CHAPTER VII
AN OPEN DOOR
THE Scollard girls of all sizes, and Gretta too, closed up around Ralphunder the light of a street light to gaze at him after his amazingannouncement.
"Mrs. Jones-Dexter your great-aunt!" cried Happie.
"That fault-finding, snappish person!" gasped Laura.
"That lovely little child your cousin!" exclaimed Margery.
"There's nothing flattering in your remark, Margery. What kind of acousin would I be likely to have except a lovely little child? You'dexpect a family resemblance, wouldn't you?" demanded Ralph. "If yougirls get wonder-struck and stand bunched up on this corner long, we'llall be run in by a policeman, under the law that forbids push-carts andthings blocking the sidewalks."
Happie laughed and set an example to the others by moving on at once."You can't expect us to hear such a surprising piece of news as thisunmoved," she said.
"No, but you were hearing it unmoved; that's what I was talkingabout," retorted Ralph. "There's no use in getting stirred up. Mrs.Jones-Dexter was my mother's aunt before I was born--there's nothingnew about it."
"Well, but Ralph, we should like to hear how it happened," said Lauraeagerly.
"By her being my grandmother's sister, Laura," Ralph kindly explained.
"Oh, no!" cried Laura impatiently. "I mean how she came to be so cross,and you not know her--you don't know her, do you?"
"Never saw the lady, never knew she had a granddaughter until this verynight as now is," affirmed Ralph. "There isn't an interesting story;I'm sorry, for your sake, Laura, because you might write music forit. My great-aunt Lucinda seems to be a person troubled with chronic,all-round incompatibility. She quarreled with everybody belonging toher if they dared to have a mind of their own. Mother always said shehad a grievance against the world because it revolved on its own axis.She never had a fuss with mother directly, but she fell out with hersister, mother's mother, when my mother was a little girl, and shewouldn't make up, not if the skies fell--or grandmother fell on herknees. Grandmother wasn't a bit like her--dear soul, grandmother was,and it worried her to be on the outs with her sister, but she couldnever coax her on the ins. And the gentle Lucinda included mother inher scrap, because mother was grandmother's daughter, and that's whywe never knew her. Aunt Lucinda married this immensely wealthy Mr.Jones-Dexter, and after that, when grandmother was dead and mother awidow without much money, why she didn't like to try to patch up therow for fear Mrs. Jones-Dexter would misunderstand her motives. Weknew Mr. Jones-Dexter died--he was too rich to die privately, so tospeak--and we heard that Aunt Lucinda quarreled bitterly with her onlyson--couldn't make him marry the girl she had picked out--and he died'way off somewhere. This little Serena must be his child. I wonderwhere the mother is? Aunt Lucinda must have taken her grandchild intofavor."
"Into favor doesn't express it," said Margery. The girls had listenedto this outline sketch of family history so intently as to endangertheir feet and passers-by, in their oblivion to all else. "She isperfectly wrapped up in her, and her love for her is evidently herabsorbing passion. She is so proud of her, so tender of her, looks soadoringly at her that you never saw anything like it! Really, I wishyou could see your little cousin, Ralph, I can't do her justice."
"I'm not likely to see her," said Ralph. "Very likely Aunt Lucinda wassorry for driving her son off, especially as people say the girl hecared for was nice in every way, only she wasn't the one his motherhad picked out. Probably she is conscience-stricken, as unjust,bad-tempered people are at the end, in story books, and she is makingup to this little Serena for all her life-long injustice. Old age oughtto count for a good deal, too; that seems to be something that makesthe strongest will knuckle under."
"Mrs. Jones-Dexter must be dreadful," said Polly with conviction.
"She must have led a dreadful life," said Ralph kindly. "It must bepretty bad to have your shoulder bruised your whole life long fromkeeping chips on it all the time! I'd hate to spend seventy years onthe home plate with my bat up, ready to hit any old ball, foul or fair.Look out, Happie! These are the elevated road stairs. You want to pickup your feet, my child!"
Happie laughed. Ralph had just saved her from falling, face downward,up the stairs. She was so interested in what he was saying that she hadtripped on her own skirt and Laura's trailing umbrella.
"You needn't fumble for your pocket book, Margery. Bob gave me a stripof L tickets to bring you home. He's a terror on insisting on strictjustice," said Ralph, producing a dark-pink jointed strip of pasteboardand dropping it whole into the ticket chopper's box. "I had preciselythe right number for the crowd."
"And we always settle with Bob. Our car fares are part of the expensesof the tea room," said Margery. "We all believe in not being slovenlyabout such little items."
