CHAPTER XX
THE PAYING GUESTS
The few intervening days before the expected arrival of "thosedreadful people," as Aunt Polly termed her niece's paying guests, werebusy ones indeed for Pollyanna--but they were happy ones, too, asPollyanna refused to be weary, or discouraged, or dismayed, no matterhow puzzling were the daily problems she had to meet.
Summoning Nancy, and Nancy's younger sister, Betty, to her aid,Pollyanna systematically went through the house, room by room, andarranged for the comfort and convenience of her expected boarders.Mrs. Chilton could do but little to assist. In the first place she wasnot well. In the second place her mental attitude toward the wholeidea was not conducive to aid or comfort, for at her side stalkedalways the Harrington pride of name and race, and on her lips was theconstant moan:
"Oh, Pollyanna, Pollyanna, to think of the Harrington homestead evercoming to this!"
"It isn't, dearie," Pollyanna at last soothed laughingly. "It's theCarews that are COMING TO THE HARRINGTON HOMESTEAD!"
But Mrs. Chilton was not to be so lightly diverted, and responded onlywith a scornful glance and a deeper sigh, so Pollyanna was forced toleave her to travel alone her road of determined gloom.
Upon the appointed day, Pollyanna with Timothy (who owned theHarrington horses now) went to the station to meet the afternoontrain. Up to this hour there had been nothing but confidence andjoyous anticipation in Pollyanna's heart. But with the whistle of theengine there came to her a veritable panic of doubt, shyness, anddismay. She realized suddenly what she, Pollyanna, almost alone andunaided, was about to do. She remembered Mrs. Carew's wealth,position, and fastidious tastes. She recollected, too, that this wouldbe a new, tall, young-man Jamie, quite unlike the boy she had known.
For one awful moment she thought only of getting away--somewhere,anywhere.
"Timothy, I--I feel sick. I'm not well. I--tell 'em--er--not to come,"she faltered, poising as if for flight.
"Ma'am!" exclaimed the startled Timothy.
One glance into Timothy's amazed face was enough. Pollyanna laughedand threw back her shoulders alertly.
"Nothing. Never mind! I didn't mean it, of course, Timothy.Quick--see! They're almost here," she panted. And Pollyanna hurriedforward, quite herself once more.
She knew them at once. Even had there been any doubt in her mind, thecrutches in the hands of the tall, brown-eyed young man would havepiloted her straight to her goal.
There were a brief few minutes of eager handclasps and incoherentexclamations, then, somehow, she found herself in the carriage withMrs. Carew at her side, and Jamie and Sadie Dean in front. She had achance, then, for the first time, really to see her friends, and tonote the changes the six years had wrought.
In regard to Mrs. Carew, her first feeling was one of surprise. Shehad forgotten that Mrs. Carew was so lovely. She had forgotten thatthe eyelashes were so long, that the eyes they shaded were sobeautiful. She even caught herself thinking enviously of how exactlythat perfect face must tally, figure by figure, with that dreadbeauty-test-table. But more than anything else she rejoiced in theabsence of the old fretful lines of gloom and bitterness.
Then she turned to Jamie. Here again she was surprised, and for muchthe same reason. Jamie, too, had grown handsome. To herself Pollyannadeclared that he was really distinguished looking. His dark eyes,rather pale face, and dark, waving hair she thought most attractive.Then she caught a glimpse of the crutches at his side, and a spasm ofaching sympathy contracted her throat.
From Jamie Pollyanna turned to Sadie Dean.
Sadie, so far as features went, looked much as she had when Pollyannafirst saw her in the Public Garden; but Pollyanna did not need asecond glance to know that Sadie, so far as hair, dress, temper,speech, and disposition were concerned, was a very different Sadieindeed.
Then Jamie spoke.
"How good you were to let us come," he said to Pollyanna. "Do you knowwhat I thought of when you wrote that we could come?"
"Why, n-no, of course not," stammered Pollyanna. Pollyanna was stillseeing the crutches at Jamie's side, and her throat was stilltightened from that aching sympathy.
"Well, I thought of the little maid in the Public Garden with her bagof peanuts for Sir Lancelot and Lady Guinevere, and I knew that youwere just putting us in their places, for if you had a bag of peanuts,and we had none, you wouldn't be happy till you'd shared it with us."
"A bag of peanuts, indeed!" laughed Pollyanna.
"Oh, of course in this case, your bag of peanuts happened to be airycountry rooms, and cow's milk, and real eggs from a real hen's nest,"returned Jamie whimsically; "but it amounts to the same thing. Andmaybe I'd better warn you--you remember how greedy Sir Lancelotwas;--well--" He paused meaningly.
"All right, I'll take the risk," dimpled Pollyanna, thinking how gladshe was that Aunt Polly was not present to hear her worst predictionsso nearly fulfilled thus early. "Poor Sir Lancelot! I wonder ifanybody feeds him now, or if he's there at all."
"Well, if he's there, he's fed," interposed Mrs. Carew, merrily. "Thisridiculous boy still goes down there at least once a week with hispockets bulging with peanuts and I don't know what all. He can betraced any time by the trail of small grains he leaves behind him; andhalf the time, when I order my cereal for breakfast it isn'tforthcoming, because, forsooth, 'Master Jamie has fed it to thepigeons, ma'am!'"
"Yes, but let me tell you," plunged in Jamie, enthusiastically. Andthe next minute Pollyanna found herself listening with all the oldfascination to a story of a couple of squirrels in a sunlit garden.Later she saw what Della Wetherby had meant in her letter, for whenthe house was reached, it came as a distinct shock to her to see Jamiepick up his crutches and swing himself out of the carriage with theiraid. She knew then that already in ten short minutes he had made herforget that he was lame.
