“Don’t you worry, kid! He won’t stay long! I’ll settle him.”
But the boy drew his brows in a dubious frown.
“Aw, you!” he exclaimed. “You won’t be able to get away! I know him! Why’n’t ya have Letty tell him you can’t see him t’day?”
“Because he would only come back tonight, just when we don’t want him!” she said. “You go get your clothes together. Everything you’ll need while we’re gone. Nothing fancy, you know. One good plain suit for emergencies. Don’t make a noise to wake those children. We can work better while they are asleep.”
Then she turned and hurried out to the hall, intercepting Letty, who was just going upstairs in search of her.
She came over to the doorway where the young man stood waiting for her. He was a handsome fellow, well groomed, with a pleasantly subdued smile on his face.
“Hello, Jen!” he called breezily and took both of her hands in a big possessive clasp. “Say, this is hard lines, you to have to go through all this ghastly business. Sorry I couldn’t have been here to help somehow, but I was away off in the wilds in the mountains on a fishing trip and we didn’t get the word till late last night, too late to get back and try for a plane. I knew the funeral must be over. But say, I certainly was sorry! Tough luck and all that for you! I’m glad you’re looking sort of cheerful! I do hate long faces, and of course they don’t do any good. Things like that are just as well forgotten as soon as possible. And after all, your father and mother had a good life, and it’s probably all for the best! But I certainly am sorry as the dickens. I didn’t even know in time to send flowers!”
Jennifer looked at him with strange, quiet eyes. Somehow he seemed alien to her new world. The cut-and-dried, half-embarrassed phrases he was rattling off fell on her sore young heart like hard smooth pebbles and had no tender message for her at all. He didn’t really feel badly about the sudden taking away of her precious mother and father. He was only saying those conventional words because it was the thing to do and he must get it over with as soon as possible. He had been her companion in many a frolic, a nice escort to have, always ready with bright repartee, always sending delightful flowers, and ready for any wild episode that might be suggested. A little over inclined, perhaps, to urge her to do anything that came along, to lead her into questionable situations that her mother afterward seriously disapproved when she happened to find them out. But still nice, and a lot of fun, awfully good-looking, and richer than any of the other young men. Long ago he would have bestowed upon her elegant trifles that were fairly priceless, if her parents had not objected.
But now, suddenly, he seemed alien, and she did not know why.
A little conventional smile trembled on her lips.
“It doesn’t matter,” she murmured. “It was kind of you to think of it.” Her voice had a sad little grown-up sound, and he looked at her keenly.
“Poor little kid!” he said in his big superior voice. “Come and sit down. You look tired to death. Sit over here beside me.” And he sat down on a big luxurious couch and tried to catch her hand and pull her down beside him.
But Jennifer drew away from him and sat instead on a straight little chair almost in front of him, her pretty chin lifted with the least suggestion of aloofness about her, ignoring his request that she sit beside him.
“Why, I’m not really so tired,” she said coolly. “Of course, I’ve been pretty busy. There have been a great many things to think of, and it’s rather hard to get adjusted to the situation. Did you have a pleasant time in the mountains?”
“Oh, sure! I always have a swell time when I go fishing. Made a record catch and was the envy of all the older men. Took a lot of snapshots, too. I want to show them to you as soon as I can get them developed. Say, how about coming up to the house to dinner with me tonight? The mater said there wouldn’t be anybody there but Dad and herself, and it wouldn’t be a social affair, so you needn’t feel there is anything out of place in coming, even if it is rather soon for you to go out. You know us all so well that it won’t count. I’ve got something to talk over with you, and we can do it better there than here.”
Jennifer’s expression hardened and her lips went into a thin line. “That’s very kind, I’m sure,” she said, her tone a bit haughty, “but I couldn’t think of leaving the children tonight.”
“Oh, say now, Jen, don’t get that way! You aren’t going to tie yourself to those kids, are you? Why, that’s ridiculous! There are surely servants enough to look after them, and outside of that there are relatives enough. Your Aunt Lutie told me a few minutes ago that they were all going to be invited out tonight to dinner, anyway.”
