The Squirrel Inn Part 11

"Stephen Petter," said the other, "you are not looking at my character as I told you to look at it. Every cent of the capital required for my operations I will contribute myself. No one will be allowed to subscribe any money whatever. This, you see, is exactly the opposite of what used to be the case; and when I tell you that the success of my plan will improve the business of Lethbury, elevate its moral and intellectual standard, exercise an enn.o.bling and purifying influence upon the tone of its society, and give an almost incredible impetus to faith, hope, and charity in its moral atmosphere,--and all that without anybody's being asked to give a copper,--I know you will agree with me that a mere matter of residence should not be allowed to block this great work."

Since he had been a.s.sured that he was not to be asked to contribute money, Mr. Petter's face had shown relief and interest; but now he shook his head.

"This is my season," he said, "and I have my rules."

Lanigan Beam laid his hand upon the shoulder of his companion.

"Petter," said he, "I don't ask you to infract your rules. That would be against my every principle. I do not know the Rockmores of Germantown, but if it were necessary I would immediately go and find them, and make their acquaintance--I should have no difficulty in doing it, I a.s.sure you, but it is not necessary. I staid last night with Mr. Lodloe, who occupies the top room of your tower. Don't jump out of your boots. I went to him because there was a light in his room and the rest of the house was dark, and he explained to me the Rockmorial reason why he occupies that room while the rest of your house is nearly empty. Now you can do the same thing for me. Let me have that upper room with no stairway to it; give me the use of a ladder, and I shall be perfectly satisfied."

"But the room's not furnished," said Mr. Petter.

"Oh, we can easily get over that little difficulty," replied Mr. Beam; "whatever furniture may be needed can easily be put in through the window. If there are any wasps up there I can fumigate them out. Now we call that settled, don't we? None of your rules broken, Lethbury regenerated, and nothing for you to do but look on and profit."

Mr. Petter gazed reflectively upon the ground.

"There can be no doubt," said he, "that Lethbury is in a stagnant condition, and if that condition could be improved, it would be for the benefit of us all; and considering, furthermore, that if your project--which you have not yet explained to me--should be unsuccessful, no one but yourself will lose any money, I see no reason why I should interfere with your showing the people of this neighborhood that your character has been reconstructed. But if you should lodge in that room, it would make a very odd condition of things. I should then have but three male guests, and not one of them literally living in my house."

"Ah, my good friend Petter," said Lanigan, taking up his valise, "you should know there is luck in odd conditions, as well as in odd numbers, and everything will turn out right, you may bet on that. h.e.l.lo," he continued, stepping back a little, "who is that very pretty girl with a book in her hand? That cannot be Mrs. Cristie."

"Oh, no," said Mr. Petter, "that is her maid, who takes care of her child. I think the young woman has come out to study before beginning her daily duties."

"Upon my word," said Lanigan Beam, attentively regarding Miss Ida Mayberry as she daintily made her way across the dewy lawn to a rustic seat under a tree. And then, suddenly turning to Mr. Petter, he said:

"Look you, my good Stephen, can't you let me go in somewhere and furbish myself up a little before breakfast?"

And having been shown into a room on the ground floor, Mr. Beam immediately proceeded to take off his black cravat and to replace it by the blue one with white spots.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

XIII

DECREES OF EXILE

Towards the end of the afternoon of the day after Mr. Lanigan Beam had been installed as an outside guest of the Squirrel Inn, Miss Calthea Rose sat by the window at the back of her shop. This shop was a small one, but it differed from most other places of business in that it contained very few goods and was often locked up. When there is reason to suppose that if you go to a shop you will not be able to get in, and that, should it be open, you will not be apt to find therein anything you want, it is not likely that such a shop will have a very good run of custom.

This was the case with Miss Calthea's establishment. It had become rare for any one even to propose custom, but she did not in the least waver in regard to her plan of closing up the business left to her by her father. As has been said, she did not wish to continue this business, so she laid in no new stock, and as she had gradually sold off a great deal, she expected to be able in time to sell off everything. She did not adopt the usual methods of clearing out a stock of goods, because these would involve sacrifices, and, as Miss Calthea very freely said to those who spoke to her on the subject, there was no need whatever for her to make sacrifices. She was good at waiting, and she could wait.

When she sold the few things which remained on the shelves--and she, as well as nearly every one in the village, knew exactly what these things were without the trouble of looking--she would retire from business, and have the shop altered into a front parlor. Until then the articles which remained on hand were for sale.

Miss Calthea was busily sewing, but she was much more busily engaged in thinking. So earnestly was her mind set upon the latter occupation that she never raised her head to look out at the special varieties of hollyhocks, dahlias, and marigolds which had lately begun to show their beauties in the beds beneath her window, nor did she glance towards the door to see if any one was coming in. She had much more important things to think about than flowers or customers.

Mrs. Petter had driven over to Lethbury that morning, and had told Calthea all the news of the Squirrel Inn. She had told her of the unexpected arrival of Lanigan Beam; of his unwillingness to go to Lethbury, as he had originally intended, and of the quarters that had been a.s.signed to him in the ladder-room. She also told how Lanigan, who now wished to be called Mr. Beam, had a wonderful plan in his mind for the improvement of Lethbury, but whether it was electric lights, or gas, or water, or street railroads, or a public library, he would not tell anybody. He was going to work in his own way, and all he would say about the scheme was that he did not want anybody to give him money for it.

And this, Mrs. Petter had remarked, had helped Mr. Petter and herself to believe what Lanigan had said about his amendment, for if anything could show a change in him it would be his not wanting people to give him money.

