ST. PATRICK'S DAY AND THE FIRST OF APRIL
The Misses Clark had borrowed Elisabeth for the afternoon. It was becoming a custom with them, and as Miss Merriam insisted that her little charge should have her naps out of doors with unbroken regularity, the old ladies found themselves almost every day sitting, rug-enwrapped, on Mrs. Smith's veranda or their own while the baby dozed luxuriously in her carriage. Elisabeth grew pink in the fresh air and if her self-appointed attendants did not do likewise they at least found themselves benefiting by the unaccustomed treatment.
In early March a brother came to visit them. He was a dignified elderly man, "just like the sisters before Elisabeth made them human," Roger declared, "except that he has whiskers a foot long." At first he paid no attention to the child, though the story of its escape from Belgium interested him. But no one resisted Elisabeth long and it was not many days before Mr. Clark was holding his book with one hand and playing ball with the other.
On this particular day Mrs. Smith and Miss Merriam had both needed to go to New York, and the Misses Clark had seized the opportunity to have an unusually long call from Ayleesabet. They had sat on their veranda with her while she napped; but when she came in, fresh and wide awake, their older eyes were growing sleepy from the cold and they went upstairs for forty winks, leaving their nursling in charge of their brother.
Ayleesabet was goodness itself. She sat on the floor and rolled a ball to her elderly playmate, chuckling when it struck the edge of a rug and went out of its course so that he had to plunge after it. She walked around the edge of the same rug, evidently regarding it as an island to be explored, Crusoe fashion. Her explorations were thorough. If she had been old enough to know what mines were one would have thought that she was playing miner, for she lay on her back, pushed up the rug and rolled under it.
"Upon my word," ejaculated Mr. Clark, adjusting his spectacles and examining the hump made by the baby's round little Belgian body. "Upon my word, that doesn't seem the thing for her to do."
But Elisabeth seemed entirely contented and made no response to the old gentleman's cluckings and other blandishments.
"Come out," he whispered in beguiling tones. "Come out and play."
No answer.
"Come and play horsey. Don't you want to climb up? That's it. Up she goes! Steady now. Hold tight."
As he started on a slow tour of the room on all fours his rider lurched unsteadily.
"Take hold of my collar," cried the aged war-horse.
Ayleesabet fell forward, her arms went around his neck and her hands buried themselves in his whiskers. With a chirrup of delight she righted herself, a bridle-rein of hair in each hand. On went the charger, his speed increasing from a walk to an amble. Louder and louder laughed Elisabeth. Steed and rider were in that perfect accord wherein man seems akin to the Centaur.
At the height of the race the drawing room door opened and in walked Ethel Blue and Ethel Brown Morton. The horse stopped suddenly and wiped his forehead with one of his forefeet, but maintained his horizontal position in order not to throw his rider. Elisabeth's equilibrium was somewhat disturbed by the abrupt cessation of her charger's advance but she kept a firm hold on her bridle and restored herself.
"Go, go," she chortled, thumping the prostrate form of Mr. Clark with her slippered feet and smiling with excusable vanity at the new arrivals.
The Ethels stood side by side so stricken with amazement and amusement that for an instant it seemed that apoplexy would overtake them. Thanks to their natural politeness they did not laugh, though they agreed later that it had been the hardest struggle of their lives not to do so.
"We've come to take Ayleesabet home," they said. "It's awfully good of you to entertain her so long."
They lifted the protesting equestrian to the floor and put on her outer garments while the late steed resumed an upright position and dusted his knees.
"A very good child," he observed. "A very intelligent child. She does Miss Merriam great credit."
"She's growing splendidly," replied Ethel Brown.
"Too bad she can't continue under her care. Too bad."
"Can't continue under her care!" repeated the Ethels in unison. "Why can't she? What do you mean?"
"Why, on account of Miss Merriam's leaving. Of course you know. I hope I haven't betrayed any confidence."
"Miss Merriam's leaving!" exclaimed the Ethels as one girl.
"We don't know anything about it!"
"Where is she going?"
"When is she going?"
The questions poured thick and fast and Mr. Clark seemed distinctly taken aback by the excitement he had created.
"Why, Dr. Watkins said that he thought she wasn't going to stay with Elisabeth much longer. That's what I understood him to say. I don't think I'm mistaken," and the old gentleman passed his hand nervously over the top of his head.
"That's perfectly terrible if it's really so," declared Ethel Blue, who was an especial admirer of Gertrude Merriam's and a devout believer in her ability to turn Elisabeth from a skeleton into a robust little maiden.
"We must find out at once," and Ethel Brown put Elisabeth into her coat with a speed that so disregarded all orderly procedure as to bring a frown to the young Belgian's brow.
