Part 66

“Good evening!” he remarked to Nina, and swept off his white-covered uniform cap with a magnificent gesture. Then, without words, he dropped on one knee beside the stove, and he turned up the wick and struck a match, just as Rose had done.

“No oil in it,” he announced, rising. “I’ll get you some.”

“Mercy!” said Nina, after he had gone. “What a-an overwhelming creature!”

“Isn’t he?” Rose agreed. “He made me forget that, even if the stove ever does get lighted, there’s nothing to cook on it. I’ll have to ask him where the store is.”

“It’s dark now, Rose. You can’t go wandering about in this strange place.”

“There’s nothing I wouldn’t do now for the sake of food!” said Rose.

There was a knock at the back door; they both called “Come in!” and Bill reëntered, letting the screen door crash behind him. He was carrying a tin of kerosene, and at once he set to work filling the stove.

“I’m very sorry to put you to all this trouble!” Nina asserted, earnestly.

He didn’t answer at all; he lit all the burners, and then:

“What next?” he asked.

“If you’ll please tell me where the store is--the store that basket came from--and how to get there--”

“Now? It’s closed,” said he. His keen glance traveled round the bare little kitchen.

“I’ll see that you get your dinner,” he declared, and went off again, before they could say a word.

It was Gilbert who brought the dinner in on a tray, and no one could have performed a neighborly service more ungraciously. He was a remarkably good-looking boy of nineteen or so, but so surly, ill-tempered--

“He’s a young beast!” said Rose, indignantly.

Nina was silent a moment.

“Isn’t it queer--” she remarked. “How contagious that is!”

“Beastliness? _You’d_ never catch it!” Rose declared.

“My dear, when he banged that tray down, and never even took off his hat, I wanted to throw a plate at him,” said Nina, seriously. “I’d have enjoyed it!”

It was a good dinner, served on the coarsest of china, but well cooked. And after they had eaten it and washed the dishes, they were ready to go to bed and to sleep, not quite so forlorn in their new home.

III

They were awakened the next morning by a persistent and none too gentle knocking at the back door, and Nina, slipping on a dressing gown, hurried to respond. She opened the door upon a riotous, glittering June morning, and Margie, clear-eyed and glowing as the dawn--but far from amiable.

“Here’s your breakfast!” she said, thrusting a wooden box into Nina’s hands.

“Oh, but how awfully good and kind!” cried Nina. “I never--”

“Bill said you didn’t have a thing in the house,” Margie remarked, scornfully, “and couldn’t even light the stove. So he told me to bring this.”

Her brusque contempt was a little too much even for the gentle Nina.

“It’s very kind of you,” she said, with a polite smile. “But we’d have managed somehow--”

Margie shrugged her shoulders.

“Well, Bill told me to bring your breakfast,” she said. “And to ask what you wanted from the store.”

“Thank you, but I couldn’t think--” Nina began, but with another disdainful shrug Margie had turned away.

“We’ll have to swallow our pride,” Rose suggested from the doorway. “Let’s be quick, too, before it gets cold.”

“I’m going to dress first,” said Nina. “Because when that scornful Margie goes out, I’m going to follow. I’ll follow her all day long till she goes to the store.”

And she meant that. She dressed herself with all her usual unobtrusive art, and she kept an eye on the house next door. In the very act of lifting her second cup of coffee to her lips, she heard the front door slam. She sprang up, pulled on a delightful little hat, and ran out of her own front door.

Margie was walking quickly up the road, a strong, lithe young figure in a jersey and a short skirt, bareheaded in the sun. And after her went the slender and elegant Mrs. De Haaven, going to market for the first time in her life.

In a happy mood Rose set to work; she washed the dishes, made the bed, set the little place in order, and then began unpacking the two big trunks. Most of the clothes could stay in them, but there were all sorts of other things--silver toilet articles, photographs, books, writing materials, all the dear, friendly things that had often made even hotel rooms look homelike. They worked wonders here. The only trouble was, that there was no shelf for the books, and no flowers.

“I’ll make a shelf!” Rose told herself.

