CHAPTER VIII
SEVERAL MONTHS LATER
FRIEDA read a letter she had just received and laughed.
Laughter was not frequent at Kent House those days, so that Jack andOlive looked up from the work they were doing. Olive was rollingbandages and Jack was writing notes at her desk. The three of them werein Jack's private sitting room where, only a few moments before, theafternoon mail bag had been brought in.
"What is it, Frieda?" Jack asked, turning her head to glance over hershoulder in some surprise at her sister. She wondered if Frieda realizedthat she was fully aware of the way in which she had been watching themail for these past few months. For Frieda had watched in vain for theparticular letter which certainly she seemed to expect; even if she didnot greatly desire it.
"Oh, I have just received a note from a young soldier to whom I sentthe first pair of socks I ever made," she returned. "He may not haveoriginated the poem, but it is almost worth the trouble and the timeI took on the socks. Do listen:"
"Thanks, dear lady, for the socks you knit; Some socks, some fit. I used one for a hammock and the other for a mitt. I hope I meet you when I've done my bit, But where in the h... did you learn to knit?"
Then Frieda dropped the letter to wave another long grey sock, shotthrough with shining knitting needles. It was somewhat narrow in theankle and bulged strangely at the heel.
"I wonder if I am improving?" she inquired anxiously. The utilitariannature of Frieda's occupation contrasted curiously with the generalfluffiness of her appearance. For no amount of inward anguish could everkeep Frieda from the desire to wear pretty clothes and to make herselfas attractive as possible. However, no one had any right to say she wasunhappy, except as every one else was, through sympathy with the addedtroubles which the war had lately brought upon the world.
Like most of the other women in the larger part of Europe and also inthe United States, Jack and Olive were devoting all their energies tothe work of the war. They had both taken short courses in Red Crossnursing and had organized clubs and classes in the neighborhood forevery kind of relief work, while Frank had turned over several of hishouses to the Belgian refugees.
Therefore, only Frieda remained more or less on the outside of things.She had undertaken to learn to knit for the soldiers, but insisted thatsince her name meant peace and was a German name as well, she would donothing more. The truth was she seemed not to wish to go out or mix withsociety a great deal, which was odd, as one of the reasons she had givenfor her unhappiness in her own home was that her husband wished to spendtoo much time there, so that she had become bored.
However, Frieda had agreed to visit the poor people on the estate and inthe neighboring village, in order to relieve Jack from this one of hermany duties.
Moreover, she enjoyed the odd types of old men and women, so unlike anyother people whom she had ever before known, and she became a greatfavorite with them. Instead of giving her money for war purposes Friedapreferred bestowing it on these same queer old persons and the childrenwho had been left behind.
This afternoon, after she had finished reading the second of her twoletters, the latter from Jean in Wyoming, Frieda got up from her chair.
"Jimmie and I are going to drive down to the village to see old DameQuick," she announced, "I promised to read to her this afternoon." 'DameQuick' was the title Frieda had borrowed to give to the oldest woman inGranchester, because she was so extraordinarily lively.
"What will you do with Jimmie while you read? He will never keep still,"Jack called, as Frieda moved toward the door.
Frieda paused. "Oh, he and nurse will return back in the governess cart.I want to walk home. Don't worry if I am a little late," and beforeOlive or Jack would speak, she had disappeared.
"I hope Frieda won't be too long. She does not know this country as Ido," Jack murmured afterwards, but not thinking of the matter seriously.
Frieda and Jimmie had a way of jogging in the little governess cart onmany afternoons, sometimes taking the nurse with them and more oftennot. Jimmie was rather a troublesome small boy of an age when he wasinto every kind of mischief, and Frieda was not fond of children.Therefore, her family had wondered why she appeared to desire so much ofJimmie's companionship. Frieda might have answered that he asked so manyquestions that she did not have time to think of other things; however,she had never said this, even to herself.
The governess cart was a little wicker carriage swung low on two wheels,with an ancient, shaggy pony, who never moved out of a slow trot.
That afternoon, like all the great ladies in the English novels, Friedastored away under the seat of her cart as much jelly and jam as hersister's housekeeper would allow her. At the nearest grocery shop shebought a package of tea, some tins of biscuits and a half pound oftobacco. For the truth was that Frieda's old woman liked a quiet smoke.This habit was not common among the villagers, but Dame Quick whose realname was "Huggins" was so very old that she allowed herself certainprivileges.
