Queechy Volume I Part 71

"I shall not come down to breakfast. Don't look so, love! ? I can't help it."

"Why was that calico got for me and not for you!" said Fleda, bitterly.

"A sixpenny calico!" said Mrs. Rossitur, smiling ? "it would be hard if you could not have so much as that, love."

"And you will not see Mrs. Evelyn and her daughters at all! ?

and I was thinking that it would do you so much good!"

Mrs. Rossitur drew her face a little nearer and kissed it, over and over.

"It will do you good, my darling ? that is what I care for much more."

"It will not do me half as much," said Fleda, sighing.

Her spirits were in their old place again; no more a tiptoe to-night. The short light of pleasure was overcast. She went to bed feeling very quiet indeed; and received Mrs. Evelyn and excused her aunt the next day, almost wis.h.i.+ng the lady had not been as good as her word. But though in the same mood she set off with her to drive to Montepoole, it could not stand the bright influences with which she found herself surrounded. She came home again at night with dancing spirits.

It was some days before Captain Rossitur began at all to comprehend the change which had come upon his family. One morning Fleda and Hugh, having finished their morning's work, were in the breakfast-room waiting for the rest of the family, when Charlton made his appearance, with the cloud on his brow which had been lately gathering.

"Where is the paper?" said he. "I haven't seen a paper since I have been here."

"You mustn't expect to find Mexican luxuries in Queechy, Captain Rossitur," said Fleda pleasantly. ? "Look at these roses, and don't ask me for papers!"

He did look a minute at the dish of flowers she was arranging for the breakfast table, and at the rival freshness and sweetness of the face that hung over them.

"You don't mean to say you live without a paper?"

"Well, it's astonis.h.i.+ng how many things people can live without," said Fleda, rather dreamily, intent upon settling an uneasy rose that would topple over.

"I wish you'd answer me really," said Charlton. "Don't you take a paper here?"

"We would take one, thankfully, if it would be so good as to come; but, seriously, Charlton, we haven't any," she said, changing her tone.

"And have you done without one all through the war?"

"No ? we used to borrow one from a kind neighbour once in a while, to make sure, as Mr. Thorn says, that you had not bartered an arm for a shoulder-knot."

"You never looked to see whether I was killed in the meanwhile, I suppose?"

"No ? never," said Fleda, gravely, as she took her place on a low seat in the corner ? "I always knew you were safe before I touched the paper."

"What do you mean?"

"I am not an enemy, Charlton," said Fleda, laughing. "I mean that I used to make aunt Miriam look over the accounts before I did."

Charlton walked up and down the room for a little while in sullen silence; and then brought up before Fleda.

"What are you doing?"

Fleda looked up ? a glance that, as sweetly and brightly as possible, half asked, half bade him be silent and ask no questions.

"What are you doing?" he repeated.

"I am putting a patch on my shoe."

His look expressed more indignation than anything else.

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I say," said Fleda, going on with her work.

"What in the name of all the cobblers in the land do you do it for?"

"Because I prefer it to having a hole in my shoe; which would give me the additional trouble of mending my stockings."

Charlton muttered an impatient sentence, of which Fleda only understood that "the devil" was in it, and then desired to know if whole shoes would not answer the purpose as well as either holes or patches.

"Quite ? if I had them," said Fleda, giving him another glance, which, with all its gravity and sweetness, carried also a little gentle reproach.

"But do you know," said he, after standing still a minute looking at her, "that any cobbler in the country would do what you are doing much better for sixpence?"

"I am quite aware of that," said Fleda, st.i.tching away.

"Your hands are not strong enough for that work."

Fleda again smiled at him, in the very dint of giving a hard push to her needle ? a smile that would have witched him into good humour if he had not been determinately in a cloud, and proof against everything. It only admonished him that he could not safely remain in the region of sunbeams; and he walked up and down the room furiously again. The sudden ceasing of his footsteps presently made her look up.

"What have you got there? ? Oh, Charlton, don't! ? please put that down! ? I didn't know I had left them there. They were a little wet, and I laid them on the chair to dry."

"What do you call this?" said he, not minding her request.

"They are only my gardening gloves ? I thought I had put them away."

"Gloves!" said he, pulling at them disdainfully ? "why, here are two ? one within the other ? what's that for?"

"It's an old-fas.h.i.+oned way of mending matters ? two friends covering each other's deficiencies. The inner pair are too thin alone, and the outer ones have holes that are past cobbling."

"Are we going to have any breakfast to-day?" said he, flinging the gloves down. "You are very late!"

"No," said Fleda, quietly ? "it is not time for aunt Lucy to be down yet."

"Don't you have breakfast before nine o'clock?"

"Yes ? by half-past eight generally."

"Strange way of getting along on a farm! Well, I can't wait, ?

I promised Thorn I would meet him this morning ? Barby! I wish you would bring me my boots!" ?

Fleda made two springs, ? one to touch Charlton's mouth, the other to close the door of communication with the kitchen.