The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ranch Girls and Their Great Adventure, by Margaret Vandercook This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: The Ranch Girls and Their Great Adventure Author: Margaret Vandercook Illustrator: Wilson V. Chambers Release Date: January 12, 2011 [EBook #34927] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RANCH GIRLS GREAT ADVENTURE *** Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Emmy and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
THE RANCH GIRLS SERIES
The Ranch Girls and Their
Great Adventure
[2]
BOOKS BY MARGARET VANDERCOOK
THE RANCH GIRLS SERIES |
| The Ranch Girls at Rainbow Lodge |
| The Ranch Girls' Pot of Gold |
| The Ranch Girls at Boarding School |
| The Ranch Girls in Europe |
| The Ranch Girls at Home Again |
| The Ranch Girls and their Great Adventure |
THE RED CROSS GIRLS SERIES |
| The Red Cross Girls in the British Trenches |
| The Red Cross Girls on the French Firing Line |
| The Red Cross Girls in Belgium |
| The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army |
| The Red Cross Girls with the Italian Army |
| The Red Cross Girls Under the Stars and Stripes |
STORIES ABOUT CAMP FIRE GIRLS |
| The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill |
| The Camp Fire Girls Amid the Snows |
| The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World |
| The Camp Fire Girls Across the Sea |
| The Camp Fire Girls' Careers |
| The Camp Fire Girls in After Years |
| The Camp Fire Girls in the Desert |
| The Camp Fire Girls at the End of the Trail |
[3]
[4]
THE RANCH GIRLS SERIES
The Ranch Girls
and Their
Great Adventure
—BY—
ILLUSTRATED BY
WILSON V. CHAMBERS
THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY
PHILADELPHIA
PHILADELPHIA
[5]
Copyright, 1917, by
The John C. Winston Company
The John C. Winston Company
[6]
CONTENTS
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| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
[7]
ILLUSTRATIONS
| You Must Abide by my Decision | Frontispiece |
| PAGE | |
| In a Few Moments She was in a Panic | 74 |
| His Own Men Carried Him Back to a Field Hospital | 128 |
| I Assure You I Have Official Permission | 180 |
[9]
The Ranch Girls and Their
Great Adventure
CHAPTER I
KENT HOUSE
THE deep-rutted English lane was bordered with high box hedges. On one side was a sloping park with trees a century old and on the other side a wide field filled with meadow grass and scarlet poppies. It was in July.
"In all the world there is nothing so peaceful as this English country, is there? It is like another world when one first gets away from the turmoil of New York."The girl who said this was undoubtedly an American, both in her manner and appearance, although her dark hair and eyes and her deep-toned olive skin were almost Spanish in coloring.
Her companion—in spite of the fact that[10] her costume was a typical English walking one, a mixed brown tweed skirt, Norfolk jacket and high boots,—was equally an American. She smiled before replying.
"I don't know that I agree with you, Olive. Of course that is what people from home always say. Jim Colter declares he is half asleep the entire time he is in England. But that is because Americans, particularly my beloved westerners, don't understand England and the English. Things are not always peaceful just because they are quiet. We think so because we are noisy. Frank says there was never more unrest."
But at this Lady Kent, who a number of years ago was Jacqueline Ralston and one of the four Ranch girls at Rainbow Lodge, slipped her arm through her friend's, Olive Van Mater's.
"But, Olive dear, for goodness sake don't let us talk politics the day after your arrival. It is so English. Sometimes I feel scarcely fitted to play the part of an English 'Lady,' now that Frank has come into the title of 'Lord' and is a member of Parliament. I often long for a ride with Jim over my own prairies to search for lost cattle." Lady Kent laughed.[11]
"Once a Ranch girl, always a Ranch girl, so far as I'm concerned, Olive; and yet I'm farther away from the old place than any of you. But, tell me, what made you decide to come abroad so suddenly without even writing? I have had letters from everybody at home except that lazy Frieda, and yet not one with a suggestion of your trip in it. Tell me about every member of my family—Ruth and Jim and their babies and Jean and Ralph and Frieda and her Professor. Funny, I never can think of Frieda really being married. You see, although it has been nearly four years, I have never seen her since we went over for the great event."
Jack ceased talking for a moment, for she was still "Jack" to her own family and the friends who knew her intimately. Olive never had talked so much as the other Ranch girls, but now it occurred to Jack that she was asking a great many questions, without allowing an opportunity for them to be answered.
Olive turned, apparently to glance through the opening in the hedge at the splendid mass of colour in the field.
"Suppose we sit down a while, Jack," she suggested. "Remember, I haven't had the[12] English habit of walking for a long time. You told me Frank's train would not get in from London for another hour."
In spite of the fact that her tone was as casual as she knew how to make it, her companion understood at once.
"You have come to tell me bad news, haven't you? and I never dreamed of it until this instant. You have been brave, Olive."
In spite of her nervousness over having so suddenly guessed the reason for her friend's unexpected visit, Jack quietly looked about for a comfortable resting place, remembering that Olive had just had a long trip and was never so strong as the other Ranch girls.
A few yards farther on a gate led into Kent Park.
Lady Kent opened this and a moment or two later the two friends were seated under one of the great oak trees for which the Kent estate was famous—the estate now presided over by Jacqueline Ralston and the Frank Kent, whom we once knew as a guest at a neighboring ranch to the Ralstons' in Wyoming, but who were now Lord and Lady Kent of the county of Kent, England.
"Don't be frightened, Jack; my news isn't so bad as you may think. At least I[13] don't know just how bad it is," and Olive smiled and then frowned the next moment. "The truth of the matter is that Frieda Ralston Russell has left her Professor. I was out in Wyoming having a peaceful visit at Rainbow Ranch when I received a mysterious telegram from Frieda telling me to come to her at once in New York city—not in Chicago, where she was supposed to be safe with her Professor husband. Of course I went at once to her. In New York I found a yellow-haired and not so miserable Frieda, who calmly told me she had decided that marriage was a failure. I could not find out her special reasons for thinking so, but perhaps she will tell you more herself, Jack. She is coming to you on the next steamer, only she preferred my first breaking the news to you and Frank."
Jack whistled, after a boyish fashion of her youth, which was not becoming to her present age and position.
"And you came, Olive dear, all the way across the ocean by yourself, just because my spoiled small sister wished to save herself the trouble of a confession? You are an angel, Olive. And I am afraid it is Frieda's selfishness—her remaining such a completely[14] spoiled young person—that may be the answer to her present behavior. But I thought her husband spoiled her more even than her own family had in the past. Besides, I can't imagine the Professor doing anything wicked, can you, Olive? Oh dear, Frank and I always opposed Frieda's marriage. Professor Russell did seem too old and serious for her."
Just as she had always done whenever it was possible as a girl, Lady Kent at this moment took off her hat and flung it on the ground beside her. It was of brown cloth with a small green and brown feather to match her walking outfit; nevertheless she looked far handsomer without it.
Jack was no longer a girl. A good many years had passed since her marriage to Frank Kent, which was to occur soon after the close of the last Ranch girls' book, known as "The Ranch Girls At Home Again." Also in the final chapter, when the family had lately moved into their new home, built on the ranch not far from the old Rainbow Lodge, where the Ranch girls had first lived, their cousin Jean Bruce's engagement had been announced to Ralph Merritt, an old friend and the Rainbow Mine engineer. Then, as a[15] great surprise to her family, Frieda Ralston, the youngest of the Ranch girls, at that time only eighteen, had insisted upon her own engagement to Professor Charles Henry Russell, a Professor of dead languages at the University of Chicago and more than ten years her senior.
"Oh, well, what is an old maid worth in a family if she is not to be made useful?" Olive answered. "But, of course, Jack, you understand I don't require a great deal of persuasion to come to you, and besides I was afraid if I did not come ahead, Frieda would not come at all. You are the only person who has any influence over her. If she goes back to the ranch, Ruth and Jean will only make such a fuss over her that she will become more and more convinced she has been badly treated. Jim, you know, never has approved of any of his Ranch girls being married, although he misses none of us as he does you."
Jack rose. "I hope you are rested, Olive, as we must walk on if we are to arrive in time to meet Frank. Oh, dear, what a business marriage is! I suppose we could not expect all the Ranch girls to be successfully married, although it is odd for it to be Frieda who is in trouble. As for you, Olive, don't congratulate[16] yourself too soon on being an old maid; you'll probably yield some day. I do wonder what has happened to little Frieda? Perhaps things are worse than we imagine."
Olive shook her head.
She was recalling an extremely pretty Frieda sitting up in bed at midnight at the hour of her arrival in New York city, with a blue silk dressing gown over her nightgown and a box of chocolates open on the table beside her, which she must have been eating before going to bed.
It was true Frieda had cried a good deal when making her confession, and had insisted that she never intended to speak to her husband again. Why, Olive could not find out. She gathered that Frieda thought her husband unsympathetic and that their temperaments were too unlike for them ever, ever to understand each other. But the details of her love tragedy Frieda had declared she could tell only to her sister Jack.
Now, as Olive studied her companion's face, she believed that Frieda had decided wisely. When they were the four Ranch girls, Jack, Jean, Olive and Frieda, they had always relied upon Jacqueline Ralston's judgment. Now, as a woman, she seemed even[17] finer than she had been as a girl. Well, fortunately Jack's marriage seemed to have turned out ideally happy, although there were reasons why it might not. Jack had never been fond of society or a conventional life, had hated the indoors and the management of even so small and casual an establishment as they had at Rainbow Lodge before the coming of Ruth as governess to take the responsibility out of Jack's hands. Now Jack was not only mistress of a great home, but must play "Lady Bountiful" to an entire village, as well as to the people on the Kent estate, and she was really the most democratic person in the world.
They were entering the adjoining village of Granchester now and Lady Kent had actually forgotten to put on her hat. Yet all the people they met along the little narrow streets bowed to her, as if she were not unpopular. Several times Jack stopped to inquire about sick babies and old ladies in the most approved fashion. However, Olive remembered that she had been great friends with all the cowboys on her own ranch and the adjoining ones in the old days, and was interested in their families, when they chanced to have them, which was not often. Nevertheless[18] this new life of her friend's did seem extraordinarily different from her old life.
Only once since Jack's marriage had Olive visited her and then only for a few weeks, when her mother-in-law was alive and Frank's sisters had not yet married. Therefore she had never really seen Frank and Jack alone.
As they came to the little railroad station, covered with roses and surrounded by flower beds, Jack hastily put on her hat.
"Gracious! why didn't you tell me to do that before, Olive?" she asked "I must have looked ridiculous. Frank would have been discouraged if he had seen me. After all, you see, Olive, Frank is an Englishman and fond of the proprieties. At least I don't think he minds so much himself, but he does not enjoy having the country people talk about me, especially now that we have come into the title."
"But they don't criticize you, do they?" Olive demanded with a good deal of feeling.
However, Lady Kent only laughed, "Not more than I deserve." And then forgetting what she had just said, she took off her hat for the second time to wave it boyishly at the approaching train.
The next moment Frank Kent jumped out[19] on the platform. He had changed much more than his wife. Olive saw that he took his new position and his responsibilities seriously, for he had only come into the title two years before. He looked far more like what one feels to be the typical Englishman, as he had an air of distinction and of firmness. Indeed, Olive thought he had almost a hardness in the lower part of his face which had not been there as a younger man. But he greeted her with the same old cordiality and friendliness.
"You and I seem often to meet Frank at railroad stations, Olive," Jack remarked. "Remember when he last came to Wyoming before we were married and we went together to meet him?"
Frank appeared so uncertain that Jack laughed.
"Husbands haven't very good memories for the sentimental past."
The next instant Frank protested.
"Of course I remember and how badly you treated me, Jack, so that Olive had to come to my rescue." And then: "Did you drive over? Where is the trap?"
Lady Kent shook her head. "No; Olive and I wanted a walk and it is much better for[20] you. If you don't look out we shall both be growing as portly as a dowager duke and duchess."
Jack was a few steps ahead so that both her friend and husband looked at her admiringly, Olive appreciating, however, that Frank would have preferred his own wish to be carried out in this matter.
But it had always been a pleasure to see Jacqueline Ralston out-of-doors and it was no less so now. Although she now had two babies she had managed to keep as slender and erect as a girl—a most unusual characteristic in a woman.
Jack was walking on ahead so freely and so unconscious of her own speed that the others had to hurry to catch up with her.
When they finally joined one another, Frank slipped his arm through his wife's.
"Oh, I have a piece of news for you, dear. I forgot to tell you. I had a cable from Frieda's husband telling me that he expected to sail for England in about ten days. He did not give his reason, nor mention Frieda's coming with him."
"No," Lady Kent answered apparently in a state of abstraction, "I don't suppose he did." But at the moment she made no[21] mention of the information Olive had brought her concerning Frieda.
As they reached Kent House and were entering the broad hall, Jack said to her husband under her breath, so that Olive who was a little in advance of them, did not hear:
"There is something else you have on your mind, isn't there, Frank—some news you have not yet told me?"
Frank Kent nodded.
"Yes, Jack, something so serious that I dare not speak of it even to you. Perhaps it will all blow over though, and I may be able to discuss the subject with you in a few days."
[22]
CHAPTER II
FRIEDA'S RIFT
"DID Frieda say on what ship she would sail? It is odd she does not cable."
The two friends were coming down from the third floor of Kent House where the babies' nurseries were. Jack and Frank had two children—the oldest a small boy, something over three years old, and called Jimmie, in honor of Jim Colter, the Ranch Girls' guardian and the one-time overseer and now part owner of the Rainbow Ranch. The baby, who was only a year old, had been named for Olive Van Mater, who had never seen her until her present visit. But there would be no confusion of names, for almost immediately the small brother had rechristened his tiny sister with the charming little name "Vive," which was used for her always. And since Vive was the gayest and liveliest of babies, this name with its translated meaning, "Life" was supposed to be particularly appropriate."No, Frieda did not say," Olive Van[23] Mater returned. "But I presume she will cable in a day or so. Frieda will expect you to be in London to meet her. I am sure she will feel much aggrieved if you do not, but I think I won't come along, Jack, if I may stay with the babies."
Lady Kent opened the door of a room.
"Just as you like, Olive, only I hope Frieda will let me know in time. Frank is in London most of the week while Parliament is in session, and I'll have to ask him to make arrangements for us. The season is over, of course, but the hotels are filled with tourists. It has been a wonderful English summer. I don't think there were ever more travelers. Well, Frieda's rooms are at least ready for her. I hope she may enjoy having the same ones she had when she came over to visit the first year after Frank and I were married. I wonder if she ever thinks these days of how hard I tried to persuade her to believe she was too much of a baby to think of marrying so soon? We should never have allowed her to marry the first person who ever seriously asked her. Oh, I know Frieda thought she had already had a great deal of experience with her college boy admirers, particularly the one we used to call 'The Chocolate Drop Boy.'"[24]
In the meantime the two women had entered the apartment which was being reserved for the expected visitor. The two rooms—a sitting room and a bed room—were furnished in heavy, old fashioned English furniture upholstered in delicately faded blue damask. The walls were also of the same blue, while the panelings of the rooms were of English oak.
Olive walked at once to a window in Frieda's sitting room.
"I don't see how she can well help liking these rooms, besides this window offers one of the most perfect views in the entire house."
Olive could see across the slope of the park down to a stream, which twisted its way along the base of the hill. Beyond were the tall towers of Granchester church and not far away the roofs of the houses which made up the village.
Then, to the left, one could acquire a charming view of the beginning of the Kent gardens—the low, carefully trimmed borders and the masses of blooms, with a sun dial at the end of the center path.
"Let us go into the garden for awhile, Jack," Olive suggested. "I think I enjoy it more in the morning than at any other[25] time. Besides, I have been intending to ask if you suppose Frieda and her husband have informed each other that they are both sailing for England? It will be odd to have them meet each other here unless they do know."
Jack shook her head. "I haven't any ideas on the subject, but Frank will have to see that Professor Russell stays in London until we find out from Frieda. Sorry, but I can't go outdoors with you till this afternoon. I've hundreds of things to do and have promised Frank to write some letters which I have been putting off."
In return Olive said nothing, although, as she was walking about outdoors alone, she rather marveled at the change in her friend's life. As a girl Jacqueline Ralston's life had been entirely unordered; she had done each day, after the sun rose over her beloved prairies, whatever the day called her to do. Now, each of Jack's days seemed to follow an established routine. In the morning immediately after breakfast she saw her housekeeper; then she spent two hours with her babies, afterwards answering an immense amount of correspondence—and Jack had always hated letter writing more than any other task. In the afternoon she was supposed[26] to be free for a few hours, and then there were guests to tea, or else Lady Kent was supposed to drive or motor over to make calls on her country neighbors.
Of course such an existence with money and a high position might be regarded as ideal by most women. But Olive was puzzled, because that kind of a life did not appear suited to the girl she remembered. However, as Jack seemed happy, Olive concluded that she must have changed, as most girls do after marriage.
This afternoon a number of friends had been asked to tea at Kent House in order to meet Olive. When they went down into the garden together, where tea was to be served, Olive felt that her decision of the morning had really been nearer the truth than she had then appreciated. Jack looked like one of the fairest types of society women. She was dressed in white—an exquisite embroidered material—and had on a big soft white garden hat, trimmed with deep toned pink roses. The soft, damp English air had kept her color as vivid as ever and given her yellow brown hair an even finer gloss.
On their way to the tea table in the garden, Jack stopped to pick for her companion a[27] bouquet of lavender primroses and anemones and stars of the mist—flowers ranging from violet to pure white—for Olive was wearing a pale grey chiffon, which blended perfectly with her pronounced oriental coloring.
To the right of the garden, and a few yards from the flower beds, was a clump of trees. Because this July was warmer than is usual in England, Lady Kent had arranged to have tea here. There were small tables and chairs scattered about over the lawn, which was green as only an English lawn can be, but the tea table itself stood under the trees.
Jack and Olive had hoped to have a talk before their guests arrived. But they had not been outdoors more than a few moments before their guests appeared, the Rector and his wife, a Mr. and Mrs. Illington, and their two daughters,—charming, tall, blonde English girls. Afterwards, it seemed to Olive that Jack was constantly introducing her to people arriving every few minutes during the next hour, in spite of the fact that she had also to preside over the serving of the tea.
As Olive had never entirely recovered from her girlhood shyness, she was delighted to see how perfectly at ease Jack was. She appeared to be able to discuss church matters with the[28] Rector, and the latest bill up in Parliament with an old gentleman who was the Earl of Granchester and as a Conservative was much opposed to the Liberal party of which Frank Kent was a representative.
Half an hour later, Olive wandered off with several of the guests to watch a game of tennis which was being started by the two Illington girls and two of their male friends who had come over to play.
When Olive returned, she discovered that most of the other guests had either scattered or gone home. In any case Jack was alone, except for a young army officer, who must have just arrived, since Olive did not recall having previously seen him. He was a splendid looking fellow, about twenty-five, with dark hair and eyes, and a skin which must have been tanned by other than the English sun.
As Olive approached them she thought he made a particularly handsome contrast to Jack's fairness. They were both laughing at the moment, but almost immediately Jack jumped up from the chair where she had been sitting and waved to Olive.
"Olive, dear, come meet the nicest kind of an Englishman—one who is half Scotch and[29] the other half Irish," she called out. "Olive Van Mater, this is Captain Bryan MacDonnell—an old school friend of Frank's and sometimes a friend of mine."
Captain MacDonnell bowed gravely, making no effort to return Jack's challenge.
"Bryan is just back from shooting 'big game' somewhere—make him tell you about it, Olive, while I get rid of the last of these tiresome people." Jack made a grimace and shrugged her shoulders, her manner more like her old self than Olive had noticed before.
For about fifteen minutes she and Captain MacDonnell must have talked together, but Olive decided that Jack's description of him had been very nearly true, whether she had meant it or not. Then, observing that everybody else had gone and Jack was alone, they returned to her.
"I'm sorry you can't dine with us tonight, Bryan," Lady Kent remarked on parting. "Olive and I are to be alone. Frank only visits his family now and then, because he is so busy in town. No; I did not go up to London this year for the season. I only went for a few days at a time, as I was not willing to leave the babies. Besides, you know I[30] don't care as much for society as I should anyway."
Then Captain MacDonnell said something which Olive did not hear. However, she did hear Jack's answer.
"Ride with you tomorrow? I should think I will just as hard and as fast as possible and jump all the fences and ditches in this part of the country. I'm awfully glad you are back, Bryan, to help me get rid of some of my surplus American energy."
That same evening, after a late dinner, Jack and Olive went into the library together. As is often the case in English homes of distinction, the library at Kent House was the pleasantest room in the entire house. The books were on low shelves encircling the four walls, except for the opening left for a huge fireplace. Above the mantel was the head of a stag. On one side hung a shield and on the other the Kent Coat of Arms with the motto "Semper Paratus" meaning "always prepared."
Above the book shelves were portraits of Frank's ancestors, who had been country people in Kent county for a number of years, although the title was not an old one.
In the places of honor were Frank's grandfather[31] and grandmother—one of them a young man of about twenty in Court costume; the other a lovely girl with fair hair and dark eyes and a particularly bright expression.
"Frank likes to think Vive, the baby, looks like his grandmother," Jack declared as she stretched herself on a big leather lounge not far from a pair of French windows, which opened on the veranda at the side of the house.
"I hope you won't feel dull, Olive! As soon as Parliament closes, if you and Frieda like, we will have some people come to stay with us. I don't like the responsibility of visitors if Frank is not here. I have never learned to take guests so simply and easily as an English hostess does. It is one of the ways in which I am a social failure."
"Nonsense," Olive announced, without paying much attention to what Jack had said. She had picked up a magazine and was reading.
An hour passed and Olive believed that Jack had almost fallen asleep. Now and then she would close her eyes, although the greater part of the time she seemed in a reverie.
As a matter of fact Jack was really thinking of the old ranch and the people at home, whom Olive's coming had brought to mind more vividly than usual.[32]
"I'm glad Jean and Ralph are at the ranch this year with Ruth and Jim," she said finally. "What a pleasure it must be to Jean that Ralph is such a successful engineer—one of the biggest in the United States, Jim writes. But Jim always liked Ralph better than any of the husbands. He never could altogether forgive Frank for being an Englishman."
"Oh Ralph has not been at the ranch much," Olive added, looking up from her book. "He has been working out on the coast and at Panama, but I think Jean is glad to have a rest because she has traveled with him so much."
In the ensuing silence Jack must actually have dozed, and certainly Olive found a more absorbing article in her magazine. But Jack must also have dreamed, for she woke thinking she heard a voice calling her from outdoors, "Jack! Jack!"
This was, of course, out of the question except in a dream. Kent House was a mile from any place other than its own Lodge. Besides no one whom she could possibly imagine would call out "Jack!" in such a fashion and at such an hour of the night.
Nevertheless Olive looked surprised, so she too must have heard some kind of a noise.[33]
The second time the sound was heard, Jack started up.
"Please ring the bell for the servants, Olive. I am sure I hear a voice calling me. It sounds absurd and yet I must find out who it is. Even if the servants insist this house is haunted, no one has ever yet suggested that the lawn is also haunted."
Then, in characteristic fashion, and without putting a wrap over her white dress or waiting for any one to accompany her, Jack ran through the library and out into the broad hall. There was no one near, so she pulled open the heavy front door.
Leading up to Kent House was a winding avenue of trees. At some little distance down the avenue, Lady Kent thought she could see a dark object apparently standing still in the center of the road. Without pausing even long enough for Olive to join her, she ran through the darkness toward it.
"Jack! Jack! be careful!" she heard the voice call, and this time she recognized whose voice it was.
[34]
CHAPTER III
THE VOICE
"BUT, Frieda, how could you possibly have arranged to arrive in the middle of the night like this?"
Jack had reached the waiting taxicab, which stood transfixed in the middle of the road and had pulled open the door of the vehicle, only to find her sister sitting inside, almost completely enveloped in steamer blankets and bags and boxes."The cab broke down," Frieda remarked plaintively, evidently attempting to explain last conditions first. It seemed not to have occurred to her that even in the event of this difficulty, she could have gotten out and walked up to the house. But it was eminently characteristic of Frieda simply to sit still and call for her sister, as she always had done in any emergency when they were both girls.
The next moment Lady Kent, with the assistance of the driver, had helped her visitor to alight. If Olive and the butler had not[35] arrived just then, she might again have forgotten her dignity and begun dragging out Frieda's bags. But instead, she and Olive, escorted Frieda up the avenue, leaving the two men to bring her possessions.
"I was lonely after Olive left me in New York," Frieda explained. "So when I read in the paper one morning that a particularly comfortable steamer was sailing, I decided not to wait an entire week, if I could get a nice stateroom. I thought Olive would not need but a few days to tell you. You have told, haven't you, Olive?" Frieda demanded, with a slight change of tone.
