THE next morning he sent Varunas to the Clark cottage with a note. The answer, when it came, was to the effect that Esther would be ready just after dinner. At one-thirty Mr. Gifford, wondering what on earth it all meant and not in the least enlightened by his employer, drove one of the Townsend horses, attached to the Townsend “democrat wagon” into the Clark yard and, under the officious superintendence of Millard, loaded a small trunk and a canvas valise—Varunas would have called it a “shut-over bag”—into the carriage. Millard loftily refused to satisfy the Gifford curiosity.
“You’ll know pretty soon,” declared Mr. Clark. “And so will the rest of Harniss. There’ll be some talk goin’ around for the next day or so or I miss my guess. No, no, I shan’t say a word. You ain’t the first one that’s asked me what’s up—no, sir, you ain’t! Tobias Eldridge got after me last night at the post office afore mail time, and he says: ‘Say, Mil,’ he says, ‘what in the world ails you? You’re goin’ around all puffed up like a toad fish, too grand to open your mouth. What’s the matter? Somebody left you a million? If they have you might pay me that two dollars.’ I didn’t waste any attention on his gabble. I don’t owe him any two dollars. He says I do, but I say I don’t, and my word is as good as his, I shouldn’t wonder. I set him to guessin’, though. ‘Never you mind what ails me,’ I told him. ‘I know what ’tis and so does Cap’n Foster Townsend. When I and he get ready to tell we’ll tell.’”
Varunas laughed aloud. “You and Cap’n Foster gone into partnerships, have you, Mil?” he inquired. “Tut, tut! He’s a lucky man, if that’s so. Don’t let anybody cheat him, will you?”
Before Mr. Clark could reply to this sarcastic counsel his sister and Esther were out of the cottage. The girl’s eyes were wet and even Reliance appeared to be struggling to repress emotion. The pair came down the walk to the gate. There Esther turned, threw her arms about her aunt’s plump neck and burst into sobs, open and unrestrained.
“Oh, won’t you please come, Auntie!” she begged. “I—oh, how can I go without you!”
Reliance patted her shoulder.
“There, there, dearie,” she said, soothingly. “It’s goin’ to be all right, you’ll see. I can’t leave the office now, it’s almost time for the noon mail, but I’ll run up to-morrow mornin’ and see how you are gettin’ along.” Then, catching sight of the Gifford face upon which was written eager and consuming curiosity, her own expression changed. “Come, come, you two!” she snapped, addressing her brother and Varunas. “What are you standin’ there for, with your mouths open? Help her into the carriage, why don’t you. Varunas, you take her up to Cap’n Foster’s; and mind you drive carefully.”
During the short journey to the Townsend mansion Mr. Gifford, whose curiosity was by this time seasoned with a faint suspicion of the astonishing truth, tried more than once to engage his passenger in conversation, but with no satisfactory results. Esther’s replies were brief and monosyllabic. She sat crouched on the rear seat of the democrat, avoided his eye when he turned to look at her, and, as he told Nabby afterward, she hardly as much as said ay, yes or no the whole way.
They turned in on the broad drive and stopped at the portico shading the side door. Foster Townsend opened that door himself and came out.
“Well, well, here you are!” he said, heartily. “Come right in. Varunas, take that trunk and the bag upstairs. Nabby will show you where to put them.”
He helped his niece to alight and conducted her into the house. Mr. Gifford shouldered the trunk, it was not a big one, and marched through the little hall, across the dining room and up the back stairs. His wife was awaiting him on the landing.
“Put it in the pink room,” she ordered. “And fetch up whatever else there is and put that there, too.”
Varunas deposited the trunk in the pink room as directed. Then he turned to his wife.
“What in time—?” he demanded, in a whisper. Nabby nodded impressively.
“I guess you may well say more’n that when you know. She’s comin’ here to live.”
Varunas stared. Then he slapped his knee. “I guessed pretty nigh as much,” he declared. “The minute I see her and Reliance come out of that house, I— But you don’t really mean it, do you, Nabby? You don’t mean she’s comin’ here to stay—right along?”
