"Yes, sir! I am Annie"s friend from Gresham. We have been intimate from the day we entered school."
"Yes, yes! I know much of you and your courtesy. But tell me, Miss Allison, are you American?" (His American was so different from ours one could almost spell it A-m-e-h-r-i-k-e-n.)
"Yes, Mr. Pore, I am American, but my mother was English."
"Ah! I thought as much. Her name was Lucy Page, was it not?"
"Yes," I answered, wondering at his knowledge of my mother"s name.
"Oh, Page! Page! Only think of it!" exclaimed Annie impulsively. "Lucy Page was my mother"s little friend, the one who lent her the slippers to wear to the Charity Bazaar," and her enthusiasm went unrebuked by her father. Indeed, he seemed almost as excited as Annie. The poor man had been a long time away from persons who knew him and whom he knew and he had the absurd notion that very few "Amehrikens" were his social equal; now he found that his daughter had made friends with the child of his wife"s old friend.
"To think of it, to think of it! My word, but it is strange! I knew the moment I saw you that I had seen either you or your counterpart before.
Tell me, child, all about your mother, and your grandfather, Major Page.
What a fine old soldier he was!"
And so I sat on the porch by this strange, stiff Englishman, no longer stiff, but positively limber, Dum declared, and told all I knew of my poor little mother and the fine old soldier, her father. They had come to America to look up some investments made by the retired Army officer, had settled near Warrenton and there had met my father,--and the marriage had ensued.
"All I have left of my old English grandfather is his hat-tub, which I still use when I am at Bracken," I said.
"My word, how I should like to own one! I have not seen a hat-tub for twenty years," he sighed. "But tell me, Miss Allison, do you never see nor hear from your mother"s family in England?"
"I think all correspondence with them died a natural death many years ago. Father used to write once a year to a great-aunt, Gwendoline was her name, but she died; after that some of her daughters wrote once or twice and then stopped. I don"t even know whether they are alive and I fancy they neither know nor care whether I am."
"I have never seen a more striking likeness than you have to your mother. She was much younger than my wife when I knew her. We had all been visiting at the home of the Earl of Garth, my wife"s uncle. Little Lucy Page was really not old enough to be out of the nursery, certainly should have been in charge of a governess; but Major Page had his own ideas about such things and took his daughter wherever he went. She was about sixteen, I fancy."
"Just your age!" tweedled the Tuckers, who had been listening, with open mouths and eyes, in speechless silence to Mr. Pore"s revelations. When he spoke of the Earl of Garth as his wife"s uncle they looked, as poor dear Blanche expressed it, "fittin" to bust." And then when in the most casual manner he let drop that his own father was a baronet, I know it was a relief to them that the hammock rope broke at the crucial moment and they were precipitated to the floor with Mary Flannagan who was between them.
"If something had not happened and happened pretty quick "a kersplosion was eminent,"" whispered Dee to me. "And now I am going to beat it to the hotel as fast as my legs can carry me and let that hateful Mabel Binks know that she has been nasty to the n.o.bility. Oh, I am going to be tactful and not let her know I came for the express purpose. I am going to ask her to tea and be generally sweet, and then just casually let it drop that Mr. Pore knew your mother while all of them were visiting at an earl"s, and that said earl was Mrs. Pore"s uncle. I"ll rub in that it means that our modest, little English friend, called by Mabel and her ilk Orphan Annie, is the great-granddaughter of an earl on her mother"s side and the granddaughter of a baronet on her father"s."
All this Dee whispered to me while the hammock was being tied up more securely by Zebedee. The solemn Englishman was evidently much amused by the mishap, as he laughed in a manner almost hilarious for one so dignified and sober. I have always heard an accident like that spoken of as an English joke, and truly it did seem to strike him as very funny.
Harvie Price and Shorty made their appearance soon after. Harvie greeted Mr. Pore with great respect and in a few moments they were conversing most affably about Harvie"s grandfather, General Price, and news of the settlement.