When Olive answered "yes," briefly, she went on:
"Please don't ask me any questions tonight, Jack. I'm most dead. No; I didn't have a rough crossing, but I have never arrived anywhere alone before in my whole life. I knew I could call up Frank at his club in London, but I did not wish to see him first. Still, I don't care what he thinks, since I have lost all faith in men. But I don't see why some one did not meet me at the station here. I telegraphed from Liverpool that I was on the way."
Jack shook her head.[36]
"Curious dear, but we never received your telegram."
"Oh, well;" Frieda added more indulgently, "I didn't exactly telegraph myself, but I gave the money to a boy and told him what to say. Perhaps he made a mistake, or kept the money, or something," she ended nonchalantly. For they were now entering the great hall at Kent House and Frieda realized that she did not care very much for small things, so grateful was she to be again with her sister.
Impulsively she turned and embraced her.
Perhaps it was because Frieda was tired, but Jack could see that she was not so unaffected by what she had been passing through as Olive had imagined.
It is true Frieda looked as much like an exquisite wax doll as ever. Her eyes were as large and delicately blue, and her hair was a mass of soft yellow curls; yet there was a subtle change in her expression.
Olive had led the way into the library.
"We won't talk about anything until you like, Frieda," Jack whispered.
"Will you go up to your rooms now or have something to eat first down here with Olive and me?" she asked.[37]
Frieda permitted Olive and Jack to remove her coat and hat. A few moments later, however, she announced that she preferred going upstairs to bed. So Jack finally bade her goodnight, after arranging that she was to ring her bell for breakfast, when she wished it the next morning.
When Frieda rang for breakfast it was nearly eleven o'clock and Jack went into her room with the maid who carried the tray.
Frieda ate her morning repast languidly, while her sister sat beside her talking of trivial things.
"Where is Olive?" Frieda inquired finally. And when informed that Olive was in the nursery with the children, protested: "I suppose you know I am jealous of your baby's being named for Olive. Of course I know you and she are very dear friends; but, after all, I am your sister."
"I felt that way about it too, Frieda, but Frank seemed not to wish a German name," Jack answered, "and Vive has her own name now anyhow. Maybe the next time."
Frieda frowned. "Don't talk of next time, Jack. I can't imagine your having a family. I hate being married." And without any[38] other warning two large tears rolled down Frieda's cheeks.
"I'd rather tell you what has happened between Henry and me this minute and get through with it. And I'd prefer to tell you without Olive's hearing. I don't mean to be impolite, but Olive is almost an old maid and old maids always take the man's part."
In spite of her anxiety Jack was compelled to laugh. Frieda had always been such a funny mixture of babyishness and worldly wisdom.
She was now sitting up in bed with a number of white pillows piled behind her and wearing a light blue cashmere jacket over her gown. The English air was cooler than that to which she was accustomed.
"I hope nothing very serious, Frieda?"
"Nevertheless it is so serious that I never intend to speak to Henry Russell again, if I can avoid it. You see," Frieda sighed, "I suppose it is better to begin at the beginning and tell the whole thing. But, then, who knows when anything actually begins? At any rate during the first two years after Henry and I were married you remember we lived with Henry's parents. They were awfully nice to me and gave me hundreds of presents,[39] but after awhile I became tired of living in another's house. Oh, the house was big and I had plenty of rooms, but you know it isn't like having a home of one's own is it, Jack?"
After waiting for her sister to nod agreement, Frieda went on.
"So I told Henry I wanted a house to myself, and I must say he and his mother and father were very nice about it—at first." Frieda made a dramatic pause.
"It was Henry's fault all through though. You know he is the only child and his mother and father are dreadfully rich. But what do you suppose Henry decided? When we went to housekeeping for ourselves we were to live on the income he made as a Professor! Did you ever hear of anything so selfish?"
"Well dear," Jack hesitated "maybe in a way it was selfish, because of course Henry's father and mother must have been disappointed not to be able to do for you. But, after all, it was self respecting of Henry. I suppose a man—especially an American one—likes to feel that he is able to be responsible for his own family."
"That is exactly what Ruth and Jim Colter wrote me," Frieda protested indignantly.[40] "I suppose it never occurs to any one of you to think of me!"
"Yes, but you have your own income from our estate, Frieda," Jack added quickly, not wishing to offend her sister at the beginning of her confidence.
"I know," Frieda continued more amiably. "So, at first, when I saw how much Henry's heart was set on our being independent, I agreed to try. But you know, Jack, I never have had much experience in managing money, and even when we were at school at Primrose Hall I got into debt. So, although Henry told me just what we had to live upon, I couldn't seem to make things come out even. Then, as I didn't want to worry him, I kept using my own income till that gave out. And then—"
"Then what?" Jack inquired anxiously. Really she had been right in disapproving of Frieda's marrying so young. And more important than Frieda's youth was the fact that she, and all the people who had ever had anything to do with Frieda, had never treated her as a responsible human being. In her entire life she had never had any real care, or any real demand made upon her. Jack felt deeply uneasy. But whatever had happened,[41] whatever might happen in the future, Frieda was her own adored small sister, and she intended to stand by her.
"Oh nothing much," Frieda conceded, although her voice was less self assured, "only I told Henry's father. He used to be very fond of me before I left Henry; I don't know how he feels now," she murmured. "I believe he thought I was some kind of a joke, for he gave me a lot of money and told me not to worry. But he told Henry's mother and she did not think it was fair to Henry and must have let him know. Anyhow he was dreadfully angry and unkind to me."
"How unkind?" Jack demanded. For, of course, the fear that Professor Russell had been unkind to Frieda had been always at the back of her mind, since learning of her sister's unhappiness. However, when she recalled the Professor's shyness and gentleness, it was difficult to imagine him in the role of a brute. But Jack had learned enough of life not always to trust to exteriors.
"Oh, nothing very dreadful I suppose," Frieda conceded. "Henry fussed a lot and said I had not been fair to him and that it wasn't honest to keep things from him. He was always saying that I was very young[42] and that I ought to confide everything in him."
"Was there anything else, dear?" Jack inquired gently.
Frieda nodded. "Yes. Oh, well, I might as well tell you the whole story since I have started. I was getting on a little better with the house, and Henry obtained some extra work to do, so that he made more money. But it kept him at home more in the evenings and besides he never did like to go out a great deal. He used to go sometimes because I liked it, but I never felt he was enjoying himself, and Henry never would learn to dance."
This struck Jack as a perfectly absurd reason for a vital difference between a husband and wife, yet she dared not smile, nor did she wish to smile, seeing how important this really appeared to Frieda.
But Frieda must have understood something of what was passing in her sister's mind, for she said:
"I know that may sound ridiculous to you, Jack, but it has made a lot of difference to me." There was a choking note in Frieda's voice. "A lot of our trouble has come from it. You know I dearly love to dance, so I used to go out in the afternoons as I didn't like[43] staying at home by myself and did not want to trouble Henry to take me often."
"Not by yourself?"
"Certainly not," Frieda returned pettishly, "one can't very well dance alone."
"With any particular person?"
For a moment Jack held her breath.
At first Frieda shook her head. Afterwards she contradicted herself and nodded.
"There were three or four persons—young fellows—some of them students at the University, and most of the time other girls, too. At first Henry did not mind. Then he said people were beginning to talk and there was one person I liked especially, because he danced better than any one else, whom Henry said I could not go with at all. But I did go. Then I told Henry I was bored anyhow and wanted to be free. He was very disagreeable. So I ran away and just left a note. But I haven't been very happy for a long time, Jack, darling. I suppose you were right when you said I ought not to have married so young. Perhaps I am spoiled and selfish. Henry says I am, but some people like me anyhow."
Jack leaned over and took Frieda's chin in one of her firm white hands.[44]
"There isn't anybody else, is there little, sister?" she demanded.
Returning her gaze straightforwardly, Frieda answered severely.
"Certainly not, Jack; what do you think of me? Don't you know I am married. I told you I didn't like men any more, and never intend to have anything to do with them again."
"Then I'll leave you now, dear, and send one of the maids to help you dress, if you like," Jack answered. "Let's don't talk any more today on this subject and please don't worry. You have lost all your color shut up by yourself in that wretched New York hotel. Hurry and come out in the garden with Olive and the babies and me."
But when Jack had left her sister, she did not dismiss the thought of their conversation so lightly as her words implied. Perhaps Frieda had not made out a very good case for herself against her husband. It looked as if Professor Russell must have a story to tell as well. But the main fact appeared that Frieda was not happy in her marriage. Whatever the reasons, or whoever was at fault, it was the thing itself which worried Jack. It was plain enough that Professor Russell was[45] too old for Frieda, and that his scholarly tastes were not suited to her girlish ones.
"A Professor of Dead Languages married to Frieda!" Jack whispered, blaming herself once again for allowing the marriage. Well, nothing could be decided for the present at any rate. One must wait for at least a little more light!
Out in the garden Jack and Olive and Frieda played all morning with Jack's two babies. Jimmie was a little fair haired, blue eyed, rose cheeked English boy. Vive was a different kind of baby; she had light yellow hair, and dark eyes unlike either Jack's or Frank's. Perhaps she was going to resemble the lovely old time portrait in the library.
Frieda spent several hours with Vive in her arms, although she never had been particularly interested in any baby before.
When lunch was over, Jack said unexpectedly:
"I hope you'll forgive me, Frieda, if I leave you and Olive for a little while. I promised a friend, Captain MacDonnell, to ride with him this afternoon before I dreamed you were coming, and I have forgotten to let him know. Besides," Jack added, since never even in small matters could she be dishonest,[46] "I really want the ride. Captain MacDonnell is the one person who likes to ride as hard as I do. Oh, of course, English women ride marvelously well—far better than I, and there is nothing they won't attempt in hunting. But what I like now and then is just a straight cross country ride—as near like the old rides across the prairies as I can manage, though I must say this country does not look much like the prairies," Jack ended, as she glanced smiling out the window at her own beautiful, well kept English lawn. "Wait, Frieda, and meet Bryan won't you? he is one of Frank's and my dearest friends."
So Olive and Frieda were standing together on the veranda at the side of Kent House when Jack and Captain MacDonnell finally rode off, accompanied by a groom.
"I declare Jack looks better on horseback than any one in the world," Frieda announced admiringly. "Her costume is more stylish than the old khaki or corduroy things she used to wear at the ranch, but I don't think Jack herself is very much changed, except that she is more attractive."
At this instant Jack turned to wave her riding whip back at her sister and friend. She had on a perfect fitting tan cloth habit[47] with a long English coat and short trousers and high riding boots. Her yellow brown hair was braided low on her neck and she wore a small derby.
"Captain MacDonnell is handsome too, isn't he?" Frieda remarked reflectively, before moving to go indoors. "I wonder if he and Jack are very intimate and if Frank minds her riding with him like this? I suppose not, or Jack wouldn't," she acknowledged.
Then she turned to Olive. "Don't look so cross, for goodness sake, Olive. I am not criticizing Jack. I don't suppose you imagine she is any more perfect than I do, only I was just thinking how you and the entire family will probably blame me for doing pretty much the same kind of thing that Jack is doing. Of course, I don't think there is anything wrong in it. It is absurd and horrid of people to believe there is."
Olive was about to reply, but before she could speak, Frieda interrupted her.
"Oh, I know exactly what you are going to say, Olive. Jack and I are very different persons! I know that as well as you do. I know, too, that Jack would never do anything except what was right. She could not if she tried. But she might do something silly.[48] I don't suppose there is any human being in the world who fails to be foolish at one time or other in this life," Frieda concluded.
[49]
CHAPTER IV
A LATE ARRIVAL
FRANK KENT returned unexpectedly from London early in the same afternoon. He had not yet heard of Frieda's arrival, so that they at once spent an hour talking together.
Lord Kent, as most men did, treated his sister-in-law as a very pretty and charming young woman, who was not to be taken seriously. His wife had told him of Frieda's difficulty with her husband, but not of the cause. At that time she was not aware of it. Also she had instructed him not to mention the prospect of Professor Russell's appearance in England. So Frieda and Frank chatted and teased each other, as they had since she was a little girl just entering her teens, but neither referred to any unpleasant subject.Lord Kent had seemed tired when he first came home and was disappointed to find his wife absent.
After his conversation with Frieda he relaxed and appeared more cheerful and good[50] natured. This was the effect Frieda usually had upon masculine persons. She was so gentle and pretty, and her eyes were such a clear blue that one felt she could be easily influenced or persuaded. But the truth was that Frieda was no more easily controlled than a kitten. If ever one tries to train a little domestic animal, it will be discovered that a dog is far more quickly influenced than a kitten. As a matter of fact a kitten is probably the most unchangeable of all domestic pets.
Since the early afternoon the July day had altered. A soft rain had begun falling, so that tea at Kent House was served in the library.
Olive, Frieda and Lord Kent waited half an hour later than usual, thinking that Jack and Captain MacDonnell would return. Then they drank their tea slowly, still believing that the riders would surely appear before they had finished.
At half past five, when there was still no sign of his wife and friend, Lord Kent got up and several times walked back and forth from his chair to the big French window.
For the moment Frieda had gone out of the room, so that he finally spoke to Olive.[51]
"I suppose it is ridiculous of me, but I am always more or less uneasy when Jack and Bryan go off for rides together. Jack is the most fearless horsewoman in the world and Bryan the most all round, fearless man. He has killed big game in Africa and India and Australia, traveled in the Congo and in other equally uncivilized places. He never used to stay for any length of time in England. Now and then I have an idea of forbidding Jack to ride with him, I am so uncertain of what reckless thing they may do together."
"Oh, I don't think you need worry, Frank," Olive returned, "Jack is fearless but I don't think she has been reckless since the accident she had when a girl."
Although she could scarcely speak of it, Olive was smiling to herself over Frank's use of the word "forbid." She never recalled that any one had ever forbidden Jack to do anything she wished so long as she had known her. But probably Frank's forbidding was of the gentlest kind. Olive felt she must remember that the English attitude toward marriage was not the same as the American, although when an Englishman marries an American girl they are supposed to strike the happy medium.[52]
Entering the room again just as Frank concluded his speech, Frieda was even more startled when she recalled that the use of this very word had been one of the reasons for the most serious quarrel she had ever had with her husband. Henry had never used the word a second time.
Another hour passed. Still Jack and Captain MacDonnell had not returned. Moreover, by this time the rain had become a steady downpour. Olive and Frieda were also uneasy.
"If you will forgive my leaving you, I believe I will go and see if I can find what has become of the wanderers," Frank suggested. Then, without further explanation or discussion, he went away.
Ten minutes later, mounted on his own horse, he was riding down the rain-washed road. He had found that the groom, who had accompanied Jack and Captain MacDonnell, had gotten separated from them and returned home half an hour before.
Frank was uncertain whether he were the more angry or uneasy. It seemed impossible to imagine what misfortune could have befallen his wife and friend, which would have made it impossible for them to have[53] either telephoned or sent some message home. Yet it was equally impossible to conceive that Jack would be so careless as to forget every one else in the pursuit of her own pleasure. Even if she had been uncertain of his arrival from London, there was Olive, who had been her guest only a few days and Frieda not twenty-four hours. But as a matter of fact Jack had known he would be down sometime during the evening although she did not know the hour.
July is one of the long twilight months in England. Nevertheless, because of the rain, the evening was a kind of smoke grey with the faintest lavender tones in the sky. A heavy mist was also rising from the ground, so that with the falling rain one could not see many yards ahead.
Lord Kent's plan was to leave word with his lodgekeeper at the lodge gate to follow after him in case any word came from Lady Kent, or if she returned home before he did. But a moment or so before reaching the lodge, while yet in his own avenue, although at some distance from Kent House, Frank heard laughter and low voices. There was no doubting the laughter was Jack's.
Frank pulled up his horse abruptly and[54] stood still. The oncoming figures were walking and leading their horses instead of riding. That instant, because he was no longer uneasy, Frank discovered that he was angrier and more hurt than he cared to show.
All at once he overheard Jack say:
"Do hurry, please, Bryan; I'm afraid everybody at home may be uneasy."
But instead of hurrying, they must have stopped again. For the second time Jack murmured, "I don't see how I could ever have been such a wretch, or how I'll ever confess to Frank."
Then Captain MacDonnell's inquiry:
"What are you going to say?"
And his wife's answer:
"Why, tell the truth and face the music; what else is there to do, Bryan?"
In the past few years since his marriage, undoubtedly Frank Kent had either altered or simply developed. Sometimes it is difficult to determine which one of these two things a human being has done. Frank had always been quiet and determined. If he had been otherwise he would never have tried for so many years to persuade Jacqueline Ralston to marry him. But now that he had grown older, he certainly appeared sterner. He[55] seemed to have certain fixed ideas of right and wrong, and they were not broad ideas, to which he expected at least the members of his own household to conform.
The two wayfarers were now in sight and Frank dismounted.
"I am sorry to have been compelled to play eavesdropper," he said curtly, when they also caught sight of him.
Jack was soaked with rain and her boots and riding habit were splashed with mud. A little river of water filled and overflowed the brim of her hat. But her cheeks were a deep rose color and her grey eyes dear and shining.
Frank would never have confessed that he felt a slight pang of jealousy at the good time his wife and friend must have been having, while he had been making himself miserable with the thought that a disaster had befallen them.
Jack's hand was resting on the nose of her horse, while Captain MacDonnell held the bridles of both.
"You have come out to search for us, haven't you, Frank?" Jack began penitently. "I am sorry; I did not know you could have arrived from London so soon." She was now close beside her husband. "The truth[56] is, Frank, I have had rather a horrid tumble. For a person who thinks she knows how to ride, I seem to do the stupidest possible things."
"You don't seem to have hurt yourself seriously, Jack," Frank answered grimly. For in spite of her penitence, which did not seem very profound, Jack looked extraordinarily happy and glowing.
"No, I wasn't hurt in the least. I managed to get clear as we went down. But my horse's knee was sprained—not so badly as Bryan and I at first thought. Still I did not like to ride him, so we have been walking along through the rain for a few miles."
"How did the accident occur? I am rather surprised, Jack," Frank answered, now plainly more sympathetic because a little uneasy at what could have happened to his wife.
Jack turned aside and even in the dusk one could see she was embarrassed.
"Oh, I was disobeying orders," she said with a pretence of lightness. "I went over a rather high fence, which I had never taken before, without waiting until Bryan could get up to me. I made the jump without trouble, but the ground on the other side was so soft that my horse's forefeet went down[57] into it. He stumbled and fell. That is why I am such a spectacle," she concluded, touching her mud-stained habit with her whip.
Whatever he may have felt, Frank would naturally not discuss a difference between himself and his wife before another person. He therefore made no comment, but instead suggested:
"Suppose you get on my horse, Jack, and ride up to the house. Frieda and Olive are uneasy. Bryan and I will come along together."
According to the English custom, Lord and Lady Kent occupied separate bedrooms, which opened into each other.
A half hour later Jack was dressing for dinner when she heard Frank enter his room. But he did not come into her apartment or call out to her, although they were usually in the habit of discussing various questions through their open door, while they changed their clothes.
Jack, of course, recognized that her husband was angry with her. Also she knew that he had a measure of right on his side. She had promised him not to attempt dangerous jumping in her cross-country riding. Her accident a number of years before had made[58] him and all the members of her family more nervous about her than they would ordinarily have been, knowing that she had spent a large part of her life on horseback. Moreover, Frank had very rigid ideas about keeping one's word, not agreeing that one could swerve by a hair's breadth.
In a good deal of haste, since dinner was to be announced at any moment, Jack put on a white satin dinner dress. It was an old one, but chanced to be particularly becoming. The gown was simply made, with a square neck and a fold of tulle about the throat and a long, severely plain skirt. Only a woman with a figure as perfect as Jack's could have looked well in it. Her hair was arranged with equal simplicity, being coiled closely about her head and held in place with a carved ivory comb.
Half a dozen guests had been invited to dinner, nevertheless before going downstairs Jack went first into her husband's room.
Jack had always had a lovely nature. In the old days at Rainbow Lodge in any difficulty with one of the Ranch girls, although having a high temper, she had been quick to confess herself in the wrong. Since her marriage she had been more than ever inclined[59] to do likewise with her husband. So it was but natural that Frank should be under the impression that she would at all times eventually come around to his point of view. He did not realize that under some circumstances Jack might be as inflexible as he was.
However, she waited a moment now with perfect good temper, while Frank pretended that he had not heard her enter his room. When he finally did look toward her, she went up to him and put her arms about him. Then, as he continued to frown, Jack smiled. She knew that her husband took small matters too seriously, having made this discovery soon after her marriage, just as all girls make similar discoveries. But Jack was wise enough to realize that she must try as wisely as she could to discount this uncomfortable characteristic.
"Don't be grouchy, please, Frank," she murmured. "I told you I was sorry, and you know that every now and then I have to get rid of some of my surplus American energy. After a hard ride with Bryan I can be a conventional English Lady for weeks."
In spite of her good intention, Jack's remark was not wise. No matter how devoted a man and woman may be to each[60] other, there is obliged to be some difference of opinion in every international marriage.
Frank was extremely sensitive over the idea that Jack was not as happy in the English life he offered her, as she had been in the old days on her own ranch.
"That is unfortunate, Jack," he returned, "for I have made up my mind that it will be wiser for you not to ride with Bryan again. I am afraid you are both too fond of adventure to be trusted."
Then, as Frank had delivered his edict, his own good temper was restored. As he was already dressed, putting his arm across Jack's shoulder, he started for the door. He was really immensely proud of Jack and thought she looked unusually lovely tonight. In spite of the number of years he had been married he never introduced her to his friends, or saw her at the head of his table, without a feeling of pride. Also, Frank counted on Jack's sweetness of temper. It did not occur to him that she would disagree with his request, or rather with his command, since without intending it, he had expressed his wish in such a fashion.
Nevertheless Jack hesitated. She knew that Frank was not in an agreeable mood[61] for a discussion then. Also, that they could not keep their guests waiting while one took place.
"I think that is rather arbitrary of you, Frank, since neither Bryan nor I are children and he is one of the friends I most enjoy. But perhaps we had better talk of this at another time."
Frank nodded, Jack's manner affording no idea that she would not ultimately give in to him, nor was she sure herself. It may be that Jack had become too much of a domestic pacifist—a woman who wishes for peace at any price.
On the landing of the steps, just before they went down to dinner, Frank remarked hastily:
"Oh Jack, I had a marconigram from Professor Russell. He must have heard of Frieda's sudden departure from New York. In any case his ship is due tomorrow, for he left the day after she sailed."
"Gracious, have you told Frieda?" Jack returned nervously, forgetting for the instant her own personal quandary. "Frieda announced that she never would agree to see Professor Russell again. In any case I had hoped we might have a few weeks of grace, to allow things to quiet down or perhaps to[62] persuade Frieda to change her mind. The only thing now is not to allow Professor Russell to come to Kent House until Frieda gives her consent."
"Nonsense, Jack," Frank answered reassuringly, "Frieda cannot behave in any such fashion. You have not told me the trouble, but I suspect that Frieda has simply been a spoiled child. Besides, in any case, she has no right to refuse at least to see her husband and talk the situation over. Don't worry; I'll discuss the matter with Frieda myself in the morning and bring her around. You see, I telegraphed Russell at the dock to come directly to us, as I shall spend tomorrow at home."
"All right," Jack conceded, a good deal worried, but also slightly amused. If her husband wished to undertake to persuade Frieda to change her mind, she was glad that the task was his and not hers. Of course Frank thought it would be a simple matter, since he had yet really to know his sister-in-law. It was only natural that he should suppose Frieda would be easier to guide than his wife, judging by Frieda's manner and appearance! Men are not always wise in their judgment of feminine character.
[63]
CHAPTER V
AN APPARITION
THE next morning Frieda received a message from her brother-in-law asking her to give him half an hour of her time, whenever it was convenient to her.
In a way she had anticipated this request, although it had come sooner than she expected. Frieda knew that Frank was fond of her and regarded himself as her brother. She had no other. Also, she held a wise idea inside her blonde head, believing that men were apt to stand together in many difficulties of the kind in which she and her husband were now involved.However, Frieda did not, of course, anticipate the news of her husband's having immediately followed her to Europe. She had not written to him or to any friend in Chicago since her sudden departure. But she had made up her mind that the last interview between herself and Henry was their final one. There could be no reason for their ever meeting again.[64] She supposed, of course, that there were certain matters that would have to be arranged in the future, but Frieda was not given to troubling herself over details. Someone else had always attended to such things for her, in order that she might have her way. Later, Jim Colter, or Frank, or a lawyer—Frieda was entirely vague as to the method to be employed—would have to see that she was released from the cause of her unhappiness.
