Part 21 (1/2)

Mrs. Townsend said no more until, crossing the Hildreth lawn an hour later, she caught sight of Marian Hille. At the first opportunity thereafter, she said in s.h.i.+rley's ear, ”Miss c.o.c.kburn certainly did not advise Marian to cling to the schoolgirl style of dressing. If that is not a French frock she is wearing, my eyes deceive me. She is charming in it, too, and not at all overdressed. That rose-covered hat is exquisite, and quite girlish enough.”

s.h.i.+rley smiled, a protesting little smile, but she did not argue the question further. To her mind, ”Marie Anne” looked like a Parisian fas.h.i.+on-plate, and her manner was certainly that of a young person of considerable social experience. s.h.i.+rley did not like it. Her eye went from Miss Marian Hille to Mrs. Murray Townsend, and rejoiced at the contrast. The two were close together, taking their seats for the outdoor _musicale_, which was about to begin. No fault could possibly be found with Jane's attire, but in it she looked, beside Marian, like a dainty gray pigeon beside a golden pheasant.

”I beg your pardon, but may I ask what you are staring at so intently?”

said a voice beside her, and s.h.i.+rley turned to confront the interested gaze of Brant Hille, Marian's elder brother. ”I 've been standing beside you here all of three minutes, waiting for you to come back to earth and recognise me. Do you realise we have n't met since you and Marian came back? And won't you let me find you a chair over on the edge of the crowd, where we can talk?”

This suited s.h.i.+rley, and she let him establish her in a corner where a clump of shrubbery screened the two from a part of the audience. Until the music began, young Hille plied her with questions about her experiences at Miss c.o.c.kburn's school, evidently enjoying the fact that her point of view seemed decidedly to differ from that of his sister.

”I should n't know you had been at the same place,” was his whispered comment, as the first notes of the initial number on the programme smote the summer air and caused a partial hush to fall upon the a.s.semblage.

He had been noting, with interest, the change in her. He had known s.h.i.+rley since their earliest days, but beyond the friendly liking she had always inspired in him, as in everybody, by her girlish good humour and love of sport, he had not thought her especially attractive. Now, however, as Peter Bell had done, he found himself discovering in her qualities distinctly noteworthy.

”So they took you to a lot of old churches and cathedrals,” he began suddenly to s.h.i.+rley, after an interval during which they had listened politely to Miss Antoinette Southwode's truly ”searching” soprano and Mr. Burnham-Brisbane's astonis.h.i.+ngly ”wabbly” tenor, intermingled in an elaborate Italian duet. ”Did n't you find that sort of thing deadly dull?”

”Not a bit,” denied s.h.i.+rley, promptly. ”It was such fun to hear the dear old vergers proudly recite the histories of the antiquities. And the antiquities themselves! In one very, very old church there was a tablet of a man and his six wives, all kneeling before a shrine. He knelt first and they came after, all in profile. The poor dears were all dressed alike--they must have worn the same dress, handed down.

One's head was gone--that made her more touching than the others. You could n't help feeling that her husband had been harder on her than on the rest. He looked that sort, you see.”

”No doubt he was,” agreed Hille, laughing. ”Did you see anything else equal to that?”

”No end of things. Of course there was ever so much that was dignified and beautiful, but one could n't help being glad to find something funny now and then. One tablet in another ancient chapel showed three men, one above another on their painted wooden tombs, all lying sidewise and half rising on their elbows, and staring right down at you with their eyes wide open. They had pink cheeks and black hair. They were father, son, and grandson, and the father looked the youngest. Their wives were all lying quietly asleep at one side. It did n't seem fair for the men to be so wide awake, while the poor wives had to slumber and see nothing.--Oh, there goes Mr. Brisbane again! Why _does_ his voice shake so much harder than when I heard him last?”

”He 's that much more celebrated,” said Hille. ”See here, are n't you and Marian about the same age.”

s.h.i.+rley shook her head. But when the song was over he asked the question again.

”I 'm three months older,” admitted s.h.i.+rley.

”She looks three years older. Why is it?”

s.h.i.+rley shook her head again. It was one thing to air her views to her family, quite another to tell Brant that Marian was leaping into young ladyhood and its signs too fast. But Brant studied his sister. Her blond head, the hair elaborately waved, could be seen between the heads and shoulders in front, the striking rose-crowned hat conspicuous among other elaborate hats of all patterns.

”She looks twenty-five, at least,” he commented, approvingly. ”She looks older than your sister Olive. And she seems to have that cad Maltbie glued to her for the afternoon. If that 's the best she can do, she 'd better take me. But she 's no use for brothers. Look here, when 's Forrest coming home?”

”I 've no idea. He was leaving Ecuador before the hot season began, and was intending to stay at Jamaica as long as it was comfortable. He wrote he might be off for the South Sea Islands soon. He 's had a tempting invitation.”

”He 's a rover. His taste of army life gave him the fever. I wish he 'd get enough of it and come back. Things always 'go' while Forrest's home.”

Altogether, between Brant Hille and two or three other young people, s.h.i.+rley found the garden-party endurable. But its cakes and ices spoiled her appet.i.te for dinner, and the moment that meal was over, she was off to the tennis-court. Here she and Rufus played several sets in so spirited a fas.h.i.+on that Murray and Jane, strolling over the lawn to watch them, were moved to comment upon s.h.i.+rley's vigour.

”I 'm just working off the garden-party,” declared the girl, when her brother asked the cause of so much energy upon so warm an evening.

”You should have put on your tennis skirt, dear,” said Jane, as s.h.i.+rley came up to her, racquet in hand.

”So I ought, but I was afraid mother would be made ill by the sight of me, if I did, after dinner. Oh, how good it is to be at home! Let's camp down here on the gra.s.s and send for the rest of the clan. Run over, Rufie, will you, and get all the Bells that will come?”

As she spoke, s.h.i.+rley dropped upon the smooth turf close by the big wicker chair that Murray had just drawn up for Jane, on the terrace at the edge of the court. Her cheeks were flushed by the lively exercise she had been taking, her hair curled moistly about her forehead. Jane looked at her with a touch of envy in her affectionate glance. Being Mrs. Murray Townsend, she supposed it became her to sit demurely in a chair, instead of putting herself, as she longed to do, beside s.h.i.+rley, on the gra.s.s. But Murray, with no such restraining thought in his head, cast himself upon the turf beside his sister, at his wife's feet.

Presently Rufus returned, bringing Nancy and Ross McAndrew. Olive, spying the group upon the lawn, came trailing out in all her pretty finery of the afternoon. Two or three young neighbours appeared. By and by Peter Bell, just home from the paper-factory, looked across from the Gay Street porch and descried the distant group. Somebody had brought a banjo, and somebody else was essaying to sing a boating-song to the accompaniment.