The Story Book Girls

by S. R. Crockett

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  Adelaide Maud

  The Leighton's had been writing off the invitations for the wedding, andElma was in her room with Adelaide Maud. This had been converted into asitting-room so long as Elma remained a convalescent.

  Elma had asked Isobel if she might have just one invitation for aspecial friend of her own. Now who was this friend, Mrs. Leightonwondered? She was surprised when Elma asked her, without anyembarrassment for Mr. Symington's address.

  "And don't tell who it is, please, Mummy, because I have a little plotof my own on hand."

  She sealed and addressed this important missive quite blandly under hermother's eyes.

  Mrs. Leighton could not make it out. She was inclined to fall into AuntKatharine's ways and say, "In my young days, young people were not soblatant."

  Mr. Leighton shook his head over her having allowed the invitation togo.

  "You can't tell what net she may become entangled in," he said, "andSymington cleared out in a very sudden manner, you know." He could notget that out of his mind.

  Mrs. Leighton harked back to the old formula. "Elma is only a child,"she said, "with too much of a superb imagination. She will have a lotof fancies before she is done."

  Elma saw her letter posted, with only Mrs. Leighton and Miss Grace inthe secret. She felt completely relieved and happy. Nothing hadpleased her so much for a long time.

  "Why, Elma, your cheeks are getting pink at last," said Adelaide Maud.

  She had come in to spend the afternoon with Elma while the others wentto the dressmaker for the all-important gowns. Adelaide Maud had saidshe would come if Elma were to be quite alone. And Elma meant to bequite alone until Cuthbert came down by an early train. Then, afterAdelaide Maud was announced, she rather hoped that Cuthbert mightappear.

  "Are you sure they are pink," she asked Adelaide Maud, "because I usedto be so anxious that I might look pale."

  "You must have thought yourself very good looking lately then," saidAdelaide Maud. "Elma," she asked suddenly, "why don't you girlssometimes call me Helen? I think you might by this time."

  "I would rather call you Adelaide Maud," said Elma.

  "But I can't be a Story Book for ever."

  "I shouldn't want to call you Helen when you looked like Miss Dudgeon.Mrs. Dudgeon wouldn't like it, would she?"

  Ridgetown traditions still hampered their friendship it seemed.

  Adelaide Maud's head fell low.

  "Do you know, Elma, in five minutes, if I just had one chance, in fiveminutes I could get my mother to say that it didn't matter whether youcalled me Helen or not. But I never get the chance."

  "I did one lovely and glorious thing yesterday," said Elma. "Couldn't Ido another to-day?"

  "I don't know what you did yesterday, but you can't do anything for meto-day," said Adelaide Maud stiffly.

  Cuthbert came strolling in. Adelaide Maud looked seriously annoyed.

  "You told me you would be quite alone," she said to Elma.

  "Oh, you don't mind about Cuthbert, do you?" asked Elma anxiously."Besides, Cuthbert didn't know you were coming."

  "I did," said Cuthbert shortly.

  Adelaide Maud had risen a little, and at this she sat down in a verystraight manner, with her head slightly raised. She and Elma were on acouch near a tea-table. Cuthbert took an easy chair opposite. ThenAdelaide Maud began to laugh. She laughed with a ringing bright laughthat was very amusing to Elma, but Cuthbert remained quite unmoved.

  Adelaide Maud looked at him.

  "Oh, please laugh a little," she said humbly.

  Cuthbert did not take his eyes away from her. He simply looked and saidnothing.

  "How are the invitations going on?" he asked Elma as though apparentlyproving that Adelaide Maud did not exist.

  Elma clasped her hands.

  "Beautifully. I've been allowed to ask all my 'particulars.'"

  "Am I to be invited?" asked Adelaide Maud simply.

  "Mrs. and Miss Dudgeon," said Elma in a hollow voice. "Do you thinkMrs. Dudgeon will come?" she asked in a melancholy manner.

  "Not if Mr. Leighton looks like that," said Adelaide Maud. She turnedin a pettish manner away from him and gazed at Elma.

