Part 17 (1/2)

”There he is again,” she cried. ”I suppose he's taken Peter home and found his pig for him. I don't believe I could bear the thought of all the misery on Willow Lane if I didn't know that Old Angus McRae was doing so much to lighten it.”

Helen turned. Angus had pulled up in front of the Perkins' house and the idiot lad with queer cries of delight came stumbling out to meet him. The girl named Gladys ran out too, and the old man handed her a sheaf of glowing crimson dahlias. She buried her face in them and hugged them to her in a pa.s.sion of admiration for their beauty.

”Look, look at Mrs. Ca.s.sidy will you?” cried Madame in delight.

Mrs. Ca.s.sidy had come to the door at the first sound of the wheels, and when she saw who was near, she darted out and swiftly and stealthily removed the obstruction from her neighbour's window. Then she went to the gate to greet Old Angus, suave and gentle of speech, and as innocent looking as the meek heap of boards now lying in a corner of her yard.

”Well, well, well,” laughed Madame as they walked on. ”Even if Old Angus would merely drive up and down Willow Lane I believe he would make the people better.”

When Helen reached Rosemount she slipped in at the side door and up the back stair. It was the day the Misses Armstrong entertained the whist club, and a clatter of teacups and a hum of voices told her the guests were not yet gone. She removed her hat, and smoothed her hair absently; her thoughts were down on Willow Lane busy with the complex problem of the Perkins family. The windows were opened, and the sound of swis.h.i.+ng skirts and laughing voices came up to her from the garden walk. A couple of well-dressed women were going out at the gate.

”Poor old things,” cried one in a light merry voice. ”They do get up the most comical concoctions at their teas. And Miss Annabel in a ten-year-old dress! Will she ever grow up?”

”The poor dears can't afford anything better. They are just struggling along,” answered her companion. ”They had that house left them, and the old lady gets her allowance, but the daughters hadn't a cent left them, and they would both fall dead if they weren't invited to everything. But I don't know where they get money to dress at all.”

”I suppose that is why they took that girl to board.”

”Of course, poor old Elinor is so scared--” The voice died away and a sharp rap on her door took Helen from the window. She opened the door and there, to her surprise, stood Miss Leslie Graham, looking very handsome in the splendour of her rose silk gown. She smiled radiantly.

”Good day, Miss Murray. I think you know who I am and I think it's time we met. I ran up here to get away from that jam of people. Those women take such an lasting age to get away. May I sit with you for a minute?”

Helen offered her a chair gladly. She had often seen Miss Graham, and her unfailing gay spirits had made her wish she could know her. The visitor flung her silver purse upon the bed, her gloves upon the table, her white parasol upon the bureau, and sank into the chair.

”Oh I'm dead,” she groaned. ”I've pa.s.sed ten thousand cups of tea, and twenty thousand sandwiches. Don't you pity and despise people that don't know any better than to come to a thing indoors on a hot day?”

Helen smiled. ”But you came,” she said.

”But I had to. When any of my relations give a tea I am always tethered to a tray and a plate of biscuits.” She stopped suddenly and looked at Helen keenly, with a stare that puzzled the girl. Then she jumped up and seated herself upon the bed, rumpling the counterpane.

In the few minutes since she had entered the room she had made the place look as if a whirlwind had swept through it, and Helen felt a nervous fear of Miss Armstrong's walking in and witnessing her untidy condition.

”Do you like it here?” she enquired directly.

”Yes, I--think I do. Algonquin is so beautiful, but--”

”But you can't stand my poky aunts, and Grandma's jokes, eh?”

”Oh, no,” cried Helen aghast. ”Both the Misses Armstrong have been very kind and Mrs. Armstrong is delightful--but, of course, I get homesick.” She stopped suddenly for that was a subject upon which she dared not dwell.

The other girl stared. ”My goodness. I would love to know what homesickness is like, just for once. I've never been away from home except for a visit somewhere in the holidays, and then I was always having such a ripping time, that the thought of going home made me sick.”

She sat for a little while, again looking steadily at Helen. ”You certainly are pretty,” she exclaimed. ”There's no doubt about that.”

”I beg your pardon!” said Helen amazed, and doubting if she had heard aright.

”Oh, nothing, never mind!” cried the other with a laugh. She tore off her costly hat and flung it on top of the table. Then she threw herself backwards on the bed staring at the ceiling. She made such a complete wreck of the starched pillow covers and the prim white bedspread that were the pride of Miss Armstrong's heart, that Helen shuddered.

”Well, I don't wonder at you getting homesick here. These ceilings are such a vast distance away they make you feel as if you were a hundred miles from everywhere. I remember sleeping in this room once, when there was an epidemic of scarlet fever or something among the Armstrong kids. All the well ones were dumped on our aunts, after the custom of the family, and I was sent off with a dozen others and we were marooned upstairs, like a gang of prisoners, the girls in this room and the boys in Grandma's. Six in a bed--more or less. I remember we used to lie awake in the early morning before Aunt Elinor would let us get up, and study the outburst of robins and grapes on the ceiling. And one day we got the boys in with their toy guns and tried to shoot the tails off the birds. Cousin Harry Armstrong hit one. Do you see the ghastly remains of that bird without the tail? That was the one. I never hit anything, but I tried hard enough. I am responsible for the bangs on the ceiling. Each one tells when I missed my aim.”