So she went out on the beach and found a suitable small board; then she screwed two coat hooks into the wall beneath the sitting room window, laid the board across them, and stood the favorite books on this in a row.

“Crude, but well-meaning!” she observed, surveying her first piece of carpentering with a smile, and she went out to see if there were any flowers about to delight Nina with when she came home.

The first thing she saw was Bill coming down the road. Her impulse was to step back into the house, but she was ashamed of such weakness; Bill ought to be spoken to and thanked. So she sat down on the steps, and Bill, catching sight of her, swung off his hat with that same fine gesture.

“_Comment ça va?_” he inquired, standing bareheaded before her.

Certainly she had not expected French from Bill, but she politely suppressed her surprise and answered cheerfully:

“_Tres bien, merci, monsieur!_ I was just wondering if there were any wild flowers growing about here?”

She looked up at him, but hastily glanced aside, for Bill was looking down at her with a smile which disconcerted her.

“Flowers, eh?” he said.

They were both silent for a time. Then Rose began, in a somewhat formal tone:

“My sister and I are both very grateful for--”

A crash interrupted her.

“What’s that?” asked Bill.

“It sounds like my shelf,” she replied, ruefully.

“Did _you_ try to put up a shelf?” Bill demanded. “Let’s have a look at it.”

Somehow she did not want Bill to come into their house. Not that she distrusted or disliked him, but he made her uneasy. Still, she could not very well refuse to let him come, so, with a good grace, she opened the door and they entered.

His blond head almost reached the ceiling; his great shoulders blocked all the sunshine from the window; he seemed completely to fill the little room. And she did not like him to be there.

The pretty little things she had set out on the table seemed like a child’s toys, the house was like a doll’s house, and she herself, with her ineffectual shelf, felt altogether too diminished. He had been staring at the fallen shelf and the coat hooks for some time with an odd expression--as if he felt sorry for her.

“Look here!” he said. “When you want anything of that sort done, tell me.”

“There’s no reason on earth why I should trouble you, Mr.--”

“Morgan,” said he. “It wouldn’t be a trouble. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you. Nothing!”

The earnestness with which he spoke confused her.

“Thank you, Mr. Morgan,” she began, hastily. “But--”

“Look here!” he interrupted. “I’ve got to go away--and I don’t like to leave you like this. You can’t look after yourself any better than a baby.”

Rose turned scarlet.

“You’re mistaken, Mr. Morgan!” she declared, with a cold little smile. “You’re very much mistaken!”

“No,” he said. “No, I’m not. I knew, the first moment I saw you--”

“We won’t discuss the matter, if you please.”

“I’m not discussing anything,” said he, with a sort of gentleness. “I’m only telling you that you’ve got me to count on whenever you need me.”

Her hands clenched, but she answered quietly enough:

“I can’t imagine any possibility of ‘needing’ you, Mr. Morgan.”

He turned toward the door.

“I don’t mean to make a nuisance of myself,” he declared, gravely. And then he smiled. “I’m going away,” he added. “But I’m coming back!”

The screen door banged after him, and Rose sat down on the couch and began to cry.

“Beast!” she cried. “I’d like to shake him!”

But the idea of her shaking Mr. Morgan made her laugh. She dried her tears, ashamed of her temper, and when Nina got back, she was her usual good-natured, delightful self again. She did not mention the episode to Nina; it would only distress her.

“And I think I’m capable of managing Mr. Morgan!” she told herself, grimly.

IV

Nina was surprised by her sister’s censorious attitude.

“But they do try to be neighborly!” she protested.

“I don’t care!” said Rose, with unwonted heat. “I don’t like them, and I don’t want anything to do with them. They’re a family of--savages!”

“Oh, Rose! When that poor little Margie brings us flowers from her own garden every day!”

“Yes, because that Bill told her to!” thought Rose. But aloud she said: “Brings them! She pretty nearly throws them at us.”

“That’s just her way.”

“Well, I don’t like her way, and I don’t want her flowers, and I don’t like any of those Morgans, or anything they do. I never imagined such an ill-tempered, quarrelsome family.”

“I know,” said Nina, seriously. “And I think it’s pitiful.”

