The Graeme children had been home a whole day and two nights before Aunt Petra found it out, and then it was only by accident that it came to her knowledge.
They had arrived quite a little after dark, and telephoned Uncle Blake, who came over post haste and welcomed them with open arms. They sat late and talked, and Uncle Blake had real tears in his eyes. Tears of joy, as he sat in a big chair and cuddled the sleeping Robin in his arms. But he hadn’t said a word to the aunts yet.
“Let ’em find it out themselves,” he chuckled. “It will do them good.”
So he said nothing to them. But just a little after dinner time that second night a curious neighbor hied herself over to Petra Holbrook’s to call, and almost the first word she said was “Well, it’s good to see the Graeme house lighted up again, isn’t it! I declare I have missed the brightness of that house more than you’d imagine.”
And Petra Holbrook never batted an eye, though she did catch her breath a little before she replied calmly:
“Yes, I suppose you would miss them. All that time. It was ridiculous! They had no business to be gone so long! That’s all a part of making an old man their guardian. If Miriam had asked my advice I surely would have urged against it. But John was so set in his way, you know, and Blake is getting a lot of pleasure out of it of course, just having things his own way.”
The woman stayed and stayed, hoping to get what Tryon would have called “a rise” out of Aunt Petra, but Petra Holbrook never let anybody get a rise out of her.
It was too late when the neighbor went home to go right over and give those impudent renegades a piece of her mind, but she lost no time the next morning.
Jennifer caught a glimpse of her driving in at the gate as she sat at the dining room table peeling a pear for Robin, and she said in a low voice:
“There comes Aunt Petra, children, and you’ll have to behave wonderfully, do you hear?”
They looked at her aghast. The tone she was using was the same tone wherewith she had warned them to close the curtains on the boat when Peter came in sight.
Robin looked at her in horror.
“Do we scwam?” he asked, his pear poised in his hand.
“No, you don’t have to go to bed this time, but you must each do what I tell you right away. Robin, you may go out on the back steps and sit there till you finish your pear. Then go quietly into the kitchen and ask Hazel to wipe your face and hands with a wet towel. After that you and Karen may go out to your sandbox and play, but don’t make any noise, and be very careful about everything till Aunt Petra’s car goes away.”
Then she turned to the little girls.
“You three may clear off the table as quick as you can, and try and get everything into the kitchen, and the table empty, before she gets in. Then you go into the kitchen and wash the dishes. Karen, you can help too, and all of you be quiet about it. Then Hazel and Heather can go upstairs and make all the beds, just as smoothly as you did your bunks, and if she isn’t gone yet you can sit down and read. Tryon, suppose you open the door when she rings the bell the second time, that will give the girls time to get the last dish out. Be sure to shake hands, and say, ‘Why, how are you Aunt Petra?’ and don’t for anything call her Petunia! Take her into the little reception room, and tell her you will call me. Then skip out and warn Jerry in the garage. Now, scram! There goes the bell!”
They scrammed to good effect, so that by the time the second bell rang Robin was sitting calmly on the back steps licking his pear; the girls had hustled every dish from the table, wiped the table off, and departed to the dish washing.
Tryon came with all the grace and ease of Stanton to open the front door with a flourish. Jennifer in the upper hall giggled to herself over his effusive tone. Then as he came up grinning to inform her of her caller, she straightened out her smile and went promptly down, quiet and assured, and greeted Aunt Petra as if she had been a dear distant neighbor who had been absent on a long trip.
“Oh, Aunt Petra! So nice of you to come over. You’re looking awfully well. I hope you’ve had a pleasant summer!”
Aunt Petra’s rage rose and her eyes began to snap.
“Well, if I’m looking well it’s no thanks to you!” she retorted. “Such a summer as you’ve led us through! I thought I never would survive it. What in the world did you think you were doing, anyway, running off in that style?”
“Why, Aunt Petra, I’m sorry you have been sick. We certainly had no idea of troubling you. But we’ve had a delightful time, and all got quite rested. I felt that it was really essential for the children’s sake that we get entirely away from all reminders, and it’s really done us a lot of good!”
“But why did you have to do things in such a dramatic way, if you wanted to go away? You and your silly old Uncle Blake, as if the rest of us were a lot of snakes that you had to run away from!”
“Why, really, Aunt Petra, you don’t quite realize the things you all said that made us feel we had better get away out of your sight. Can you imagine how my mother and father would have felt if they could have heard you plotting to separate us? That was enough to drive any family into exile. But now that it’s over, Aunt Petra, suppose we forget it all and be good friends. We 11 say no more about it.”
“Indeed!” said Aunt Petra. “You are still as impudent as ever, aren’t you? Well, I’ll say what I please about it as often as I choose. And to begin with, what do you think poor Peter Willis thinks of you?”
