CHAPTER XX
BEHIND THE BIRCHES
When Linda wrote to Chicago for the dresses to be sent on, she asked the caretaker of the house to send a photograph of her mother which she would find in her dresser drawer.
The woman had been in doubt as to which picture was wanted, as there were several in the box indicated, so she had packed box and all, and it now lay on Linda's table waiting to be opened.
When the radiant little Cape girl had carried downstairs the last of her possessions and Mrs. Porter had gone to her own room, Linda turned her attention to this box.
Taking off the string she lifted the cover, and straight up into her eyes looked Bertram King. The likeness was a striking one and color flowed over her face. As she gazed, the thought came to her that Bertram must have consummated a good business deal on the day he sat for this.
There was lurking humor in the eyes and lips. It was Bertram at his best: his most prosperous. A clean-cut face, she thought, as she looked, a well-born face: intelligent, full of character and confidence.
"Overconfidence," murmured the girl, and turned the picture face down. She closed her eyes in endurance of the flood of associations the photograph had evoked, and stood motionless thus for a minute before delving deeper into the box. It held pictures of several of her friends, among them one of Fred Whitcomb. Her sad lips smiled as she encountered his wide-awake countenance.
"Good old Fred," she thought. "Some day I must write to him."
She found her mother's pictures and those of several girl friends: also one of Mrs. Porter. Some of these she left out; but the one of Bertram King went back into the box. She took one more glance at it and the veiled humor in the eyes seemed to mock her. Face down it went in, quickly, the cover was put on, and the whole placed in her closet.
At the same time her thought was contrasting the pictured face taken one year ago with Bertram's appearance the last time she saw him.
At the supper table that evening Blanche Aurora, as she waited on table, was enveloped in the white apron with satiny plaids.
"She's not a bad-looking child," said Linda on one occasion when the girl had left the room to get more biscuit. "That little turn-up nose of hers is cute and her teeth are so white."
"Those teeth!" ejaculated Miss Barry. "The time I had! But I finally taught her to keep them properly."
"Everybody knows happiness is the best beautifier, anyway," remarked Mrs. Porter. "It looks as if you would have an angel in your kitchen from now on, Miss Barry."
"Yes, 'looks,'" retorted the hostess. "Familiarity breeds contempt and I don't know how long Blanche Aurora can be subdued by her dry goods. I ought to make her put on her brown calico to go home in."
"Oh, don't, Aunt Belinda. Let her have all the fun there is in it."
So Miss Barry consented to leave her "help" in freedom; but the shrewd little brain under the fluffy red wig was working. Blanche Aurora knew about where the dividing line would occur in the bosom of her family between respect and ridicule. She felt instinctively that the limit would be reached before that crown of glory, the pink bow, should dazzle the irreverent vision of the home circle. She, therefore, when the dishes were dried, went to her room, took off the ribbon, and laid it reverently in her upper drawer beside the blue one. She gazed soulfully for a minute on the effect, then closed the drawer softly.
There was a clean towel on the bureau and upon it reposed the white brush and comb and near that a bottle of violet toilet water. Yes, the last thing the wonderful one had put into her hands was this bottle of green liquid which the child said to herself "smelled purple."
She hated to go home. A thief might break in during the night and bereave her. She lifted up the closet curtain and looked at the pretty blue dress hanging there.
Well, she thought, with firm lips, the thief shouldn't get the pink one, for she was going to wear it. Further cautious thoughts of rough, teasing brothers caused her to remove the hairpins from her braids and let them hang down her back as of old. Then she put on her new white sweater and started to run across the fields to a properly awestruck family.
A week later Blanche Aurora was alone in the house one afternoon cleaning silver. The day was beautiful, and no one stayed indoors who was not obliged to. She glanced up occasionally at the kitchen clock and saw that in half an hour she too would be at liberty to go out and get Miss Linda's rose, and hunt for four-leaved clovers.