For since arriving at Jack's house not thirty-six hours before, Frieda had been happier than she had for several months. Therefore, during the night she had decided for the hundredth time, that her husband must be the sole cause of all the upsetting emotions which had been recently troubling her. So soon as she could learn to forget Henry and put the recollection of him entirely out of her mind, she would again become the perfectly care free and irresponsible Frieda of the old days at the Rainbow Ranch.
As she was not fond of getting up in the mornings and usually did pretty much what she liked in her sister's house, Frieda had not gone down to breakfast. However, she sent word to her brother-in-law that she[65] would be glad to see him in her own sitting room between eleven and twelve o'clock.
Whether it was done intentionally or not, Frieda put on a frock in which she looked particularly young. It was a simple white muslin, with sprays of blue flowers and folded kerchief fashion across Frieda's white throat. Nothing could really make Frieda appear demure; her lips were too full and crimson; her nose was too retrousée and her hair held too much pure sunlight. But she could look very innocent and much abused, and this was the impression she subconsciously wished to make. One must not believe that Frieda actually thought out matters of this kind, but she was one of the women who acted on what is supposed to be feminine instinct.
Frank thought Frieda looked about sixteen instead of twenty-two when he arrived to talk matters over with her. So at once it struck him as absurd that he was forced to discuss so serious a question as leaving her husband with a mere child like Frieda. Instead of argument Frank began with persuasion. First he invited Frieda to tell her side of the story, which he had heard in part from Jack. Although he had said at the time of his wife's confidence, that Frieda had not made much[66] of a case for herself, on hearing her story from Frieda's own lips he offered no such criticism.
When Frieda ended she was crying, so that Frank sympathetically took her hand to console her as any other man would. Then, while holding her hand, he attempted a mild argument in favor of the Professor, finally concluding:
"Frieda, your husband is coming to Kent House some time this afternoon. Since it is really your duty to see him and talk over the misunderstanding between you, I feel sure you will."
Nevertheless, Frieda gently but obstinately shook her head.
"I'm sorry to disappoint you, Frank, and Jack too, if she really feels as you do, but I never mean to see Henry again."
However, until lunch time Frank remained in the blue sitting room discussing the foolishness of her position with Frieda; afterwards he felt that he had never presented any subject so skillfully in his career as a member of Parliament, as he argued her own case with his sister-in-law. Frieda never questioned him, never contradicted him, only she continued to shake her head and to repeat gently, "I'm sorry, Frank, but I can't."[67]
Several times Lord Kent attempted severity because his severity usually influenced most people. It influenced Frieda, but only to such an outburst of tears, that he was forced to spend the next five minutes in apologizing in order to comfort her.
At one o'clock Jack, appearing at the door, immediately recognized the situation. Both Frank and Frieda appeared exhausted. Frieda announced that she would not come to lunch, but would prefer to lie down all the afternoon. As a matter of fact the possibility that her husband might make his appearance at Kent House was the real reason which kept Frieda in her own room, although offering the excuse of a headache.
Therefore, about four o'clock, when Professor Henry Tilford Russell finally did arrive, he was able to see only Lord and Lady Kent, his brother-in-law and sister-in-law.
Personally, Jack was uncertain how she should greet him. Of what actual unkindness he was guilty of to Frieda she was not yet certain. Nevertheless, the fact remaining that he had not made her little sister happy filled Lady Kent with resentment and dislike. Certainly, Professor Russell should have realized how much older he was than[68] Frieda and not expected her to conform to his dullness and routine.
As a matter of fact Jack also would have preferred not to have to come in contact with her sister's husband until she understood the situation between them more thoroughly. Yet, when Professor Russell was announced, it was she who was forced to go first into the drawing room.
There must have been a delay of about five minutes since she had waited that length of time for her husband, who chanced to have gone out to the stables to give an order. Then, fearing to appear intentionally rude, Jack approached their visitor alone.
He could not have heard her as she entered, for he was sitting in a large chair with his head resting in his hand and looked so exhausted, possibly from his trip, that Lady Kent forgot for the moment to be angry. When he aroused himself and later held out his hand, she took it at once, although a moment before she had not been sure whether she ought, because of her own loyalty to Frieda.
"Is Frieda well? If you only realized the relief to find she is safe here with you! At first I did not know where the child had gone,"[69] Professor Russell began so simply, that any human being would have been disarmed.
It will be remembered, that in the last volume of the "Ranch Girls At Home Again," Professor Russell is introduced to the Ranch girls by Ralph Merritt, who told them of the Professor's intense dislike for girls. At first he appeared to regard Frieda only as a child and therefore made an exception of her. Then, later, after his accident at Rainbow Mine when his leg was broken and Frieda undertook to keep him amused, an amazing friendship developed between them which finally resulted in their marriage.
In replying to his question Jack found herself answering as reassuringly as if Frieda really had been a runaway child, since this seemed to be the spirit in which her husband thought of her.
"She will see me?" he asked eagerly. But when Jack shook her head he did not appear surprised, being evidently accustomed to Frieda's vagaries.
Moreover, Lord Kent then came into the room.
Afterwards, Professor Russell related his side of the difficulty between himself and his wife. His story did not after all differ so[70] much from Frieda's account, for he put the blame upon himself, as she had done.
"I was too old for her; we ought never to have married. The fault was all mine," he ended so despondently, that Jack felt as if she could not accept the very conclusion she had reached the day before.
Professor Russell could not be persuaded to remain long—not even for tea. It was agreed, however, that he would spend the next few weeks in London and that later they might reach some decision. In the meantime Jack promised to do her best to persuade her sister to have at least one interview with her husband.
Lord Kent followed his brother-in-law to the door.
"Frieda is a spoiled baby; you have simply been too good to her. Some day she will wake up and find this out for herself," he declared.
But Professor Russell only shook his head sadly and departed.
Even after learning of her husband's departure Frieda still refused to join her family. What she was thinking about alone in her own apartment no one knew, since she asked that no one disturb her.[71]
However, at half past five, realizing that her husband then must be safely on his way back to London, Frieda decided that she could endure her own rooms no longer. Without a word to anyone, she put on a long, light weight blue coat and a small, close fitting, blue turban and passing down through the long halls and through a side entrance vanished into the outdoors.
It was Frieda's plan merely to walk about in the gardens until she could persuade herself into a calmer frame of mind. She was sure, of course, that she cared nothing for her husband and yet all afternoon she had found herself wondering if he were not worn out by his journey. Ordinarily he was not a good traveler and he must also have suffered through being compelled to desert his summer classes at the University in order to seek her.
Frieda discovered one of the gardeners at work in the flower beds and, as he persisted in talking with her, she started down one of the shaded avenues along the edge of the park in order to be alone. She did not often walk for any distance, since she had never been so fond of exercise as the other girls.
But Frieda felt unexplainably restless and out of sorts. This was foolish because, having[72] made up her mind that she wanted her freedom and being determined to gain it, there was no point in worrying.
Frieda kept walking hurriedly on. It was a beautiful, soft afternoon, with the first hint of twilight in the sky and in the atmosphere.
Kent Park covered several acres and Frieda wandered further from the house than she knew. After a time the road which she had taken curved into a path leading into the woods. There was a fairly heavy forest near by, which was a part of the Kent estate and she strolled into this.
Later, Frieda sat down for a few minutes. She was in no hurry to return home, except in time for dinner which was at a late hour, according to the English custom. Not that she meant to appear at dinner, but that Jack or Olive would be sure to seek her at that time.
Frieda made rather a charming picture amid the scene she had unconsciously chosen for herself. She was sitting on the trunk of a tree which had fallen from the weight of years and infirmities. There was a little clearing behind her and, as she had taken off her hat, the sun shone on her bowed head and shoulders. She wished very much that[73] she could stop thinking about a number of things, for Frieda was one of the people who resent having to grow up and there are more of them in this world than we realize.
Then, suddenly, Frieda heard an odd noise, which at least startled her sufficiently to bring the result she had been wishing for, since it made her stop thinking of unpleasant things. The noise was not loud and it would have been difficult to have explained exactly what the sound was. Only Frieda for the first time realized that she had been unwise in having come so far away from the house without mentioning to anyone where she was going.
The woods in which she was resting was a portion of the game preserves belonging to the Kent Estate, or a portion of land set apart for hunting at certain times of the year on English estates. But no one is supposed to hunt on this land except the owner of the estate and the friends whom he may care to invite.
Frieda, of course, had stayed long enough in England on other visits to understand that poachers are more or less frequent. She thought perhaps the noise she had heard was a man in hiding, who had been hunting[74] and feared she might report him. The fact that it was summer time, when hunting was infrequent, made no impression upon her.
In a Few Moments She was in a PanicBut when she started back through the woods, whoever it was in hiding evidently attempted to follow her. The faster she walked, the faster the footsteps came on behind.
However, Frieda did not turn her head to discover her pursuer. She had been nervous and worried all day, or she might not have become so alarmed. Instead of looking back she continued hurrying on faster and faster until, in a few moments, she was in a panic. Then she started to run and to her horror realized that a man was also running with long, easy strides behind her.
Frieda was totally unaccustomed to looking after herself in any emergency, and had never been compelled to do so—even in small adversities. Now she had a sudden impulse to call out for someone, but had only sufficient breath to increase her speed. If she could get a little nearer the house, one of the servants could be sure to come to her assistance.[75]
But Frieda had run only a few yards when, as a perfectly natural result of her panic, she tripped over some roots hidden in the underbrush and fell forward with her face amid the leaves and twigs and with one leg crumpled under her.
She must have struck her chin for she felt a dull pain and a queer numbness in her side. However, when she tried to disentangle herself and jump up quickly the pain became more acute. Nevertheless, for one instant Frieda struggled and then lay still, for her pursuer had already reached her and was bending over her, for what purpose Frieda did not know.
Then she heard a slow, inexpressibly familiar voice say:
"I am afraid I have frightened you, my dear. I do trust you have not injured yourself." Then a pair of strong, gentle hands attempted to lift her.
Naturally, Frieda's first sensation was one of amazement; the second, relief; and the third, anger.
She managed, however, with assistance to sit in an upright position. Then she began brushing off the twigs and dirt which she felt had been ground into her face. Finally she[76] recovered sufficient breath and self control to be able to speak.
"Henry Russell!" she exclaimed, trying to reveal both dignity and disdain, in spite of her ridiculous position, "will you please tell me why you are hiding in Frank's woods like a thief, and why, when I refused to see you, you terrified the life out of me by chasing me until I nearly killed myself. I think, at least, I have broken my leg," she ended petulantly.
Professor Henry Tilford Russell flushed all over his fair, scholarly face. Taking off his soft grey hat, he ran his hand over the top of his head, where the hair was already beginning to grow thin.
"My dear Frieda, you do me an injustice," he began, "although I know my actions do appear as you have just stated them. The truth is I found myself unable to go away at once from Kent House. I am not fond of London. I dreaded the loneliness there; also I longed for a sight of you to know for myself that you were well. So I wandered about through the grounds at some distance from the house and finally entered these woods. When you came into them alone and so unexpectedly, it seemed as if I must speak to[77] you. I started toward you and you ran. I did not think my pursuit would alarm you. It was one of the many things, Frieda, I should have understood and did not."
In spite of the fact that the fault of the present situation was undoubtedly Professor Russell's, there was an unconscious dignity and graciousness about him as he made his apology, which Frieda recognized was undoubtedly lacking both in her appearance and emotions. She felt extremely cross and her leg hurt. She could not go up to the house assisted by a husband whom she had just scornfully refused to see, and yet she did not believe she could walk alone.
"Very well, Henry; now that you have accomplished your purpose, I hope you will be good enough to leave me," Frieda demanded, believing that she would rather suffer anything than a continuance of her present humiliation.
But Professor Russell did not stir.
"I prefer to see you safely through the woods. When we are nearer the house I may be able to find someone to take my place."
Professor Russell then leaned over and lifted Frieda to her feet. As a result she found that her leg was not broken or sprained,[78] but only bruised, and that walking was possible if she moved slowly.
However, Frieda suffered considerable pain and she was not accustomed to bodily discomfort. At first she tried not to rest her weight upon the Professor's arm, for he had put his arm under hers and was attempting to support her almost entirely. But, by and by, as the pain grew worse, she found herself growing more dependent and, as a matter of fact, her dependence seemed perfectly natural. Once it occurred to her that, during her first acquaintance with Professor Russell, he had been hurt and in more ways than one had leaned upon her. No one ever had asked any kind of care from her before, and in those days she had at least thought that she had fallen in love with the Professor. At least she had insisted upon marrying him, when her entire family had opposed the union.
There was no conversation between the husband and wife, except that several times Professor Russell, without waiting to be asked, stopped for Frieda to rest.
Then, by and by, when they had reached the edge of the woods, he saw one of the men servants at a little distance off and signalled to him.[79]
"There are many things I would like to talk over with you, Frieda, but this is not the time. Neither do I want you to think I meant to take an unfair advantage of you by forcing myself upon you without your knowledge. I think I scarcely realized myself just what I was doing. I am sorry you felt compelled to run away from home because we sometimes quarreled. I do not know just how much I was in the wrong at those times, but I fear you were not happy with me or you would not have let the fact that we differed about a good many things have made you wish to leave me. Please remember, Frieda, if there is ever a time when you wish to talk matters over with me, I shall be glad to come to you. I will not come again unless you summon me."
Then, as the man servant had by this time reached them, Professor Russell gave Frieda into the man's charge.
The next instant, bowing to her as if he had been a stranger, he turned and started in the opposite direction.
Frieda did not remember whether she even said good-bye. She did think, however, that she would have liked to have reminded Henry to hold his shoulders straighter. Really he[80] was not so old—only something over thirty. He seemed to have been one of the persons born old, caring always more for books than people—more for study than an active life. Frieda actually felt a little sorry for him. Always she must have been a disturbing influence in his life. Perhaps in his way he had been good to her, or at least had intended to be. She wished that she had told him to go back home because she could write to him there, or in case she ever wished to see him, she could also go home. She intended to go to the Rainbow ranch in the autumn.
[81]
CHAPTER VI
THE CLOUD
THE next weeks in July were extraordinarily beautiful ones in England. The summer was warmer than usual and the sun shone with greater radiance. The English country was hauntingly lovely and serene.
In spite of Frieda's trouble, the three Ranch girls enjoyed one another, as they had had no opportunity of doing since Jack's marriage and coming abroad to live.There were long walks and rides and exchanges of visits with their country neighbors. Now and then Lady Kent and Olive went up to London for a few days of the theatre and the last part of the social season. They were Lord Kent's guests in the Ladies' Gallery in the House of Parliament and drank tea on the wonderful old balcony that overlooks the Thames river. But Frieda preferred not to accompany them.
London was never more filled with tourists,[82] the greater number Americans intending to leave later for the continent.
But so far as Professor Russell was concerned, no word had been heard from him since his unceremonious meeting with his wife. However, he had sent his banker's address to Lord Kent, saying that all mail would be forwarded to him from there. Then he appeared to have dropped completely out of sight for, in spite of his brother-in-law's effort toward friendliness, he had not called upon him a second time.
In discussing the matter between themselves, Jack and Frank decided that this was possibly the best arrangement for the present. Frieda had never mentioned her unexpected discovery of her husband; nor did she ever voluntarily refer to her married life. Therefore, whatever was going on inside her mind, no one had any knowledge of it. As is often the case with women and girls of Frieda's temperament, she was better able to keep her own counsel than the women who are supposed to be strong minded and who are more apt to be frank.
So far as Jack was concerned she had never reopened with Frank the question of her rides with Captain MacDonnell, because the latter[83] had been away and he had not asked her to ride since his return.
However, neither of these facts were so important as the feeling Jack had, that no propitious moment had arrived for a second discussion of the subject with her husband. She did not intend to defy him, but to make him see that he had no right to be so arbitrary and—more than that—so domineering. This had been Jack's usual method in any difference of opinion between herself and Frank, or in any unlikeness between the American and English point of view concerning marriage. As a matter of fact, more than half the time Jack had been successful.
But, during the past few weeks she had seen that Frank was worried and unlike himself—that his attention was engaged on matters which were not personal. For if the weather and the climate appeared serene in these particular July weeks in England the state of English politics was not. For the country was being harassed by the questions of Home Rule for Ireland and by the Militant Suffrage movement.
The Suffrage question was one which Lord and Lady Kent had agreed not to discuss with each other. To Jack, who had been brought[84] up in Wyoming—the first of the Suffrage states in the United States—and who had seen the success of it there, the fact that the English nation held the idea of women voting in such abhorrence and with such narrow mindedness, was more a matter of surprise than anything else. The fact that her husband, who had also lived for a short time in Wyoming, should also oppose woman's suffrage was beyond her comprehension, except that Frank had the Englishman's love for the established order and disliked any change. Jack would not confess to herself that he also had the Englishman's idea that a woman should be subservient to her husband and that he should be master of his own house. To give women the freedom, which the ballot would bring, might be to allow them an independence in which the larger majority of the men of the British Isles did not then believe. Neither did they realize—nor did the suffragists themselves—how near their women were to being able to prove their fitness.
One Saturday afternoon at the close of July, Captain MacDonnell invited Jack and Olive and Frieda and a number of his other neighbors and friends to tea at his place. He had no near relatives, and when he was in[85] Kent county lived alone, except for his housekeeper and servants, in an odd little house, perhaps a century old, which had been left him by his guardian.
The girls drove over together in a pony carriage, usually devoted to Jack's children. But at the gate they gave it into the charge of a boy in order that they might walk up to the house, which was of a kind found only in England.
The house was built of rough plaster which the years had toned to a soft grey. Captain MacDonnell had the good taste to allow the roof with its deep overhanging eaves to remain thatched as it had been in early days. The building was small and one walked up to the front door through two long rows of hollyhocks. On either side of the hollyhock sentinels the earth was a thick carpet of flowers, and the little house seemed to rise out of its own flower beds.
There were no steps leading to the front door except a single one, so the visitor entered directly into the hall which divided the downstairs. On the left side was a long room with a raftered ceiling and high narrow windows, and on the right Captain MacDonnell's den—a small room littered with a young soldier's[86] belongings. Beyond were the dining room and kitchen and upstairs four bedrooms. As the house was so small Captain MacDonnell had turned his great, old-fashioned barn into extra quarters for guests. Between the house and the flower beds and the barn was an open space of green lawn with an occasional tree, and beyond was a tennis court. The place was tiny and simple compared to Kent House and yet had great charm.
Jack and Olive and Frieda arrived before the other guests. They soon discovered that Mrs. Naxie—Captain MacDonnell's housekeeper—had arranged to serve tea in his living room.
It was through Jack's suggestion that the arrangement was altered.
"Please don't tell Mrs. Naxie, Bryan, that I spoke of it," she volunteered as soon as she beheld the preparations, "but don't you think the summer in England too short for people to spend an hour indoors when they can avoid it?"
And Captain MacDonnell good naturedly agreed.
As a matter of fact, Jack always poured tea for him when he had guests and she was able to be present, so she felt sufficiently at home to make her request.[87]
Captain MacDonnell's mother was an Irishwoman and his father a Scotchman. But they had both died when he was a little boy and he had spent the greater part of his boyhood with an old bachelor friend of his father's, who was his own guardian and had lived in the very house of which he was now the master.
As neighbors he and Frank Kent had played together when they were small boys and had later gone to the same public school. Then Frank's illness sent him to the United States, where he was introduced into the lives of the Ranch girls, at about the same time his friend Bryan MacDonnell entered Cambridge and afterwards the army. But whenever he and Frank were together the old intimacy had continued, and Jack's coming had only seemed to turn their friendship into a three-cornered one.
"Frank told me to tell you that he was sorry not to be able to come over with us this afternoon, Bryan," Jack announced a few moments later, when the four of them had gone out to select a place where tea could be served, "But for some reason or other he telephoned that he could not come down from London today. I don't know what is wrong[88] with Frank lately. He has never been so absorbed in political matters. I am afraid Frieda and Olive will think he neglects his family disgracefully. Please tell them, Bryan, that he is sometimes an attentive husband."
But as Captain MacDonnell did not answer at once, Olive remarked in a more serious tone than Lady Kent had used:
"I think I am rather glad Frank takes his work as a member of Parliament as the most important thing he has to do. After all, helping to make the laws of one's country is a pretty serious occupation. Which do you think more serious—Captain MacDonnell, being a soldier and fighting when it is necessary to defend the laws, or making them in the beginning?"
Captain MacDonnell smiled, but rather seriously. It occurred to Jack, who knew him so much better than the others, that Bryan did seem uncommonly grave this afternoon, in spite of his efforts to be an agreeable host.
Then she took hold of Frieda's arm and they wandered off a short distance, leaving Olive and Captain MacDonnell to continue their conversation alone.
"Do you know, Frieda," Jack whispered[89] when they were safe from being overheard, "I would give a great deal if Bryan and Olive would learn to care for each other. Ordinarily I think it is horrid to be a matchmaker, but Bryan and Olive are both so lovely and you don't know what it would mean to me to have Olive live near me. It is heavenly these days, having you both here. You can't realize how lonely I get for you and my own country sometimes."
Frieda looked critically over at Captain MacDonnell and Olive, who were standing close beside each other talking earnestly. In spite of Captain MacDonnell's ancestry his coloring was almost as dark as Olive's.
Then Frieda turned her blue eyes on her sister.
"Captain MacDonnell and Olive look too much alike," she argued. "I prefer marriages where the man and woman are contrasts."
Then, although Lady Kent made no answer, she smiled to herself. If Frieda believed in contrasts in marriage, surely she did not mean merely in complexion and general appearance. Important contrasts in human beings went much deeper than appearances. Surely Frieda's own marriage had offered a sufficient contrast in years, taste, disposition and a[90] dozen other things. However, instead of securing happiness, it seemed to have had the opposite result.
During the remainder of the afternoon Jack thought nothing more about their early conversation, as she devoted herself entirely to Captain MacDonnell's other guests.
It was just a little after six o'clock, when they were beginning to think of returning home, that Lady Kent observed one of her servants coming toward her across the lawn carrying a telegram.
Never so long as she lived was Jack ever to forget that moment and the scene about her. There were about a dozen, beautifully costumed persons present—the women in silks and muslins, and the men in tennis flannels and other sport costumes. They were all talking in a light hearted fashion about small matters.
Without any thought that it might be of particular importance Jack opened her telegram and before reading it apologized to the persons nearest her. It happened that Captain MacDonnell was not far away.
Yet she read her telegram—not once, but several times—before it dawned upon her what her husband's words meant. Even[91] then she did not really understand any more than the millions of other women in the world, who heard the same news and more within the next few days. The sky overhead was still blue; the earth was green and peaceful, and her companions were unconscious of tragedy.
Nevertheless Frank's telegram had stated that the beginning of the war cloud had appeared over Europe—the cloud which was later to spread over so large a part of the world.
[92]
CHAPTER VII
SO AS BY FIRE
"BUT Henry cannot go; it is absurd! He never shot a gun in his life and besides I—" Frieda hesitated; her face flushing; yet she was trying to speak calmly.
She and Olive and Jack and Frank Kent were in the library at Kent House with Captain MacDonnell talking one morning, several weeks since the afternoon tea and during, perhaps, the most momentous week in all history."I think you must be mistaken about your husband's being unable to shoot, Frieda," Lord Kent answered dryly. "As a matter of fact I believe he is an expert; he told me himself that he had taken prizes for marksmanship when he was a boy, but had never cared to use his skill for hunting. As for your saying he can't go; well, the truth is, Frieda, Professor Russell has already gone. He came in to see me a few days ago to say[93] that he had volunteered and was about to be sent somewhere in France."
Frank had not intended to be unkind. So many things had happened and were happening every crowded second of the time that he was simply forgetting to think of the individual. However, under the circumstances, he did not suppose that Frieda would care very much what became of her husband.
"You mean that Henry has joined the army—that he has crossed over to France without asking me how I would feel—without even coming to say good-bye," Frieda returned slowly. And suddenly even her brother-in-law observed the change in her expression. It was strange to see Frieda with her face paling; her full, red lips closed tight and her blue eyes dark and strained.
"But, my dear child, how could your husband come to say good-bye to you when you have been steadfastly refusing to see him for weeks?" Frank continued, still a little impatient over feminine unreasonableness. "He told me to tell you his plans and that he had made all arrangements in case—"
But, that instant, catching a warning glance from his wife, Lord Kent changed color over his own tactlessness and desisted.[94] This was a time when everybody's nerves were overstrained; when hearts were torn to pieces and imaginations were picturing only horrors.
