Part 16 (1/2)
The dignitaries left cooling their heels looked at each other blankly, but the Lieutenant-Governor smiled cheerfully.
”One of the reasons he is Governor at thirty-six is that he always does attend to the matters that interrupt him.”
Meanwhile the Governor, rus.h.i.+ng out with his usual impulsive energy, had sent two or three servants flying over the house. ”Where's Mrs. Mooney?
Send Mrs. Mooney to me here instantly--and be quick;” and he waited, impatient, although it was for only three minutes, in a little room across the hall, where appeared to him in that time a square-shaped, gray-haired woman with a fresh face and blue eyes full of intelligence and kindliness.
”Mary, look here;” and the big Governor put his hand on the stout little woman's arm and drew her to the light. Mary and his Excellency were friends of very old standing indeed, their intimacy having begun thirty-five years before, when the future great man was a rampant baby, and Mary his nurse and his adorer, which last she was still. ”I want to read you this, and then I want you to telephone to Bristol at once.” He smoothed out the wrinkled single sheet of paper.
”My dear Governor Rudd,” he read,--”My friends the McNaughtons of Bristol are friends of yours too, I think, and that is my reason for troubling you with this note. I am on my way to visit them now, and expected to take the train for Bristol at twenty minutes after eight to-night, but when I reached here at eight o'clock I found the time-table had been changed, and the train had gone out twenty minutes before. And there is no other till to-morrow. I don't know what to do or where to go, and you are the only person in the city whose name I know.
Would it trouble you to advise me where to go for the night--what hotel, if it is right for me to go to a hotel? With regret that I should have to ask this of you when you must be busy with great affairs all the time, I am,
”Very sincerely, ”LINDSAY LEE.”
Mary listened, attentive but dazed, and was about to burst out at once with voluble exclamations and questions when the Governor stopped her.
”Now, Mary, don't do a lot of talking. Just listen to me. I thought at first this note was from a man, because it is signed by a man's name.
But it looks and sounds like a woman, and I think it should be attended to. I want you to telephone to Mr. George McNaughton, at Bristol, and ask if Mr. or Miss Lindsay Lee is a friend of theirs, and say that, if so, he--or she--is all right, and is spending the night here. Then, in that case, send Harper to the station with the brougham, and say that I beg to have the honor of looking after Mrs. McNaughton's friend for the night. And you'll see that whoever it is is made very comfortable.”
”Indeed I will, the poor young thing,” said Mary, jumping at a picturesque view of the case. ”But, Mr. Jack, do you want me to telephone to Mr. McNaughton's and ask if a friend of theirs--”
The Governor cut her short. ”Exactly. You know just what I said, Mary Mooney; you only want to talk it over. I'm much too busy. Tell Jackson not to come to the library again unless the State freezes over.
Good-night.--I don't think the McNaughtons can complain that I haven't done their friend brown,” said the Governor to himself as he went back across the hall.
Down at the station, beneath the spirited illumination of one whistling gas-jet, the station-master and Lindsay Lee waited wearily for an answer from the Governor. It was long in coming, for the station-master's boys, the Messrs. O'Milligan, seizing the occasion for foreign travel offered by a sight of the Executive grounds, had made a detour by the Executive stables, and held deep converse with the grooms. Just as the thought of duty undone began to p.r.i.c.k the leathery conscience of the older one, the order came for Harper and the brougham. Half an hour later, at the station, Harper drew up with a sonorous clatter of hoofs. The station-master hurried forward to interview the coachman. In a moment he turned with a beaming face.
”It's good news for ye, miss. The Governor's sent his own kerridge for ye, then. Blessed Mary, but it's him that's condescendin'. Get right in, miss.”
Such a sudden safe harbor seemed almost too good to be true. Lindsay was nearly asleep as the rubber-tired wheels rolled softly along through the city. The carriage turned at length from the lights and swung up a long avenue between trees, and then stopped. The door flew open, and Lindsay looked up steps and into a wide, lighted doorway, where stood a stout woman, who hastened to seize her bag and umbrella and take voluble possession of her. The sleepy, dazed girl was vaguely conscious of large halls and a wide stair and a kind voice by her side that flowed ever on in a gentle river of words. Then she found herself in a big, pleasant bed-room, and beyond was the open door of a tiled bath-room.
