An Unwilling Guest (2 page)

"No."

"Well—but—I don't understand," said the guest. "Did you not say that my aunt had arr
anged for me to board with you?
"

A bright spot came in each of Allison's cheeks ere she replied with gentle dignity:

"No, you are to visit us, if you will. Your aunt is a dear friend of my mother, Miss Rutherford." She resolved in her heart that she would never, never, call this girl Evelyn. She did not want the intimate friendship that her old friend had hinted at in telling her first of the coming of this city niece.

Allison was favored with another disagreeable stare, but she gave her attention to the pony.

"Really
, I'm obliged," said the guest in
icy tones that made Allison feel as if she had been guilty of unpardonable impertinence in inviting her. "Was there no hotel or private boarding house to which I could have gone? I dislike to be under obligations to entire strangers."

Allison's tones were as icily dignified now as her unwilling guest's as she replied: "Certainly, there are two hotels and there is a boarding house. You would hardly care to stay in the boarding house I fancy. It has not the reputation of being very clean. I can take you to either of the
hotels if you wish, but even in
Hillcroft
it would scarcely be the thing for a young girl to stay alone at one of them. We sometimes hear of chaperons, even as far West as this, Miss Rutherford."

Allison's eyes were bright and she drew herself up straight in the carriage as she said this, but she remembered almost immediately the pained look that would have come into her mother's eyes if she had heard this exhibition of something besides a meek and quiet spirit, and she tried to control herself. Yet in spite of the way in which she had spoken, her words had some effect on the young woman by her side. She had been met by the enemy on her own ground and vanquished. She had a faint idea that her brothe
r Dick would have remarked some
thing about being "hoist
ed
with his own petard" had he been by, for she was wont to be particular about these things at home. She felt thankful that he was several hundreds of miles away. She said no more about hotels. She understood the matter of chaperonage even better than did
Allison Grey, and strange as it may s
eem, Allison rose in her estima
tion several degrees after her haughty speech.

There was silence in the phaeton for some minutes. Then the driver spoke, to point out a dingy house close to the street with several d
irt
y children playing about the steps. There was a sign in one window on a fly-specked card, "Rooms to Rent," and a card hung out on a stick nailed to the
door-frame, "Vegetable soup to
day."

"This is the boarding house," said Allison. "Do you wish me to leave you here?" Her spirit was not quite subdued yet

Evelyn Rutherford looked and uttered an exclamation of horror. Her companion caught the expression and a spirit of fun took the place of her look of indignation. In spite of herself she laughed.

But the girl beside her was too much used to having her own way to relish any such joke as this. She maintained an offended silence.

They passed the two hotels of the town, facing one another on Post-office Square. There were loungers smoking on the steps and on the long piazzas of both and at the open door of one a dashing young woman, with a loud laugh and louder attire, joked openly with a crowd of men and seemed to be proud of her position among them. Evelyn curled her lip and shrank into the carriage farther at thought of herself as a guest at that house.

"I fear I shall have to trouble you, at least until I can communicate with my aunt or make other arrangements," she said stiffly, and added condescendingly, "I'm sure I'm much obliged."

Then the carriage turned in at a flower-bordered driveway with glimpses of a pretty lawn beyond the fringe of crimson blossoms and Miss Rutherford realized that her journey was at an end.

T
hey stopped at a side door which opened on a vine-clad piazza. The house was white with green blinds and plenty of vines in autumn tinting clinging to
it
here and there as if they loved it. A sweet-faced woman opened the door as they stopped at the steps and came out to meet them. She had eyes like Allison's
and a firm, sweet chin that sug
gested strength and self control. Apparently she had none of Allison's preconceived idea of their guest for she came forward with a gentle welcome in her face and voice.

"So you found her all right, Allison dear," she said as she waited for the stranger to step from the carriage, and Evelyn noticed that she placed her arm around her daughter and put an unobtrusive kiss on the pink cheek.

"This is mother," Allison said, all the sharpness gone out of her voice.

That Mrs. Grey should fold her in her arms and place a kiss, tender and loving, upon her cheek was an utter astonishment to Evelyn Rutherford. She was not used to being kissed. Her own mother had long been gone from her, and the women in whose charge she had been had not felt inclined to kiss her. In fact, she disliked any show of affection, especially between two
women, and would have been dis
posed to resent this kiss, had it been given by one less sweet and sincere. But one could not resent Mrs. Grey, even if that one were Evelyn Rutherford.

"My dear, I am so sorry for you," was what she said next. "It must be very hard for your journey to end among strangers after all. But you need not be anxious about your dear aunt, she is so strong and well
and has often nursed contagious d
iseases without contracting any
thing."