Nabby nodded again. “That’s just what I mean,” she replied. “Cap’n Foster told me so a minute or so after you left to go get her. Yes, she’s comin’ to stay right along—or wrong along—the good Lord only knows which it’ll turn out to be.... Well!” fervently, “I thought I’d expected ’most everything, but I never expected this. Freeling’s girl! And Eunice Clark’s girl, which is sayin’ a lot more! In this house!... There, there! go get the rest of her dunnage and hurry up about it. I’ve got somethin’ else to do besides listen to your ‘by times.’ You can say them later on. You won’t be the only one sayin’ ’em. How folks will talk!”
She was right, of course. All Harniss “talked,” as soon as the news reached its ears. Its most distinguished citizen had a habit of surprising his fellow townsfolks, but he had seldom surprised them more completely.
While the Giffords, first of the “talkers,” were holding their whispered conversation above stairs, down in the library Foster Townsend and the new member of his household were talking also, but with far less freedom from constraint. At his invitation she removed her coat and hat and sat in the rocker by the table. He, of course, took the easy-chair. She said not a word. He crossed his knees, cleared his throat, and tried to appear at ease; it was a poor pretense, for he had never felt less so.
“Well,” he began. “Varunas got you here safe and sound, didn’t he?”
She looked up at him and then down.
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“That’s good, that’s good.... Hum.... Well, I hope—I hope you’re going to like it, now you are here.”
She did not look up this time. “I hope—I mean I guess I shall,” she faltered.
“Oh, you will! We’ll try to make you comfortable. Yes, indeed!”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh, we will! Now—er—let’s see: Is there anything particular you would like to do this afternoon? Like to go for a ride, perhaps?”
She was afraid to say no, but she could not force herself to say yes. If there was one thing more than another she wished to do, just then, it was to be alone, away from him and every one else, to be somewhere where she could cry as much as she liked. She had an inspiration.
“If you wouldn’t mind,” she said, hesitatingly, “I think I should like to go to my room—the one I am going to have, just for a little while, I mean. If it will be all right?”
He accepted the suggestion heartily. He was thankful for it. It promised, for the time at least, relief from a situation as embarrassing to him as it evidently was to her.
“Why, yes, yes! of course!” he agreed. “You got your unpacking to do, haven’t you.... Nabby!... No, never mind. I’ll go up with you myself.”
She followed him through the stiff and stately front hall and up the long flight of stairs. In a wall niche at the landing near the top stood a huge vase containing a cluster of pampas grass, some of its plumes dyed a brilliant blue and the others red. The vase itself was thickly covered with colored pictures, figures of men and women in Chinese costume, of birds and flowers, of goodness knows what. The vase had been painted a glistening black and the pictures glued to its surface, in hit or miss fashion.
He saw her look at it as they passed.
“Mother—er—your Aunt Bella—did that,” he said. “Took her a long time to stick all those things on. She was a great hand for making the house look pretty.”
The pink room, when they entered it, seemed, to Esther’s unaccustomed eyes, almost as big as the Harniss Town Hall. A mammoth black walnut bedstead, its carved headboard reaching nearly to the ceiling; a correspondingly large marble-topped black walnut bureau; a marble-topped washstand with a pink and gold bowl, pitcher and soap dish upon it; a stiff little walnut desk; at least a half dozen walnut chairs, one of them a patent rocker. It was easy to see why it was called the “pink” room. The gorgeous flowers of the carpet had a pink background; the bedspread was pink; so were the heavy lambrequins above each of the four tall windows. The paper on the walls was of the prevailing color. Everything looked brand-new, every piece of furniture glistened with varnish. To the girl, at that first view, it seemed as if the only item in the room not new and grandly becoming, were her own shabby little trunk and the dingy canvas extension case awaiting her on the floor by the closet door. They looked pathetically out of place and not at home.
Townsend gave the apartment a comprehensive glance. The inspection appeared to satisfy him.
“Seems to be all right,” he observed. “Nabby and Ellen haven’t had much time to get things ready. I only told them an hour or so ago that you were coming. You can trust Nabby, though. Things are generally kept shipshape where she is.... There!” he added. “This is going to be your room, Esther. Like it, do you?”
Esther nodded, bravely. “Yes, sir,” she said. “It is—is nice and—and big, isn’t it?”
He chuckled. “Bigger than what you’ve been used to, I don’t doubt,” he agreed. “Well, it is yours from now on, so make yourself at home in it. There’s water in the pitcher over there, but if you had rather use the bathroom it is right at the end of the hall out here.”
