UNCLE MAURICE AT LADY GAY COTTAGE
“
You can’t live in Lady Gay Cottage much longer!”
This exulting announcement greeted Polly as she entered the schoolroom.
She looked at Ilga Barron with puzzled eyes.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Just what I say,” answered Ilga. “She can’t; can she, Gustave?”
The boy at her side Polly had never spoken with, but now she turned to him inquiringly. He had been in school only two days, having but recently returned with his parents from a long stay abroad.
“She’s right,” he asserted, addressing himself to Polly. “Father’s going to sell the place.”
“Oh! is that what you call our house?” queried Polly, beginning to understand. “Does your father own it?”
Gustave nodded. “Mother named it from the Lady Gay roses on the piazzas,” he explained. “Wait till June, and you’ll see!”
“I remember them last summer,” Polly smiled. “They were lovely—all pink and white, but I didn’t know their name.”
“You’ll have to go back to the hospital to live, shan’t you?” questioned Ilga curiously.
“I don’t know,” Polly answered. Her face held a bit of anxiety as she moved away.
This piece of news was the foremost topic at the Dudley dinner-table. Polly saw that her father and mother were disturbed by it. Although the Doctor made little jests, the laughter sometimes seemed forced, and occasionally talk would flag. There was no other rented house in the neighborhood, and Dr. Dudley must live in the immediate vicinity of the hospital to retain his position there. This Polly gathered from what passed between her father and mother, and she returned to school in no mood for study or play. Later a thought came which she felt sure would solve the problem. It was not until after tea that she made the proposition.
“Father,” she began, atilt on the arm of his chair, “should you like to buy this house yourself?”
“Possibly, if I had plenty of money; but what little I have is tied up where I can’t get at it conveniently.”
“Oh, then you can buy it right away!” Polly cried gleefully. “You can take my two thousand dollars! Won’t that be enough?”
Dr. Dudley’s lips set themselves firmly, and he shook his head.
“No, Thistledown, I cannot touch your money. Don’t you remember, I told you it must stay where it is until you are of age?”
“Oh, but this is different!” she urged. “Please take it—do!”
Her entreaties, however, could not prevail against the Doctor’s judgment.
“What shall we do, then?” she complained.
“Keep still for the present,” he laughed. “The house isn’t sold yet, perhaps won’t be. Don’t worry over it, Thistledown! There will be some way out, and a good way, too. Your Cousin Floyd told me to-night that the Royal is due to-morrow. You know that is the steamer his father sailed on, so you may expect to see your uncle by Friday. Floyd thinks he will come up at once.”
“I shall like him if he is as nice as Floyd,” returned Polly thoughtfully.
Dr. Dudley said nothing. He was weighing love and legal rights against wealth and near kinship. The balance did not appear to be in his favor.
On Thursday Polly was thrown into a pleasant excitement by the telephone message that came to Dr. Dudley. Uncle Maurice Westwood was in New York, and would motor up to Fair Harbor the next morning, to see his son and his new niece.
“I shall have to stay home from school, shan’t I?” Polly questioned eagerly.
“I think not,” was the quiet answer. “It is uncertain what time he will come, so things had better go on as usual.”
“But what if he should go back before I got home?” worried Polly.
Mrs. Dudley laughed. “No danger of that! Don’t you think your uncle will be as anxious to see you as you are to see him?”
“Maybe,” she replied doubtfully.
She felt that so unusual an occasion called for her best dress and a stately waiting for the visitor, instead of going to school in her common frock just as on ordinary days when nothing happened. But she made no further objection, joining David on the front walk, and telling him that “Uncle Maurice” was actually coming.
Returning at noon, Polly ran nearly all the way, so eager was she to see if her uncle’s car were in front of the house. To her disappointment the only vehicle in sight was a grocer’s team at Colonel Gresham’s side gate.
“I’m afraid he’s gone,” she lamented under her breath; yet she hurried round to the kitchen door, and was relieved of her fear by hearing voices in the living-room, her mother’s and a deeper one that she did not know.
Uncle Maurice looked a little as Polly had pictured, patterning him by his young son; but she had not made sufficient allowance for years, and he was older and very much bigger than she had imagined he would be. His smile was pleasant, like Floyd’s, and his greeting cordial and even fatherly. When Dr. Dudley came in he found her chatting familiarly upon her uncle’s knee.
It was not until after dinner that Mr. Westwood spoke of Polly’s future. Then his first sentence almost caught away her breath.
“Well, Doctor, I suppose you are going to give this little girl to me.”
“It will be as Polly says,” replied the physician, with a grave smile.
He did not look at Polly, who sat in a low chair near by; but she turned to him with an exclamation on her lips. It was arrested, however, by her uncle’s response.
“It surely seems to be the only way to fix matters. To begin with, she is my brother-in-law’s daughter, and it doesn’t seem fair to have her out of the family. If my wife were living she would never hear to such a thing, and Floyd wishes her to come to us as much as I do. She will have a mother in my sister, who has kept house for me the last three years, and I can give her every advantage that a girl should have. Of course, she can visit you occasionally, and we shall always be glad to see you in our New York home or in California. I bought a place down on the Pacific Coast, some six years ago, and I have kept adding to it until I have quite a ranch. It gives us an ideal home for the coldest weather, though this last winter we made only a flying trip there. Business called me across the water, and Floyd would rather dabble in chemicals, and incidentally put his eyes out, than do anything worth while. He doesn’t take to manufacturing. Wish he did! My two younger boys, Harold and Julian, I put in a military school last fall, and they’re having a dandy time. They will be home soon for their spring vacation, and then Polly can make their acquaintance. They are fine little fellows. Julian is captain of the junior football team, but Harold doesn’t go in for athletics. You’ll find him curled up with a book at almost any hour. Let’s see—he must be about your age. How old did you tell me you are?”
