CHAPTER XI
"How very difficult it's going to be to explain now," Elsie Marley said to herself as she dressed on Friday morning. "How I wish I had done it that very first hour. Mr. Middleton would have understood, then, for I had just told him Elsie liked to act; and he wouldn't have cared. He couldn't have been really hurt as I am afraid he will be now. And yet, how can I help feeling glad I was here to take the library for him? And I did so enjoy doing it, too."
She decided that if Miss Stewart were able to go back this afternoon, she would leave directly after lunch and get the only train for New York that she knew—the one Elsie Moss had taken. And if she couldn't possibly explain in any other manner, she would have to write a note and steal quietly away. It wasn't a nice thing to do; yet she couldn't afford to let the difficulty of explaining the situation keep her here until Elsie Moss should have become so firmly established that it would be cruel to drag her back to Enderby.
On the other hand, as long as she had started in with the library work, if Miss Stewart wasn't well enough to attend this afternoon, she would remain one day more. And if she found that that was to be the case, she would spend her morning writing the note to Mr. Middleton to fall back upon in case of need, and a letter to Elsie Moss warning her of the change.
When she went down to the dining-room, Mr. Middleton had that same air of eagerness mingled with what seemed to Elsie assurance of the permanency of their relationship. After a little he inquired whether her unfamiliar work of the day before had tired her overmuch.
"Oh, no—Uncle John, not at all," she replied, consciously hampered by lack of vocabulary or of tone to express enthusiasm that was new to her.
"Well, then, what should you say to giving Miss Rachel another day of rest?" he suggested. "I have been afraid for some time that she's rather letting people get on her nerves, and possibly a few days off would be a benefit for all concerned. She has lived alone for years, and, good as she is, has grown narrow and notional as one inevitably will who hasn't other personalities in a household to rub against. I dare say if she had her way she wouldn't allow a boy under fifteen in the library."
"She's afraid they'll soil the books?" Elsie remarked lamely, striving to be adequate to the occasion. But somehow, he seemed rich enough to lend her something unawares.
"Yes, dear, that's it, of course, and perfectly natural and legitimate in its place such caution is. But the trouble is, she puts it first and foremost. We want certainly to keep the books as neat as is consistent with constant use, and it's always safe to ask to see a lad's hands; but there are different ways of going about the business. The main thing about a library is, of course, its usefulness to the people; perhaps, most of all to the younger among them. You agree with me, dear, that that consideration comes before everything?"
"Yes, indeed, Uncle John," she said primly.
He smiled suddenly and very charmingly.
"Elsie dear, if I hadn't known that your step-mother was a schoolmistress, I should have guessed it," he declared. "Externally, her influence upon you has almost blotted out your mother's. I'm thankful you didn't stay with her long enough for it to go deeper, excellent woman as I know her to be. As it is, your speech and manner conceal rather than reveal your likeness to your mother, but it struggles through for all that."
He paused and his face grew grave.
"I hope—I trust, dear, you didn't feel—repressed?" he asked anxiously. "You are so quiet and reserved and docile for a young girl—especially for your mother's daughter. Your stepmother was—kind to you, surely?"
"Oh, yes, sir," she faltered, distressed at the dilemma. Vaguely aware that she had an opening for her confession, she made no attempt to use it. "I know I am—everything is"—she faltered.
"You're just right, Elsie dear," he said kindly. "Just be yourself. And if you have learned not to be spontaneous, try to forget it. In any event, never repress any desire for gayety or romping or what-not in this house. You don't at all need to be quiet oh your Aunt Milly's account. She isn't strong and she is excitable, and yet she isn't somehow what is called nervous at all. She doesn't mind noise or even tumult; indeed, she likes to feel that things are going on in the house even if she cannot share them."
Even now, Elsie understood that this was quite true in regard to Mrs. Middleton. There was, in spite of what the girl called her falsity, something generous about her. Elsie wasn't herself any the more drawn to her—or any the less repelled—but now she first had a slight inkling of any foundation for Mr. Middleton's strange infatuation. There was, somehow, in the midst of all that sentimentality, some genuine feeling which for him transmuted the whole into pure gold.
