CHAPTER XI.
THE BOYS.
"Mammina!"
"Yes, Hilda!"
"Are you quite sure you will not mind my asking?"
"I am not at all sure! Suppose you try it, and find out."
"Well,—I don't believe you will really mind. But—was not Mr. Raymond Ferrers—very fond of you, dear?"
Mrs. Grahame coloured like a girl.
"Yes, dear, he was. He was—I am afraid—very fond of me, Hilda. It was years and years ago, of course; he was only a lad. But,—well, it happened that we had never met since, you see; I think we were both a little overcome, for I, too, was very fond of him, Hilda, though not in the way he wished. Poor Raymond!"
"You—you couldn't care for him, dear?"
"My child! I had seen your father; how could I think of any one else? But Raymond did not know that; and—and it was hard for him. I trust I did not appear foolish, Hilda?"
She spoke anxiously, and Hilda laughed outright.
"Darling, you appeared like an angel, and were perfectly calm. I never should have guessed it from you; but—he, it was all over him, at the first glance."
"Poor Raymond!" said Mrs. Grahame again, meditatively. "And yet he was very happy in his marriage, I have always heard. His wife was a lovely person, and sincerely attached to him. But—I suppose the seeing me brought back his boyhood, and some of the old feeling,—we are singular creatures, Hilda. Perhaps you think I might have told you of this before, Hilda. You see, I never thought of it as anything belonging to me, dear."
"Of course," said Hilda. "I know! And I should not have asked if—if he had not made it so very obvious. But, oh, how charming,—how lovely he is! And how beautiful to see him with Jack, and the dear Colonel with both of them! My mother, do you know that we have the very most delightful friends in the habitable universe?"
"It really does seem so," said her mother. "And what a Christmas we shall have, with so many of them around us! Let me see! Mr. Merryweather came to-day. Now the whole Smiling Signal Service, as absurd Gerald calls it, is here,—except the good Roger."
Except, indeed! Hildegarde's heart gave a great bound, and she felt the colour rushing to cheek and forehead.
"We shall be very glad to see Roger?" said Mrs. Grahame. "Very glad, daughter dear?"
"Very glad indeed, dearest mother!" said Hilda. She met her mother's loving glance bravely, with her own bright smile; here, the blushing did not matter, for the two hearts, mother's and daughter's, beat in such true time together that words were hardly needed to carry the swift thought from mind to mind.
There was a moment's pause; then Mrs. Grahame went on.
"And are they not planning all kinds of merrymaking for Christmas week? Dear me! Why, it is this very coming week, Hilda! Where has the month gone?"
"Oh, it is to be a great time!" said Hildegarde. "The flower party, and lots of people coming down from town for it; and a toboggan-party,—if the snow will only come! and the tree at Roseholme, and I don't know what else. Do you know, I almost thought the Colonel and Mr. Merryweather would quarrel about the tree; both wanted it so much. And then they both gave up at the same minute, and each insisted that the other should have it, till I thought they would quarrel over that. But it all ended most happily. Hugh, of course! He came up quietly, and held out two straws; and they drew, and neither said another word. Oh, Mother, Hugh is so happy with Jack! I met them just now; his little face was shining like a star. Jack was chattering German to him, and he did not understand a word, but that made no difference at all. And dear old Jack! I believe he would have liked to kiss every stone in the garden wall—there! he is calling me now! I promised to go for a walk when my work was done. Are you sure you don't want anything, darling? absolutely sure? Then good-bye for an hour!"
Hildegarde ran down, and found Jack pacing the veranda with yard-long strides.
"Do you remember," he said, abruptly, "the first time I came here, Hilda?"
"Of course I do!" said Hilda.
"How I fell over a chair, and then knocked down a hanging-basket? Hilda, I do believe I should have made away with myself that night, if there had been any weapons about. I was simply full of rage and misery; I hated everybody, myself included; and it did seem to me as if you might let me alone, and not insist upon making me talk. I couldn't talk, you know."
"No, dear, you certainly could not; but you had to learn. And you are not sorry now, Jack?"
"Sorry! well, rather not! Fancy, if I had stayed the hateful noodle that I was that night! Fact is, I was brimful of my own self; that was the trouble with me. Ah—who are all these people Uncle Tom has been telling me about, next door, in the yellow house? I didn't bargain for strangers, Hilda!" And my lord looked slightly injured.
"No, dear!" said Hildegarde. "Of course we ought to have thought of that, and have prevented their coming here. We don't own the house, it is true, but we might have turned the hose on them, or put rat-poison about, or kept them off in some way."
