Under the Country Sky Part 15

"Just speaking the truth. You can't think how many times I shall think of you sitting there with your three splendid men----"

"Jean! What are you talking about?"

"About Uncle David, and Jimps, and Mr. Jefferson----"

"But they're not mine," protested Georgiana, laughing. "Except Father Davy."

"Not--Jimps?"

"Oh, of course he's my friend, my very good friend. And Mr. Jefferson's only a 'boarder,'"--she made a little grimace at the word. "You speak as if I had them all about me all the time."

"But you do evenings, don't you?"

"They were there much more while you were visiting me than they will be now. Jimps has heaps of arrears to make up; he let lots of work go while you were there, you must know, my dear. As for Mr. Jefferson--he may never come down any more, now that Jimps won't be going up to beg him to make a fourth for your entertainment. So don't imagine me holding court with those three retainers. It will mostly be just Father Davy and I with a volume of Dumas or Kipling. Isn't it odd how my pale little father loves the red blood of literature?"

"Just the same----" but Jeannette did not finish that. She began afresh: "And oh! how I shall miss you, George--as Jimps calls you. Somehow I must have you before long for a real visit here, or wherever I may be for the summer."

"Thank you, Jean; but I can never get away."

"I'll arrange it somehow. That makes me think--Miles Channing was dreadfully disappointed that you were going in the morning. I've no doubt he will manage to see you off somehow. I think it's too bad of you to insist on going before luncheon. Think how little sleep you'll have."

She gave Georgiana a penetrating look as she said it, but saw only a pair of beautiful bare arms thrown up over a ma.s.s of dark locks, as her cousin, with a clever imitation of a half-smothered yawn, answered merrily: "Then we must go to bed this minute or I shall never have strength of mind to get up. And I can't leave Father Davy to the tender mercies of Mrs. Perkins longer than I can help. She'll give him everything that is bad for him, in spite of the best intentions."

It was a wide-awake Georgiana, nevertheless, who, fully dressed for the drive, leaned over Jeannette's bed at ten o'clock that morning and kissed a warm velvet cheek, murmuring: "Don't wake up, Jean. We're just off after breakfast. I'll write soon. You've been a perfect darling, and I'm more grateful than I can tell you."

"Oh, I'm dead to the world, I'm so tired!" moaned the girl in the bed.

"I always have to pay up so for dancing all night. But you,"--she lifted languid eyelids to see her cousin's smiling freshness of face and air of vigour--"why, you look as though you had had twelve hours' sleep--and a cold plunge!"

"I've had the cold plunge," admitted Georgiana, laughing. "And I'm 'fit as a fiddle,' as Jimps says. He sent his good-bye to you and told me to tell you he'll never forget you--never!"

"Tell him I'll not let him forget me--or you, either. Oh, how I hate to have you go, both of you!"

Through a silent, sleeping house Georgiana and Stuart stole, the only member of the family up to see them off being Mr. Thomas Crofton himself, the oldest person under the great rooftree.

"My dear, you must come again, you must come often," he urged, holding Georgiana's hand and patting it with a paternal air. He was a handsome man in the early sixties, with graying hair and tired eyes. "You have done a great deal for our Jean; she looks much stronger than when she went to your home. But neither she nor Rosalie can enter the race with you for splendid health. That comes from your country life, I suppose.

I envy you, I envy you, my dear."

"Come and see us, Uncle Thomas--do. Father Davy would be so happy; you know he's such an invalid. But his mind and heart are as young as ever."

"I will come; I will drive down some day, thank you, Georgiana. I should like to see David again. Mr. Stuart, come again, come again. Good-bye; sorry your aunt was too much done up to see you off this morning, my dear. Good-bye."

As the two emerged from the door a tall figure sprang up the steps.

"What luck! I was pa.s.sing and I suspected you were just getting off.

Good morning! Can you possibly be the girl I saw dancing seven hours ago?"

"I don't wonder you ask, Mr. Channing," laughed Georgiana. "Evening frocks and traveling clothes are quite different affairs."

"Ah, but the traveling clothes are even the nicer of the two, when their wearer looks----" Channing glanced at Stuart standing by. "Confound you, sir!" said he, with a genial grin, shaking hands. "Since you're going to drive all the way home with Miss Warne can't you give me the chance to say something pleasant to her?"

"You can't make it too strong to suit me," observed Stuart--and remained within hearing.

"Sat.u.r.day, then, if I may," said Channing, looking as far into Georgiana's eyes as he could see, which was not very far. She wore a close little veil, which interfered with her eyelashes, and clearly she could not lift her glance very high.

Then they were off, with Channing waving farewell, his hat high in air.

