Jewel: A Chapter in Her Life Part 44

"I promised to take you driving, didn't I, Jewel? Well, the pleasant weather has come. I guess she'll go with me to-morrow, Ballard."

"Guess again, Mr. Evringham," retorted the doctor gayly. "She has accepted my invitation."

Mrs. Evringham looked on and wondered. "What is it about that child that takes them all?" she soliloquized. "She reminds me of that dreadfully plain Madam what's-her-name, who was so fascinating to everybody at the French court."

Eloise was smiling. "Now it's your turn, Jewel," she said.

The child looked from one to another. "I never sang for anybody," she returned doubtfully.

"Yes indeed, for Anna Belle. I've heard you," said Eloise.

"Oh, she was singing with me."

"Very well. Let her sing with you now."

"What one?"

"The one I heard,--'Father, where Thine own children are I love to be.'"

"Oh, you mean. 'O'er waiting harpstrings.' All right," and the child, sitting where she was, sang the well-loved hymn to a touched audience.

"Upon my word, Jewel," said her grandfather when she had finished. "Your music isn't all in your soul." His eyes were glistening.

"Those are beautiful words," said Dr. Ballard. "I don't remember any such hymn."

"Mrs. Eddy wrote it," returned the child.

"It wasn't Castle Discord to-night," she said later to Anna Belle, while they were going to bed. "Didn't you notice how much differently people loved one another?"

CHAPTER XIX

A MORNING DRIVE

"I declare, Eloise," said Mrs. Evringham the next morning, "it is almost worth three whole days of storm to have a spell of such heavenly weather to follow. We're sure of several days like this now," She was standing at the open window, having shown a surprising energy in rising soon after breakfast.

She glanced over her shoulder at her daughter, who was picking up the garments strewn about the room. "Now you can live out of doors, I hope, and get yourself toned up again. Really, last evening things were very comfortable, weren't they?"

"Yes. I thought the lump had begun to be leavened," returned the girl.

"Talk English, please," said her mother vivaciously. "Father seemed quite human, and that is all we have ever needed to make things tolerable here. I suppose we reaped the benefit of his relief about the horse."

"It's all Jewel," said Eloise, smiling. "That's English, isn't it?"

"Jewel!" Mrs. Evringham exclaimed. "Why, you're all daffy about that child. What _is_ the attraction?"

"That's what I'm trying to find out. It's time for me to go up now and braid her hair and read the lesson."

Mrs. Evringham regarded her daughter. "Young people are eager for novelty, I know," she said, "and it would seem as if an interest in a child was an innocent diversion for you at a time when you were growing morbid, but I do think I'm the most unlucky woman in the world! To think that the child should have to be a Christian Scientist, and that you should take this perverse interest in her ideas just now. I haven't spoken of your remarks about the horse last night, but it was in poor taste, to say the least, to mention such nonsense before Dr. Ballard, and apparently do it so seriously. I knew you had been helping Jewel with lessons, but until last evening I didn't suspect that it might all be on that odious subject. Is it, Eloise?"

"Yes, but it isn't odious. I like the fruit of it in her."

"You've never shown Dr. Ballard your most agreeable side, and now if you're going to parade before him, an Episcopalian and a physician, an interest in this--anarchism, I shan't blame him in the smallest degree if he gives up all thought of you."

Eloise, the undemonstrative, put an arm around her mother. "Shan't you, really?" she replied wistfully. "If I could only hope that."

"Do you want to give me nervous prostration?" rejoined Mrs. Evringham sharply. "Eloise," her voice suddenly breaking, "do you love to torment me?"

"Indeed I don't, poor mother, but I've been so tormented myself, and so desirous not to--oh, not to do anything ign.o.ble! I can't tell you all I've endured since--" She paused, her lips unsteady.

"Since we lost your father," dismally. "Yes, I know it. I'm the most unlucky woman in the world!"

Eloise's arm tightened about her mother as she went on, "Since I was enchanted and thrown into Castle Discord." She looked off at the mental picture of her cousin. "Mother," she turned back suddenly, "what a wonderful thing it is if there really is a G.o.d."

"Why, Eloise Evringham, have you ever doubted it! That's positively ill-bred!"

"But One that would be any good to us! Jewel's mother thinks she knows such a One, and so does the child. I wish you'd look into this Christian Science with me. You might find it better than getting grandfather to pay our bills, better than marrying me to Dr. Ballard."

Mrs. Evringham raised her eyes to her deity. "What have I ever done,"

she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "that I should have a queer child! Well, I will not look into it," she returned decidedly; "and if Dr. Ballard were not the broad, n.o.ble type of man that he is, he wouldn't take the trouble to notice and entertain a child who has treated him as she has. It might touch even you to see the lengths to which he goes to please you. I hope you will at least have the grace to go down with Jewel to the buggy and see them off."

"I couldn't in this wrapper," replied Eloise, releasing the speaker.

"Of course not, so put on a dress before you go up to Jewel."

"It's too late, dear. He'll be here by half-past ten. I must have her ready."

Mrs. Evringham looked after her daughter's retreating figure, and then her lips came together firmly. She untied the ribbons of the loose gown of lace and silk, in which she had keyed herself up by degrees to face the requirements of luncheon and the afternoon's diversions, and donned a conventional dress, in which she composed herself by the window to watch for the doctor's buggy. There was a vista in the park avenue which afforded a fair look at equipages three minutes before they could reach Mr. Evringham's gateway.

From the moment the doctor's office hour was over this stanch supporter set herself to watch that gap. As soon as she saw Hector's dappled coat and easy stride she sprang up and went downstairs, and when the s.h.i.+ning buggy paused at the steps and Dr. Ballard jumped out, she appeared on the piazza to greet him.

"What an inspiring morning!" she said, as he removed his hat. "That insane girl!" she thought. "If he had chanced to be awkward and plain, he would have been just as important to us. His good looks are thrown in, and yet she won't behave herself."

"Glorious indeed!" he replied heartily. "Where's my young lady?"

Mrs. Evringham had plenty of worldly experience, and not even her enemies called her stupid, but at this moment there was but one young lady in the world to her, as she believed there was to him.

"She is upstairs braiding Jewel's hair," she replied before she realized her own insanity. Then she hastened on, coloring under the odd look in his eyes, "But you mean Jewel, of course. She will be down at once, I'm sure. It's so kind of you to take her."

"Not at all. She's an original worth cultivating."

Mrs. Evringham shrugged her shoulders. "I suppose she must be, since you all say so. Eloise gives up a surprising amount of time to her, but I can't judge much from that, because Eloise is so unselfish. For my part, the child's ideas are so strange, and my little girl is still so young and impressionable, I object to having them much together. It may seem very absurd, when Jewel is so young."

"No; I saw last evening how interested Miss Eloise already is."