CHAPTER II
GEORGINA'S PLAYMATE MOTHER
AS the Towncrier's revery brought him around to Mrs. Triplett's part inthe painful scene which he was recalling, he heard her voice, andlooking up, saw that she had come back into the room, and was standingby the window.
"There's Justin's wife now, Mr. Darcy, coming up the beach. Poor child,she didn't get her letter. I can tell she's disappointed from the wayshe walks along as if she could hardly push against the wind."
The old man, leaning sideways over the arm of his chair, craned his necktoward the window to peer out, but he did it without dislodgingGeorgina, who was repeating the "tick-tick" of the watch in a whisper,as she lay contentedly against the Towncrier's shoulder.
"She's naught but a slip of a girl," he commented, referring toGeorgina's mother, slowly drawing into closer view. "She must be yearsyounger than Justin. She came up to me in the post-office last week andtold me who she was, and I've been intending ever since to get up thisfar to talk with her about him."
As they watched her she reached the end of the board-walk, and plungingankle-deep into the sand, trudged slowly along as if pushed back by thewind. It whipped her skirts about her and blew the ends of her fringedscarf back over her shoulder. She made a bright flash of color againstthe desolate background. Scarf, cap and thick knitted reefer were all ofa warm rose shade. Once she stopped, and with hands thrust into herreefer pockets, stood looking off towards the lighthouse on Long Point.Mrs. Triplett spoke again, still watching her.
"I didn't want to take Justin's offer when he first wrote to me,although the salary he named was a good one, and I knew the workwouldn't be more than I've always been used to. But I had planned tostay in Wellfleet this winter, and it always goes against the grain withme to have to change a plan once made. I only promised to stay until shewas comfortably settled. A Portuguese woman on one of the back streetswould have come and cooked for her. But land! When I saw how strange andlonesome she seemed and how she turned to me for everything, I didn'thave the heart to say go. I only named it once to her, and she sort ofchoked up and winked back the tears and said in that soft-spokenSouthern way of hers, 'Oh, don't leave me, Tippy!' She's taken tocalling me Tippy, just as Georgina does. 'When you talk about it I feellike a kitten shipwrecked on a desert island. It's all so strange anddreadful here with just sea on one side and sand dunes on the other.'"
At the sound of her name, Georgina suddenly sat up straight and beganfumbling the watch back into the velveteen pocket. She felt that it wastime for her to come into the foreground again.
"More ride!" she demanded. The galloping began again, gently at first,then faster and faster in obedience to her wishes, until she seemed onlya swirl of white dress and blue ribbon and flying brown curls. But thistime the giddy going up and down was in tame silence. There was noaccompanying song to make the game lively. Mrs. Triplett had more tosay, and Mr. Darcy was too deeply interested to sing.
"Look at her now, stopping to read that sign set up on the spot wherethe Pilgrims landed. She does that every time she passes it. Says itcheers her up something wonderful, no matter how downhearted she is, tothink that she wasn't one of the Mayflower passengers, and that she'snearly three hundred years away from their hardships and that dreadfulfirst wash-day of theirs. Does seem to me though, that's a poor way tomake yourself cheerful, just thinking of all the hard times you mighthave had but didn't."
"_Thing_ it!" lisped Georgina, wanting undivided attention, and layingan imperious little hand on his cheek to force it. "_Thing!_"
He shook his head reprovingly, with a finger across his lips to remindher that Mrs. Triplett was still talking; but she was not to be silencedin such a way. Leaning over until her mischievous brown eyes compelledhim to look at her, she smiled like a dimpled cherub. Georgina's smilewas something irresistible when she wanted her own way.
"_Pleathe!_" she lisped, her face so radiantly sure that no one could behardhearted enough to resist the magic appeal of that word, that hecould not disappoint her.
"The little witch!" he exclaimed. "She could wheedle the fish out of thesea if she'd say please to 'em that way. But how that honey-sweet toneand the yells she was letting loose awhile back could come out of thatsame little rose of a mouth, passes my understanding."
Mrs. Triplett had left them again and he was singing at the top of hisquavering voice, "Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes," when thefront door opened and Georgina's mother came in. The salt wind had blowncolor into her cheeks as bright as her rose-pink reefer. Herdisappointment about the letter had left a wistful shadow in her biggray eyes, but it changed to a light of pleasure when she saw who wasromping with Georgina. They were so busy with their game that neither ofthem noticed her entrance.