  Elma burst out laughing.

  "Oh, Cuthbert, I do think you are horrid to Adelaide Maud."

  Adelaide Maud sat up again looking perfectly delighted.

  "Now there," she said, "I have been waiting for years for some one tosay that about Mr. Leighton. Thank you so much, dear. It's so perfectlytrue. For years I have been amiable and for years he has been--a----"

  "A brute," said Elma placidly.

  "Yes," said Adelaide Maud. "And I've got to go on pretending to be agirl of spirit with a mamma who won't understand the situation,and--and--I get no encouragement at all. It's a horrid world," saidAdelaide Maud.

  Cuthbert rose from the easy chair, with a look in his eyes which Elmahad never seen.

  "All I can say is," he pretended to be speaking jocularly, "will thelady who has just spoken undertake to repeat these words, inprivate--in----"

  "No, she won't," said Adelaide Maud in a whisper.

  Elma sat shaking in every limb. The one thought that passed through hermind was that if she didn't clear out, Cuthbert might kiss AdelaideMaud, and that would be awful. She crawled out of the room somehow orother. What the others were thinking of her she did not know. Shewanted to reach something outside the door, and sank on a chair there.Oh, the selfishness of lovers! Adelaide Maud and Cuthbert were "makingit up" while she sat shaking with her face in her hands in the longcorridor.

  Mrs. Leighton found her there some little time afterwards.

  "Sh! mummy. Speak in a whisper, please."

  "Well, I never. Who is ill now, I should like to know?"

  "Adelaide Maud and Cuthbert."

  She pulled her mother's head down to her and whispered in her ear.

  "I didn't know it was coming, they were so cross with one another. Andthen I knew it was. And I just slipped out. And I'm shaking so thatI'm afraid to get off this chair. I should never be able to get engagedmyself--it's so--en--enervating."

  "Well, I never," said Mrs. Leighton; "well, I never. Turned you out ofyour own room, my pet. Just like those Dudgeons."

  "Oh, mummy, it's lovely. I don't mind. It's just being ill that mademe shake. Aren't you glad it's Adelaide Maud?"

  "Well--it never was anybody else, was it?" asked Mrs. Leighton blandly.

  "Oh, mummy! You knew!"

  Elma's whispers became most accusing.

  Mrs. Leighton might have been as dense as possible in regard to herdaughters, but Cuthbert's heart had always lain bare.

  "Know?" asked she. "What do you think made Adelaide Maud run after youthe way she did?"

  "Oh, mummy. It wasn't only because of Cuthbert, was it?"

  "Well, I sometimes thought it was," she said with a smile at her lips.

  She looked at the shut door.

  "But I can't have you stuck on a hall chair in the corridors for theafternoon, all on account of the Dudgeons," said she. "Besides, they'llbe bringing up tea."

  She knocked smartly on the door.

  "Mamma, I never saw anything like your nerve," said Elma.

  Cuthbert opened the door. He stood with the fine light of a conquerorshining in his eyes, the triumph of attainment in his bearing.

  Mrs. Leighton's nerve broke down at the sight of him. It was true then.

  "Oh, Cuthbert, what is this you have been doing?" wailed she. Her sonwas a man and had left her.

  Without a word he led her into the arms of Adelaide Maud.

  "And remember, please, Mrs. Leighton," said that personage finally,"that I would have been here long before if he had let me, and that Ihad practically to propose before he would have me. Surely that ishumiliating enough for a Dudgeon."

  "Cuthbert wanted to give you your proper positi
on in life, dear, ifpossible."

  "When all I wanted was himself--how silly of him," said Adelaide Maud.

  "Would you mind my telling you that that poor child of mine who has justrecovered from typhoid fever is sitting like a hall porter at your door,trembling like an aspen leaf," said Mrs. Leighton. "Won't you get herin?"

