The Twenty-Fourth of June Part 14

Old Matthew Kendrick a.s.sisted Mrs. Rufus Gray into his luxuriously fitted, electric-lighted town-car as if she had been a royal personage, wrapping about her soft, thick rugs until she was almost lost to view.

"Why, I couldn't be cold in this shut-in place," she protested. "Not a breath could touch any one in here, I should say."

"I should call it pretty snug," Rufus Gray agreed with his wife, looking about him at the comfortable appointments of the car. "But there's just one thing a carriage like this wouldn't be good for, and that's taking a party of young folks on a sleigh ride, on a snapping winter's night!"

His bright brown eyes regarded those of Matthew Kendrick with some curiosity. "I reckon you never took that sort of a ride, when you were a boy?" he queried.

"Yes, yes, I have--many a time," Mr. Kendrick insisted. "And great times we had. Boys and girls needed no electricity to keep them comfortable on the coldest of nights. It's my grandson Richard who feels this sort of thing a necessity. Until he came home a carriage and pair had been all the equipage I needed."

"Grandfather is getting where a little extra warmth on a bl.u.s.tering winter's day is essential to his comfort," Richard declared, feeling a curious necessity, somehow, to justify the use of the expensive and commodious equipage in the eyes of the country gentleman who seemed to regard it so lightly.

"It's very nice," Mrs. Gray said quickly. "I should hardly know I was outdoors at all. And how smoothly it runs along over the streets. The young man out there in front must be a very good driver, I should think.

He doesn't seem to mind the car-tracks at all."

"No, Rogers doesn't bother much about car-tracks," Richard agreed gravely. "His idea is to get home and to bed."

"It is pretty late--and I'm afraid waiting for us has made you a good deal later than you would have been," said Mrs. Gray regretfully.

"Not a bit--no, no."

"We'll go right to our room as soon as we get there," said she, "and you mustn't trouble to do a thing extra for us."

"It's going to be a great pleasure to have you under our roof," the young man a.s.sured her, smiling.

Arrived at the great stone mansion which was the well-known residence of Matthew Kendrick, as it had been of his family for several generations, Richard stared up at it with a sense of strangeness. Except for the halls and dining-room, his grandfather's quarters and his own, he could not remember seeing it lighted as other homes were lighted, with rows of gleaming windows here and there, denoting occupancy by many people. Now, one whole wing, where lay the special suite of guest-rooms used at long intervals for particularly distinguished persons, was brilliantly s.h.i.+ning out upon the December night.

The car drew up beneath a ma.s.sive covered entrance-porch, and a great door swung back. A heavy-eyed, elderly butler admitted the party, which were ushered into an impressive but gloomy and inhospitable looking reception-room. Matthew Kendrick glanced somewhat uncertainly at his nephew, who promptly took things in charge.

"I thought perhaps Mr. and Mrs. Gray would have some sandwiches and--er--something more--with us, before they go to their rooms,"

Richard suggested, nodding at Parks, the heavy-eyed.

"Yes, yes--" agreed Mr. Kendrick, but Mrs. Rufus broke in upon him.

"Oh, no, Mr. Kendrick!" she cried softly, much distressed. "Please don't think of such a thing--at this hour. And we've just had refreshments at Eleanor's. Don't let us keep you up a minute. I'm sure you must be tired after this long evening."

"Not at all, Madam. Nor do you yourself look so," responded Matthew Kendrick, in his somewhat stately manner. "But you may be feeling like sleep, none the less. If you prefer you shall go to your rest at once."

He turned to his grandson again. "d.i.c.k--"

"I'll take them up," said that young man, eagerly. He offered his arm to Aunt Ruth.

Uncle Rufus looked about him for the hand-bag which his wife had so hurriedly packed. "We had a little grip--" said he, uncertainly.

"We'll find it upstairs, I think," Richard a.s.sured him, and led the way with Aunt Ruth. "I'm sorry we have no lift," he said to her, "but the stairs are rather easy, and we'll take them slowly."

Aunt Ruth puzzled a little over this speech, but made nothing of it and wisely let it go. The stairs were easy, extremely easy, and so heavily padded that she seemed to herself merely to be walking up a slight, velvet-floored incline. The whole house, it may be explained, was fitted and furnished after the style of that period in the latter half of the last century, when heavily carpeted floors, heavily shrouded windows, heavily decorated walls, and heavily upholstered chairs were considered the essentials of luxury and comfort. Old Matthew Kendrick had never cared to make any changes, and his grandson had had too little interest in the place to recommend them. The younger man's own private rooms he had altered sufficiently to express his personal tastes, but the rest of the house was to him outside the range of his concern. The whole place, including his own quarters, was to him merely a sort of temporary habitation. He had no plans in relation to it, no sense of responsibility in regard to it. When he had ordered the finest suite of rooms in the house to be put in readiness for the guests, it was precisely as he would have requested the management of a great hotel to place at his disposal the best they had to offer. To tell the truth, he had no recollection at all of how the rooms looked or what their dimensions were.

