Apron-Strings Part 16

"Will you kindly see that Dora understands about dinner preparations?"

"Hattie, do you mind ringing?"

Mrs. Milo held up a slender hand to check Hattie. "Susan," she went on, patiently, "do you want your mother to do the trotting after the servants?"

"No, mother. But Mr. Farvel's letters----"

Now that quick, mechanical smile, and Mrs. Milo tipped her head to one side as she regarded the clergyman in pretty concern. "Mr. Farvel is in no mood for dictation," she declared gently; "and--I am quite exhausted, as you know." But as Sue hurried away, not lifting her eyes, lest she betray how glad she was to be dismissed, her mother rose--and there was no appearance of the complained-of exhaustion. Her eyes shone with eagerness. They fastened themselves on Farvel's face.

"That Miss Crosby," she began; "--she came, recognized Wallace, gave a cry--and ran."

Farvel listened politely. Mrs. Milo was so p.r.o.ne to be dramatic.

There was scarcely a day that some warning of Wolf! Wolf! did not ring through the Rectory. "Well, what seemed to be the matter?" he asked.

"I thought you might know,"--with just a trace of emphasis on the You.

"I don't," he a.s.sured her, quietly.

"Then why not go yourself--and get the facts?"

"Wallace didn't ask me."

There was something in the tone of his reply that brought the blood to her cheeks. She replied to it by making her own tone a little chiding.

"But as my boy's oldest friend," she reminded.

Farvel laughed. "Friend?" he repeated. "He's more like a younger brother to me. But that doesn't warrant my intruding on him, does it?"

Mrs. Milo lifted her eyebrows. "I hope," she commented, with something of that same sorrowful intonation which characterized the speech of Dora, "--I hope there's no reason why you shouldn't meet this Crosby girl."

Farvel stared at her. "I?" he demanded, too astonished by her daring to be angry. "Why--why----"

At this juncture the library door opened and Dora entered, to set the room to rights apparently, for she gave a critical look about, arranged the writing-desk, and put a chair in place.

"Dora," said Mrs. Milo, "you saw Miss Susan?"

Dora lifted pale eyes. "Oh, yes," she answered, "but only a fleeting glimpse."

"Glimpse?" repeated Mrs. Milo, startled.

"From the rear portal"--with an indefinite wave of the hand--"she turned that way."

"Oh! She went! To that Crosby girl! And I forbade her!--Mr. Farvel, come!"

"But I'm not wanted," urged the clergyman.

"Why do you hold back? Don't I want you?"

Farvel pondered a moment, his look on Hattie, standing in the bay-window, now, alert but motionless. "Well, I'll come," he said at last.

"Dora!" cried Mrs. Milo, as she fluttered hallward; "my bonnet!"

Dora had gone by the same door through which she had come. Hattie and Farvel were alone. She turned and came to stand beside him. "Why do you suppose----" she commenced; and then, more bluntly, "What was the matter with Miss Crosby?"

Farvel studied her face for a moment, his own full of anxious sympathy.

"I can't imagine," he said, finally; "but whatever it is you may be sure of one thing--Wallace isn't to blame."

Hattie's look met his. "It's queer, isn't it?" she said; "but that--well, that doesn't seem to be troubling me at all." Then for no reason whatever, she put out her hand. He took it, instantly touched.

Her eyes were glistening with tears. She turned and went out into the Close.

Farvel stood for a moment gazing after her. Then remembering his promise to Mrs. Milo, he hastened in the direction of his study.

As the hall door shut after him, the library door swung wide, and Dora came bouncing in, waving an arm joyously. "Your path is clear!" she announced.

At her back was Sue, looking properly guilty, and scrambling into a coat that would hide the bridesmaid's dress. "Just what did you tell mother?" she inquired.

"I said you went that way,"--with a jerk of the head that set the tight braids to bobbing.

"Oh, what did you tell her that for!" mourned Sue. "It's the way I must go!"