“Pitiful! To snarl and snap at one another--”

“Yes,” said Nina. “Because there’s something so splendid about them, in spite of all that--something so honest and fine.”

“Fine!” cried Rose, with a snort.

“You must have noticed. They’re rough and unmannerly, but they’re never vulgar. And they speak well. I think they’ve come down in the world, Rose.”

“They certainly have!” Rose agreed. “Down to the bottom. Nina, you’re sentimental about your Morgans. You’ve seen how they live. A coarse, ugly life, without one gracious touch. They eat in the kitchen, on a table covered with oilcloth.”

“Yes, and it’s a spotless kitchen, and everything about them is wholesome.”

“It’s no use,” Rose objected. “I don’t like them, and I won’t like them. Now, you sit here on the veranda and read. I’m going to buy the Sunday dinner.”

“I’ll come with you,” said Nina, but she was glad Rose would not let her. It was a long walk, and she felt tired, very tired and languid. She did not want Rose to know how tired she was, or how worried.

It seemed that their financial affairs were not definitely settled, as they had believed. Mr. Doyle, the lawyer, kept writing to her letters she could not quite understand, anxious, almost desperate letters, accusing himself of “criminal folly”; begging her forgiveness, and making all sorts of promises. He wrote always to her, never to Rose, and she was glad of that, for she did not want Rose to know.

But she was so tired. She tried valiantly to do her share, to be a good comrade to her beloved sister; but she was not strong, either in body or in spirit; she was a gentle soul; she could endure, but she could not fight. She wanted only to live in peace and good will, harmless and lovely as a flower.

It was a Saturday afternoon; Gilbert had come home early in his little car, and he and Margie had at once begun to quarrel fiercely.

“Bill told you to take me to the village in the car, if I wanted!” she declared.

“Do you good to walk!” said her brother.

“I won’t walk!”

“All right! Then stay home!”

Presently the back door slammed, in the Morgan fashion, and Nina hoped he was going away. It hurt her to hear these two young creatures quarrel so; she always wished that she had some magic word to stop them, to bring quiet to their stormy spirits. She was waiting for the sound of his engine starting up, when, to her surprise, she saw him standing on the path before her.

“Mrs. De Haaven,” he said, “can you spare me a few minutes?”

“With pleasure!” she answered, as if this amazing request were quite a matter of course. “Come up on the veranda, won’t you?”

He did come up, and when she asked him, sat down opposite her. He was silent for a few moments, and Nina studied him with frank and kindly curiosity. For the first time she saw what a remarkably handsome boy he was, a little haggard, a little too thin, perhaps, but tall and sinewy, and notably distinguished.

Yes, that was the word; he was distinguished looking, with his thin, rather arrogant face, his slender, well-kept hands, his neat dark suit. He was not surly to-day, and not shy or awkward; he looked at her candidly as he spoke.

“I hope you won’t mind,” he said. “But I knew _you_ could tell me. If you’d give me your advice. I’ve got an invitation--but perhaps I’d better show it to you.”

He took a letter out of his pocket and handed it to her. It read:

MY DEAR BOY:

Why not run down for this week-end? Don’t bother to let me know--just come if you can. I often think of you, and it seems to me perfectly terrible that you should be living like that. And quite unnecessary. I want you to meet some of your own sort.

Yours--most sincerely, LUCILLE WINTER.

Lucille Winter! And writing in this vein to this boy! Nina held the letter in her hand for a long time, unable to say anything to cloak her thought.

“You see,” said Gilbert, “I couldn’t go until to-day, on account of my job. And I’d have to come back to-morrow night. D’you think that would be all right?”

“No!” thought Nina. “Nothing could be less right. It’s--a horrible thing. You’re only a child. And Lucille--You don’t know Lucille, but I do.”

“You see,” he went on. “Mrs. Winter is my father’s cousin. You wouldn’t suspect it, but my father’s family were--decent people.”

“Oh!” Nina breathed.

“I don’t mean that mother’s family wasn’t--all right,” he said. “My mother--” He stopped. “My mother was a saint,” he announced. An odd change came over his face; all the arrogance vanished, leaving it weary and sorrowful. “And my father wasn’t,” he added.