"Oh, there you go!" cried Jack. "I say! I haven't been teased for two years. I forget what it's like. But seriously, are they really nice? Do you care for them? I—I really am jealous, Hilda; you needn't laugh. I thought I was going to have you all to myself, and now here are a lot of people,—with unreasonable names, it seems to me,—and Uncle Tom says they are your most intimate friends, and that he loves them all like brothers."
"That was one of them you met last night," said Hildegarde, demurely.
"Oh, I say! I was going to ask you,—was it, though? of course; I didn't notice her name much, but I remember now. Well, Hilda, she is a musician, and of course I'm glad you have had such a friend as that. I liked her face, too,—"
"You couldn't see her face!"
"Oh, I saw enough. I saw her eyes just for a minute, and I know what she's like, anyhow; didn't I play the Mendelssohn Concerto with her? So that's all right, and I mean to get her to play with me a lot, if she will. I like to play with the piano, only you so seldom find any one—any pianist—who understands the violin; they are generally thinking about their own playing. But—well, what was I saying? It is so jolly to be talking one's own language again, and talking to you. I just want to go on and on, whether I say anything or not."
"So I infer!" said Hildegarde.
"Oh, I say!" cried Jack again. "But—well, to go back to these people,—there are a lot of them, aren't there? A lot of fellows, or something?"
"There are!" said Hildegarde, gravely "Here are two of them coming now, Jack. These are the twins, Phil and Gerald; they are particularly nice fellows, and I want you to meet them."
"Look here, Hilda! I can't, you know. I'm going to cut across the field here. I didn't expect to see anybody this first morning. You won't mind if I—"
"I shall mind very much indeed!" said Hildegarde, with decision. "Jack, you must not be absurd! You are behaving like a child.
"Oh, good-morning, Phil! Good-morning, Gerald! I am so glad to see you! This is my cousin, John Ferrers, who came last night, and is staying at Roseholme. Jack, these are my neighbours, Philip and Gerald Merryweather."
The three bowed with mutual distrust.
"Glad to see you!" said Phil, in a tone which contradicted his words.
"Fine morning!" said Gerald. "You had a pretty rough passage, I ho—I'm afraid!"
"Thanks!" said Jack, with a detestable little drawl, which Hildegarde had never heard before. "I had an excellent passage."
The three drew back and looked at each other, so exactly like strange dogs that the tails only were wanting, it seemed to Hildegarde. She had difficulty in keeping her countenance. "What a comfort," she thought, "if I could only shake them all, and tell them to behave themselves!" But outwardly she was calm and smiling, looking from one scowling face to the other as if all were wreathed in smiles.
"And whither are you bound, boys?" she asked. "And what frolic is there on hand for to-day? If the snow would only come! I do want some tobogganing."
"There is good skating on Jimmy's Pond!" said Gerald. "We were just coming to see if you would go this afternoon, Hilda."
At the familiar name, Jack Ferrers glared so ferociously that Hildegarde almost expected to hear him bark, and to see him spring at the other lad's throat. Gerald perceived the impression, and hastened in pure malice to deepen it.
"I have been counting on a skate with you, Hilda; you remember the last we had together? I never shall forget it!"
Now Hildegarde had never skated with Gerald in her life, and she had no idea of putting up with this kind of thing.
"I shall be delighted to come!" she said, with a little ring of steel in her voice that all three lads knew very well; "if you can find a pair of skates for my cousin. I know you have a whole closet full of them. You would like very much to come, Jack? Very well, then, that is settled! We will be ready at three o'clock. Good-morning, boys! Bell and Gertrude will come, too, of course!"
And with a quick, decided nod she walked on, Jack following after, after a defiant bow which was returned with interest.
The cousins walked on in silence for a few steps; then—
"I don't think you really misunderstood what I said, Hildegarde!" said Jack, coldly. "I did not say that I should like to go skating. I said I should be unable to go. Of course it is of no consequence."
"Of none in the world!" said Hildegarde, turning upon him with gleaming eyes. "The absurd behaviour of three ridiculous boys,—Jack! How could you? I was so mortified,—so ashamed of you all! All! But you are my own; I am responsible for your behaviour. I never—" but here she caught a glimpse of Jack's face, and suddenly burst into a fit of laughter.
"Oh, it was so funny! Jack, none of you will ever know how funny it was. I am very angry, but I—cannot—help laughing."