  They laughed, but it really was no joke to Elma. She had known somethingof the sorrows of life lately, and had borne up under them, even underthe great trial of Miss Annie's death; but because two people were inlove with one another and had said so, she took to weeping. Cuthbertcarried her in and petted her on his knee, and Adelaide Maud stood byand said what a selfish man he was, how thoughtless of others, and howreally wicked it was of him to have allowed this to happen to Elma. Shestood stroking Elma's hair and looking at Cuthbert, and Cuthbert pattedElma and looked at Adelaide Maud. Then Cuthbert caught Adelaide Maud'shand and she had to sit beside them, and then tea came and Elma wasthankful.

  "I know what it will be," she said. "You will never look at any of usagain, just at each other."

  Mrs. Leighton regarded the tea table.

  "It appears," said she, "as if for the first time for years I might beallowed to pour out tea in my own house. You all seem so preoccupied."

  "Mrs. Leighton," said Adelaide Maud, "you are perfectly sweet. You arethe only one who doesn't reproach me, and I'm taking away your onlyson."

  "May I ask when?" asked Cuthbert sedately, but his eyes were on fire.

  "Don't you tell him, Helen," said Mrs. Leighton. "It's good for them notto be in too great a hurry."

  "She called me Helen," said Adelaide Maud.

  "Now, Elma! Elma--say Helen, or you'll spoil the happiest day of ourlives."

  "Say Helen, you monkey!" cried Cuthbert, giving her a large piece ofcake and several lumps of sugar.

  Elma took her cup and the cake in a helpless way.

  "You just said that to get accustomed to the name yourself," shedeclared. "And if you don't mind, I would rather have toast to beginwith."

  Adelaide Maud giggled brightly and her hair shone like gold. Cuthbertstood looking, looking at her till a piece of cake sidled off the platehe was carrying.

  "Mummy dear, do you like having tea with me all alone?" asked Elma.

  That was what came of it in many ways. Cuthbert and Adelaide Maud hadnot a word for any one. But then they had been so long separated bysocial ties and an unfriendly world and "pride," as Helen put it, andvarious things. Mrs. Dudgeon took the news "carved in stone," and herdaughters as something that merely could not be helped. Helen hadalways been crazy over these Leightons. Mrs. Dudgeon unbent to Mr.Leighton however. He was a man to whom people invariably offered thebest, and for his own part he could never quite see where the point ofview of other people came in where Mrs. Dudgeon was concerned. Cuthbertwas already sufficiently established as rather a brilliant younguniversity man, and a partnership in a large practice in town was beingarranged for. Mrs. Dudgeon could unbend with some graciousnesstherefore, and, after all, Helen was the eldest of four, and none weremarried yet. "Time is a great leveller," said Adelaide Maud.

  All the love and enthusiasm which had been saved from the engagement ofIsobel were showered on the unheeding Cuthbert and Adelaide Maud.

  "It isn't that I don't appreciate it," said Adelaide Maud. "I know howdreadful it would be to be without it, but oh! somehow there's so littletime to attend to every one who is good to me."

  Isobel, in a certain measure, was annoyed at the interruption to her ownarrangements. In a day things seemed to change from her being thecentre of interest, to the claims of Adelaide Maud coming uppermost.She looked on the engagement as a complete bore. Robin seemed depressedwith the news. She often wondered how far she could influence him, andturned rather a cold side to him for the moment. Then her ordinarywilfulness upheld her serenely. After all, once married to Robin, shewould be independent of the domestic enthusiasms of the Leighton crowd.She was tired of the pose where she had to appear as one of them, andlonged to assert herself differently as soon as possible.

  As for the girls themselves--what had London or anything offered equalto this?

  They could not believe in their luck in having Adelaide Maud as asister.

  Elma went in the old way to give the news to Miss Grace.

  "Oh, I'm so pleased, my dear, so pleased," said poor lonely Miss Grace."It makes up for so much, my dear, when one grows old, to see youngpeople happy. We are so inclined to be extravagant of happiness when weare young. Some one ought always to be on the spot to pick up thelittle stray pieces we let drop and enable us to regain them again."