The two girls talked about the news in low, horrified tones on the way back to Dorothy's, and down they sat, prepared not only to amuse Elisabeth but to amuse her until the return of Miss Merriam, no matter how late that proved to be.
It seemed an eternity but it was only half past five when she and Mrs. Smith came back. The Ethels sat before the fire in the sitting room like judges on the bench. They made their accusation promptly. Gertrude sat down as if her knees were unable to support her. Her blue eyes stared amazedly from one to the other.
"Mr. Clark says I am going away? That Dr. Watkins said he thought I was going away?"
Her complete wonderment proved her not guilty.
"But I'm not going away! I haven't any idea of going away—unless you want me to," and she turned appealingly to Mrs. Smith.
"My dear child, of course we don't want you to," and Mrs. Smith bent and kissed her. "We love you dearly and we like your work. I can't think what Mr. Clark could have meant—or Dr. Watkins—"
"It was Edward Watkins who told Mr. Clark," repeated Ethel Brown.
Gertrude sat stupefied.
"Unless the wish were father to the thought," ended Mrs. Smith softly.
"Unless he wanted it to be true?" translated Gertrude inquiringly. "Unless—Oh!"
A blush burned its way from her chin to her brow and lost itself in the soft hair that swept back from her temples.
"He wanted it to be true, and he said he thought it was going to happen. Well, he's altogether too sure! It's humiliating," and she threw up her chin and walked firmly out of the room, for the first time forgetting Elisabeth.
"What does she mean?" Ethel Blue asked her aunt.
"Why is she humiliated?" asked Ethel Brown.
"What is she going to do?" was Dorothy's question.
"I don't know," Mrs. Smith replied to Dorothy. "We'd better not bother her. Don't tease her with questions."
The girls obeyed, but they talked the matter over a great deal among themselves and they would have asked Edward Watkins about it the first time they saw him except that their Aunt Louise guessed their plan and forestalled it by telling them that any mention of the matter would be an intrusion upon other people's affairs which would be wholly unwarranted.
The first time they saw Edward was the next day, when the Rosemont Charitable Society gave a bazaar for the benefit of its treasury, depleted by the demands upon it of an uncommonly hard winter. The seats were all taken out of the high school hall and the big room became the scene of a Donnybrook Fair on St. Patrick's Day. Of course the U. S. C. had been called on to help; it had made a name for itself and outsiders looked to it for ideas and assistance.
In fact, the idea of the fair was Ethel Brown's. She heard her mother talking with one of the Directors of the R. C. S. one afternoon about the unending need for money and suggested the Irish program as a possible means of making some.
"The child is right," fat Mrs. Anderson promptly agreed. "Rosemont never had anything of the sort."
"It wouldn't be harder to get up than any other kind of fair," said Mrs. Morton.
"And St. Patrick's Day will be here so soon that it's a good excuse for hurrying it."
So it had been hurried, and the day after the strange encounter with Mr. Clark and the disturbing conversation with Miss Merriam the scholastic American precincts of the high school were converted into an Irish fair ground. Every one who had anything to do with the tables or the conduct of the bazaar was dressed in an Irish peasant costume, the girls with short, full skirts with plain white shirt waists showing beneath a sleeveless jacket of dark cloth. Heavy low shoes and thick stockings would have been the appropriate wear for the feet, but all the girls rebelled.
"This footgear was meant for the earth floor of a cabin and not for a steam-heated room," declared Helen. "I'll wear green stockings, but thin ones, and my own slippers, even if they aren't suitable."
The boys were less inconvenienced by their garb, which included, to be sure, heavy shoes and long stockings, but also tight knee breeches and, instead of jackets, waistcoats with sleeves.
Every one in Rosemont who had any green furnishings lent them for the occasion. Mrs. Anderson robbed her library of a huge green rug to place before the stationery booth over whose writing paper and green place-cards and novelties, all in green boxes, she presided robustly.
Mrs. Morton, with Helen and Margaret to assist her, ruled over a table shaped like a shamrock and laden with articles carved from bog oak, and with china animals and photographs of Ireland and of Irish colleens.
Dorothy told fortunes in the lower part of Blarney Castle, built of canvas but sufficiently realistic, in a corner of the hall. On top Tom was ready to hold over the battlements by the heels any one who was "game" for the adventure of kissing the Blarney Stone.
