An Accidental Honeymoon. Edward Barron
there! You poor silly baby! Come right in, and I’ll put your foot in hot water and mustard. That’ll take the soreness out.” She passed her arm lovingly about the girl’s slender shoulders and was leading her away without more ado. The girl hung back.
“Aunty, I haven’t thanked him—half.”
“I’m sure the gentleman’s been very good,” said Mrs. Landis, “but he knows your foot ought to be soaked in hot water just as soon as can be. There won’t be any too much time to do it before supper, any way.”
“By all means,” agreed Fessenden. “I’m very glad if I’ve been of service.” Mischief awoke in his glance. “I’ve had ample reward for anything I’ve been able to do.”
The blood crept into the girl’s cheeks, but she was not afraid to meet his eyes.
“Good-by,” he said with evident reluctance. “I hope your ankle will be well very soon.” The laughing imps in her eyes suddenly emboldened him. “May I come to-morrow evening to see how you’re getting on?”
“Of course—if you like. We’re through supper by half-past seven, and——”
“Supper?” he returned, and paused so pointedly that the girl laughed outright.
HE WAVED HIS HAT FROM THE GATE
“O-oh! Would you care to come to supper with us, really?”
“Don’t ask me unless you’re in earnest.”
“Will you come, then, at half-past six?”
“I’ll come. Thank you—immensely. Good-night. Good-night, Mrs. Landis.”
“Good-night, good-night, Mr. Puddin’ Tame,” called the girl as she hobbled up the steps, supported on the older woman’s arm.
He waved his hat from the gate, and the girl blew him a smiling kiss—to the very evident embarrassment of Aunty Landis.
II
Fessenden turned to the right on the main road. At a little distance he paused to glance back at White Cottage.
There was nothing of the colonial manor-house in its lines. Clearly, it had always been the home of humble folk. He fancied that good Aunty Landis—whose husband supplied Sandywood “with eggs and milk and butter”—would be the last to lay claim to gentility.
It was a little disappointing to be compelled to abandon his dream of a Confederate colonel and of a decayed “first family.”
“But the little girl is perfectly charming,” he mused, and strode up the road humming:
“Oh, she smashed all the hearts
Of the swains in them parts,
Did Mistress Biddy O’Toole.”
The directions given him by the station-master at Sandywood Station had been so clear that, although a stranger to this part of the country, Fessenden had found his way thus far easily enough.
Now, as he topped the rise, his eyes fell at once upon Sandywood House: a buff-and-white structure, with the pillared expansiveness of a true colonial mansion. It was set upon a knoll, across an intervale, the wide expanse of the Chesapeake shimmering in front of it. Ardent Marylanders had been known to maintain that it was fully the equal of Mount Vernon itself.
The avenue leading up toward the back of the house from the main road wound a couple of hundred yards through a garden of box and lilac, then swept the pedestrian about an ell to the steps of a demilune porch, and almost vis-à-vis with half a dozen men and women drinking tea.
A plump, neutral-tinted woman, a trifle over-gowned, hurried forward to greet him.
“Why, Tom Fessenden!” she exclaimed. “So here you are at last! You bad man, you didn’t come on the right train. Your things arrived this morning, but when the car came back from the station without you, I thought you’d backed out. The next thing I was expecting was a letter from you, saying you couldn’t come at all, you irresponsible man!”
“I would have been a loser.”
“Ve-ry pretty. Really, though, we have a jolly crowd here. All complete except for Roland Cary. If Roland Cary hadn’t notions!”
“Is any man foolish enough to decline an invitation from you?”
“Any man? Oh, Roland Cary’s a cousin.”
“Lucky man! Madam, may I ask if he is so attractive that you wish he had come instead of me?”
“I wanted—wanted him to be here with you, silly. He—he is perfectly charming. You know, I’m half afraid of you. You’re such a superior old Yankee that I dare say you despise us Marylanders, and were as late in getting here as you dared to be.” The perennial challenge of the Southern belle was in her tones.
Fessenden laughed. “I ran across Danton in Baltimore. Blame it all on him.”
“Charlie Danton? Oh, isn’t he most exasperating! Now, come up and meet everybody. Boys and girls, this is Mr. Fessenden—Mrs. Randall and Dick Randall, over there. And Pinckney—Pinck, do get out of that chair long enough to be polite!—my lord and master, Tom. That’s my cousin, May Belle—May Belle Cresap—and Harry Cleborne; and this is Miss Yarnell, the celebrated Miss Madge Yarnell; and—and that’s all. How funny! I do believe I’m the only one of us you’ve ever met before.”
“That proves how benighted I’ve been,” he returned. “But what can you expect of a man who’s never been on the Eastern Shore?”
Detecting something proprietary in the manner of the young man who hung over the back of Miss May Belle Cresap’s chair, he abandoned his thought of taking a seat next that languid lady, and instead inserted himself deftly between Pinckney Cresap and Miss Madge Yarnell.
Cresap shook hands heartily. “Glad to see you, Fessenden. I’ve heard a lot of you from Polly ever since she knew you in New York—before she did me the honor to marry me. Glad you’ve got down to see us on our native heath at last.” He poked a rather shaky finger at the stranded mint-leaf in the empty glass before him. “A julep? No? You mentioned Charlie Danton just now. You’ve heard about his high doings, I suppose. Perhaps you’re in his confidence?”
“Not at all. He’s in mine, to the extent of persuading me to buy a small yacht of his this morning—sight unseen. He promised to telegraph over this way somewhere and have it sent around to your boat-landing—if you’ll allow me.”
“Of course. My man will take care of it when it turns up. Danton’s a queer one.” He rattled his empty glass suggestively at his wife.
“He seemed as cynical as ever,” commented Fessenden.
“He ought to be. They say that if it were befo’ de wah’ he’d have to meet a certain Baltimore man on the field of honor—a married man, you understand. Coffee and pistols for two!”
Fessenden was willing to elude the foreshadowed gossip. “We’re shocking Miss Yarnell, I’m afraid.”
The girl was, indeed, sitting with averted head, her face set rather sternly.
“Eh! Oh, I beg your pardon, Madge,” said Cresap, with real concern.
“I hardly heard what you were saying,” she rejoined. “I was thinking of something else.”
Her voice was unusually deep and mellow, and Fessenden’s sensitive ear thrilled pleasurably. He glanced toward her.
She was a decided brunette.