"I am glad you are amused!" said Jack Ferrers, stiffly. "It was worth while to come home for that."
"Jack! I—I won't laugh any more—if I can help it! Oh, dear! If you had only seen—"
But Hildegarde saw that her cousin was really hurt. Instantly she controlled her laughter, and laid her hand quietly on his arm.
"Dear lad," she said, "you are not really angry, any more than I was. Dear Jack, think about it a little!"
They walked on in silence. Jack was still smarting under a sense of injury; yet the steady, friendly hand on his arm seemed to smooth down his ruffled feelings, whether he would or no.
"You know how it is," he said, presently, speaking in a more natural voice. "I have been thinking so long about the home-coming! I thought it was going to be—just the same. I thought I should have you all to myself; and now—"
"Jack, dear," said Hildegarde, quietly, "are you thinking of falling in love with me, by any chance?"
Jack looked down at her with startled eyes.
"Why—no! I wasn't, Hilda; but I will, if you want me to. I—what makes you say that? I thought we were brother and sister."
"I thought so, too," said Hildegarde, smiling. "But if my brother is going to show his teeth and growl at all the other dogs—I mean boys—he meets, I don't think I shall find it comfortable. There was a dog in a manger once; perhaps you have heard of him."
Jack winced, but owned he had.
"And—and even if you were not my brother," Hildegarde went on, "the idea of being jealous of the twins is so funny that—well, when you know them, Jack, you will laugh as much as I did. They are not that kind of boy, at all. No boys were ever less so."
"That red-haired fellow," said Jack, still distrustful; "what was he saying about skating with you before? I thought he sounded decidedly spoony, Hilda. I won't be disagreeable any more, but I say this seriously."
"Gerald! naughty, naughty Gerald! that was so like him! He is quick as a flash, Jack, and he said that just to torment you. I have never skated with him in my life; I never knew them till this last summer. Oh, he is such a funny boy! Come on, and I will tell you some of his pranks as we go along!"
Gerald and Philip Merryweather walked home in moody silence. They came upon a loose stone, and kicked it along before them with savage and purposeful kicks. Neither mentioned the fact of the stone's representing any particular person, but when either made a specially successful kick, he looked at the other for sympathy, and found it in a grim nod and chuckle. Only once did they break silence.
"Poor Codger!" said Gerald.
"H'm!" growled Philip, assenting.
"Know when he's coming?"
"No! Don't suppose it will make any difference, though."
"S'pose not!"
"H'm!"
"H'm!"
Reaching the house, they sat down on the steps and pitched gravel stones in gloomy rivalry. So sitting, it chanced that Bell came upon them; Bell, with a face more than commonly bright (though she was always one of the most cheerful of mortals), with her hands full of ground pine, fresh from a walk in the woods, humming a fragment of the Mendelssohn Concerto.
"What's the matter with my boys?" she demanded, promptly.
"Nothing!" responded the twins, with alacrity. And they lowered like toppling thunderclouds.
"Then tell me all about it!" said Sister Bell, sitting down on the step, and taking a hand of each.
"What happened to my twinnies? Did some one throw away their tadpoles, or did the dog eat their molasses candy?"
This allusion to early misfortunes could generally bring a smile, but this time it failed, and Bell looked from one to the other in genuine concern.
"Phil! Jerry! What is it?" she asked again. "Oh, there has been no bad news, boys? Roger!—"
Gerald groaned.
"Roger!" he said. "That's just it, Bell! No, nothing of the kind you mean. He's well, poor dear old Codger. Better than he will be, when he hears what is going on."
"What is going on? Come, boys, I really must know."
"We met Hilda just now," said Gerald. "Her cousin's come; kind of fiddler-chap from Germany. I'm afraid it's all up with the Codger, Bell."
"Indeed!" said Bell, quietly. "And what makes you think that, Jerry?"
"Oh, we met them just now! He—he's about nine feet tall, to begin with."
"That is a beginning! Where does he expect to end? But I have seen Mr. Ferrers, Jerry. I saw him last night."
"You did? Why didn't you tell a fellow?"
"Oh, I—I—hardly know!" said downright Bell, unused to even the whitest fib. She really could not, perhaps, have put into words the feeling that had kept her silent about the scene of the night before.
"But that is no matter!" she went on. "What else is the matter with him, besides height? He can't help that, you know."
"I don't suppose he can. But he can help making up to Hilda, Bell, and he'd better!" savagely. "Only it's too late now, I suppose!" despondently. "Why on earth the fellow couldn't stay and fiddle over there, where he's wanted,—don't admire their taste, by the way!—instead of coming over here to spoil everything, is more than I know!"
