The Comings of Cousin Ann Part 5

"Ann Peyton, you are a fool. You have always been a fool. It is too late to be anything else now and you will go on being a fool until the end of time. This child had more sense than you have."

Reverently she placed the little daguerreotype in her handkerchief box. It was the picture she had given Bob Bucknor, the father of the present owner of Buck Hill and the grandfather of Jeff. He had prized it once but now it was thrown aside and forgotten by all. She then stooped over and gathered up the articles on the floor and carefully put them back in drawers and wardrobe. She washed her face and hands, straightened her auburn wig, changed her traveling dress to a more suitable one and then sailed majestically down the stairs.

CHAPTER VI

A Question of Kins.h.i.+p

Jefferson Bucknor had been away from home, except for flying visits, for five years. Like most of the young men of his age, the World War had broken in on his college course. He had gone into training at the first suggestion of his country's need. He was then in his junior year at the University of Virginia. Law had been his goal and at the close of the war he hastened back to finish what he had begun. Determined to hang out his s.h.i.+ngle as soon as possible, he had studied summer and winter until he got his degree. He was now at home, taking a much-needed rest and getting acquainted again with his family. The sisters had grown up while he was away, and his father and mother were turning gray. He had only arrived the day before the coming of Cousin Ann, and could not help regretting that his sisters were having this house party. It would have been pleasant to be quietly at home for a while.

"When does your company come?" Jeff asked Mildred. Cousin Ann had joined them on the front porch, where the family awaited the summons to dinner. "Mildred and Nan are having a swarm of guests," he explained to the old cousin.

"Ah, indeed!" said Cousin Ann.

"Some of them come at six-thirty and the rest at seven from Louisville. We are to meet them at the trolley. You'll go with us, won't you, Jeff?" asked Mildred.

"Of course, if you need me."

"Need you! I should say we do need you. Why, you are to fall madly in love with Jean Roland. We've fixed it all up. She's rich and beautiful."

"Yes, and we put linen sheets on the bed in the guest chamber," broke in Nan. "Jean Roland is used to grand things, but she'll have to sleep three in the bed and so will all of us--now."

"Hus.h.!.+" from Mrs. Bucknor. There was an embarra.s.sed silence. Cousin Ann's backbone stiffened. Mrs. Bucknor looked reproachfully at her daughters, who giggled helplessly. It was a relief to have the head of the house arrive at that moment.

Mr. Bucknor was a hale and hearty man of fifty, florid and handsome, slightly dictatorial in manner, but easily influenced by his wife, who was all softness and gentleness. He was generous and hospitable, priding himself on keeping up the reputation in which Buck Hill had gloried in the past--that of an open house with bed and board for all of the blood. He greeted his Cousin Ann with a cordiality that might have been balm to her wounded feelings had she not been aware that that was Cousin Bob's manner to everybody.

"And where do you come from, Cousin Ann?" he demanded. "I hope all were well. Cousin Betty Throckmorton's? Well, well! I thought Sister Sue was to have the honor of your company. It will keep! It will keep!

Measles at Cousin Betty's? Heavens! I hope none of them will go off in pneumonia. You must give us a nice long visit. Always glad to have you, Cousin Ann. Glad to have any of my kin come and stay as long as they choose. Blood is thicker than water, I say, and blue blood is thicker than red blood."

"Thank you, cousin," was all Miss Ann could say.

"By the way, Mildred, speaking of falling in love, who is that pretty girl I saw on the trolley yesterday?" asked Jeff. "I can't remember ever having seen her around here before, but then the girls have all grown beyond me since I left home. She has what some people call auburn hair, but I like to call it red, although it had lots of gold in it. She got on the last stop before you get into Ryeville. Seemed to know everybody on the car--even the motorman and conductor. At least, I saw her chatting with them--the ones who were relieved at the last switch and were eating their suppers. She was as lively as a cricket--was just bubbling over with energy--"

"Oh, I know who that was," said Mildred. "It sounds like that forward Judith Buck. She has no idea of her place. I never saw such a girl.

She rides around the country in a ridiculous looking little home made blue Ford with a spring wagon back and puts on all the airs of sporting a Stutz racer. She never stops for anybody but just whizzes on by. Sometimes she even bows to us, although she gets mighty little encouragement from me, I can tell you."

Suddenly there flashed upon Miss Ann's inward eye a picture of a bright-haired girl in a little blue car who had pa.s.sed her coach only that morning, and with the picture came the remembrance of Uncle Billy's words: "I ain't seed nothin' in this county ter put 'long side er you lessen it wa' that pretty red-headed gal what went whizzin' by us up yonder on the pike in a blue ortermobubble." She remembered that he had declared the girl looked as she had looked in her youth.