She enjoyed finding these and placing them beside Linda's plate at the table.
"But," objected her friend one day, "I have to find them myself, don't I, in order that they should bring me luck?"
"Perhaps so," returned the donor; "but while you're waitin' I'd like to give you some o' my luck. – I got so much."
Indeed, Blanche Aurora was beginning to gain curves, and the round eyes to find expression.
She sang at her work to-day, the pink bow on her head shaking with her energy as she rubbed. Suddenly the iron knocker on the front door sent a sharp rap-tap through the house.
Blanche Aurora arose, laid down a fork, and moved through the rooms to answer the summons.
Pulling open the door she beheld behind the screen a broad-shouldered man with a bright, expectant face, and his seeking eyes saw a pink-and-white aproned figure with red hair, and a perky pink bow atop.
She was delighted at the prompt manner in which the stranger lifted his hat.
"I wonder if I have the right house," he said.
"I dunno. What house do you want?" came the stentorian response.
"What is your name, please?" asked the young man.
"Blanche Aurora."
He smiled, a nice gleeful smile. "I mean your last name."
"Martin."
"I'm sorry. I'm looking for Miss Barry."
"Oh, she lives here. I'm the help."
"Really? I didn't dream it. I thought you were the nice little daughter of the house."
"Miss Barry ain't married," replied Blanche Aurora practically, but she gave full credit to the pink bow.
"Is her niece – is Miss Linda Barry here?" The eagerness of the question and of the very good-looking visitor was fully appreciated by the little maid who recognized a kindred spirit.
"Oh, yes, she's here," – the freckled face shone radiant. "Ain't she grand?"
"The grandest ever. I want to see her. Aren't you ever going to open the screen door?"
Upon this the screen door opened. "But she ain't in the house," replied Blanche Aurora, coming out on the piazza. "There ain't anybody in the house, so I can't leave it to hunt for her, but I can tell you where I bet she is."
"You're a good – a particularly good child," was the earnest response as Blanche Aurora's finger pointed across the field.
"Do you see that clump o' trees and then there's woods beyond?"
"Yes."
"Near them white birches you'll likely find her. Mrs. Porter and she's got a secret place."
The visitor laughed. "Secret from whom?"
"Everybody but me, I guess."
The man looked at the smile that was keeping his laugh company.
"What do you think they'll say to your telling their secrets?"
"Well" – Blanche Aurora gave a comprehensive glance at the city clothes and the gay face above her. "I kinder think Miss Linda might be glad to see you, and if she would, what's the use o' waitin'!"
"That's what I say," was the hearty response. "I can't wait. I'm going to scour this Cape till I do find her, and then if she isn't glad to see me, do you know what I'm going to do?"
Blanche Aurora's neatly coiffed head shook a denial.
The visitor grasped her small shoulder with a strong hand.
"I'm going out to that point of rock there," – he pointed to the height of the cliff, – "and throw myself – dash myself into the sea!" He scowled portentously.
"Well, you might wait till she gits used to you," suggested Blanche Aurora. "She might like you better."
"I've been waiting two years, but your advice may still be good."
"Be you her beau?" the question was roared solemnly.
"I be; and if I don't find her this afternoon you tell her that her beau has come to town, and for her not to leave the house again till he arrives."
"All right, sir," answered Blanche Aurora, her eyes nearly starting from her head with interest as the caller jumped off the piazza and swung whistling across the field.
The soft turf was springy beneath his feet.
"'A vagrant's morning, wide and blue,'" he muttered to himself.
Gulls wheeled high over his head in the landward sallies from which they sailed back above the sea, their wings glinting like the distant
"Foam of the waves,
Blown blossoms of ocean,
White flowers of the waters."
Whitcomb strode along, the picture of Linda as he last saw her in the railway station still fresh in his mind.
Miss Barry's "help" had been galvanized into interest at the mention of the girl. She had called her "grand." It sounded hopeful.