Well, for her part, she could stand it another day for the sake of going to the library.
"What are you going to do this morning, Elsie?" Mr. Middleton inquired as they returned to the house after a few minutes spent in the garden.
Elsie colored faintly.
"Write some letters," she said.
Indeed, she spent the whole morning in the attempt, though she accomplished nothing. She made half a dozen beginnings of the letter which was to set forth the scheme Elsie Moss had concocted and she had entered into; but none went further than three sentences, and it began to seem that that expedient were the more difficult. In any event, before she made a seventh trial she turned to the note that was to acquaint Elsie Moss with the situation. Here, she only failed the more dismally. When it was time to dress for lunch, she seemed to be forced to explain to Mr. Middleton just as she was leaving, and to come upon poor Elsie Moss quite unexpectedly. It seemed as if it would almost kill her to do either.
Mrs. Middleton did not appear at lunch and everything was so pleasant that Elsie's spirits rose until she was almost gay. She talked more than she had done since she came—almost more than she had ever done before until she met Elsie Moss—and she was at once gratified and appalled to perceive that she was reminding Mr. Middleton of his sister. Of course, his real niece would remind him still more, but Elsie knew that the wrench to his feelings before she should be established in the parsonage would be severe, even terrible. If only Mrs. Middleton kept her room continually! And yet, he might not like that.
The library was only the more engaging that day. Mattie Howe came in early and they went through a number of shelves in the children's department together in selecting her book. Then Elsie took the little girl in her lap—in a curiously easy fashion—and they looked at the colored pictures in a large book that did not circulate until some one else came in and claimed the librarian's attention.
A roguish-looking boy with a tousled head entered, stared at Elsie in amazement, and went abruptly out. Returning a little later with shining face and wet, parted hair, as he asked at the desk for a book, he spread out a pair of very clean hands in a manner intended to be nonchalant. He was ready and eager to talk and very amusing. Before Elsie got through with him, she had assured him that she meant to read "Robinson Crusoe" within the next fortnight.
Then a lad apparently of about her own age, a high-school boy, shy, but with very gentle manners, who started as if to retreat as he saw her, gathered his courage, returned his book, and stood there undecided.
"Do you want another book?" Elsie asked.
"Have you got anything about Edison?" he asked. "I've got to write a composition about electricity, and I thought I might start with him."
Elsie consulted the catalogue, but greatly to her disappointment was unable to find anything. The boy had such nice manners and such honest, deep-set eyes that she wanted to help him.
"You might start with Benjamin Franklin," she suggested, not very confidently.
"Sure!" he returned, smiling frankly. She got him a biography of Franklin, and he sat down at one of the tables with note-book and pencil and was soon deep in it.
There were a number of references to Franklin in the catalogue, and as Elsie went back to it to see if she might have made a better choice, she saw that one referred to the proper volume of a "Dictionary of American Scientists." It came to her that she might discover Edison in the same place. She was pleased to find several pages of a recent volume of the work devoted to that inventor. She carried it to the boy and pointed out the pages with a feeling of satisfaction almost like triumph.
The afternoon flew. She closed the library regretfully, for she never expected to enter it again. For to-morrow was Saturday, and if she should stay beyond the afternoon, it would mean she could not get away until Monday. And that she could never stand. For she had gathered somehow that Mrs. Middleton made a special effort to sit up all Sunday except during the time her husband was at church. If it was mostly a case of nerves, Miss Stewart might as well come back one day as another.
But again at dinner Mrs. Middleton was absent from her place. She sent a special request to Elsie to occupy it, and Elsie spent a very happy half-hour telling Mr. Middleton about the happenings of the afternoon, hearing his explanatory comment on persons and things, and serving the pudding. And when he told her he had seen Miss Stewart, who thought she would hardly feel like coming back until Monday, and had assured her that his niece would be glad to take her place another day, Elsie was quite undisturbed.