"Won't you motor down to the station with me, please, Jack?" Lord Kent added, hastily, anxious to get away as soon as possible from the situation he had created.
Jack slipped on a long tan coat and soft hat and went with her husband, leaving Olive to look after Frieda.
"Bryan is expecting to be here again this afternoon for a farewell visit, dear. He has been delayed for some reason or other but hopes to leave with his regiment tomorrow," Frank announced on the way to his train. "Do you know I think Bryan is a lucky fellow these days, not to have anyone very close to him—anyone who cares very much what becomes of him. Oh, of course, I should care, more than I like to think; but I mean no mother or father—no family."
"I should also care a great deal, Frank," Jack interrupted quietly.
But Lord Kent went on, scarcely hearing her.
"It is a funny thing that Bryan has never married. He is an uncommonly fascinating[95] fellow. Of course, he hasn't much money; but that ought not to stand in his way. He has his profession. Queer, when he was a boy he used to talk about being an artist; but there is a lot of difference between an artist and a soldier. He must be glad now of his choice. Sometimes I think Bryan has never married because he has never seen any woman as attractive as you are. He has almost said as much to me."
Jack shook her head almost angrily. "That is nonsense, Frank. After all, you know Bryan is pretty young; there is no use talking as if he were a confirmed old bachelor."
After lunch that same afternoon Captain MacDonnell rode over to Kent House. He was wearing his service uniform of khaki—the short military coat, the full trousers drawn close at the knees and the high boots. He also wore the British officer's cap with the small visor and the other marks of his rank.
Hearing the sound of his horse approaching, Jack went out on the veranda to greet him. Frieda was upstairs in her room and Olive was writing letters to Ruth Colter and Jean at the Rainbow Ranch.
In her arms Jack carried her baby, with whom she had been playing. Indeed, ever[96] since the news of war, some member of the family had seemed to wish to hold Vive, for her baby softness and sweetness was in some way a consolation.
Jack had her baby's little yellow head pressed close against her bronze colored hair and made the baby wave its hand to the young officer as he drew nearer.
When he came up to them on the veranda he kissed Vive's tiny hand.
"May I have one of Vive's blue ribbons to tie in my buttonhole, please, Lady Jacqueline?" he asked. "Lady Jacqueline" being a title which Captain MacDonnell had originated for Jack, but which many other people also used. "Every knight, when he went off to the wars in the old days, wore his lady's colors. I should like to have Vive for my lady."
Jack felt her fingers trembling a little as she unfastened the ribbon from her baby's sleeve and gave it to her friend.
"Won't you take a farewell ride with me this afternoon, Jack?" Captain MacDonnell asked the next instant. "It will be the best way to manage our good-bye."
For just the fraction of a second Jack hesitated. Yet, in that time, she had a sufficient[97] opportunity to think over the entire situation. Captain MacDonnell had not asked her to ride with him since the afternoon, when her recklessness had displeased Frank. Since then she had never attempted to persuade Frank that his demand, that she never ride with Captain MacDonnell again, was unreasonable. Nevertheless, she felt fairly sure that under the present circumstance he could not object. Surely, Frank could not be so ungracious as to be vexed with her for disobeying his wish at such a time. She would, of course, ride carefully and take no foolish risks.
Jack gave Vive into Captain MacDonnell's keeping.
"Yes, I'll go if you'll come back to dinner with Frank and the rest of us," she agreed. "I'll be ready in five minutes."
Jack sent the nurse to look after the baby and in ten minutes was ready for the ride.
It was a sultry August afternoon, very still, and yet with a strange throbbing in the air of many tiny insects. The hawthorn was no longer in bloom, but the two friends rode along the English lanes sweet with blossoming elderberry and blackberry bushes.
Curious how, when one comes to say farewell,[98] there is so little that seems worth saying!
During the first part of the ride Jack and Captain MacDonnell were frequently silent, except that Jack, of course, made the conventional inquiries one might ask of a soldier. Was he in good condition? Did he have everything he needed? Was there anything she could do for him—such as looking after his house while he was gone?
In response to each question Captain MacDonnell shook his head. He had turned over his house to be used for the Belgian refugees.
They were actually on their way home before he began to talk.
Then he took a letter from his pocket.
"I wish you would give this to Frank for me, Lady Jack, and if anything happens to me ask him to read it, and to let you read it afterwards if he thinks best. Sorry to be mysterious, but this is a kind of cranky wish of mine."
Jack slipped the letter inside the coat she was wearing.
"All right, Bryan. You know I have always felt rather like a big sister to you; I am nearly a year older. But, today I think[99] I feel like your mother," she continued, trying to smile, but with her voice breaking a little. "So you must promise me, if there is anything I can ever do for you later on you will let me know. In a way I believe I am almost envious of you, Bryan. I think I have wanted to be a boy ever since I could sit on the back of a horse and ride over our ranch with my father. That is why people have always called me 'Jack,' I suppose. Anyhow, just now, I think I would like to go out to meet a great adventure. I wonder what a woman's great adventure is. I presume it is marriage for most of us. At any rate Frank is terribly envious of you, Bryan. He has said so to me half a dozen times. He does not seem to know whether he ought to go to the front, which is what he wants to do, or to stay on here doing his work in Parliament. Of course, he ought to stay," Jack argued, repeating what she had been saying a good many times to her husband recently. "There never was a time when a member of Parliament had such great work to do, and that is Frank's real duty."
When Jack gave Captain MacDonnell's letter to her husband that night she spoke of their having had a ride together. Although[100] he made no comment, she could see that he was not altogether pleased. It occurred to Jack then, though only vaguely, that if Frank objected to her disobeying him in small matters, their life might be pretty difficult if ever they had a difference of opinion and she disobeyed him in a large one.
"Strange for Bryan to have confided this letter to us," Frank remarked, as he put it carefully away in a strong box where he kept his important papers. "I wonder what old Bryan has written? I never dreamed he had a secret in his life which he has never told to me. But, perhaps he wants us to do some favor or other for him. Truly I hope we may never have to open the letter."
[101]
CHAPTER VIII
SEVERAL MONTHS LATER
FRIEDA read a letter she had just received and laughed.
Laughter was not frequent at Kent House those days, so that Jack and Olive looked up from the work they were doing. Olive was rolling bandages and Jack was writing notes at her desk. The three of them were in Jack's private sitting room where, only a few moments before, the afternoon mail bag had been brought in."What is it, Frieda?" Jack asked, turning her head to glance over her shoulder in some surprise at her sister. She wondered if Frieda realized that she was fully aware of the way in which she had been watching the mail for these past few months. For Frieda had watched in vain for the particular letter which certainly she seemed to expect; even if she did not greatly desire it.
"Oh, I have just received a note from a young soldier to whom I sent the first pair of socks I ever made," she returned. "He may[102] not have originated the poem, but it is almost worth the trouble and the time I took on the socks. Do listen:"
"Thanks, dear lady, for the socks you knit;
Some socks, some fit.
I used one for a hammock and the other for a mitt.
I hope I meet you when I've done my bit,
But where in the h... did you learn to knit?"
Then Frieda dropped the letter to wave another long grey sock, shot through with shining knitting needles. It was somewhat narrow in the ankle and bulged strangely at the heel.Some socks, some fit.
I used one for a hammock and the other for a mitt.
I hope I meet you when I've done my bit,
But where in the h... did you learn to knit?"
"I wonder if I am improving?" she inquired anxiously. The utilitarian nature of Frieda's occupation contrasted curiously with the general fluffiness of her appearance. For no amount of inward anguish could ever keep Frieda from the desire to wear pretty clothes and to make herself as attractive as possible. However, no one had any right to say she was unhappy, except as every one else was, through sympathy with the added troubles which the war had lately brought upon the world.
Like most of the other women in the larger part of Europe and also in the United[103] States, Jack and Olive were devoting all their energies to the work of the war. They had both taken short courses in Red Cross nursing and had organized clubs and classes in the neighborhood for every kind of relief work, while Frank had turned over several of his houses to the Belgian refugees.
Therefore, only Frieda remained more or less on the outside of things. She had undertaken to learn to knit for the soldiers, but insisted that since her name meant peace and was a German name as well, she would do nothing more. The truth was she seemed not to wish to go out or mix with society a great deal, which was odd, as one of the reasons she had given for her unhappiness in her own home was that her husband wished to spend too much time there, so that she had become bored.
However, Frieda had agreed to visit the poor people on the estate and in the neighboring village, in order to relieve Jack from this one of her many duties.
Moreover, she enjoyed the odd types of old men and women, so unlike any other people whom she had ever before known, and she became a great favorite with them. Instead of giving her money for war purposes[104] Frieda preferred bestowing it on these same queer old persons and the children who had been left behind.
This afternoon, after she had finished reading the second of her two letters, the latter from Jean in Wyoming, Frieda got up from her chair.
"Jimmie and I are going to drive down to the village to see old Dame Quick," she announced, "I promised to read to her this afternoon." 'Dame Quick' was the title Frieda had borrowed to give to the oldest woman in Granchester, because she was so extraordinarily lively.
"What will you do with Jimmie while you read? He will never keep still," Jack called, as Frieda moved toward the door.
Frieda paused. "Oh, he and nurse will return back in the governess cart. I want to walk home. Don't worry if I am a little late," and before Olive or Jack would speak, she had disappeared.
"I hope Frieda won't be too long. She does not know this country as I do," Jack murmured afterwards, but not thinking of the matter seriously.
Frieda and Jimmie had a way of jogging in the little governess cart on many afternoons,[105] sometimes taking the nurse with them and more often not. Jimmie was rather a troublesome small boy of an age when he was into every kind of mischief, and Frieda was not fond of children. Therefore, her family had wondered why she appeared to desire so much of Jimmie's companionship. Frieda might have answered that he asked so many questions that she did not have time to think of other things; however, she had never said this, even to herself.
The governess cart was a little wicker carriage swung low on two wheels, with an ancient, shaggy pony, who never moved out of a slow trot.
That afternoon, like all the great ladies in the English novels, Frieda stored away under the seat of her cart as much jelly and jam as her sister's housekeeper would allow her. At the nearest grocery shop she bought a package of tea, some tins of biscuits and a half pound of tobacco. For the truth was that Frieda's old woman liked a quiet smoke. This habit was not common among the villagers, but Dame Quick whose real name was "Huggins" was so very old that she allowed herself certain privileges.
It was a dismal late fall afternoon, but[106] English people and particularly English children do not stay indoors because of bad weather.
Frieda wore a blue rain proof coat and a soft hat which she pulled down over her yellow hair, to keep the soft mist out of her eyes as well as she could. Jimmie and his nurse were also enveloped in mackintoshes.
But the rain was not actually falling. There was only a November haze and a pervading dampness, making Jimmie's cheeks redder than ever and bringing more color than was usual to Frieda's face.
On the way to the village Jimmie and his aunt, whom he regarded as of his own age, sang "America" in not a particularly musical fashion, but with a great deal of earnest effort, since Frieda was trying to teach the British Jimmie to be more of an American.
Jimmie, of course, wished to go into Mrs. Huggins' cottage with his aunt, but on that point Frieda was resolute. She had a fancy for seeing her old friend alone this afternoon. Actually she had a reason which had been developing in her mind for the past twenty-four hours, although Frieda herself considered her reason nonsensical.
In answer to her knock the old woman came[107] to the door. She looked like one of the pictures one remembers in the Mother Goose books, and also like one of them, "she lived alone, all in her little house of stone."
Dame Quick's cottage of two rooms was set in the middle of a long row of little stone houses, in one of the half a dozen streets in Granchester. Frieda always felt a shiver as she went inside, since the floor was of stone and there was a dampness about the little house as if it had never been thoroughly warmed inside by the sun.
Yet Mrs. Huggins had managed to live there in contentment for about seventy years. She had come there as a bride before she was twenty and was now "ninety or thereabouts," as she described herself.
When Frieda entered she bobbed up and down as quickly as an old brown cork on a running stream.
"Sure, I've been waitin' and longin' for the sight of you these two hours," she said, taking Frieda's packages, or as many as she could get hold of, as if she thought them too burdensome for the young woman to carry.
Frieda laughed and slipped out of her rain coat, which she hung carefully on a small wooden chair. Then she also laid her hat on[108] the chair and, as a matter of habit, fluffed up her pretty hair which the rain and her hat had flattened, and then followed her old hostess.
"You know you have had half a dozen visitors during the two hours you say you have been waiting, Mrs. Huggins," Frieda returned. For it was true that the tiny house and the old woman were the center of all the gossip in the village. "I expect you to tell me a lot of news."
The old woman nodded.
"It is true these are news days in England and elsewhere. Times were, when the days might be dull without a birth or a death, or a mating. But now one wakes up to something stirrin' every day—a lad goin' off to the war, or maybe one gettin' killed; and the girls coomin' in to tell me their troubles; some of them just married, and some of them not married at all yet. But all of them worryin' their hearts out. Sure, and if war is goin' on forever—and it looks like it is—I'm for the women goin' into battle along with their men."
While she was talking Frieda had followed her hostess back into her kitchen—the room in which she really lived and had her being.[109] It was also of stone, but the floor had a number of bright rag rugs as covering and the walls were lined with pictures cut from papers and magazines, and with picture postcards. One could have gotten a pretty fair knowledge of English history at the moment by studying Mrs. Huggins' picture gallery. She had on her walls a photograph of nearly every British officer then in command of the army or navy. She had replicas of innumerable battleships and also of statesmen. But in the place of honor over a shelf that held her Bible and a tiny daguerreotype of the late, lamented Mr. Huggins, hung a picture of England's big little man—Lloyd George. The aged woman received the old age pension which Lloyd George had given to the poor of England a few years before the outbreak of the present war.
Frieda sat down on a little chair which lovers of antiques would have given much to possess. There was a small fire burning in the tiny stove, and its red coals looked more cheerful than the great log fire at Kent House.
Frieda knew that Dame Quick would wish to prepare the tea herself.
She had rather a happy feeling as she[110] watched Mrs. Huggins, as if she had been a little girl who had gone out one day and grown suddenly tired and forlorn, and then been unexpectedly invited into the very gingerbread house itself. But a gingerbread house presided over by a good spirit, not an evil one.
Her own little Dame Quick looked like a child's idea of an ancient good fairy. She may not have been so small to begin with, but at ninety she was bent over until she seemed very tiny indeed. Her face was brown and wrinkled and her eyes shone forth as black as elderberries in the late gathering time.
She placed a small wooden table in front of Frieda and not far from the fire and her own chair. Then she got out some heavy plates and two cups and saucers. And whatever the difference in elegance, tea is never so good served in a thin cup as in a thick one. Afterwards she opened the package containing Frieda's biscuits and jam and finally poured boiling water into her own brown stone tea kettle.
Then she and Frieda, sitting on opposite sides of the tea table, talked and talked.
Several times, as she sat there, Frieda[111] thought that if she had been an English girl she would like to have had just such an old nurse or foster mother as Mrs. Huggins. For she might then have been able to confide a number of things to her—matters she could not talk about even to her sister, since she was not clear enough how she felt concerning them herself, and so Jack might get wrong impressions.
"But you have not told me any special news this afternoon," Frieda protested, having lifted her cup for a second helping of tea, and making up her mind that she could not think of herself while visiting, as she usually did at home. "My sister and brother always expect me to know something interesting after a visit to you."
Dame Quick poured the tea carefully.
"I don't care for gossip," she returned, "yet it seems as if they like it as much in big houses as in little." Her eyes snapped, so that Frieda found herself watching them, fascinated.
"Since you came in I've been wonderin' whether certain information should be sent to Lord and Lady Kent. I don't think much of it myself, as there has been such a steady stream of spy talk these[112] months past. But they are tellin' in Granchester that there is a man there who has taken a house a short distance from the village, on the road to Kent House. It seems he keeps to himself too much to please the village. He says he has been ill, and I'm sure has a right to a mite of peace if he wants it. It's only the village that's talking. Those higher up must know things are what they should be, since they don't bother him."
Frieda was scarcely listening. Mrs. Huggins' news was often uninteresting in itself. It was only that she so much enjoyed repeating it.
She had already finished her second cup of tea and was looking down at the collection of tea leaves in the bottom of her cup.
"Suppose you tell my fortune," she suggested rather shyly. For some time past she had been thinking of just this. "Didn't you say you sometimes told the fortunes of the boys and girls in Granchester, and that a great many things you predict come true?"
The old country woman looked at Frieda sharply.
"I tell the fortunes, child, of boys and girls whose grandfathers and grandmothers I once knew. That isn't difficult fortune telling. I[113] know certain tricks in the faces, I remember what their own people thought and did long before their day. Like father, like son; or maybe like mother, like son; and like father, like daughter. But you—" The old woman shook her head. "I know nothing about you, child; or your country, or your people, or what you have made of life for yourself with that pretty face of yours."
Still Frieda held out her tea cup.
"Oh, well; just let the tea leaves show you a little," she pleaded, in the spoiled fashion by which Frieda usually accomplished her purpose.
Still the old peasant continued to look, not at the tea leaves but at her young companion. Perhaps she saw something with her fine, tired old eyes, that were too dim to read print, which even Frieda's own family did not see.
"You have had too many of the things you wish without ever having to work for them, or to wait, little lady," she repeated slowly. Then she glanced down into the extended tea cup. "I think I see that you will have to lose something before you find out that you care for it. I also see a long journey, some clouds and at last a rainbow."[114]
Frieda put down her cup and laughed a little uncertainly.
"Oh, the Rainbow Ranch is the name of my own home. I wonder if I have ever told you that?" she inquired. "But you are mistaken if you think I have had the things I wish." For, of course, Frieda did not believe she had been a fortunate person. So few people ever do believe this of themselves, until misfortune makes them learn through contrast.
Later, she read a chapter in the Bible and the war news from one of the morning papers. Then, before six o'clock, she started to return to Kent House.
Frieda walked quickly as the distance was not short. Moreover, she had never entirely recovered from the fright of her unexpected encounter with her husband several months before. Yet, since then, she had not only never seen him again, but never heard anything about him, except the scant information of his departure to France, which she had acquired through Frank Kent.
Frieda did think—no matter what the difference between them—that her husband might have let her know that he was at least alive and well. Of course she was a selfish, cold-hearted person, as her family and[115] undoubtedly her own husband believed her to be. However, one could be interested in the welfare of even a comparative stranger in war times.
Later, after Frieda left the village, she passed by the little house which her old friend had tried to involve in a mystery in order to supply her with gossip. The house was set in a yard by itself. The lights were lighted and the curtains drawn down, but, as she hurried by, either a woman's or a man's figure made a dark shadow upon the closed blind.
[116]
CHAPTER IX
CHURCH AND STATE
THE family and a number of the servants from Kent House were on their way to the small Episcopal church at the edge of the estate.
Jack and Frank were walking in front, with Olive and Frieda strolling a little more slowly behind them, and the rest of the company followed in scattered groups.At the beginning of her marriage the English Sundays had been a trial to Jack. They were so much more quiet, so much more sedate than those of her rather too unconventional girlhood in Wyoming. Then they had sometimes held church in the open air, or if they wished to go into the nearest town, a big wagon was loaded with as many persons as could be persuaded from the ranch, and ordinarily they stopped on the way back and had lunch somewhere. Now and then Jack even remembered having ridden on her own broncho to the church door and fastened it on the outside, while she went in to the[117] service in a costume which was an odd cross between a riding habit and a church outfit.
But now, although the walk across Kent Park was only a short one, Jack was as correctly attired as if she were in London. Beside her brown velvet costume which was very smart and becoming, she wore a hat with feathers, which she particularly disliked. The hat was of the kind affected by Queen Mary of England, who always wears feather-trimmed hats.
However, the mere matter of her hat would not have made Jack feel out of sorts, if she had not had another more potent reason. Frank was nearly always cross on Sunday mornings and this morning was no exception.
It is strange that Sunday should have this effect on many persons, when one should be more cheerful than usual, and yet it does.
Frank was really worn out with all his worries and responsibilities, Jack decided to herself, as she had a number of times recently. It was a privilege many people take advantage of, by saving their bad humors for their families.
"But, Frank, I don't think you understand the situation in the United States," Jack argued, speaking good naturedly. "You[118] see, we represent so many nationalities, so many differences of opinion and training, that we can't all think alike. The President is supposed to represent everybody."
"Nonsense," Frank interrupted his wife not too politely. "The United States has been thinking about nothing but getting rich. They are a nation of shirkers, willing to stand back and let others do the work and suffer the loss."
"There are a good many millions of us for us all to be shirkers, Frank," Jack answered, still speaking quietly, although her cheeks had flushed and her eyes darkened.
Really she and Frank tried very hard not to discuss any differences of opinion they felt concerning the war. During the last few years the marriages between men and women of different nationalities have had a great strain put upon them. At present, Frank as an Englishman, thought that the United States should immediately have gone in upon the side of the Allies, while Jack did not; and now and then they unfortunately fell into a discussion of the subject.
Therefore, when they entered church this Sunday morning, neither Jack nor Frank were in a good humor toward each other. Jack[119] felt that, as she was doing all she could in the service of his country, he should have made no unkind criticism of hers. Frank did not think at all, except to wish that Jack would refrain from argument. Certainly a man wished for peace in his own home when it was nowhere else. But it did not occur to Frank that it takes two to keep peace as well as two to make a quarrel; nor did he begin to realize how trying he had been at home during the past few months.
As a matter of fact Frank was spoiled, as many Englishmen and some American men are. He had been an only son who was to inherit the family title, and his mother and sisters had always put him first in all things. It was true that when he came to the United States he had fallen in love with Jacqueline Ralston because, for one reason, she did not treat him differently at the beginning of their acquaintance from any cowboy on her ranch. That is, she was perfectly polite to him, when she remembered his existence; but then she was polite to everybody and recognized no social distinctions. She liked her own freedom, allowed other people theirs, and went her way untroubled by the opinion of others.
But, at present—as is often the case with[120] men after they marry—the very things in Jack which had attracted Frank before marriage annoyed him now. He believed she ought to be more influenced by his views. Of course, she ordinarily gave in to his wishes. However, he seldom felt as if she were convinced, but believed she yielded through sheer sweet temper.
Moreover, Frank's irritability continued all day, so that several times after their return home, Jack found herself mortified before Olive and Frieda. Not that she minded so much about Olive, since Olive and Frank had always understood each other. But, as Frieda had announced herself as being disappointed with marriage, Jack did not wish her to think that her own was also a failure.
After their midday luncheon on Sunday it was always Lord and Lady Kent's custom to walk over their estate during the afternoon, visit the stables and see as much of the condition of the place and the people on it as was possible.
This Sunday afternoon Frank arose and started to go on his usual rounds without suggesting that Jack accompany him.
However, she paid no attention to this, but[121] followed him. Outdoors he changed into a better mood.
There were not many horses left in the stables, as most of them were being used by the army. But when Jack and Frank went into the kennels, which adjoined the stables, a dozen great dogs began leaping over them at once.
Frank drew a little aside to watch his wife.
Jack stood in their midst laughing and protesting a little when one big hound stuck its great head, with wide open jaws and lolling tongue, too near her face. Yet she managed to make them all happy and quiet again by patting and stroking each one, or by calling each dog by name.
"You are not afraid of anything in the world, are you, Jack?" Frank remarked admiringly, as they again got safely away from the kennels, Jack finding it necessary at the last moment to remove two large paws from her shoulders in order to settle a dispute between two of the other dogs.
Jack laughed. "Goodness, Frank, what an extraordinary opinion you and a few other people have of me! I am one of the biggest cowards in the world about the things I am afraid of. I simply don't happen to be afraid[122] of animals, as so many women are. And that is not a virtue, but because I was brought up with them."
"I should like to know what you do fear, then?" Frank demanded.
Instead of answering at once Jack slipped her arm inside her husband's.
"I am dreadfully afraid of the people I care about being angry with me, though you and the rest of my family may not believe it, as I am supposed to have once been a wilful person," she returned unexpectedly. "Sometimes I wonder, Frank, just how much of a coward I would be, if I had either to give up what I thought was right or else to have some one seriously angry with me. I have not the courage of my convictions like Frieda."
In response Frank uttered a half growl, which was not very complimentary to Frieda or her convictions. However, Jack went on almost without pausing.
"I wonder, Frank, if it is fair to Frieda not to let her know what has happened to Professor Russell? Sometimes I have thought she has worried more over his silence than we imagine."
Frank shook his head.
"Frieda deserves whatever may come to[123] her. It is an old-fashioned axiom, dear, but all the more true for that reason: Frieda has made her bed; now let her lie upon it."
"But Frieda is hardly more than a child," Jack protested. "Besides, that is a pretty hard rule to apply to people. I don't think you and I would like to have it applied to us if we were ever in any difficulty."