Allison, as she went down the steps to take the pony to his stable, could not help waiting just the least little bit to hear what this strange girl would say, but all the satisfaction she had was a glimpse of her face filled with utter astonishment. She felt in her heart that the least of Miss Rutherford's concerns was about her aunt. She wondered if her mother could not tell that by just a glance, or if she simply chose to ignore it in her sweet, persistent way.
There were often times when Al
lison Grey wondered thus about her mother, and often had she suspected that behind the sweet, innocent smile which acknowledged only what she chose to see, there was a deepe
r insight into the character be
fore her than even her shrewd daughter possessed. Allison puzzled over it now as she drove to the stable, flecking the pony's back with the end of the whip that was almost never used for its legitimate purpose.

In the house Miss Rutherford was carried from one astonishment to another. The gentle, well-bred welcome, she could not repulse. It took her at a disadvantage. She was ill at
ease. She followed Mrs. Grey si
lently to her room. Something kept her from the condescending thanks she had been about to speak, thanks which would have put her in no way under obligation to these new, and, as she chose to consider, rather commonplace strangers. Why she had not uttered the cold, haughty words she did not know, but she had not

The room into which she was ushered was not unattractive even to her city-bred eyes. To be sure the furnishings were inexpensive, that she saw at a glance, but she could not help feeling the air of daintiness and comfort everywhere. The materials used were nothing but rose-colored cambric and sheer white muslin, but the effect was lovely. There was a little fire in an open grate and a low old-fashioned chair drawn up invitingly. The day was just a trifle chilly for October, but the windows were still wide open.

"Now, dear," said Mrs. Grey, throwing the door open, "I hope you will be perfectly comfortable here. My room is just across the hall and Allison sleeps next to you, so you need not be lonely in the night"

Left to herself Miss Rutherford took off her hat and looked about
her. The room was pretty enough. The low, wide window-seat in the bay window, covered with rosebud ch
intz and provided with plenty of
luxurious pillows, was quite charming; but then it had a homemade look, after all, and t
he girl scorned home
made things. She had not been brought up to love and rever
ence the home. Her world was so
ciety, and how society would laugh over an effect achieved
in
cheap cottons with such evident lack of pr
ofessional decorators. Neverthel
ess, she looked about with curiosity and a growing satisfaction. Since she must be thus cast upon a desert island she was glad that it was no worse, and she shuddered over the thought of the possibilities in that boarding house she had passed. However, she was not a young woman given to much thanksgiving and generally spent her time in bewailing what she did not have rather than
in
being glad over what she had escaped.

Presently the lack of a maid, who was to her a necessary institution, began to make itself felt. Her
aunt
had servants she knew, for they had been mentioned occasionally
in
the long
letters she wrote at stated in
tervals to them. Her father had most emphatically declared against taking a maid with her from New York. This had been one of her greatest grievances. Her father said that her aunt had all the servants that would be necessary to wait upon her, and it was high t
im
e she learned to do things for herself. All her tears and protestations had not availed.

But
in
this house there had been no word of a maid. Mrs. Grey had told her to let her know if there was anything she needed, but had not suggested sending a servant. Of course they must have servants. She would investigate.

She looked about her for signs of a bell, but no bell appeared. She opened the door and listened. There was the distant tinkle of china and silver, as of someone setting a table; there
came a tempting whiff of something savory through the hall and distant voices talking low and pleasantly, but there seemed to be no servant anywhere
in
sight or sound.

Across the hall Mrs. Grey's wide, old-fashioned room seemed to smile peacefully at her and speak of a life she did not understand and
into which she had never had a glimpse before. It annoyed her now. She did not care for it. It seemed to d
emand a depth of earnestness be
neath living that was uncomfortable, she knew not why. She went in and slammed her door again and sat down on the bay-window seat, looking out discontentedly across the lawn.

Presently a wagon drove into the yard carrying her two large trunks. She heard voices about the door and then the heavy tread of man bearing a burden. She waited, thinking how she could get hold of a servant.

Allison's light tap on the door soon followed and behind her was the man with a trunk on his shoulder.

"
Wa
l
, I kin tell
yew
that there trunk
ai
n't
filled with feathers!" ejac
ulated the man as he put down the trunk with a thump and looked shrewdly at its owner.

"You ought to bring some
one to help you, Mr. Carter," said A
lli
son's fresh, clear voice, with just a tinge of indignation in it as she looked toward the stranger, "that was entirely too much of a lift for you."