To Pollyanna's great relief that first dreaded meeting between AuntPolly and the Carew party passed off much better than she had feared.The newcomers were so frankly delighted with the old house andeverything in it, that it was an utter impossibility for the mistressand owner of it all to continue her stiff attitude of disapprovingresignation to their presence. Besides, as was plainly evident beforean hour had passed, the personal charm and magnetism of Jamie hadpierced even Aunt Polly's armor of distrust; and Pollyanna knew thatat least one of her own most dreaded problems was a problem no longer,for already Aunt Polly was beginning to play the stately, yet gracioushostess to these, her guests.
Notwithstanding her relief at Aunt Polly's change of attitude,however, Pollyanna did not find that all was smooth sailing, by anymeans. There was work, and plenty of it, that must be done. Nancy'ssister, Betty, was pleasant and willing, but she was not Nancy, asPollyanna soon found. She needed training, and training took time.Pollyanna worried, too, for fear everything should not be quite right.To Pollyanna, those days, a dusty chair was a crime and a fallen cakea tragedy.
Gradually, however, after incessant arguments and pleadings on thepart of Mrs. Carew and Jamie, Pollyanna came to take her tasks moreeasily, and to realize that the real crime and tragedy in her friends'eyes was, not the dusty chair nor the fallen cake, but the frown ofworry and anxiety on her own face.
"Just as if it wasn't enough for you to LET us come," Jamie declared,"without just killing yourself with work to get us something to eat."
"Besides, we ought not to eat so much, anyway," Mrs. Carew laughed,"or else we shall get 'digestion,' as one of my girls calls it whenher food disagrees with her."
It was wonderful, after all, how easily the three new members of thefamily fitted into the daily life. Before twenty-four hours hadpassed, Mrs. Carew had gotten Mrs. Chilton to asking really interestedquestions about the new Home for Working Girls, and Sadie Dean andJamie were quarreling over the chance to help with the pea-shelling orthe flower-picking.
The Carews had been at the Harrington homestead nearly a week when oneevening John Pendleton and Jimmy called. Pollyanna had been hopingthey would come soon. She
had, indeed, urged it very strongly beforethe Carews came. She made the introductions now with visible pride.
"You are such good friends of mine, I want you to know each other, andbe good friends together," she explained.
That Jimmy and Mr. Pendleton should be clearly impressed with thecharm and beauty of Mrs. Carew did not surprise Pollyanna in theleast; but the look that came into Mrs. Carew's face at sight of Jimmydid surprise her very much. It was almost a look of recognition.
"Why, Mr. Pendleton, haven't I met you before?" Mrs. Carew cried.
Jimmy's frank eyes met Mrs. Carew's gaze squarely, admiringly.
"I think not," he smiled back at her. "I'm sure I never have met you.I should have remembered it--if _I_ had met YOU," he bowed.
So unmistakable was his significant emphasis that everybody laughed,and John Pendleton chuckled:
"Well done, son--for a youth of your tender years. I couldn't havedone half so well myself."
Mrs. Carew flushed slightly and joined in the laugh.
"No, but really," she urged; "joking aside, there certainly is astrangely familiar something in your face. I think I must have SEENyou somewhere, if I haven't actually met you."
"And maybe you have," cried Pollyanna, "in Boston. Jimmy goes to Techthere winters, you know. Jimmy's going to build bridges and dams, yousee--when he grows up, I mean," she finished with a merry glance atthe big six-foot fellow still standing before Mrs. Carew.
Everybody laughed again--that is, everybody but Jamie; and only SadieDean noticed that Jamie, instead of laughing, closed his eyes as if atthe sight of something that hurt. And only Sadie Dean knew how--andwhy--the subject was so quickly changed, for it was Sadie herself whochanged it. It was Sadie, too, who, when the opportunity came, saw toit that books and flowers and beasts and birds--things that Jamie knewand understood--were talked about as well as dams and bridges which(as Sadie knew), Jamie could never build. That Sadie did all this,however, was not realized by anybody, least of all by Jamie, the onewho most of all was concerned.
When the call was over and the Pendletons had gone, Mrs. Carewreferred again to the curiously haunting feeling that somewhere shehad seen young Pendleton before.
"I have, I know I have--somewhere," she declared musingly. "Of courseit may have been in Boston; but--" She let the sentence remainunfinished; then, after a minute she added: "He's a fine young fellow,anyway. I like him."
"I'm so glad! I do, too," nodded Pollyanna. "I've always liked Jimmy."
"You've known him some time, then?" queried Jamie, a little wistfully.
"Oh, yes. I knew him years ago when I was a little girl, you know. Hewas Jimmy Bean then."
"Jimmy BEAN! Why, isn't he Mr. Pendleton's son?" asked Mrs. Carew, insurprise.
"No, only by adoption."
"Adoption!" exclaimed Jamie. "Then HE isn't a real son any more than Iam." There was a curious note of almost joy in the lad's voice.
"No. Mr. Pendleton hasn't any children. He never married. He--he wasgoing to, once, but he--he didn't." Pollyanna blushed and spoke withsudden diffidence. Pollyanna had never forgotten that it was hermother who, in the long ago, had said no to this same John Pendleton,and who had thus been responsible for the man's long, lonely years ofbachelorhood.
Mrs. Carew and Jamie, however, being unaware of this, and seeing nowonly the blush on Pollyanna's cheek and the diffidence in her manner,drew suddenly the same conclusion.
"Is it possible," they asked themselves, "that this man, JohnPendleton, ever had a love affair with Pollyanna, child that she is?"
Naturally they did not say this aloud; so, naturally, there was noanswer possible. Naturally, too, perhaps, the thought, thoughunspoken, was still not forgotten, but was tucked away in a corner oftheir minds for future reference--if need arose.