Beyond the clump of birches, in their favorite spot, the two friends were sitting against their rock with their books and work.
Talk amounts to very little. It was Emerson who said, "Don't talk! What you are thunders so loud above what you say, that I can't hear you."
What Mrs. Porter was, had in their daily contact impressed itself so increasingly upon her young friend, that Linda, though reluctant, had, through very curiosity, come to be willing to look into the source of her friend's faith and strength. That little nook behind the birches had become dear to her. Near by rose the rich dark grove of firs and pines, the sea murmuring in their tops, and the spring bubbled with a silvery plashing.
Here Whitcomb found them. They both started at his sudden appearance and he halted, and rapped on a white birch stem.
"May I come in?" The gay, hearty voice set Linda's heart to beating fast. "Don't let me disturb you," and the visitor hurried forward, his hat off, and kneeling on the grass before her, took Linda's hand.
"You have met Mrs. Porter?"
"Once, I think," said that lady, shaking hands graciously with the young man. The devouring eyes with which he was taking in every detail of Linda's improved appearance made the older woman certain that here was the Chicago man whose happiness the girl had said she could not secure save by extreme measures.
"You look wonderful, Linda. Good for the Cape!" said Fred, seating himself comfortably on the grass, and continuing to observe her with huge satisfaction.
"But how did you know where to find us?" inquired the girl.
"Blanche Aurora told me. Happy name! Dickens himself couldn't have done better. Blanche A-roarer."
"But she didn't know about this place. Nobody knows."
"So she observed – howling it to high heaven; but you might as well try to keep a locality from the sparrows as from kids of that age."
"Well, I'm glad she did know," said Linda graciously, "It's good to see you, Fred, – you have a sort of a white, city look, as if a vacation couldn't hurt you."
"Mrs. Lindsay told me you were related to them," said Mrs. Porter. "I suppose you came through her."
"Yes, I did. I wouldn't have known there was any place to stay here except for her; and I did feel a bit seedy, as well as King, so I pulled up stakes – there being a strong magnet in this vicinity." He flashed a still further enlightening smile around at Linda.
But Mrs. Porter had suddenly lost interest in his possible romance. "Mr. King – Bertram," she said, leaning forward. "He has been ill?"
Whitcomb gave a soft significant whistle. "Rather!" he returned briefly.
"I'm his cousin, Mr. Whitcomb. Tell me all about it, please."
"I know you are. He has talked to me of you."
Linda's lips had gained the close line the mention or thought of King always evoked.
"Good old King. He's some fighter. You ought to be proud of him, Mrs. Porter."
"I am. Tell me all you know of him, please. How is he now?"
"On the upward way. He's going to come out all right, but" – the speaker cast an almost apologetic look at Linda – "you doubtless know that King was up against it for a while. It seems that one night there at the club when the strain was over, he felt himself going to pieces and he wrote me a note asking me, in case of his illness, to keep his papers – the contents of his desk – from Henry Radcliffe until he should recover."
The blood pressed into Linda's face. She was too charitable to her friend even to glance her way.
"The note was not finished. King had evidently taken the precaution to address and stamp the envelope before he began, and the last sane thing he did was to seal the letter inside it. By the time I received it and got over to the club, King was gone."
"Gone!" Mrs. Porter gasped. "You said – "
Fred nodded reassuringly toward her questioning face as she leaned forward.
"Yes, they had taken him to the hospital, you know."
"Oh!" cried Mrs. Porter, "and I here. Why didn't somebody write me?"
Linda sat erect, in an attitude of courteous attention.
"I never thought of it, Mrs. Porter. To tell the truth, I didn't know till he was convalescing that you were at all near to one another, and I didn't want to write anything to add to Linda's worries." He glanced at the girl's unmoved face.
"Did you keep his papers from Henry?" she asked dryly.
"I'll tell you about that."
"But you stayed with him – " There was a little break in Mrs. Porter's low, even voice. "You helped him."