Miss Rutherford curled her lip and turned toward the window till the colloquy should be concluded.

"And now," said Mr. Carter, puffing and blowing from the weight of the second trunk which was even worse than the first, "I
s'pose
you want them there things
unstropped
. You don't look like you was much more fit to do it yourself than one o' these ere grasshoppers,
er
a good-sized butterfly."

"Sir!" said Miss Rutherford in freezing astonishment

"I said as how you
wa'n't
built for
unstroppin
' trunks," remarked the amiable Carter with his foot against the top of the trunk and his cheeks puffed out in the effort to unfasten a refractory buckle.

"Your remarks are entirely unnecessary," said the haughty young woman, straightening herself to her f
ull height and looking disagree
able in the extreme.

The buckle gave way, and Carter taking his old hat from the floor where it had fallen looked at her slowly and carefully from head to
foot, his face growing redder than when he had first put down the trunk.

"No harm meant, I'm sure, miss," he said in deep embarrassment as he shuffled away, mumbling something under his breath as he went downstairs.

'The idea!" said the young woman to herself. "What impudence! He ought not to be employed by decent people." Then she heard Allison's step in the hall and remembered her wants.

"Will you please let your maid bring me some hot water," she said with a sweet imperiousness she knew how to assume on occasion.

"I will attend to it at once," answered Allison in a cold tone, and it became evident to the guest that her sympathies were all with Mr. Carter. It made her indignant and she retired to her room to await the hot water.

She stood before the mantel idly studying a few photographs. One, the face of a young man, scarcely more than a boy, attracted her with an oddly familiar glance. Where had she seen someone who had that same peculiarly direct gaze, that awakened a faint stir of undefined pleasant memories? She turned from
the picture without having dis
covered, to answer the tap on the door with a "come" that was meant as a pleasant preface to her request that the entering maid would assist her a little, and met Allison with the hot water.

"Oh, how kind to bring it yourself," said the guest a trifle less stiffly than before. "But would you mind lending me your maid for a few minutes? Can you spare her? I won't keep her very long."

The color crept into Allison's cheek as she answered steadily: "I am very sorry to say we are without any just now, so I cannot possibly send her to you; but I shall be glad to help you in any way I can as soon as mother can spare me."

"Oh, indeed!" said the guest with one of her stares. "Don't trouble yourself. I shall doubtless get along in some way," and she turned her back upon Allison and looked haughtily out of the window.

Allison reflected a moment and said in a pleasanter tone:

"If there is any lifting to be done or your trunks are not right, father
will help you when he comes in for supper. And I'm sure mother would want me to help you in any way I can, if you will just tell me what to do. Would you like me to help you unpack?"

"Oh, no, thank you," said the guest with her face still toward the window, "I can do very well myself."

Allison hesitated and then turned to go. As she was half out the door she said helplessly: "We have supper in half an hour. If you want me just call. I can easily hear you."

Miss Rutherford made no answer. After the door had closed she began elaborate preparations for a dinner toilet. She belonged to a part of the world that consider it a crime to
appear at dinner in any but eve
ning attire. In her life atmosphere it was
thought to be a part of the un
written code of culture which must b
e adhered to in spite of circum
stances, as one would wear clothes even if thrown among naked savages. In her eyes
Hillcroft
was somewhat of a cannibal island, but it never occurred to her that it would be
proper for her to do as the sav
ages did. Therefore she "dressed" for dinner.

It was decidedly over an hour fro
m that time before the guest de
scended. Mr. Grey had waited as patiently as possible, though he had pressing engagements for the evening. The bell rang twice, loud and clear, and Allison tapped at her door once and asked politely if she could be of any assistance as supper was ready; but in spite of all this the guest came into the dining room as coolly as if she had not been keeping every one waiting for at least three-quarters of an hour, and spoiling most effectually the roasted potatoes, which had been in their perfection when the bell rang.

Mrs. Grey had been as much annoyed by the delay as she ever
al
lowed herself to be over anything, for she did like to have potatoes roasted to just the right turn, and pri
ded herself upon knowing the in
stant to take them from the oven and crack their brown coats till the steam burst forth and showed the snowy whiteness of the dry delicious filling.

But potatoes and engagements alike were forgotten when Miss Rutherford burst upon them in her glory.

She had chosen a costume which in her estimation was plain, but
which by its very unexpectedness was somewhat startling. It was only a black net with spangles of jet in delicate traceries and intricate patterns here and there, but the dazzling whiteness of the beautiful neck and arms in contrast made it very effective. She certainly was a beautiful girl, and she saw their acknowledgment of this fact in their eyes as she entered the room.