As it struck Frank as utterly impossible that he and Jack ever could have a disagreement, which could not be settled amiably in a few hours, he paid no attention to her last statement. Nevertheless he added:
"After all, Jack, it is not for us to decide anything concerning Frieda and her husband. That is for them. We are simply doing what Professor Russell has requested of us."
"Yes, but Frieda," Jack expostulated more weakly.
"Frieda is receiving just what she asked for—silence. But you must not worry over Frieda. She will solve existence happily for herself soon enough. Almost any man would do anything and forgive anything in behalf of such blue eyes and yellow hair as Frieda's to say nothing of her Professor. I may pretend to be severe but I should probably forgive her as readily."[124]
"Sooner than you would me?" Jack inquired and laughed. "Oh, of course, you would. Everybody always has as long as I can remember."
Frank looked more closely at his wife and his face softened until his eyes held their old expression of boyish admiration. Always he had been pleased by her intense loyalty to the people she cared for. It had made him forgive her in the past when she had some mistaken idea of loyalty toward Olive.
"I am afraid you have had to do the forgiving recently, Jack. I expect I have been difficult. But I feel so torn these days wanting to be over in France doing the real work with fellows like Bryan, and at the same time wanting to be here with you and the babies and knowing I am perhaps more useful in London than I would be elsewhere."
Jack's clear grey eyes were full of the spiritual understanding that had made her always so valuable a friend, and a woman must be a friend to her husband as well as other things.
"I know, Frank," she answered, "but you are doing the right thing. If I didn't think so, no matter how I should suffer, do you believe for a moment that I would stand in your way?"[125]
And catching her look, Frank replied.
"No, Jack, I don't; but I thank you for understanding."
There were no letters delivered at Kent House on Sunday, but on each Sunday afternoon one of the men drove over to the post-office, which was open for an hour, and returned with the mail. It was important that Lord Kent should be kept in touch with every situation that arose, as there might be grave and tragic developments in the course of the hours he sometimes spent away from London.
As he picked up the mail which was lying on the table in the hall as they entered, Frank extended a letter to his wife.
"This is from Bryan, I believe, Jack. Do tell me what he says."
They went into the library where Frieda and Olive were already waiting for tea to be served.
Jack walked over to the fire and, before taking off her hat, read her letter through quietly.
Then she looked up happily.
"Bryan says he is all right and sends his love to the family, but more especially to his Lady Vive. He asks us all to write to him oftener if we can manage it, as we are his[126] adopted family and he has no other. Frieda, he says your gift of socks is the most wonderful in all France. I actually believe Bryan is almost having a good time; but if he is not he is awfully brave."
Making no effort to conceal her emotion, Jack's eyes suddenly filled with tears.
"Gracious, Jack," Frieda exclaimed. "As long as there is nothing the matter with Captain MacDonnell, I wouldn't shed any tears over him. You so seldom cry, it always makes me wretched when you do. I'll bet Jack has never shed any tears over you, Frank."
Frieda was not like a kitten in appearance alone. She had also soft little claws with which she scratched a tiny bit now and then. She had been entirely conscious that her brother-in-law considered that she was to blame in a large measure for her trouble with her husband, although he had never said so to her. Yet she had a desire to get a little bit even with him now and then.
Frank's face did flush slightly, although he smiled good humoredly.
"Oh, I am nothing but a civilian these days and Bryan is a soldier. I can't expect the same interest to be bestowed upon me, even by my own wife."
[127]
CHAPTER X
THE LETTER
AS soon as Jack saw Frank's face she realized that something tragic had occurred.
She had come down to the train alone to meet him, but said nothing until they had walked away from the little crowd at the station into the gloom of the midwinter afternoon."It is Bryan," Frank then exclaimed without waiting to be asked. "I had word from the War Office today that he had been mortally wounded."
He put his arm about Jack to support her if she should turn faint, but this was not the way Jack received bad news.
She stopped for a moment, standing straight, however, with her head up and her shoulders braced.
"Are you sure, Frank, there can be no mistake?" she asked slowly.
Lord Kent shook his head.
"I am afraid not, dear. Bryan was leading[128] a charge out of his trench when a shell hit him. His own men carried him back to a field hospital."
His Own Men Carried Him Back to a Field HospitalJack was recalling the day when she and Captain MacDonnell had taken their last ride together; also the smell of the blossoming hedges and her baby's blue ribbon on his sleeve.
Since coming to England as a bride, she and Frank and Bryan had enjoyed a charming friendship. It was to Bryan, Frank had first introduced her, asking that he help to make her less homesick for the ranch and her own people.
In those days Frank's sisters were still unmarried and Bryan had been in the habit of spending much of his time at Kent House when he was on leave.
Yet Frank and Bryan were so utterly unlike in temperament. To say that Frank was an Englishman and Bryan an Irishman explains[129] a great deal. Frank was quieter and more reserved and determined; but Bryan was ardent and emotional, quick to feel an emotion and quick to change. Jack had always felt that he loved the outdoors as she did, while Frank was studious, more devoted to books and to political questions than to swift action.
At the same time Frank and his wife were thinking along similar lines, although his recollection of his friend went further back than hers. He remembered the small boy, whose mother had just died, coming to live with his old bachelor guardian in the queer little house which had since belonged to him. He also remembered how shy he had been and yet how often he had gotten into fights with other boys. But, more than anything, he recalled how Bryan had always seemed to long for the companionship of women and how happy he had been to come to Kent House and spend hours and days with his mother and sisters. This was one of the reasons why it had always seemed strange to Frank that his friend had never married.
"But the news only said that Bryan was fatally hurt—not that things were over?" Jack asked after their long pause.[130]
"Yes; but I'm afraid he may be by now," Frank answered. "I have sent half a dozen cables for more news."
Jack's grey eyes cleared a little.
"Then I won't believe the worst until it really happens."
On their arrival at home Olive and Frieda were sympathetic, but naturally could not care as much as Jack and Frank, since Captain MacDonnell was to them only a comparatively new acquaintance.
But all evening Frieda watched her sister closely, whenever she had the opportunity without being observed. Only a few times before had she seen her with the same expression.
Half a dozen or more of the neighbors came in after dinner to ask for further information concerning Captain MacDonnell, having heard the news only indirectly.
But among them all Jack was the only one who appeared hopeful. She outwardly showed the effect of the anxiety and grief over their friend far less than Frank. But Frieda at least realized that courage was her sister's strongest characteristic.
There had always been something gallant about Jack from the time she was a little girl—the[131] carriage of her head; the look in her eyes—everything about her revealed this.
And tonight Frieda appreciated the fact more clearly than any one else. There was no friend in the world so loyal as Jack; and no one more anxious to help those for whom she cared. Frieda knew that whatever else she might say during the evening, she was in reality thinking only of her husband's friend and her own, alone and dying, perhaps with no one near him for whom he cared.
As early as possible Jack and Frank went upstairs together, since Frank showed the effect of the strain by being uncommonly tired.
They had gone into their own rooms and Jack was slowly beginning to undress when an idea came to her; and she went at once into her husband's room.
Frank, she found sitting on the side of his bed.
"Bryan's letter, Frank," Jack remarked quickly. "Don't you think you ought to open it? He said that if anything happened to him you were to read it first, and afterwards I was to see the letter if you thought best. I remember he seemed much in earnest when he gave it to me."
Frank frowned, and then shook his head.[132]
"Do you know I had forgotten, Jack? But I don't think Bryan meant us to disturb the letter until we know that the worst has happened to him and we don't know this yet; we only fear it."
For a moment Jack was silent, but when she spoke again her voice and manner expressed a quiet firmness.
"I think you are mistaken, Frank. There must be something in Bryan's letter that he wants us to do for him. It may be something that would come afterwards, but it also may be something that we could do for him now. Of course you must judge, but this is the way I feel about it."
Jack, who had put on a deep violet toned velvet dressing gown over her underclothes, now sat down in an arm chair, leaning thoughtfully forward and resting her chin in the palm of her hand.
She did not intend to influence her husband; but having expressed her own thought, she quietly awaited his decision.
Frank, however, was worried and undecided. In order to think more clearly, he got up and began walking nervously up and down his room.
"I don't know what to do, Jack," he[133] argued. "If Bryan still lives he may, of course, recover and I would not then like to feel that I have pryed into his secret. On the other hand, you may be right and Bryan may have made some simple request of us which we could carry out for him at once. Bryan is a sentimental chap always. I wish, this time, he had been more explicit."
Nevertheless, Frank must have finally decided to accept his wife's point of view for, after another few moments, he walked over to a small safe which occupied a corner in his room and opened it. Then he took out the box in which he had placed Captain MacDonnell's letter and the next instant had broken the seal and was reading its contents.
Jack sat watching her husband's face, but offered no interruption.
She saw Frank first look surprised and then saw him flush and at last his expression hardened curiously. He then presented her with the letter.
"Read this, Jack. It is just as well that you should know what is in it. Bryan must have been considerably upset over his farewells and the thought of what might lie ahead of him, or he would never have made such a[134] request of us. He must have realized afterwards that the thing is impossible."
Jack read the letter, but there was nothing in it which seemed strange; certainly nothing impossible to her point of view. Bryan had simply requested that Frank allow her to come to him in case he was seriously injured. Bryan explained simply and boyishly that he had no women in his own family and that she was his closest woman friend. He had an absurd horror of dying with no woman near for whom he cared, or who cared for him.
"I don't see what you find impossible, Frank," Jack answered, placing the letter inside the envelope and quickly returning it. "I was only waiting until we heard more news to ask you to let me go to Bryan, even if he had not made this request of us."
Frank appeared distressed, but shook his head resolutely.
"I don't want to seem unkind, dear. In a way it is pretty hard to refuse what Bryan asks. Only he could not have appreciated just how much he was asking."
Jack brushed her hair back from her forehead with a puzzled gesture.
"I don't understand what you mean, Frank. Certainly neither of us can dream of[135] not agreeing. I know you will worry over the discomfort, perhaps even the danger of the trip to France for me. But hundreds of women have gone and are going every day to care for the soldiers who are entire strangers to them. Many times I have wanted to go myself before this, except for leaving you and my babies behind. But now I may only need to stay a little time."
"We won't discuss the matter any further please, Jack," Frank protested, speaking gently, but with a decision which Jack recognized as having a serious intention back of it.
Instantly she went to him and put her hands on his shoulders, looking directly into his blue eyes with her clear, wide grey ones.
"Tell me your reason please, Frank. This isn't like you. You can't mean to be so selfish—even so cruel."
Frank's eyes held his wife's, but he showed no sign, either of flinching or yielding.
"I am sorry to have to say this to you, dear. I wish you could have been willing to do what I asked, without demanding my reason. But I can't let my wife go to Bryan; I can't let people think you and he care this much for each other. People would talk—there would[136] be gossip. I am your husband and it is my place to safeguard you. You and Bryan never think of consequences—you are only impetuous children."
"So you mean—" Jack let her hands drop slowly from her husband's shoulders to her own sides, "you mean, that because of a little idle chatter—foolish, unkind gossip—oh, I know some of the neighbors have already talked of Bryan and me before this—you would keep me from the friend we both care so much for, at a time like this? I can't believe it of you, Frank."
"Then I am sorry to disappoint you, because I do mean it, Jack, dear. I suppose it does seem narrow and worldly to you, with your wider ideas of freedom and loyalty. But hard as this may be for us both, you must abide by my decision."
For another moment Jack remained silent, her face flooding first with color and then the color receding until she was curiously pale, so that the darkness of her lashes showed shadows on her white cheeks.
"I am sorry, Frank," she answered quietly, "but in this matter I can not accept your decision. I am a woman—not a child—and this is a matter for my conscience as well as[137] yours. Even if I am wrong, whatever consequences I must suffer from your failing ever to see this as I do, I must go to Bryan if he is still alive."
Then Jack went quickly into her own room again.
[138]
CHAPTER XI
A SURPRISE
DURING the night Frank decided that he would not argue with Jack again the question which was troubling them both, since it was too painful for discussion.
However, he did not sleep much, although not once did his conviction that he was doing the right thing waver. Frank had the belief in his own judgment which comes to certain people with authority. Also, he disliked to suggest to his wife any of the little, ugly, suspicious things of life, which he knew her fine, clean nature would not consider. But all the more for this reason did he believe that he should protect her, even against herself.Therefore, at breakfast the next morning, Frank made no reference to Jack's final defiance the night before. Not for an instant did he think that she had meant anything, except to have him appreciate how utterly her point of view and her inclination differed from his. This he accepted, realizing that he really[139] could not, under the circumstances, expect anything else. But that Jack would ignore his wish—even his expressed command—was beyond his comprehension. She had always been perfectly reasonable and amenable, and there was nothing to serve him as a warning.
"I'll let you know as soon as I hear from the war office," Frank remarked, as he left for London.
Jack simply nodded quietly in response without replying. As a matter of fact she, too, had made up her mind in the night not to reopen the subject upon which she and Frank were so completely at variance.
Perhaps Jack was wrong in this and in the whole proceeding which followed. Except to say that she had the right to use her own judgment—she never attempted to justify herself.
As soon as she had arranged her household matters and had seen her children, she went into her private sitting room and, by using her telephone for an hour or more, secured the information which she desired.
She was able to locate Captain MacDonnell and also to learn that he was still alive. Moreover, Frank telegraphed this same fact while she was still at the telephone.[140]
Then Jack sent word for Olive and Frieda to come to her bedroom, and when they arrived she carefully closed the door.
They found her packing a small bag.
"What is it, Jack? Are you going up to London to join Frank?" Frieda inquired, she and Olive having been told nothing of the contents of Captain MacDonnell's letter, nor that there was such a letter in existence.
Jack had taken off her morning dress and put on a light flannel wrapper of pale grey with a white collar, as she wished to proceed with her packing more readily.
At Frieda's question she shook her head quietly and sat down in a big chair for a moment, asking Olive and Frieda also to be seated.
"No; I am not going to Frank," she explained, "indeed, although I am forced to go up to London, I don't want him to know I am there, nor where he can find me for the next day or so. Afterwards I will, of course, write to him."
Seeing that Olive and Frieda were becoming more mystified than enlightened by her explanation, and that she was in reality talking more to herself than to them, Jack hesitated for a moment.[141]
"Perhaps you won't approve what I am planning to do any more than Frank does," Jack continued, "but Captain MacDonnell has written to ask that I come to him in France where he may be dying, and I am going. Frank has said I must not, but I am going anyway. I told him so last night, but I don't believe he understood I really meant what I said."
Jack spoke without any nervousness or sentimental excitement. She looked unhappy, but she also looked perfectly determined.
A little too surprised to answer at once, Frieda again studied her sister's face closely.
It was Olive who protested.
"I hope you won't be angry with me, Jack, and of course I cannot hope to influence you if Frank cannot; but I don't think you ought to do so serious a thing without Frank's consent. In any case, please don't go away without his knowing. You must know that this is not right and that Frank will probably be very hurt and angry."
Jack bit her lip for an instant without replying; then she said slowly, as if she fully weighed each word she uttered:
"Of course I realize you are right, Olive, and I am afraid Frank will be both the things[142] you say, and more than you may realize. I know, also, that I ought to see him again and tell him definitely just what I intend to do and why I intend doing it. But candidly, if I do, I fear that Frank will not permit it. He is not an American husband, and in any event there would be a scene between us. Frank would not understand at first that this time I intend to keep to my determination. We might quarrel and I don't wish that. It would make me even more unhappy and not save me in any way from Frank's displeasure."
"But, Jack, why do you think it is more important to do what Captain MacDonnell desires of you than what Frank wishes?" Frieda inquired, in the cool, matter of fact voice with which she usually, to other people's surprise, asked the leading question.
Jack did not change color. She returned her sister's look with her old clear, straightforward gaze.
"I am glad you asked me that, Frieda, dear," she responded, "because I don't want you or anybody else to think that is true. Nothing is so important to me as what Frank wishes, only this time I think he is making a great mistake, and is not being fair. Of course he does not intend this, and is[143] thinking of me more than of any one else, but at the same time this is not a matter which I think Frank can decide for me. His judgment may be right from his point of view, but it isn't from mine. I have to do what I think is the fair thing, with the hope that I may be able to persuade Frank to see it the same way later on."
Olive made no response, but it was self evident that Jack had not convinced her.
Frieda, however, got up in her fluffy morning house gown and making a soft little rush forward, threw her arms about her sister's neck.
"Go ahead, Jack, then, and no matter what happens I'll stand by you and swear you've done the right thing to the bitter end. You have been more right than other people as long as I've known you. I would not pay any attention to Olive. I told you that Olive was getting to be an old maid and that old maids always take the men's side. Only you are not being rash, Jack, are you, so you won't have to suffer uncomfortable consequences afterwards?" Frieda concluded with a slightly plaintive and mysterious manner.
"You'll look after my babies for me, won't you, Olive? And Frieda, won't you try and[144] get Frank into a good humor with me before I come back? I shall be gone only a few days; perhaps Bryan won't need me at all when I arrive. I am going up to London within two hours, but I'll get away from there as soon as I can and take the first channel boat possible. I must finish packing, but I'll see you again before I start."
As Jack's words and manner were both final, Olive and Frieda then left her. However, they did not separate but went together into Frieda's sitting-room.
There Frieda's expression grew as grave as Olive's.
"Somehow I wish Jack wouldn't. Maybe at the last moment she'll see Frank and change her mind," Frieda suggested, staring out at the winter landscape with her small nose pressed mournfully against the window pane like a discontented child. "I don't understand Frank's disposition very well. He is so different from Henry. Then he has changed a great deal. We never thought of his being autocratic when Jack married him, but he seems rather that way to me lately, though he is terribly nice and I am fond of him. I wouldn't be, though, if he was ever the least bit disagreeable to Jack.[145] She is much too good for him or any other man. Isn't it like her to go rushing off in this quixotic fashion, knowing that lots of people will misunderstand her, just because Captain MacDonnell would like to feel her presence beside him, if anything has to happen to him? Well, I suppose that is exactly what I felt when I rushed to her the moment I left Henry? Only if Frank decides to be horrid it would be unfortunate for us both to be having trouble with our husbands at the same time. I suppose people would say it was because we did not have the proper bringing up when we were children."
"Don't be absurd, Frieda," Olive answered irritably. "Of course, Frank and Jack are not going to have any serious difficulty. She and Frank are quite different—"
Frieda swung her pretty self around.
"Don't you ever get tired of saying that to me, Olive Van Mater? Of course Jack is different, but I don't see that Frank is entirely unlike other men. Oh, I know you'll be shocked and angry at this and so would Frank and Jack, if they ever heard; but just the same I think Frank Kent is a little bit jealous of Jack's friendship for Captain MacDonnell. He would rather die than confess it to himself.[146] I at least give him the credit for not knowing it, but it's true just the same."
"I think that is very horrid of you, Frieda."
Frieda shrugged her shoulders.
"Yes, I thought you would think so. Still, I do wish it was a whole week from today and Jack was safely home again. I am frightened about her taking such a trip alone; and as for my attempting to get my brother-in-law into a good humor after he learns that his august Highness has been disobeyed—well, the task is beyond my humble powers. In any case, Olive, you can break the news of Jack's departure to him."
But Jack spared both her sister and friend this ordeal. Instead, she wrote a very sweet letter to her husband, asking his pardon for what she was doing and confessing that she had no right not to have spoken of her intention to him again. But would he see that she must do what she believed to be right, and that Bryan might not be able to wait while they continued to argue the question?
She left the letter on Frank's bureau.
Not finding Jack in the library that evening, where she usually awaited his return home, Frank had gone directly upstairs, and when she was also not in her room, he entered his[147] apartment. The letter caught his attention at once, but even then Lord Kent had no faintest idea of what Jack's letter contained. He supposed she had gone out on some errand and had written to explain that she might be late.
When he had finished reading, he quietly tore her letter into small bits and flung the pieces upon the fire.
Afterwards, going downstairs to dinner, he said to Olive and Frieda.
"Jack has written me a note telling me that she has gone to France. You both probably know I did not wish her to go. Please let us not speak of this matter again."
And though there was really nothing in what Frank said, neither Olive nor Frieda liked his expression or manner.
[148]
CHAPTER XII
NO QUARTER
DURING the time of Jack's absence, Frank Kent passed through a strange state of mind, one which he did not himself understand. He was both angry and miserable. Resentment against another human being is always folly, since one suffers as much, if not more than the other person.
However, Frank did not answer a single one of Jack's letters, although she managed to write him several times, telling of her safe arrival, of the kindness which had been shown her along the way, and of Captain MacDonnell's recognition of her and his pleasure in finding an old friend near him. Jack also wrote that there was hope of his partial recovery, but that he would probably be unable to fight again. She would be able to tell more on her return home.Two weeks after the day of her departure, Jack came back to Kent House. She had telegraphed when she reached British soil so that her family knew when to expect her.[149] Frank was not at home when she arrived, so she saw her children and Olive and Frieda first. Then, after dressing for dinner, she went down into the library alone to wait for her husband.
Jack was very tired from the strain of her trip and from the sights she had witnessed in the past fourteen days. She felt as if she were entering a new world in coming back tonight to her home in the peaceful Kentish country. Whatever human beings might be suffering inwardly, there were at least no changes in the tranquillity of the blue hills and the gentle, mist-veiled English landscape.
It had required an effort for Jack to dress, but she did not know in what spirit Frank would meet her and did not wish to have him think she was too much exhausted by the experience which she had wilfully chosen for herself. She feared that Frank was still aggrieved, because of his not having written or sent her a message of any kind, and yet she rather hoped the reunion with her and the news she brought back would soften him.
Partly because of her fatigue, partly because it seemed impossible to wear gay clothes after those days and nights in the hospital, Jack had put on a black satin gown which she had[150] had some time. It was made simply as her evening clothes always were, but the black tulle which covered it was caught with jet ornaments on each shoulder and loosely belted in at the waist, falling in beautiful lines to her feet. At her belt Jack wore a golden rose which the old gardener had brought up to the house as a special offering. The rose had bloomed that morning in one of the greenhouses. Jack's hair was coiled closely about her small head, and she had less color than usual.
She was resting in one of the big library chairs with her eyes closed, when she heard her husband enter the hall, and after making some inquiry, move toward the library door.
At this she rose up at once and ran forward with her arms outstretched to meet him, her face glowing with happiness.
"Oh, Frank, I am so glad to be at home again. It has all been so distressing. Poor Bryan is going to get well, but I fear he will hate it when he does, for he may never walk again. He does not know this yet."
Frank turned his eyes so that he could not see Jack's beauty nor appreciate her warm sweetness so close beside him.
"I am horribly sorry for Bryan," he replied.[151] But he made no effort to kiss Jack or to express the least pleasure in her return. Instead, he walked away a few steps and began taking off his overcoat, which he had not removed before.
"You are still angry with me, Frank?" Jack queried, though the question was scarcely a necessary one. "You have not yet seen that I had the right to judge for myself in this thing about Bryan? After all, what possible wrong have I done? And I did give Bryan pleasure; he does not dream, of course, that I went to him without your consent."
Although Frank still remained silent, Jack's sweetness did not desert her. She followed after him, in spite of the fact that he had turned his back upon her.
"After all, Frank, even if you do continue to disapprove of me and to think I did wrong to disobey you, won't you make friends with me? Please say I'm forgiven?"
At this Jack smiled and stood with her hands clasped together against the soft, black folds of her dress.
In fact, she had not yet appreciated the extent of Frank's anger against her, nor the unbending quality of his nature. Though[152] they had been married a number of years, this was the first serious difficulty between them. Jack had too great an admiration for her husband, too deep a belief in him, to think that he could continue to sulk and to hurt her through a kind of stupid obstinacy.
And for a single instant Frank did hesitate, but the next he made up his mind that unless Jack was made to realize the extent of his displeasure she would probably never yield to him again. He honestly believed that he had the right to be the master in his own family.
"I presume, Jack, that you consider it a very simple matter for me to say I forgive you and to overlook your utter disregard of my wishes, and your deception in the matter. But I cannot see the thing in that light. You have not only wounded me, but you have made me ridiculous. To say I forgive you, or feel as I did before would not be the truth."
"Very well, Frank," Jack answered quietly and went out of the room.
A little later she came down to dinner, revealing no sign of what had taken place between herself and her husband and hoping that Frieda and Olive would not guess that[153] she was still unforgiven. Frank's manner was perfectly polite and they talked freely of Captain MacDonnell and of the tragedy of his recovering only to find his work as a soldier ended.
Afterwards, Jack excused herself early in the evening, because, of course, she had every reason to feel weary.
But even if Frieda and Olive did not grasp the situation at once, they could not continue to remain long in ignorance, for Jack and Frank did not return to their old intimacy and devotion.
