CHAPTER XII.
A DISTURBED HOSTESS
Unfortunately for Berty, a woman across the street chose the hour of seven o’clock to have a fit of hysterics. Nothing would satisfy her perturbed relatives but a visit from “Madam,” as Grandma was known to the street.
Half-past seven came, and no Mayor. Selina Everest, tall, pale, and lilylike, in white and green, arrived soon after, then came Margaretta and Roger, and then, to Berty’s dismay, appeared Tom Everest, dropping in as if he expected to find her alone.
Berty said nothing, but her face grew pinker. Then she swept them all out to the semi-darkness of the veranda. The Mayor should not step into that brightly lighted room and find them all there.
Wedged comfortably on the veranda, and talking over mutual friends, Margaretta, Selina, and Tom were having a charming time. Roger, seated by the glass door, was restless, and kept moving in and out the dining-room.
Berty was like a bird, perching here and there, and running at intervals to the front windows, ostensibly to watch for her grandmother, in reality to seize upon the Mayor at the earliest moment of his arrival.
Margaretta and Selina were in a corner of the veranda. Tom was nearest the dining-room, and presently there was a whisper in his ear. “Jimson has arrived—hot—mad—explanatory—detained—Berty condoling.”
Not a muscle of Tom’s face moved, and Roger, turning on his heel, departed.
Presently he came back. “Berty frantic—Jimson has got on wrong kind of necktie. She has corralled him behind piano.”
Poor Berty—she had indeed driven the unhappy late-comer behind the upright piano in the parlour. “Oh, Mr. Jimson, how could you? That necktie is a bright green!”
“Gr—green!” stuttered the discomfited man. “Why, I matched your sample.”
“You’re colour blind!” exclaimed the girl, in despair. “Oh, what shall we do—but your suit is lovely,” she added, as she saw the wilting effect of her words upon him. “Come, quick, before any one sees,” and she hurried him out into the hall. “Here, go in that corner while I get one of my shirt-waist ties.”
Mr. Jimson, hot and perspiring, tried to obliterate himself against the wall until she came back.
“Here is a pale blue tie,” said Berty. “Now stand before the glass in that hat-rack,—give me that green thing. Selina Everest would have a fit if she saw it.”
The Mayor hastily tore off the bit of brilliant grass-green silk, and, seizing Berty’s blue satin, endeavoured to fasten it round his creaking collar.
Roger peeped out through the dining-room door and went back to Tom, and in a convulsion of wicked delight reported. “He’s titivating in the hall—has got on one of Berty’s ties. Just creep out to see him.”
Tom could not resist, and seeing that Margaretta and his sister were deep in the mysteries of coming fashions in dress, he tiptoed into the dining-room.
Berty and the Mayor out in the hall were too much engaged with each other to heed the peeping eyes at the crack of the dining-room door.
Mr. Jimson was in a rage, and was sputtering unintelligible words. Berty, too, was getting excited. “If you say a naughty word,” she threatened, “I’ll take that tie away from you, and you’ll have to go home!”
The Mayor, wrathfully beating one foot up and down on the oilcloth, was trying to make the tie tie itself.
“Hang it!” he said, at last, throwing it down, “the thing won’t go at all. It was made for some woman’s neck. Give me that green thing.”
“You sha’n’t have it,” Berty flared up. “You will spoil yourself. Here, let me have the blue one. I’ll fasten it for you, if you’ll never tell any one I did it.”
Tom and Roger nearly exploded into unseemly merriment. The sight of the unfortunate Jimson’s face, the mingled patience and wrath of Berty, made them clap their hands over their mouths.
“There!” cried Berty, at last, “it’s tied. You men have no patience. Look round now. Come softly into the dining-room and drink some lemonade before I introduce you—no, stay here, I’ll bring it to you. Smooth your hair on the left side.”
The unfortunate man, breathing heavily, stood like a statue, while Tom and Roger tumbled over each other out to the veranda.
“What are you two laughing at?” asked Margaretta, suspiciously.
“At that black cloud there,” said Tom, pointing to the sky. “See it dragging itself over the stars. I say, Stanisfield, doesn’t that cloud strike you as being of a comical shape?”
“Very,” exclaimed Roger, with sudden laughter, “very comical. Trails out just like a four-in-hand necktie.”
“Very like it,” echoed Tom; then they both laughed again.
