Part 14 (1/2)

The second surprise came a few months later when the success of Crofter's deal had made the young lawyer's name. Alexander Graham took all his business out of the hands of the Willoughby firm, and gave it to Brians & McRae.

That evening Roderick was asked to the Grahams for dinner, as a further honour. He went with some trepidation, as it was his first venture into society. Mr. Graham was exceedingly genial, and Leslie was charming, but the lady of the house was rather distant. She could not help seeing Leslie's partiality towards Roderick and resented it. As her husband's lawyer, the young man was quite acceptable, but as a possible aspirant to his daughter's favour he would be entirely out of place. Fred Hamilton was the only other one present outside the family. The young man sat in sulky silence most of the evening, a circ.u.mstance which seemed to put his pretty hostess into a high good humour.

The invitation to the Grahams was the signal for other doors to open.

Roderick was invited everywhere. And wherever he went there was Miss Leslie Graham, the belle of every occasion, and always ready to bestow her greatest favours upon him. He always looked about him at these gay gatherings of young people half-expecting to see the young lady he had met on the _Inverness_; but he was always disappointed, and wondered why she did not appear.

Helen Murray, herself, often wondered why she was not bidden to the many festivities of which she heard the gay Miss Annabel talk.

”You will probably be invited out a great deal, Miss Murray,” Miss Armstrong cautioned her, ”and I hope you will select very carefully the places you visit. You see you are practically one of our family, and though we respect all grades of society, you must realise that we have a position to maintain. And I hope you won't think me interfering, my dear; but if you would consult Annabel and me, as to accepting an invitation, I think it would be wise. We should like so much to have you of our set.”

Helen obeyed, a little puzzled, but afraid to act against the judgment of her august hostess. So she found herself soon bidden to afternoon teas and receptions and all the affairs where the older set attended.

She met no one of her own age, however, except Miss Annabel who called them all old frumps, and declared married folk were deadly dull, and she would never go near their parties again so long as she lived. And she fell into a state of nervous apprehension, when the approach of the next afternoon tea was rumoured abroad, lest she should not be invited.

Poor Miss Annabel was being slowly but surely pushed on into the older set by the younger generation. She hated her position, but it was the only one left, and it was better than the dread desolation of no position at all.

Helen kept away from the whirl, finding her duties at school sufficient excuse. She often longed for some young life, however, and wondered why she did not meet the daughters of the ladies who were so kind to her when she went out under Miss Armstrong's wing.

She did not know as yet that the reason was two-fold. First, the younger set were a little more exclusive than the one in which the Misses Armstrong moved. Young Algonquin had but recently awakened to the fact that society was not society unless you built a fence about it and kept somebody--it didn't matter much who--out. The other and more potent reason was Helen's unfortunate s.e.x. There were already far too many young ladies in Algonquin. A young man with exactly her claims to recognition would have been received with acclaim. But, except in holiday time, there was always a sad dearth of young men in Algonquin, if not an actual famine. So no wonder the young ladies rather resented the appearance of another girl to join their already too swollen ranks, and especially a girl so undeniably attractive as the new school teacher.

Quite unconscious of all this, Helen spent many a lonely evening at her window looking down at the gay crowds pa.s.sing along the street towards the lake, and listening drearily to their happy voices floating under the leafy tunnel of the trees.

She dared not join the groups that would have welcomed her, the young folk who earned their living and who made the church a centre of social intercourse for the lonely. Miss Armstrong had politely given her to understand that she would not be welcome in Rosemount, if she a.s.sociated with the girls who stood behind the counter, or worked in a dress-maker's shop.

She often saw Miss Leslie Graham as she darted into the house and out again, on a flying visit to her grandmother, but she had no opportunity of meeting her.

So in spite of her brave attempts to forget her grief in her work, and in spite of Madame's unfailing kindness and help, the girl was often very lonely. The big echoing house of Rosemount was always deserted of an evening. Grandma went to bed, and either Helen or the little maid was left on guard, while the two ladies went to a dinner-party or an evening at cards.