“Peter Willis?” said Jennifer, her eyes opening wide. “Why, I don’t know that it matters what Peter Willis thinks of me, does it? He is nothing to me. We used to be friends, that was all. I never liked him especially.”
“The very idea of your talking that way, Jennifer Graeme! When you know that he wants to marry you, and he offered to take you to Europe and get you out of all this trouble with the children! He told me himself that he offered to marry you at once!”
“Oh, really, Aunt Petra? And did he tell you that I refused his offer? Well, I did. I told him that if I ever married anybody—which I didn’t expect then because I felt my duty was to my brothers and sisters—but if I ever should be married it would not be to him. Aunt Petra, I’d hate to tell you some of the things he said about my brothers and sisters! And I’m simply done with Peter even as a friend.”
“Jennifer Graeme, have you taken leave of your senses? To talk that way to a wealthy good-looking fellow like Peter who adores the very ground you walk on? You needn’t think that you can string him along till you get ready to take him over. He’s much too high-spirited for that. You’ll lose him if you carry on like this!”
“Aunt Petra, he’s no loss whatever, and if he were the last man on earth I would never marry him.”
“So, you think you’ll be content to go unmarried all your days, do you? You’ll be sadly disappointed when you find no man wants you at all. You’ll get old and shriveled, and then what will become of you?”
“Why, Aunt Petra, you are old, but you’re not shriveled. I think you are rather pleasant to look at when you’re not scolding someone. I don’t see that you are very unhappy just because you haven’t any husband any more. I certainly would rather go alone all my days than marry Peter Willis. However, I’ll tell you for your relief that I’m not going to go unmarried after all. I’m going to be married one of these days to a perfectly wonderful man!”
Aunt Petra rose in horror.
“Now Jennifer Graeme, what on earth have you been doing this summer? What would your poor mother say if she knew that you had turned down a marvellous man and picked up some nobody out in the wilds? Oh, I just knew that Blakefield Graeme would rue the day he let you naughty children go off by yourselves. Who is the man you have engaged yourself to marry, Jennifer? As if you knew whether he was wonderful or not. Who is he? Somebody who will disgrace the family?”
“Oh no, Aunt Petra. He’s not like that. Why—he belongs to a royal family!”
“Royal family!” snorted Aunt Petra. “As if I’d believe that! You haven’t been over in Europe rampaging around, have you? And picked up some worthless second son, or some penniless count?”
“Oh, no, Aunt Petra! Nothing like that. He’s a splendid man, and I mean it. He belongs to royalty. His Father is a King!”
“His father a king!” screamed the outraged aunt. “ What king?”
“The King of Kings, Aunt Petra. I mean that he is a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, he is a child of the King, and that has come to mean to me the greatest thing of all. For I’ve taken Christ for my Saviour too. I am glad of this opportunity to talk with you, for I wanted to tell you that. And I thought you would like to know, too, about my engagement. I went away to get ready to be head of the house myself, but I’m happy to know that God has sent us somebody a great deal more worthy to be head of the house to us all. I hope you’ll like him when you see him, for everybody does.”
“No, I shall not like him!” stated Aunt Petra inexorably. “I shall never like him. Some poor whining illiterate missionary, I suppose, who is marrying you to feather his nest. Oh, what would your poor mother have said it she could have known about him?”
Suddenly Jennifer laughed.
“Why, she did know about him, Aunt Petra. For, you see, we’ve been friends a very long time, only I didn’t know until this summer that he loved me. But mother would have been so glad to have me marry him. You see she never quite liked Peter Willis, although she didn’t dream that anybody thought there was anything special between us. But I know she would be glad with me, and so would daddy. And now, Aunt Petra, why don’t you take off your hat and stay to lunch with us? It won’t be very elaborate, of course, because Hazel and Heather are getting it, but it will be very nice for you to stay and eat with us. Won’t you stay?”
“For pity’s sake, Hazel and Heather getting lunch! Why, where are your wonderful servants, I should like to know? I don’t wonder they got other places if you sent them flying like that without any notice.”
“Well, you see we’ve only just got here, and we haven’t fully made our plans, so I haven’t sent them word to come back yet. I’m not just sure how many of them I want back. Stanton, of course, was the best of the lot, but I found a letter here from him that his old mother is very sick with a lingering illness and he feels he should stay with her for the present. The chauffeur had a chance to get another job and I told him to take it. We don’t really need a chauffeur anyway. Jack and Jerry and I can all drive, and it won’t be long before Tryon is driving too. And as for the nurse she was simply impossible. I don’t want her back. I’m not sure about the cook. She was rather grumpy at times. I may get her later, though. Just for the present I’ve engaged the gardener’s wife to clean for us, and we’re doing the cooking ourselves, as we have done all summer. I think it’s really good for us all!”