Another silence ensued.

“So Bill’s got this idea of a simple life,” he said, with something like a sneer. “He won’t let us see any of father’s people. Wouldn’t let me go to college. He made me take this job--in the National Electric--when I was only seventeen. In a year I’ll be twenty-one, and then Bill can go to blazes. In the meantime--not much I can do. He controls the finances. He’s away now, though. And I’m to Mrs. Winter’s.”

“Oh, I don’t blame you!” thought Nina. “What a dreadful thing--to take a boy like this and put him to work at seventeen, and make him live in such a way! And if Lucille is his father’s cousin--She knows really good people--It really would help him--”

And because she was, in spite of her worldly experiences, so innocent and good at heart, so ready to think well of every one, and so anxious to help this unhappy boy, she did give him her advice. She told him what clothes to take, what to tip the servants, and so on.

“Please don’t tell Margie where I’ve gone,” he said. “I’ll be back to-morrow night for dinner. And she’ll be all right--with you next door.” He arose. “Thank you!” he said. “You’ve been--very kind to me.”

She had meant to be. She hoped, she believed, that she had done well in helping him to elude the tyrant Bill.

V

Such a quiet afternoon. Rose turned off the highway, into the beach road; the bright sea lay before her, roughened by a frolic wind, and on its edge three or four little children played; their voices came to her joyous and clear. Their end of the beach had been described by the real estate agent as “the quiet end,” and so it was; their bungalow and the Morgans’ were the only ones occupied as yet, and even these two showed no signs of life to-day.

Rose entered the house. It was certainly not a good house to hide in, and she very soon discovered Nina in the bedroom with her hat on!

“I had a telegram from Mr. Doyle,” she explained, hurriedly. “He wants to see me about--something. So I thought to-day would be a good time to run into town.”

“That won’t do!” said Rose, severely. “You can’t treat me this way, Mrs. De Haaven! I want to know all about it.”

Nina turned and put both hands on her sister’s shoulders, looking steadily into her face.

“Rose!” she said. “Let me do this--my own way--alone. I’ve been such a useless creature. No! Please, darling, let me finish! I have been useless. I know you don’t mind, but--sometimes--Rose! I do so want to manage this all by myself. And I know I can!”

They were both silent for a moment.

“All right! Go ahead, darling!” Rose agreed at last. “Only don’t come back to-night. Stay in a hotel and come back to-morrow morning.”

“And leave you all alone?”

“The Morgans are here, and they’re enough. If you don’t promise not to come back to-night, I’ll--I’ll go with you!”

So Nina consented, although reluctantly, and a few minutes later they set off together for the railway station. Rose stood on the platform, looking after the train.

“God bless you, darling!” she said, softly to herself.

Poor valiant, gentle Nina, going off to attend to business affairs, to “manage” the elusive and plausible Mr. Doyle.

“But it would have hurt her if I’d said anything,” thought Rose. “And, anyhow, things couldn’t be much worse, financially.”

She walked back to the bungalow, a long walk; but she was in no hurry to reënter the empty house. It was ridiculous to miss Nina so, just for one night; it was weak and sentimental to feel so lonely.

“I might learn a lesson from the Morgans,” she thought, as she went down the beach road. “No one could accuse them of being too sentimental in their family life!”

And suddenly she felt sorry for the Morgans, with their quarrels and their banging doors and their stormy, miserable existence. She thought of them, and she thought of the love between Nina and herself which made any place home, any trial endurable. And she pitied them with all her heart.

There was Margie on the veranda now, sewing--sewing in such a Morgan way! She had a paper pattern spread out on the table, and the wind fluttered it, and Margie pounced down upon it furiously, upsetting her workbasket and getting herself tangled up in the yards and yards of green charmeuse on her lap. Rose watched her for a minute; then she said, moved by a friendly impulse:

“Miss Morgan, won’t you let me help you?”

Margie spun round, upsetting everything again.

