Red Pepper's Patients Part 29

Well, it came Jordan King's turn in the end, although Anne Linton, so extraordinarily labelled "hostess" by her brother, discharged every duty of greeting her other guests before she turned to him. Meanwhile he had stood, frankly staring, hat in hand and growing colour on his cheek, while his eyes seemed to grow darker and darker under his heavily marked brows. When Anne turned to him he had no words for her, and hardly a smile, though his good breeding came to his rescue and put him through the customary forms of action, dazed though he yet was. He found himself presented to other people on the porch, whom he recognized as undoubtedly those whom he had met in the pa.s.sing car at the time when he was in doubt as to Anne's ident.i.ty. Her aunt, uncle, and cousins they proved to be, though the young man whom he remembered as being present on that occasion was now happily absent. Jordan King found himself completely reconciled to this at once.

"How is our patient?" Burns said to Anne at the first opportunity.

"Shall I go up at once?"

"Oh, please wait a minute, Doctor Burns; I want to go with you, and I must see my guests having some tea first."

There followed, for King, what seemed an interminable interval of time, during which he was forced to sit beside one of Anne's girl cousins--and a very pretty girl she was, too, only he didn't seem able to appreciate it--drinking tea, and handing sugar, and doing all the proper things. In the midst of this Anne vanished with Red Pepper at her heels, leaving the tea table to Mrs. Coolidge. At this point, however, King found himself glad to listen to Miss Stockton.

"I don't suppose anybody in the world but Anne Linton Coolidge would have thought of sending two hundred miles for a surgeon to operate on her housekeeper," she was saying when his attention was arrested by her words. "But she thinks such a lot of Timmy--Mrs. Timmins--she would pay any sum to keep her in the world. She was Anne's nurse, you see, and of course Anne is fond of her. And I'm sure we're glad she did send for him, for it gave us the pleasure of meeting Doctor Burns, and of course we understand now why she thought n.o.body else in the world could pull Timmy through. He's such an interesting personality, don't you think so?

We're all crazy about him."

"Oh, yes, everybody's crazy about him," King admitted readily. "And certainly two hundred miles isn't far to send for a surgeon these days."

"Of course not--only I don't suppose it's done every day for one's housekeeper, do you? But n.o.body ever knows what Anne's going to do--least of all now, when she's just back, after the most extraordinary performance." She stopped, looking at him curiously. "I suppose you know all about it--much more than we, in fact, since you met her when she was in that hospital. Did you ever hear of a rich girl's doing such a thing anyway? Going off to sell books for a whole year just because"--she stopped again, and bit her lip, then went on quickly: "Everybody knows about it, and you would be sure to hear it sooner or later. Doctor Burns knows, anyhow, and--"

"Please don't tell me anything I oughtn't to hear," Jordan's sense of honour impelled him to say. He recognized the feminine type before him, and though he longed to know all about everything he did not want to know it in any way Anne would not like.

But there was no stopping the fluffy-haired young person. "Really, everybody knows; the countryside fairly rang with it a year ago. You might even have read it in the papers, only you wouldn't remember. A girl book agent killed herself in Anne's house here because Anne wouldn't buy her book. Did you ever hear of anything so absurd as Anne's thinking it was her fault? Of course the girl was insane, and Anne had absolutely nothing to do with it. And then Anne took the girl's book and went off to sell it herself--and find out, she said, how such things could happen. I don't know whether she found out." Miss Stockton laughed very charmingly. "All I know is we're tremendously thankful to have her back. Nothing's the same with her away. We don't know if she'll stay, though. n.o.body can tell about Anne, ever."

"Is this your home, too?" King managed to ask. His brain was whirling with the shock of this astonis.h.i.+ng revelation. He wanted to get off by himself and think about it.

"Oh, no, indeed, no such luck. We live across the lake in a much less beautiful place, only of course we're here a great deal when Anne's home. My mother would be a mother to Anne if Anne would let her, but she's the most independent creature--prefers to live here with just Timmy and old Campbell, the butler who's been with the family since time began. Timmy's more than a housekeeper, of course. Anne's made almost a real chaperon out of her, and she is very dignified and nice."

King would have had the entire family history, he was sure, if a diversion had not occurred in the nature of a general move to show the guests to their rooms, with the appearance of servants, and the removal of luggage. In his room presently, therefore, King had a chance to get his thoughts together. One thing was becoming momentarily clear to him: his being here was with Anne's permission--and she was willing to see him; she had kept her promise. As for all the rest, he didn't care much.

And when he thought of the moment during which his mother had looked so kindly into Anne's eyes, not recognizing her, he laughed aloud. Let Mrs.

King retreat from that position now if she wanted to. As for himself, he was not at all sure that he cared a straw to have it thus so clearly proved that Anne was what she had seemed to be. Had he not known it all along? His heart sang with the thought that he had been ready to marry her, no matter what her position in the world.

And now he wondered how many hours it would be before he should have his chance to see her alone, if for but five minutes. Well, at least he could look at her. And that, as he descended the stairs with the others, he found well worth doing. Anne and Gardner Coolidge were meeting them at the foot, and the young hostess had changed her white outing garb for a most enchanting other white, which showed her round arms through soft net and lace and made her yet a new type of girl in King's thought of her.

She had a perfectly straightforward way of meeting his eyes, though her own were bewildering even so, without any coquetry in her use of them.