“Cooking! Well I guess you’ll need somebody to clean after you children have been cooking! I think you’re all stark staring crazy and you need a nurse, every one of you, and especially your daft old Uncle Blakefield!”
“Oh, we’re going to have a nurse,” smiled Jennifer. “My old nurse, Kirsty McCarra. Do you remember her? We’ve been up visiting her a few days, and we’re bringing her down to stay. Her invalid sister has recently died so she is free to come again. Do you remember her?”
“Was she that queer foreign-sounding woman with such a thick speech like a crooked thistle? Mercy, I hope you won’t keep her! She was very religious, I remember, and she was a great stickler for having your bottles washed so clean she made all your mother’s cooks angry till they left.”
“Why, we all love her, Aunt Petra. We’re so delighted she would come. But aren’t you going to take off your hat and sit down till lunch time?”
“No, I certainly am not. I should have indigestion if I did, eating things those wild young ones had cooked! And having to sit and listen to all the crazy things you are planning to do. I’m really sick at heart and I’ll have to go home. Royalty indeed! A pretty head of the house a man like that will make! And to think you chose him instead of Peter Willis! Now I’m going home and I wash my hands of this family for good and all! If you are determined to go to destruction you’ll have to go, that’s all!”
Aunt Petra walked out of the door with her head up and her chin in the air. But when Jennifer heard the wheels of her car going down the drive she sat down in a big chair and covered her face with her hands and laughed till the tears came.
“Poor Aunt Petra! And she didn’t know what it meant to be related to the royal family, and be a subject of the King of Kings!”
The house was wide and low and charming, built of rough gray stone with ivy climbing about the terrace walls, creeping up the rambling solid chimneys, and about the stone bay windows. It had a homelike look, as if it were a place beloved where happy living went on, and joy echoed from its solid walls, a place whose every spot was enjoyed to the full, a place where friends and neighbors loved to come.
But that morning it seemed to be standing aghast in the early summer sunshine, its bright frill of daffodils that edged the terrace walls gazing with fixed yellow stare at a world that overnight had changed. The whole house seemed stunned with the sudden catastrophe that had befallen, like a beloved dog wagging his lonely plumy tail, wistfully, grievedly, to an unresponsive relative.
Two cars were parked on the wide drive near the front entrance and a third drove hastily up as if it feared it was late. A lady in the back seat leaned forward looking up at the house speculatively, with an almost possessive glance, critically taking in all its features. She stepped out of the limousine as her chauffeur opened the door for her, and hastened up the broad low steps, noting a flower that hung down from its stalk over the walk, reminding herself to speak to the gardener about picking the flowers and sending them over to her house.
She was a large lady, imposing in her bearing, sharp of glance, firm of chin and thin of lip, a great aunt on the mother’s side who had always considered it her business to set the whole family right and keep them so. Her name was Petra Holbrook, Aunt Pet for short, disrespectfully called by the children sometimes, “Aunt Petunia.”
At the threshold she paused with her hand on the doorknob and identified the two cars that were parked at the right of the drive, side by side as if a procession were expected and they were the first. She sniffed as she recognized them. The first would be Adrian Graeme’s car. Of course he would come first and try to act as though he was the most important member of the family, just because his name was Graeme and he was the oldest relative on the Graeme side. But he surely didn’t expect to have anything to say about matters. He was only a second cousin and had never been generous. But then of course the notice had been sent to them all. That was certainly a shabby car he was driving. His second best likely. It didn’t seem very respectful to come to such an important engagement in a car like that, but then his flibbertigibbet wife Lutie likely had the other off somewhere shopping. Wasn’t she coming? Probably she was going to try to get out of any responsibility. Perhaps she would be late, and come fluttering in after everything was all arranged. Lutie Graeme! Such a silly name for a grown woman. Well, she for one intended to see that Cousin Lutie had a task set for her that would make her wish she had come earlier.
And the next car was Jim Delaney’s. Jim had been a half-brother of John Graeme and would likely think he had a say. And of course he was pretty well fixed, and ought to be able to shoulder some of the responsibility. But he needn’t think he was going to choose what it should be. After all he was only a half, and a man at that. And a man wouldn’t know rightly what was good for children suddenly left without father or mother. Jim’s wife was dead so she would not be there to complicate matters.
She swept the driveway with another glance that glimpsed the side toward the garage. Apparently the lawyer hadn’t come yet. Well, that was just as well. She would have a good opportunity to talk things out with Adrian Graeme and Jim Delaney before he arrived.
Great Aunt Petra turned the knob and tried to open the door. It was her habit to open her relatives’ doors and walk right in as if she owned them herself, when she could. But in this case the door was locked.
“Utterly absurd!” she murmured annoyedly as she petulantly rang the bell.