She thanked him. She had heard of that bathroom; so had every one else in Harniss. At the time of its installation it had been the only honest-to-goodness bathroom in the town.
“I’ll leave you to your unpacking,” he said. “If you need any help or any thing just call Ellen. If you pull that tassel arrangement by the bed she’ll come; that’s part of her job. Well, good-by. I’ll be down in the library. Come down when you are ready.”
She did not come down until almost supper time. He was sitting in the easy-chair when she entered. She had changed her dress and rearranged her hair and done her best to eradicate or at least conceal the tear stains about her eyes. He looked up from his paper, gave her an appraising glance which, or so she imagined, took her in from head to heel, and waved his big hand toward the rocker.
“Sit down, sit down,” he said. “Well, you look as trim as a new tops’l. Get your things to rights upstairs? Find plenty of stowage room in the closet?”
The closet was as big, almost, as her bedroom in the Clark cottage.
“Oh, yes, indeed,” she said, smiling a little.
He smiled also. “Mother was bound to have plenty of closet-room,” he observed. “Women like ’em big. When you’ve had a sea training, same as I had in my young days, you get used to putting up with snugger quarters. Now—er—let me see. Supper will be ready pretty soon, but just now— Humph! Like to read, do you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Women do, I know. There are lots of books in those cases, lots of ’em. I haven’t read ’em all, but I guess they’re all right. Mother—your Aunt Bella—picked them out and she generally knew what was what. Help yourself—now or any time. What I should like to have you feel,” he went on, obviously embarrassed but very earnest, “is that anything or everything in this house is yours from now on. You are going to live here and—er—you must try to feel that it’s—well, that it is home. You understand what I mean?”
“Yes, thank you.”
“That’s right, that’s right. Well, there are the books. Help yourself.”
She wandered over to the bookcases. The sumptuously bound volumes posed disdainfully behind the glass panes and seemed to dare her to lay plebeian hands upon them. Their titles, Macaulay’s “History of England,” Greeley’s “American Conflict,” Shakespeare’s “Complete Works,” “Poems of Alexander Pope”—they were not particularly alluring. One majestic, gilt-edge tome was labeled, “Ostable County and Its Leading Citizens.” She rather timidly lifted this from the shelf, opened it, and almost immediately found herself facing a steel engraved portrait of her uncle. On the next page but one was another engraving portraying the “Residence of Captain Foster Townsend at Harniss.” The article descriptive of that residence and its owner filled five pages of large print. It began:
“Among the names of prominent men of this thriving and beautiful township that of Captain Foster Bailey Townsend stands at the head. His position in civic and county affairs, his strong and unswerving influence for the highest in political matters, his numerous benefactions—”
She had read this far when Ellen drew the portières and announced that supper was ready.
Of all the vivid impressions of those first days and weeks in her new home, the memory of that first meal still remains clearest in Esther’s mind. It was so different, so strange, so altogether foreign to any previous experience. She sat at one end of the table and he at the other, the prismed hanging lamp above them casting its yellow glow upon the shining silver, the ornately ornamented china—she did not then considerate it ornate, of course, but beautiful—the water glasses, not one nicked and all of the same pattern, the expensive cloth and napkins. Ellen, neatly dressed and silent of step and movement, brought in the food from the kitchen, placed each dish before the captain, who heaped his niece’s plate and handed it to the maid who placed it before her. There was none of the helter-skelter confusion and bustle of the suppers to which she had been accustomed; no jumping up and running to the kitchen; no passing from hand to hand; no hurry in order to get through because it was almost mail time. And, of course, there would be, for her, no clearing away and dishwashing after it was over.
Esther had read a great deal; she was a regular and frequent patron of the public library; she knew that this was the way rich people lived and ate. That she should be doing it—not in imagination; she had imagined herself doing it often enough—but in reality; that she, Esther Townsend, was destined to sit at this table and be thus deferentially waited upon every day, and three times a day, for years and years; that was the amazing, incredible thought. It was like a story; she was like Bella Filfur in “Our Mutual Friend” when her husband, John Harmon, after all their trials and tribulations were ended, brought her to that beautiful house and she discovered that it was to be hers, that she was very, very wealthy and could have anything she wanted—always. Almost like that it was. Why, she herself was rich now, or what amounted to the same thing! She could have anything she wanted, her uncle had said so. For the first time she really began to believe it.
