CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
"Mel-chisedek!"
As who should say "What, ma'am?" Melchisedek lifted his snubby little nose and gazed inquiringly at Theodora. Then he went back to his assaults on the corner of the rug. Melchisedek's mother had been a thrifty soul; in her young son's puppyhood, she had impressed upon him the fact that well-trained dogs should bury superfluous food supplies, to be held in reserve for the hour of need. Cicely had been too lavish, that morning, in her allowance. Melchisedek had eaten until his small legs stuck out stiffly from his distended little body, and now he was endeavoring to bury the remainder of his meal in the folds of the rug. The room was a large one, and it took a perceptible time for Theodora to reach the scene of action. Melchisedek's efforts increased in vigor as she came nearer, and, just as she stooped to catch him, he succeeded in folding the end of her ancient Persian rug above an overturned Chelsea saucer and a widening pool of oatmeal and cream. Then he retired under the table and smiled suavely up at her, while she removed the debris.
It was now two weeks since they had returned from Quantuck, and the year was at the fall of the leaf. The Savins was covered with a thick carpet of golden brown, and the birches and hickories were blazing with gold, while the corner house was set in a nest of crimson and yellow and scarlet maples. For the hour, earth was almost as radiant as the sun; but the quiet drop, drop, drop of the yellow leaves through the golden, hazy air told that the end was not far distant, that too soon the gold would give place to the grey and the brown.
This autumn season had brought a new break into the McAlister family circle. Phebe had gone away to Philadelphia, almost immediately after their return from the seashore. If her interest in medical science were on the wane, at least she was too proud to confess the fact, and the doctor, with some misgivings, had consented to her departure.
"There's no especial reason Babe shouldn't make a good doctor," he said to his wife, the night after the matter was finally decided; "the trouble is, there seems to be no especial reason that she should. I can't discover that she's any more in love with that profession than with a dozen others. She simply took it up because it was the most obvious one, and because she was restless for some sort of an occupation."
"Wait and see," his wife counselled him. "For the present, she is contented with this choice, and she may as well try it for a year. By that time, she will be able to decide whether she wants to go on. One year of it, at her age, can't do any harm, and it may do her some good, if only to steady her down a little."
"Then you don't think she will carry it through?"
"No," she said honestly; "I don't. Babe hasn't the make-up for a professional woman in any line. She is too self-centred, too impetuous. She needs something to humanize her womanhood, not make an abstract thing of her. I'd rather see Babe a gentle, loving woman than the greatest light of her profession."
"What a little bigot it is!" the doctor said teasingly.
"No, not a bigot," she returned quickly. "I believe in a girl's taking a profession, when it is the one absorbing interest of her life. It wouldn't be so with Babe. She would take it from restlessness, not love, from sheer unused vitality that must have an outlet. It was different with Ted; it will be different with Allyn. They are ready to give up other things for their work. Phebe isn't."
"After all, Babe is developing," the doctor said thoughtfully. "She is steadier than she used to be, and a good deal more true and sincere. If she would only grow a little more affectionate, I should be content."
"Wait," his wife repeated. "She develops slowly, and she hasn't found out yet just which way it is worth her while to grow. When she does, you will find that she grows fast enough. Look at Allyn. He seems like a new creature in this new plan of his."
The doctor smiled a little sadly.
"Perhaps I am impatient, Bess; but I am getting to be an old man, and I want to see all my children on their own straight roads, before I die."
But if Phebe's choice of career filled her family with doubtful questionings, their doubts were at an end in respect to Allyn. The boy had not only come back from the seashore to settle down into the harness of school life again; he was even tugging hard at the traces. Mindful of his bargain with his father, anxious to prove that his wish was both fixed and earnest, he had gone to work with a dogged determination to show his father that, once interested, he was capable of doing honest, solid work. He did work with a will and with a healthy appetite that left him scant time and energy for outside things; and between his books and his drawings he was far too busy to heed the ways and the warts of Jamie Lyman and his kin. Directly after their return to The Savins, the doctor had sent a package of Allyn's drawings to one of his old-time classmates, now the head of a famous school of technology. The answer which came back to him was prompt and full of enthusiasm, and Dr. McAlister, as he read it, felt his last regret leaving him that his son was to abandon his own profession.
Cicely, meanwhile, was mounting guard over Allyn's languages, advising, admonishing and often helping him along the devious paths of syntax and subjunctives. She had a good deal of time at her disposal. She gave it to him freely, and unconsciously she gained as much as she gave, in her work with the boy. Their comradeship was as perfect as was their unlikeness. Each complemented the other, each modified the other, and both were far the better and the happier for the intimacy. To be sure, their paths were not all of pleasantness and peace. Both Cicely and Allyn were outspoken and hot-tempered; but their feuds now were measured by moments, not by days, and the overtures of peace were mutual.
Although Gifford Barrett had never been known to speak more than a dozen words to Cicely, and those were chiefly concerning the weather, the girl appeared to have gained great inspiration from her meeting with the young composer, and she plodded away more diligently than ever at her long hours of practice. Day after day, she ended with her beloved overture, playing it over, not so much to perfect herself in it, as to remind herself that music was a living, vital means of expression quite within the reach of one not so much older than herself. It was not that Cicely ever hoped to compose. That was as far beyond her ambition as it was beyond her powers. She only gained courage from the thought that success in one's chosen line was not always deferred until the end of life. Moreover, she felt a certain human and girlish satisfaction in being able to state that, once at least, she had swept the gifted composer of the Alan Breck Overture completely off his feet. The fact was enough; no need to enter into details.
