The Magpies Nest (2 page)

Then they all saw, and laughed at her again, and she fled. Edgerton only smiled kindly. He thought she must be about the age of his own girl. Hope hid the money in her box when they had gone. It seemed a great sum, but she could not think of a suitable way to spend it.

An atmosphere of solemnity enveloped the house. In spite of her tendency to be oblivious of surroundings, Hope felt it. She followed her mother about for a time, expectantly. In the evening, when the lamp was lit, she forgot for a while, poring again over her book, until she became aware of her parents talking apart, seriously and in low tones. Sometimes they addressed Nellie. Hope lost herself in naive contemplation, as a child does when shut out of a group. Her brother, across the table, also fixed his gaze on the elder three. The youngest girls had been sent to bed. Then the mother observed their wonder and spoke, while Nellie looked confused and rosy.

Nellie was going to be married!

The two children looked equally surprised and bewildered. Mrs. Fielding's eyes were misty. She was nearing fifty, yet her life had gone by like a dream. To find Nellie grown to marriageable age astonished her also. She had transmuted hope into indomitable patience; yet she wished she might accept every hardship that could befall her children, and assure them of unalloyed happiness. No doubt Martha was a mother.

The parents took up again the discussion of the more practical details of Nellie's future. Hope gradually crept closer and held to her mother's sleeve. With a start her father bethought him that it was past bedtime, but that timid, insistent clutch moved her mother first to take Hope onto her lap for a few minutes. The child snuggled her tawny head on the deep, soft bosom that had suckled her, with a feeling of some old grief comforted...., "I wish my girls didn't have to marry," she heard her mother murmur absently, thinking aloud. Mrs. Fielding wanted to lift her own children, on her own shoulders, if need be, above the level flood of the commonplace. But she did not even know that was her meaning. Hope reflected with difficulty, because sleep was overtaking her. Did girls have to marry? If there was something else they could do, what was it? If she went—over the mountains—she might find out... Her mother would approve.

"Oh, mamma," said Nellie gaily, not at all reproachfully, "do you want me to be an old maid? Why, next birthday I'll be twenty!"

She swooped down on her mother and hugged her, dislodging Hope, setting them all laughing with the infection of her own joyousness. But Hope, rubbing her eyes and laughing also, put away her resolution very much as she had the silver.

Two weeks later came a great beflowered box of chocolates, tied with a yard of satin ribbon, from Edgerton. Hope put the ribbon on her hair, shared the chocolates impartially, and put her doll in the box. She could not write and thank the donor, because he had sent no address. But the gift meant a great deal to her. It meant that life might be lavish, unexpected and wonderful, like a fairy-tale. To the end of her days gifts gave her that same unreasoning pleasure. It was one of her most endearing traits.

CHAPTER
II

NO one knew better than Hope that the rickety dresser atop of which she perched had a castor loose and must not be tempted by even one unwary wriggle. So she sat very still, almost holding her breath, confining her skirts with a hand on either side. The faded blue silk kerchief worn as a dusting cap, the cross-over bib apron and slim ankles, revealed by a treacherously short skirt, made her look not unlike a rustic Dresden figurine set there for ornament. Even her incongruously dainty buckled shoes helped the illusion, though they did not assort with the cotton frock she had not dared to change to run the gauntlet of the housekeeper's eye. Besides, she had not a better frock, but the shoes she could not have done without. She had that
flair
for dressing; she knew the essential points.

So she sat, waiting and watching Evan Hardy, who smoked a cigarette and laughed at her. The fear of a tumble did not deter her, but there was no assurance that she would alight feet first, in the approved manner of cats and young ladies. And that was quaintly characteristic of Hope, since she was in Evan Hardy's room, and he had himself placed her in her elevated position.

"What are you thinking of?" he questioned her idly.

"You," she said gravely. "I wonder..."

"What?"

"You won't tell me." She felt very sure of that.

"I will if you'll give me a kiss."

"I want to get down, please."

"Come down, then. And I'll tell you anything you like," he promised, holding out his arms to her.

She slipped into them. He carried her to a chair.