“They are not going out to dinner,” said Jennifer with firmness. “You forget that they are only children, and that they have had a great shock and feel that I am the one to turn to now that Mother is gone!”
“Well, you surely are not going to encourage them in sentimental wailings. Sob stuff! I never thought you were like that!”
Jennifer stared at him coldly.
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” she said haughtily. “I love my brothers and sisters, of course, and at a time like this we do not care to be away from each other.”
“Well, you’re making a great mistake, Jen,” said the young man, with a superior smile. “If you begin like that you’ll find it will hamper you endlessly, and I don’t see having you hampered this winter. I have a great many plans for the season, and you’re not to be tied up so you will spoil them.”
“Oh really?” said Jennifer indifferently. “I’m afraid you’ll have to find someone else, or else change your plans. I intend to look after my family! I’m in place of their mother, now, you know!”
Peter Willis stared at her with almost a shade of contempt on his face.
“What utter rot!” he said. “Your brothers and sisters will be shipped off to boarding schools till they are grown up and ready to shift for themselves, and you’ve nothing whatever to do with the matter. It wouldn’t be at all wise for you to start in even for a few days to coddle them and make them softies. Just make trouble for them when they go away. Be sensible! Come on to dinner with me. I really have something important to tell you, and I can’t possibly do it here with a lot of kids racing in and out. It has to do with you and me, and our future, Jen!”
Jennifer suddenly rose and glanced down at her wristwatch.
“Sorry!” she said with a lift of her chin and a level look at the young man. “It wouldn’t matter what it had to do with, would it? I’m not interested to that extent.”
“Now, Jen, snap out of it! I really have got awfully important things to say to you.”
“Well, you’ll have to say them quickly, then,” said Jennifer, “for I have awfully important duties just now and I can’t give you but five minutes.” She gave another glance at her watch with a soft little frown on her smooth brows.
“My word, Jen, what’s the matter with you? I never saw you act like this before!”
“Perhaps not,” said Jennifer. “You never saw me with a lot of responsibilities on me before. What is it that is so important? Why can’t you tell me quickly? I really am in a great hurry just now. Don’t waste time. Get to the point!”
The young man took a quick stride across the room, glanced out the door, looking up and down the hall, and then came back and seated himself in a chair opposite her with an annoyed fling, crossing one well-tailored knee over the other and glaring at her disapprovingly.
“The point is,” he said haughtily, “that I came here with the intention of planning something for you that I thought would be a help. I wanted you to come to dinner so that we might have the evening by ourselves, uninterrupted. But it seems you are trying to be difficult, so of course there is nothing for it but to tell you in a few words. Perhaps then you will come to your senses and be willing to go with me after all. The whole thing is this, Jen: you can’t possibly stay here and run this house and deal with these kids. Somebody else will
have to take that burden from you. And I understand there are plenty of relatives quite ready to do so. I have just been talking with your aunt, Mrs. Holbrook, and your aunt, Mrs. Best, and they assure me that they have plans whereby all the children are to be provided for, and you will have no obligations whatever. There is no reason in the world why you will not be free to go your own way and do just as you please.”
Jennifer looked up with angry eyes, her lips closed in a thin line, but she said nothing, and Peter Willis went smoothly on.
“Now my idea is this, Jen: I decided that the thing for us to do is to get married right away and take a run over to Europe for a while till this thing here is all arranged, and then you will have no further obligations. Your aunts both assured me that none of them would offer any objections to such a course, and there was no reason why we shouldn’t go straight ahead and make our plans for an early marriage. Of course, I would understand that under the circumstances you would want a quiet wedding, and I would be quite willing for that. Everyone would understand, of course. And it isn’t as if people hadn’t all understood for some time what was coming off. Now, Jen, do you see why I want you to come to our house to dinner tonight, where we can have plenty of time and quiet to make our plans?”