"You bet I stayed with him, just as much of the time as my boss and the nurse would stand for. I was there every night."
"Oh, Mr. Whitcomb," exclaimed Mrs. Porter gratefully, "you don't know what that means to me. Bertram wasn't entirely deserted."
"No. Harriet was up in Wisconsin or she would have wanted to help, too. Henry kept King's illness from her; because even if she had been at home she couldn't really have done anything, you know."
CHAPTER XXI
REVELATION
Linda, looking at Mrs. Porter, saw in the light of their many talks that her friend was striving for the composure with which it was her wont to meet adverse circumstances.
Fred Whitcomb, too, recognizing that the older woman was the more interested of his listeners, began to address his narration chiefly to her.
"King was pretty badly off," he went on. "He was nutty for days, and some of the things he said in his delirium made me feel that – well, that perhaps he'd had a rather lonely time of it. At any rate, he had asked only that his papers should be kept from Radcliffe, so I made up my mind that I'd go through them myself."
Fred paused and gave a rather doubtful and wistful look at Linda's immovable countenance.
Mrs. Porter's eyes were shining in their attention.
"Well, I hadn't spent much time at his desk before I discovered why King had written me those directions. Henry can do what he pleases about Harriet, but I know Linda's a good sport. I know she wants the truth."
"I do," returned Linda, with cold promptness. "What had Bertram against Henry?"
"Nothing, bless your heart. The telltale package of papers concerned the Antlers Irrigation proposition. Your father was out in the West on the spot and King was in Chicago and these letters and telegrams were their correspondence at the time. It seems that Mr. Barry was completely fascinated by the proposition, but King knew the people connected with it better than Mr. Barry did; and though it appeared entirely legitimate, King begged your father to have nothing to do with it. He admitted that if it succeeded it would be a fortune, but the whole thing was on such a big scale and would involve Barry & Co. so deeply that King advised strongly and even urged that they let it alone; but after an argument of days Mr. Barry decided against him."
Fred met Linda's frowning gaze. He waited while her face flushed, then watched while the red tide sank. In her concentrated look she appeared to be angry; and Fred hurried on defensively.
"I tell you, Linda, I thought you ought to know this. You've always stood for fair play, and there the whole business world has been knocking Bertram King for months. He was a good fighter – but they knocked him down at last. If you'd seen him as I did, lying there, burning up with fever, and babbling scraps of talk that showed how he has worried – "
Linda leaned forward and took Fred Whitcomb's surprised hand in one as cold as ice. Her brow still frowned, but the relaxed lips parted.
"Thank you for telling me; thank you," she said.
Mrs. Porter hurriedly gathered together her sewing materials, stuffed them into her silk workbag, and rose.
Whitcomb, much relieved by Linda's words, also stood up.
"Don't disturb yourselves," said Mrs. Porter; "I am going home to pack. I shall go at once to Chicago."
"Do you mean to King?" asked Whitcomb.
"Of course." Mrs. Porter also seized the young man's hand, and her moist eyes poured out their gratitude. "I can't tell you, Mr. Whitcomb, how I thank you, for befriending him: it's impossible."
Fred smiled broadly. "Oh, say," he returned, "you don't need to pack. King is here."
"What!"
"Sure thing. I wouldn't have come without him. Not on your life. He didn't care much about it, but then he didn't care much about anything, and Mrs. Lindsay had said it was doing Madge a world of good – and Linda was here," – the speaker turned and looked down at Linda, leaning back against the rock with a face as stony as its gray wall, – "so I bundled the poor chap on the train, and here we are."
"At that awful Benslow place?" gasped Mrs. Porter.
"It isn't so worse," said Fred. "I'm a dandy camper and I'll take care of King myself. The doctors told me just what to stuff him with, and, believe me, I'm going to stuff him. He doesn't slide off this planet till he gets some of the justice that's coming to him. Not if I know it. I haven't talked to him yet about my discovery of the letters, but I told Henry Radcliffe all about it the night before we left and he can do as he pleases about telling Harriet."