A man servant appeared and opened the door for her with respectful formality, as Miriam Graeme had taught him to do.
“The gentlemen are in the living room, Mrs. Holbrook,” the man said.
Aunt Petra made no comment, but turned on him with orders.
“Stanton, why don’t you take the night latch off that door?” she said dictatorially. “It’s absurd to keep running back and forth to open the door when you know there are a number of people coming!”
“I’m going according to my orders, ma’am,” said Stanton.
She reached out and snapped the latch off herself. “Now,” she said with authority, “you needn’t come when the bell rings. Let them walk right in!”
Then she turned and sailed into the great beautiful living room.
Stanton stood at one side waiting until she had paused an instant to take in the situation and turned to the right toward the far end where the two men were sitting. Then he reached a swift hand and snapped the latch on once more, disappearing silently into the recesses of the back hall, alert and prepared for the next ring of the bell. His mistress who had laid this responsibility upon him was lying in a new-made grave, but as long as he was in this position he would continue to do as she had taught him.
Aunt Petra took her leisurely way down the room, noting with appraising eye several articles in the room that she had long admired, a priceless painting on the wall that well might adorn her own wall now, if she should feel it wise to take over one of the children and look after her. Jennifer, perhaps, because she would soon marry and be off her hands. A tall lamp with a unique arrangement of indirect lights. A lovely jardiniere she had long coveted. And those marvelous rugs! But there wasn’t a room in her house that was large enough for them, and they would likely have to be sold anyway. What a pity!
The two men had arisen as she drew near, though they still continued their talk until she was opposite them. Then they turned.
“Good morning, Mrs. Holbrook,” said Jim Delaney. “Won’t you have this chair?”
“Thank you, I prefer a straighter one,” said Aunt Petra perversely. “Good morning, Adrian. I’m surprised you’re able to be out. I heard Lutie telling someone yesterday at the funeral that you were feeling quite miserable and really ought to be in bed. I didn’t expect to see you this morning.”
“H’m? Ah! Why, I’m feeling quite well, Mrs. Holbrook, thank you. It is a sad occasion of course, but I’m in my usual health. Perhaps you’d like this chair.”
“No,” said Aunt Petra sharply, “I’ll take this straight chair. Hasn’t the lawyer come yet? I thought he was always ahead of time.” She glanced at her watch severely as if it were somehow to blame.
“H’m, no, not yet,” murmured Adrian. “It’s just as well, as we aren’t all here anyway.”
“Oh, who else is coming?”
“I really couldn’t say,” said Adrian. “All of them, I suppose. Ah, I think I hear footsteps. Someone else has arrived.”
Stanton had arranged the bell with a muffler so that it sounded with a subdued bur-r-r back in the hall, and he was at the door before Aunt Petra could even know anyone had come. They all looked up, however, as a shadow crossed the sunlight from the front windows and portly Majesta Best walked in, followed, a pace or two behind, by her thin apologetic husband, Uncle Pemberton Best. Majesta Best was a younger sister of Petra Holbrook and her rival in every way.
“Oh,” said Petra, somewhat haughtily, “Pemberton, Majesta, I didn’t suppose you’d be able to get away this morning, you took home so many of the cousins from back in the country after the funeral yesterday. Have they gone so soon? I was hoping some of them could come to dinner.”
“Oh, no,” said Majesta sinking comfortably into an ample armchair, “they’re staying over the week-end. You’ll have plenty of time to invite them, Petra. But I know my duty and I told them frankly I’d have to be over here and do what I could to look after my dear dead niece’s children.”
“You needn’t have felt that way, Majesta,” said Petra, “there are plenty of us here to plan for the children, and we would all have understood that you were taking care of the cousins. But, we’re all here now, aren’t we? I mean of course the more active ones. The uncles are all here, at least, aren’t they, Adrian?”
Adrian looked about him.
“Why, no, I believe Blakefield hasn’t come yet.”
“Blakefield!” chorused the aunts. And then Petra, “But what does he matter? Of course he wouldn’t have a voice in saying what should be done with the children!”
“You must remember, Petra,” said Adrian, “that Blakefield is an uncle of John Graeme, and one might almost say a favorite uncle,” he added in a half-offended tone. “Of course I never have felt that Blakefield was practical. Still we have to give him the courtesy of an invitation. John always did think a great deal of his Uncle Blakefield. Perhaps because he was John’s father’s twin brother.”