She ate little, so little that Foster Townsend noticed and commented.
“Where’s your appetite?” he asked. “These things are to eat, not to look at. Don’t you feel well?”
She blushed in guilty confusion. “Oh, yes!” she replied, quickly. “It—it isn’t that. I was thinking and—and I guess I forgot. I’m sorry.”
“Thinking, eh? What were you thinking?”
She hesitated. Then she spoke the exact truth.
“I was thinking that—that it couldn’t be real—my being here. It doesn’t seem as if it could.”
He understood; he had been thinking almost the same thing.
“I guess it is,” he said, with a smile. “You are here, and we’ll hope you’re going to stay. A little bit homesick, are you?”
She started in surprise. She had tried so hard to keep him from surmising how utterly wretched she had been.
“I—I don’t know,” she faltered. “Perhaps I am—I mean I was—a little.”
He nodded. “Natural enough you should be,” he said. “Homesickness is a mean disease. I’ve been homesick myself for the past fortnight or so.”
She could not, at the moment, understand what he meant.
“Why, Captain Townsend!” she protested. He interrupted.
“Might as well call me ‘Uncle Foster,’ hadn’t you?” he suggested. “Sounds a little less like town meeting.”
Again she blushed. “I—I forgot again,” she confessed. Then, catching the twinkle in his eye, she laughed.
“But, Uncle Foster—”
“That’s better. What?”
“I don’t see why you should be homesick. This is your home.”
“It’s my house. It was my home, but— Oh, well! we’ll see if we can’t make it ‘home’ again, you and I between us. Homesickness is mean, though. I remember the first voyage I ever made. Little thirteen-year-old shaver I was, and—”
He went on to tell of that voyage. It was a long one and the story was long, but he told it well. Supper was ended before he finished. They returned to the library. Instead of sitting in the easy-chair he remained standing.
“Er—Esther,” he said.
“Yes, sir.... Yes, Uncle Foster?”
He rubbed his beard. “I was just going to say,” he went on, awkwardly, “that—er—humph! well, the piano is in the other room—in the parlor. Perhaps you’d like to play on it. I guess it is in tune; the tuner comes every two or three months or so; I hope he earns his money.”
She did not feel like playing.
“Why, if you want me to—” she hesitated.
“I shouldn’t mind. It would be interesting to see how the thing sounds. About all Mother or I ever did was look at it. Of course, if you don’t want to—”
“Yes. Yes, I will. But I can’t play very well.”
“And I shouldn’t know if you did, if that’s any comfort to you. Ellen has lit up the parlor, I guess; I told her to.”
The parlor—even the wife of the great Foster Townsend had never dared refer to it as a “drawing-room” within the limits of Harniss township—was by far the most majestic apartment in the mansion. And, of course, the least livable. The huge rosewood square piano was of corresponding majesty. Esther seated herself upon the brocaded cushion of the music stool and her uncle, after trying one of the bolt-upright chairs, shifted to the equally bolt-upright sofa—in the bill it had been a “divan”—and sat uncomfortably upon that.
“What shall I play?” she asked. There were some sheets of music upon the rack, but they were unfamiliar and looked uninviting.
Townsend grunted. “Don’t ask me,” he replied. “Anything you want to. If you played ‘Old Hundred,’ and told me it was ‘The Jerusalem Hornpipe’ I couldn’t contradict you.”
She played two or three simple airs which her music teacher—he was also assistant to Mr. Wixon, the undertaker—had taught her. Her uncle did not speak during the playing. When she glanced at him he was sitting upon the sofa, his hands in his pockets and his legs stretched out in front of him. He appeared to be lost in thought and the thought not of the pleasantest. Once she heard him sigh.
When, at the end of her third selection, she paused and he seemed not to be aware of it, she ventured to address him.
“I’m afraid that is about all I can play now—without my music,” she said. He looked up with a start.
“Eh?” he queried. “Oh, all right, all right! I’m much obliged. Maybe that will do, for now. Suppose we go back into the other room; shall we?”
He rose from the sofa and she from the stool. She was disappointed and a little hurt. He had not offered a word of praise. When they had entered the library he turned and closed the door behind them.
