CHAPTER VI
For some time Elsie could not think. She could only sit there in a sort of dumb horror. Presently she raised her head, opened her eyes, and deliberately surveyed the room.
Like the others she had seen, it was large and handsomely furnished. There was a great brass bed and heavy mahogany furniture. The walls were hung with blue, the large rug was blue-and-gold, and the chintz hangings and covers blue-and-white. There was a great pier-glass, a writing-desk, and a bookcase. In spite of the fact that everything bore the appearance of having been hastily dusted, it was fairly neat and very attractive.
Still confused, with a stunned sensation that precluded decisive action, Elsie decided that she might as well remove the dust of travel, and rising, slipped off her blouse.
As she turned on both faucets in the bowl in the small dressing-room adjoining, a thick scum rose to the surface of the water, and she realized the bowl had not been washed for some time. At first she gazed at the dust helplessly. Utterly unused to doing anything for herself, she looked about anxiously. Two towels, clean but not ironed, lay on the rack. She hesitated, then grasping one of them as if it were the proverbial nettle, she attacked the bowl, gingerly at first, then with some vigor; and presently, with the aid of some dirty fragments of soap she found in the receptacle, using the second towel to dry it, she had the enamelled surface clean and shining. With an odd sense of satisfaction, she threw the towels to the floor, opened her portmanteau, took out her own toilet-case, and proceeded to wash.
Refreshed physically and even a trifle in spirit, she slipped on her dressing-gown and sat down by the window to consider. She knew now that she should have spoken immediately upon seeing Mrs. Middleton, thus avoiding more unpleasantness than the caresses. Having delayed her explanation of the masquerade, she had made it the more difficult. Even now she dreaded shocking or even hurting Mr. Middleton.
She rose and moved about irresolutely. The dress she had taken off lay on the couch against the foot of the bed, and though she had never been accustomed to caring for her clothes, she started instinctively to hang it away. Opening the door into the clothes-press, she shrank back.
A commodious closet with shelves and drawers, it was as much worse in its confusion and disorder than the cupboard down-stairs as it was larger. Each hook bulged and overflowed with clothing: tawdry finery, evening-gowns, old skirts, wrappers, sacks, bath-robes, knitted jackets and shawls and miscellaneous underclothes. The drawers were so crammed that none would shut. The shelves were piled high with blankets, comfortables, old hats, a pair of snow-shoes, pasteboard boxes, and bottles without number; while on the floor were boots, shoes, and slippers in all stages of wear, overshoes, a broken umbrella, a walking-stick, a folding-table, and more boxes. And everywhere the dust lay thick.
Shutting the door hastily, Elsie flung herself upon the couch, covering her face and pressing her fingers upon her closed eyes. What a—heathenish place! She really didn't possess the sort of vocabulary to express the enormity of it. How should she get away? Suppose there were no train to-night? Suppose she should have to remain until morning?
If only it were a hotel! If only Mr. Middleton weren't so fine, or if Mrs. Middleton had gone into Boston! One look at her would have been enough: she would have known she could never endure her. Better Cousin Julia with all her oddities. She would have made the sign agreed upon and gone straight on to New York. And then—poor Elsie Moss! After all, Mrs. Middleton wasn't any real relative of hers, either. She only hoped that the other girl might find Cousin Julia so very disagreeable that she wouldn't too painfully mind being dragged back here.
Some one knocked at the door. Feeling that she couldn't possibly encounter Mrs. Middleton at this juncture, the girl remained silent.
"It's only Katy," said a pleasant voice, and Elsie bade her come in.
The warm-hearted Irishwoman knew in an instant that something was wrong, and suspected homesickness. She spoke fondly, as to a child, saying that tea was nearly ready, and added: "Have you got everything that you want, miss?"
Elsie could have laughed at the unconscious irony.
"The clothes-press is full of mussy things, and the wash-bowl was dirty, and there weren't any clean towels," the girl almost wailed.
"Bless my soul, I guess that wash-bowl was forgot for a matter of a few days!" Katy exclaimed. "Dear me, I'm so sorry. But them towels was clean, only not ironed. I hadn't got round to 'em yet, and I didn't know where to lay my hands on any that was put away. There's a lot somewheres, for we keep a-buyin' and a-buyin'. And I'll just go at this room the first thing after breakfast in the mornin' and make everything clean and shinin'. I meant to 'a' done it to-day, but I didn't get a minute, and I thought one night wouldn't make much matter."
