Master of the Vineyard Part 26

"Rosemary!"

"Yes," she called back, trying hard to make her voice even, "I'm coming!"

"It beats all," Grandmother said, fretfully, when she rushed breathlessly into the dining-room. "For the life of me I can't understand how you can sleep so much."

Rosemary smiled grimly, but said nothing.

"Here I've been settin', waitin' for my breakfast, since before six, and it's almost seven now."

"Never mind," the girl returned, kindly; "I'll get it ready just as quickly as I can."

"I was just sayin'," Grandmother continued when Aunt Matilda came into the room, "that it beats all how Rosemary can sleep. I've been up since half-past five and she's just beginnin' to get breakfast, and here you come, trailin' along in with your hair not combed, at ten minutes to breakfast time. I should think you'd be ashamed."

"My hair is combed," Matilda retorted, quickly on the defensive.

"I don't know when it was," Grandmother fretted. "I ain't seen it combed since I can remember."

"Then it's because you ain't looked. Any time you want to see me combin' my hair you can come in. I do it every morning."

[Sidenote: Fluffy Hair]

Grandmother laughed, sarcastically. "'Pears like you thought you was one of them mermaids I was readin' about in the paper once. They're half fish and half woman and they set on rocks, combin' their hair and singin' and the s.h.i.+ps go to pieces on the rocks 'cause the sailors are so anxious to see 'em they forget where they're goin'."

"There ain't no rocks outside my door as I know of," Matilda returned, "and only one rocker inside."

"No, nor your hair ain't like theirs neither. The paper said their hair was golden."

"Must be nice and stiff," Matilda commented. "I'd hate to have my hair all wire."

Grandmother lifted her spectacles from the wart and peered through them critically. "I dunno," she said, "as it'd look any different, except for the colour. The way you're settin' now, against the light, I can see bristles stickin' out all over it, same as if 'twas wire."

"Fluffy hair is all the style now," said Matilda, complacently.

"Fluffy!" Grandmother grunted. "If that's what you call it, I reckon it'll soon go out. It might have been out for fifteen or twenty years and you not know it. I don't believe any self-respectin' woman would let her hair go like that. Why 'n the name of common sense can't you take a hair brush and wet it in cold water and slick it up, so's folks can see that it's combed? Mine's always slick, and n.o.body can't say that it isn't."

[Sidenote: Grandmother's Disappointment]

"Yes," Matilda agreed with a scornful glance, "it is slick, what there is of it."

Grandmother's head burned pink through her scanty white locks and her eyes flashed dangerously. Somewhat frightened, Matilda hastened to change the subject.

"She wears her hair like mine."

"She?" repeated Grandmother, p.r.i.c.king up her ears, "Who's she?"

"You know--the company up to Marshs'."

"Who was tellin' you? The milkman, or his wife?"

"None of 'em," answered Matilda, mysteriously. Then, lowering her voice to a whisper, she added: "I seen her myself!"

"When?" Grandmother demanded. "You been up there, payin' back your own call?"

"She went by here yesterday," said Matilda, hurriedly.

"What was I doin'?" the old lady inquired, resentfully.

"One time you was asleep and one time you was readin'."

"What? Do you mean to tell me she went by here twice and you ain't never told me till now?"

"When you've been readin'," Matilda rejoined, with secret delight, "you've always told me and Rosemary too that you wan't to be disturbed unless the house took afire. Ain't she, Rosemary?"

[Sidenote: If Anything's Important]

"What?" asked the girl, placing a saucer of stewed prunes at each place and drawing up the three chairs.

"Ain't she always said she didn't want to be disturbed when she was readin'?" She indicated Grandmother by an inclination of her frowsy head.

"I don't believe any of us like to be interrupted when we're reading,"

Rosemary replied, tactfully. She disliked to "take sides," and always avoided it whenever possible.

"There," exclaimed Matilda, triumphantly.

"And the other time?" pursued Grandmother. Her eyes glittered and her cheeks burned with dull, smouldering fires.

"You was asleep."

"I could have been woke up, couldn't I?"

"You could have been," Matilda replied, after a moment's thought, "but when you've been woke up I ain't never liked to be the one what did it."

"If it's anything important," Grandmother observed, as she began to eat, "I'm willin' to be interrupted when I'm readin', or to be woke up when I'm asleep, and if that woman ever goes by the house again, I want to be told of it, and I want you both to understand it, right here and now."

[Sidenote: Have You Seen Her?]

"What woman?" queried Rosemary. She had been busy in the kitchen and had not grasped the subject of the conversation, though the rumbling of it had reached her from afar.

"Marshs' company," said both voices at once.

"Oh!" Rosemary steadied herself for a moment against the back of her chair and then sat down.

"Have you seen her?" asked Grandmother.

"Yes." Rosemary's answer was scarcely more than a whisper. In her wretchedness, she told the truth, being unable to think sufficiently to lie.

"When?" asked Aunt Matilda.

"Where?" demanded Grandmother.