"Mr. Whitcomb, you have earned my life-long gratitude," repeated Mrs. Porter. "Between us we will put that dear boy on his feet again. I'm off to see him. Good-bye."
Linda felt hurt that not by word or look did her friend recognize the misery Mrs. Porter must have known she was suffering. Lightly that lady sped away around the clump of birches and was gone; and Fred Whitcomb's sturdy shoulders dropped down again near Linda's rock divan.
"I thought you were looking great when I came up a few minutes ago," he said, examining her, "but it seems to me you might raise a little more color in this perfectly wonderful air."
"You've given me a great shock, Fred."
"Well, I hated to seem to disparage your father in any way," he returned tenderly, "but I knew – I just knew, Linda, you'd want to see King get fair play."
"I do. I have blamed him cruelly myself."
"How could you help it when everybody was feeling the same way? Does he know you blamed him?"
"Yes."
"I wonder if that had anything to do with his not seeing you off that morning in Chicago?"
"Probably."
"I blamed him for that; but now," added Whitcomb, happily, "everything is understood. We mustn't have another sorrowful minute." Linda's lips were looking as if there were only sorrow on earth. "There's a great reaction in Chicago in favor of your father," he added. "The excitement has calmed down, and when Lambert Barry is spoken of now it's with the same old respect, Linda; the same old respect."
"And Bertram has done that," she said slowly.
"Indeed, he has, and as he comes back to strength he's going to feel pretty good over it, too, I can tell you. So – take a brace, Linda. I'm so happy to see you, I can hardly contain myself."
"What a good fellow you are, Fred!"
"You mean for standing by King? Think what he's done for me. Snatched my savings like brands from the burning. My boss, too, is a big beneficiary by King's efforts, and he gave me an extra long vacation so I could come up here and look after him."
"Is he very weak?"
"Not any worse than you'd expect." Whitcomb's constitutional inability to look on the dark side shone in his happy eyes. "That Cap'n Jerry of yours is a dandy, though. He brought us over from the station and he whiled the time away telling how suddenly people either convalesced or died here. King coughs a little, and that inspired the genial captain to tell of his brother who'd been 'coughin' quite a spell'; and how 'sudden' he went off at the last. He said, 'Bill got up one mornin', et a good breakfast; then all to once he fetched a couple o' hacks and was gone!'"
"Fred!" Linda frowned and smiled.
"He did, for a fact. King says he positively refuses to fetch two consecutively."
"He jokes, then," Linda spoke wistfully.
"Oh, yes. He's as game as ever."
"Fred," – Linda clasped her hands tightly together, – "you don't know how cruel – how beastly I've been to Bertram."
"Oh, forget it," Fred's worshiping eyes met the mourning gaze.
"I'd like to; and I could if Bertram would, but he never will, I'm afraid. He hates me."
"He'll get over it."
"Tell me, Fred, – you must have spoken to him about me. What does he say?"
Whitcomb looked off as if consulting his memory. "I can't remember his mentioning your name since Reason resumed her throne. He used to babble about you and your father, too, during his illness; but nothing connected: nothing that I can remember."
"I'm really surprised that he was willing to come where I was staying."
"I don't believe he knew it till we were on the train. I told him about the Lindsays and that I believed it was the right place for him."
"But he must have known this was where Mrs. Porter was, and that she was with Aunt Belinda. He must have known I was with them."
Whitcomb shrugged his shoulders under this insistence. "Perhaps he did," he admitted. "I spoke several times about you on the train, of course, – how I anticipated seeing you and all that." The speaker's eyes again sought some personal reassurance from his companion's distant gaze.
"And he didn't say anything?"
"I don't remember. I didn't notice. I don't think so."