"Now, what do you want to know?"

Curled up in his arms like a kitten, she rubbed her cheek ingratiatingly against his silk
négligé
shirt. Hesmelled pleasantly of Florida water and talcum powder, which was agreeable to her. His face was the fine oval sometimes seen in the healthy Englishman of good lineage—he was half-Cornish, half-Irish. Hehad crisp, clean-looking brown hair, blue eyes, the mouth of a young lover. There was nothing evil in hi: face anywhere, nor in his heart. Neither was there anything great. Years afterward, when Time had swallowed him, Hope was conscious of a certain affectionate gratitude toward him, half for what he was, half for what he was not. But then she was seventeen and quite unaware of cause for gratitude.

"Are you comfortable?" he asked.

"Not very," she answered, squirming slightly "I've got a crick in my neck."

"Don't you like to sit on my knee?"

"No."

"Why? Don't you like me?"

"Oh, yes—sure I do. But I don't much like being touched."

"Nor kissed?"

"No one ever kissed me but you."

"No schoolboy sweethearts?"

But he believed her when she said: "Never had any."

"Don't you like that?" He kissed her.

At his first kiss, no long time before, she had thought the earth slipping from beneath her feet. In some strange way it had reached her imaginative spirit and left her blood unquickened; there was all romance and nothing of passion in it. Her temperament was still too closely sheathed in its northern ice to wake to one kiss. But when she thought of it still it had power to arrest her mind and hold her, dreamy-eyed, with caught breath, her white teeth denting her lower lip, remembering it and the hours she had spent afterward in her room alone, with her face hidden in a pillow, still conscious of the soft pressure of his mouth on hers. What was still more strange, now his caresses left her cool and a trifle petulant; she endured them only for liking's sake. Evan did not want to trouble her, only to understand. So he asked:

"Are you afraid of me?"

"No." There was very little that Hope was afraid of.

"What, then?"

"I want to know," she burst out, with plaintive despair, "why you like to kiss me!" And indeed, she did. "It—it bores me, rather. You seem to like it. Why?"

"Good Lord!" He stared, a picture of amazement.

"Bores you... Why do you come here?" But that he said very gently, for he had always known that women were not mere automatons, responding only to one emotion, and at the will of a man. It was fascinating to see her struggle to express herself.

"I told you," she said impatiently, unembarrassed. "I like you; and you asked me. Where else can I see you? I want someone to—to play with."

So he had guessed.

"You said you'd tell me," she reminded him, sighing against his shoulder.

"W ell," he said at last, "you are—sweet, you know "

"But," she got to her point laboriously, "you like to kiss girls?"

This was the difficult point; she felt cheated. Prince Charming woke the Sleeping Beauty with a kiss, and by that she knew him for the true Prince. It was the countersign of love, no less. But Evan did not love her! She did not especially want him to, but it was disconcerting to find the sign false! As for the romantic alternative—that he must be a villain … She smiled, her delightful secretive smile, which so seldom accorded with any outward occasion. And he did misunderstand that for a moment. Very firmly and gently he held her and kissed her again and again, soft kisses, but with fire beneath them, until she could feel her cold mouth grow warm to them, and the blood beating in her throat. His heart fluttered, too, close against hers.

"Does that bore you?" he asked in a queer, tense voice.

She put her hands to his breast and thrust him away, crimson, confused, shaken.

"Oh," she said, "I—don't
like
you to do that." There were tears in her eyes.

"Why, you baby child," he set her down hastily and crossed to the window, looking out into the windy, dusty dark. "Don't cry, dear; I won't." He looked disproportionately ashamed and sorry. "Have some chocolates." He turned to find them.

Laughter welled up in her at his propitiatory offering, and he spun about and looked at her again.

"You're a bit of a devil, too," he said, his teeth flashing. "But I'll be good!"

"Do you like to kiss
any
girl?" She held to it, with the frightful persistency of youth.

"O Lord," he said again, almost prayerfully. "No, not just any girl. What a reputation! Nice ones— yes, I do like to kiss 'em."

"Can you remember them all?" she pursued.