But, as the days went on, this was, perhaps, as much Jack's fault as her husband's.
Never before had she ever made an overture to any human being who had not responded. Moreover, she could not tell Frank that she was sorry for what she had done, for she was not sorry, nor did she regret her own action. She was merely disillusioned concerning her husband.
Always Jack had said that she had more of the Indian in her than Olive ever had, in spite of Olive's upbringing. By this she meant that for one thing she could hide better the things that hurt her. Yet in a way she was difficult for anyone to approach[154] on an intimate subject at this time, certainly neither Olive nor Frieda made any mention that they saw her continuing trouble with Frank.
Unconsciously Jack held her head up before people unfailingly. No outsider would have guessed at any change. Only those who cared for her deeply realized how she was hurt by Frank's attitude.
Several times it occurred to Frank that perhaps he and Jack were making a mistake to allow their estrangement to go on too long. The next time his wife asked his pardon Lord Kent had concluded to forgive her.
Moreover, he and Frieda had an interview which annoyed and amused him, but which he did not forget then, or ever afterwards.
It was one Sunday afternoon in early March, an unexpected spring-like day, and he and Frieda were taking a motor ride together. They had only one small car on the estate, having sent the large one to be turned into an ambulance.
After their midday dinner Frank had found himself in need of diversion, Olive and Jack having explained that they were going to see a friend who was ill. And as a matter of fact Frieda diverted Frank from serious affairs[155] more than any other grown up person he knew and consequently he fell in readily with her suggestion for the ride. He had not the faintest idea that she was not in a friendly mood toward him, for Frieda had wisely concealed the fact, although in reality she was thoroughly enraged.
It seemed to her that Frank's treatment of Jack was almost unpardonable. It is true that she, perhaps, had rather an exaggerated opinion of her sister's virtues, but then Jack had been a kind of mother to her always. Although they quarreled a little now and then, as most sisters do, it was beyond Frieda's comprehension that anyone could believe Jack would wilfully do wrong, or be forced to suffer the consequences. Moreover, what Frieda still thought of as her own "misfortune" made her particularly "touchy" at present.
However, she and Frank started off cheerfully, Frank admiring an especially pretty bright blue motor coat and small close fitting blue silk hat, which Frieda had purchased in New York a few days before sailing. Nevertheless Frieda had already planned to have a talk with Frank before their return and only awaited the proper opportunity.
She was quiet at first, allowing her brother-in-law[156] to tell her stories about the country and his neighbors, stories in which she was really not much interested. But Frieda smiled and answered, "yes and no," at the proper times, and this was what Frank really wished. Most men would rather talk intimately to women than to other men and Frank had missed his long hours of conversation with Jack more than he appreciated.
Yet Frieda's inattention finally forced itself upon his notice, so that her brother-in-law turned and smiled at her.
"What are you thinking about, Frieda? Certainly not of what I just said to you."
Frieda turned her large blue eyes with their heavy golden lashes half veiling them toward her companion.
"Still I was thinking of you, Frank," she answered, smiling, "and that is the attention men like best, isn't it?"
Lord Kent laughed. "Perhaps as a matter of vanity, yes, Frieda? But of course a good deal depends upon what one is thinking. What were you thinking of me?"
"Oh, only how unlike you and Henry are," she replied sweetly.
However, Frank understood something of her hidden meaning, for he flushed.[157]
"Well, considering the fact that you didn't find it possible to continue to live with 'Henry,' I suppose I ought to be flattered. Only as a matter of fact, Frieda, I admire Professor Russell very much."
This time Frieda flushed, realizing that Frank had scored.
"Yet even though that is true, Frank, Henry never took the tone with me of insisting that he was always right and I was always in the wrong. Do you know, Frank, I am beginning to think—oh well, Henry was never so horrid to me as you are to Jack. He isn't a bit of a bully."
"So you think I am 'horrid' to Jack and a bully besides, do you, Frieda?" Frank returned grimly. He was angry, but not as angry as he felt he had the right to be. Somehow he could not manage to get into a violent state of mind with his youthful sister-in-law.
Frieda nodded energetically in response, without appearing the least bit frightened.
"Of course you are going to think I am interfering, Frank, and no one ever pays any real attention to what I say, but I just thought I'd tell you anyhow. You are making a big mistake. Of course I realize that you are not so silly as not to appreciate Jack, but I don't[158] believe you have ever thought what it might mean to lose her. You see she isn't like most women, she really does not know how to quarrel for any length of time. But when she was hurt or seriously angry as a girl she used to keep still for a long time not saying a word. Then she used to do something unexpected." Frieda's voice shook a little with stronger feeling than she often showed.
"I've been afraid lately that Jack might do something queer now, something no one of us dreams she would think of doing. She is so very unhappy. You remember, Frank, don't you, what a long time it took you to win Jack? I wonder if it might not take you even longer to win her back again!"
Frank stiffened. "I cannot discuss my relations with Jack, even with you, Frieda. That is a matter between us alone."
Frieda nodded pensively.
"Certainly I appreciate your point of view, Frank, from my own sad experience."
[159]
CHAPTER XIII
THE BREAK
BUT Frank did give careful consideration to what Frieda had said to him. Her words came as a kind of revelation. Suddenly he began to appreciate what it would mean to lose Jack, though of course there was no possibility of such a thing. She was one of the most loyal persons in the world and they had only had a difference of opinion.
Yet Frank decided that it would be best to let bygones be bygones and to mention the fact to Jack at the first possible opportunity.But somehow he seemed to have to wait for the opportunity to arrive; certainly his wife did nothing to help him.
One night, coming home at the usual hour, Frank discovered that Jack was not there. She had gone out a little before lunch on some errand, as Olive and Frieda supposed, but leaving no word except that they were not to wait luncheon for her.
Frieda and Olive, Frank found, were both a[160] little uneasy. He laughed at the idea. Jack had a great many things to attend to in the neighborhood and knew everybody, while everybody knew her.
Afterwards, he went upstairs to the nursery and stayed half an hour watching Vive and Jimmie being put to bed. When he came down to the library to read, twilight was falling. But instead of reading Frank found himself turning over the pages of the magazines, gazing at them, and not knowing a word of their contents.
In a few moments it would be dinner time.
He got up and walked nervously up and down the room.
If Jack did not come in by dinner or send a message what would it be wise to do?
A few moments later he telephoned two or three places where he thought Jack might have remained later than she realized. But she had not been at any one of the houses during the day, and naturally Frank did not wish to ask too many questions, since she might return home at any moment. It would then appear absurd to have started false rumors, or to have created anxiety among their friends.
When the butler came in to announce dinner,[161] Lord Kent explained that Lady Kent was not yet at home and that dinner be kept waiting for another half an hour.
Soon after Frieda joined him.
"I know I am silly, Frank," she confessed, "but I am worried. If Jack had gone out on horseback, one might understand that she could have gotten some distance away. But she did not ride, she walked, and could not have continued walking since before noon."
"You are an infant, Frieda," Frank remarked. "Of course Jack has been paying visits and has stayed too long. But perhaps I had best go and look for her, unless she has found a friend to act as an escort it is too late for her to be out alone."
"But where are you going to look?" Frieda questioned. And either her brother-in-law did not hear her, or preferred to pretend he did not, since he made no reply.
The fact of the matter was he had no plan. He thought it was rather absurd for him to look at all, but had suddenly been overtaken with a sense of uneasiness, a strange foreboding of disaster. We all yield to these sensations now and then, but as they were not usual with Lord Kent he was the more uncomfortable.[162]
He could not even decide whether it would be wiser for him to ride or to walk, but concluded he had best ride, in order to cover a greater distance in a shorter time.
He searched very carefully for Jack down the long road which divided the estate. And naturally he remembered the other evening, not so very many months ago, when he had ridden down this same avenue peering through the rain for her and Captain MacDonnell. Then he had discovered both of them with but little difficulty.
Tonight Frank wished that he felt sure Jack had someone with her to take care of her, as she had on that other evening. He would not then have felt so ridiculously worried.
"Poor Bryan, one did not like to allow oneself to think of him too often these days, yet he must be brought back home as soon as possible," Frank thought. Some time ago he had decided that when the time came he would himself go for Bryan. Perhaps this would be partly an act of expiation, although Lord Kent had not said this to himself, or to his wife.
This evening he rode directly into the village, but although it was only a little after[163] eight o'clock, Granchester had long practiced the daylight saving habit, not because of the war, but because of a fixed habit of early sleep and early rising. There were only two or three scattered lights in the little stone houses and only a few old men outdoors talking together in front of a closed public house.
Nevertheless Frank rode up to the home of Frieda's old friend and dismounted, for he had known Mrs. Huggins many long years. She was accepted by everybody as a kind of unprinted village newspaper. If Jack had been in Granchester during the afternoon, Mrs. Huggins would know just where she had been and what she had done.
The old woman's light was out, but a moment after his knocking she opened her door. In her hand she held a lamp and her old eyes shone through the half darkness.
She was probably excited by the idea that someone had come to confide a piece of news to her.
However, she had heard nothing of Lady Kent's having been in the village during the day, and was in fact sure she had not been there.
When Lord Kent went away, however,[164] she still seemed to think he had brought her news.
"There is trouble in the big house, also," she said to herself, wagging her old head. "Funny how when trouble of one kind gets loosed in the world, so many other kinds follow it." Even after she had gone back to bed she still kept thinking of Kent House.
Later, just before he was leaving Granchester, Frank telephoned to his home.
Frieda came to the telephone to say that no word had yet come from her sister.
Nevertheless Lord Kent could not make up his mind to ask for aid in his search. He had a curious antipathy toward it, as if Jack herself would not like this, as if in some way it might lead to a revelation they would not wish others to share.
This was what made all his efforts so difficult. For each added moment he was becoming more and more worried, and yet having to pretend that Jack's failure to return home, her failure to send any word of her whereabouts, was the most casual thing in the world.
There were several places belonging to friends and not far from the village. Lord Kent stopped by at each place for a few[165] moments, as if he were making an ordinary visit, but of course to find out if Jack had called during the day. Apparently no one of her friends had seen her.
At Captain MacDonnell's home, Frank inquired for the housekeeper. Mrs. Naxie was still in charge and she and Frank were old friends. She had been with Captain MacDonnell's uncle years before when he and Bryan were both little boys.
Lord Kent was not ashamed to reveal his anxiety to Mrs. Naxie, and she at least had a little information for him, the first he had secured.
"Yes, Lady Kent had stopped by a little before tea time and had seemed tired. She explained that she had eaten no lunch, but enjoyed her tea, and then started away again. Mrs. Naxie was under the impression she intended going directly home.
"There was nothing more for him to do but to go home also," Frank then concluded. If Jack had not returned and nothing was known of her, he must throw away his scruples and ask for help.
It was now fully night and the sky filled with high, sweet stars.
Although he yearned to be at home at once,[166] still Frank searched all the roads, stared behind the tall hedges, and now and then in the darkness called his wife's name. Nevertheless he continued to assure himself that he was behaving like a fool and there was no real reason for him to feel so alarmed. He had always been ridiculously nervous about Jack and always before now she had laughed at him.
It was not until he had almost reached the beginning of his own land that Frank was finally honest with himself. He had fought against confessing the fact that he was to blame every moment since he first began to grow uneasy about Jack. Had they been good friends these past few weeks he knew he would not have been half so miserable. Whether he had been right or wrong, he had realized that Jack had been anxious to make peace and he had repulsed her. He would wait for no comfortable opportunity now, as soon as he found his wife, they must be reconciled.
Near the edge of Kent Park, where the land dipped, there was a small stream, deep in some places, and yet hardly to be dignified by the title of river.
Yielding to an impulse Frank got off his[167] horse here and walked slowly along the bank. The stream was so narrow he could see almost equally well on the farther side.
The trees and underbrush made shadows on the surface where the water was deepest.
Suddenly Frank thought he saw one of the slender, young birches move a step toward him. The next he heard Jack's voice say:
"Frank, is that you?"
Then she came slowly toward him.
The strange fact was that she did not appear surprised, nor did she begin by offering any explanation of her own strange behavior, nor why she should be found at such an hour in such a place.
"Sit down for a little while will you please, Frank? The ground is not particularly damp in some places, I have been sitting here a long time."
Frank made no reply except to do what she liked. He knew that something had happened which was of tremendous seriousness to Jack. If that were true, then whatever it was, was equally so to him.
"You are not ill, are you, dear?" he inquired, after he had let go his bridle and taken a seat beside his wife. His horse would only wander about near by.[168]
Jack shook her head.
"I was dizzy and very tired a little while ago, I don't know just how long. I sat down here to rest and fell asleep for a time. I am quite all right now." And indeed Jack was now speaking in a natural voice. One must remember it was not so unusual for her, as it would be with most other girls and women, to take her problems outdoors when she wished to solve them.
"There is something I want to say to you, Frank. I have been making up my mind to speak of it for some time. This afternoon I knew I had to decide. I went off for a long walk and now I have decided."
Jack was sitting very still a few feet away from her husband. He now moved over and put his arm about her, but though she made no movement to resent it, she showed no sign of pleasure or of yielding.
"I want to go home, Frank?" she continued.
And for an instant believing she meant Kent House, Frank started to rise. The next he understood his mistake.
"I mean I want to go back to the Rainbow ranch to see Jim and Ruth and Jean, but Jim most of all," she added, this time with a little break in her usually steady voice.[169]
"Please don't answer, Frank, until I have explained to you a little better. I know it seems horrid to leave you alone and to take the babies away, when you are so worn out with your work and so sad over all the wretched tragedy of the war. You will miss the babies, even if you will not particularly miss me. Still I'll have to go, Frank. I can't live on with you not forgiving, not caring for me any more. I won't stay long unless you wish it and I'll come back whenever you send for me. But I must go; it has seemed to me lately as if I could not breathe."
Jack turned her face directly to her husband, and although it was too dark to see it distinctly, he could catch the dim outline.
"You see until lately I never dreamed that when things came to a crisis, to a question of right, to a question of my judgment, or my conscience, you would not be willing to let me do as I decided and thought best. I knew you liked me to follow your way in little things and I never minded most times. Often I was glad to do as you wished and when I didn't agree to your way, I never considered the fact seriously one way or the other. But lately I have seen that if we go on living together, I have got to be a coward, a kind of[170] traitor to myself by always appearing to agree with you, or else live with you and have you angry and dissatisfied with me. I cannot bear either. Marriage does not mean that to me, Frank. I have to get away for a little while to see if I can find out what I should do."
There was no sign of anger in Jack's manner, if she had been feeling angry lately, and of course she had being perfectly human, her anger had disappeared tonight during the long hours she had been thinking things out alone.
Sitting beside his wife, suddenly as she finished speaking Frank recalled something Frieda had lately said to him. Perhaps Frieda had more brains than her family and friends realized. However, what she had said was that whenever she was angry or wounded, her sister Jack was apt to go off to herself and then do something unexpected.
Surely his wife's request tonight was wholly unexpected.
But Frank only answered, not revealing what he felt, nor what he intended.
"I think this is a pretty severe punishment, Jack, if you think I am unfair. But you must let me take you home to Kent House now; Olive and Frieda are both dreadfully worried to know what has become of you."
[171]
CHAPTER XIV
PROFESSOR AND PROFESSORESS
WHEN it was finally decided that Jack was to go home to the Rainbow ranch with her babies and Olive and Frieda for a visit, Frieda strenuously objected. No reason was given her by her sister except the ordinary one, that Jack wished to get away from the sad atmosphere of a country at war and also to see her family.
"Certainly you don't show much consideration for Frank," Frieda protested when she first heard the news. "It seems to me that England is his country and he has a good deal more work to do and goes through a lot more than you do, Jacqueline Ralston. I never could make up my mind to leave my husband under such circumstances."Then although Jack flinched, she did not make the reply she might so obviously have made.
However, Frieda went on just as if she had.
"I know what you are thinking of, but it was quite different with Henry and me. He[172] did not need me, he thought I was a butterfly and my wishing to go out and dance and do exciting things disturbed his work. He didn't allow me to go with other people because he thought it was his duty to look after me. He said so, said I was too young to be expected to take care of myself. He wasn't a bit jealous like Frank, I shouldn't have minded a jealous husband. If I said he was jealous, I was only pretending because I wanted to seem interesting."
"Frank jealous?" Jack laughed. "You are too silly, Frieda."
Nevertheless Frieda tossed her yellow head, but also flushed a little, having said more than she intended. If Frank did not know he was jealous of Captain MacDonnell and Jack was also unaware how much this had unconsciously influenced his decision concerning his friend's request, it was not her place to tell them.
"Just the same you'll be sorry and ashamed of yourself some day, Jack Ralston. You need not pretend anything to me, I understand the present situation perfectly. Frank was rather horrid to you and he ought not to be allowed to be a bully, but you could really twist him around your finger if you tried. You[173] can now at any rate because he adores you. And Frank is pretty nice you know, most women would be glad to have him. After all he has a title and money, and men are going to be scarce when this war is over."
"Frieda!" Jack exclaimed in such a tone of disgust that Frieda departed hastily, if still gracefully, out of her sister's room.
However she stopped at the door.
"You know it will look perfectly absurd for us both to go back home without husbands," Frieda tossed out. "I didn't mind half so much when Frank was around and there was at least one man in our family. But of course it looks now as if we had something the matter with us, horrid dispositions, so that no man could make up his mind to live with us."
This time Jack betrayed herself a little more by showing anger.
"You have no right to assume I am behaving as you did, Frieda, because I want to go to the old ranch for a time. Frank has given me his consent, I've no idea of running away."
Then, as Frieda burst into tears at the allusion, Jack had to draw her small sister back into her room from the doorway, and[174] do what she could to apologize and console her.
She felt rather a hypocrite, too, because after all Frieda was not so far wrong in some of her suppositions, and she had had no right to pretend to superiority.
There was at this time no danger to passenger vessels through submarines, so that it was arranged for the travelers to leave for the United States early in April that they might spend the spring at the Rainbow Ranch.
Olive was anxious to go. She had not intended remaining in England so long, and wished to take up some course of study at home, to return later when she might make herself more useful.
Jack was torn between her desire to make a visit to her own home, to get away for a breath of freedom and the chance to decide what she ought to do in the future when Frank opposed her right to decide important issues for herself and the thought that, perhaps, Frieda was right and that she was not playing fair in leaving her husband at so trying a time. But Frank had not opposed her going, had really said he thought it might be a good thing, and she did not know whether he meant this from her standpoint or from his own.[175] It might be that Frank also would enjoy a certain relief from the presence of a wife who would not trust his judgment. Certainly Frank's affection had never seemed the same since that time. He had been wonderfully good in agreeing to her new wish, but there were moments when, womanlike, Jack wondered if she would not have liked it better had he shown more opposition.
So there was only Frieda who unqualifiedly stormed against leaving. Of course she put it all on disapproving of her sister's action, but naturally her family wondered if the fact that Frieda wished to be near her husband, whom she believed to be fighting in France could have anything to do with her point of view. However, no one dared to make this suggestion to her. It would have done no good in any case since she would probably have promptly denied it.
However, Frieda would not remain in England without her sister and Jack was unwilling that she should. Nevertheless, insisting on maintaining the attitude of an aggrieved character, Frieda separated herself from her own family whenever she could.
Twice a week for instance she went into Granchester to tea with Mrs. Huggins.[176] Frieda had a private reason for this. One day she had overlooked the fact that her own "Dame Quick" had not been her nurse or foster mother and had confided to the old woman some of the things which were troubling her. She did not want advice, what she wanted was to say those things aloud which she had been saying to herself, and she knew her old friend would simply listen and be kind to her. One might think she would have feared that the old woman, with her passion for spreading news, would have gossiped about her, but Frieda knew better than this.
One afternoon, about ten days before their sailing time, Frieda started off alone to walk to Granchester. She was earlier than need be since Olive had asked her a question which had offended her and she had been irritable. She thought she had caught the suggestion of a lecture in her sister's expression and so had hurried off before Jack had a chance to speak.
Frieda recognized the fact that she was a little difficult to live with these days. But then she excused herself by saying that no one knew how worried and nervous she was. There were times when Frieda was afraid she might be losing her prettiness through worry, until her mirror reassured her. For[177] Frieda understood her own appearance, just as she understood a great many things. She knew that Jack had developed into a beauty from a merely handsome girlhood and that she was only pretty. But she also realized that prettiness often makes more appeal, especially to men, than a higher type of loveliness. Therefore, Frieda had no idea of not preserving her own charms as long as she possibly could.
She walked slowly so as not to arrive too early and because she was enjoying the country more than she usually did. The quietness of the English landscape, its look of a carefully kept garden, appealed to Frieda more than the vastness of her own windswept western prairies. It was one of the many odd ironies of fate that Jack, who loved the prairies must live in England, while until lately Frieda's life had been cast at least on the edge of the western country.
The old English laborers passing back and forth from their ploughing of the spring fields were almost the only persons she met.
When Frieda reached the little house at the edge of the village, of which Mrs. Huggins had once told her some story, she stopped for a moment without any particular motive.[178]
She did not remember exactly what the story was, if she had ever known. But the little house rather interested her. For one thing she had noticed every time she passed, at no matter what hour, the blinds were always drawn halfway down.
The house was set in the middle of a small yard and had a little, low ivy covered stone fence surrounding it and a wooden gate. However, the front of the house was only a few yards from the street so that one could see it distinctly.
Frieda was not standing still, but was loitering a few feet from the gate, gazing absently toward the lower windows.
Then suddenly and certainly unexpectedly she heard a strange noise, a kind of muffled roar. Then an explosion burst forth so that several panes of window glass broke and puffs of smoke blew out.
For an instant there appeared back of the window, and surrounded by the smoke like a cherubim among clouds, a face which Frieda did not really believe she saw. Yet of course she knew she did see it, or else was suddenly mad or dreaming.
As a matter of fact she had the sensation that she was taking part in a ridiculous and[179] improbable detective story, of the kind one reads in the weekly magazines.
Yet without hesitating, or feeling the proper amount of uncertainty, or fear, Frieda jerked open the little wooden gate and rushed up the path to the front door of the house.
There at least she did stop to give the bell a fierce pull, but she might have rushed in had she supposed the door unlocked.
However, the next second a little white faced maid appeared at the door, and Frieda simply swept by her. The door of the room, where she had seen the apparition, was on the left side of the hall and without knocking she opened this. Just how Frieda would have explained her own behavior had she made a mistake did not trouble her.
But she had not made a mistake. There standing in the centre of the room and still somewhat surrounded by smoke and with the blood coming from an injury to his hand, stood the person whose face Frieda believed she had seen through the broken window. No, she did not really believe she had seen it, though of course she knew she had.
"Are you a deserter, Henry, hiding from justice?" Frieda demanded scathingly, and still following the example of the method[180] employed in detective stories, since her experience was so exactly of the same kind.
I Assure You I Have Official Permission"I was slightly wounded soon after my arrival at the front. But I also found that my scientific knowledge could be of more service than my abilities as a soldier. So I came back to England and have been experimenting with gas bombs with that in mind. I assure you I have official permission."
"Then why have you been hiding and why did you come down here?"
Professor Russell looked at Frieda and smiled slowly.
"You are the answer to both those questions, Frieda."
Unexpectedly Frieda's blue eyes filled with tears.
"I don't see how you can say that, Henry, when you have never even tried to see me, or to let me know what had become of you. You knew I was suffering horribly for fear you might be hurt or dead or something and you wouldn't write me."
Professor Russell's lips twitched at the thought of his being blamed for not writing[181] after the worst had happened to him. But he made no other sign.
"You are mistaken, I have seen you, my dear, many a time when you have passed this window and at least I have had the satisfaction of realizing you were well and happy."
"But I am neither," Frieda protested. "Besides I don't understand how you knew, unless, unless—do you mean Frank and Jack were both aware that you were here and never told me? They preferred I should suffer. I shall never forgive either of them, never." And Frieda drew herself up, very stately and very injured. But in truth her lips were trembling.
"You are not to blame your sister or brother, Frieda," Professor Russell interrupted. "They have simply done what I asked, what I required of them. You came over to England to be rid of my presence. I had neither the desire nor the right to thrust myself upon you."
"Then I don't see why you didn't go and live somewhere else," Frieda remarked petulantly. But at the same instant she sank down into a chair.
"I do wish, Henry, you would give me some tea. You seem to have an extraordinary[182] looking little girl to look after you. And I feel very much overcome from the shock of hearing an explosion outside a strange house and then seeing your face floating in space on the inside. Moreover, if you are so extraordinarily scientific I should think you would know enough to go and wash that gas bomb out of your hand."
This time Professor Russell openly laughed.
