Ramshackle House. Footner Hulbert
he asked eagerly.
Pen laughed clearly. “Heavens! what do you know about turkey chicks? Or making butter and cleaning house?”
He still hesitated.
Pen arose briskly. “Run along,” she commanded. “When you come back perhaps you’ll stay to supper.” She had not intended to ask him. It was surprised out of her. It surprised her father too. “Was that necessary?” his elevated eyebrows asked. He did not like this young man as well as he had in the beginning.
Counsell blushed red with pleasure. “That is kind,” he said.
“Then mind you’re back in time,” said Pen, leaving them. “You never can tell about the engine in our boat.”
She flew about her work. The butter got itself made, and the eggs collected. Sundry small chicks were treated for the gaps, and the far wandering turkeys rounded up. Preparations were set on foot for a real Southern Maryland supper; soft crabs, fried chicken, hot biscuits, strawberry shortcake. If Pen had had her way she would have stuffed her young man like a Strasbourg goose.
All afternoon she was filled with an excitement that was neither wholly pleasurable nor painful. Her heart would keep rising in her throat, and stern discipline was required to put it down. Finally she red up the house. She lingered in the guest-room her hand caressing the white spread, while she debated whether she might ask him to spend the night. She foresaw her father’s look of disapproval but that did not influence her much. But she decided against it with a firm shake of the head. “Only prolong the agony,” she said to herself, with her little smile of self-mockery.
In the midst of her activities she often found time to run out on the porch where she could observe the progress of the Pee Bee, that slab-sided little marine monster that ploughed through the water so fiercely at the rate of five miles an hour. It would take them fifty minutes to go and come if they did not loiter, but her father would be sure to want to show Counsell the Island, and incidentally show off Counsell to the Islanders; he would get into talk with men at the store. Sure enough it was four o’clock before they started home. Half way over the Pee Bee suddenly stopped. Pen could see her father crouching over the engine in the way she knew so well. Counsell was perched up on the bow looking towards Broome Point. So much the better for him if he knew nothing about engines. Time passed and they did not budge. “How bored he must be!” Pen thought anxiously. “It will sicken him of us!”
At last the Pee Bee began to move ahead by fits and starts, Pendleton darting to and fro between wheel and engine. How familiar Pen was with the little comedy that was taking place on board! Pendleton would never let anybody else steer! When the Pee Bee finally passed under the bank Pen could still follow her progress by the noise she made. She arranged matters so that supper should come on the table at the moment the disgruntled men crossed the porch.
She had put on the black net evening dress that had been made over three times. A red peony in her corsage freshened it up a good deal, but in the end Pen threw it away. “Too coquettish!” she said, jeering at her reflection in the mirror. She had no idea how lovely she looked with her perfect neck and arms, her fine capable hands a little roughened by work, her eyes big with feeling yet determinedly reticent, and those soft, red, bitter lips.
Her heart sank fathoms deep when Pendleton came in alone.
“Where’s Mr. Counsell?” she asked very offhand.
“Stopped in his tent to tidy up a bit,” said Pendleton… “Was it necessary…” he began reprovingly.
“You’d better do the same,” said Pen coolly.
Pendleton dropped the bag of mail in the hall and went upstairs registering disapproval in every step. Pen rushed the supper out into the oven again. Her heart was singing.
Though it was still bright out-of-doors the dining-table was lighted by a red-shaded swinging lamp. To be sure the shade was only of paper, but it made none the less a cheerful glow. When Counsell came into the room his good manners failed him; he stopped short and stared at Pen in silence. Pen could not look at him. She said to herself: “He’s amused at my silliness; dressing up in these old rags!”
At the table they gave Pendleton full sway and it improved his humor. Counsell had discovered that it pleased Pen best to have him encourage her father. Counsell’s conversation with her was limited to compliments on the wonderful eats. Pen received it with her little twisted smile. That was the way she was. She knew he meant it, but it hurt—how it hurt! Because it signified nothing. Nothing would come of it. A long course of self-discipline had taught Pen never to build on the prospect of happiness, that thereby she might be saved a crushing disappointment when happiness failed to materialize.
At the conclusion of the meal Counsell got his reward when it appeared that Pendleton, owing to the time he had wasted on the river, still had his chores to do about the place. He departed for the barn. Aunt Maria Garner waddled back and forth, clearing the table and rolling her eyes at the guest. She was not a well-trained servant.
“Shall we go outside?” suggested Counsell.
“Mosquitoes!” said Pen smiling.
She led the way into the great dim drawing-rooms on the other side of the hall. The only illumination was given by a piano lamp with a yellow paper shade standing beside an old ebony upright.
“You play?” asked Counsell.
“Not for you,” said Pen promptly. “You know too much.”
“Anyway, I’d rather have you talk to me,” he said. “We haven’t started to get acquainted yet.”
Pen’s inner voice cried: “What’s the use? What’s the use?”
Her little painful smile tantalized him. He said involuntarily: “You mock at everything I say.”
“Not at you,” said Pen. “At myself!”
“I don’t understand you,” he complained.
“And you have known so many girls!” said Pen, drawing down the corners of her lips.
“Yes,” he said. “But never one like you. In town they seem to be cut out pretty much to a pattern. Some well cut, some badly. But all the same pattern.”
Pen thought: “He’s a good-natured sort. He thinks I expect to hear this sort of thing.”
There they sat side by side on the big sofa in the seductive half light of the great room—but something was the matter. They made no progress. Perhaps having desired this moment so much, the realization of it frightened them. With too much feeling they were dumb; and they did not know each other well enough to be comfortably silent together. So each made various attempts to start something which only resulted in utter banality. They found themselves talking as primly as a couple in an old-fashioned romance. The sources of laughter were frozen up. And the more self-conscious they became, the stiffer grew their tongues.
It was chiefly Pen’s fault. She got the notion in her head that he merely desired to repay her hospitality with a little gallantry, and she blighted his warm overtures as with a frost. It was due to her fatal instinct to guard against a pain which might be more than she could bear.
However the young man was determined; moreover he had a reputation to keep up. More experienced than Pen he had learned how a little naturalness clears the air, and he was resolved to speak his mind no matter how hard she made it for him. In the end he blurted it out awkwardly:
“Why shouldn’t I tell you…? A fellow like me…knocking about…making a joke of everything…you get the notion girls are charming useless creatures you’ve got to put up with because they’re so charming…and lots of them are useless without even being charming… Makes a man cynical…and then to meet one more charming than any and useful!… Oh, I express myself rottenly!… Well, it gives you a jolt. You’ve got to rearrange all your ideas…”
This was simply more than Pen could bear. She insisted to herself that it was