It was a dismal late fall afternoon, but English people andparticularly English children do not stay indoors because of badweather.
Frieda wore a blue rain proof coat and a soft hat which she pulled downover her yellow hair, to keep the soft mist out of her eyes as well asshe could. Jimmie and his nurse were also enveloped in mackintoshes.
But the rain was not actually falling. There was only a November hazeand a pervading dampness, making Jimmie's cheeks redder than ever andbringing more color than was usual to Frieda's face.
On the way to the village Jimmie and his aunt, whom he regarded as ofhis own age, sang "America" in not a particularly musical fashion, butwith a great deal of earnest effort, since Frieda was trying to teachthe British Jimmie to be more of an American.
Jimmie, of course, wished to go into Mrs. Huggins' cottage with hisaunt, but on that point Frieda was resolute. She had a fancy for seeingher old friend alone this afternoon. Actually she had a reason which hadbeen developing in her mind for the past twenty-four hours, althoughFrieda herself considered her reason nonsensical.
In answer to her knock the old woman came to the door. She looked likeone of the pictures one remembers in the Mother Goose books, and alsolike one of them, "she lived alone, all in her little house of stone."
Dame Quick's cottage of two rooms was set in the middle of a long row oflittle stone houses, in one of the half a dozen streets in Granchester.Frieda always felt a shiver as she went inside, since the floor was ofstone and there was a dampness about the little house as if it had neverbeen thoroughly warmed inside by the sun.
Yet Mrs. Huggins had managed to live there in contentment for aboutseventy years. She had come there as a bride before she was twenty andwas now "ninety or thereabouts," as she described herself.
When Frieda entered she bobbed up and down as quickly as an old browncork on a running stream.
"Sure, I've been waitin' and longin' for the sight of you these twohours," she said, taking Frieda's packages, or as many as she could gethold of, as if she thought them too burdensome for the young woman tocarry.
Frieda laughed and slipped out of her rain coat, which she hungcarefully on a small wooden chair. Then she also laid her hat on thechair and, as a matter of habit, fluffed up her pretty hair which therain and her hat had flattened, and then followed her old hostess.
"You know you have had half a dozen visitors during the two hours yousay you have been waiting, Mrs. Huggins," Frieda returned. For it wastrue that the tiny house and the old woman were the center of all thegossip in the village. "I expect you to tell me a lot of news."
The old woman nodded.
"It is true these are news days in England and elsewhere. Times were,when the days might be dull without a birth or a death, or a mating. Butnow one wakes up to something stirrin' every day--a lad goin' off to thewar, or maybe one gettin' killed; and the girls coomin' in to tell metheir troubles; some of them just married, and some of them not marriedat all yet. But al
l of them worryin' their hearts out. Sure, and if waris goin' on forever--and it looks like it is--I'm for the women goin'into battle along with their men."
While she was talking Frieda had followed her hostess back into herkitchen--the room in which she really lived and had her being. It wasalso of stone, but the floor had a number of bright rag rugs as coveringand the walls were lined with pictures cut from papers and magazines,and with picture postcards. One could have gotten a pretty fairknowledge of English history at the moment by studying Mrs. Huggins'picture gallery. She had on her walls a photograph of nearly everyBritish officer then in command of the army or navy. She had replicas ofinnumerable battleships and also of statesmen. But in the place of honorover a shelf that held her Bible and a tiny daguerreotype of the late,lamented Mr. Huggins, hung a picture of England's big little man--LloydGeorge. The aged woman received the old age pension which Lloyd Georgehad given to the poor of England a few years before the outbreak of thepresent war.
Frieda sat down on a little chair which lovers of antiques would havegiven much to possess. There was a small fire burning in the tiny stove,and its red coals looked more cheerful than the great log fire at KentHouse.
Frieda knew that Dame Quick would wish to prepare the tea herself.
She had rather a happy feeling as she watched Mrs. Huggins, as if shehad been a little girl who had gone out one day and grown suddenly tiredand forlorn, and then been unexpectedly invited into the verygingerbread house itself. But a gingerbread house presided over by agood spirit, not an evil one.
Her own little Dame Quick looked like a child's idea of an ancient goodfairy. She may not have been so small to begin with, but at ninety shewas bent over until she seemed very tiny indeed. Her face was brown andwrinkled and her eyes shone forth as black as elderberries in the lategathering time.