He paused and eyed her rebukingly. Jennifer gave him a steady, quiet look and then she rose.
“Why yes, I suppose I do get your viewpoint now but, you see, I have no plans to make. I am not expecting to marry anyone at present, and I have obligations here. Sorry, Pete, but my time is up and I simply must go. There are household matters that demand my attention at once. You really will have to excuse me.”
“Nonsense!” said the young man sharply. “What about your obligations to me?”
“To you? Obligations?” Jennifer lifted her eyebrows just the least little bit. “I didn’t know I had any obligations to you. Just what are they, Pete?”
A look of swift anger passed over the handsome face of the young man. “The obligations of a girl who has accepted constant attentions from a man and seemed quite willing to accept them. The obligations of a girl who has allowed her name to be coupled with a man’s name until practically everybody in town considers them engaged!”
He flung the words at her like darts that he was aiming straight at her, with a look of utmost contempt on his face.
“Oh! Really? Why, Pete, I haven’t been with you any oftener than I have with Chic Warrener or Mont Martin or Harold Fulton or Rance Carroll, and I’m quite sure people wouldn’t consider that I was engaged to all of them. I don’t believe that people are saying or thinking that about us.”
“And yet both of your aunts spoke as if they had thought for some time that our marriage was a foregone conclusion.”
“Oh, my aunts!” laughed Jennifer. “I’m afraid they don’t count. But really, Pete, this talk is absurd. You never asked me to marry you, and I never really considered the matter. But even if I had, even if we had been engaged, I would feel now that circumstances were greatly changed. I would not think of considering marriage with anybody, and especially not with anyone who has just expressed such outrageous ideas about my brothers and sisters. You see, Pete, it happens that I love them all.”
“Why, naturally. Of course,” he said easily. “But I don’t see what that’s got to do with it. You’ve always loved them, haven’t you? But you always had time to go around with me.”
“That was a different thing,” said the girl sharply. “They had Mother and Father. But now they haven’t anybody.”
“Oh yes they have. They have a whole slew of aunts and uncles just aching to get hold of them and bring them up. They’ll have no end of a good time and won’t miss you in the least!”
Jennifer sprang to her feet furiously.
“That’ll be enough!” she said. “They’re my brothers and sisters and they’re not going to be thrown out into the world! We’re going to stick together, and that’s final! And now I guess you’ll have to excuse me. I have something that I must do at once. I really can’t talk any more about that or anything else.”
“Now look here, Jen! Don’t get hot under the collar. You always were an awful little pepper pot!”
Peter Willis reached out a long, strong arm and caught her wrists.
“Let go of me, Peter!” demanded Jennifer, quelling him with a cold glance.
“Now, now, now, Jen!” he said in his imperious tone. “Don’t get excited. Let’s get a little calm. Just quiet down and let me explain. You and I’ve been pretty good pals for a long time, haven’t we?”
“Let go of my wrists and I’ll answer you,” said Jennifer coldly.
He dropped her wrists but continued to hold her glance steadily. “Haven’t we, Jen?”
“We’ve been playmates,” said Jennifer steadily, “nothing more. It hadn’t occurred to me that anything else was necessary at present. I hadn’t got to the place where I even wanted anything more, and I don’t believe you had, either.”
She gave him a steady look, and he colored a trifle, annoyed.
“I thought so,” said Jennifer. “I was pretty sure all this nonsense was put into your head by my kind, benevolent aunts.”
“Oh no,” he said easily. “I’ve been considering you as mine for a long time. I’ve always expected to make you my wife.”
The girl’s face took on several fine shades of indignation.
“Oh really?” she said haughtily. “Just what right did you have to expect that? Kindly cancel that expectation at once! If I ever would have thought of you in that light in the past I certainly wouldn’t know. I could never marry a man who thought of my family as lightly and casually as you have shown today that you think.”