"It is scarcely a gas bomb inside my hand, Frieda. One of the chemicals simply went slightly wrong."
But Frieda had closed her eyes and dropped her head back and really looked so pale that her husband hurried out after his small maid and the tea things.
The moment he had disappeared however she opened her eyes again.
"I am going to take Henry Russell back to the United States with me in ten days," she remarked aloud, but in a very small whisper. "I don't know how I am going to manage him or the British Government, but I am going to, somehow. I thought I was bored with Henry and I was and I'll probably be again. But I suppose all women are bored with the men they live with sometimes. Anyhow, I had to think I had lost Henry to know I wanted to[183] keep him. He does get a little upset now and then when I want my own way all the time, but really under the same circumstances I don't suppose any other man would be half so nice to me as Henry is. Besides, oh well, I believe I'm pretty fond of him."
When Professor Russell returned, Frieda again managed to have her eyes closed and she really was upset by the events of the past few moments, as was to be expected.
Therefore she seemed very languid while Professor Russell and his little maid set out the tea things. She did offer faintly to help, observing that her husband had full use of only one hand. But as it was his left hand and he insisted on getting along alone, she permitted it, even to the actually pouring and handing her of the first cup of tea.
Later he took a seat in a chair opposite her.
The unfortunate thing with Frieda was that she seldom could control her appetite, had never been able to since her chocolate drop days. So she concluded she had best begin her plan of procedure early.
"I don't see how Jack and Frank could have told you I was well, Henry," she said plaintively. "I don't suppose you have noticed but I have lost a good many pounds."[184]
As a matter of fact Frieda had lost several pounds, although she was still reasonably rounded.
"No, I had not noticed before, but I observe you have," the Professor returned. "I trust there is nothing serious the matter. What is the doctor's opinion?"
Frieda shook her head. "I have not seen a doctor. Really, I have not spoken of this to any one before, Henry. But do you know I think, perhaps, I have not been well for a good many months, even before I left Chicago. Maybe that is what made me cross sometimes, Henry. Maybe that's why I ran away without telling you I was going. I really think I ought to have talked the matter over with you, Henry. You would have been quite willing for me to make Jack a visit wouldn't you, Henry, just as Frank is allowing Jack to go home to the ranch?"
Frieda's hand holding the tea cup shook a little.
"But I didn't know this was a visit, Frieda. I thought you had gone away for good. Indeed, I am under the impression that you said you never wished to see me again."
Frieda shook her head.
"I never could have really said that,[185] Henry, or if I did, you were silly to think I meant it. I often say lots of things I don't mean. And I have wanted to see you lots lately."
Professor Russell took Frieda's cup away and laid firm hold on both her hands.
"Look at me, Frieda," he ordered quietly, "and don't answer me until you have thought carefully about what you wish to reply. You have been a child a long time, Frieda, but my dear, you have to grow up. All of us must sooner or later. I am a good deal older than you and not only that but I care for a lot of things which seem dull and uninteresting to you. So do you care for things which do not seem vital to me. But I'm willing to confess I'm an old fogy and sometimes I believe, Frieda dear, I did you a great wrong when I married you at such a youthful age. I want you to know, my dear, that I want to do whatever is best for your happiness. I am willing to go out of your life, to relieve you of me altogether if in any way it can be managed without reflection upon you."
"Then you mean you don't love me any more, Henry, you can't forgive me for what I did," Frieda gasped, turning really honestly pale this time. Professor Russell shook his head.[186]
"I don't mean any such thing, Frieda child. Moreover, you know perfectly well that I don't and that it is exceedingly reprehensible for you to go on flirting in this way with your own husband unless you also care for him."
Frieda sighed with satisfaction and lifted up her face to her husband, plainly suggesting by her expression what she expected him to do.
The moment after, she said, with that funny look of gravity which no one ever paid any special attention to from her.
"Do you know, Henry, if you say things like that to me oftener, I feel sure I will care for you more. But please get your hat and come with me now, I want to introduce you to a very dear, old friend of mine in Granchester. Afterwards, if your hand does not hurt, you must go up to Kent House with me to dinner. I intend to let Jack and Frank know that I can manage my own affairs and do not in the future intend to be kept in the dark as if I were a silly child."
The Professor obeyed orders.
[187]
CHAPTER XV
THE OLD RANCH
IT was a wonderful May day when Frieda and her Professor, Jack and her two babies and nurse, and Olive arrived at the Rainbow Ranch.
Jim and Ruth Colter and Jean Merritt, who was their own Jean Bruce, of the old Ranch Girl days, drove down to the same funny little frame station to meet them. But beside the automobile they brought a great wagon, which Jim drove himself, in order that they might take up to the house as many trunks and as many people as could not be stored away in the car.Jack insisted on returning home alongside Jim, seated on the driver's seat, her feet still not quite touching the floor.
She had put her babies in the automobile, with Ruth and Jean, so that they might make each others' acquaintance. Moreover, she had a sentiment in wishing to reach the old ranch with Jim as her companion. No matter what had happened to her, no matter[188] what should happen in the future, Jim, who was her first friend, the manager of the old ranch, and her own and Frieda's guardian, would remain her best friend to the end of the chapter.
She knew, too, that Olive cherished many happy memories, while Frieda was beatific these days in the company of her Professor.
Jack felt a singing in her heart and in her ears as she saw the wide meadows now blossoming with purple clover and heard the western larks rising high over the land, dipping toward it again, then soaring higher up, as if they threw aside the call of the earth for the loftier one of the air.
Jim and Ruth with their children, and Jean and Ralph Merritt and their little girl, when they were at the ranch, lived in the great house which the Ranch girls had built after coming into their fortune through the discovery of the mine on their place. But the old Rainbow Lodge, where they had all lived as little girls when it was rather hard to make expenses in the dry seasons in Wyoming, had never been torn down. Indeed, as a special request from Jack it had been kept in perfect repair and still remained simply and comfortably furnished.
Whenever there were too many guests at[189] the big house, some of them were sent down here, and more often, when he could bear the ways of high society no longer, Jim escaped to the old lodge for a quiet smoke and perhaps an hour to himself. Now and then Ruth, his wife, would come to join him, and they would talk of the early days at the ranch and their first meeting, when Ruth was a prim New England schoolmarm.
So, as a favor, Jack had asked that the old Lodge be given over to her use while she was at home. She and the babies would come up to the big house for their meals, except at night when the babies could be better taken care of at the Lodge. This would give all the more room for the others.
So, as Ruth, Jim and Jean, realized that Jack sincerely wished this arrangement, they had agreed with her desire. Jack had married so soon after the building of the house, which Frieda had named "The Rainbow Castle," that she had never learned to feel any particular affection for it. So in coming home she wished to return to the house she had loved and remembered.
On either side of the old Lodge, Frieda's violet beds were still carefully tended and today were a mass of bloom.[190]
Olive and Frieda and the Professor insisted on getting out first at the Lodge with Jack and Jim. When they entered the old living room it was so like the one they recalled that the three women, who were girls no longer, felt a sudden catching of their breath.
But of course Jim and Jean had arranged the old room to look as much like it formerly did as possible. They had the Indian rugs on the floor, the old shelves of books, with just the books the Ranch girls had owned long before, the great open fireplace and the tall brass candlesticks on the mantel.
Then before leaving for the station Jean had filled the room with bunches of violets, as Frieda had once been accustomed to do.
"It is still just the loveliest, homiest place in the world!" Frieda exclaimed.
Jack did not feel that she could speak for the first minute, and the next Jean had come running in carrying Vive in her arms and with Jimmie beside her. They were followed by Jean's own little daughter, Jacqueline, and by two other little girls, who belonged to Jim and Ruth and another Jimmie, who was somewhere between the biggest and the littlest Jim.
Then there was, of course, the immense confusion[191] of the arrival and the settling of so large a number of guests. Besides there were so many children to be looked after who always must be considered first.
That evening there was a dinner at the big house, at which everybody talked a great deal, asked a great many questions and answered them. But in reality they were all too tired and excited to get much satisfaction from one another.
Afterwards, although Jim and Jack walked home alone to the Lodge, they did not try to say a great deal to each other. Only at parting Jim said, "Have a cup of coffee in the morning early, Jack. I have promised Ruth not to take you too far, but I've a new horse for you to try and I want you to have the first ride over the ranch with me, while the others are still asleep. You and I are the only ones who have ever really loved the dawn out here in God's country. Ruth has left some riding togs for you somewhere in your room."
Waking before six o'clock next morning, Jack was lying in bed breathing deeply of the sweet clover-scented air, when she heard a never to be forgotten whistle outside her window.
She stuck her head out.[192]
"I'll be down in ten minutes, Jim. Is that the horse for me? Isn't he a beauty? But hitch yours and mine somewhere outside and open the Lodge door, I didn't lock it last night, and come in and start my coffee. I just opened my eyes this minute."
Ten minutes later, as she had said, Jack slid quietly downstairs so as not to arouse her children. She smelt the delicious aroma of the coffee in the old Lodge kitchen, once presided over by old Aunt Ellen, who had died a few years before. She also discovered Jim helping himself to the first cup when she appeared. But instead he gave it to her, got another for himself and handed her a napkin filled with sandwiches which Ruth had provided. Then they drank and munched as silently and contentedly as they always had in each other's company during many years and various experiences.
But they had both stepped out on the big front porch of the Lodge, when Jim suddenly swung round and put his hands on Jack's slender shoulders.
He had seen something in her face which the others had not, perhaps because he had always cared for her most.
"Ain't anybody been doin' anything to[193] you, you don't like, Boss?" Jim demanded, purposely breaking into the old careless speech he had used before Ruth's coming to Rainbow Ranch to educate them all, and Jim more than any one. "Because if anyone has, you know you can always count on your old pardner."
But Jack only laughed and shook her head rubbing it against his sleeve, as a young colt does. This had been one of the things she used to do as a girl, half as an expression of affection and half to conceal her embarrassment.
Then Jack ran out to where her horse was waiting. She had on a khaki riding costume, a new one, but except for that, pretty much of the same kind that she had been accustomed to wearing as Jacqueline Ralston.
She was now looking over the horse critically.
"He is one of the most perfect creatures I ever saw, Jim. I don't care what other people say, I like our fine western horses better than any others in the world."
"Try him, Jack," and Jim lifted her lightly up.
The next instant she had gone down the avenue like a streak of light, whirled and come back again.[194]
"His movement seems perfect, too, but I'll have to give him more of a test before I can decide."
She then started off again with Jim Colter beside her.
"If you like him, Jack, the horse is a present from me. I got him and had him broken for you. I don't ever want anyone else to use him."
Jack's face flushed. "Jim, there never was anybody so good to me as you have always been, and no one who has ever understood me so well. I don't mean that there is much to understand, but what there is I know you believe the best of."
"Well, I don't expect there is anybody who began to know you as soon as I did, Jack," Jim Colter answered, realizing again that there was something behind Jack's words which she did not exactly wish to confide in him.
It was all very well for the rest of the family to say Jack didn't look a day older. She was better looking than she used to be, if that was what they were talking about, and her figure looked very slim and sweet and girlish, as she rode there beside him, as gracefully and as much at ease as ever. But Jack's expression was different, there were shadows under her[195] eyes, no matter how her lips were smiling. Jim remembered that even if he had liked Frank Kent, he never had thought much of Englishmen as husbands for American girls.
But he said nothing more on the subject to Jack, only pointing out objects in the familiar, old landscape which they both loved, and realizing that if Jack had anything to tell him she would do so of her own accord later on.
They were late to breakfast, of course, so they found that all the others, having finished, were out on the lawn waiting.
"I suppose Jim tried to show you every horse and every cow on the ranch, Jack," Ruth began. "I hope you are not worn out, child. I told him to allow you one night's rest."
Ruth Colter was growing very matronly these days with her husband and son and two daughters to look after. She and Jim were to have two other daughters, to repeat as they always said, another group of four new Ranch Girls. But as yet only two had put in their appearance.
"Yes, and after she has had breakfast I want to take Jack and everybody down to the Rainbow Mine. I always feel it belongs[196] more to Ralph, and to me than to the others. Oh, simply because my husband was its first engineer."
Jean's eyes were as brown and velvety as ever and she wore that little expression of pride and self satisfaction that comes into the faces of so many women who are married to successful men. It is as if they shared the pride and glory of the success, without any of the effort or necessary disappointment.
"Remember, Henry, when you and Ralph were more or less blown up going down the shaft of the old mine. It was after that, Frieda adopted you."
The Professor nodded. "I had my legs broken didn't I, so I couldn't get away? Well, Frieda always prefers her victims helpless."
Frieda tossed her head and walked away as she always had done when any member of her family teased her.
Later in the day all the family and half a dozen visitors did go down to the old mine, which was still yielding a fair amount of gold, but not half so much as in the old days. Afterwards, lunch was served in the neighborhood of Rainbow creek and most of the day was spent outdoors.[197]
Toward the close of the afternoon, however, everybody else wandered away leaving the four one time Ranch Girls together.
They were sitting in the afternoon sunshine on a patch of grass not far from the neighborhood of the creek.
Jack was lying down with her head resting in Olive's lap, Frieda was close to Jean and now and then putting her hand inside her cousin's for a moment. She and Jean had always been cronies in the old days, when the four of them had been divided into pairs over some small issue.
"I don't believe this is far from the place where Frank and I discovered the first gold in Rainbow creek," Jack remarked drowsily, a little worn out from the excitement of the day. "How filled the old ranch was with memories and thoughts of her husband!" Jack smiled to herself. Certainly she had been the impatient one and Frank the patient in those many months of her long illness.
Whatever anger Jack had felt in regard to her husband's autocratic attitude toward her, had entirely disappeared soon after saying farewell to him. But the puzzle was still present. Frank had been kind and sweet to her for the time before she left home. But[198] never once had he frankly declared that in future he would be willing for Jack to decide important questions according to her own judgment, even as he must act by his own. And this was what Jack wanted, the sense of spiritual freedom.
"When is Frank coming over to join you, Jack?" Jean Merritt asked unexpectedly. "Ralph hopes to get home from his work at the canal in a few weeks and it would be a great pleasure if he and Frank could be here at the same time."
"Frank, oh, Frank isn't coming at all, Jean. He couldn't possibly leave his own country now, while they are at war. There is so much he feels he ought to do."
Jack hoped she was not blushing, but was painfully aware that Frieda's eyes were fixed somewhat critically upon her. Frieda was giving herself more airs than ever, now that she and her Professor were reconciled, and she had been able to persuade the British Government to allow her to bring him to the United States. The truth was the Professor had finished the scientific work he had undertaken, and in coming to his own country at the present time would be enabled to get hold of materials much needed in England.[199]
Not actually realizing, but guessing at Jack's embarrassment, Olive remarked hastily.
"After all there is some advantage in being an old maid, one does not have to worry continually over being in the same place with one's husband. You will all have to come over to see my Indian School some day soon. Perhaps I am wedded to that."
"Nonsense, Olive," Frieda murmured, "but really I don't see why you have never married. You were obstinate enough about not accepting poor Don Harmon, but then you got most of your grandmother's money after all. Still you must have had other chances. You are as good looking as the rest of us and some people like brunettes best."
As Frieda's own yellow hair was at this moment unbound, so that it might get the air and sunshine, and as she looked at it with utter satisfaction as she spoke, her three companions laughed unrestrainedly.
"Oh, come now Frieda, you don't really believe anyone has such poor taste as that," Olive teased.
But at this instant seeing that Jack's nurse was coming toward them carrying Vive in her arms, Frieda got the best of the situation as she often did.[200]
"Oh, well, perhaps the combination is prettiest after all. Vive is the only real beauty with her dark eyes and yellow hair."
Frieda held out her arms for the baby, who came to her with little ripples of happy laughter, and the two blonde heads, which were so nearly the same color, were held close together.
"I believe Vive really is the prettiest of all the children," Jean remarked critically, which was good of her, since she had a little girl of her own.
[201]
CHAPTER XVI
VIVE
SO the days and weeks passed on at the Rainbow Ranch, seeming to be uneventful and yet filled with quantities of pleasures and interests.
June came and the prairies were covered with wild flowers.No one stayed indoors, except to sleep and eat, and oftentimes not for either of these things. Many nights Jack slept out on the Lodge verandah, sometimes with Olive or Jean, more often alone.
There were wonderful white nights such as only the west knows.
Jack used to love to lie and listen to the sounds she had long known and loved. A pair of owls in one of the old cottonwood trees held nightly conversations with each other, now and then screeching in such an irritated fashion that Jack laughed over their apparently human qualities.
Then far away from the house on the[202] neighboring prairies she could hear the coyotes call to one another with warnings of danger.
These were excellent nights in which to think, for sometimes the moon made it almost too light for sleep. And Jack had a great deal to occupy her mind. Twice a week she wrote Frank and he wrote her with the same frequency, since at this time there were still two mail boats a week. But neither made any reference to their conversation on the evening when Jack had made her request to come home and given her reason.
Things in England were not going so well at this period as Frank had hoped, and he wrote chiefly of this. But he also said that he now received frequent news from Captain MacDonnell, who was growing better and now knew what fate had in store for him. He might be able to walk in the future, but only with crutches.
On several occasions Jack thought of deliberately asking her husband to come to some kind of an agreement with her for the future. Yet she hardly dared open a subject that might lead to differences between them, when they were so far apart, but she was very often lonely for him and sometimes repented having left England at all.[203]
Jack, of course, was not always in this frame of mind. During the greater part of the time she was very happy.
A number of hours each day she spent on the horse Jim had given her, which she had named "Britain" in honor of her adopted country.
Now and then Jean and Olive and Frieda would refuse to ride, preferring some other amusement, but there was always Jim as a companion.
Jim Colter was now a successful and fairly wealthy ranchman owning a half interest in the Rainbow Ranch and having the entire ownership of the one adjoining it. But he continued to follow much the same routine as when he was only the manager for the Ranch girls.
That is, whenever it was possible, he rode over miles of the ranch land, watching the crops and his water supply, and carefully examining all his horses and cattle, when they seemed to need his attention.
Accompanying Jim on these excursions had been, not only one of Jack's chief amusements, but one of her serious occupations as a girl and it still greatly interested her. Besides, she and Jim saw each other under more favorable circumstances in this way than in any[204] other, and had more real opportunities for conversation.
But always Jack arranged to get back to the Lodge in time to see her children before they went to bed. They had an excellent nurse and of course there was all the rest of the family to look after them, but Jack had followed this custom at home, except under unusual circumstances and would not have given it up for a great deal.
Therefore she was worried one afternoon when Jim insisted upon staying out later than usual. She would have returned alone, except that Jim had found a young colt which had injured itself and wished Jack's help and advice in the care of it.
Finally, when they did get started for home, Jack rode ahead like the wind, calling back to her companion not to try to follow her unless he liked, as she knew he had some other matters on the place to look after.
By making unusual speed she hoped to reach home a few minutes before six, when Vive was put into bed and Jimmie ate his supper before following her.
Olive was waiting on the porch when Jack came into sight and went out to meet her before she had dismounted.[205]
"What is it, Olive?" Jack asked sharply, as soon as she saw her. "Which one of the children is it? What has happened?" For it is a curious fact that a mother often feels this premonition of danger.
"There is nothing to be seriously frightened about, Jack," Olive replied quietly, "only little Vive isn't very well. Frieda and I had her with us for a little while this afternoon and she seemed somewhat languid. Frieda thought she had a little fever, so Ruth saw her and we have sent for the doctor. He will be here in another few moments."
Jack made no comment except to go swiftly indoors, leaving Olive to find some one to care for her horse.
She knew, of course, that Olive was telling her as little as possible.
Jimmie had been taken away to the other house, so Vive now occupied alone the big room at the Lodge which had belonged to Jack and Frieda when they were little girls.
It was simply furnished with a few rugs and wicker chairs and bright pictures and three little white iron cots.
In the smallest Vive lay apparently asleep on her pillow.
But Jack saw at once she was not asleep.[206] Her exquisite little face was flushed a bright scarlet, her lids heavy and closed, and the strangest fact was that one of her little hands twitched unceasingly.
Now and then she opened her golden brown eyes, but without seeing or knowing anyone.
When the doctor arrived he made no effort to disguise the seriousness of Vive's condition. If she were to live it would be a fight and one of the hardest of all kinds, since they must simply wait and watch, with very little possible to do.
For some unknown reason, perhaps because there had been too much excitement from the trip, too much notice taken of her by too many people, Vive had meningitis.
But Jack was never a coward and it is scarcely worth saying that a mother's courage, so long as she thinks it can help her child, is the purest courage of all.
As soon as she heard the verdict, Jack went quickly to her own room and put on a white cotton dress. Afterwards, until Vive was better or worse, she would never leave her side for a moment.
But it is one thing to be brave when a shock comes and one has health and strength to meet it. It is another to keep up that[207] courage hour after hour, day after day, when the strength is gone and the body and mind unconsciously sick with weariness.
There was a trained nurse, of course, and any member of her family would have done anything that was humanly possible to relieve Jack's vigil. But she would not be persuaded or argued into going out of her baby's room, and slept there in the hours when she did sleep, half awake and half dreaming, on a small cot by Vive's.
And most of the time Frieda stayed with her.
In a way it seems strange that it should have been Frieda. Olive, one would have supposed to be more sympathetic, Jean and Ruth had children of their own.
But some change had been taking place in Frieda for a good many months and she adored little Vive. Whenever any of the others disputed Frieda's right, she always said quietly that after all, she was Jack's only sister, and that if anything happened she must be the one to be by her.
If Jack's husband had been with her, why then it would have been different. So Frieda even waved away her devoted Professor, who feared she might be ill, by telling him[208] there would be time enough to think of her later on.
Although she and Jack sat side by side for many hours with their eyes on the baby, they but rarely spoke to each other.
Yet it was too pitiful to continue always to watch the movement of Vive's baby hands and her heavy breathing.
"If Vive dies do you think Frank will ever forgive me," Jack asked one night.
And true to herself Frieda tossed her yellow head.
"I don't see what Frank has to forgive? The point is will he ever forgive himself for having you go through all this alone?"
"But I ought not to have brought Vive away. Still I wouldn't mind anything if only Frank were with me."
A little later when the doctor arrived he said that the crisis would come within the hour and he would remain.
Olive and Jean waited in the Lodge living room, Jim had disappeared somewhere an hour before. Ruth Colter came into the nursery and stayed by Jack.
Half an hour passed. Then suddenly there was a strange, almost an unearthly silence in the room, and it was as if one could see the[209] little white soul rise and float softly away like a bird.
The little figure in the cradle was still.
The doctor rose up.
"It is over," he said pitifully.
Frieda covered up her face, but Jack went over and looked down at Vive for a moment and then turned to the others.
"Please do not let anyone come with me," she asked. "I must go outdoors alone."
Then Jack went out past the living room, through the long avenue of tall trees, on farther and farther, not knowing where she was going.
The Rainbow Ranch, which she had loved better than any place in the world, had taken from her the human being, whom at this moment she believed she loved most.
Over Rainbow creek there hung a tiny yellow, crescent moon. It seemed to Jack that this, too, made her think of her baby, it was just as cold, just as perfect and as far away.
She stayed there a long time, then getting up she wandered on. She did not think whether her family would be uneasy, she did not care.
It seemed to her she never wished to go back again to the Lodge.[210]
But finally a little clearer judgment came to her and she turned back.
It was almost dawn.
There, standing on the porch of the Rainbow Lodge, was a man's figure. Jack supposed it was Jim.
He started toward her and the next moment Jack was in his arms.
"Do you know, Frank?" Jack queried.
Frank drew her closer to him.
A little later she allowed Frank to lead her into the house, where she undressed and went to bed, with him sitting beside her.
She had made no inquiry about how he had arrived at such a moment. Jack had but one thought at this time, no others could enter her mind.
The facts were that Frank had left England ten days before bringing Captain MacDonnell with him. He had a mission from his Government so as to make the trip possible. But more than anything else he felt he must see his wife.
He had tried to write Jack, to tell her that he believed he had been unfair, that his obstinacy should never make an issue between them again. But it had all been so[211] difficult to write and it must be so long before he could receive Jack's answer.
Moreover, Frank wanted to bring Captain MacDonnell to the ranch to stay during his convalescence. Soon after Jack's departure he had gone over to France, as an act of expiation both to his wife and friend. There he had found Captain MacDonnell recovering, but infinitely depressed with the thought that he could no longer serve his country, but must be only a burden.
On the arrival of his steamer in New York Lord Kent had wired Jim Colter, but Jim had thought it best not to speak to Jack until Frank was able to reach her.
He had therefore sent him a wire telling of Vive's illness, and Frank had hurried west, leaving Captain MacDonnell with friends in New York city.
