CHAPTER XV
A moody Maurice, who puzzled her, and a faultfinding Eleanor, whom shewas too generous to understand, drove the sixteen-year-old Edith into areal appreciation of Johnny Bennett. With him, she was still in thestage of unsentimental frankness that pierced ruthlessly to what sheconceived to be the realities; and because she was as unselfconscious asa tree, she was entirely indifferent to the fact that Johnny was a boyand she was a girl, Johnny, however, nearsighted and in enormousshell-rimmed spectacles, and still inarticulate, was quite aware of it;more definitely so every week,--for he saw her on Saturdays and Sundays."And it's the greatest possible relief to talk to you!" Edith told him.
Johnny accepted the tribute as his due. They had been coasting, and now,on the hilltop, were sitting on their sleds, resting. "Gosh! it's hot!"Johnny said: he had taken off his red sweater and tied its sleevesaround his neck; "zero? You try pulling both those sleds up here, andyou'll think it's the Fourth of July," Johnny said, adjusting hisspectacles with a mittened hand. He frequently reverted to the grumpystage--yet now, looking at Edith, grumpiness vanished. She wasbreathless from the long climb, and her white teeth showed between herparted, panting lips: her cheeks were burning with frosty pink. Johnnylooked, and looked away, and sighed.
"Johnny," Edith said, "why do you suppose Eleanor gives me so manycall-downs? 'Course I hate music; and once I said she was alwayspounding on the piano--and she didn't seem to like it!" Edith wasgenuinely puzzled. "I can't understand Eleanor," she said; "she makes metired."
"I should think she'd make Maurice tired!" Johnny said, and added:"That's the worst of getting married. I shall never marry."
"When I was a child," Edith said, "I always said that when I grew up Iwas going to marry Maurice, because he was just like Sir Walter Raleigh.Wasn't that a joke?"
Johnny saw nothing amusing in such foolishness; he said that Maurice wasold enough to be her father! As for himself, he felt, he said, thatmarriage was a mistake. "Women hamper a man dreadfully. Still--I maymarry," Johnny conceded; "but it will be somebody very young, so I cantrain her mind. I want a woman (if I decide to marry) to be just thekind I want. Otherwise, you get hung up with Eleanors."
Edith lifted her chin. "Well, I like that! Why shouldn't she train yourmind?"
"Because," Johnny said, firmly, "the man's mind is the stronger."
Edith screamed with laughter, and threw a handful of snow in his neck."B-r-r-r!" she said; "it's getting cold! I'll knock the spots out of youon belly bumps!" She got on her feet, shook the snow from the edge ofher skirt, flung herself face down on her sled, and shot like a bluecomet over the icy slope. Johnny sped after her, his big sled takingflying leaps over the kiss-me-quicks. They reached the bottom of thehill almost together, and Johnny, looking at her standing there,breathless and rosy, with shining eyes which were as impersonal asstars, said to himself, with emotion:
"She's got sense--for a girl." His heart was pounding in his broadchest, but he couldn't think of a thing to say. He was still dumb whenshe said good-by to him at Maurice's door.
"Why don't you come to dinner next Saturday?" she said, carelessly;"Maurice will be away all week on business; but he'll be back Saturday."
Johnny mumbled something to the effect that he could survive, even ifMaurice wasn't back.
"I couldn't," Edith said. "I should simply die, in this house, if itwasn't for Maurice!"
As, whistling, she ran upstairs, Edith thought to herself that Johnnywas a _lamb_! "But, compared to Maurice, he's awfully uninteresting."Edith, openly and audibly, compared every male creature to Maurice, andnone of them ever measured up to him! His very moodiness had its charm;when he sat down at the piano after dinner and scowled over some newmusic, or when he lounged in his big chair and smoked, his face absorbedto the point of sternness, Edith, loving him "next to father andmother," watched him, and wondered what he was thinking about? Sometimeshe came out of his abstraction and teased her, and then she sparkledinto gay impertinences; sometimes he asked her what she thought of thisor that phrasing, "...though you are a barbarian, Skeezics, aboutmusic"; sometimes he would pull a book from the shelf over hisdesk and read a poem to her; and he was really interested in heropinion,--ardently appreciative if he liked the poem; if he didn't, itwas "the limit."
Maurice was at home that Saturday night for which Edith had thrown thecareless invitation to Johnny; and Mrs. Newbolt also dropped in todinner. It was not a pleasant dinner. Eleanor sat in one of her emptysilences; saw Maurice frown at an overdone leg of lamb; heard her aunt'sstream of comments on her housekeeping; listened to Edith's teasingchatter to Johnny;--"What _can_ Maurice see in her!" She thought.Before dinner was over, she excused herself; she had a headache, shesaid. "You won't mind, Auntie, will you?"
Mrs. Newbolt said, heartily, "_Not_ a bit! My dear mother used to--"
Eleanor, picking up little Bingo, went with lagging step out of theroom.
"Children," said Mrs. Newbolt, "why don't you make taffy this evening?"
"_That's_ sense," said Edith; "let's! It's Mary's night out. Sorry poorold Eleanor isn't up to it."
Maurice frowned; "Look here, Edith, that isn't--respectful."
