Jerry Junior Part 14

They put in at the village, on their way, for the morning mail; Mr.

Wilder wished his paper, even at the risk of not beginning the ascent before the sun was high. Giuseppe brought back from the post, among other matters, a letter for Constance. The address was in a das.h.i.+ng, angular hand that pretty thoroughly covered the envelope. Had she not been so intent on the writing herself, she would have noted Tony's astonished stare as he pa.s.sed it to her.

"Why!" she exclaimed, "here's a letter from Nannie Hilliard, postmarked Lucerne."

"Lucerne!" Miss Hazel echoed her surprise. "I thought they were to be in England for the summer?"

"They were--the last I heard." Constance ripped the letter open and read it aloud.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Constance ripped the letter open and read it aloud."]

"DEAR CONSTANCE: You'll doubtless be surprised to hear from us in Switzerland instead of in England, and to learn further, that in the course of a week, we shall arrive at Valedolmo en route for the Dolomites. Jerry Junior at the last moment decided to come with us, and you know what a _man_ is when it comes to European travel.

Instead of taking two months comfortably to England, as Aunt Kate and I had planned, we did the whole of the British Isles in ten days, and Holland and France at the same breathless rate.

"Jerry says he holds the record for the Louvre; he struck a six-mile pace at the entrance, and by looking neither to the right nor the left he did the whole building in forty-three minutes.

"You can imagine the exhausted state Aunt Kate and I are in after travelling five weeks with him. We simply struck in Switzerland and sent him on to Italy alone. I had hoped he would meet us in Valedolmo, but we have been detained here longer than we expected, and now he's rushed off again--where to, goodness only knows; we don't.

"Anyway, Aunt Kate and I shall land in Valedolmo about the end of the week. I am dying to see you; I have some beautiful news that's too complicated to write. We've engaged rooms at the Hotel du Lac--I hope it's decent; it's the only place starred in Baedeker.

"Aunt Kate wishes to be remembered to your father and Miss Hazel.

"Yours ever, NAN HILLIARD.

"P. S. I'm awfully sorry not to bring Jerry; I know you'd adore him."

She returned the letter to its envelope and looked up.

"Now isn't that abominable?" she demanded.

"Abominable!" Miss Hazel was scandalized. "My dear, I think it's delightful."

"Oh, yes--I mean about Jerry Junior; I've been trying for six years to get hold of that man."

Tony behind them made a sudden movement that let out nearly a yard of rope, and the _Farfalla_ listed heavily to starboard.

"Tony!" Constance threw over her shoulder. "Don't you know enough to sit still when you are holding the sheet?"

"_Scusi_," he murmured. The sulky look had vanished from his face; he wore an expression of alert attention.

"Of course we shall have them at the villa," said Miss Hazel. "And we shall have to get some new dishes. Elizabetta has already broken so many plates that she has to stop and wash them between courses."

Constance looked dreamily across the lake; she appeared to be thinking.

"I wonder," she inquired finally, "if Jerry Junior knew we were here in Valedolmo?"

Her father emerged from the columns of his paper.

"Of course he knew it, and having heard what a dangerous young person you were, he said to himself, 'I'd better keep out.'"

"I wish I knew. It would make the score against him considerably heavier."

"So there is already a score? I hadn't supposed that the game had begun."

She nodded.

"Six years ago--but he doesn't know it. Yes, Dad," her tone was melodramatic, "for six years I've been waiting for Jerry Junior and planning my revenge. And now, when I have him almost in my grasp, he eludes me again!"

"Dear me!" Mr. Wilder e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "What did the young man do?"

Had Constance turned she would have found Tony's face an interesting study. But she knew well enough without looking at him that he was listening to the conversation, and she determined to give him something to listen to. It was a salutary thing for Tony to be kept in mind of the fact that there were other men in the world.

She sighed.

"He was the first man I ever loved, Father, and he spurned me. Do you remember that Christmas when I was in boarding-school and you were called South on business? I wanted to visit Nancy Long, but you wouldn't let me because you didn't like her father; and you got Mrs. Jerymn Hilliard whom I had never set eyes on to invite me there? I didn't want to go, and you said I must, and were perfectly horrid about it--you remember that?"

Mr. Wilder grunted.

"Yes, I see you do. And you remember how, with my usual sweetness, I finally gave way? Well, Dad, you never knew the reason. The Yale Glee Club came to Westfield that year just before the holidays began, and Miss Jane let everybody go to the concert whose deportment had been above eighty--that of course included me.

"Well, we all went, and we all fell in love--in a body--with a soph.o.m.ore who played the banjo and sang negro songs. He had lovely dark gazelle-like eyes and he sang funny songs without smiling. The whole school raved about him all the way home; we cut his picture out of the program and pasted in the front of our watches. His name, Father--" she paused dramatically, "was Jerymn Hilliard Junior!"

"I sat up half the night writing diplomatic letters to you and Mrs.

Hilliard; and the next day when it got around that I was actually going to visit in his house--well, I was the most popular girl in school. I was sixteen years old then; I wore sailor suits and my hair was braided down my back. Probably I did look young; and then Nannie, whom I was supposedly visiting, was only fifteen. There were a lot of cousins in the house besides all the little Hilliards, and what do you think? They made the children eat in the schoolroom! I never saw him until Christmas night; then when we were introduced, he shook my hand in a listless sort of way, said 'How d' y' do?' and forgot all about me. He went off with the Glee Club the next day, and I only saw him once more.

"We were playing blind man's buff in the school-room; I had just been caught by the hair. It hurt and I was squealing. Everybody else was clapping and laughing, when suddenly the door burst open and there stood Jerry Junior! He looked straight at me and growled:

"'What are you kids making such an infernal racket about?'"

She shut her eyes.

"Aunt Hazel, Dad, just think. He was my first love. His picture was at that moment in a locket around my neck. And he called me a _kid_!"

"And you've never seen him since?" Miss Hazel's smile expressed amused indulgence.

Constance shook her head.

"He's always been away when I've visited Nan--and for six years I've been waiting." She straightened up with an air of determination. "But now, if he's on the continent of Europe, I'll get him!"

"And what shall you do with him?" her father mildly inquired.

"Do with him? I'll make him take it back; I'll make him eat that word kid!"

"H'm!" said her father. "I hope you'll get him; he might act as an antidote to some of these officers."

They had run in under the shadow of the mountain and the keel grated on the sh.o.r.e. Constance raised her eyes and studied the towering crag above their heads; when she lowered them again, her gaze for an instant met Tony's. There was a new light in his eyes--amus.e.m.e.nt, triumph, something entirely baffling. He gave her the intangible feeling of having at last got the mastery of the situation.