”Oh--oh!” she said, and dropped down sideways on the whiteness of the bra.s.s bed, and put her arms around the pillow and her head, hat and all, on it.
”Poor child!” said pink-checked, motherly Mrs. Mooney. ”You're more than tired, that I can see without trying, and no wonder, too! I shan't say another word to you, but just leave you to get to bed and to sleep, and I'm sure it's the best medicine ever made, is a good comfortable bed and a night's rest. So I shan't stop to speak another word. But is there anything at all you'd like, Miss Lee? And there, now, what am I thinking about? I haven't asked if you wouldn't have a bit of supper! I'll bring it up myself--just a bit of cold bird and a gla.s.s of wine? It will do you good. But it will,” as Lindsay shook her head, smiling. ”There's nothing so bad as going to sleep on an empty stomach when you're tired.”
”But I had dinner on the train, and I'm not hungry; sure enough, I'm not; thank you a thousand times.”
Mrs. Mooney reluctantly took two steps toward the door, the room shaking under her soft-footed, heavy tread.
”You're sure you wouldn't like--” She stopped, embarra.s.sed, and the blue eyes shone like kindly sapphires above the always-blus.h.i.+ng cheeks. ”I'm mortified to ask you for fear you'd laugh at me, but you seem like such a child, and--would you let me bring you--just a slice of bread and b.u.t.ter with some brown sugar on it?”
Lindsay had a gracious way of knowing when people really wished to do something for her. She flapped her hands, like the child she looked.
”Oh, how did you think of it? I used to have that for a treat at home.
Yes, I'd _love_ it!” And Mrs. Mooney beamed.
”There! I thought you would! You see, Miss Lee, that's what I used sometimes to give my boy--that's the Governor--when he was little and got hungry at bedtime.”
Lindsay, left alone, took off her hat, and with a pull and screw at her necktie and collar-b.u.t.ton, dropped into a chair that seemed to hold its fat arms up for her. She smiled sleepily and comfortably. ”I'm having a right good time,” she said to herself, ”but it's funny. I feel as if I lived here, and I love that old housekeeper-nurse of the Governor's. I wonder what the Governor is like? I wonder--” And at this point she became aware, with only slight surprise, of a little boy with a crown on his head who offered her a slice of bread and b.u.t.ter and sugar a yard square, and told her he had kept it for her twenty-five years. She was about to reason with him that it could not possibly be good to eat in that case, when something jarred the brain that was slipping so easily down into oblivion, and as her eyes opened again she saw Mrs. Mooney's solid shape bending over the tub in the bath-room, and a noise of running water sounded pleasant and refres.h.i.+ng.
”Oh, did I go to sleep?” she asked, sitting up straight and blinking wide-open eyes.
”There! I knew it would wake you, and I couldn't a-bear to do it, my dear, but it would never do for you to sleep like that in your clothes, and I drew your bath warm, thinking it would rest you better, but I can just change it hot or cold as it suits you. And here's the little lunch for you, and I feel as if it was my own little boy I was taking care of again; the year he was ten it was he ate so much at night. I saw him just now, and he's that tired from his meeting--it's a shame how hard he has to work for this State, time and time again. He said 'Good-night, Mary,' he said, just the way he did years ago--such a little gentleman he always was. The dearest and the handsomest thing he was; they used to call him 'the young prince,' he was that handsome and full of spirit. He told me to say he hoped for the pleasure of seeing Miss Lee at breakfast to-morrow at nine; but if you should be tired, Miss Lee, or prefer your breakfast up here, which you can have it just as well as not, you know.
And here I'm talking you to death again, and you ought to stop me, for when I begin about the Governor I never know when to stop myself. Just put up your foot, please, and I'll take your shoes off,” And while she unlaced Lindsay's small boots with capable fingers she apologized profusely for talking--talking as much again.