CHAPTER VII
Hester never remembered leaving the car or how she got home after thefatal catastrophe, but indelibly printed on Julie's mind would always bethe picture of a wide-eyed breathless girl who rushed in upon her andthrew a mangled package on the table.
"Oh, my dear! what is the matter?" cried Julie.
But Hester could not speak.
Julie picked up the battered box, disclosing the cake within crushed toa pancake. She turned to find Hester's head buried in her arms; the girlwas sobbing convulsively.
"Never mind, dear," said Julie, stroking her head sympathetically, "itwould be much worse if you were hurt too."
"I am not crying," the younger girl asserted stoutly; "not crying atall." She spoke in short gasps that were strangely like sobs, but Julieignored them. "I am all out of breath from running, that is all, and Idid not fall, you goose! A woman sat on me!" She broke into a peal ofhysterical laughter.
It was Julie's turn to be speechless now.
"If she had just sat on _me_ it wouldn't have mattered but she tumbledin the car before I knew it and there is the result!" She waved her handtragically toward the table and wiped her eyes.
"We'll make another one right away, dear."
"Of course we will," responded Hester, pulling off her hat and coat andflinging them down impatiently; "but it breaks my heart to see such aruin of all our work not to mention the waste of materials!"
Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall; Humpty Dumpty had a great fall; And all the king's horses and all the king's men--
sang Julie, suggestively, but was not allowed to finish the ditty, forHester said, with a thump on the table:
"We will put this together again double quick and I will get it to MissWare before dark, you see if I don't."
"You had better let me go next time, Hester," said Julie, getting outthe cooking utensils, "you will be tired to death."
"No, I won't; I have undertaken to do this thing, and I'll put itthrough if it takes forever," with which characteristic remark she setto work again.
The second effort in the culinary line was, if possible, more successfulthan the first and immediately after their simple lunch of bread andmilk, Hester set forth again. The storm had ceased, and to the immensedelight of Peter Snooks, Hester confided to him that she should walk anda certain good little dog that she knew should go too. Julie laughed atthis determination to avoid the car and called her superstitious. Shelaughed, too, but refused to analyze her sensations.
She found Miss Ware, when she was ushered into her presence, in ratheran aggressive mood, which caused the girl to look on with somenervousness as she opened the box and surveyed the loaf critically.
"Umph!" she said, examining it through her lorgnette, "did you do that,or Bridget?"
"We did it, Miss Ware. Bridget knows nothing of fancy cooking."
"And you do, it seems. It was an odd trick for a girl to pick up inVirginia, and an undesirable one."
"We look at things differently, Miss Ware," Hester said, withconsiderable asperity. "I don't call it undesirable if it proves a wayof supporting ourselves. I would not choose it--to cook for aliving--but we've no choice in the matter whatever."
"Your father is very much to blame, Hester. He should have looked afteryour interests better when he saw the crash coming. There was no needthat you should be left absolutely penniless."
Hester sprang to her feet and confronted Miss Ware like a young tigress."You shall not say such things about Dad. I will not listen--I--"
"Hoighty toighty!" broke in Miss Ware, "what a temper! You will have tocurb that, my dear Hester, if you expect to get on in the world--ascooks!"
The girl flushed crimson, and bit her lip in an effort to regain herself-control.
"I--I beg your pardon," she faltered. "I--I never knew I had a temperbefore. It's--it's one of the new things I am learning." A sudden mistcame before her, and drawing near she laid her hand on the older womanwith an appealing touch. "Don't say unkind things about Daddy, please,Miss Ware; they are not true, and I--I can't bear it."
"Let's get to business," said Miss Ware, who dreaded a scene aboveeverything. "What do you mean to charge for your cake?"
"Fifty cents." Hester was now quite herself again, and went on rapidly,"I want to ask you if you will speak about our work to your friends. Iknow it is asking a great deal under the circumstances, but we are suchstrangers here in Radnor we really do not know any one to ask such afavor of but you and Dr. Ware."
"At least you have a champion in him."
Hester's eyes shone. "Next to Dad we love him better than any one in theworld."