Theodora and Billy never stopped to analyze how large a hold upon their hearts this healthy, happy girl had taken. If she dined at The Savins, they devoured their own meal in silence. If she spent an evening away from home Billy read his paper with one eye on the clock, and Theodora reduced Melchisedek to whimpering frenzy by asking once in ten minutes where his missy was. They wanted her chatter, wanted her more gentle moments, wanted above all else her pranks which served as a sort of vicarious outlet for their own animal spirits. For nine days out of ten, Cicely and Melchisedek frisked through life together. On the tenth, Cicely passed into a thoughtful mood; Melchisedek never.
"What's the matter, Cousin Ted?" Cicely asked, one day, as she met
Theodora stalking up the stairs after dismissing a caller.
"Another reporter. I wish they would let law-abiding citizens alone, and use up their energy on tramps," Theodora said viciously. "Such a morning as I have had! My marketing took twice as long as usual; my typewriter has broken a spring, and now this man has wasted a good half-hour of my time. Cis, the next man that comes to interview me, I shall hand over to you."
"All right. What shall I tell him?"
"Anything you choose, as long as you keep him away from me. It's no use to refuse to see them. I tried that, and they straight-way went off and published three columns of my utterances on South African politics, when I don't know a Boer from a Pathan. Farewell, I am going to work." And, the next moment, Cicely heard the click of her typewriter.
It was more than three weeks later that Cicely sat alone, one afternoon, reading lazily before the fire, when the maid brought her a card.
"It's for Mrs. Farrington," she said.
"Let me see." Cicely took it and glanced at the name, Mr. William Smith. Down in the corner was the legend "Boston Intermountain." "It is all right, Mary," she added. "I will see the man."
There was a short delay while she sped upstairs, ransacked Theodora's closet for a long skirt, and swiftly coiled her hair on the top of her head. Then demurely enough she presented herself to the waiting guest.
"Mrs. Farrington?" he said interrogatively, as he rose.
"Good-afternoon," she answered, extending her hand graciously. "Won't you be seated?"
He looked surprised. As a rule, the reception accorded to him was not so cordial.
"I came here on behalf of the Boston Intermountain," he said a little uneasily. "They are making up a Thanksgiving number, and are anxious for a special feature or two. Among other things, they want a little sketch of your work and your ways of doing it."
"Certainly." Cicely seated herself on the sofa and smiled encouragement at the young man, while she vaguely wondered whether he had discovered that her cousin's waist measure was three inches smaller than her own.
"Might I ask," he inquired, as he pulled out a notebook; "whether you are busy just now on a new book?"
"Yes, I am writing four at present," she answered unexpectedly.
"Four, all at once?"
"Yes."
"But—pardon me—but is there not danger of confusing them?"
"Oh, no; I keep them in different pigeon-holes," Cicely replied blandly.
"Ah, yes. Do you? Very good!" He laughed a little vaguely. "Are they to come out soon?"
"This winter, all but one. That will not appear for seven years."
"Indeed. And are you willing, Mrs. Farrington to tell me when you do your writing?"
"Certainly. I do it all at night."
"But isn't that very wearing?"
"Of course. I am often a total wreck for months after finishing a book."
"Where do you do your writing?"
For a moment, Cicely hesitated between the rival charms of the front steps and the attic. Then she replied,—
"In the kitchen."
"The—kitchen!" For an instant, the man was thrown from his professional calm.
"Yes. I put my little kettle of tea to draw on the hob—"
"The—what?"
"The hob," Cicely said severely; "and when I am tired of writing, I refresh myself with a cup of Flowery Pekoe and a biscuit, and then I return to my pen once more."
"How much do you usually accomplish in a night?"
"Four thousand, five hundred words is my usual limit."
"And do your never write during the day?"
"Never. My thoughts only arise by candle-light."
At this poetic outburst, the interviewer glanced up and privately registered the belief that Mrs. Farrington was slightly cracked.
"I always sleep till noon," Cicely reassured him. "Is there anything else
I can do for you?"
"No, thank you. I think not. This will make a very interesting and acceptable article, I am sure. But, before I go, would you mind telling me what you think of Browning?"
"The greatest poet of the century," Cicely replied glibly, mindful of local prejudice.
"And your favorite poem?" he asked insinuatingly.
Then at last Cicely floundered, for she was quite beyond her depth.
"I think the Rubaiyát is by far the best," she said gravely, and her querist received the announcement in perfect good faith.
It was some weeks afterwards that Theodora, turning over her mail, came upon a marked copy of the Intermountain.
"What in the world is this?" she said in astonishment. "I never heard of the paper."
She opened it, and then she gasped. Upon the first page appeared a woodcut, evidently culled from the advertising department, and beneath it these headlines:
"Interview with Mrs. Theodora Farrington.
Alone with Her Tea-Kettle.
The Famous Young Author Works by Night.
The Inspiration of Genius by the Hob."
Theodora read it through, carefully, deliberately, down to the final statements in regard to Browning. She wondered at first. Then the light dawned upon her, as she came upon a carefully-turned phrase descriptive of "the little grey dog, the constant companion of his gifted mistress," and she looked up.
"Cis, you wretch!" she said.
But Cicely had been watching her face and, as she watched, her own dimples had grown deeper.
"Didn't you tell me I might?" she asked meekly.
"Yes," Theodora acknowledged; "yes, I did, and I don't know but it was justifiable. He must have been an innocent youth, Cis; but it's not so much worse than some of the tales told by men who have really seen me; only—don't do it again, dear. It might make me serious trouble."
"But, after all," she said to her husband, that night; "I am not so very sorry. They needn't make public property of us and our work. It is none of their affair, anyway; and Cicely has only done what I have wanted to do, and didn't quite dare. If more people had a deputy to be interviewed for them, it might put a stop to the literary columns in a good many minor papers."
And her husband agreed with her.