"All the girls I've kissed? My word, what a funny child you are! No, I don't suppose I can. They were nice girls, anyway."

"How many?" Hope yearned for something definite, in this welter of things as they ought to be and things as they were.

"Tell you I don't know. Millions!" He was laughingly desperate.

"Well, but—why?" That was it, and she wanted to pin him down to it.

"Because... Oh, if you will be a little tease, I'll kiss you again!"

No doubt, he reflected, someone would put the key of the Bluebeard's chamber in her hands, and soon, but it was not for him. There was nothing morbid nor unhealthy about him, none of the
blasé
spirit which delights in wanton destruction. He was exceedingly glad she had not understood a little earlier. He drew a long breath of relief that the moment had gone past. She was watching him wistfully.

"I knew you wouldn't tell me..."

He caught her up suddenly, smothering her words against his shoulder.

"Hush—sh!"

Someone rapped sharply on the door. He carried her across the room, and when he drew the door half-open she was behind it, breathless, rather elated and amused, holding her skirts again, lest a ruffle should peep out. Almost against her ear a masculine voice spoke:

"Coming down for a game of pool before we turn in, Hardy?"

"In five minutes or so," said Evan agreeably, but casually barring the way. "Pick up Jim Sanderson; I'll be there."

"Oh, Sanderson?"

There was an accent of doubt in the voice, and something more, a familiar ring—who? where? when? Hope had heard it before, but none of these questions could she answer.

"Oh, I owe him a drink," said Evan, half apologetic.

"All right," said the invisible one, and Hope heard quick, even footsteps retreating down the hall.

Evan shut the door and looked at her, his eyes tv. inkling despite himself.

"Close call, young lady," he said. "And, anyway, time little girls were in bed. You know you mustn't stay after ten."

"Who was that?" she demanded, ignoring his re minder of his own rule—a quite extraordinary rule, but one which it had suited him to make.

"Conroy Edgerton, the big land man," said Evan "Curious one, why do you want to know?"

"I knew it," she nodded solemnly, not heeding him "What's he doing here?"

"Rigging up some deal. He's starting a big company North, you know; got concessions from the Sleepy R. I met him in Winnipeg last year. Anything else?"

"Good night," she said, and began edging past him.

"Having pumped me dry, the young lady has no further use for me," he complained. "Come here, you Mighty Atom!" He had her fast. "Now, you give me one. You've never kissed me yet."

Millions of girls—millions of kisses! But she had done with the subject for the moment, her mind being on the weighty matter of a box of chocolates. So she said "Yes," stood on tiptoe to frame his obediently bent head with her palms, and kissed him on the mouth.

"You
are
a baby," he said. "With your mouth shut —like that! Never mind, you're a
dear.
Good night, child."

She slid out, squeezing through the partly opened door like a mouse through a crack, and vanished down the hall, a moving blue shadow, past the housekeeper's room, safe in her own tiny cubicle, after a momentary pause at Agnes's door. The transom was dark; Agnes was either asleep or philandering. Hope did not care for the other one, Belle, who was fat and loud-voiced. She went to bed, suppressing her desire for a feminine conference. And, since she must rise at six, she slept the sleep of the unjust within five minutes after her head touched the pillow.

CHAPTER
III

BELLE, the fat waitress, lay abed with acute tri-digestion, groaning, and below Hope took her place. She stood behind the screen which sheltered the kitchen door, yawning delicately, for it was not yet seven o'clock, and watching for the early comers to the dining-room. They, too, yawned and rubbed their eyes, and looked disconsolate and lonely in the big room, seated before desert-like expanses of more or less white linen. Agnes swayed to and fro along the cocoa-matting lane between the two rows of tables, moving with the grace of a Greek girl bearing an amphora upon her shoulder instead of a lacquered tin tray. Agnes was slender and black-eyed, with cheek bones of a betraying prominence; she had a certain graciousness of manner that disarmed even the hardiest commercial traveler; and the early ones sought her tables. Hope drew her behind the screen a moment.

"If a big man, in a grey suit and a white waistcoat, comes in, will you please let me take his order?" she asked confidentially.