Mr. Pore seemed to like the boy and Harvie evidently liked him. Once he had told me that he admired Mr. Pore greatly as one who could think in Latin.
It was easy to see that Mr. Pore was not going to be such a difficult visitor, after all. He had evidently decided that we were good enough socially for him, because of my mother"s having been at the Earl of Garth"s. He had already admitted Harvie to his exclusive circle since he had permitted Annie to play with him when they were children. He liked Zebedee and Zebedee"s cigars and Zebedee"s children, who cracked such delicious jokes in falling out of hammocks. Altogether he intended to have a very pleasant weekend. I fancied he was a little sorry that he had spoken of his connections, as it was a subject he evidently had not touched on to strangers, but it had slipped out in his delight in meeting someone he considered of his world, that world that he had turned his back on so many years before but the world to which he still belonged. He had never identified himself with his "Amehriken"
neighbours and had always held himself as an alien among them.
Annie looked a little startled and very happy. This was a new father to her, a genial gentleman who actually talked to her friends and admitted having t.i.tled connections in the old country. He had not censured her once and now he was talking to Harvie with actual affability.
"Oh, Page," she whispered to me, "how glad I am I accepted your slippers that night of the musicale at Gresham. You remember I said to you that my mother had borrowed slippers, too, when she had worn that dress, and that she did not mind borrowing them because she knew her friend loved her. To think of that friend"s being your mother! Oh, Page, I am so happy!"
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE MACHINATIONS OF MABEL.
Dee must have laid it on rather thick with Mabel Binks, as anything like that young woman"s change of manner towards Annie could not have been brought about by a light touch. I am afraid Dee represented Mr. Pore"s brother, the present baronet, as in the last stages of some wasting disease, and by some juggling of facts in regard to English t.i.tles gave the impression that Annie was in a fair way to become the d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough or at least the Honourable Anne. She afterwards told Dum and me when we accused her of not having drawn it mild, that she had neglected to tell Mabel the exact connection with the earl, but had hinted that it was very close and one likely to lead to untold honours to our little friend.
"I saw to it that your haughty relative, Mrs. Garnett, was informed of the coincidence of Annie"s mother and your mother being friends and of their being at the house party of the big bugs together. Mrs. Garnett was duly impressed and somewhat astonished, intimating that her cousin, Dr. Allison, had picked up an English wife with no connections to speak of. She will evidently have a higher opinion of you now that she knows that your mother and grandfather were on visiting terms with an earl."
Dee pretended to be in jest about Cousin Park, but it was the truth that she had always rather looked down on my mother for not being Virginian.
She never lost the chance to inform any stranger when I was introduced that my name was not the Virginia Pages. With her, F. F. V"s were the first and last and only families worth considering in the Union or out of it. Of course, English n.o.bility was in a way admirable, since it had given birth to F. F. V.dom, but the claim of inhabitants of any other state to aristocracy was brushed aside with scornful disdain.
I remember a story my father used to tell of an old gentleman who said he considered it very bad taste to ask any man where he came from. "If he is a Virginian, he is sure to let you know it without your asking, and if he is not, there is no use in rubbing it in on the poor fellow by making him own up to it."
Mabel"s being invited to supper was a question that had been discussed up and down by the Tuckers, princ.i.p.ally down; but they had finally determined that it was on the whole up to them. Dee had been appointed inviter as being the tactful member of the team, and Mabel naturally jumped at the chance, overlooking the fact that she did not consider us properly chaperoned.
Her politeness and cordiality to Annie were entirely unlooked for by that shy maiden, who almost fainted from astonishment; and she actually gushed over Mr. Pore. He looked at her for a moment through his ultra gold gla.s.ses and then, deciding that she was nothing but a vulgar "Amehriken," he never seemed to see her again, although he was forced to hear her very often. She addressed many remarks to him and tried in every way to make him notice her, but an "Aw, reahly!" was about all she could get from him.
"I simply adore the English!" she exclaimed. "They have so much reserve. Do you know, my grandfather Binks was English, and indeed he never lost his accent although he lived in this country for a great many years. I remember so well how he dropped his aitches and put them on in the most unexpected places."
