Part 5 (1/2)

'Darn you, Tom Tracy, I won't go to the back kitchen door, and I'm not a servant, and if you call me so again I'll lick you!'

How the matter would have ended is doubtful, if Mrs. Tracy had not called from the head of the stairs:

'Thomas! Thomas Tracy! I am ashamed of you! Come to me this minute! And you, boy, go to the kitchen; or, no--now you are here, come up stairs, and I'll tell you what you are to do.'

Her directions were much like those of d.i.c.k St. Claire, except that she laid more stress upon the fact that he was not to speak to any one familiarly, but was to be in all respects a machine. Just what she meant by that Harold did not know; but he hung his cap on a bracket, and taking his place where she told him to stand, watched her admiringly as she went down the staircase, with her peach-blow satin trailing behind her, and followed, by her husband, who looked and felt anxious and ill at ease.

Tom had disappeared, but his younger brother, Jack, who was wholly unlike him, came to Harold's side, and began telling him what quant.i.ties of good things there were in the dining-room and pantry, and that his Uncle Arthur was coming home that night, and his mother was so glad, she cried; then, with a spring he mounted upon the banister of the long staircase and slipped swiftly to the bottom. Ascending the stairs almost as quickly as he had gone down, he bade Harold try it with him.

'It's such fun! and mother won't care. I've done it forty times,' he said, as Harold demurred; and then, as the temptation became too strong to be resisted, two boys instead of one rode down the banister and landed in the lower hall, and two pairs of little legs ran nimbly up the stairs just as the door opened and admitted the first arrival.

CHAPTER VII.

THE PARTY.

The invitations had been for half-past seven, and precisely at that hour Peterkin arrived, magnificent in his swallow-tail and white s.h.i.+rt front, where an enormous diamond shone conspicuously. With him came the second Mrs. Peterkin, whose name was Mary Jane, but whom her husband always called _May_ Jane. She was a frail, pale faced little woman, and had once been Grace Atherton's maid, but had married Peterkin for his money.

This was her first appearance at a grand party, and in her excitement and timidity she did not hear Harold's thrice repeated words, 'Ladies go that way,' but followed her husband into the gentlemen's dressing-room, where she deposited her wraps, and then, shaking in every limb, descended to the drawing-room, where Peterkin's boisterous laugh was soon heard, as he slapped his host on the shoulder, and said:

'You see, we are here on time, though May Jane said it was too early.

But I s'posed half-past seven meant half-past seven and then I wanted a little time to talk up the ropes with you. We are going to run you in, you bet!' and again his coa.r.s.e laugh thrilled every nerve in Mrs.

Tracy's body, and she longed for fresh arrivals to help quiet this vulgar man.

Soon they began to come by twos, and threes, and sixes, and Harold was kept busy with his 'Ladies this way, and gentlemen that.'

After Mrs. Peterkin had gone down stairs, leaving her wraps in the gentlemen's rooms, Harold, who knew they did not belong there, had carried them to the ladies' room and deposited them upon the bed, just as the girl who was to be in attendance appeared at her post, asked him sharply why he was in there rummaging the ladies' things.

'I'm not rummaging. They are Mrs. Peterkin's. She left them in the other room, and I brought them here,' Harold said, as he returned to the hall, never dreaming that this little circ.u.mstance, trivial as it seemed, would be one of the links in the chain of evidence which must for a time overshadow him so darkly.

Now, he was eager and excited, and interested in watching the people as they came up the stairs and went down again. With the quick instinct of a bright, intelligent boy, he decided who was accustomed to society and who was not, and leaning over the banister when not on duty, watched them when they entered the drawing-room and were received by Mr. and Mrs. Tracy. Unconsciously he began to imitate them, bowing when they bowed, and saying softly to himself:

'Oh, how do you do? Good evening. Happy to see you. Pleasant to-night.

Walk in. Ye-as!'

This was the monosyllable with which he finished every sentence, and was the affirmation to the thought in his mind that he, too, would some day go down those stairs and into those parlors as a guest, while some other boy in the upper hall bade the ladies go this way and the gentlemen that.

It was after nine when Mr. and Mrs. St. Claire arrived, with Squire Harrington, from Collingwood. Harold had been looking for them, anxious to see the crimson satin trimmed with ermine, of which d.i.c.k had told him. Many of the guests he had mentally criticised unsparingly, but Mrs.

St. Claire, he knew, was genuine, and his face beamed, when in pa.s.sing him, she smiled upon him with her sweet, gracious manner, and said, pleasantly:

'Good evening, Harold. I knew you were to be here. d.i.c.k told me, and he wanted to come and a.s.sist you, but I thought he'd better stay home with Nina.'

Up to this time no one had spoken to Harold, and he had spoken to no one except to tell them where to go, but had, as far as possible, followed Mrs. Tracy's injunction to be a machine. But the machine was getting a little tired. It was hard work to stand for two hours or more, and Mrs.

Tracy had impressed it upon him that he was not to sit down. But when Mrs. St. Claire came from the dressing-room and stood before him a moment in her crimson satin and pearls, he forgot his weariness and forgot that he was not to talk, and said to her, involuntarily:

'Oh, Mrs. St. Claire, how handsome you look! Handsomer than anybody yet, and different, too, somehow.'