In the midst of their merriment, a quiet, patient voice was heard saying, “Margaretta, let me introduce Mr. Jimson to you,—and Miss Everest, Mr. Jimson.”
Tom and Roger huddled aside like two naughty boys, and Berty, with the Mayor behind her, stepped to the other end of the veranda.
Margaretta stretched out a slim, pretty hand. Miss Everest did likewise, and the Mayor, breathing hard and fast, turned to the two men. “I don’t need an introduction to you.”
“No,” they both said, shaking hands with a sudden and overwhelming solemnity.
They all sat down, and an uninterrupted and uninteresting chatter began. Every one but the Mayor was good-naturedly trying to make Berty’s party a success, and every one was unconsciously defeating this object by engaging in trifling and stupid small talk.
“We’re not having a bit of a good time,” said Berty, at last, desperately. “Let’s go into the house.”
They all smiled, and followed her into the parlour. Here at least the Mayor would be able to look at Miss Everest. Out on the veranda he could not see her at all.
Quite unconscious of the others, he stared uninterruptedly at her. She was apparently oblivious of him, and was again talking fashions to Margaretta.
But Tom and Roger—Berty glared wrathfully at them. They were examining one of Grandma’s books of engravings taken from Italian paintings, and if it had been the latest number of some comic paper they would not have had more fun over it.
“Here is a framed one,” she said, taking a picture from the mantel, “by Sandro Botticelli.” Then, as she got close to them, she said, threateningly, “If you two don’t stop giggling, I’ll shame you before everybody!”
They tried to be good, they honestly did. They did not want to tease the kind little sister, but something had come over the two men—they were just like two bad schoolboys. If Mr. Jimson had been aware of their mirth, they would have ceased, but just now he was so utterly unconscious—so wrapped up in the contemplation of Miss Everest, that they went on enjoying their secret pleasure with the luxury of good men who seldom indulge in a joke at the expense of others, but who rival the most thoughtless and frivolous when once they set out to amuse themselves.
Yes, Mr. Jimson was staring and silent, but after a time his silence ceased, and he began to talk. To talk for no apparent reason, and on no apparent subject.
Margaretta and Selina, who had been paying very little attention to him, courteously paused to listen, and he went on. Went on, till Berty began to twitch in dismay, and to wink—at first slyly and secretly, then openly and undisguisedly at him.
It was of no use. He had got “rattled,” as he had predicted, and was bound to have his say out. He made her a slight sign with his head to assure her that he understood her signals, and would if he could pay attention to them, but he was too far gone.
Berty was in despair. Tom and Roger, to keep themselves from downright shouting, were also talking very fast and very glibly about nothing in particular.
Berty, in utter dismay, turned her head to her three groups of guests—Selina and Margaretta gently and wonderingly polite, the Mayor seated by a small table flooding the air with garrulity, and Tom and Roger in the shade of the big piano lamp, expounding all sorts of nonsensical theories and fancies.
Tom just now was on language. “Yes, my dear fellow,” he was saying, rapidly and with outstretched arm, “language is a wonderful thing. I may say that to see a young child grappling with the problem is an awe-inspiring and remarkable sight. Sometimes when it fills the air with its incoherent longings and strivings after oral utterance, after the sounds which custom has made the representation of ideas, the soul of the beholder is struck dumb with admiration, and even I may say terror. If such is the power of the infant brain, what will be the grasp of the adult?”
At this instant Grandma entered the room. She took in the situation at a glance, and her presence afforded instant relief. The flood of “Jimsonese,” as Roger and Tom styled the Mayor’s eloquence, instantly ceased, the two bad boys shut their mouths.
Grandma shook hands with all her guests, then quietly sat down.
“I hope you are not very tired,” said Margaretta, gently. “How is your patient?”
“Better—she only wanted a little comfort.”
“What made her have hysterics?” asked Berty, eagerly, and with a desire to make much of the latest addition to their circle.
Grandma smiled. “She is a very nervous woman, and has been up nights a great deal with a sick baby. She lay down about two hours ago to take a nap. The house has a great many mice in it, and one got in her hair. It was entangled for a few seconds, and she was terrified. It would be very much more afraid of her than she would be of it.”
Tom and Roger laughed uproariously, so uproariously and joyfully that Grandma’s black eyes went to them, rested on them, and did not leave them.