"Then why don't you behave sensibly, and come here and live, and let metake you about in society, as I meant to do this winter? I really lookedforward to chaperoning you and Julie--you're very unusual girls. Nowgive up this nonsense of yours and behave properly."
"Oh, Miss Ware, must we go all over that again? Won't you try to see itour way, as--as your brother does? He never even talked of our cominghere to live, he understands so well that we want to be independent. Iknow we must be a great disappointment to you. Cousin Nancy in Virginiafeels just as you do, too. Ever so many persons have offered us a home.You can't think what beautiful letters we've had from Dad's friendsthrough the west. If it were possible to move him we'd go out there totry our fortune; there are so many splendid out-of-door kinds of work agirl can do in that big country. But Dad can't be moved, and we've gotto do the best we can right here in Radnor." She spoke convincingly andwith a certain submissiveness that sat oddly on her young shoulders.
Miss Ware, twisting her rings round on her fingers with a contemplativeair was wondering where the child got that dignity and poise.
"I've no patience with you whatever," she said finally, after a longpause, in which Hester imagined she had been waging an inward conflict."I am wholly out of sympathy with your ideas, but you cannot be allowedto starve to death, and if cooking is the height of your ambition--"
"It isn't the height of our ambition," interrupted Hester, for youth isimpatient of being misunderstood; "it is only the thing that is nearestat hand."
"Your education must be sadly deficient," regarding the girl critically."I always told Philip the harum-scarum way you were being brought up wasperfectly ruinous. If you had gone to school like other girls, you wouldbe qualified for some lady-like position."
This was too much for Hester. "You need not trouble to do anything aboutthe cake, Miss Ware," she said, proudly, "and I shan't come here againto hear my father insulted. And we are not going to starve either," shecried, her girlish wrath rising. "We are going to succeed and be acredit to the best education in the world!"
She threw back her head and gazed straight into the older woman's eyeswith a fearless look that was hard to meet. Only the fingers curledtight into the palms of her hands, betrayed the mighty effort she wasmaking to hold herself in check, and this Miss Ware did not see, forHester's unflinching eyes held her with a strange fascination. Inanother moment the girl had turned and left the room.
For a while after her departure Miss Ware sat motionless like a personwho has received a shock. Presently she began to toy with her lorgnette,dangling it back and forth on its chain with a swinging movement as ifkeeping time to a rhythmic train of thought. This was not, indeed, thecase, and the action arose from nervousness, for the usual calmplacidity of her mind was sadly ruffled. She was not in the habit ofbeing contradicted, particularly by what she was pleased to call "ayoung person"; but she was one of those women who having said theirworst, proceed to contradict themselves by an interest in that whichthey have most condemned, and she was now speculating as to whether itwould not be expedient to take Hester's cake to the meeting of hersewing class the following day, and possibly get an order or two therefor it.
Only a true Radnorite could realize the possibilities that opened up toone who was introduced as a subject of discussion at _the_ Sewing Classof Radnor. For in the fashionable and exclusive set in which Mis
s Warehad her being it was a function of tremendous importance, with sacredrites known only to the initiated. In one another's drawing-rooms, ontwo mornings of the month, forty chosen spirits met to sew for thepoor--that great, clamorous, all-devouring body from which there is noescape. This was ostensibly the purpose; in reality sewing was a minorconsideration, albeit much work was accomplished. The chief end of itsexistence was to discuss, direct and control the movements of thatexclusive portion of Radnor society of which it was a part and uponwhich it sat in fortnightly judgment. Following this arduous butimportant morning duty came the luncheon, and it was of that Miss Warewas thinking in connection with the cake.
When Hester left Miss Ware she ran down the stairs to the lower hall,where she had left Peter Snooks with strict orders to remain until herreturn. There she found him waiting to greet her with joyous caperingsof delight.
Dr. Ware and a tall, clean-shaven, athletic-looking man came out fromthe office and encountered her.
"Ah, you, Hester?" said the Doctor. "Wait a moment, my dear. I have abook here that I want you to take round to read to your father."
He vanished, and the stranger glanced at the girl, hesitated, and thenstooping patted the dog. "You've a fine fox-terrier," he said in a deep,rich voice, looking up.
