CHAPTER XXIV.
When Glenowen came to Second Westings he was in such haste that Barbara concluded he had other duties in New York than the searching of records and verification of titles; but with unwonted discretion she asked no questions. Affairs of state, it seemed to her, were the more mysterious and important the less she knew about them; and it pleased her to feel that the fate of commonwealths, perchance, was carried secretly within the ruffled cambric of her debonair and brown-eyed uncle. From Second Westings they journeyed by coach to New Haven, and from that city voyaged by packet down the Sound to New York. Arrived in New York, they went straight into lodgings which Glenowen had already engaged, in an old, high-stooped Dutch house on State Street.
From the moment of her landing on the wharf, Barbara was in a state of high exhilaration. The thronging wharves, the high, black, far-travelled hulls, the foreign-smelling freights, all thrilled her imagination, and made her feel that now at last unexpected things might happen to her and story-books come true. Then the busy, bustling streets, where men jostled each other abstractedly, intent each on his own affairs, how different from Second Westings, where three passers-by and a man on horseback would serve to bring faces to the windows, and where the grass on each side of the street was an item of no small consequence to the village cows! And then the houses—huddled together, as if there was not space a-plenty in the world for houses! It was all very stirring. She felt that it was what she wanted, at the moment,—a piquant sauce to the plain wholesomeness of her past. But she felt, too, that it would never be able to hold her long from the woods and fields and wild waters.
Of her arrival Barbara sent no word to Robert, though she knew by somewhat careful calculation that his office was but a stone's throw away from her lodging. She looked forward to some kind of a dramatic meeting, and would not let her impatience—which she scarcely acknowledged—risk the marring of a picturesque adventure. When Glenowen, the morning after their arrival, gave her the superfluous information that Robert's office was close by, right among the fashionable houses of Bowling Green, and proposed that they should begin their exploration of the city by strolling past his window, Barbara demurred with emphasis.
"Well," said Glenowen, thinking he understood what no man ever has a right to think he understands, "just as you like, mistress mine. I'll drop in on him myself, and let him know where we are, so he can call with all due and fitting ceremony!"
"Oh, Uncle Bob!" she cried, laughing at his density, "don't you know yet how little I care for ceremony? 'Tis not that—by any manner of means. But I want to surprise Robert,—I want to meet him at some fine function, in all my fine feathers, and see if he'll know me! You know, it is five years, nearly, since we saw him. Have I changed much, Uncle Bob?"
"Precious little have you changed, sweet minx!" answered Glenowen. "You're just the same small, peppery, saucy, unmanageable, thin brown witch that you were then, only a little taller, a little more good-looking, a little—a very little—more dignified. No fear but he'd know you, though he saw you not for a score of years. 'Twere as easy perhaps for a man to hate you as love you, my Barbe! But forget you! Oh, no!"
So it was that in the walks which they took about the point of Manhattan Island, during the first three or four days after their coming, they avoided Bowling Green, save in the dim hours of twilight; and Glenowen, prone to humour Barbara in everything, had a care to shun the resorts which Robert Gault affected. He learned, by no means to his surprise, that Robert was uncompromisingly committed to the Tory party, but this he did not feel called upon to tell Barbara.
"Time enough! Time enough!" said he to himself, half whimsical, half sorrowful. "Let the child have her little play with all the mirth that's in it! Let hearts not bleed until they must! She won't forgive him,—and he won't yield,—or I'm not Bob Glenowen!"
In New York, where most of his life had been spent, Glenowen knew everybody; and he was persona grata to almost everybody of consequence. His standing was so impregnable, his antecedents so unimpeachable, his social talents so in demand, that even the most arrogant of the old Tory aristocrats—the Delanceys, the Philipses, the Beverley Robinsons—were not disposed to let their hostility to his views hamper their hospitality to his person.
It followed, therefore, as a matter of course, that almost before she had gathered her wits after the excitement of the journey and the changed surroundings, Barbara found herself afloat upon the whirl of New York gaieties. Every night, in the solitude of her bedroom in the old Dutch house, in the discreet confidence of her pillow, she was homesick, very homesick, and a child again. She would sob for Aunt Hitty, and Doctor John, and Doctor Jim,—and for big, round-faced, furry "Mr. Grim," whom she had so tearfully left behind,—and for Black Prince, who, she felt sure, would let no one else ride him in her absence,—and for dear old Debby in her lonely cabin. She would think very tenderly of Amos,—and then, with a very passion of tenderness, of her own little room over the porch, now silent and deserted. With great surges of pathos she would picture Mistress Mehitable going into the little room every day, and dusting it a bit, and then sitting down by the bed and wishing Barbara would come back. In such a melting mood Barbara would resolve not to be horrid any more, but to send for Robert the first thing in the morning, and tell him just how glad she was to see him.
But when morning came, she would be no more the homesick child, but a very gay, petulant, spoiled, and sparkling young woman, her head full of excitements and conquests to come.