While Elsie was endeavoring to frame some sentence to inform Katy that she needn't take the trouble, the latter suddenly remembered something in the oven and disappeared. Elsie rose and dressed. She couldn't eat in such a place, but she couldn't get away without explaining and, perhaps, the tea-table would be a suitable occasion for that.
Mr. Middleton met her at the foot of the stair and led her to the dining-room. Another surprise! The room was not only large, pleasant, and airy, overlooking a beautiful garden, but it was neat and tidy, and the table was spotless, with fine damask, delicate china, and beautiful silver. The food was delicious—Elsie had taken her place perforce—and was particularly appetizing after five days on the train.
Mrs. Middleton still wore the pink wrapper, but she had little to say, and her husband was so elegant and attractive, was in such good spirits and talked so entertainingly, that Elsie almost forgot. In any event, before the meal was over she had decided to remain overnight, and to postpone her confession until morning.
The evening passed pleasantly. Mrs. Middleton excused herself directly after tea, and Mr. Middleton took Elsie out to show her the garden, which he tended himself, an old-fashioned garden with formal beds radiating from a sun-dial. Thence they went to his study, an attractive room lined with books, which, though untidy, was not startlingly so, not, perhaps, far beyond that peculiar limit of disorder allowed to a student's sanctum.
Here the Reverend John Middleton, unmistakably and infectiously happy, talked with his supposed niece for an hour. Full of enthusiasm, quieter but almost as youthful as that of Elsie Moss, of ideas and ideals, he had not realized his want of companionship and sympathy, nor understood why he had looked forward so eagerly to the coming of the daughter of the sister who had been the companion and intimate friend of his youth and young manhood. Believing he saw already much of the mother in the girl, he seemed to feel no need of preliminaries, of getting acquainted. He strove only to make her feel at home, hoping there might be no strangeness even on the first night.
His powers being by no means inconsiderable, he succeeded so well that Elsie Marley went to her room in a state of real exhilaration that was almost tumult. The door of her inner nature, set ajar by Elsie Moss, had opened wide. She had never in all her sixteen years been really roused out of herself until she met the former; and she had never come in contact with a nature so rich and fine as that of the clergyman. Further than this, something else stirred in the girl's heart—something better than the desire to hold this friend for her own. Unawares, dimly, she felt his reaching out for sympathy, realized dimly that there was something that even a young girl could do for him. And suddenly a feeling of depression that was like regret or even remorse took possession of her. The confession she had to make would hurt him deeply, even now.
Her trunk had been brought in and the straps unfastened. For an instant Elsie wavered. Finally she got her key from her pocketbook. But even as she crossed the room, she thought of Mrs. Middleton, the dingy swan's-down and the caresses, and decided not to unlock the trunk.
She stood by the window looking out absently over the soft, starlit landscape. She felt sorry for Mr. Middleton and sorry for Elsie Moss; and curiously enough those two were the two persons in the world in whom she had any real interest! Perhaps the latter wouldn't mind her aunt as she did; and of course she would be, to use her own expression, "crazy over" her uncle. Then, too, with all her charm and vivacity, she could do much more to brighten the monotony and squalor of his life. And yet, her heart was set upon becoming an actress, and it would be much harder now to give it up than if she hadn't seemed to have a fair chance to pursue her studies. Elsie remembered dimly tales she had heard of people dying from broken hearts. Somehow, it seemed almost as if that vivid, sparkling Elsie Moss would be of the sort to take things so hard that——
She broke off, turned from the window, and began to undress. So far as Mr. Middleton was concerned, it occurred to her that possibly some one who hadn't any ambition might learn to do even better toward helping him than one whose heart was divided. She said to herself that she wouldn't decide definitely against opening her trunk until morning. If she should find, for instance, that Mrs. Middleton kept her room the greater part of the time, it might make some difference.
Ready to put out the light, she noticed that the covers of the bed had not been turned down—an omission unparalleled in her experience. With a sigh, she drew down the counterpane, only to discover, with actual horror, the bare mattress underneath. The bed had not been made!
Such was Elsie Marley's consternation that had she been a person of resource, she would have dressed and left the house at once; but if she possessed any such quality, it was wholly undeveloped. As it was, however, she said to herself she could not even stay for breakfast. She would go at daybreak!