She placed a small wooden table in front of Frieda and not far from thefire and her own chair. Then she got out some heavy plates and two cupsand saucers. And whatever the difference in elegance, tea is never sogood served in a thin cup as in a thick one. Afterwards she opened thepackage containing Frieda's biscuits and jam and finally poured boilingwater into her own brown stone tea kettle.
Then she and Frieda, sitting on opposite sides of the tea table, talkedand talked.
Several times, as she sat there, Frieda thought that if she had been anEnglish girl she would like to have had just such an old nurse or fostermother as Mrs. Huggins. For she might then have been able to confide anumber of things to her--matters she could not talk about even to hersister, since she was not clear enough how she felt concerning themherself, and so Jack might get wrong impressions.
"But you have not told me any special news this afternoon," Friedaprotested, having lifted her cup for a second helping of tea, and makingup her mind that she could not think of herself while visiting, as sheusually did at home. "My sister and brother always expect me to knowsomething interesting after a visit to you."
Dame Quick poured the tea carefully.
"I don't care for gossip," she returned, "yet it seems as if they likeit as much in big houses as in little." Her eyes snapped, so that Friedafound herself watching them, fascinated.
"Since you came in I've been wonderin' whether certain informationshould be sent to Lord and Lady Kent. I don't think much of it myself,as there has been such a steady stream of spy talk these months past.But they are tellin' in Granchester that there is a man there who hastaken a house a short distance from the village, on the road to KentHouse. It seems he keeps to himself too much to please the village. Hesays he has been ill, and I'm sure has a right to a mite of peace if hewants it. It's only the village that's talking. Those higher up mustknow things are what they should be, since they don't bother him."
Frieda was scarcely listening. Mrs. Huggins' news was oftenuninteresting in itself. It was only that she so much enjoyed repeatingit.
She had already finished her second cup of tea and was looking down atthe collection of tea leaves in the bottom of her cup.
"Suppose you tell my fortune," she suggested rather shyly. For some timepast she had been thinking of just this. "Didn't you say you sometimestold the fortunes of the boys and girls in Granchester, and that a greatmany things you predict come true?"
The old country woman looked at Frieda sharply.
"I tell the fortunes, child, of boys and girls whose grandfathers andgrandmothers I once knew. That isn't difficult fortune telling. I knowcertain tricks in the faces, I remember what their own people thoughtand did long before their day. Like father, like son; or maybe likemother, like son; and like father, like daughter. But you--" The oldwoman shook her head. "I know nothing about you, child; or your country,or your people, or what you have made of life for yourself with thatpretty face of yours."
Still Frieda held out her tea cup.
"Oh, well; just let the tea leaves show you a little," she pleaded, inthe spoiled fashion by which Frieda usually accomplished her purpose.
Still the old peasant continued to look, not at the tea leaves but ather young companion. Perhaps she saw something with her fine, tired oldeyes, that were too dim to read print, which even Frieda's own familydid not see.
"You have had too many of the things you wish without ever having towork for them, or to wait, little lady," she repeated slowly. Then sheglanced down into the extended tea cup. "I think I see that you willhave to lose something before you find out that you care for it. I alsosee a long journey, some clouds and at last a rainbow."
Frieda put down her cup and laughed a little uncertainly.
"Oh, the Rainbow Ranch is the name of my own home. I wonder if I haveever told you that?" she inquired. "But you are mistaken if you think Ihave had the things I wish." For, of course, Frieda did not believe shehad been a fortunate person. So few people ever do believe this ofthemselves, until misfortune makes them learn through contrast.
Later, she read a chapter in the Bible and the war news from one of themorning papers. Then, before six o'clock, she started to return to KentHouse.
Frieda walked quickly as the distance was not short. Moreover, she hadnever entirely recovered from the fright of her unexpected encounterwith her husband several months before. Yet, since then, she had notonly never seen him again, but never heard anything about him, exceptthe scant information of his departure to France, which she had acquiredthrough Frank Kent.
Frieda did think--no matter what the difference between them--that herhusband might have let her know that he was at least alive and well. Ofcourse she was a selfish, cold-hearted person, as her family andundoubtedly her own husband believed her to be. However, one could beinterested in the welfare of even a comparative stranger in war times.
Later, after Frieda left the village, she passed by the little housewhich her old friend had tried to involve in a mystery in order tosupply her with gossip. The house was set in a yard by itself. Thelights were lighted and the curtains drawn down, but, as she hurried by,either a woman's or a man's figure made a dark shadow upon the closedblind.