Polly, thus addressed, murmured, “Eleven”; but only her lips moved. It was as if an automaton spoke.
Mrs. Dudley, glancing that way, was startled.
The soft brown eyes were wide and brilliant, and a scarlet spot on either cheek lighted the pallid face. Polly was gazing at her uncle as if held by some strange power.
“He is only ten,” Mr. Westwood was saying. “Julian is fourteen. But there isn’t difference enough to matter. You three will get on admirably together.
“Better let her go back with me,” he went on, turning to the Doctor. “Mrs. Calhoun, my sister, will fix her out in the way of clothes. You can buy anything in New York, from a shoestring to—”
Nobody heard the end of that sentence, for, with a leap, Polly had the floor. Her eyes flashed, and her voice was tense with anger and determination.
“Uncle Maurice,” she cried, “I s’pose you mean all right; but I guess my mother knows how to get my clothes just as well as anybody, and you needn’t think I’m going to New York, you needn’t think so a single second! Why, I wouldn’t leave father and mother for a million dollars! I wouldn’t go for ten million dollars!”
“Well, Miss Highflier!” Mr. Westwood threw back his head in a chuckling laugh. “Some spirit in that little frame of yours! Shouldn’t wonder if you took after your father. Chester was a fiery boy. Now, come here, and let me tell you something.”
Polly’s head went up defiantly. “I’m not going!” she insisted. “You needn’t think you can coax me into it! You can’t!”
“Polly!” The Doctor’s voice was gently admonitive.
“Excuse me,” she apologized. “I didn’t mean to be impolite. But I shan’t go!” She moved obediently towards her uncle, and he placed her on his knee, where she sat, submissive but alert.
“I want to tell you what a splendid time you’ll have with us,” he began.
“Other folks have tried to buy me,” remarked Polly.
“Have they, indeed! It is a good thing to be marketable,” with a whimsical glance towards the Doctor.
“I don’t like it,” returned Polly.
“Well, you won’t have any more such trouble after you come to New York.”
Polly was silent, but her lips were set, and her eyes grew ominously dark.
“Now, in the first place, you shall have anything in the world you wish,—dolls, toys, and a playroom to keep them in, and a whole library of story-books. Then parties—whew, you ought to see what parties Julian and Harold have! They’d make you open your eyes with envy!”
“Mrs. Jocelyn gave me a beautiful birthday party,” responded Polly with dignity.
“Ah? But it wasn’t a New York party. You don’t know what kind of parties we get up in New York. Why, the flowers for the boys’ last affair cost two hundred dollars!”
Polly gazed down at the rug, and followed the intricate lines of the pattern.
“Then you shall have the handsomest pink silk party dress we can find in the city, all fixed up with white lace—real lace, mind you! What do you think of that?”
“I don’t want a pink silk party dress!” scorned Polly. “I have one already.”
“Ah?” Mr. Westwood looked a bit disconcerted.
“I will buy you a Shetland pony,” he resumed, “the very best one we can find, and you shall take riding-lessons with the boys. I’ll see that you have the choosing of your riding-suit, any color and style you like.”
Polly’s eyes showed mild interest, and her uncle proceeded.
“I saw a pony awhile ago that I think I can get for you. He is high-priced, but I guess he’s worth it. Such a pretty creature! He ate bread and butter and sugar out of my hand.”
“That’s what Lone Star does!” brightened Polly. “Lone Star is Colonel Gresham’s beautiful trotter.”
“I think I’ve heard of him,” observed Mr. Westwood.
“Have you?” Polly cried. “Oh, I wish you could see him! He is the most lovelicious horse!”
Her uncle laughed. “Well, you can have one just as ‘lovelicious’ as he is, a second Lone Star, if you like. Oh, how you will love your pony!”
“I am not going to have any pony!” was the resolute announcement.
“Oh, yes, you are!” he wheedled. “And we’ll take him with us when we go to our summer home up the Hudson River. Such a fine time you and the boys will have cantering over the country roads!”
For an instant Polly’s eyes sparkled over the picture. Then she came back.
“Uncle Maurice,” she declared, “there isn’t a bit of use in your trying to make me want to go and live with you! I wouldn’t leave father and mother for a hundred thousand ponies and parties and pink dresses and everything!” She slid from her uncle’s arm, and ran over to the Doctor, where she hid her face on his shoulder, breaking into soft sobs.
Mrs. Dudley drew her gently away and upstairs. She ended her cry on her mother’s breast.
When she was called down to bid her uncle good-bye, no mention was made of the subject which had brought the tears, and she thanked him very sweetly for his invitation to visit them sometime in the near future. Yet she watched him drive away in his handsome motor-car with a feeling of relief, and her wave of farewell was accompanied by a radiant smile.