She was not blus.h.i.+ng and shy, she was self-possessed and radiant. King could understand, as he looked at her now, how she had felt over that affair of the tragedy suddenly precipitated into her life, and what strength of character it must have taken to send her out from this secluded and perfect home into a rough world, that she might find out for herself "how such things could happen." And as he watched her, playing hostess in this home of hers, looking after everybody's comfort with that ease and charm which proclaims a lifetime of previous training and custom, his heart grew fuller and fuller of pride and love and longing.

The dinner hour pa.s.sed, a merry hour at a dignified table, served by the old butler who made a rite of his service, his face never relaxing though the laughter rang never so contagiously. Burns and Coolidge were the life of the company, the latter seeming a different man from the one who had come to consult his old chum as to the trouble in his life.

Mrs. Coolidge, quiet and very attractive in her reserved, fair beauty, made an interesting foil to Ellen Burns, and the two, beside the rather fussy aunt and cousins, seemed to belong together.

"Anne, we must show Doctor Burns our plans for the cottage," Coolidge said to his sister as they left the table. He turned to Ellen, walking beside her. "She's almost persuaded us to build on a corner of her own estate--at least a summer place, for a starter. You know Red prescribed for us a cottage, and we haven't yet carried out his prescription But this sister of mine, since she met him, has acquired the idea that any prescription of his simply has to be filled, and she won't let Alicia and me alone till we've done this thing. Shall we all walk along down there? There'll be just about time before dark for you to see the site, and the plans shall come later."

The whole party trooped down the steps into the garden. King was a clever engineer, but he could not do any engineering which seemed to count in this affair. Never seeming to avoid him, Anne was never where he could get three words alone with her. She devoted herself to his mother, to Ellen, or to Burns himself, and none of these people gave him any help. Not that he wanted them to. He bided his time, and meanwhile he took some pleasure in showing his lady that he, too, could play his part until it should suit her to give him his chance.

But when, as the evening wore on, it began to look as if she were deliberately trying to prevent any interview whatever, he grew unhappy.

And at last, the party having returned to the house and gathered in a delightful old drawing-room, he took his fate in his hands. At a moment when Anne stood beside Red Pepper looking over some photographs lying on the grand piano, he came up behind them.

"Miss Coolidge," he said, "I wonder if you would show me that lilac hedge by moonlight."

"I'm afraid there isn't any moon," she answered with a merry, straightforward look. "It will be as dark as a pocket down by that hedge, Mr. King. But I'll gladly show it to you to-morrow morning--as early as you like. I'm a very early riser."

"As early as six o'clock?" he asked eagerly.

She nodded. "As early as that. It is a perfect time on a May morning."

"And you won't go anywhere now?"

"How can I?" she parried, smiling. "These are my guests."

Burns glanced at his friend, his hazel eyes full of suppressed laughter.

"Better be contented with that, old fellow. That row of lilacs will be very nice at six o'clock to-morrow morning. Mayn't I come, too, Miss Coolidge?"

"Of course you may." Her sparkling glance met his. Evidently they were very good friends, and understood each other.

"If he does," said King, in a sort of growl, "he'll have something to settle with me."

He went to bed in a peculiar frame of mind. Why had she wanted to waste all these hours when at nine in the morning the party was to leave for its return trip? Well, he supposed morning would come sometime, though it seemed, at midnight, a long way off.

"Want me to call you at five-thirty, Jord?" Burns had inquired of him at parting.

"No, thanks," he had replied. "I'll not miss it."

"A fellow might lie awake so long thinking about it that he'd go off into a sound sleep just before daylight, and sleep right through his early morning appointment," urged his loyal friend. "Better let me--"

"Oh, you go on to bed!" requested King irritably.

"No grat.i.tude to one who has brought all this to pa.s.s, eh?"

"Heaps of it. But this evening has been rather a facer."

"Not at all. There were a dozen times when you might have rushed in and got a little quiet place all to yourself, with only the stars looking on. Plenty of openings."

"I didn't see 'em. You were always in the way."

"I was! Well, I like that. Had to be ordinarily attentive to my hostess, hadn't I? It wasn't for me to take shy little boys by the hand and lead them up to the little girls they fancied."

"I don't want to be led up by the hand, thank you. Good-night!"

King was up at daybreak, which in May comes reasonably early. Stealing down through the quiet house, the windows of which seemed to be all wide open to the morning air, he came out upon the porch and took the path to the lilac hedge. Arrived there at only twenty minutes before the appointed hour, he had so long a wait that he began to grow both impatient and chagrined. At quarter-past six he was feeling very much like stalking back to the house and retiring to his room, when the low sound of a motor arrested him, and he wheeled, to discover a long, low, gray car, of a type with which he was not familiar, sailing gracefully around the long curve of the driveway toward him. A trim figure in gray, with a small gray velvet hat pulled close over auburn hair, was at the wheel, and a vivid face was smiling at him. But the air of the driver as she drew up beside him was not at all sentimental, rather it was businesslike.

"I'm awfully sorry to be late," she said, "but I couldn't possibly help it. I got up at four, to make a call I had to make and be back, but I was detained. And even now I must be off again, without any lingering by lilac hedges. What shall we do about it?"

"I'll go with you." And King stepped into the car.

"With or without an invitation?" Her eyes were laughing, though her lips had sobered.

"With or without. And you know you came back for me."

"I came back for a basket of things I must get from the house. Also, of course, to explain my detention."

"Out selling books, I suppose?" he questioned, not caring much what he said, now that he had her to himself. "You must make a great impression as a book agent. If only you had tried that way in our town. And I--I took you in my car under the pleasant impression that I was giving you a treat--on that first trip, you know. By the second trip I had acquired a sneaking suspicion that motoring wasn't such a novelty to you as I had at first supposed."