Edith looked so blankly astonished that Mrs. Newbolt defended her: "ButEleanor _does_ look old! And she'll lose her figger if she isn'tcareful! My dear grandmother--used to say, 'Girls, I'd rather have youlose your vir--'"
"Don't raise Cain in the kitchen, you two," Maurice said, hastily;"Eleanor hates noise."
Edith, subdued by his rebuke, said she wouldn't raise Cain; and, indeed,she and Johnny were preternaturally quiet until things had been clearedaway and the taffy could be started. When it was on the stove, there wasat least ten minutes of whispering while they watched the black molassesshimmer into the first yellow rings. Then Johnny, in a low voice, talkedfor a good while of something he called "Philosophy"--which seemed toconsist in a profound disbelief in everything. "Take religion," saidJohnny. "I'd like to discuss it with you; I think you have a very goodmind--for a woman. Religion is an illustration of what I mean. It's adelusion. A complete delusion. I have ceased to believe in anything."
"Oh, Johnny, how awful!" said Edith, stirring the seething sweetness;"Johnny, be a lamb, and get me a tumbler of cold water, will you, to trythis stuff?"
Johnny brought the water ("Oh, how young she is!" he thought), and Edithpoured a trickle of taffy into it.
"Is it done?" Edith said, and held out the brittle string of candy; hebit at it, and said he guessed so. Then they poured the foamy stuff intoa pan, and put it in the refrigerator. "We'll wait till it gets stiff,"said Edith.
"I think," said Johnny, in a low voice, "your hair is handsomer thanmost women's. I'm particular about a woman's hair."
Edith, sitting on the edge of the table, displaying very pretty ankles,put an appraising hand over the brown braids that were wound around herhead in a sort of fillet. "Are you?" she said, and began to yawn--butstopped short, her mouth still open, for Johnny Bennett was _looking ather_! "Let's go into the library," she said, hurriedly.
"I like it out here," Johnny objected.
But as he spoke Maurice lounged into the kitchen. "Stiff?" he said.
"No; won't be for ages," Edith said--and instantly the desire to fly tothe library ceased, especially as Mrs. Newbolt came trundling in. WithMaurice astride one of the wooden chairs, his blue eyes droll andteasing, and Mrs. Newbolt enthroned in adipose good nature close to thestove, Edith was perfectly willing to stay in the kitchen!
"I say!" Maurice said. "Let's pull the stuff!"
Johnny looked cross. "What," he asked himself, "are Maurice and Mrs.Newbolt butting in for?" Then he softened, for Maurice was teasingEdith, and Mrs. Newbolt was tasting the candy, and the next minute allwas in delightful uproar of stickiness and excitement, and Johnny,exploding into wild cackles of laughter, felt quite young for the nexthour.
Eleanor, upstairs, with Bingo's little silken head on her breast, didnot feel young; she heard the noise, and smelled the
boiling molasses,and knew that Mary would be cross when she came home and found thekitchen in a mess. "How can Maurice stand such childishness!" She laythere with a cologne-soaked handkerchief on her forehead, and sighedwith pain. "Why _doesn't_ he stop them?" she thought. She heard hisshout of laughter, and Edith's screaming giggle, and moved her head tofind a cool place on the pillow. "She's too old to romp with him."Suddenly she sat up, tense and listening; he was enjoying himself--andshe was suffering! "If he had a headache, I would sit with him; Iwouldn't leave him alone!" But she was sick in bed,--and he was having agood time--_with Edith_. Her resentment was not exactly jealousy; it wasfear; the same fear she had felt when Maurice had told her how Edithhad rushed into his room the night of the great storm, _the fear ofYouth_! She moved Bingo gently, stroking him until he seemed to beasleep; then sat up, and put her feet on the floor. The foldedhandkerchief slipped from her forehead, and she pressed her handsagainst her temples. "I'm going downstairs," she said to herself; "Iwon't be left out!" She felt a sick qualm as she got on to her feet, andwent over to look at herself in the mirror ... her face was pale, andher hair, wet with cologne, was pasted down in straggling locks on herforehead; she tried to smooth it. "Oh, I look old enough to be--hisaunt," she said, hopelessly. When she opened her door she heard a littlethud behind her; it was Bingo, scrambling off the bed to follow her; asshe went downstairs, unsteadily, and clinging to the banisters, hestepped on her skirt, so she had to stoop and pick him up. At the closedkitchen door she paused for a moment, leaning against the wall; her headswam. Bingo, held in one trembling arm, put out his little pink tongueand licked her cheek. "I _won't_ be left out," she said again. Just asher hand touched the knob there was an outburst of joyous yells, and a_whack_! as a lump of taffy, flung by one of the roisterers, hit theresounding panel of the door--then Mrs. Newbolt's fat chuckle, andJohnny's voice vociferating that Edith was the limit, andMaurice--"Edith, if you put that stuff in my hair, I'll skin you alive!"
"Boil her in oil!" yelled Johnny.
Eleanor turned around and crept back to the stairs; she caught at thenewel post, and stood, gasping; then, somehow, she climbed up to herroom. There, lifting Bingo into his basket, she sank on her bed, gropingblindly for the damp handkerchief to put across her forehead. "Mary willgive notice," she said. After a while, as the throbbing grew less acute,she said, "He's their age." Bingo, crawling out of his basket, scrabbledup on to the bed; she felt his little loving cold nose against her face.
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