“That is the first time I have been in that room since—since the funeral,” he muttered. “Just now I feel as if I never wanted to go into it again.... Well, there! that’s foolishness,” he added, squaring his shoulders. “I shall go into it, of course. We’ll go in there to-morrow and then I want you to sing for me. I have heard a lot about that voice of yours.”
She did not know how to answer and he did not wait for her to do so.
“You play first rate, I should say,” he went on. “You mustn’t think I didn’t like it; I did. It was only that—well, that blasted room and—and the music together were— Humph! Well, there! Sit down and tell me about your singing. Who has been teaching you?”
She told him. Mr. Cornelius Gott, the undertaker’s assistant, sang in the choir, taught singing school in the winter, and a few pupils in private. His voice was a high tenor and his charges low. Townsend grunted when his name was mentioned.
“I wouldn’t hire that fellow to learn my dog to howl,” he declared. “We’ll find somebody better than that for you, if we have to send to Boston. Who picked him out?”
Esther resented this contemptuous dismissal of the teacher whom she had considered rather wonderful. He was young and very polite and sported a most becoming mustache.
“Aunt Reliance got him to teach me,” she said. “He didn’t want to do it at first, for she couldn’t pay his regular prices. If it hadn’t been for her I shouldn’t have had any one. He taught me to play, too. We think he is splendid.”
Her uncle ignored the defiance in her tone. He pulled his beard.
“Reliance Clark is an able woman,” he observed, reflectively. “It must have meant considerable scrimping on her part to pay even what that numskull charged. She’s done well by you, I’ll say that for her.”
It needed only this reference to her beloved aunt to bring the tears to the girl’s eyes.
“I love her better than any one else in the world,” she announced, impulsively. “And I always shall.”
He looked at her. Then he smiled.
“That’s right,” he agreed. “You ought to. Well, make yourself at home now. There are the books; somebody ought to use ’em. Do anything you want to. As I said before, this is home and you must treat it as if it was.”
He lighted a cigar, picked up the paper and began to read. She wandered once more to the bookcase, but “Ostable County and Its Leading Citizens” was not very interesting, nor was she in a mood to appreciate it if it had been. The temporary excitement of the wonderful supper table and its grandeur had passed and her homesickness had returned, worse than ever. She wondered what they were doing at home—her real home, not this make-believe. It was after nine, so the post office was closed and Aunt Reliance was in the house, in the sitting-room. Was she as lonesome as she, Esther, was at that minute? Oh, if she could only go to her, could run away from this horrid place where she did not belong to that where she did! If she had not promised faithfully! Oh, dear! Why had she!
She turned in desperation.
“If you don’t mind,” she said, chokingly. “I think I will go to bed now. I—I am pretty tired.”
He looked up from the paper. “Eh?” he said. “Tired? Oh, yes, I guess you are. This has been a sort of trying day for you, I shouldn’t wonder. Well, to-morrow we’ll see if we can’t find something to keep you interested. Ellen has fixed your room. If she hasn’t done things as you want ’em done, call her and see that she does. I shall turn in, myself, before long. Hope you sleep first rate. Good-night, Esther.”
“Good-night, sir.”
“Eh?... You’ve forgot again, haven’t you?”
“I’m sorry. Good-night, Uncle Foster.”
The pink room was alight, the bed had been opened, her nightdress was lying upon it. She went to the window, but she did not dare raise the shade. From that window one might see the light in the window of the Clark cottage, at the foot of the long hill. She could not trust herself to look in that direction. She undressed, blew out the lamp and got into a bed far softer than any she had ever before slept in. It was a long, long time before she did sleep, however. Homesickness is a mean disease; Foster Townsend was right when he said that.
The next morning was bright and sunshiny and when she awoke she was in better spirits. Being merely called to breakfast, instead of having to go to the kitchen and help prepare it, was of itself a gratifying novelty. After breakfast she accompanied her uncle on his morning round of inspection. In the stables Varunas was awaiting them. His eager politeness, in contrast to the casual everyday manner in which he had greeted her the previous afternoon, was also gratifying. At Captain Townsend’s suggestion he led out and exhibited Claribel and Hornet and others of the Townsend stables.