"Horrid shame!" murmured Phil, taking careful aim with a pebble at an innocent cat that was crossing the lawn.
Bell struck his hand up.
"I won't have the cats teased, Phil! And as for all this nonsense—"
"It isn't nonsense!" cried both boys, earnestly.
"I tell you we met them just now," Gerald went on, "and when he saw us, he looked black as thunder, and had hardly manners to speak to us. Perfectly odious; wasn't he, Ferguson?"
"Absolutely!" echoed Phil.
"And you were very cordial to him, of course?" said Bell. "You let him see that you were glad to meet him, and that as Hilda's warm friends you were anxious to welcome her cousin cordially, and to show him all the courtesy you could?"
The twins looked at each other. Bell had an extraordinary way of putting things sometimes.
"We didn't do anything of the sort!" said Phil, with an attempt at bluster.
"Because if you did not," his sister went on, "I am afraid you must have seemed very rude, my children. Rude and silly!"
"I wouldn't call names, Tintinnabula!" said Gerald, turning red.
"Sorry to be obliged to," retorted his sister, in perfect good humour. "But if you looked at Mr. Ferrers as you are looking now, there really can be no doubt about the matter. Now listen, boys! I know—Hilda has told me—a great deal about this Mr. Jack Ferrers. Hilda loves him dearly, as dearly as if he were her own brother, and in exactly the same way. You need not shake your heads and try to look wise, my dears, because you are not wise! You are two very foolish boys, who are trying to run your heads against a stone wall when there is no wall there. That is the state of the case about Mr. Ferrers. I know Hildegarde pretty well, and I am sure of what I am saying. You need have no fear of him. As for Roger,—well, I don't think you need have any fear for Roger either."
"Has he—has she—do you think they are—"
"Hush!" cried Bell, putting a hand over the mouth of each. "I don't think anything! At least—well, that isn't true, of course; but it does no good to talk about these things, dear boys. I do not think Hilda and Roger are—are engaged." Bell dropped her voice to a whisper. "But I feel quite sure they will be some day, when the time comes. I think they understand each other very well. Roger will be here soon; suppose you leave it all to him, Phil and Jerry, and don't worry about it. But there is one thing you can do, and it should be done soon."
"What?" cried both boys, eagerly.
"Put on your good clothes, and your good manners, and go to call at Roseholme."
"We'll be shot if we will!" cried the twins.
"Be just as nice as you know how to be to Mr. Jack Ferrers. He—he is a remarkable person, I have reason to think. You see," she spoke rather hastily, "Hilda has told me so much about him. And I—well, I heard him play last night, and he is a very wonderful performer, boys. You never, in your little lives, heard anything like his playing. He is too much in love with his art to think of any such nonsense as has been troubling your silly heads; you will understand that, the moment you hear him."
Gerald made a feeble protest to the effect that he hated fiddling, but there was little hope in his tone. And he was promptly reminded of his having spent his last fifty cents the winter before on a ticket for Sarasate's concert, and saying that it was the best investment he ever made.
The boys knew that their cause was lost; and when Bell added, as a clincher, "Ask Mammy, and see what she says," they retired from the unequal contest.
"Oh, we know what Mammy will say! Don't hit us when we are down, Bell. We'll go, and make asses of ourselves as well as we know how."
"Oh, not that, dears, I entreat!" cried Bell; and then ran swiftly into the house, laughing.
The twins resumed their occupation of pitching gravel stones, but a change had come over their spirits. Phil was actually whistling, and Gerald hummed a bass with perfect cheerfulness. The cat came back across the lawn, and they threw stones before her nose and behind her tail, avoiding contact with her person (for she was a beloved cat, in hours of joy), and contenting themselves with seeing her skip hither and thither in uninjured surprise.
"Philly!"
"Yes, Jerry!"
"Us feels a lot better, don't us, Philly?"
"H'm!" said Phil, and the sound was now one of content and peace.
"She's not a bad sort, the Tintinnabula!" Gerald went on, meditatively. "She doesn't harry a fellow, as some fellows' sisters do. She pokes you up and smooths you down at the same time, somehow. That's the way a girl ought to be—my opinion. Come along, Ferguson, and let's do something to celebrate!"
"All right!" said Phil. "What shall we do?"
"Oh, any old thing! Come along!"
And they went and wrestled in the conservatory, and broke three flower-pots, and had a delightful morning.