In Apple-Blossom Time Part 35

"I think I'd rather do that myself," she said hastily.

"Some ladies do," returned the girl.

"Especially," rejoined Geraldine, "when they are not used to being waited upon!"

She accompanied this with a look of such frank sweetness that she counted one more victim to her charms.

"She isn't one bit stuck-up," the maid reported downstairs, "and I never saw such hair and eyes in all my life."

"They've done for Mr. Ben all right," remarked the chauffeur. "I guess Madam thought it was about time to get acquainted."

When Geraldine came downstairs an hour later, she was arrayed in the cheap little green-and-white house dress which had been one of her purchases with Miss Upton, and was intended for summer use in the shop.

As she wandered into the living-room, Mrs. Barry walking on the piazza perceived her through the long, open windows and came to join her.

"Did you find everything quite comfortable?" she asked solicitously.

"Perfectly," replied Geraldine. "It is quite wonderful after one has been leading a camping-out life."

Mrs. Barry continued to approve her intonation and manner.

"You certainly have pa.s.sed through strange vicissitudes," she replied.

"Sometime you must tell me your story-book adventures."

"They are not very pleasant reminiscences," said Geraldine.

"Very well, then, you shall not be made to rehea.r.s.e them."

A maid appeared and announced dinner.

Geraldine's repressed excitement took away her appet.i.te for the perfectly served repast. Mrs. Barry's regal personality seemed to pervade the whole establishment. One could not imagine any detail venturing to go wrong; any food to be underdone or overdone; any servant to venture to make trouble. The machinery of the household moved on oiled wheels. A delicate cleanliness, quietness, order, pervaded the home and all its surroundings.

Mrs. Barry made no comment on her guest's lack of appet.i.te. When they had finished, she led her out to the porch where their coffee was served.

"Now, isn't this an improvement on Rockcrest?" she asked as they sat listening to the sleepy, closing evening songs of the thrushes. "Imagine trying to drink our coffee on that piazza where we were this afternoon.

There is a more sheltered portion, a part that I have enclosed in gla.s.s; but my son likes the front to be all open to the elements."

"It is very beautiful here," said Geraldine. "It must be hard for you to tear yourself away even later in the season."

"That is what does it," returned Mrs. Barry, waving her hand toward a large thermometer affixed to one of the columns. "When you come down some morning and find the mercury trying to go over the top, you are ready to flit where there are no great trees to seem to hold in the air." The speaker paused, regarding the young girl for a moment in silence. An appreciation of her had been growing ever since they left Keefeport, and now for the first time she allowed herself a pleasure in Geraldine's beauty. It was wonderful camouflage if it was nothing more.

"Do you enjoy music, Miss Melody?" she asked suddenly.

The girl gave her a faint smile.

"Foolish question, isn't it?" she added. "I usually play awhile in the evening." She set down her cup and rose.

Geraldine rose also, looked pleased and eager.

"I'm so glad," she replied. "I have no accomplishments myself."

A vague memory of having heard something about a cruel stepmother a.s.sailed the hostess. She smiled kindly at the girl. "Some people have gifts instead," she said. "Stay here. I will go in and try to give you some happy thoughts."

Geraldine sank back in her chair, her eyes fixed on the graceful elms and the vivid streaks across a sunset sky.

As the strains of Chopin, Schumann, and Brahms came through the open window it necessitated some, effort not to have too happy thoughts. The skillful musician modulated from one number to another, and Geraldine, all ignorant in her art-starved life, of what she was hearing, gave herself up to the loveliness of sight and sound.

When Mrs. Barry reappeared, the girl's eyelids were red, and as she started up to meet her she put out her hands impulsively, and the musician laughed a little as she accepted their grasp, well pleased with the eloquent speechlessness.

When Geraldine waked the next morning her first vague thought was that she must shake off sleep and help Mrs. Carder. That troubling sense faded into another, also troubling. She was to spend a whole day, perhaps several whole days, with the rather fearful splendor of the mother of her knight. That in itself would not be so bad, Mrs. Barry had shown a kind intention, but the knight himself might return at any hour.

Why had she come? Yet how refuse when her previous hostess had so energetically thrown her out of the nest?

The sun had gone behind clouds. She rose, closed her windows, and made her toilet, then descended to the hall where Mrs. Barry met her with a pleasant greeting and they went in to breakfast.

"We're going to catch some rain, it seems," she said. "It is nice Miss Upton is moved and settled."

"Yes," rejoined Geraldine, "and curtain-making can go on just as well in the rain."

"You had a good sleep, I'm sure," said the hostess, regarding her freshness.

"Yes, I am ready and full of energy to begin," said the girl. "I feel that I am going to do the work quickly and go back sooner than Miss Upton expects. It is nice for them to have some young hands and feet to call upon."

"I hope you don't feel in haste," returned Mrs. Barry politely. She was so courteous, so gracious, so powerful, and such leagues away from her, Geraldine longed to get at the work, and know what to do with her hands and her eyes.

Very soon the curtain material was produced. Mrs. Barry had the sewing machine moved into the living-room where there was plenty of s.p.a.ce for the billowy white stuff, and they began their measuring.

The air was sultry preceding the storm, and a distant rumbling of thunder was heard. The house door was left open as well as the long French windows which gave upon the piazza.

The guest had slept late, delaying the breakfast hour, and the two had been working at the curtains only a short time when a man, strange to Mrs. Barry, walked into the living-room. Approaching on the footpath to the house, Geraldine only had been visible to him through the window. He believed her to be alone in the room, and the house door standing open he had dispensed with the formality of ringing and walked in.

Something in the wildness of the intruder's look startled the hostess and she pressed a b.u.t.ton in the wall.

She saw Geraldine's face blanch and her eyes dilate with terror as the man approached her, but no sound escaped her lips. The stranger put out his hand. The girl shrank back. The queen of Keefe stepped forward.

"What do you mean by this?" she exclaimed sternly. "What do you wish?"

The man turned and faced her. "I've come on important business with this girl. My name is Rufus Carder--you may have heard of it. Geraldine Melody belongs to me. Her father gave her to me." He turned back quickly to the girl, for Mrs. Barry's face warned him that his time was short.

"You may have gone away against your will, Gerrie," he said. "It ain't too late to save your father. Come back with me now and there won't be a word said. Refuse to come, and to-morrow all his pals shall know what he was."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Geraldine Melody belongs to me. Her Father gave her to me"]

Geraldine straightened her slight body. Terror was in every line of her delicate face, but Mrs. Barry saw her control it. The details of the stories she had heard came back to her vividly. She realized the suffering and the fate from which her boy had delivered the captive.

Geraldine was exquisite to look at now as she faced her jailer. That ethereal quality which was hers gave her spirituelle face a wonderful appeal.

"Ben was right," thought Mrs. Barry with a thrill of pride. "She is a thoroughbred."

"Mr. Carder," she said, approaching still nearer, her peremptory tone forcing him to turn his long, twitching face toward her, "Miss Melody is about to marry my son. He will attend to any business you may have with her."

"Huh! That's it, is it? You don't look like the kind of woman who will enjoy having a forger in the family."