She closed the door softly behind her and stood with her back against itwatching them a moment. Then Georgina spied her, and with a rapturouscry of _"Barby!"_ scrambled down and ran to throw herself into hermother's arms. Barby was her way of saying Barbara. It was the firstword she had ever spoken and her proud young mother encouraged her torepeat it, even when her Grandmother Shirley insisted that it wasn'trespectful for a child to call its mother by her first name.
"But I don't care whether it is or not," Barbara had answered. "All Iwant is for her to feel that we're the best chums in the world. And I'm_not_ going to spoil her even if I am young and inexperienced. There area few things that I expect to be very strict about, but making herrespectful to me isn't one of them."
Now one of the things which Barbara had decided to be very strict aboutin Georgina's training was making her respectful to guests. She was notto thrust herself upon their notice, she was not to interrupt theirconversation, or make a nuisance of herself. So, young as she was,Georgina had already learned what was expected of her, when her motherhaving greeted Mr. Darcy and laid aside her wraps, drew up to the fireto talk to him. But instead of doing the expected thing, Georgina didthe forbidden. Since the old man's knees were crossed so that she couldno longer climb upon them, she attempted to seat herself on his foot,clamoring, "Do it again!"
"No, dear," Barbara said firmly. "Uncle Darcy's tired." She had noticedthe long-drawn sigh of relief with which he ended the last gallop. "He'sgoing to tell us about father when he was a little boy no bigger thanyou. So come here to Barby and listen or else go off to your own cornerand play with your whirligig."
Usually, at the mention of some particularly pleasing toy Georgina wouldtrot off happily to find it; but to-day she stood with her face drawninto a rebellious pucker and scowled at her mother savagely. Thenthrowing herself down on the rug she began kicking her blue shoes up anddown on the hearth, roaring, "_No! No!_" at the top of her voice.Barbara paid no attention at first, but finding it impossible to talkwith such a noise going on, dragged her up from the floor and lookedaround helplessly, considering what to do with her. Then she rememberedthe huge wicker clothes hamper, standing empty in the kitchen, andcarrying her out, gently lowered her into it.
It was so deep that even on tiptoe Georgina could not look over the rim.All she could see was the ceiling directly overhead. The surprise ofsuch a novel punishment made her hold her breath to find what was goingto happen next, and in the stillness she heard her mother say calmly asshe walked out of the room: "If she roars any more, Tippy, just put thelid on; but as soon as she is ready to act like a little lady, lift herout, please."
The strangeness of her surroundings kept her quiet a moment longer, andin that moment she discovered that by putting one eye to a loosely-wovenspot in the hamper she could see what Mrs. Triplett was doing. She waspolishing the silver porringer, trying to rub out the dent which thefall had made in its side. It was such an interesting kitchen, seenthrough this peep-hole that Georgina became absorbed in rolling her eyearound for wider views. Then she found another outlook on the other sideof the hamper, and was quiet so long that Mrs. Triplett came over andpeered down at her to see what was the matter. Georgina looked up at herwith a roguish smile. One never knew h
ow she was going to take apunishment or what she would do next.
"Are you ready to be a little lady now? Want me to lift you out?" Bothlittle arms were stretched joyously up to her, and a voice of angelicsweetness said coaxingly: "_Pleathe_, Tippy."
The porringer was in Mrs. Triplett's hand when she leaned over thehamper to ask the question. The gleam of its freshly-polished sidescaught Georgina's attention an instant before she was lifted out, and itwas impressed on her memory still more deeply by being put into her ownhands afterwards as she sat in Mrs. Triplett's lap. Once more her tinyfinger's tip was made to trace the letters engraved around the rim, asshe was told about her great-great aunt and what was expected of her.The solemn tone clutched her attention as firmly as the hand which heldher, and somehow, before she was set free, she was made to feel thatbecause of that old porringer she was obliged to be a little lady.
Tippy was not one who could sit calmly by and see a child suffer forlack of proper instruction, and while Georgina never knew just how itwas done, the fact was impressed upon her as years went by that therewere many things which she could not do, simply because she was aHuntingdon and because her name had been graven for so many generationsaround that shining silver rim.
Although to older eyes the happenings of that morning were trivial, theywere far-reaching in their importance to Georgina, for they gave herthree memories--Jeremy's teeth, the Towncrier's bell, and her own nameon the porringer--to make a deep impression on all her after-life.