CHAPTER XIX
Ernestine returned in June nervously overwrought and almost petulant at having to wait for her sailing reservations. Thurley saw a new sort of Ernestine Christian, prophetic hint as to her own future if she continued with her work.
“Don’t speak to me until we’ve been out at sea for a day,” Ernestine commanded, “then I’ll be a lovely, rosy thing, the jolliest big sister ever, and I’ll play the rest of the summer. Ask Collin—he knows. Collin, Bliss and I have often crossed together, and when we went aboard the boys seriously considered asking the steward not to place us at the same table. By the time we reached Havre they were making violent love to me, wondering if their own eyes had played them false in the beginning of the trip,” after which she unceremoniously bundled Thurley out of her apartment.
Thurley accepted the hint, as she had plenty to do in getting Miss Clergy’s summer wardrobe completed and accompanying her to a rustic lodge in the Adirondacks where she would drone away the golden summer as she wished. Thurley had assumed, perforce, a maternal attitude towards Miss Clergy; she was even dictatorial and bullied her a trifle about being nice to other elderly persons who invited Miss Clergy for tea—Thurley had found this demeanor to have excellent results.
Although it was with relief that she left the ghost-lady at her summer’s boarding-place, it was with regret as well. Thurley had begun to feel that Miss Clergy “belonged” to her as she had always tried to fancy some one somewhere must belong to her if she would only be patient long enough.
“I sha’n’t worry about you,” Miss Clergy had told her. “You’re the most satisfactory thing I ever owned.” Unconsciously she had spoken the truth. She did regard Thurley as a beautiful, talented sort of unsexed person dependent upon her for existence. Unselfish affection never entered the partnership. She wondered why Thurley had turned away so abruptly as she spoke and pretended she had an errand outside the room.
“‘The most satisfactory thing,’” Thurley kept repeating as the car wheels turned her nearer New York and the coveted trip abroad. “‘The most satisfactory thing’—and I’m an ‘amusing thing’ to Ernestine, almost as amusing as Silverheels, only she loves Silverheels. And I’m an ‘interesting young thing’ to Bliss Hobart, some one who came to earth knowing how to sing and so he is spared the trouble of teaching me. And I’m a ‘lucky young thing,’ as Polly says, because I’ve the chance she has not, and I’m a ‘dangerous young thing’ to Lissa because Mark Wirth likes me—oh, if she knew how often he sends flowers—and I suppose Caleb thinks me a ‘worth while young thing’ because he gains hints for a new heroine.... I want just to be some one’s Thurley!” She looked at the hills without but she could not see them distinctly for tear-blurred eyes.
When she reached New York she telephoned Ernestine, only to be told she could not sail for at least another week, nor did Ernestine wish to be disturbed,—Silverheels had been accidentally killed and Ernestine had suffered a nervous collapse.
Thurley heard the news rather carelessly. “Too bad,” she had said, “I would rather he went out quickly than to be one of those blind little creatures that are a burden to themselves.”
“You don’t understand,” Ernestine answered sharply. “You don’t know anything about it. I am taking him west to an animal cemetery and I shall pick out a handsome headstone.”