"I never thought the people in the next flat were lacking insquareness," observed Ralph, steadying Penny who lurched wildly asthe train started. "Hold me around the knee, Pfennig; there's no usetumbling about until you've grown tall enough to reach the strap!"
"You know you might see little Serena Jones-Dexter," said Happiesuddenly. She had evidently been following her own line of thought froma remark of Ralph's which had long been left behind in the course ofthe talk.
"Easy to see through you, Happie!" said Ralph. "You've been carrying onthe story through several chapters, and you haven't decided whether youwill let me--the hero--dash into the burning Jones-Dexter mansion andbear out the flower-like darling through the flames, or whether you'llinveigle me on the steam-boat from which Serena is to tumble overboardfor me to rescue, or whether you will just get me down to the tearoom when the old lady is expected, take me by my lily white hand andlead me up to that great aunt of mine--say, she is a great old aunt,isn't she?--and say: 'Mrs. Jones-Dexter, look on your long-lost, yourbeautiful boy!' That's the best way, Happie. None know me but to loveme, you know, so it's all that's necessary, and it will save the wearand tear on little Serena."
"Ralph, you perfect goose!" exclaimed Happie, half laughing, halfteased. For though she had not been entertaining such melodramaticschemes as Ralph attributed to her, she had been plotting how to workgood to all concerned by bringing together Mrs. Jones-Dexter and herniece's family.
"I think the tea room is wonderful," said Gretta suddenly. "It is sointeresting, as well as bringing in so much money. We had such musicto-day, Ralph! You haven't told Ralph about that queer man and how heplayed."
"Hans Lieder," said Happie. "No, but we never could tell any one how heplayed! Ralph, it was wonderful. He is a man in a cloak and sombreroand he comes so much that we wish--or we did wish--he wouldn't. Wewere half afraid of him; we called him the Mystery, and we thought helooked like Mephistopheles. But to-day I talked to him a little while,and I thought he looked sad. He has always seemed interested in Laura'splaying, and to-day he played for us. Ralph, you don't know how heplays! He's a great musician. I wish you could hear him."
Laura looked at Ralph very seriously. "I am going to write a song forhim, words and all. It is going to be very beautiful,--sad, maybe,but beautiful," she said. "I am going to show how he came cloaked andshadowy, like the dawn, and how he burst forth, like the morning, withall the beauty, the music of the world. It will probably be my bestsong, for I would do anything to pay him for the way he played. I'm notafraid of him, like the girls, because I'm a musician too. Musiciansand poets are never understood."
Laura looked at Ralph with a seriously uplifted expression on her palelittle face, and Ralph looked down on her perplexed. She was such afunny contrast to the crowded aisle, the jarring car, even to her ownthirteen years. Ralph never could manage to like Laura, nor be patientwith her. He rightly thought that she shirked her share of the familyburdens, yet, like Happie, who understood her better, he was sometimesimpressed with the queer child's cleverness shining out through herconceit.
"Well, I think I'd go slow on writing songs to mysterious musicians indram
atic cloaks," Ralph advised Laura now. "What did you say the man'sname was?"
"He said when I asked him that we might call him Hans Lieder, but I'mcertain that's not a real name," said Happie.
"Do you know what I believe?" asked Laura standing on tiptoe to whisperso that Happie and Ralph, but not the crowd around them might hear her."I believe he is the spirit of Chopin come back in another body."
She fell back triumphantly to observe the effect of her words, but itwas not what she had intended it to be. Happie and Ralph shouted out ingirl and boy fashion. Laura lost her balance as she dropped back anddown from her toe tips, the car stopping, lurched forward, and she tookan unsentimental header straight into a big man who was reading stockmarket reports, and whose face turned as angry as the maddest of theWall Street bulls, while his coat felt to Laura as shaggy and rough asthe coat of the grizzliest bear.
"Don't stop to apologize; this is our station," said Ralph, taking thebewildered and mortified Laura by the arm and pushing her towards thedoor through the crowd that blocked their way.
It was the rule in the Patty-Pans that after dinner there were to belessons every night except Sunday and on festivals. It was an undecidedquestion as to whether family birthdays were to be reckoned festivalsor not. The trouble was there were so many that celebrating all of themcut off a good many nights from study for children who were limited tonight for their lessons. Mrs. Scollard was her children's teacher. Theeldest three had been to school very little, Laura less, and Polly andPenny not at all. Mrs. Scollard hoped by another year to send Laurafor the beginning of a musical education, that should include generalstudy, and to launch Polly on the sea of school life.