“Yes,” sighed Aunt Petra, “of course John always was quite sentimental about everything, and his father dying so young and all, I suppose he felt that Blake was a little nearer to him than any of the others. And of course it’s all right for Blakefield to be here and sit in on this conference, but he can’t be expected to really do anything. He hasn’t been so awfully successful in business, has he? And now being an unmarried man he couldn’t be expected to give any of the children a home. But I did expect Agatha Lane to be here. She has plenty of money, and room, and servants, and no husband to interfere, and being Miriam’s only wealthy relative ought to do something handsome. She ought to be depended upon to take over the two younger children. She’s nothing in the world to do but amuse herself and she always pretended to think the world and all of her niece Miriam. There! Didn’t I hear another horn? Isn’t that her car, Adrian?” Great Aunt Petra got up and sailed to the front window. “Yes, it is! There’s Agatha now! Well, I’m glad she’s come. Now, if the lawyer were only here we could get started at once.”
Aunt Agatha Lane entered languidly, slim, youngish, elegant, inclined her graceful body in a bow that included them all and dropped dramatically to the end of a couch. She was a widow, well made-up, with a threadlike eyebrows, delicately flushed complexion, and a cloud of golden hair, done in a long golden bob that gave her the appearance of at least half her age.
“Well, I’m glad you’ve come, Agatha,” said Great Aunt Petra, raising her deep voice so that it could be clearly heard over the large room and penetrated even to the adjoining library. The library opened in a vista from one end of the living room, and Jennifer Graeme had taken refuge there behind heavy drawn curtains. She had been weeping her young heart out for her adored parents, and was miserable now over what she considered the intrusion of all these relatives. Why did they want to come here at this time when she wanted to be alone? What right had they, she asked herself pitifully, as she curled more deeply into a great leather chair and stuffed her little damp handkerchief into her mouth to still her sobs.
But Great Aunt Petra’s voice came sharply through the curtains.
“Yes, Agatha, I certainly am glad you are here! For you see you will have to play quite an important part in the plans we have to make. It has seemed to me from the very first that you would be the ideal one to take over the two youngest children, or one of them at least. You have more leisure than anyone else, and it would be just a pleasure for you to bring them up and plan their future.” “Oh, mercy!” said Agatha Lane, suddenly rousing from her languor. “I? Bring up the children? And such terrible children! Why, Petra, the last time I was here I went home utterly exhausted from the strain of having them come pelting into the room every few minutes, as dirty as two little pigs, and howling! That little Robin is positively disgusting when he eats chocolate, and smears it all over himself and the chairs. He actually wanted to get into my lap! At least his nurse suggested that he do so, and eat his chocolate dog in my lap! Fancy it! And that little Karen is unspeakable! She climbed up on the lattice outside the back terrace and swung there before the window until I thought I should lose my senses! No, Petra, you’ll have to leave me out of any plans like that. I haven’t the strength to stand it. I’ve just come from my doctor’s, and he thinks I should have a long sea voyage, and a little time of resting abroad in some resort where I can have baths and treatments. Of course I could take Jennifer with me for a few months perhaps. She is old enough to look after herself I should think, although I’m afraid I should lose my mind, she is so peculiar and unexpected in her reactions. I just couldn’t stand it to have to watch out for her on shipboard. One has to be so careful about whom a young girl meets, you know. At that age! There are so many ineligibles about, too, especially when a girl might be thought to have money.”
“I don’t think you need worry very much about Jennifer,” said Aunt Majesta dryly. “I think she’s pretty well provided for, isn’t she, Petra? I’ve seen her going about a great deal with that Peter Willis, and he’s enormously rich. I imagine she’ll be marrying him before long and then she’ll be off our hands!”
“Jennifer is a little young to be married off yet, isn’t she? Do you all realize she isn’t of age?”
They all looked up startled, and there in the doorway stood Uncle Blakefield, gray-haired, somewhat bald, kindly-faced, but grim just now.
“Oh, is that you, Blakefield?” said Great Aunt Petra. “I didn’t hear you come in. I don’t suppose you realize that Jennifer wouldn’t be counted young to be married in these days. But do come in and sit down and let’s get to work. Why doesn’t that lawyer come?”
“By the way,” said Agatha Lane, in a clear voice that dominated the room at once, “I wonder if you all realize that there’s a perfectly good way to settle these matters without the least bit of trouble to any of us? Why don’t we just put Cousin Abigail Storm in here and let her run the house and take care of them all, at least until Jennifer marries? That will kill two birds with one stone. Cousin Abigail is in abject despair. She’s lost every atom of her money and she can’t find a job anywhere, she’s too old. I had a most forlorn letter from her this morning, and I felt that it just came in the nick of time. Here we’ll have Abigail on our hands if we don’t do something about it pretty soon, and it strikes me that this will be a perfectly lovely arrangement.”
“Well, I think it would be perfectly ruinous,” said Petra with scornful eyes. “It might be a lovely arrangement for you, Agatha, saving you from any responsibility at all, but it would be disastrous for the family! Simply disastrous! Those children need to be dealt with strenuously, and they mustn’t be allowed to stay together! No one woman could deal with them adequately if they were left in a bunch. Those children have been allowed to run wild, and we’ve got to separate them, or we’ll have a set of criminals on our hands before long. I tell you they have got to be separated! You can’t ever do a thing with them if they are left together for they will protect each other. Haven’t I seen them? They are little devils. I know what I’m talking about—”
“They ought not to be separated!” declared Uncle Blakefield’s quiet stubborn voice.
