The Story Book Girls Part 55

"Well--it never was anybody else, was it?" asked Mrs. Leighton blandly.

"Oh, mummy! You knew!"

Elma's whispers became most accusing.

Mrs. Leighton might have been as dense as possible in regard to her daughters, but Cuthbert's heart had always lain bare.

"Know?" asked she. "What do you think made Adelaide Maud run after you the way she did?"

"Oh, mummy. It wasn't only because of Cuthbert, was it?"

"Well, I sometimes thought it was," she said with a smile at her lips.

She looked at the shut door.

"But I can't have you stuck on a hall chair in the corridors for the afternoon, all on account of the Dudgeons," said she. "Besides, they'll be bringing up tea."

She knocked smartly on the door.

"Mamma, I never saw anything like your nerve," said Elma.

Cuthbert opened the door. He stood with the fine light of a conqueror s.h.i.+ning in his eyes, the triumph of attainment in his bearing.

Mrs. Leighton's nerve broke down at the sight of him. It was true then.

"Oh, Cuthbert, what is this you have been doing?" wailed she. Her son was a man and had left her.

Without a word he led her into the arms of Adelaide Maud.

"And remember, please, Mrs. Leighton," said that personage finally, "that I would have been here long before if he had let me, and that I had practically to propose before he would have me. Surely that is humiliating enough for a Dudgeon."

"Cuthbert wanted to give you your proper position in life, dear, if possible."

"When all I wanted was himself--how silly of him," said Adelaide Maud.

"Would you mind my telling you that that poor child of mine who has just recovered from typhoid fever is sitting like a hall porter at your door, trembling like an aspen leaf," said Mrs. Leighton. "Won't you get her in?"

They laughed, but it really was no joke to Elma. She had known something of the sorrows of life lately, and had borne up under them, even under the great trial of Miss Annie's death; but because two people were in love with one another and had said so, she took to weeping. Cuthbert carried her in and petted her on his knee, and Adelaide Maud stood by and said what a selfish man he was, how thoughtless of others, and how really wicked it was of him to have allowed this to happen to Elma. She stood stroking Elma's hair and looking at Cuthbert, and Cuthbert patted Elma and looked at Adelaide Maud. Then Cuthbert caught Adelaide Maud's hand and she had to sit beside them, and then tea came and Elma was thankful.

"I know what it will be," she said. "You will never look at any of us again, just at each other."

Mrs. Leighton regarded the tea table.

"It appears," said she, "as if for the first time for years I might be allowed to pour out tea in my own house. You all seem so preoccupied."

"Mrs. Leighton," said Adelaide Maud, "you are perfectly sweet. You are the only one who doesn't reproach me, and I'm taking away your only son."

"May I ask when?" asked Cuthbert sedately, but his eyes were on fire.

"Don't you tell him, Helen," said Mrs. Leighton. "It's good for them not to be in too great a hurry."

"She called me Helen," said Adelaide Maud.

"Now, Elma! Elma--say Helen, or you'll spoil the happiest day of our lives."

"Say Helen, you monkey!" cried Cuthbert, giving her a large piece of cake and several lumps of sugar.

Elma took her cup and the cake in a helpless way.

"You just said that to get accustomed to the name yourself," she declared. "And if you don't mind, I would rather have toast to begin with."

Adelaide Maud giggled brightly and her hair shone like gold. Cuthbert stood looking, looking at her till a piece of cake sidled off the plate he was carrying.

"Mummy dear, do you like having tea with me all alone?" asked Elma.

That was what came of it in many ways. Cuthbert and Adelaide Maud had not a word for any one. But then they had been so long separated by social ties and an unfriendly world and "pride," as Helen put it, and various things. Mrs. Dudgeon took the news "carved in stone," and her daughters as something that merely could not be helped. Helen had always been crazy over these Leightons. Mrs. Dudgeon unbent to Mr.

Leighton however. He was a man to whom people invariably offered the best, and for his own part he could never quite see where the point of view of other people came in where Mrs. Dudgeon was concerned. Cuthbert was already sufficiently established as rather a brilliant young university man, and a partners.h.i.+p in a large practice in town was being arranged for. Mrs. Dudgeon could unbend with some graciousness therefore, and, after all, Helen was the eldest of four, and none were married yet. "Time is a great leveller," said Adelaide Maud.

All the love and enthusiasm which had been saved from the engagement of Isobel were showered on the unheeding Cuthbert and Adelaide Maud.

"It isn't that I don't appreciate it," said Adelaide Maud. "I know how dreadful it would be to be without it, but oh! somehow there's so little time to attend to every one who is good to me."

Isobel, in a certain measure, was annoyed at the interruption to her own arrangements. In a day things seemed to change from her being the centre of interest, to the claims of Adelaide Maud coming uppermost.

She looked on the engagement as a complete bore. Robin seemed depressed with the news. She often wondered how far she could influence him, and turned rather a cold side to him for the moment. Then her ordinary wilfulness upheld her serenely. After all, once married to Robin, she would be independent of the domestic enthusiasms of the Leighton crowd.

She was tired of the pose where she had to appear as one of them, and longed to a.s.sert herself differently as soon as possible.

As for the girls themselves--what had London or anything offered equal to this?

They could not believe in their luck in having Adelaide Maud as a sister.

Elma went in the old way to give the news to Miss Grace.

"Oh, I'm so pleased, my dear, so pleased," said poor lonely Miss Grace.

"It makes up for so much, my dear, when one grows old, to see young people happy. We are so inclined to be extravagant of happiness when we are young. Some one ought always to be on the spot to pick up the little stray pieces we let drop and enable us to regain them again."

"Weren't you ever engaged to be married, Miss Grace?" Elma asked quite simply.

Miss Grace was not at all embarra.s.sed in the usual way of old maids.

She gazed over the white and gold drawing-room, and one saw the spark of flint in her eyes.

"Not engaged, dear, but all the inclination to be. Ah, yes, I had the inclination. And he invited me, but affairs at that time made it unsuitable."

"Oh, Miss Grace, only unsuitable?" Elma's heart went out to her.

Beneath everything she knew it must be Miss Annie.

"Yes, dear. And the others found him different to what I did. Selfish and dictatorial, you know. Nothing he did seemed to fit in to what they expected. He grew annoyed with them. I sometimes hardly wonder at that.

It made him appear to be what they really thought him. And in the end I asked him to go."

"Oh, Miss Grace!"