But they did not care. They had not enjoyed themselves so much for years, and they were going to continue doing so, although their punishment was bound to come. Presently, when the conversation between Grandma, Margaretta, Selina, and Berty became really interrupted by their giggling, the old lady left her seat and came over to them.
“Have you been acting like this all the evening?” she asked, severely.
Tom looked at Roger, and Roger looked at Tom.
“And teasing poor Berty?”
Again they looked at each other.
“When I was a girl,” said Grandma, musingly, “I remember getting into those gales of laughter. How I revelled in that intoxication of the spirit! I would even scream with delight, and if I were alone with my girl companions would sometimes roll on the ground in ecstasy. You are pretty old for such pranks, but I see you are ready for one. You ought to be alone for a time. Follow me,” and she left the room.
She took them down-stairs. “Where are we going?” asked Roger, humbly, and nudging Tom.
“Out with the pigeons,” she said. “There is no room in my house for guests who make fun of each other.”
“But the supper?” said Roger, anxiously.
“It would grieve Berty’s hospitable heart for you to miss that,” said Grandma, “so when you have quite finished your laughing, come up-stairs again, and we will all have a nice time together.”
Tom gave Roger a thwack, then, as he found himself in a latticed porch, and contemplated by a number of mild-faced, inquiring pigeons, he dropped on a box and began to snicker again.
“What set you off?” asked the old lady, curiously.
They both began to tell her of poor Berty’s trials with the Mayor.
Grandma laughed too. “There is something funny about that friendship,” she said, “but there is no harm, but rather good in it, and I shall not put a stop to it. Do you know that man would make a good husband for your sister, Tom Everest?”
Tom at this became so silly, and began to pound Roger on the back in such an idiotic manner, that Grandma gently closed the door and stole away.
Going up the steps, she could hear them laughing—now in Homeric fashion. There were no women about to be startled by their noise.
CHAPTER XIII.
AN ANXIOUS MIND
“How did I act?” asked the Mayor, humbly. It was eight o’clock the next morning, and he was standing before Berty as she took her breakfast alone, Grandma having gone across the street to visit her hysterical patient.
Berty thoughtfully drank some coffee.
“I’d take a cup, too, if you’d offer it to me,” he said, still more humbly, and sitting down opposite her. “Somehow or other I hadn’t much appetite this morning, and only took a bite of breakfast.”
Berty, still in silence, poured him out a cup of strong coffee, and put in it a liberal supply of cream. Then, pushing the sugar-bowl toward him, she again devoted herself to her own breakfast.
“You’re ashamed of me,” said the Mayor, lifting lumps of sugar into his cup with a downcast air. “I gabbled.”
“Yes, you gabbled,” said Berty, quietly.
“But I’m going to make an impression,” said the Mayor, slapping the table with one hand. “I’m going to make that woman look at me, and size me up, if she doesn’t do anything more.”
“She sized you up last night,” said Berty, mournfully.
“Did she say anything about me?” asked Mr. Jimson, eagerly.
“Not a word—but she looked unutterable things.”
“Do you think I’d better call on her?” he asked, desperately.
“Oh, gracious, no!” cried Berty, “you’d spoil everything. Leave matters to me in future.”
“I thought I might explain,” he said, with a crestfallen air.
“What would you explain?” asked Berty, cuttingly.
“I’d tell her—well, I’d just remark casually after we’d spoken about the weather that she might have noticed that there was something queer, or that I was a little out in some of my remarks—”
“Well,” said Berty, severely, “what then?”
“I’d just inform her, in a passing way, that I’d always been a steady man, and that if she would kindly overlook the past—”
“Oh! oh!” ejaculated Berty, “you wouldn’t hint to a lady that she might have thought you were under the influence of some stimulant?”
“N-n-no, not exactly,” blundered the Mayor, “but I might quote a little poetry about the intoxication of her presence—I cut a fine piece out of the paper the other day. Perhaps I might read it to her.”
Berty put her arm down on the table and laughed. “Well, if you’re not the oddest man. You are just lovely and original.”
The Mayor looked at her doubtfully, and drank his coffee. Then he got up. “I don’t want you to think I’m not in earnest about this business. I never give up anything I’ve set my mind on, and I like that woman, and I want her to be Mrs. Peter Jimson.”