“Well, really, Blakefield, what have you to say about it?” demanded Aunt Majesta grandly.
And then the fight was on.
Blakefield stood his ground amazingly, unaccustomedly, saying little except when the others seemed to consider that their arguments were about to prevail, and then he would utter a single sentence, cryptically, which would startle them into a momentary silence.
“Well, I think it’s ideal, having Cousin Abigail come and keep them together just as their Uncle Blake says,” stated Agatha Lane happily in one of the brief intervals of silence. “That would take care of Abigail so beautifully, and give Blake his way. We could allow Abigail a reasonable salary, and a certain sum for running the house. Then let her train the children to help. That would save money for them when they get older.”
Agatha Lane just loved to get up plans and elaborate them in finished little sentences.
“You will never put that selfish, hard-eyed, unloving woman over those dear children with my consent!” said Uncle Blake.
“Well, it isn’t in the least likely that your consent will be necessary, Blake,” said Aunt Petra dryly. “It would naturally be the women of the family, especially the women belonging to the mother of the children, who would arrange those matters.”
“That remains to be seen,” said Uncle Blake quietly, and said no more, sitting down in a far comer in front of the great bookcase that lined the wall from floor to ceiling, and from window to window. He looked quite at home and insignificant, there among his nephew’s gorgeously bound books, just a plain old man with an unexpectedly firm set of lips, meddling in affairs that really did not concern him in the least. So thought Aunt Petra, studying him with annoyance, amazed to catch a sudden passing likeness to the dead John Graeme in that firmness of jaw. Could it be that just Blakefield was going to make delay and trouble for them?
Meantime the others chattered on, discussing various plans, each apparently trying to shunt the weight of responsibility upon someone else.
“Of course we shall have no trouble with the boys. That is, the older boys. Jeremy will naturally go back to college. Or prep school, which was it?” said Uncle Adrian thoughtfully.
“Prep school! I think, wasn’t it?” said Aunt Petra sharply. “I doubt if he ever gets far enough to enter college, and you don’t know what you’re talking about, Adrian. If he once does enter college you’ll have more troubles than you can shake a stick at. That boy will go from one scrape to another, or I’ll miss my guess.”
“I shall talk to him,” said Uncle Adrian. “I shall let him understand that we will have no nonsense. That he will have to go out and fend for himself if he dares to get expelled from college. And I think he’ll understand when I get through with him that the time has come for him to brace up and try to be a man who will bring credit to his family name. At least he will see that someone is looking after him who will take no excuses from him. I don’t really anticipate much trouble from Jeremy. Of course I don’t know him so very well. I doubt if I’ve seen him since he was ten or twelve, but I fancy he will see life from a different angle after I am through with him. Then if you ladies can take Jennifer and give her a good dressing down and let her understand what is expected of her from now on, I should think you could count on her making a good marriage within a reasonable time, and that’s two of them disposed of. Now, how many more are there?”
“Five!” said Majesta Best laconically. “Robin, and Karen, and Heather, and Tryon, and Hazel!”
“Mercy! What names! Every one of them queer?’ said Aunt Petra. “Whatever did Miriam and John mean lumbering their children up with such awful names? If I were in their place I’d change my name, every one of them. Think of handicapping a boy with that queer old-fashioned name of Jeremy! It sounds as if it came out of the Bible. And as for Jennifer, it’s heathenish, I think. I should be ashamed to introduce her to my friends by that name. I shall call her Jennie. Or Jane. That’s very popular now, Jane! I’ll begin calling her that right away. It suits her very well. Jane Graeme!”
And all the time Jennifer Graeme lay cramped in that deep leather chair in the far comer of the library, boiling with rage at her relatives.
“Well,” said Aunt Lutie, who arrived just then in the best car, and entered with a flutter and a flourish, “did I hear you criticizing the children’s names as I came in? You must admit there is one that is well named. Tryon. Tryon Graeme. He’s the most ‘tryin’ ’ Graeme I’ve ever come across! The last time I was here his mother was away, and he was acting like a young hyena. I really had to speak to him. Yes, I did! He was prancing across the room and mimicking everything I did, and when I told him to stop he ran out in the hall and I heard him singing at the top of his lungs, “Oh, Lutie, Lutie, ain’t she cutie!” and he got his two little sisters laughing so they couldn’t answer me. I certainly should have tinned him over my knee and spanked him if his nurse hadn’t come along just then. Well, are you all here? The lawyer hasn’t come and gone already, has he? I didn’t want to miss the reading of the will, of course, though I really had my hands quite full without coming here. What have you done?”