One soft languorous September evening, the loneliness promised to be unbearable, and she determined to go alone for a walk. Madame was always too tired for a tramp after school, and she knew no one else who would accompany her.

She spoke of it at the tea-table in the faint hope that Miss Annabel might suggest coming too, but was disappointed.

”Why that'll be lovely, dearie,” she cried, ”go and have a run in the park. It will do you good. I'd dearly love to go with you, but there's Mrs. Captain Willoughby's musicale. There won't be a soul there that isn't old enough to be in her dotage, but I promised that nothing short of sudden death would make me miss it.”

”Annabel, I am surprised at you,” said her sister reprovingly. ”I wouldn't go far in the evening alone, Miss Murray,” she added in her stately way. ”It does not seem just--well--exactly proper, don't you know.”

”Nonsense, Elinor. How's the poor child to help going alone, when there's no one to go with her?”

Helen had learned to look for these slight altercations at the table.

While the sisters were apparently of one mind on all the larger issues of life, they had a habit of arguing and cavilling over the little things that often left their young boarder in a state of wonder.

She slipped away as soon as the meal was over, for the evenings were growing short and she wanted to see the lake in its sunset glory. The night was warm and all the young people were on the lake. The streets were deserted. But on the pretty vine-clad verandas, the heads of families sat sewing or reading and smoking, with the little ones tumbling about the gra.s.s. On one veranda a gramophone, the first in the town, screeched out a strain from a Grand Opera to the wonder and admiration of all the neighbours. Helen moved along the street more lonely than ever in the midst of all this home happiness. She pa.s.sed a little cottage where a young man and woman were tying up a rose vine, beaten down by recent rains. Madame had told her they had been married just the week before. They looked very happy, laughing and whispering like a couple of nest-building robins, as they worked together to make their little home more beautiful. She had to hurry away from the pretty scene. Some one had promised her once that there should be a rose vine over their porch in the new home he had been planning for her.

She turned a corner and was alarmed by a great churning and puffing noise ahead, as though the _Inverness_ had left her native element and come sailing up Main Street. But it was only Captain Willoughby in his new automobile. It was the first, and as yet the only machine in Algonquin, and its unhappy owner would have sold it to the lowest bidder could he have found any one foolish enough to bid at all. For so far, the captain had had no opportunity to learn to run it. His first excursions abroad had been attended with such disaster, such mad careering of horses, and plunging into ditches, such dismaying paralysis of the engine right in the middle of a neighbour's gateway, such inexplicable excursions onto the sidewalk and through plate gla.s.s windows, such harrowing overturning of baby-carriages, that Mrs.

Captain Willoughby took an attack of nerves every time he went abroad, and the town fathers finally requested that the captain take out his Juggernaut car only at such hours as the streets were clear. So on quiet evenings such as this one, when there were not likely to be any horses abroad, Mrs. Willoughby telephoned all her friends and told them to take in the children for the captain was coming. And so, heralded, like the Lady G.o.diva, the trembling motorist went forth, while the streets immediately became as empty as those of Coventry, with rows of peeping Toms, safe inside their fences, jeering at the unhappy man's uneven progress. He whizzed past Helen at a terrible speed, grazing the side-walk and giving her almost as great a fright as he got himself, and went whirring up the hill.

She did not want to join the crowds in the park so she followed the familiar street past the school, and out along the Pine Road toward the lake sh.o.r.e. But when she found her way was leading her through Willow Lane, where all the dirty and poor people of Algonquin lived, she turned off into a path that crossed a field and led to the water.

Helen had some little pupils from Willow Lane, and their appearance did not invite a closer acquaintance with their homes.

She did not know that she was pa.s.sing near the back of Old Peter McDuff's farm, but she noticed that the fences were conveniently broken down, and left a path clear down to the water's edge.