“Now, Jen, don’t be difficult. You certainly know that no man wants to marry a whole raft of howling, irrational children. You won’t find anyone to fill your ideal if you expect that. You’ll be left high and dry, a lonely old maid, out in the cold, you know, and you would never enjoy that, I’m sure.”
Jennifer retreated a step or two toward the hall, and there was utmost contempt in her face. “I wasn’t just looking around for someone to marry me at the present time, and I don’t know but an old maid could have quite a pleasant life. I’m very sure of one thing, however. If I ever do marry anyone it won’t be you! But I don’t care to talk any more about this now. My mind has been occupied with so many sorrowful things that marriage doesn’t seem to belong in the scheme of things, and I really must ask you to excuse me now. Thank your mother, please, for her kind invitation. I’m sure she meant to be very sweet. But tell her it is quite impossible for me to visit anywhere at present.”
Jennifer drew herself up with a sweet young dignity, and stood waiting for him to take his leave, when suddenly there came a tremendous jarring sound as if something heavy had fallen on the floor, and Jennifer lifted a quick questioning glance above, trying to identify that sound, anxiety, perplexity in her eyes. There was a breathless instant when Peter, too, stood looking up to the ceiling with wonder. Then there came a quivering gasp from above, followed by an awful wail of a frightened baby, and howl of anguish.
“I¾v–v–vants my muvver!”
But by this time Jennifer was halfway up the stairs, flying as if wings were on her feet. That was Robin! What had happened?
She found him lying on the floor before the bed where he had been so sweetly asleep a little while ago, sobbing as if his heart would break. She gathered him quickly into her arms and sat down on the edge of the bed, holding him close, her lips on his soft baby face and kissing his wet closed eyelids.
“I v–v–vants my muvver! I vants my bootiful muvver!” he wailed with quivering lip.
Jennifer’s tears were falling now, mingling with his. She was not aware that Peter Willis had followed her upstairs to see what catastrophe had occurred and that he was standing in the doorway witnessing a new Jennifer, a Jennifer he had never known before. A Jennifer all maternal sweetness and gentle comfort. Something strange twinged in the
place he had for a heart, as he saw the rareness of the girl who had just turned him down so completely.
Not that he believed for an instant that she meant it. She was only angry, of course. But what a girl she was! What would it be when he had her for his own, and that gentleness and sweetness, and tender comfort should be for his mishaps and annoyances.
But the little boy was continuing to wail. “I vants my muvver!”
“But she isn’t here just now, Robin-boy,” said the controlled voice of the young sister.
Robin sat up and looked around the room anxiously. “Wes, she was here. She vas standing wight beside my bed, and I twied to weach her and kiss her, and I wolled out of bed on the floor! Vare is she? I vant her.”
“Listen, Robin,” said the sister, drawing a deep breath and suddenly looking quite mature and dependable, “don’t you remember Mother and Daddy have gone to heaven for a little while? I’m sorry I can’t get Mother for you, but she isn’t here, precious.”
“But I seed her. I weally did, sister!” The little boy’s eyes were big and earnest now, the tears still trembling on his round pink cheek.
Jennifer looked earnestly into his eyes.
“No, dear, that was just a lovely dream of Mother you had. Perhaps Mother asked God to send it down to you to comfort you. Wasn’t that nice to have a lovely dream of Mother?”
Jennifer, through her own tears, was smiling at her little brother. He looked at her with a great questioning in his eyes, and then he suddenly broke into a sweet child smile.
“Wes!” he said happily, and his face was like the sunshine on a rain cloud, full of little rainbows.
“Will you have a pwetty dweam of muvfer, too, Jennifer?” he asked earnestly.
“Perhaps,” said Jennifer, with a wistful tenderness in her eyes.
“And Daddy, too?”
“Perhaps. And now, Robin, have you forgotten how good and quiet you were going to be, and how there was a piece of candy for everybody after the nap, and three pieces for the one who went to sleep first? And do you know that you were the one who won the prize? You were asleep a whole minute ahead of Karen.”