Mildred continued her diatribe concerning the lively Judith: "Surely you remember her, Jeff. She used to come here selling blackberries when she was a kid--a little barefooted girl and as pert as you please even then. After old d.i.c.k Buck died she used to trap rabbits and bring them here for sale and sometimes fish. It always made me mad for Aunt Em'ly to encourage her by making Mother buy the things. I think poor persons should be taken care of all right but they should know their place."

"But what is her place?" asked Jeff, a flush slowly spreading over his handsome, rather swarthy countenance.

"Well, I should say her place was at the back door," declared Mildred.

"Old d.i.c.k Buck's granddaughter needn't expect to get any social recognition from me."

"Me either!" chimed in Nan.

"Of course not!" said Mrs. Bucknor. Mr. Bucknor was reading the morning paper and seemed oblivious to the conversation.

"She doesn't look to me like a girl who cared a whit for social recognition," said Jeff quietly, although his lip had a curl that showed his disapproval of his family's sn.o.bbishness.

"Don't you believe it," said Mildred, with rather more violence than the subject under discussion warranted. "I went to high school with her for a year and then thank goodness Father sent me to a private school. She was the greatest smart Aleck you ever saw. Had herself elected president of the cla.s.s and was always showing off, getting medals for never being late and never missing a single day of school since she started. She was always acting in plays and getting up cla.s.s entertainments for devastated Europe. Some of the girls in Ryeville wanted to ask her to join our club, but I just told them they could count me out if they did any such thing."

"Me too!" said Nan.

"And I tell you Buck Hill is too nice a place for parties for the set to let Nan and me out. She's got a place as teacher now, out in the county near Clayton. I can't abide her. She even had the impertinence to tell some of the girls once that the original name of her family was the same as ours--that her old grandfather, d.i.c.k Buck, had told her so. The idea! Next she'll be claiming kin with us Bucknors."

"What's that? What's that?" asked Mr. Bucknor, dropping his paper.

"Who claims kin with us?"

"Old d.i.c.k Buck's granddaughter. Isn't it ridiculous?"

"Not at all," spoke Cousin Ann, coming into the conversation as a s.h.i.+p in full sail might break into a fleet of fis.h.i.+ng boats. "Not ridiculous at all. In fact, quite the proper thing for the young woman in question to do. She, too, may have pride of birth and there is no reason why she should not claim what is due her."

"But--" interrupted Mildred. Miss Ann Peyton paid no attention at all to the girl. She addressed her remarks to Jeff, who was all respectful attention.

"Yes, cousin, the Bucks are descended from the Bucknors quite as much as you or I are. I recall it all now, although I have not thought of it for many, many years. I can remember hearing my grandfather tell of a brother of his Grandfather Bucknor who, out of pure carelessness, dropped the last syllable of his name. It was in connection with a transfer of property. The deed was recorded wrongly, naming Richard Buck. He was a lazy man and rather than go to the trouble of having the matter corrected he just allowed himself to be called Richard Buck. He left Kentucky after that, but his son returned later on. My grandfather told me a slump in fortune began from that time and the Buck branch of the family has been on the downward road ever since.

Perhaps, having reached the bottom, this young person is now ascending. But low or high, the fact remains that she is kin."

"Bless my soul!" exclaimed Mr. Bucknor, "I didn't dream that old tale had a word of truth in it. I've heard old d.i.c.k Buck, when he was drunk, insisting that he belonged to my family, but it sounded ridiculous on the face of it."

"Exactly!" chorused Mildred and Nan.

"However, I must look into the matter," the father continued somewhat pompously. "If the girl is kin we must claim her."

"Oh, Bob, I beg of you to do no such thing," said Mrs. Bucknor gently, laying a restraining hand lightly on her husband's arm. Her touch was soft and light but it held Bob Bucknor as effectively as iron handcuffs might have. "If this girl is as forward as Mildred and Nan say she is, it would be very embarra.s.sing to have her constantly a.s.serting her kins.h.i.+p with our girls. I am sure I do not know her at all. She is pretty and no doubt is good, but she is naturally common and evidently very pus.h.i.+ng."

"All right, my dear, all right! You know best," responded Mr.

Bucknor.

At this juncture Kizzie announced dinner, which was a relief to all of them.

"Take my arm, Cousin Ann," said Jeff gallantly.

For a moment the old woman and the young man stood looking off over the rolling meadows of blue gra.s.s. Cutting the lush green pasture lands was the white limestone turnpike. Far off in the distance a blue speck appeared on the white road. In a twinkling it grew into a car and then went whizzing by, leaving a cloud of white dust in its wake.

Jeff smiled and, glancing down at his old cousin, caught an answering smile on her face.

"I'm rather glad she's kin," he whispered, and she gave his arm a tiny squeeze.

Then the thought came to him: "I wonder if she is as bold and forward as Mildred says she is. I wish she hadn't been so familiar with those motormen. That wasn't very ladylike to go up and engage them in conversation. Perhaps Mildred is right. You could hardly expect old d.i.c.k Buck's granddaughter to be very refined--but, gee, she's a good looker!"

CHAPTER VII