“Oh, nothing at all,” said Agatha Lane coldly, “that is nothing that need worry you. We’ve just been talking— disagreeing as usual.” She lifted her chin disdainfully.
“Well,” said Lutie vivaciously, “I think the first question to settle is whether John Graeme had lost his money. If he hadn’t, if there’s plenty of money, of course the whole matter is quite simple. Simply ship the whole lot of them off to good schools where they will be brought up to be a credit to the family, finished and all that. Even little Robin isn’t too young. There are kindergarten boarding schools, I understand, where they are looked after and brought up just as well, or even better than they could be brought up in the usual home. Personally I think all these Graeme children are badly spoiled and need to be taken in hand at once. As for Jennifer, she can be sent abroad for a couple of years on a trip with a good chaperone, who will see that she doesn’t get too intimate with the wrong young man. There! I think I’ve arranged the whole affair nicely, don’t you?”
Jennifer in her dark refuge behind the library curtain suddenly sat up very straight and very angry, her eyes blazing, her tear-wet lashes starring them, her face white and drawn with a sort of righteous fury. Almost, for an instant, she was on the point of darting out among them and smiting them with bitter words. Then caution came upon her suddenly like a calm hand on her forehead and warned her to hold her peace, and not manifest opposition too soon. Let them make their plans. She would see that they were not carried out! She would do something, anything to prevent them. Trips to Europe for herself might be all very well sometime, but not at their will, not by force, sugar-coated as if they were doing her a favor. Not with her little brothers and sisters parked here and there, anywhere, as if they were all a part of the furnishing of the house.
Then an interruption occurred in the entrance of the lawyer and his assistant, and there was a general hush, and a stir while the chairs were rearranged, and the lawyer took a seat by a little table which Jim Delaney cleared of bric-a-brac for his use.
While the lawyers were bringing forth sheaves of papers from their brief cases, and talking in low monosyllables to each other, the whole company subsided for an instant or two, and then the ladies began to converse again, in low cultured whispers, Majesta loftily telling Lutie what had been said and suggested so far, and adding some of her own comments, her tones gradually waxing clearer, so that her words were quite distinct on the other side of the library portiere. Jennifer caught her breath softly and clenched her small hands tensely. She wished with all her heart that her beloved father could come back for just one minute at least, from the far place to which the fallen airplane had sent him, and tell those horrible relatives where to get off. “Where to get off.” That was just the way she knew he would have phrased it if he had been here and heard their preposterous plans. Separating his children! Sending them off to suit their will, as if they belonged to all of them! Oh, how terrible! Could dad ever have dreamed that he would leave them in danger of such things?
But of course he wouldn’t have expected, when he thought of it at all, that he and mother would both be taken away, not at once. Of course he would have expected mother to do the planning.
The tears streamed forth again and pelted down the frightened young face, stern in its anger. And now she, she was the only one left to take her mother’s place. Well, of course, there was Jerry, but he was only a year out of prep school. They wouldn’t feel that he had authority. They knew nothing about him. Thought him still in prep school! But she would be of age in a little over three months, and she must somehow protect the rest, just as father or mother would have done if either one of them had been left behind from the horrible disaster that had taken them both in one swift stroke. She, she must do it alone! She would have to get them all away out of harm’s reach!
Then a sentence from the whispered conversation beyond the curtain reached her. It was Aunt Lutie’s chipper little voice, trivial even in a whisper:
“Aren’t you going to have trouble with that Jennifer? She’s rather headstrong, I think. Her parents allowed her too much leeway. If she doesn’t want to go your way she’ll take a stand.”
“Nonsense!” hissed Aunt Majesta. “She’ll find that we aren’t treating her that way. When we say a thing we mean it! Besides, she’s only a frivolous little thing. Give her a new dress and a trip to Europe and get her mind off her own way. As for the rest, our word will be law. I’m not so sure myself but Agatha’s idea about Abigail Storm might be a good thing after all.”
“What do you mean? Keep up this great house just for those children? That would be ridiculous!” said Lutie. ‘ I thought perhaps one of us would take it over, pay rent to the estate of course—not much, for it ought to be worth something to have it lived in and looked after. But those children, just children, living all alone in this great house with Abigail would be absurd! A great waste, I should say. I wouldn’t mind living here myself.”
“After all, it’s their house, of course,” said Majesta loftily. “I don’t see myself why you should live here any more than the rest of us. However, I presume it will likely be the consensus of opinion that the house should be sold and the money invested. The furnishings sold too, I suppose. We could each bid in some of the best things, at a nominal price. I’ve always fancied this rug, but I’d have to see if it fits my room. I have considered taking out that back partition between the library and the living room. I’m sure it would fit then. You don’t get antique rugs of this type often nowadays.”