"We think so," replied Hester, who couldn't for the life of her concealher pleasure at hearing Peter Snooks praised.
At that moment the Doctor came out again.
"Why, Landor," he said, "I beg your pardon; I forgot all about you whenI saw Hester. That is a way the minx has--of driving everything else outof my head. Hester, my dear, this is Kenneth Landor, just up from Texasto have a look at effete civilization--you have heard me speak of himoften--Mr. Landor, Miss Dale."
The young people bowed.
"Don't let him pose as a cowboy or anything interesting like that,"continued the Doctor, "for he isn't really--he only plays at things.Takes a peep here and there over the continent, and pretends he is thisand that and the other, as the mood seizes him. A rolling stone, eh,Landor?" turning with an affectionate, quizzical look at the man besidehim.
"Oh! go on, Doctor; pile it on--don't leave me a shred of character. Hisveracity is absolutely unquestioned, of course, Miss Dale?"
"Of course! He has made you interesting already."
The Doctor laughed. "How one's motives are mistaken. That was the lastthing I meant to do!"
Hester looked up at the Doctor, gleams of mischief in her eyes. "Youbeing you," she said, "it couldn't be otherwise." With which ambiguousremark she went out the door.
Landor followed her down the steps. "Miss Dale," he asked, "may I walkalong with you? I fancy I am going your way." Landor's way was usuallywhere he chose to make it.
Hester acquiesced simply. She had been accustomed to the society of mensince she could toddle, and felt no embarrassment in the presence of astranger. Landor noted the free, swinging motion with which she keptstep with him as they went down the street.
"You are not a true Radnorite," he said abruptly.
"No, I am not. Why?"
"Radnor girls do not walk as you do."
"I am half inclined to believe you are a cowboy, after all, Mr. Landor."
"Why?"
"Are we playing twenty questions? You have bad manners, a habit ofdealing in personalities--we call it impertinence."
"Twenty questions," he repeated, ignoring her rebuke. "Why, I have notheard that mentioned for years. It is a favorite game in Radnor, isn'tit?"
"I am sure I don't know," she said wearily; "I know very little aboutRadnor."
"And I less," he said. "I've been away so much of the time. But therewere certain things taken into my innermost being in my youth, alongwith the air I breathed, I suppose, that no amount of absence willeradicate."
"For instance?" she said, with feigned interest, for her mind keptwandering off to her recent interview with Miss Ware, and she wished shehad not allowed him to accompany her.
"Well, the question of residence, you know. The few acres of sacred soilin Radnor on which it is permissible to live. I remember as a little boyhow my nurse only allowed me to play with children whose parents livedon the water side of Crana Street or the sunny side of Belton Avenue.Any other than those and the streets immediately intersecting was beyondthe pale of civilization, even to her. It is odd, isn't it?" smilingdown at her.
"What is odd, the fact or your acceptance of it?" There was a littlering in her voice which struck the man's alert ear.
A look of surprise came into his handsome dark face. "Am I walking toofast for you, Miss Dale?" he asked, pleasantly.
That was the second time he had put aside a thrust of hers with sometrifling, irrelevant remark, and it tended to heighten rather thansoothe her growing irritation.
"I think," she said, stopping abruptly on the corner, "that I shall saygood morning to you here. I do not happen to live in that sacredlocality you mention, and I would not for worlds take you beyond thepale."
"Miss Dale," he gasped, "you don't think I abide by any suchnonsense--you are doing me a great injustice. Surely you are not goingto dismiss me!"
"Yes," she said, smiling, and showing her dimples in a sudden access ofpleasure at the thought of getting rid of him, "I really believe I am."
He lifted his hat, and stood for some moments on the corner watching hervanish from sight. How slender she was, and graceful, and what a sweetlittle smile had accompanied her nod of farewell! Now he thought of it,her eyes had queer lights in them, baffling, as if she were laughing athim all the time. And her tone was half mocking, too, though he hadtaken it seriously enough in all conscience. Was she serious, or had hemade an idiot of himself? This latter contingency was not one whichpresented itself with marked frequency to the mind of Kenneth Landor,and therefore gave him much food for reflection as the day wore on.