The Ranch Girls and Their Great Adventure

  CHAPTER VI

  THE CLOUD

  THE next weeks in July were extraordinarily beautiful ones in England.The summer was warmer than usual and the sun shone with greaterradiance. The English country was hauntingly lovely and serene.

  In spite of Frieda's trouble, the three Ranch girls enjoyed one another,as they had had no opportunity of doing since Jack's marriage and comingabroad to live.

  There were long walks and rides and exchanges of visits with theircountry neighbors. Now and then Lady Kent and Olive went up to Londonfor a few days of the theatre and the last part of the social season.They were Lord Kent's guests in the Ladies' Gallery in the House ofParliament and drank tea on the wonderful old balcony that overlooks theThames river. But Frieda preferred not to accompany them.

  London was never more filled with tourists, the greater numberAmericans intending to leave later for the continent.

  But so far as Professor Russell was concerned, no word had been heardfrom him since his unceremonious meeting with his wife. However, he hadsent his banker's address to Lord Kent, saying that all mail would beforwarded to him from there. Then he appeared to have dropped completelyout of sight for, in spite of his brother-in-law's effort towardfriendliness, he had not called upon him a second time.

  In discussing the matter between themselves, Jack and Frank decided thatthis was possibly the best arrangement for the present. Frieda had nevermentioned her unexpected discovery of her husband; nor did she evervoluntarily refer to her married life. Therefore, whatever was going oninside her mind, no one had any knowledge of it. As is often the casewith women and girls of Frieda's temperament, she was better able tokeep her own counsel than the women who are supposed to be strong mindedand who are more apt to be frank.

  So far as Jack was concerned she had never reopened with Frank thequestion of her rides with Captain MacDonnell, because the latter hadbeen away and he had not asked her to ride since his return.

  However, neither of these facts were so important as the feeling Jackhad, that no propitious moment had arrived for a second discussion ofthe subject with her husband. She did not intend to defy him, but tomake him see that he had no right to be so arbitrary and--more thanthat--so domineering. This had been Jack's usual method in anydifference of opinion between herself and Frank, or in any unlikenessbetween the American and English point of view concerning marriage. As amatter of fact, more than half the time Jack had been successful.

  But, during the past few weeks she had seen that Frank was worried andunlike himself--that his attention was engaged on matters which were notpersonal. For if the weather and the climate appeared serene in theseparticular July weeks in England the state of English politics was not.For the country was being harassed by the questions of Home Rule forIreland and by the Militant Suffrage movement.

  The Suffrage question was one which Lord and Lady Kent had agreed not todiscuss with each other. To Jack, who had been brought up inWyoming--the first of the Suffrage states in the United States--and whohad seen the success of it there, the fact that the English nation heldthe idea of women voting in such abhorrence and with such narrowmindedness, was more a matter of surprise than anything else. The factthat her husband, who had also lived for a short time in Wyoming, shouldalso oppose woman's suffrage was beyond her comprehension, except thatFrank had the Englishman's love for the established order and dislikedany change. Jack would not confess to herself that he also had theEnglishman's idea that a woman should be subservient to her husband andthat he should be master of his own house. To give women the freedom,which the ballot would bring, might be to allow them an independence inwhich the larger majority of the men of the British Isles did not thenbelieve. Neither did they realize--nor did the suffragiststhemselves--how near their women were to being able to prove theirfitness.

  One Saturday afternoon at the close of July, Captain MacDonnell invitedJack and Olive and Frieda and a number of his other neighbors andfriends to tea at his place. He had no near relatives, and when he wasin Kent county lived alone, except for his housekeeper and servants, inan odd little house, perhaps a century old, which had been left him byhis guardian.

  The girls drove over together in a pony carriage, usually devoted toJack's children. But at the gate they gave it into the charge of a boyin order that they might walk up to the house, which was of a kind foundonly in England.

  The house was built of rough plaster which the years had toned to a softgrey. Captain MacDonnell had the good taste to allow the roof with itsdeep overhanging eaves to remain thatched as it had been in early days.The building was small and one walked up to the front door through twolong rows of hollyhocks. On either side of the hollyhock sentinels theearth was a thick carpet of flowers, and the little house seemed to riseout of its own flower beds.

  There were no steps leading to the front door except a single one, sothe visitor entered directly into the hall which divided the downstairs.On the left side was a long room with a raftered ceiling and high narrowwindows, and on the right Captain MacDonnell's den--a small roomlittered with a young soldier's belongings. Beyond were the dining roomand kitchen and upstairs four bedrooms. As the house was so smallCaptain MacDonnell had turned his great, old-fashioned barn into extraquarters for guests. Between the house and the flower beds and the barnwas an open space of green lawn with an occasional tree, and beyond wasa tennis court. The place was tiny and simple compared to Kent House andyet had great charm.