“No, thanks!” she replied, in her scornful way. But something in Rose’s face made her flush and glance away. “Well,” she said, sullenly, “I _am_ having a pretty bad time. There’s no reason why you should bother, but--”

Rose came up on the veranda beside her, and surveyed the woeful muddle.

“What a pretty shade!” she remarked. “It ought to go well with your hair.”

“I know,” said Margie. “Paul--I mean--I’ve been told I ought to wear green. And I’m going somewhere to-morrow afternoon.”

“But you don’t expect to have this dress ready for to-morrow afternoon.”

“I’ve got to.”

Rose reflected for a moment.

“I’ll tell you what!” she announced at last. “I have a green dress--a really pretty georgette. I’ve only worn it once. With just a little bit of altering, we could make it do beautifully for you to wear to-morrow. It’s a good model. I got it in Paris last autumn. Won’t you come and look at it?”

“No!” cried Margie. “I don’t want any of your old clothes. I don’t want--” Her voice broke. “I just hate you and your--highfalutin’ ways!” she ended with a sob.

“Upon my word!” Rose began, indignantly. “Is that--” But her resentment could not endure against the sight of Margie weeping in that furious, defiant way, the tears falling recklessly on the green charmeuse.

“You don’t really hate me, Margie,” she said. “You couldn’t--when I like you so much.”

“Like me?”

“I liked you the very first time I saw you,” Rose explained. “You were saying good-by to Paul, on the beach.”

“You saw Paul?” cried Margie. “I suppose you’ll tell Bill. Well, I don’t care! If you don’t tell Bill, Gilbert will.”

Rose found it surprisingly easy not to get angry with Margie.

“But why should your brother object to Paul?” she inquired.

“It’s not that,” said Margie. “Only what do you suppose Paul would think of Bill--and this house--and the way we live? Oh, I’m so ashamed of us! I’m so--so ashamed of us! If you knew--when mother was alive--three years ago--we had our dear home, and everything so dainty and pretty in it--and she kept us from fighting--just by being there. Oh, mother! Mother darling! You don’t know--nobody knows--what it’s like--without her.”

Rose knelt down beside the girl, put an arm about her, and drew the bright head down on her shoulder.

“You poor little thing!” she crooned. “Poor little Margie!”

“And now--I’m going to lose Paul,” Margie went on, in a choked voice. “He’s always asking why he can’t come to see me in my own home. He’s awfully particular and high minded. He hates to meet me on the sly that way. And--”

“I’d let him come, if I were you.”

“I won’t! I’m too much ashamed of us.”

“Couldn’t you make things a little better?” Rose suggested, very gently.

“Bill won’t let me! Bill’s a beast! When mother died, he gave up our dear old house--he’s packed up all her pretty things--they’re in the woodshed, in barrels and boxes. He won’t let me touch them. He says we’ve got to learn to work and to live simply. He just adored mother, and he thought father didn’t make her happy enough, so he’s got this idiotic idea about our not being like father’s people--not being highfalutin’. ‘Plain living and high thinking,’ that’s what he’s always saying. High thinking, when he hasn’t left one beautiful thing in our lives! It’s all very well for him; he’s away at sea most of the time--”

“At sea?”

“Yes; he’s first mate on a cargo steamer,” said Margie, with a change in her voice. “I know he’s a beast, and all that, but there is something fine about Bill, after all. He’s a real man. And he’s been awfully good to us--in his way. When Gilbert had bronchitis last winter, Bill was--wonderful. And when mother died--I--I don’t know how I could have lived without Bill.”

She was silent for a moment. “Mother said she knew Bill would take care of us--and he does--only it’s in a wrong way. Bill’s so--I don’t know how to describe it--Bill’s so--big, he could live on a desert island and not be discontented. He can live in this rough, common way and still be--dignified. I don’t suppose you’ve ever noticed, but Bill has a way of coming into a room sometimes and taking off his hat, that’s like--like a king.”

Rose felt her cheeks grow scarlet.

“He _is_--impressive,” she agreed.

“Bill’s big,” Margie went on, “and he only wants a few big things. But Gilbert and I are little, and we want lots of little things. And--” She sat up straight.