Within a week after Phil’s departure the whole town was full of her, and rumor said she was running a wild career with no one to advise or check her except Mr. Beresford, who seemed as crazy as herself. Everybody thought her wonderfully bright, and fresh, and pretty, but her ways astonished the sober people of Merrivale, who, nevertheless, were greatly interested and amused with watching her as she developed phase after phase of her variable nature—visiting Mr. Beresford at his office two or three times a day, ostensibly to translate foreign letters and papers for him, but really, it was said by the gossips, to see the man himself; galloping off miles and miles into the country on her spirited horse, with the little old Frenchman in attendance; worrying Mrs. Jerry by having chocolate in her room in the morning, breakfasting at twelve, dining at six, with as much ceremony as if a dozen people were seated at the table instead of one lone girl, who sometimes never touched the dishes prepared with so much care—dining, too, in all sorts of places as the fancy took her; on the north piazza, and on the south piazza; giving her money away by the hundreds to the Fergusons, and by the tens, and fives, and ones to anybody asking for it; sinking a little fortune on the grounds at Hetherton Place, which she was entirely metamorphosing, with fifteen or twenty men at work there all the time, while she superintended them, and gave them lemonade or root beer two or three times a day, as an incentive to swifter labor.
Such was the state of affairs when Phil, improving the very first opportunity for leave of absence, came back to Merrivale. It was 10 A.M. when he reached the station, and exactly half-past ten to a minute when he found himself at Hetherton Place, his hand locked in that of Queenie, who in her big garden hat, with trowel, and pruning-knife, led him all over the grounds, where the fifteen men were at work, pointing out her improvements, and asking what he thought of them. And Phil, who had promised his mother to check his cousin if he found her going on recklessly, as they had heard from Anna, proved a very flunky, and instead of checking her, entered heart and soul into her plans, and even made suggestions as to how they could be improved. So useful, in fact, did he make himself, and so much skill and taste did he display, that Queenie forgot entirely to chide him for his lack of a profession. Indeed, she was rather glad than otherwise that he had no profession, as it left him free to be with her all the time and to become at last the superintendent of the whole, with this difference, however, that while he directed the men, Queenie directed him and made him her very slave.
Queenie never shrank from anything, but plunged her white hands into the dirt up to her wrists, while Phil took off his coat and worked patiently at her side, transplanting a rose-bush or geranium to one place in the morning, and in the evening to another, if so the fancy took his mistress. She could not always tell where she wanted a thing until she studied the effect of certain positions, and then, if she did not like it, if it did not harmonize with the picture she was forming, it must be moved, she said. And so the moving and changing went on, and people marveled to see how rapidly what had first seemed chaos and confusion began to assume proportions until the grounds bade fair to become more beautiful and artistic than any place which had ever been seen in the county. What had been done before Queenie’s arrival was for the most part unchanged, but the remainder of the grounds were entirely overturned. The plateau and summer-house, on which Queenie had set her heart, were made, and the terraces, and the new walks, and the pasture land, west of the house, was robbed of its greensward for turf to cover the terraces and plateau, which were watered twice each day until the well and cisterns gave out, and then the heavens, as if in sympathy with the work, poured out plentiful showers, and so, not withstanding that it was summer, the turf, and the shrubs, and the vines, and flowers were kept green and fresh, and scarcely stopped their growing. Everything went beautifully Queenie said, as she issued her orders, and, busy as a bee, worked from morning till night, with Phil always in attendance, while even Mr. Beresford at last caught the fever, and went himself into the business of planting and transplanting, and working in the dirt. The Hetherton gardeners the people called the two young men, Phil being the head and Mr. Beresford the sub; but little did they care for the merry-making, so long as that bright, sparkling girl worked with them, and then at night rewarded them with a bouquet, which she fastened to their button-holes, standing up on tiptoe to do it, and looking up at them with eyes which nearly drove them crazy.
Nor was Hetherton Place the only spot where Queenie was busy. A few days after Phil went to the sea-shore there had come to her a letter from Margery, who wrote:
“My Darling Queenie.—You do not know how surprised and delighted I was to hear that you were in America, or how sorry I was to hear of your loss. You must be so lonely and sad, alone in a strange country. What is Merrivale like? and do you think it would be a good place for me? Is it not funny that I had thought to go there, and have actually written to a Mrs. Ferguson, who turns out to be your aunt? But she asks more for her business than I feel able to pay, and so the plan has been abandoned for the present. But I must see you, and, remembering all your kindness in the years past, you will not think me intrusive when I tell you, that before the summer is gone I am coming to Merrivale, just to look into your dear eyes again, and see if you are changed. I like your aunt and cousins; they are genuine ladies, and I am glad they belong to you.”
The first thing Queenie did after reading this letter, was to mount her horse and gallop in hot haste to the village, where she astonished Mrs. Lydia Ferguson by offering her more for her business than she had demanded of Miss La Rue.
“It is my Margery—my friend, and I am going to have her here, if I turn my own house into a dressmaker’s shop,” she said, and she talked so fast, and gesticulated so rapidly, that Mrs. Lydia grew quite bewildered, but managed to comprehend that a price was offered her which would be well for her to accept, as it might never be offered her again.
Anna, too, was all eagerness to “get out of the vile thing and be somebody,” as she expressed it, and so the bargain was closed, and Mrs. Lydia was to retire at once into the privacy and respectability of private life; the obnoxious sign was to be taken from the front window, and Miss Anna was to be merely the daughter of a grocer which she considered quite an ascent in the social scale.
Mrs. Lydia did not wish to sell her house, nor Queenie to buy it.
She had heard there was a charming little cottage on Maple Avenue, for sale, and she swooped down upon the owner like a hurricane, asking him what his terms were, and if he would vacate at once.