  Jack and Olive and Frieda arrived before the other guests. They soondiscovered that Mrs. Naxie--Captain MacDonnell's housekeeper--hadarranged to serve tea in his living room.

  It was through Jack's suggestion that the arrangement was altered.

  "Please don't tell Mrs. Naxie, Bryan, that I spoke of it," shevolunteered as soon as she beheld the preparations, "but don't you thinkthe summer in England too short for people to spend an hour indoors whenthey can avoid it?"

  And Captain MacDonnell good naturedly agreed.

  As a matter of fact, Jack always poured tea for him when he had guestsand she was able to be present, so she felt sufficiently at home to makeher request.

  Captain MacDonnell's mother was an Irishwoman and his father aScotchman. But they had both died when he was a little boy and he hadspent the greater part of his boyhood with an old bachelor friend of hisfather's, who was his own guardian and had lived in the very house ofwhich he was now the master.

  As neighbors he and Frank Kent had played together when they were smallboys and had later gone to the same public school. Then Frank's illnesssent him to the United States, where he was introduced into the lives ofthe Ranch girls, at about the same time his friend Bryan MacDonnellentered Cambridge and afterwards the army. But whenever he and Frankwere together the old intimacy had continued, and Jack's coming had onlyseemed to turn their friendship into a three-cornered one.

  "Frank told me to tell you that he was sorry not to be able to come overwith us this afternoon, Bryan," Jack announced a few moments later, whenthe four of them had gone out to select a place where tea could beserved, "But for some reason or other he telephoned that he could notcome down from London today. I don't know what is wrong with Franklately. He has never been so absorbed in political matters. I am afraidFrieda and Olive will think he neglects his family disgracefully. Pleasetell them, Bryan, that he is sometimes an attentive husband."

  But as Captain MacDonnell did not answer at once, Olive remarked in amore serious tone than Lady Kent had used:

  "I think I am rather glad Frank takes his work as a member of Parliamentas the most important thing he has to do. After all, helping to make thelaws of one's country is a pretty serious occupation. Which do you thinkmore serious--Captain MacDonnell, being a soldier and fighting when itis necessary to defend the laws, or making them in the beginning?"

  Captain MacDonnell smiled, but rather seriously. It occurred to Jack,who knew him so much better than the others, that Bryan did seemuncommonly grave this afternoon, in spite of his efforts to be anagreeabl
e host.

  Then she took hold of Frieda's arm and they wandered off a shortdistance, leaving Olive and Captain MacDonnell to continue theirconversation alone.

  "Do you know, Frieda," Jack whispered when they were safe from beingoverheard, "I would give a great deal if Bryan and Olive would learn tocare for each other. Ordinarily I think it is horrid to be a matchmaker,but Bryan and Olive are both so lovely and you don't know what it wouldmean to me to have Olive live near me. It is heavenly these days, havingyou both here. You can't realize how lonely I get for you and my owncountry sometimes."

  Frieda looked critically over at Captain MacDonnell and Olive, who werestanding close beside each other talking earnestly. In spite of CaptainMacDonnell's ancestry his coloring was almost as dark as Olive's.

  Then Frieda turned her blue eyes on her sister.

  "Captain MacDonnell and Olive look too much alike," she argued. "Iprefer marriages where the man and woman are contrasts."

  Then, although Lady Kent made no answer, she smiled to herself. IfFrieda believed in contrasts in marriage, surely she did not mean merelyin complexion and general appearance. Important contrasts in humanbeings went much deeper than appearances. Surely Frieda's own marriagehad offered a sufficient contrast in years, taste, disposition and adozen other things. However, instead of securing happiness, it seemed tohave had the opposite result.

  During the remainder of the afternoon Jack thought nothing more abouttheir early conversation, as she devoted herself entirely to CaptainMacDonnell's other guests.

  It was just a little after six o'clock, when they were beginning tothink of returning home, that Lady Kent observed one of her servantscoming toward her across the lawn carrying a telegram.

  Never so long as she lived was Jack ever to forget that moment and thescene about her. There were about a dozen, beautifully costumed personspresent--the women in silks and muslins, and the men in tennis flannelsand other sport costumes. They were all talking in a light heartedfashion about small matters.

  Without any thought that it might be of particular importance Jackopened her telegram and before reading it apologized to the personsnearest her. It happened that Captain MacDonnell was not far away.

  Yet she read her telegram--not once, but several times--before it dawnedupon her what her husband's words meant. Even then she did not reallyunderstand any more than the millions of other women in the world, whoheard the same news and more within the next few days. The sky overheadwas still blue; the earth was green and peaceful, and her companionswere unconscious of tragedy.

  Nevertheless Frank's telegram had stated that the beginning of the warcloud had appeared over Europe--the cloud which was later to spread overso large a part of the world.