"It is the truth," said Dora, solemnly, "and, oh, Miss Susan,"--chanting--"'a lying tongue is but for a moment.'"

"I know," answered Sue, exasperated; "'a lying tongue is but for a moment,' and 'deceitful men shall not live out half their days,' but, Dora, this is a desperate case. So you find my mother and tell her that--that I'm probably downstairs in the bas.e.m.e.nt,--er--er--well, I might be setting the mouse-trap." And giving Dora an encouraging push in the direction of the hall, Sue disappeared on swift foot into the vestibule.

CHAPTER V

Miss Mignon St. Clair was affectionately, and familiarly, known as Tottie. About thirty, and thus well past the first freshness of youth, she was one of that great host of women who inadvertently and pathetically increase the look of bodily and nervous wear and tear by the exaggerated use of cosmetics--under the comforting delusion that these have just the opposite effect. With her applications of liquid-white and liquid-red, Tottie invariably achieved the almost grotesque appearance of having dressed in the dark.

In taking as it were a final stand against the pa.s.sing of her girlhood, Miss St. Clair had gone further than most. First, in very desperation, she had colored her graying mouse-tinted hair a glowing red; and then, as a last resort, had heroically, but with mistaken art, bobbed it.

The effect, if weird, added to the lady's striking appearance. With gla.s.ses, and an unbelted Mother Hubbard gown made out of antiqued gold cloth, she might have pa.s.sed for a habitue of the pseudo-artistic colony that made its headquarters not far away from her domicile. But such was her liking for jewelry, and plenty of it, and for gowns not loose but clinging, that, invariably equipped with an abundant supply of toothsome gum, she looked less the blue-stocking, or the anarchistic reformer, than what she aimed to resemble--a flaming-tressed actress (preferably of the vampire type), a s.h.i.+ning "star."

But such are the tricks of Fate, that Tottie, outwardly and in spirit the true "artiste," was--as a plain matter of fact--a landlady, who kept "roomers" at so much per week.

Her rooming-house was one of those four-story-and-bas.e.m.e.nt brownstone-front affairs with brownstone steps (and a service-entrance under the steps) that New York put up by the thousands several decades ago, and considered fas.h.i.+onable.

The house, therefore, was like every other house on the block. But to the observant pa.s.serby, one thing identified it. The bas.e.m.e.nts of its neighbors were given over to various activities--commercial and otherwise. There were bas.e.m.e.nts that were bakeries, or delicatessen shops, or dusty second-hand-book stores, or flower stalls. And not a few were used still for their primary purpose--the housing, more or less comfortably, of humans. The St. Clair house was distinguished by the fact that its front room on the bas.e.m.e.nt level (the servants'

living-room of better days) was rented for the accommodation of a "hand" laundry.

Often Miss St. Clair felt called upon to apologize for that laundry--at least to explain its presence. "Some of my friends say, 'Oh, my dear, a _laundry_!' But as I say, 'You can't put high-cla.s.s people in the bas.e.m.e.nt; and high-cla.s.s people is the only people I'll have around.

Furthermore, I can't leave the bas.e.m.e.nt empty. And ain't cleanyness next to goodness? And what's cleaner'n a laundry? Besides, it's handy to have one so close.'"

The interior of the building was typical. Its front-parlor, the only room not "let," was high-ceilinged and of itself marked the house as one that had been pretentious in its day. It boasted the usual bay-window, a marble fireplace and a fine old chandelier with drop-crystal ornaments--all these eloquent of the splendor that was past. Double doors led to the back-parlor, which was the dining-room of earlier times.

There was the characteristic hall, with stairs leading down under stairs that led up, these last to rooms shorn of their former glory, and now graduated in price, and therefore in importance, first, by virtue of their outlook--their position as to front or rear; and, second, in reference to their distance above the street. The front stairs ended in a newel post that supported a bronze figure holding aloft a light--a figure grotesquely in contrast to the "hall stand,"

with its mirror and its hat hooks and its j.a.panese umbrella receptacle.