There had never been a choice as to methods of education in Margery andHappie's case; the loss of fortune that had made the mother the supportof the family, had forced the two elder girls early to take up theoffice of housekeepers who could not be at school.
Mrs. Scollard felt safer to have the younger ones at home with theirsisters while she was away than to let them go to school. So theScollards were homeeducated by the teaching of a mother qualifiedbeyond most women for her task.
When a birthday came around it was always a question whether itwarranted the omission of lessons or not. Happie looked imploringlyat her mother after dinner and said insinuatingly: "Polly was neverten years old until to-night, motherums! Don't you think we might markthe occasion by dropping all other lessons and taking up chemistry,demonstrating how heat changes butter, chocolate, milk and sugar intofudge?"
Mrs. Scollard hesitated and was lost. Penny leaped on her lap tohug her for a consent which she read in her mother's eyes, andPolly cried in a staid sort of rapture: "This will make my birthdayperfect--dancing school and fudge!"
Flats are an invention for which to be grateful. Without them howwould homes be possible to people with little strength, less incomeand no space? But they have their drawbacks, like everything else inan imperfect world, and not least of these is the way sounds and odorswander from one end of them to the other, owing to the arrangementwhich Happie had called "the Patty-Pan style of architecture." No onecan safely talk secrets in a flat, and no one can brew secret potions,for good intent or ill, in the most distant end of their elongatedconnections.
Happie had her specialty well under way in the little kitchen, andLaura, who was still under the spell of the wizard playing of theafternoon, found it impossible to keep to her seat at the piano, or thecomposition of her song, in the fudge-burdened atmosphere of the littleparlor. She gave it up, and was coming out to join the less giftedyoung folk in the kitchen when the bell rang through the little flat;the upper bell, so that whoever had come was already at the threshold,having entered the outer door without ringing below. Laura opened thedoor, and there stood Mrs. Barker and Elsie beautifully attired.
"Oh!" ejaculated Laura, and it was perfectly evident that her firstfeeling was dismay, not welcome, her consciousness of the odor of fudgeoverwhelming hospitality. "Yes, mamma is in. And Happie and Gretta,yes, Elsie," Laura said, rallying. "If you will please wait a moment, Iwill call them."
"I wish I could go out where Happie is. She's making fudge, I smell it,and we all know Happie's fudge of old," said Elsie.
"Just one minute, Elsie, and Happie will come. I've no doubt you can goout to see her make the fudge then." Laura's dignity was impressive.She carried it with her around the corner of the parlor, into thelittle hall, but she ran down the latter to the kitchen, shedding thedignity on the way.
"The Barkers, of all people!" she announced in a stage whisper. ButMrs. Scollard did not seem dismayed, and Happie said without looking upfrom the pan which claimed all her attention, "Send Elsie out here;this is at the point when it can't be left."
Mrs. Scollard went in at once with Laura, who came back to say thatMrs. Barker would like to see Margery, Happie and Gretta Engel, if shemight.
"Oh, dear, Laura, I truly can't leave this fudge now without spoilingit! Tell Elsie to come out here, and ask Mrs. Barker if she will bekind enough to give me a quarter of an hour? Then we'll all come in.What can the mystery be?" Happie asked the question of Margery; Laurahad already departed.
"I think it has something to do with Gretta's saving Elsie the day ofthe sleigh ride," whispered Margery. "I've been wondering that shedidn't hear from the Barkers."
"My goodness! They've probably brought her the Victoria cross, orthe Legion of honor, or a Carnegie medal, or whatever they give forsaving fair maidens! Oh, Margery, will you go and see that Gretta makesherself look her prettiest? If I beat this fudge like mad I'll be readyto go in there by the time you are--she is--ready."
Margery willingly departed to see that Gretta was a credit to herselfand to Happie, whose care for the big girl, no younger than she was,amused the Patty-Pan family. Happie was as good as her word, and cameinto the room where Margery was superintending Gretta's toilette twominutes before she had finished.
"I do not see why I must go," Gretta was protesting for the fifth time.She had not recovered from her shyness, and dreaded strangers nearly asmuch as she dreaded a dentist.
"Because they have asked for us, all three of us," said Happie. "Didyou ever see such a red face as mine is? Please button the middlebutton of my waist, Margery; it's undone. Now, courage, Gretta! Youhave already met Elsie, to put it mildly, and you needn't mind Mrs.Barker. You weren't afraid of Auntie Cam."
