the tangle of vines and shrubs.
"Oh!" came from all of us with one accord. It was very lovely and very pathetic, this old garden, so beautiful and so neglected and gone to seed!
"Louis is wild to restore it," whispered Claire. "You know, he can do the most wonderful things with a garden."
We did know, having peeped into their garden so rudely the day before, but we kept very quiet about that.
The gawky black girl plunged ahead of us and ushered us into the house door. This door was smaller than the one on the street, but followed the same chaste style of architecture. The hall was astonishingly narrow, but the room we were told to "Jes" go in an" res" yo"se"fs in yander!"
we found to be of fine proportions, a lofty, s.p.a.cious room.
The fiddle-backed chairs and the spindle-legged tables and claw-footed sofas in that room would have driven a collector green with envy.
Curtains hung at the windows that were fit for bridal veils, so fine they were and so undoubtedly real. The portraits that lined the walls were so numerous and so at home that somehow I felt it an impertinence that I, a mere would-be boarder, should look at them. They belonged and I didn"t, and if by good luck I could obtain an introduction to them, then I might make so bold as to raise my eyes to them, but not before.
There was a dim, religious light in the room, and the portraits, many of them needing varnishing and cleaning, had almost retired into their backgrounds. They peered out at us in some indignation, those great soldiers and statesmen, those belles and beauties. I don"t know why it is that ancestors always attained eminence and were great whatever they tried to do, while descendants have to struggle along in mediocrity, no matter how hard they try.
The Misses Laurens glided into the room, and Claire introduced us. I don"t know how the girl had accounted for her acquaintance with us.
Perhaps she had not been compelled to account at all. We were received with courtesy but with a strange aloofness that made me feel as though I had just had the pleasure of being presented to one of the portraits, not real flesh and blood. Arabella and Judith were their names. To our astonishment the elder, Miss Arabella, turned out to be the sentimental one with the voice, while Miss Judith, the younger, was the sterner of the two and evidently the prime mover in this business of taking "paying guests." Usually it is the younger sister who goes off to romance and the elder who is more practical; at least, it is that way in fiction.
"We have come to you, hoping you will take us to"--Mrs. Green, who was spokesman for us, faltered; could she say "board" to those two?
Never!--"will let us come to stay with you." That was better.
"We shall be very pleased to offer you the hospitality of our home during your stay in Charleston," from Miss Judith.
"Yes, we Charlestonians are always sorry when guests to our city have to accept entertainment at a hostelry," fluttered Miss Arabella. "For a long time the better element of our community was greatly opposed to the establishment of such places. We argued that when visitors came to Charleston, if they were distinguished and worthy they should be entertained in private homes; and if they were not distinguished and not worthy, we did not care for them to sojourn here under any circ.u.mstances."
"We are a party of six," continued Mrs. Green, doing her best to be businesslike in the interview. "My husband and I, these three young ladies, and Mr. Tucker, the father of these two," indicating Tweedles, who were breathing heavily, a sure sign of laughter that must come sooner or later. "Mr. Tucker is now in Columbia," she went on to explain, "but will shortly return."
"We shall be pleased to see him whenever his affairs permit him to leave the capital of our State."
"You will have room, then, for all of us?"
"Certainly; we have entertained as many as twenty guests quite often.
Not recently; but we still can accommodate that number without inconvenience or crowding."
Miss Judith was spokesman now, while Miss Arabella glided from the room.
In a moment the ungainly girl who had opened the door came in, evidently in response to a signal from the mistress, bearing a silver tray with a Bohemian gla.s.s decanter and beautiful gla.s.ses with slender stems and a plate of wafers that were so thin and delicate one could easily have eaten a barrel of them without feeling stuffed.
"That will do, Dilsey," said Miss Judith, evidently knowing better than to trust the handmaiden, who certainly had the appearance of what Mammy Susan called "a corn fiel" n.i.g.g.e.r," with the rare old Bohemian gla.s.s.
Miss Judith served us herself to apricot cordial, the most delicious thing I ever tasted. "We brewed it ourselves from a recipe that has been in our family for centuries," she said, with the simplicity that one might use in saying "like the pies mother used to make."
Still there was no talk of terms or question of our viewing our rooms.
Such things are not discussed with guests. The guests are simply given the best the house affords, and of course are too well-bred to do anything but be pleased.
"When may we come?" ventured Dum.
"At any time that suits your convenience."
"After luncheon today, then, will be a good time," suggested Mrs. Green, and I thought the two ladies breathed a small sigh of relief. Maybe they thought the Philistines were already upon them and come to stay.
"We three girls can sleep in one room!" I exclaimed, not having opened my mouth before except to take in the cordial and wafers. My voice sounded strange and harsh to me, somehow.
"We are under no necessity for crowding," quietly from Miss Judith, who looked at me, I thought, in disapproval. What business was it of guests to dictate to the hostess what their sleeping arrangements should be? I subsided.