Mr. and Mrs. Rufus Gray, entering the first room of the series, a large and elaborately furnished apartment with the effect of a drawing-room, much gilt and brocade and many mirrors in evidence, looked at Richard in some surprise, as he seated them. He himself went to the door of a second room, glanced in, nodded, and returned to his guests.

"I hope you will find everything you want in there," he said. "If you don't, please ring. You will see your dressing-room on the left, Mr.

Gray. I will send you my man in the morning to see if he can do anything for you."

"I shan't need any man, thank you," protested Mr. Gray.

When, after lingering a minute or two, their young host had bade them good-night and left them, the elderly pair looked at each other. Uncle Rufus's eyes were twinkling, but in his wife's showed a touch of soft indignation.

"It seems like making a joke of us," said she, "to put us in such a place as this, when he can guess what we're used to."

"He doesn't mean it as a joke," her husband protested good-humouredly.

"He wants to give us the best he's got. I don't mind a mite. To be sure, I could get along with one looking-gla.s.s to shave myself in, but it's kind of interesting to know how many some folks think necessary when they aren't limited. Let's go look in our sleeping-room. Maybe that's a little less princely."

Aunt Ruth limped slowly across the Persian carpet, and stood still in the doorway of the room Richard had designated as hers. Uncle Rufus stared in over her small shoulder.

"Well, well," he chuckled. "I reckon Napoleon Bonaparte wouldn't have thought this any too fine for him, but it sort of dazzles me. I'm glad somebody's got that bed ready to sleep in. I shouldn't have been sure 'twas meant for that, if they hadn't. There seems to be another room on behind this one--what's that?"

He marched across and looked in. "Now, if I was rich, I wouldn't mind having one of these opening right out of my room. What there isn't in here for keeping yourself clean can't be thought of."

"Rufus," said his wife solemnly, following him into the white-tiled bathroom, "I want you should look at these bath-towels. I never in my life set eyes on anything like them. They must have cost--I don't know what they cost--I didn't know there were such bath-towels made!"

"I don't want to wrap myself in a blanket," a.s.serted her husband. "I want to know I've got a towel in my hand, that I can whisk round me and slap myself with. Look here, let's get to bed. We could sit up all night examining round into our accommodations. For my part, Eleanor's style of living suits me a good deal better than this kind of elegance. Her house is fine and comfortable, but no foolishness. There's one thing I do like, though. This carpet feels mighty good to your bare feet, I'll make sure!"

He presently made sure, walking back and forth barefooted across the soft floor, chuckling like a boy, and making his toes sink into the heavy pile of the great rug. He surveyed his small wife, in her dressing-gown, sitting before the wide mirror of an elaborate dressing-table, putting her white locks into crimping pins.

"Ruth," said he, with sudden solemnity, "I forgot to undress in my dressing-room. Had I better put my clothes on and go take 'em off again in there?"

He pointed across to an adjoining room, brilliant with lights and equipped with all manner of furnis.h.i.+ngs adapted to masculine uses.

His wife turned about, laughing like a girl. "Maybe in there," she suggested, "you could find a chair small enough to hang your coat across the back of. I'm afraid it'll get all wrinkled, folded like that."

Uncle Rufus explored. After a minute he came back. "There's a queer sort of bureau-thing in there all filled with coat-and-pants hangers," he announced. "I'm going to put my things in it. It'll keep 'em from getting wrinkled, as you say."

When he returned: "There's another bed in there," he said. "I don't know what it's for. It's got the covers all turned back, too, just like this one. Maybe we've made a mistake. Maybe there's somebody that has that room, and he hasn't come in yet. Do you suppose I'd better shut the door between?"

"Maybe you had," agreed his wife anxiously. "It would be dreadful if he should come in after a while. Still--young Mr. Kendrick called it your dressing-room."

"And my clothes are in there," added Uncle Rufus. "It's all right.

Probably the girl made a mistake when she fixed that bed--thought there was a child with us, maybe."

"You might just shut the door," Aunt Ruth suggested. "Then if anybody did come in--"

Uncle Rufus shook his head. "It's meant for us," he a.s.serted with conviction as he climbed into bed. "He said 'dressing-room' and pointed.

The girl's made a mistake, that's all. It's a good place for my clothes, and I'm going to leave 'em there. Will you put out the lights?"

Aunt Ruth looked around the wall. "I can never get used to electric lights at Eleanor's," said she. "And I don't see the place here, at all."

She searched for the switches some time in vain, but at length discovered them and succeeded in extinguis.h.i.+ng the lights of the room the pair were in. But the lights of the adjoining rooms still burned with brilliancy.

"Oh, dear!" she sighed softly. Then she appealed to her husband.

Uncle Rufus, who had nearly fallen asleep while his wife had been searching, spoke without opening his eyes. "Shut all the doors and leave 'em going," he advised,