In Apple-Blossom Time Part 22

When at last they began again to dip toward earth, the question surged through her: "Shall I ever be so happy again?"

And now Miss Upton's figure loomed large and gracious in the foreground of her thoughts. She longed for the refuge of her kindly arms until she could gather herself together in the new era of safety and peace.

The plane touched the earth, ran a little way toward an arched building, and stopped.

Ben jumped out, and Geraldine exclaimed over the beauty of a rose-tinted cloud of blossoms.

"Yes. Pretty orchard, isn't it?" he said. He unstrapped her safety belt and lifted her out of the c.o.c.kpit. Her eager eyes noted that they were at the back of a large brick dwelling.

"Is Miss Upton here?" she asked while her escort took off her leather coat and her helmet. The latter had been pushed on and off once too often. The wonder of her golden hair fell over the poor little white cotton gown and Ben repressed his gasp of admiration.

"Oh, this is dreadful," she said, putting her hands up helplessly.

"Don't touch it," exclaimed her companion quickly. "You can't do anything with it anyway. There isn't a hairpin in the hangar. Miss Upton will love to see it. She will take care of it."

"Oh, I can't. How can I!" exclaimed Geraldine.

"Certainly, that's all right," said Ben hastily. "Miss Upton is right here. She will take you into the house and make you comfy. Let me put this around you."

He took the crepe shawl and put it about her shoulders, lifting out the s.h.i.+ning gold that fell over the fringes.

"I know it is very old-fas.h.i.+oned and queer," said Geraldine, pulling the wrap over the gra.s.s stains and looking up into his eyes with a childlike appeal that made him set his teeth. "It was my mother's and you said 'white.' It was all I had."

Miss Upton had come to Mrs. Barry's to receive her protegee provided Ben could bring her. The two ladies were sitting out under the trees waiting. Miss Mehitable had obeyed Ben, and some days since had given Mrs. Barry the young girl's story, and that lady had received it courteously and with the tempered sympathy which one bestows on the absolutely unknown.

Miss Upton's excitement when she heard the humming of the aeroplane and saw it approaching in the distance baffles description. She had been forcing herself to talk on other subjects, perceiving clearly that her hostess was what our English friends would term fed up on the subject of the girl with the fanciful name; but now she clasped her plump hands and caught her breath.

"Well, she ain't killed, anyway," she said. She longed to rush back to the landing-place, but instinctively felt that such action on the part of a guest would be indecorous. She hoped Mrs. Barry would suggest it, but such a move was evidently far from that lady's thought. She sat in her white silken gown, with sewing in her lap, the picture of unruffled calm.

Miss Upton swallowed and kept her eyes on the approaching plane. "She ain't killed, anyway," she repeated.

"Nor Ben either," remarked Mrs. Barry, drawing the fine needle in and out of her work. "He is of some importance, isn't he?"

"Oh, do you suppose he got her, Mrs. Barry?" gasped Miss Mehitable.

"Ben would be likely to," returned that lady, who had been somewhat tried by her son's preoccupation in the last few days and considered the adventure a rather annoying interlude in their ordered life.

"Why don't she say let's go and see! How can she just set there as cool as a cuc.u.mber!" thought Miss Mehitable, squeezing the blood out of her hands.

The plane descended, the humming ceased. Miss Upton sat on the edge of her chair looking excitedly at the figure in white who embroidered serenely. Moments pa.s.sed with the tableau undisturbed; then:

"Oh! Oh!" exclaimed Miss Mehitable, still holding a rein over herself, mindful that she was not the hostess.

Mrs. Barry looked up. She was a New Englander of the New Englanders, conservative to her finger tips. Ben was her only son, the light of her eyes. If what she saw was startling, it can hardly be wondered at.

There came through the pink cloud of the apple blossoms her aviator son looking handsomer than she had ever beheld him, leading a girl in white-fringed crepe that clung in soft folds to her slenderness. All about her shoulders fell a veil of golden hair, and her appealing eyes glowed in a face at once radiant and timid.

Mrs. Barry started up from her chair.

"Mother!" cried Ben as they approached, "I told you I should bring her from the stars."

The hostess advanced a step mechanically, Miss Mehitable followed close.

Geraldine gazed fascinated at the tall, regal woman, whose habitually formal manner took on an additional stiffness.

"This is Miss Melody, I believe." Mrs. Barry held out her smooth, fair hand. "I hear you have pa.s.sed through a very trying experience," she said with cold courtesy. "I am glad you are safe."

The light went out of the girl's eager eyes. The color fled from her face. She had endured too many extremes of emotion in one day. Miss Mehitable extended her arms to her with a yearning smile. Geraldine glided to her and quietly fainted away on that kindly breast.

"Poor lamb, poor lamb," murmured Miss Mehitable, and Ben, frowning, exclaimed: "Here, let me take her!"

He gathered her up in his arms and carried her into the house and laid her on a divan, Miss Upton panting after his long strides and his mother deliberately bringing up the rear. Mrs. Barry knew just what to do and she did it, while Miss Upton wrung her hands above the rec.u.mbent white figure. When the long eyelashes flickered on the pallid cheek, Ben spoke commandingly: "I'll take her upstairs. She must be put to bed."

Miss Mehitable came to herself with a rush. "Not here," she said decidedly. "If you'll let me have the car, Mrs. Barry, we'll be out of your way in five minutes."

Ben looked at his mother, who was still cool and unexcited; and the expression on his face was a new one for her to meet.

"She isn't fit to be moved, Mother, and Miss Upton hasn't room. Miss Melody is exhausted. She has had a frightful experience," he said sternly.

If he had appealed she might have been touched, but it is doubtful. The gra.s.s stains, the quaint shawl, the hair that was rippling down to the rug, were none of them part of her visions of a daughter-in-law, and, at any rate, Ben shouldn't look at her like that--at her! for the sake of a friendless waif whose existence he had not suspected one week ago.

Miss Upton, understanding the situation perfectly, saved the hostess the trouble of replying.

"It won't hurt her a bit to drive as far as my house after she's been caperin' all over the sky!" she exclaimed, seizing Geraldine's hands.

The girl heard the declaration and essayed to rise while her eyes fixed on the round face bending over her.

"I want to go with you," she said.

"And you're going, my lamb," returned Miss Mehitable.

"Certainly, you shall have the car," said Mrs. Barry suavely.

She wished to send word to the chauffeur, she wished to give Geraldine tea, she was entirely polite and sufficiently solicitous, but her heir looked terrible things, and, bringing around the car, himself drove the guests to Miss Upton's Fancy Goods and Notions.

Geraldine declined his help to walk to the door of the shop. Miss Upton had her arm around her, and though the girl was pale she gave her rescuer a look full of grat.i.tude; and when he pressed her hand she answered the pressure and restored a portion of his equanimity.

"I never, never shall forget this happiest day of my life," she said.

"And don't forget we are going to get Pete," he responded eagerly, holding her hand close, "and everything is going to come out right."

"Yes"--she looked doubtful and frightened; "but if you get Pete don't let your mother see him. She is--she couldn't bear it."

"Don't judge her, Geraldine," he begged. "She is glorious. Ask Miss Upton. Just a little--a little shy at first, you know. Miss Upton, you explain, won't you?"

"Don't fret, Ben," said Miss Mehitable. "You're the best boy on earth, and I want to hear all about it, for I'm sure you did something wonderful to get her."

"Yes, wonderful, Miss Upton!" echoed Geraldine, with another heart-warming smile at her deliverer whose own smile lessened and died as he walked back to his car. By the time he entered it he was frowning, thinking of his "shy" mother.