"Aw, reahly now!"
"Aren"t you and your sweet daughter going back to England soon? You don"t know how we dote on your little Annie," and so on and so on, until it was indeed sickening. It was easy to see that Miss Binks was as anxious to get an invitation to England as she had been to Richmond, while Mr. Pore was entirely unconscious of what she was driving at. He looked upon her as some kind of escaped lunatic and Annie sat in open-eyed wonderment, expecting every moment to be insulted as of yore.
They did not dream of Dee"s having turned the tables on Mabel Binks as she had done. Mr. Pore was still the country store-keeper and Annie was the same shy girl with her wardrobe as limited as ever, but the wily Dee had turned them into dukes and d.u.c.h.esses in Mabel"s eyes, and the sn.o.bbish creature was grovelling at the feet of the n.o.bility. I have never seen two persons have as much fun as Tweedles did that evening.
They were very quiet but spent the time "sicking Mabel on," as Dee expressed it.
I was pleased to see that Annie did not unbend in the least to her one-time persecutor. In spite of Annie"s shyness she had a dignity that was most admirable; and while she was perfectly polite to Mabel, she permitted no advances. Getting invitations to England to visit in grand country houses that still belong to older brothers was certainly up-hill work. Winding purple and grey yarn for Mrs. Garnett and fetching and carrying for her, even agreeing with her at every point, was child"s play to this thing of flattering a middle-aged Englishman who seemed to have no conversation at his command but "Aw, reahly!" or "My word!" and trying to undo the work of the last year and make a little English girl forget all the rudeness she had suffered at the hands of her persistent tormentor.
I kept wondering how about the lard and mola.s.ses that the middle-aged Englishman would perhaps spend the rest of his life weighing out and drawing from the barrel for his negro customers as well as white; also if Mrs. Binks would still think Gresham too democratic in the cla.s.s of pupils it enrolled. I so naturally hate a sn.o.b that I did not have a pleasant evening at all, and I could not quite see the fun in it that Tweedles did.
I was glad when it was over and we could stretch out on our cots with the pure sea air blowing on us, and, lulled by the soothing sound of the waves lapping the sh.o.r.e, sleep the sleep of the just. We could be thankful, at least, that Mabel Binks was, after all, none of us and when we left Willoughby Beach we might never have to see her again.
As we lay side by side, all of us so quiet that one would have thought sleep held us fast, there was a sudden upheaval from Mary"s cot and a sound that might have been sobbing.
"Mary! Mary! What is it?" we demanded. "Are you ill?" And then the possible sobs turned into unmistakable giggles.
"Oh! Oh! Oh! I can"t get to sleep for thinking of Mr. Pore"s countenance when Mabel told him of her Binks grandfather who dropped his aitches." Then we all went off into shrieks of laughter that very little would have turned into hysterics, if Zebedee had not knocked sternly on our dressing-room door and bade us remember that we had other guests. Of course he meant we must not do anything to make Mr. Pore think we were not perfect ladies, so we subsided with only an occasional upheaval and a smothered snicker.
And while we lay there I thought of a t.i.tle for a short story and almost got a plot worked out; but I went to sleep before it was quite clear.
The t.i.tle was: "The Machinations of Mabel."
CHAPTER XIX.
THE WEDDING.
July was almost over and it seemed but yesterday since we had come to the Beach and taken possession of Mrs. Rand"s cottage and made preparations for the continuous house-party. So many pleasures and excitements had been crowded into that month that really might have been spread over six months and still not have been stupid! It seems a pity that pleasant happenings make time pa.s.s quickly and sad and boresome things make it drag. How much better if it could only be the other way.
I know Miss c.o.x felt that the month had gone very quickly and would have been glad of a few more weeks to give to preparations for matrimony, but Mr. Robert Gordon had got the bit between his teeth and there was no holding him in.
"Haven"t I been waiting for years and years? Isn"t my hair white with waiting?" he would say, shaking his exceedingly becoming, iron-grey locks.