Mrs. Petter had said a great deal about the newcomer, and had declared that whatever alterations had gone on in his mind, soul, and character, he certainly had improved in appearance, and was a very good-looking young man, with becoming clothes. In one way, however, he had not changed, for in a surprisingly short time he had made friends with everybody on the place. He talked to Mr. Lodloe as if he had been an old chum; he had renewed his acquaintance with Mrs. Cristie, and was very gallant to her; he was hand-in-glove with Mr. Tippengray, both of them laughing together and making jokes as if they had always known each other; and, more than that, it wasn't an hour after breakfast when he and Mrs. Cristie's nurse-maid were sitting on a bench under the trees, reading out of the same book, while Mr. Tippengray was pus.h.i.+ng the baby-carriage up and down on the gra.s.s, and Mrs. Cristie and Mr. Lodloe were putting up the lawn-tennis net.

"I could see for myself," Mrs. Petter had remarked at this point, "that you were right in saying that there was no use in my talking about the boarders a.s.sociating with servants, for when they made up the lawn-tennis game it turned out that Mr. Tippengray didn't play, and so that girl Ida had to take a hand while he kept on neglecting his Greek for the baby."

At last Miss Calthea let her sewing drop into her lap, and sat looking at an empty shelf opposite to her.

"Yes," she said to herself, her lips moving, although no sound was audible, "the first thing to do is to get Lanigan away. As long as he is here I might as well not lift a finger, and it looks as if that impertinent minx of a child's nurse would be my best help. If he doesn't have one of his changeable fits, he will be ready in three days to follow her anywhere, but I must look sharp, for at this very minute he may be making love to the widow. Of course he hasn't any chance with her, but it would be just like Lanigan to go in strongest where he knew he hadn't any chance. However, I shall see for myself how matters stand, and one thing is certain--Lanigan has got to go."

About this time Mr. Lanigan Beam, finding himself with a solitary quarter of an hour on his hands, was reflecting on a bench upon the lawn of the Squirrel Inn. "Yes," he thought, "it is a great plan. It will elevate the social tone of Lethbury, it will purify the moral atmosphere of the surrounding country, and, above all, it will make it possible for me to live here. It will give me an opportunity to become a man among men in the place where I was born. Until this thing is done, I can have no chance to better myself here, and, more than that, the community has no chance to better itself. Yes, it must be done; Calthea Rose must go."

At this moment Mr. Petter came along, on his way to supper.

"Well, Lanigan," said he, "are you thinking about your great enterprise?"

"Yes," said the other, rising and walking with him; "that is exactly what my mind was working on."

"And you are going to do it all yourself?" said Mr. Petter.

"Not exactly," said Beam. "I shall not require any pecuniary a.s.sistance, but I shall want some one to help me."

"Is there anybody about here who can do it?"

"Yes; I hope so," said Lanigan. "At present I am thinking of Mr.

Tippengray."

"A very good choice," said Mr. Petter; "he is a man of fine mind, and it will certainly be to your advantage if you can get him to work with you."

"Indeed it will be," said Lanigan Beam, with much earnestness.

XIV

BACKING OUT

Ida Mayberry was walking on the narrow road which led through the woods from the Squirrel Inn to the public highway. She had been much interested in the road when she had been driven through it on the day of her arrival, and had availed herself of the opportunity given her this pleasant afternoon, by the prolonged slumbers of Master Douglas Cristie, to make a close acquaintance with its attractions.

It was indeed a pleasant road, where there were tall trees that often met overhead, and on each side there were bushes, and vines, and wild flowers, and little vistas opening into the woods, and rabbits running across the roadway; a shallow stream tumbling along its stony bed, sometimes to be seen and sometimes only heard; yellow b.u.t.terflies in the air; and glimpses above, that afternoon, of blue sky and white clouds.

When she had walked about half the length of the road Miss Mayberry came to a tree with a large branch running horizontally about three feet from the ground and then turning up again, so as to make a very good seat for young people who like that sort of thing. Ida was a young person who liked that sort of thing, and she speedily clambered upon the broad, horizontal branch and bestowed herself quite comfortably there. Taking off her hat and leaning her head against the upright portion of the branch, she continued the reflections she had been making while walking.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IDA MAKES HERSELF COMFORTABLE.]

"Yes," she said to herself, "it will be wise in me not only to make up my mind that I will not grow to be an old maid, but to prevent people from thinking I am going to grow to be one. I believe that people are very apt to think that way about teachers. Perhaps it is because they are always contrasted with younger persons. There is no reason why girl teachers should be different from other girls. Marriage should be as practically advantageous to them as to any others, only they should be more than usually circ.u.mspect in regard to their partners; that is, if they care for careers, which I am sure I do.

"Now the situation in this place seems to me to be one which I ought seriously to consider. It is generally agreed that propinquity is the cause of most marriages, but I think that a girl ought to be very careful not to let propinquity get the better of her. She should regulate and control propinquities.

"Here, now, is Mr. Lodloe. He seems to be a very suitable sort of a man, young and good-looking, and, I think, endowed with brains; but I have read two of his stories, and I see no promise in them, and I doubt if he would sympathize with good, hard study; besides, he is devoting himself to Mrs. Cristie, and he is out of the question. Mr. Tippengray is an exceedingly agreeable man and a true student. To marry him would be in itself a higher education; but he is not a bit young. I think he is at least fifty, perhaps more, and then, supposing that he should retain his mental vigor until he is seventy, that would give only twenty years of satisfactory intellectual companions.h.i.+p. That is a point that ought to be very carefully weighed.