"Fred," – Linda leaned forward in her earnestness and wrung her hands together, – "you don't know how hard it is for me to sit here and wait instead of running —running to Bertram and confessing the wrong I've done and imploring his forgiveness."
"None of that: none of that." Whitcomb raised a warning hand. "You mustn't say things to King to excite him. He's glassware, remember, glassware." The speaker sank on his elbow, bringing his eager, boyish face nearer the girl's white gown. His hat was on the grass beside him and his thick hair fell forward in his movement.
"But here I am, Linda," he added, in a different tone, "husky to the limit. When it comes to me, go as far as you like. You haven't seemed conscious of me yet."
"Oh, yes, I'm conscious of you. I'm very grateful to you for finding out the truth and taking such care of Bertram." The girl's eyes were glowing in her pale face. "'Instead of the thorn'; – Fred, did you ever read the Bible?"
Whitcomb sat up under the sudden question, and stared at her.
"The Bible!" he repeated. "Why, sure thing – some of it."
"There's a promise in it, 'Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree.' It struck some chord in me when first I read it and it seems to mean more and more. See those firs," – Linda waved her hand to where on the other side of the little brook the soft variation of color in the evergreens stood against the sky. "Breathe the balm they send out in the air? Mrs. Porter has shown me how it just rests with us to do away with the wounding thorn, and receive the peace of the stanch, unchanging fir tree, with its soft, invigorating perfume and color, and the music in its branches. It has come to be a great symbol to me – the fir tree."
"Hurrah for the Tannenbaum," returned Whitcomb, mechanically, not knowing what to say to this changed Linda with the exalted eyes.
"You have done a wonderful thing for me to-day, Fred; and if only I could wipe out from my own and Bertram's memory my wickedness, the fir tree could at once begin to come up; but my father suffered for his mistake and I must suffer for mine. To be patient – to put down my willfulness – to be willing just to guard my thoughts and to think right and to leave all the rest to God – that's my lesson; and you know how hard it is for me, Fred. You know how I've always managed, and dictated, and carried my point, and never had any patience."
"You suit me all right, whatever you've done," blurted out Whitcomb, upon whom Linda's matter-of-course mention of the Creator had made a profound impression. "You've changed a lot in some ways," he went on, rather dejectedly, "but in a certain line where I'm interested, you don't seem to have made much progress. I'm the biggest donkey this side of Cairo, I know that; but when I'm away from you, I forget all the discouraging things you've ever said, and I build a lot of castles-in-the-air, each one more attractive than the last, and then the minute I get with you, with a simple twist of the wrist you tumble them all about my ears."
"Oh, Freddy!"
"Don't you 'Oh, Freddy' me. I was awfully afraid of King at one time, but when I found he wasn't in the race, I felt there wasn't anybody ahead of me and Holdfast's a good dog. I made up my mind to win."
"Oh, Fred!"
"Why shouldn't my thorn be pulled up, too? Why shouldn't I have a nice Tannenbaum with just one gift hanging on it?"
"Because, Fred, we can't any of us outline. We must be faithful and unselfish and let things grow right, and they will, because we were created for happiness. Mrs. Porter says so."
"Oh, she has inside information, has she?" returned Whitcomb, with as near an approach to a sneer as his wholesome nature could come.
"Yes, that's a very good name for it," returned Linda promptly. "Even I, Fred," she added humbly, "even I have had some inside information. In not getting me," she added gently, "you will get something better if we're all thinking right."
Silence, during which Whitcomb gloomily uprooted such long grasses as grew near him.
"I have no expectation of marrying anyone," said Linda, "and you are a hero in my eyes to-day, if that is any comfort to you."
Whitcomb lifted a frowning, obstinate gaze to hers.
"Holdfast's a good dog," he said sententiously. Presently he spoke again. "It's time for King to eat. I must go."
"I'll walk with you as far as Aunt Belinda's."
Whitcomb helped her gather up books and work and they moved away together.