Berty shivered. “Oh, dear, dear! how badly you will feel if she makes up her mind to be Mrs. Somebody Else—but I’ll help you all I can. You have a great ally in me.”
“I’m obliged to you,” said the Mayor, gruffly.
“I was ashamed of those other two men last evening,” said Berty, getting up and walking out toward the hall with him. “I wanted to shake them.”
“I didn’t take much stock in their actions,” said the Mayor, indifferently. “They just felt funny, and would have carried on whether I had been there or not.”
“How forgiving in you—how noble,” said Berty, warmly.
“Nothing noble about it—I know men, and haven’t any curiosity about them. It’s you women that bother the life out of me. I don’t know how to take you.”
“It’s only a little past eight,” said Berty, suddenly. “Can’t you come down to the wharf with me? You don’t need to go to town yet.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” said the Mayor, reluctantly.
Berty caught up her sailor hat, and tripped beside him down to the street, talking on any subject that came uppermost.
The Mayor, however, returned to his first love. “Now, if there was something I could do to astonish her,” he said. “If her house got on fire, and I could rescue her, or if she fell out of a boat into the river, and I could pull her in.”
“She’s pretty tall,” said Berty, turning and surveying the rather short man by her side. “I doubt if you could pull her in.”
“If I got a good grip I could,” he said, confidently.
“The worst of it is, those heroic things don’t happen once in an age,” said Berty, in a matter-of-fact voice, “and, anyway, a woman would rather you would please her in a thousand little ways than in one big one.”
“What do you call little ways?” asked the Mayor.
“Oh, being nice.”
“And what is niceness?” he went on, in an unsatisfied voice.
“Niceness?—well, it is hard to tell. Pick up her gloves if she drops them, never cross her, always kiss her good-bye in the morning, and tell her she’s the sweetest woman in the world when you come home in the evening.”
“Well, now,” said the Mayor, in an aggrieved voice, “as if I’m likely to have the chance. You won’t even let me call on her.”
“No, don’t you go near her,” said Berty, “not for awhile. Not till I sound her about you.”
“How do you think I stand now with her?” asked Mr. Jimson, with a downcast air.
“Well, to tell the truth,” said Berty, frankly, “I think it’s this way. She wasn’t inclined to pay much attention to you at first, not any more than if you were a table or a chair. When you began to talk she observed you, and I think she was saying to herself, ‘What kind of a man is this?’ Then when Grandma drove Tom and Roger out of the room, I think she wanted to laugh.”
“Then she must have been a little interested,” said the man, breathlessly.
“No,” said Berty, gravely, “when a woman laughs at a man, it’s all up with him.”
“Then you think I might as well give up?” said the Mayor, bitterly.
“Not at all,” said his sympathizer, kindly. “There may fall to you some lucky chance to reinstate yourself.”
“Now what could it be?” asked Mr. Jimson, eagerly. “What should I be looking out for?”
“Look out for everything,” said Berty, oracularly. “She will forget about the other night.”
“I thought you told me the other day that women never forget.”
“Neither they do,” said Berty, promptly, “never, never.”
“According to all I can make out,” said the Mayor, with a chagrined air, “you women have all the airs and graces of a combine, and none of its understandabilities. Your way of doing business don’t suit me. When I spot a bargain I jump on it. I close the affair before another fellow has a chance. That’s how I’ve made what little money I have.”
“You mustn’t make love the way you do business,” said Berty, shaking her head. “Oh, no, no.”
“Well, now, isn’t it business to want a good wife?”
“Yes,” said Berty, promptly, “and I admire your up-to-date spirit. There’s been a lot of nonsense talked about roses, and cottages, and heavenly eyes, and delicious noses and chins. I believe in being practical. You want this kind of a wife—look for her. Don’t fall in love with some silly thing, and then get tired of her in a week.”
“What kind of a husband would you like?” asked the Mayor, curiously.
“Well,” said Berty, drawing in a long breath of the crisp morning air. “I want a tall, slight man, with brown curly hair and gray eyes.”
“That’ll be a hard combination to find,” said her companion, grimly.
“Yes, but I shall think all the more of him when I find him, and he must be clever, very clever—ahead of all the men in his State, whichever State it happens to be—and he must have a perfect temper, because I have a very faulty one, and he must be of a noble disposition, and looked up to by every one he knows.”
“I never met that kind of a man,” said the Mayor, drily.