It always seemed to Margery and Happie that Gretta looked far betterout of doors. There was something dwarfing to her beauty in thePatty-Pans. Still, it was a handsome creature that followed the twoScollards into the parlor and rather stiffly laid her hand in Mrs.Barker's as that lady arose to greet her. Elsie kissed her with genuinecordiality. Mrs. Barker eyed her keenly, and then said:
"They have not exaggerated your good looks, my dear; they positivelycould not do so. I have never seen you, and now that I do see you howcan I thank you for what you did for my little girl?"
Happie expected to see Gretta sink under the embarrassment of thisspeech, beginning with the most unlimited flattery and ending in anallusion to her courage. But keen-witted Gretta perceived the bad tasteof the opening, and her sense of humor put her at her ease.
"I should not like to have you thank me," she said pleasantly.
"Ah, but I came here expressly to do so!" returned Mrs. Barker. "Thisis the first opportunity I have had, but you may imagine how I haveburned to see the brave girl to whom Elsie owes, if not her life,undoubtedly the fact that she is not a cripple." Mrs. Barker pridedherself on her eloquence; she addressed meetings of all sorts on everyoccasion, but this sentence had not turned out as well as she hadexpected it to. She began again: "For one thing, Mr. Barker and I haveconsulted each other, and thought long on what form our thanks shouldtake. I have come here to beg a favor of you, my dear Gretta--you willlet me call you Gretta?"
"Oh, please," said Gretta.
"Yes. Mrs. Scollard, Margery and Happie, I beg that you will plead withyour friend for me that I may have my way. I un
derstand, Gretta, thatyou have a little property somewhere in the country, but not enough toenable you to seize the advantages of a desirable education. I desireto give you six years at an excellent school, a boarding school. Idesire you to be placed where you will have every advantage, not onlyof education of the mind, but of refined association, so that at theend of the six years, when you are twenty-one years old, you will beprepared to take your place among young women of your own age, theirequal in cultivation, manners, accomplishments, as you will be theirsuperior in beauty. Mrs. Scollard, please add your voice to mine.Gretta probably does not realize what this would do for her."
"Gretta, dear, you do realize it, I know," said Mrs. Scollard softly.She laid her hand on Gretta's. "You will not refuse, will you? It willchange all your life."
Gretta shook her head. "Thank you, thank you very much, but I couldn'tgo, Mrs. Barker," she said.
"Not because you want to stay with me, Gretta!" cried Happie, rising tothrow her arms around Gretta. "You would come to us in every vacation,and it wouldn't separate us, not really. You will take this chance,Gretta?"
"No," said Gretta quietly, "I can't."
"You will ruin your life, child!" protested Mrs. Barker.
Again Gretta shook her head. "I study at night, and I read a great dealwith Happie. And I learn how to be part of what you said--I think Icouldn't have a better teacher of manners." She put her other hand overMrs. Scollard's resting on her left one. "It's very good of you, but Ithink I can't accept your offer."
"I hope it isn't pride," said Mrs. Barker.
"I hope not," said Gretta with a smile. "It would be very silly,sillier than it would be wrong, for why should I be proud? It's justthat I can't, thank you."
"Won't you leave the offer open a few days? Let us talk to Gretta.I think she ought to accept the chance to get all that she alwaysdesired, Mrs. Barker," said Mrs. Scollard.
"Certainly," said Mrs. Barker rising. "Consider it for a week, twoweeks, and let me know your decision. No, I really must not stayanother moment. The carriage is waiting, and it is cold for thehorses. Gretta, whatever you decide I am very grateful to you. Comeand see Elsie. Margery and Happie, your tea room makes it harder thanever to catch a glimpse of you! Do come to see us! Good-night, dearMrs. Scollard; it is a pleasure to find you so much stronger thanlast winter. Change your mind, Gretta, I beg of you! Good-night, dearpeople."
Mrs. Scollard summoned Bob to attend their guests to their carriage,and as soon as the door was well closed behind them Happie flew atGretta.
"I couldn't imagine why you were so sure right away that you wouldn'tlet her send you to school," she cried. "But the minute she said 'tearoom' it flashed upon me! Gretta, we can get on without you! Do youthink it would be right to refuse an education for that tea room?"
Gretta looked as guilty as if she had been caught dynamiting a safe."We all have as much as we can do," she said. "I think this winterI'd better help you. Besides, I'm getting all the education I need--abetter one than in school, in lots of ways. If you want to get rid ofme, Happie----" She paused, laughing out of her dark eyes, and Happiepromptly choked her. "You goose!" she said.
Bob came up two steps at a time. He had heard of the offer from Mrs.Barker. "Good for you, Gretta; we can't spare you!" he cried. "Besides,you're educated now! No one can drive, make butter, do heaps of thingslike you. Bother education!"
"Yes, it is a bother," assented Gretta.