“Oh, I guess you can get plenty if you know where to look!” said Lutie indifferently. “But if the house were sold where would Cousin Abbey and the children live?”
“Why couldn’t they go up to the old farm? Most of them would be off at school a good deal of the time, anyway.”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that. Well, perhaps I could get Adrian to bid in this house for us. It really isn’t bad, though I’d hate to leave our own house, small as it is compared with this one. But one could really entertain here, it is so spacious!”
Jennifer in the back room stealthily slipped out of her chair and rose, her eyes snapping fire. What she wanted to do was to rush right in through that curtain and tell those two old hawks to get out. It was not their house and none of their business what became of the rugs and pictures and things. Surely nobody could sell their home and its furnishings right out of hand that way without their consent! Oh, if they would only go away, out of the house, she would lock all the doors and never let them in again!
She stood there trembling with young fury. How angry her mother and father would have been to know that these cormorants were daring to talk this way about the precious home things! Actually planning which things they wanted themselves! Oh, how much power did they have? Surely, surely dad would have fixed things so they couldn’t do this!
It was with difficulty that she restrained herself to listen as she heard the lawyer clear his throat and begin to talk. She must be quiet and careful. She must not let them know that she had heard their conniving. She must listen and know just what they were going to try to do, so that she would know how to work against them.
Quietly she subsided into her chair again, but she did not relax. She was alert, frightened, her heart beating so fast that she almost feared the aunts outside the curtain would hear it. She held her breath and listened.
The lawyer was reading the will. She took a deep breath. Then daddy had left a will. Of course he would. Of course he would not leave them all at the mercy of these unfeeling relatives! She began to listen again through all the maze of legal phrases. Some of it she understood, and some was not even lucid to her, but she sat there with her brown curls bobbing, and her eyes like two great angry stars shining from the gloom of the room.
There were long involved paragraphs that seemed utterly unnecessary to her when all she wanted to know was what her father had planned for them. But as the phrases rolled on in the other room concerning stocks and bonds and properties, and the time of the coming of age of each of them, she gathered enough here and there to calm her troubled spirit. It was evident, gloriously evident, that their father had planned for them no such shunting off into the world of boarding schools and European trips and marriage as the relatives had suggested, and she meant to foil them in any attempt to spoil her father’s plans.
Gradually a purpose began to form in her own mind. If , those combative aunts and uncles, who were even now interrupting the lawyer with questions designed to clear the way for their own ideas, had but glanced behind them into the next room, and caught the gleam of those bright angry eyes, the set of those determined red lips, they would have been startled to see how much Jennifer Graeme looked like her dead father, in spite of the fact that she had inherited a great deal of the beauty of her dead mother.
It was Aunt Majesta who finally cleared her throat and broke in upon Lawyer Hemmingway’s monotonous listing of special bequests under which the women of the conclave were growing restive.
“Really, Mr. Hemmingway, we aren’t especially interested in those trifling bequests that John left to his servants and henchmen. Couldn’t you just excuse the ladies of the party? We want to talk over what we are to do about the children, and arrange for their welfare at once. It seems to me that is the important thing now. We can just step into this next room, the library, and be close at hand if anything important should come up for which we are needed. Come, Petra, come Agatha! And Lutie, would you care to come?”
Aunt Majesta had risen and taken hold of the heavy portiere that separated the rooms, drawing it firmly back for a few inches, so that Jennifer’s hiding place was in full range if any had been looking.
The lawyer gave Aunt Majesta a sharp reproving glance and said coldly: “That will scarcely be necessary, Mrs. Best. That can all be left to the children’s guardian. If he needs your advice he will doubtless ask you. I am coming to that soon, if you will kindly be seated and be a little patient.”
“Guardian?” ejaculated Majesta Best hoarsely. “He!” and she slumped heavily back into her chair.
“As if any mere man would be able to cope with those children!” fairly snorted Petra Holbrook, rearing up in her chair.
But Jennifer did not hear any of this. At the moving of the curtain she had uncurled herself in a flash from the big chair and vanished out into the hall.
And just at that minute the doorbell rang and Stanton answering it came back toward Jennifer with a telegram in his hand.
There had been so many telegrams and letters of condolence that Jennifer naturally supposed this was just another, somewhat belated. She held out her hand for it.
“I’ll attend to that, Stanton,” she said in a whisper, and taking it fled lightly up the stairs to her room. She didn’t want even Stanton to know that she had been hiding in the library.
She tore open the envelope idly, scarcely knowing why she thought it necessary to read it, just another expression of sympathy of course! Then she caught her breath, her eyes grew frightened, her little white even teeth came down tensely on the pretty under lip, as she read the name signed to the message.
“Oh!” She read the whole message slowly.