In the restaurant, which was a corner of the hall shut off by screens covered with green paper, Mrs. Anderson superintended the serving of supper by her assistants—Ethel Blue and Della and some of their friends. They offered a hearty meal of Irish stew, or of cold ham and potato salad, followed by pistachio ice cream and small cakes covered with frosting of a delicate green. At one side Ethel Brown controlled the "Murphy Table" and sold huge hot baked Irish potatoes and paper plates of potato salad and crisp potato "chips" ready to be taken home. Before the evening was many minutes old she had so many orders set aside on the shelves that held books in the hall's ordinary state that she had to replenish her stock.
James acted as cashier for the whole room. Roger, armed with a shillelagh, ran around for every one until the time came for him to mount the stage and show what he knew about an Irish jig. Under the coaching of George Foster's sister, he and his sisters had learned it in such an incredibly short time that they were none too sure of their steps, but they managed to get through it without discredit to themselves or their teacher.
Then Mrs. Smith played the accompaniments for a set of familiar Irish songs—"The Harp that once through Tara's Halls," "Erin go Bragh," "Kathleen Mavourneen," "The Wearing of the Green." Dorothy led the choruses, the whole U. S. C., including Dicky, sang their best, and Edward Watkins's tenor rose so pleadingly in "Kathleen Mavourneen" that Mrs. Smith was touched.
"I'm going home now," she said to him, "to stay with the baby so that Gertrude can come to the bazaar. You may go with me if you like."
Edward did like. He glowed with eagerness. He hardly could carry on an intelligent conversation with Mrs. Smith, so eager was he to test the possibilities of the walk back when he should be escorting Miss Merriam.
When they entered the house and he saw her reading before the fire his heart came into his throat, so demure she looked and so lovely.
"I've come home, dear, so that you can go," explained Mrs. Smith. "Dr. Watkins will take you back."
Gertrude had given Mrs. Smith's escort one startled glance as they entered.
"Thank you very much indeed," she answered. "You are always so thoughtful. But I'm not going out again tonight. It's quite out of the question; please don't urge me," and she left the room without a look at the disappointed face of the young doctor.
"Now, what does that mean?" he inquired in amazement.
"You ought to know."
"I don't know. Do you?"
"I think I do."
"Won't you tell me?"
"If you think over any conversations you have had recently about Miss Merriam perhaps it will come to you."
"And you won't tell me?"
"I may be a wrong interpreter. At any rate I'm not an interferer. Your affairs are your own."
"That's a very slender hint you've given me, but I'll do my best with it."
His best was of small avail. Miss Merriam would not see him when he called, did not go anywhere where she would be likely to meet him, bowed to him so coldly when she passed him one day going into the house, that he actually did not have the courage to stop her, but rang the bell and asked for Mrs. Smith.
The Ethels and Dorothy felt that the part of courtesy was to preserve a civil silence, but they were consumed with curiosity to know just what was going on. Certainly Miss Gertrude was not happy, for she often looked as if she had been weeping, and certainly Dr. Watkins was wretched, for Tom and Della quite immediately reported him as being "so solemn you can't do anything with him." Indeed, at the April Fool party which the Hancocks gave to the U. S. C., he indulged in an outburst that startled them all.
Margaret and James had asked him because the Club had formed the habit of doing so when they were undertaking anything special. The Ethels were quite right when they guessed that he accepted the invitation because he hoped to see Miss Merriam there. She did not go, offering as an excuse that Ayleesabet needed her.
The April Fool party might have been named the Party of Surprises. There were no practical jokes;—"a joke of the hand is a joke of the vulgar" had been trained into all of them from their earliest days;—but there were countless surprises. The opening of a candy box disclosed a toy puppy; a toy cat was filled not with the desired candy but with popcorn. The candy was handed about in the brass coal scuttle, beautifully polished and lined with paraffin paper. Each guest received a present. A string of jet beads proved to be small black seeds, and a necklace of green jade resolved itself on inspection into a collar of green string beans strung by one end so that they lay at length like a verdant fringe.
The early evening was spent in the dining-room—no one knew why. When supper was served in the library it became evident that it was just a part of the program to have everything topsy turvy. It was evident, too, that a raid had been made on Dr. Hancock's supplies, for the lemonade was served in test tubes and the Charlotte Russe in pill boxes.
It was after supper when Edward Watkins had grown sure that Miss Merriam surely was not coming that he indulged in a burst of sarcasm. After a consultation with Margaret he drew the curtains across the door leading into the hall.
"Are you ready?" he called to Margaret.
"Yes," came in reply.
"Then here, my friends, you see the portrait of the original April Fool."
He swept back the portière and the laughing group, silenced by the energy of his announcement, saw Edward himself reflected in a mirror that Margaret had set up on a chair. They all laughed, but it was uneasy laughter, and Tom tried to reassure his brother by clapping him on the shoulder and exclaiming, "You do yourself an injustice, old man, you really do," with a touch of earnestness in it.