“She is all gingered up and ready to go,” he declared, patting Claribel’s glistening shoulder. “She’ll make that Rattler look like a porgy boat tryin’ to keep up with one of them high-toned yachts. I understand,” he added, addressing his employer in the confidential whisper he invariably used on such occasions, “that Baker’s gang are offerin’ ten to seven over there in Bayport. I’m just waitin’ for ’em to show up around here and start their hollerin’. There’s a five dollar bill in my pants pocket that’s goin’ up on Claribel lock, stock and barrel. He, he! Your uncle told you about the game we’ve played on Sam Baker and Seth Emmons and them?” he asked, turning to Esther. “That was a slick trick, if I did handle it myself. He, he!”
Townsend’s eyes twinkled. “You wouldn’t guess Varunas was so clever to look at him, would you,” he observed solemnly. “He can think up more smart tricks—second-hand—than any one you ever saw.”
Mr. Gifford’s wizened face lengthened a trifle. “What was there second-hand about it?” he demanded. “Oh, yes, yes! I recollect now you said you’d heard of its bein’ played afore. Well, anyhow,” triumphantly, “I was the first one to play it in these latitudes. You’ll have to give me credit for that, Cap’n Foster.”
Townsend did not enlighten his niece concerning the nature of the “trick.” He did, however, tell her of the proposed trotting match at the Circle. She had heard rumors of it before; Millard had talked of it during one entire meal at the cottage. As they were leaving the stables Varunas patted her shoulder reassuringly.
“Don’t you worry about it, Esther,” he cautioned. “Don’t worry a mite. We’ve got ’em licked afore they start. It takes more’n Sam Baker to come in ahead of us Townsends, don’t it, eh? I guess you know that.”
So he considered her one of the family already, entitled to the family confidence and sharing the family pride. That was pleasing, too. Just as it was pleasant to have her uncle speak about planting the flower garden, when the time for spring planting came.
“Mother used to attend to all that,” he said. “Now it will be your job.”
And when she met Nabby Gifford, there also was the same polite acceptance of her authority as one of the Townsends. Not that Nabby’s politeness was obsequious, she bent the knee to no one. But she greeted the girl cordially and, far from appearing to resent her presence in the house, seemed to welcome it.
“I’m real glad you’ve come here, Esther,” she whispered, in the only moment when they were alone together. “You can help your uncle a lot. He needs somebody of his own for company in this great ark of a place and I’ve told him so. You’ll be a whole lot of comfort to him.”
Somehow these meetings with the Giffords cheered Esther greatly. It seemed evident that she was not regarded wholly as an object of charity. Almost as if a part of the favor was conferred by her. Her uncle needed her—yes, and he had invited her there because of that need. And she was a Townsend; why, in a way she did belong there, after all. Her homesickness was not so distressing this morning.
She suffered a temporary relapse later on, when her aunt, in fulfilment of her promise, came up to the mansion for a short call. Reliance, however, was bright and cheerful, never showed, nor permitted her to show, the least trace of tears or loneliness, exclaimed at the size and beauty of the pink room, chatted of matters at the post office and millinery shop, promised to come again just as soon as she could, and hurried away in a bustle of good-humored energy. She had gone before Esther could realize that their meeting was but temporary, not the resumption of the old close, everyday companionship.
The girl accompanied her to the door, but Foster Townsend was waiting at the gate.
“Well, how has it gone?” asked Reliance.
“All right enough, so far,” was the curt answer. “I guess we’ll get along, after we get used to it.”
Miss Clark nodded. “She’ll get along, I know,” she said. “She’s young and young folks forget the old and take up with the new pretty easy—especially such a ‘new’ as this will be to her. She’ll get along; you are the one who will have to take time to get used to it. Let her have her own way once in a while, Foster. It will be good judgment in the end and save lots of trouble.”
He sniffed. “Seems to me we thrashed this all out yesterday,” he retorted. “I can handle a skittish colt as well as the next one, maybe.... Don’t you worry about our getting along.... How are you getting along—without her?”
She turned away.
“Don’t talk about it,” she said. “Sometime, when I’m not so busy, I’m goin’ up to the cemetery. That will be a bright, lively place compared to my sittin’ room just now. But I’ll get used to it, too. I’ve spent about half my life gettin’ used to things.”