A hand at another window also waved, and Georgiana knew Jeannette had seen this last encounter.

"Well, for sixteen hours' work," remarked James Stuart grimly, as the car gathered headway and the house was left behind, "I should say you had done some fairly deadly execution. Sat.u.r.day, eh? Why does he delay so long? Isn't to-morrow Friday--and a day sooner?"

CHAPTER XIII

A COPYIST

The old study of David Warne was a square, austerely furnished room on the second floor of the manse, opposite the sleeping-room now occupied by Mr. Jefferson. It contained several plain bookcases, filled mostly with worn old volumes in dingy yellow calf or faded cloth. An ancient table served for a desk, with a splint-bottomed chair before it. On the walls hung several portrait engravings, that of Abraham Lincoln occupying the post of honour among them. The floor was covered with a rag carpet of pleasantly dimmed colours, and an old Franklin stove, with widely opening doors and a hearth with a bra.s.s rail, completed the furnis.h.i.+ng of the room.

This was the place now swept and dusted and warmed for the joint labours of the writer of books and his new a.s.sistant. Mr. Jefferson had moved the materials of his craft to the new working quarters: he had brought up wood for the fire and had made that fire himself, according to the custom he had inaugurated soon after his arrival. The day and hour for the beginning of that which James Stuart insisted on designating as a partners.h.i.+p had arrived. At ten o'clock that April morning, when Georgiana's housework should have reached a stage when she could safely leave it for a more or less extended period, the study door was to close upon the two and shut them away undisturbed for the first details of their affair in common.

Georgiana had been up since before daybreak, planning and executing a system which should make all this possible. Now, at a quarter before ten, with all well in hand, she flew to her room for certain personal touches which should transform her from housewife to secretary. Two minutes before the clock struck she surveyed herself hurriedly in her small mirror.

"You really look very trim and demure," she remarked to her image. "Your colour is a bit high, but that's exercise, not excitement. Still, you are a little excited, you know, my dear, and you must be very careful not to show it. It's a calm, cool, business person the gentleman wants, George, not a blus.h.i.+ng schoolgirl. It would spoil it at once if you should look conscious or coquettish. So now--remember. And forget--for the love of your new occupation--forget that Miles Channing is coming again to-night--again, after one short week! What does it matter if he is? Run along and be good!"

Half a minute left in which to run downstairs, kiss Father Davy on his white forehead, and receive his warm "Bless you, dear, and bless the new work. May you be very happy in it!" and to walk quietly upstairs again and knock at the door of the study. It opened under Mr. Jefferson's hand, and to the cheerful sound of snapping wood on the open hearth of the old Franklin stove he bade her enter.

His smile was very pleasant, his steady eyes seemed to take note of everything about her in one quick glance, as he said with a wave of his hand: "Welcome to my workshop! You see I've swept up all the chips, but we'll soon make more."

"You manage to keep your workshop remarkably free from chips," she commented. "You must have a great system of order."

"Pretty fair. I should be hopelessly lost if I let this ma.s.s of material become disordered. Will you take this chair? Must we begin at once or may we talk a little first?"

"I think we had better begin. You know there are just two free hours before I must be back downstairs, if you are to eat, this noon."

He laughed and she noted, as she had noted many times before, how young he looked at such moments, grave as his face could be when in repose.

"Very well," he agreed. "I have no doubt you will work at this task as you do at the loom, with all your might, and I shall have to lengthen my stride to keep up with you. But that promises well. One is likely to fall into habits of soldiering when one works alone. You have no idea how carefully I have to keep certain favourite books out of sight when I want to accomplish big stretches of work. And in this room--hard luck!--I see so many old treasures that I'm going to have a bit of trouble in resisting temptation."

His eyes led hers to the old bookcases. She nodded. "It's a shabby old collection, but it's very dear to father's heart."

"It well may be. Gibbon, Hume, Froude, Parton--Lamb, Johnson, Carlyle--Hugo, Thackeray, Reade, and Trollope--Keats, Sh.e.l.ley, and the rest. What matters the binding? Some time I must read you a pa.s.sage in good old Christopher North that appeals to me tremendously. No, not now, Miss Warne; I see I must fall upon my task without delay or you will be slipping away on the plea of bad faith on my part. Well----"

He turned his chair toward the table and took up a notebook. His face settled instantly into an expression of serious interest.

"I am going to ask you first," said he, "to copy in order upon a fresh sheet each reference which you find marked with a red cross, so that the references may be all together. Be very exact, please, and very legible. German and French words are easily misread by the typist who will put this work finally into copy for the printer."

Georgiana, glancing at the first marked reference, found cause to credit this statement, for it read: