The best way to do that would be to go there this afternoon and get Margaret by herself. She could always get things out of Margaret Graeme if she worked it in the right way. She was sure she could get that key. Margaret was softhearted, and if she showed that she was really hurt by not having that key she was sure she could get it.
So she hurried through her business with her lawyer and took the return bus that would go by the Graeme house. That would not waste so much time.
So, Margaret Graeme, fresh from a nap, and her heart at rest because her two boys were at home, took her sewing and went downstairs to sit by the library fire and wait for her family to drift back from their various wanderings and interests. She was no sooner comfortably seated than the doorbell rang twice, sharply, aggrievedly, and Margaret sat placidly as she heard Hetty go in a leisurely lope to the front door.
“Well, you decided to come at last, did you?” came Louella’s sharp, faultfinding voice. “Where were you? Up in the third floor? Because I should think you’d arrange to be downstairs in the afternoon when calls are likely to come, or else get somebody to look after the door when you decide to go up to the attic and take an afternoon nap.”
Then Hetty’s indignant tones boomed out. “No ma’am, I wasn’t taking no nap. I nevah takes no nap. An’ I wasn’t up in the third stoh’y neither. I was right in the kitchen, just liftin’ out some chicken thet was ’bout to burn, an’ I come as quick as I could.”
“Oh, yes, I suppose you’d have an alibi. You never did learn how to be respectful.”
“No ma’am, I don’t have no Al Lebi. I don’t eben know him. Ain’t been no man at all around here.”
“Well, never mind. Don’t talk forever about one thing. Just answer the door sooner the next time. Now, where are the family?”
Hetty in her haughtiest manner shut the front door definitely and then turned toward the caller. “Mistah Graeme, he has went to a special meetin’ of the presbytery. De young gemm’l’men tuk him down to de chu’tch, an’ dey’ll went after him when he’s done de meetin’. Meanwhiles dey’ll go roun’ an’ about an’ call on dere frien’s. Miss Kathie, she’s off ta her hospital work, an’ M’is Graeme, she’s settin’ in de li’bry. You can went in if ya like.” And Hetty sailed nonchalantly into the kitchen.
With a sniff of disapproval, Louella marched into the quiet atmosphere of the library.
Margaret Graeme looked up with a pleasant smile. Not quite so pleasant perhaps as that smile would have been if the person arriving had been one of her boys or her girl. But she had heard most of the dialogue between Hetty and Louella and was prepared with quite a pleasant welcome, a little bit troubled, perhaps, and worried lest Louella might stay longer than would be pleasant and that she might insist upon staying until the boys got back, and that would be altogether unfortunate. She didn’t want her sons to have anything to mar the sweetness of home. Especially if it should so turn out that they had to go back again to the horrors of war. She must be cautious. She must be quiet to be guided. Oh God, help me!
Perhaps it was a petty trial to bring to the great God for help, and yet Margaret Graeme had learned through long years that there is no trial so petty that may not work out to unpleasantness and even sin if allowed to sway the spirit. Mrs. Graeme had learned through long years how to keep that spirit of hers placid, unruffled by little things. She was always looking to her Guide for strength.
It is a pity that Louella could not have learned from the same Teacher, for she would have been a much more welcome guest if she had.
“Well!” she snapped from the doorway. “Here you sit as quietly and contentedly as if all the world was moving in oiled grooves according to your plan. Guests may come and ring at your doorbell and pound on your knocker, and that lazy so-called servant of yours opens the door when she gets good and ready. Really, Margaret, if I were in your place I would dismiss that Hetty before the day is over. I’m sure I could get you a servant who would be far superior to her at her best, and for less money, I’ll warrant you. The trouble with Hetty is that she doesn’t know her place. You spoiled her, and she thinks she can do anything she pleases.”
“Good afternoon, Louella,” said Margaret Graeme. “Won’t you sit down by the fire? I know it isn’t a very cold day, but yet there is still a little sting of winter in the air. And throw aside your coat, won’t you? Then you won’t be chilly when you go out again. Did you walk over?”
“Walk? Me? Mercy no. I never walk if I can ride. I came on the bus of course. I came after my key. It worries me not to have it on hand when I want to come over here.”
“Your key?” asked Margaret. “What key, Louella?”
“Why, my key to this house. Don’t you remember you gave it to me when I was living here, and I’ve kept it ever since? And this morning Donald came over and asked me for it. Where is he? He said he had need of it. He didn’t say what for, and I told him I would come over and get it. Is he here?”
“No, Louella, he isn’t here. He went to a meeting. I don’t know when he will be back. He may stay for the evening session.”
“Well, then won’t you go upstairs and look in all his pockets and get that key for me? I haven’t much time just now, and I can’t be easy without that key. It has been in my inner consciousness so long it seems a part of me, and it gives me a feeling of belonging to a family.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Louella. But you see we need that key. There aren’t keys enough to go around, and when we have a guest for a day or so, it is rather embarrassing not to have a key to give them. Donald has been going to ask you for it ever since you were here the other night, and he has just put it off.”
“Well, that’s ridiculous!” said Louella. “You can always get Hetty’s key. She doesn’t need a key anyway. Or you can get another made from one of yours. I insist, Margaret, that you get that key for me, and hurry up. I have other calls to make.”
“I’m sorry, Louella,” said the sweet Graeme mother firmly, “but I just wouldn’t know where to look for that key. And anyway if Donald asked you for it, he likely had a reason. Besides, Louella, you don’t need a key now that you are not staying here. Forget it, Louella, and let’s have a nice talk. Are there any pleasant people staying at the inn now?”
“No!” snapped Louella. “None that I care for. I tried playing bridge with some of them last night, but do you know Margaret, they cheated! Yes, they actually did. And then they charged me with not being honest. But of course they were strangers to me, and if I were going to stay here long I certainly should change my hotel. And that’s another reason why I want that key back. Won’t you please go upstairs and try to find that key for me?”
“Why, no, Louella, I wouldn’t like to do that when Donald went after it. There must have been some reason why he wanted it. But really, Louella, there isn’t any reason why you need a key. Especially if you are expecting to go home soon. It wouldn’t be of any use to you. By the way, Louella, you hadn’t seen Rodney since he was a very little boy until the other night. He was away in service when you were here before. Didn’t you think he looked well? And did you notice how much he looks like his father?”
“No, I hadn’t seen him in a long time, but I’m sure I couldn’t tell who he looks like. He was so horribly cross and rude to me that night I couldn’t bear to look at him. I can’t see how he could possibly look anything like his father, for Donald never looks cross at anybody. He is always placid and polite.”
“Well, I’m sorry, Louella,” said Rodney’s mother. “You just didn’t understand. It happened that someone had been in just before you arrived, and it had upset him very much, and when you asked him those questions it simply made things worse. You didn’t understand, of course, and wouldn’t have hurt him for all the world if you had known. You were always kindhearted when you understood.”
“Well what is it? Why don’t you explain? You can’t expect me to be kindhearted if I don’t understand.”
“No? Well, what is it you want explained?
”
“Well, I would like to understand, first, just why this ideal engagement was broken?”
“I’m sorry, Louella, but I don’t believe I would have a right to explain those matters. You see they are not mine to explain. Isn’t it enough to say that the engagement is broken and that Rod is entirely satisfied about it, but he doesn’t like to have that girl flung in his face continually, nor to be asked questions. After all, it is his affair, and nobody else has a right to know all the details. I don’t know them myself, and I’ve never asked. Boys don’t like to have their intimate affairs talked over, and I’ve never asked him a thing. I felt that he had a right to his own privacies, and I would rather have him give me any confidences he wants to give than to have him feel that I have been trying to dig them out of him.”
Louella shut her thin lips tight and pursed them while she shook her head, disapprovingly. “Now Margaret Graeme, you know perfectly well that you had no right to take that attitude. You should have insisted on making Rod tell you everything. After all, that is the way to encourage deception. And you have just deliberately encouraged Rodney in deceiving you. I certainly am glad I came in that night and brought the matter out in the open, even if Rodney didn’t like it. And furthermore, I’ll do all I can whenever I see him, in trying to make him see that the way he has treated and is treating that lovely girl is all wrong, utterly unmanly, just the part of a scoundrel!”
Mother Graeme gathered up her knitting and tucked it into her knitting bag and then looked at her visitor more indignantly than Louella had ever seen that placid cousin-in-law look.
“Louella,” she said, and her voice was firm and angry, “what in the world do you mean? What an outrageous thing for you to say! You certainly will have to explain those remarks, or we cannot talk together anymore. I will not have my son maligned.”
“Oh, yes, your poor little son!” taunted Louella. “Yes, of course you would defend the poor child. After all, if he has been able to fight in a grown-up war, I should think he could do his own defending.”
“Now look here, Louella, I’m not trying to defend my son, because there is nothing to defend. I am trying to find out what you meant by saying that he has, and is, treating his former fiancée outrageously. What right have you to say that? Who has been talking to you? Where did you get any reason to speak like that?”
“Why, I got my information from the lady herself. She told me herself when she came into the dining room the other night Rodney took his dishes and dinner and marched out of the room without speaking to her, and that he did not return while she was there. She said you told her that he wasn’t there. At least Jerry did, and that she couldn’t find out anything about him from any of you. And she said she knew he must be there for his coat and cap had been hanging in the hall when she came through. Besides, he was there at the table eating pie when I came in.”
“I see,” said Mother Graeme. “So you have turned detective. Just why are you doing that, Louella? Is it merely out of curiosity? I didn’t know that you were especially curious.” Mother Graeme was growing quieter, more self-controlled.
Louella brindled indignantly.
“Really!” she huffed. “Since when did you take up this offensive way of talking? I certainly wouldn’t know you, Margaret! But then I have heard that even a dog who is very gentle will snarl and bite when her offspring is attacked.”
Margaret Graeme arose quietly, laid down her knitting bag on the little table by her chair. “That will be about all, Louella. Excuse me. I’ll get us a cup of tea. Perhaps you will be less excited after that.”
“Excited! I, excited! I should say it was you who is excited.”
But Mother Graeme had gone out and closed the door definitely. She had not heard what the annoying guest had said.
When Mrs. Graeme returned she was carrying a tray. Two steaming cups of tea, lemon and cream and sugar, a plate of cookies and another of tiny sandwiches. Mother Graeme had a theory that she often put into practice. “When in trouble always feed the troublemaker.” She was working her theory now. She put the tray down on the little table, removed her knitting bag, and drew up a chair for the cousin.
“Now,” she said cheerily, “let’s have a good time and stop arguing.”
“But I wasn’t arguing,” said Louella belligerently. “I was just telling you.”
“Lemon or cream? I can’t ever remember which you take, Louella.”
“Lemon!” snapped Louella. “I can’t imagine how anybody can take cream. That’s why so many people have to reduce, they take too much cream. And lemon is so much smarter.”
“Here are napkins, Louella.”
Louella accepted a napkin and thereby lost her line of argument.
“Help yourself to sandwiches, Louella.”
“Are those cookies made by your mother’s recipe?” asked the guest, her mouth filled with delectable sandwiches. But Louella never praised anything if she could help it.
“No,” said Margaret Graeme. “I don’t think they are made by mother’s recipe. I had loaned out my recipe book. I think this was a recipe Kathie got over the radio the other day. Have a cookie and sample it.”
“Thanks!” said Louella and took a generous bite. “Yes, this seems very light and tasty. I always thought your mother’s recipe didn’t have enough shortening in it. This seems better. Light as a feather. I wish you’d give me half a dozen of these to serve with five o’clock tea when someone comes in to call.”
“Why surely,” said Margaret Graeme pleasantly, wondering how long this unwelcome guest was planning to stay and what subject she could start next that would be argument proof. But the guest did not wait for a subject. She had one right up her sleeve, the real reason for her coming.
“By the way, what are the boys going to do now? They don’t have to go back overseas again, do they?”
“They haven’t received their orders yet,” said the mother.
“Do you mean they don’t know? But I understood they knew before they left the hospital. I heard they had a good job provided for them and they were done fighting.”
“Oh,” said the mother, “just where did you hear that, Louella? It’s strange they wouldn’t let us know, if the matter is decided yet.”
“Do you really mean that you don’t know yet, or are you just trying to put me off again? Because, really, I don’t think that’s very kind of you, Margaret, to keep me in ignorance when practically everybody else knows and is talking about it.”
“The next time they tell you that, Louella, suppose you ask them where they got their information. Because there really has been no word come yet for the boys. In fact, they didn’t expect it for a month yet. They were sent home for a good rest, and they will not be told the decision about their future work until they go down to Washington and have a thorough physical examination to see how they have progressed since they left the hospital on the other side.”
“Oh, how perfectly silly! Those boys are in fine physical shape, don’t you think, Margaret? Their mother certainly ought to be the best judge.”
“I don’t think I’d be the best judge, under the circumstances. You know I wouldn’t understand all that they’ve been through and what reactions I should look for. It’s the navy’s responsibility you know, not mine. And whether I thought so or not wouldn’t make any difference to them. The boys belong to the navy, and they have to do as the navy says.”
“But I thought they were out for good. Mrs. Hopkins says her boys are home definitely to stay. And she says they were practically in the same company with your boys. She says her boys said they heard overseas that your boys were slated definitely for something else. Something over here, they said.”
Margaret Graeme looked at the cousin thoughtfully. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know,” she said quietly.
“Oh, now Margaret, don’t be so closemouthed. You know perfectly well you just don’t want to give out information.”
“I’m sorry, Louella, I’ve told you the truth.
But if you don’t choose to believe me I’ve nothing further to say. Won’t you have another cup of tea? Another cookie?”
“No, Margaret, I’ve had plenty. And besides, I feel very much hurt at the way you are treating me. I know perfectly well you’re not telling me all you know. I feel very much offended at your attitude.”
“I am sorry, Louella, that you take it this way. I have no intention of refusing to give you any facts that I have a right to give, even though I feel that your attitude of demanding to know everything about the family is unjustifiable. However, in this case I do not know what the boys are going to be ordered to do and shall probably not know for several weeks. And by the way, here are the cookies you asked for. Take the sandwiches, too, if you like. Good-bye.”
Louella accepted the neat package done up in paper napkins and took herself out of the picture.
Margaret Graeme turned thankfully away from the door, grateful that this trying relative was gone before her family got home.
On her way back to the hotel, Louella remembered that she had neglected to ask whether the whole family were going out Sunday night to hear Jeremy speak. Well, never mind. She would insist that Jessica carry out the plan of sitting in the gallery. She felt reasonably sure this plan could only succeed.
Chapter 9
But Rodney did not sit in the gallery, as Louella had been sure he would do, confirmed in this belief by Margaret Graeme’s statement that the boys did not care to be in the public eye and be lauded for what they had been in combat. And so Jessica sulked in a dark corner of the gallery without a gallant to comfort her lonely state.
She had not taken any of the girls with her because she felt her part in the drama she was expecting to play would be more effective if she went alone and slid unawares, as it were, into the vacant seat beside her former beau. But just before the meeting began, the other girls of her “gang,” as she called it, came into the church and, finding no seats downstairs, went grumbling up the stairs to find her. They could not understand why she had put them off and refused to go with them. And so when they had found her, they squeezed into a seat across the aisle from where she was sitting, in behind a post where they could scarcely see the platform, and sat staring around them.