That afternoon Esther had another new and overwhelming experience. She and her uncle went for a drive behind the span. Foster Townsend himself drove and his niece sat beside him upon the seat of the high wheeled dog-cart. The black horses stepped proudly, their curved necks glistening and the silver mounted harness a-jingle. People stopped to look at them as they passed, just as she, herself, had done so often. Then she had merely looked and envied—yes, and resented—the triumphal progress of this man, her father’s own brother, who had everything while she and her parents had had nothing. Now she was a part of that progress and, in spite of an occasional twinge of conscience, she found herself enjoying it. The reality of this marvelous change in her life was more and more forced upon her.
Now, as always, hats were lifted in acknowledgment of the royal presence, but now they were lifted to the princess as well as to the king. Proof of this was furnished by no less a personage than Captain Benjamin Snow, who hurried from his front gate and came out into the road. Townsend pulled the horses to a standstill and greeted the man whose influence in Harniss affairs was second only to his own.
“Hello, Ben!” he said. “Well, what is it?”
Captain Ben, short-breathed always and pompous usually, was urbanely deferential.
“Just heard from Mooney,” he panted, with an asthmatic chuckle. “He was down to see me last night. Talked about nothing but that cranberry bill. I judge he has had a change of heart. Says he was up to see you a day or two ago. You must have put the fear of the Lord into him, Foster.”
Townsend smiled. “I didn’t mince matters much,” he admitted. “He’ll trot in harness now, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“He’d better. Going to the rally, I suppose?”
“Probably.”
“I hope you do. The sight of you will do more to keep him humble than anything else in the world.... Well,” turning to Esther, “so you are going to be your uncle’s girl from now on, I hear. That’s good, that’s first rate. My wife and I are coming up to call on you some of these evenings. And you must run in on us any time. Don’t stand on ceremony. We’ll always be glad to see you. Any of your Uncle Foster’s relations are just the same as ours, you know.”
This from Captain Ben Snow who, up to that moment, had scarcely so much as spoken to her. And he and the even more consequential Mrs. Snow were coming to call—not upon her uncle, but upon her. She managed to thank him, but that was all.
The only other individual who had the temerity to arrest the progress was Mr. Clark. Millard Fillmore was one of a small group of loungers who were supporting the wooden pillars in front of Kent’s General Store, by leaning against them. His sister had sent him to the store on an errand. He heard the proud “clop, clop” of the horses’ hoofs upon the road and awoke to life and energy.
“Hi!” he shouted, rushing out. “Well, well! Here you are, ain’t you! Good afternoon, Cap’n Foster; good afternoon, sir. Well, Esther, you look fine as a fiddle, settin’ up there as if you’d done it all your days. Pretty fine girl, ain’t she, Cap’n Foster? Eh? She’ll be a credit to you, you mark my words.”
Foster Townsend grunted, but made no comment.
“I presume likely you and she think it’s kind of funny I ain’t been up to see her yet, Cap’n” continued Clark. “Well, I’ve meant to, but I’ve been so busy at the post office I ain’t had time to go anywheres. I’m comin’ pretty soon, though, you can bet on that. I’ll—I’ll be up to-morrow—yes, sir, to-morrow.”
Townsend lifted the reins. “Anything else?” he asked, impatiently.
“No, I don’t know as there is—nothin’ special. Oh, yes, while I think of it,” lowering his voice, “I’m collectin’ a good-sized bunch to go to the rally and holler for the cranberry bill. I’ll have ’em there. You can count on me for that, Cap’n Foster.”
“Get up!” commanded Townsend, addressing the horses.
“I’ll be over to-morrow,” Millard shouted after them. Then he returned, swollen with importance, to the much-impressed group by the pillars.
Townsend frowned. “Jackass!” he snorted. Then, after a moment, he added. “That fellow is likely to be a nuisance, I’m afraid. I won’t have him hanging around the place. I don’t want him there. If he comes to-morrow you tell Nabby or Ellen you can’t see him.”
Esther looked at him. She had never cherished deep affection for, nor a high opinion of, her Uncle Millard, but the sight of him had been a sharp reminder of the home she had just left and all its associations. And the contempt in the captain’s tone stung.
“I want to see him,” she declared. “Yes, I do.”
“What! You want to see—him! For heaven’s sake, why?”
“Because—because I do. I’ve lived with him ever since I can remember. He is my uncle, too.”