“Nor I,” said Berty, “but there must be such a man in the world.”
“How about Tom Everest?” asked Mr. Jimson. “I saw him looking at you last night.”
“Tom Everest!” exclaimed Berty, indignantly. “An insurance agent!”
The Mayor snickered enjoyably, then fell behind a step, for they had just reached the entrance of Milligan’s Wharf.
Berty was talking to some little girls who, even at this early hour, were hanging about the gate of the new park.
“Of course you may come in,” she said, producing a key from her pocket. “The workmen have about finished—there are a few loose boards about, but I will take care that they don’t fall on you.”
With squeals of delight, the little girls dashed ahead, then stood staring about them.
Milligan’s Wharf had indeed been transformed. A high fence surrounded it on every side, one end had been smoothed and levelled for games, the other was grassy and planted with trees.
“Those elms will be kept trimmed,” said Berty, “except in midsummer. I am determined that these River Street children shall have enough sunlight for once—just look at those little girls.”
The Mayor smiled broadly. Like discoverers who have fallen on some rich store of treasure, the little girls had espied a huge heap of sand, and had precipitated themselves upon it.
“Isn’t it queer how crazy children get over sand?” said Berty. Then she stepped into a small gate-house. “Here, children, are pails and shovels. Now have a good time.”
The little shovels were plied vigorously, but they were not quick enough for the children, and presently abandoning them, they rolled in delight over the soft sandy mass.
“There is no doubt that our park will be a success,” said Berty, with a smile.
“By the way,” asked the Mayor, shrewdly, “who is to look after these children? If you turn all the hoodlums of the neighbourhood in, there will be scrapping.”
“I was thinking of that,” said Berty, wrinkling her brows. “We ought to have some man or woman here. But we have no money to pay any one.”
“I suppose you wouldn’t take such a position,” said the Mayor.
“I!” exclaimed Berty, “why, I’d love it.”
“You wouldn’t need to stay all the time,” said Mr. Jimson. “You could get a woman to help you.”
“All the women about here are pretty busy.”
“You’d pay her, of course. There’d have to be a salary—not a heavy one—but I could fix up something with the city council. They’ve built the park. They’re bound to provide for it.”
“I should love to earn some money,” said Berty, eagerly, “but, Mr. Jimson, perhaps people would talk and say I had just had the park made to create a position for myself.”
“Suppose they did—what would you care?”
“Why, I’d care because I didn’t.”
“And no one would think you had. Don’t worry about that. Now I must get back to town.”
“Mind you’re to make the first speech to-morrow at the opening of this place,” said Berty.
“Yes, I remember.”
“And,” she went on, hesitatingly, “don’t you think you’d better commit your speech to paper? Then you’d know when to stop.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” he said, hopelessly. “Something would prompt me to make a few oral remarks after I’d laid down the paper.”
“I should like you to make a good speech, because Miss Everest will be here.”
“Will she? Then I must try to fix myself. How shall I do it?”
“I might have a pile of boards arranged at the back of the park,” said Berty, “and as soon as you laid down the paper, I’d give a signal to a boy to topple them over. In the crash you could sit down.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” he said, drearily. “I’d wait till the fuss was over, then I’d go on.”
“And that wouldn’t be a good plan, either,” said Berty, “because some one might get hurt. I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You give me a sheet of paper just the size of that on which you write your speech. Mind, now, and write it. Don’t commit it. And don’t look at this last sheet till you stand on the platform and your speech is finished.”
“What will be on it?” asked Mr. Jimson, eagerly.
“The most awful hobgoblin you ever saw. I used to draw beauties at school. When you see this hobgoblin you won’t be able to think of anything else. Just fix your eyes on his terrible eyes, and you will sit down in the most natural way possible.”
“Maybe I will,” he said, with a sigh, “but I doubt it—you’re a good girl, anyway.”
“Oh, no. I’m not, Mr. Mayor, begging your pardon. I’m only trying to be one.”
“Well, I’ve got to go,” said her companion, reluctantly. “I wish I could skip that stived-up office and go out on the river with you.”
“I wish you could,” said Berty, frankly. “But I’ve got work to do, too. I want every clergyman in the town to be present to-morrow. Have your speech short, will you, for it will probably be a hot day.”
“All right,” said the Mayor. “Good-bye,” and he trotted away.