  "Weren't you ever engaged to be married, Miss Grace?" Elma asked quitesimply.

  Miss Grace was not at all embarrassed in the usual way of old maids.She gazed over the white and gold drawing-room, and one saw the spark offlint in her eyes.

  "Not engaged, dear, but all the inclination to be. Ah, yes, I had theinclination. And he invited me, but affairs at that time made itunsuitable."

  "Oh, Miss Grace, only unsuitable?" Elma's heart went out to her.Beneath everything she knew it must be Miss Annie.

  "Yes, dear. And the others found him different to what I did. Selfishand dictatorial, you know. Nothing he did seemed to fit in to what theyexpected. He grew annoyed with them. I sometimes hardly wonder at that.It made him appear to be what they really thought him. And in the end Iasked him to go."

  "Oh, Miss Grace!"

  Elma's voice was a tragedy.

  "It was not fair, it was not fair to him or to you. He didn't want tomarry the others. What did it matter what they thought?"

  "If he could have married me then, it wouldn't have mattered," said MissGrace. "I knew that he was good and true, you see; so that I neverdoubted him. But he was poor, and they worried me nearly to my grave.I was very weak," said Miss Grace.

  "And I suppose he went and married some one else in a fit ofhopelessness," said Elma tragically. "What a nice wife you would havemade, Miss Grace!"

  Miss Grace started a trifle, and looked anxiously at Elma. She did notseem to hear the compliment.

  "Oh, we all have our little stories," she said. "But don't beextravagant of your beautiful youth, my dear."

  "I don't feel youthful or beautiful in any way," said Elma. "I thinkit's the fever. I feel as though I had been born a hundred years ago.I wish I could keep from shivering whenever anything either exciting orlovely happens. Now, I never was so happy in my life as I was yesterdayover Cuthbert and Adelaide Maud, and I was so shaky that I simply burstinto tears. What's the good of being youthful if one feels like that?"

  "Wait till you have a holiday, dear, you will soon get over that."

  Miss Grace did her best to cheer her up. Elma's thoughts ran back tothe story she had heard.

  "Miss Grace," she asked, "this man that you were engaged to, was he----"

  The door opened and Saunders appeared.

  "Dr. Merryweather," said he.

  Miss Grace rose in a direct manner. She controlled her voice with alittle nervous cough.

  "This is just the person to tell you that you ought to be off for achange," she said as they shook hands with Dr. Merryweather.

  Miss Grace told him about Elma's shakiness as though it were a realdisease. Mrs. Leighton had never looked upon it as anything more than"just a mannerism," as Miss Grace put it. Dr. Merryweather ran his keeneye over Elma's flushed face.

  "You mustn't have too many engagements in your family," he said, "whileyou remain a convalescent."

  He had been only then arranging with Mrs. Leighton that she should takeElma off for a trip.

  "Mr. Leighton will go too," he said kindly. "I don't think any of yourealize how much your parents have suffered recently."

  "Oh, but when?" asked Elma in a most disappointed voice. "Not at once,I hope."

  "Almost at once," said Dr. Merryweather. "Before this first wedding atleast."

  Elma's face fell a
trifle.

  "Oh, well, I suppose I must," she said. "But so much depends on mybeing just on the spot--up to Isobel's wedding, you know."

  "I said, 'No more engagements,'" said Dr. Merryweather with his eyestill on her flushed face.

  "This isn't exactly an engagement," said Elma with a sigh. "I wish itwere."

  There was no explaining to Dr. Merryweather of course. There was evennot much chance of enlightening Miss Grace. One could only remain akind of petted invalid and await developments. Now that Adelaide Maudwas really one of them and Cuthbert in such a blissful state, it wouldseem as though nothing were required to make Elma perfectly happy. Butthere was this one trouble of Mabel's which only she could share. Forof course one couldn't go about telling people that Mabel had set greatstore by the one man who had run away.

  "If only George Maclean would play up," sighed Elma.

  But almost every one played up except George Maclean.