[212]
CHAPTER XVII
FAREWELL
ABOUT a week later Captain MacDonnell arrived at the Rainbow Ranch accompanied by a man servant who waited upon him. He looked better than any of his friends had anticipated.
Since there was so much sorrow in the world at the present time, Jack and Frank had made up their minds that they would not let their own influence other people more than they could avoid. Moreover, they had found each other again at just the right moment and were more devoted, more united than ever before. Frank explained his own change of attitude to his wife, but all the events of the past seemed small in comparison with their loss.It was Frieda who for a while seemed the more outwardly inconsolable.
Actually the Professor came one day in distress to Jack herself.
"My dear Jack, I don't know what I shall[213] do with my little Frieda when you have gone home to England!" he exclaimed. For it had been decided that Jack and Jimmie were to return home when Frank did.
"But you will both be coming over soon," Jack answered, showing no sign that it might be strange under the circumstances to expect her to comfort Frieda.
The Professor did not see this. He really saw very little else in the world except his wife and his work.
"We may not be able to come for several months. In the meantime if she frets herself ill?"
Jack promised to talk to her sister.
One evening when Frieda complained of a headache and did not come down to dinner, Jack went up to her.
She found her sister lying on a couch and looking very young and sweet.
"You are not to worry too much on my account, Frieda dear," Jack began.
"I am not supposed to be unselfish," Frieda murmured.
But Jack paid no attention to her speech. "Perhaps you'll have a baby some day yourself, dear."
At this Frieda pulled her sister down and[214] whispered something in her ear. Jack's face flushed.
"I should be happier than anything! Remember you and Henry are to come to us as soon as it can be arranged."
A few days later Lord and Lady Kent with their little boy left for the East. They were to stop a few days in Washington and then sail.
Not long afterwards Frieda and the Professor also went away from the ranch, as Professor Russell had a good many things to look after and Frieda would not be separated from him.
As Ralph Merritt had arrived for a visit, Jean's attention was occupied with him. So as a matter of fact Captain MacDonnell was rather left to Olive's care.
At first it did not seem a large duty simply to try and keep Captain MacDonnell amused and she had wanted to do something. But Olive had not reckoned with her task.
Captain MacDonnell was an Irishman and a Scotchman, which means he was able to be very gay and also very melancholy. And always in times past, when his melancholy mood had taken hold on him, he could mount his horse and ride the spectre away, or else[215] engage in some other active outdoor occupation.
But here he was still so young a man, with all his future before him, and compelled to sit all day in a wheeled chair, or else hobble about on crutches.
It has not been the illness that has been hardest for the soldiers to bear, but oftentimes this coming back to accept with resignation a new kind of life.
Yet Captain MacDonnell tried to be patient, tried to let no one guess what he was suffering at thus having his career ended so soon, and being also unable to go on with the service to his country which he so longed to give.
But Olive, who had always more of a gift for sympathy than any one of the Ranch girls, appreciated what he was enduring more than she even revealed to him.
She had been reading him a volume of Kipling one day, and happening to raise her eyes, saw that he was not listening. She even stopped a few moments and found that he was unaware of it.
When Captain MacDonnell did discover his own absorption, he turned to Olive with a charming smile.[216]
"Forgive me," he explained. "I do not intend to be ungrateful, indeed I am more grateful than I know how to express. But those stories of India started me to thinking of the first years I was out there. It is a strange country, India. I don't think we western people understand it."
He and Olive were sitting on the Lodge verandah.
Olive nodded, "I do understand what you must feel and I do wish there was something else to interest you."
Then she remained silent. After all Captain MacDonnell could not go on in idleness like this. There must be something he could find to do, some real thing. Poorer men were learning trades. It would be better for him to do this if only he could be persuaded to feel enough interest.
Olive did not realize she was frowning.
Suddenly she exclaimed.
"Look here, Captain MacDonnell, didn't I hear Frank say once that you used to be fond of drawing when you were a small boy, that you were once undecided whether to be an artist or a soldier?"
Captain MacDonnell smiled. "I believe so, I've an idea I was a pretty conceited youngster[217] and would have made as much of a failure at one as I have of the other."
But Olive refused to pay any attention to this speech.
For a moment Captain MacDonnell forgot himself thinking of how attractive Olive looked.
He had not remembered thinking of this especially when they had met in England, only that she was unusual looking and not in the least like an American or English woman. It was almost as if she might be Spanish. Captain MacDonnell also had some Spanish blood farther back in his own family, when the Spanish were the great voyagers and visited and settled on the coasts of Ireland.
But Olive went on talking.
"I do wish you would undertake the drawing again, it might at least amuse you, and there are so many interesting people and scenes you could attempt out here."
Captain MacDonnell shook his head.
"I'm afraid the time has gone by for that," he returned.
But Olive had a kind of gentle, sensible persistency that nearly always wins its way.
"Still, there wouldn't be any harm in just[218] seeing if it might amuse you," she went on. "I am sure it would be a kind of relief."
Captain MacDonnell again looked at Olive. Her deep toned skin was softly flushed and her dark eyes brilliant with earnestness.
He laughed a little. "Of course it will, a relief to you, so for that reason I'll attempt it. But on one condition?"
Olive flushed a little with embarrassment, since she had never wholly gotten over her shyness. However, she realized that Captain MacDonnell was teasing her. He did very often when he was in a gay humor and Olive felt it was good for her, as she was too inclined to be grave.
"What is the condition?" she inquired. "Of course it will be relief to me to know you are happier," at which Captain MacDonnell felt that Olive had scored.
"Why, that I won't have to keep on calling you Miss Van Mater. It is too much of a name, just as mine is."
Captain MacDonnell was doubtful as to how Olive would receive this suggestion. She seemed more formal than the rest of the family and he had thought her colder until her great kindness to him. Now he at least knew[219] better than to misunderstand her shyness for coldness, as a good many people did.
Olive replied perfectly naturally.
"Of course I will. The truth is I have always thought of you as Bryan, as Jack and Frank always talked of you by this name."
His promise would have really passed out of Captain MacDonnell's mind if Olive had not supplied him with a great variety of drawing materials within a few days, which she had taken a good deal of trouble to secure for him.
But as a matter of fact she was really surprised to discover how much talent he had. But then Captain MacDonnell used to work for many hours each day, so that it was not long before his former facility came back to him. More than this, he discovered to his own surprise as well, that he could do a great deal better work than he had as a boy. Somehow the skill must have developed in him unheeded as he was growing older.
She came out on the lawn one afternoon and discovered Captain MacDonnell at work a little distance off.
He had evidently persuaded one of the cowboys to pose for him, as the man and his horse were standing in a picturesque attitude only a few feet away.[220]
Olive walked over to them and stood studying the drawing until Captain MacDonnell turned round to speak to her.
"Why don't you say it is good?" he demanded boyishly. "You know I've half an idea it is."
Olive nodded enthusiastically.
"It's like Remington."
Captain MacDonnell laughed. "Not quite. Still I am getting on. But it seems to me you are neglecting me lately. I say, suppose you pose for me. That would be ripping. You won't be sensitive if I don't make much of a go just at first."
For a moment Olive hesitated. Then it struck her that she would enjoy sitting outdoors in the early autumn sunshine for a few hours each day with her friend. For Captain MacDonnell had become her friend by this time, she had no doubts on this point. Moreover, she had made up her mind she must soon go away. She had planned to take a course in nursing so as to fit herself to be more useful, and there was really no reason for further delay.
She happened to mention this fact to Captain MacDonnell one day and it was remarkable after that what a time he took to finish his sketch.[221]
The truth was the artist made not one sketch but half a dozen.
Jim and Ruth were delighted with his success, so that Captain MacDonnell finally persuaded Olive to allow him to attempt a painting.
The work was undertaken inside the Lodge living room. Olive was dressed in an old gold silk, and the artist insisted that she needed a background of strange oriental colors.
One end of the great room was therefore changed into a studio.
Fortunately Ruth and Olive had still in their possession a number of lovely old silks and draperies which the Ranch girls had brought back from their trip to Italy many years before.
One day, after he had been working for about a month, Olive slipped quietly into the studio without the artist's hearing her. She found him sitting before his easel smoking, but frowning and looking less happy than he had in some time.
But as he caught sight of Olive his expression changed.
"I don't know how I'll ever be able to thank you for making me so lovely? I don't mind being handed down to posterity in such a[222] delightfully untruthful picture," Olive remarked gayly.
"Oh, it's untruthful enough," Captain MacDonnell answered. "It is well you came in just when you did, as I was thinking of making an end of it."
"Then I shouldn't have forgiven you."
Captain MacDonnell nodded.
"That is what I was afraid of, that and that you would not be willing to sit for me again."
Olive laughed. "Oh, you must get hold of someone more attractive than I am for the next portrait. After a while, as you are so much better, you'll be wanting to go back to London to work seriously. You know you have promised me that?"
Captain MacDonnell shook his head.
"No," he returned. "Oh, I don't mean that I did not promise, I only mean that I shall probably not keep my word. I think I shall give up and allow myself to become a kind of good for nothing, half invalid, as soon as I am separated from you."
However, as she had by this time grown accustomed to her companion's swift changes of mood, so unlike her own, Olive only laughed?
"Shall I pose for you again today?"[223]
Then there was silence in the room for half an hour while Bryan worked. Finally he put down his brushes.
"I am no good for work today, Olive. The truth is I want to say something to you and I don't know whether I have the right.
"Olive!"
For an instant Olive changed color. Then she answered.
"I can hardly imagine anything you haven't the right to say to me, Bryan. You often talk of your gratitude for what I have done for you. But I wonder if you know what you have done for me? I have never had so kind a friend except Jack. It is always difficult for me to think of her as Lady Kent."
"But I am not your friend," Bryan returned brusquely, "and it is about that and about Lady Jack I want to talk to you. The truth is it's absurd to call a man your friend when he loves you. Of course I feel I am not all of a man these days and I have not much money and my art may never come to anything."
"Any more disqualifications, Bryan?" Olive asked softly. Perhaps she was not altogether surprised at what she was at present hearing.[224]
"Oh yes, a great many," Captain MacDonnell returned, "only I think I won't tell you about them just now."
"And what has Jack to do with what you wish to say to me?" Olive asked, and this time spoke more seriously.
"Oh, she has nothing at all to do with it now," Captain MacDonnell returned. "Only once upon a time before I met you, I used to think Lady Jack was the most attractive woman I had ever known. I used also to believe that as long as Frank had gotten ahead of me I never wished to marry. But I suppose the real fact was that I wanted one of what Lady Jack told me you called yourselves? The Ranch Girls, wasn't it? Only I had not seen the real one in those days."
"Look here, Bryan, you need not think I ever forget you are an Irishman," Olive laughed. "Yet I think I like your flattery."
However, Captain MacDonnell was waiting for another kind of answer, and after a little Olive gave him the one he desired.
So began for Olive, what still remains, in spite of all the other adventures in life, the great adventure of marriage.
[225]
CHAPTER XVIII
"UNDER TWO FLAGS"
ON an afternoon in summer nearly a year later, two flags might be seen flying from the towers of Kent House.
Over the English meadows the wind blew softly, but strongly enough to whip the flags out straight so that from some distance one could see the British Lion and the Stars and Stripes.Since Olive's engagement to Captain MacDonnell, the United States had entered the war and was now one of the great Allies.
Inside Kent House there was a peculiar atmosphere of excitement and expectancy.
The house was filled with flowers from the big garden, a profusion of roses and the simpler flowers for which England is famous, wall flowers, daisies, sweet-peas and canterbury bells, named in honor of the great Cathedral at Canterbury.
In the dining room, which opened just back of the library, the table was already laid for dinner.[226]
Evidently there was to be a gala occasion, and yet this was unusual, for since the war began there had been few entertainments at Kent House or in any great English home.
Nevertheless Lady Kent herself presently came into the dining room and looked with the deepest interest at the beautiful table, touching things here and there and making slight alterations in the arrangement of the flowers.
The table was in white except for a stripe of rose-colored satin through the center and a bowl of pink roses.
Jack had on a house dress of some soft white material, as she was not wearing mourning and had not worn it after Vive's death. There was too much black being used in the world.
She was standing still for a moment, frowning slightly, but with interest, not dissatisfaction, when another person entered and came up beside her.
"I have been taking a long walk, Jack, trying to get rid of my restlessness and to make the time pass more swiftly. I wish you had been with me. But how beautiful your place is! I don't see how you have[227] managed to keep things in such splendid condition with so many of your men at the front. I have been talking to some real English dairymaids down in the left paddock. They made me think of the stories and nursery rhymes we used to read when we were children. Then England seemed as far away from the old Wyoming ranch as the planet Mars. However, I am the last one of the Ranch Girls to visit you in England. Ralph's work has made our coming to you impossible before and now the war has brought us to this side of the world, for how long none of us can say. Have you heard anything from Frieda?"
Lady Kent shook her head slowly.
She was watching Jean and at the same time thinking how pretty and untroubled she looked. Jean's marriage to Ralph Merritt seemed to have turned out an unqualified success. Ralph had come to be known as a leading American engineer, but now had given up all the other work he had been engaged in to offer his services as an engineer to France. And Jean had left her little girl at home with Jim and Ruth at the Rainbow Ranch so that she could be nearer her husband.[228]
"I wish Frieda had not gone to London today. Suppose something happens and she is not back in time for our dinner! Then everything will be disarranged. We cannot have our dinner party tomorrow, for by that time we will have separated again. Tomorrows are uncertain quantities these days, aren't they?" And Jean's expression changed for an instant.
But Jack answered her quickly. This was to be Ralph Merritt's last night in England for an indefinite time, as he was leaving for France the next day, while Jean was to remain with Lord and Lady Kent.
"Oh, Frieda will be here on time; I don't think we need worry. You see, she is to go to his office and get hold of the Professor, else, Frieda says, if he chances to be especially interested in his work, he will forget all about our plan, and of course to have one of the eight of us missing tonight would ruin everything." Again Jack glanced about her dinner table, which was laid for eight covers. "Still, I think Frieda does Henry an injustice, for, in spite of the absorbing scientific work he is doing, he is far less absent-minded than he used to be. And I never saw a more attentive husband. Since[229] Frieda's baby came I believe he regards her as more wonderful than ever."
As she finished speaking Jack laughed and Jean slipped her arm about her as they walked out of the dining room. Jean was thinking of another baby, who had gone away before the new one came and of Jack's inexhaustible courage. They had not realized in the old Rainbow Ranch days that she had so much spiritual as well as physical courage.
"Well, I am glad Frieda has your old nurse for her baby, Jack, and is living here with you, for I cannot take her seriously as a mother, never having been able to realize thoroughly that she is properly and sedately married. However, we at least have our guests of honor safe."
Lady Kent nodded in response.
"Yes, I have just seen Olive. She and Bryan are both resting, so as to get the most out of their wedding dinner tonight. It was wise of them to come up so early from London this morning. I declare, Jean, it is one of the most beautiful things that ever happened for Olive and Bryan to have married.
"Just from a selfish standpoint you can't[230] imagine what it will mean to have Olive living so near me. I have so missed my family!"
Smiling Jean shook her brown head thoughtfully.
"At present there is not much danger of your missing your family for some time to come, dear. You and Frank will probably grow exceedingly tired of them. Now I must go upstairs to rest for a while myself. I don't wish to have Ralph decide tonight that he is the least fortunate of the four husbands."
Jean Merritt went on ahead, Jack seeing her disappear, and then stopping for a moment to speak to her butler.
Although it was to be only a family party tonight, she was taking far more interest in the arrangements for her dinner than she had ever been known to do before for the most formal occasions.
But then this dinner was to be unusual, since it was the first time the four old-time Ranch Girls had ever been her own and her husband's guests at Kent House. Moreover, their husbands were also with them, even Olive and Captain MacDonnell, who had been married only a few weeks.
Nearly a year had passed since Olive's and Captain MacDonnell's engagement, although[231] the wedding had not taken place until the present summer. The scene of the marriage was the Rainbow Ranch, with only Jim and Ruth, their children, and a few friends present, since the rest of the family were in Europe. But immediately after the ceremony Olive and Bryan had decided to risk the dangers of sailing for home and had landed safely in England only the day before.
Having spent the night in London, they had come directly to Kent House, knowing that Jack planned a family party in their honor.
A good many months before, Frieda and her Professor had arrived at Kent House, so that Frieda's baby might be born with Frieda in her sister's care. Moreover, the Professor was working harder than ever, since his own country had entered the war, to accomplish certain scientific discoveries which should counteract the German terrorism.
A little more than an hour later Lady Kent was slowly getting ready for dinner. She wished to be dressed first and downstairs ready to receive her family.
Nevertheless she was frowning and looking slightly disturbed.
She had left word that she was to be informed as soon as her sister, Mrs. Russell,[232] returned from London. In the meantime she knew a train had arrived from town, yet no word came to her.
Jack was about to ring the bell and find out if her order had been forgotten, when a light knock came at the door and her husband entered.
"I came out early, Jack, dear, in order to do honor to your party and I managed to corral the two other husbands, Ralph and the Professor, so there need be no delay. It is good to be at home now and then."
Frank had looked a little tired, but his face cleared at the sight of his wife. Jack was very beautiful in a white evening gown. The frock was not new, since she was buying nothing of the kind during the war, but it was the handsomest one she owned and the most becoming. She had planned with Jean and Frieda that they were to look as well as possible, since the dinner was to be one they would never forget. Moreover, Olive was a bride and they must also do her honor.
Since the change in government Frank Kent had been made a member of the War Cabinet and devoted most of his time to the great intellectual labors it demanded of him. Frequently it was impossible for him to[233] return more than two or three times a week to Kent House.
As Jack kissed her husband her expression lightened.
"I would like to give a dinner party every night, Frank, if I thought it would bring you home. Are things going well?"
Then, as Frank nodded his head gravely (he and Jack did not often discuss details of his work, since government secrets were not to be mentioned even with her), she added, with a little sigh partly of relief and partly vexation:
"Well, thank goodness you got hold of Frieda! Jean has been worrying for fear Frieda would get lost in London and not come back in time. Years ago, when we first came to Europe, Frieda had a tiresome fashion of disappearing and getting us all into a dreadful state of mind for fear she might be permanently lost. Then she usually turned up quite blandly with some agreeable person who had discovered her."
"But, Jack dear," Frank interrupted, as soon as his wife gave him the opportunity, "Frieda did not come home with us. Indeed, neither the Professor nor I had any idea except that she was with you."
Jack changed color.[234]
"Oh, dear, I do wish Frieda would come in! What do you suppose could have happened to her, Frank? She only went into London to attend to some mysterious errand which she insisted was very important. I know she would not have stayed so late unless something unavoidable had kept her. Besides our party, she has never been away from her baby so long."
Man-like, Frank did not appear particularly agitated.
"Oh, Frieda will turn up all right. The good fates have her in charge." Then he disappeared to begin his own toilet.
Finishing her toilet as quickly as possible, Jack hurried downstairs.
There was no train now from London until after eight o'clock and dinner had been ordered for half-past seven.
In the hall Jack discovered her Professor brother-in-law wandering disconsolately about. He wore a mystified and slightly harassed air.
"Do you know, Jack, I am unable for some reason to find Frieda. She is not in her bedroom and not in the nursery. Nurse is unable to give me any information concerning her, save that she left early in the[235] day for London. Curious that she did not telephone me. Will you please find her for me? She gave me certain instructions about dressing for dinner tonight, which, as a matter of fact, I have forgotten. Am I to wear an evening or a dinner coat?"
The distinguished Professor looked so uncertain and so uncomfortable that Jack laughed in spite of her own anxiety and annoyance. However, she hated to confide Frieda's disappearance to her husband, knowing he would be frightened about her.
She was hesitating as to what to reply when there was a sudden noise at the front door. Opening it, an excited and somewhat disheveled Frieda Russell rushed in and up to her husband.
"Oh, Henry dear, do let me have two pounds, won't you, at once. I know it is dreadful to be so extravagant, but so many things have happened to me! I had to wait and wait for the things I just had to have for tonight and then I missed the last train. I wasn't going to spoil our dinner party and so I took a taxi the entire way out from London. I know the cabby is robbing me, but he did come very fast and I haven't a great deal of my own money left."[236]
The Professor shook his head, not fully understanding all that Frieda was saying so hurriedly. But he produced the two pounds and went out to settle with his wife's cabman, while Frieda rushed upstairs, calling down over the balustrade:
"How is my adored baby, Jack? I have nearly died being separated from her such hours! Don't worry, I'll be ready in time for dinner."
Not long after, Frank and Jack were in their library waiting for their guests to appear.
Olive and Captain MacDonnell slipped in quietly before the others.
Olive was wearing her wedding gown. But as the affair had been a quiet one, owing to the war and to Captain MacDonnell's injury, it was a simple dress of white silk and chiffon.
Except for her husband's wedding gift, a brooch of emeralds and diamonds in the form of a shamrock, she wore no jewels.
Captain MacDonnell was still lame, would probably always remain so. Nevertheless Jack and Frank thought they had never seen their old friend looking better or handsomer. Olive's shyness, her seriousness, seemed just the spur his Irish wit and gayety needed.[237]
"I do hope, Bryan, you and Olive are going to stay on at home for a time now you are safely here," Lord Kent remarked, stretching himself lazily in a great arm chair and glancing with an admiration he made no effort to conceal from his wife to Olive. "Jack more or less needs some one to look after her, since I am giving so much time to my war work I am having to neglect my family."
Olive flushed slightly. She knew Frank had not intended it, could not dream how sensitive Captain MacDonnell was over the thought that he could no longer be of service to his country at a time when she so required the knowledge and effort he had once been so gallantly ready and able to give.
"Oh, I shall be at home the greater part of the time, and Bryan whenever it is possible for him," Olive answered quickly. "But Bryan has already promised to begin camouflage work for the government within the next few days. We were not in London very long, but were there long enough to see a few of Bryan's old friends. They asked him if he would not have his commission transferred to the camouflage corps, as they needed him at once. I suppose he will be able to do some of the painting here in[238] England. But later Bryan will probably have to go over to France to find out what is required of him."
"Bully, Bryan! I had not thought of that," Lord Kent answered, appearing as tremendously gratified as if he himself had first conceived the idea of this work for his friend. He went on to explain to his mystified hearers that camouflage consisted of painted artificial scenery used to conceal artillery or other important positions from the enemy airplanes, and that Bryan was especially fitted to engage in this work on account of his military knowledge and artistic ability.
But at this moment Jean and Ralph Merritt joined the little group.
No one spoke of Frieda's being the last to appear, since this had always been her custom so long as the other Ranch Girls could recall.
Jean Merritt wore her favorite rose color, a dress of satin with an overdress of tulle. And in spite of all the flowers blooming in Kent garden, Ralph had not forgotten to bring her a box from London of the deep pink roses she had always loved.
However, before dinner was announced the Professor strolled placidly in, garbed in entirely proper evening clothes.[239]
"Frieda says if you will be kind enough to wait dinner for her a few moments, she will be with you almost at once. There was some little errand, some little commission she still wished to attend to before we leave the library."
The Professor sat quietly down, asked Frank Kent an important question concerning the war and straightway fell into earnest conversation.
However Frieda did make her appearance within a short time. She was dainty and lovely as ever in a misty, pale blue gown, but, unlike her usual self, she seemed a little embarrassed and apologetic.
The four Ranch Girls and their husbands went into dinner together. Perhaps it was absurd that they should feel any especial emotion over so simple a matter as having their first dinner party with one another since their marriages.
Nevertheless it was true that each girl in her own fashion did feel this emotion.
Since Jack's and Jean's few moments in the dining room some hours before, a slight change had taken place in the decoration of the table.
Two little silk flags stood near the center;[240] as a matter of course under the present circumstances, they were the American and the British emblems.
Lord Kent saluted before he sat down, nodding to Captain MacDonnell.
"To our international marriages!" he said. "Long may they wave!"
Then he turned to Frieda and Jean, the Professor and Ralph.
"And to our great American Ally!"
As the little party took their seats they observed a small white velvet box near each plate.
Jack opened hers first and discovered inside a tiny pair of crossed flags set with jewels.
Glancing toward her husband, Lady Kent discovered that he appeared as surprised as she was at the unexpected souvenir of their dinner.
Then she chanced to catch sight of Frieda and Frieda's self-conscious expression betrayed her. Moreover, her mission to London was explained.
"I move," announced the Professor gravely, "that we offer a toast first to our wives and then to that beautiful and enduring land which has ever made the appeal of a woman to her lovers the world over. I mean, of course, 'La belle France'."
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired. Text sometimes capitalizes Ranch with Rainbow Ranch and sometimes does not. This was retained.The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections. Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will appear.
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