Townsend rubbed his beard. His frown deepened.
“Humph!” he grunted. The remainder of the drive was less pleasant than that preceding. The captain said very little and his niece was close to tears. In one way she was sorry she had spoken as she had, in another she was not. For some illogical reason the sneer at Mr. Clark, she felt, included her; it had hurt her pride, and the brusque order that she refuse to see him when he called was disturbing. Her Aunt Reliance had assured her, over and over again, that her moving to the big house did not mean the slightest change in their relationship; they would all see each other every day at least, and perhaps several times a day. She had relied on that assurance. Now her faith was shaken. If she could not see Millard might not the next order be that she could not see her aunt? That she would not obey—no, she would not.
Townsend, himself, was not entirely easy in his mind. It was early—or so it seemed to him—for symptoms of rebellion in this new relationship. And open rebellion of any sort was an unaccustomed insult to his imperial will. He was ruffled, but it was not long before his strong common sense took command. He even chuckled inwardly at the thought of the girl’s defiance. She was no soft-soaper, at any rate. She had a will of her own, too, and pluck to back it. She was a Townsend. Well, he had boasted to Reliance that very morning of his ability to handle a skittish colt. He would handle this one, and if tact, rather than the whip, was needed he would use that. When they drove up to the side door of the mansion and he helped her to alight from the dog-cart he was good-natured, even jolly, and ignored her very evident agitation, seemed not to notice it.
During supper and all that evening he was chatty and affable. Esther’s wounded feelings were salved by the change in his manner. This was a new Uncle Foster, not the grand, dogmatic, overbearing autocrat she had been taught to dread and dislike, but a good-humored, joking, sympathizing comrade, who took her into his confidence, treated her as if she really was an equal, not a dependent. He told stories, and interesting ones, of his early life and struggles. She began to feel a new understanding and respect for him. He must be a wonderful man to have fought his way from nothing to the everything he now was. And he talked concerning household affairs, even asked her advice as to Ellen, the second maid, suggested that she keep an eye on the latter and see if her share of the housework was done as it should be. All this was pleasantly grateful and encouraging. It emphasized the impression left by him in their talk about planting the flower garden and strengthened that given by the cordial welcome to the family which Varunas and Nabby had accorded her that morning.
Later on, they went again into the parlor and this time, at his urgent request, she sang. He listened intently and insisted upon repetitions. When the little recital was over he put his arm about her shoulder.
“Your voice is as good as they said it was,” he declared, with emphasis. “I don’t know much about such things, of course, but I know enough to be able to swear you ought to go on with your music. We’ll find the best teacher in the county and if he isn’t good enough we’ll send you where there is a better one. We’ll have you singing in a big Boston concert yet and your Aunt Reliance and I will be down in the front seats clapping our hands. Oh, it’s nothing to laugh at; we’ll be there.”
The mention of her aunt as a member of that audience was the one thing needed to make his praise sweeter. Her apprehensions of the afternoon must have been groundless. It was plain that he had no idea of separating her from her beloved relative. It was only Millard who had irritated him and Uncle Millard was—well, even Reliance, his own half-sister, had more than once confessed, under stress of especial provocation, that he was “not much account.”
Esther’s bed-time thoughts that night were by no means as dismal and hopeless as those of the night before. Pictures of herself as a great singer mingled with her dreams as she fell asleep. Her last conscious conviction was that she did not hate her Uncle Foster; perhaps, as she came to know him better and better, she might even like him. It was perfectly wonderful, the future he was planning for her.
Down in the library Foster Townsend was lounging in the leather chair and thinking over his new plan of campaign as so far carried out. He was very well satisfied. He was quite well aware that he had made a favorable impression. Figuratively he patted himself on the back for the happy astuteness which had given Reliance Clark a seat at that concert. That was the cleverest stroke of the evening. Not that he intended sharing his niece’s future with Reliance or any one else. She was his, and little by little he would make her altogether so. She was a good-looking girl, a clever girl, and he was beginning to believe he had made no mistake in bringing her to his home. With his money and under his guidance she might be, not only the new interest he had sought, but a daughter to be proud of. The little flashes of temper and independence she had shown made the prospect only more alluring. He would make her trot in harness, give him time. His training of the skittish colt so far was not so bad—not so bad.