The Squirrel Inn

"I will be sensible, like Ida," she thought. "I will go out and let things happen as they may."

She went out into the young moonlight and, glancing across the lawn, saw, near the edge of the bluff that commanded the western view, two persons sitting upon a bench. Their backs were towards her, but one of them she knew to be Calthea Rose.

"I hope that is not poor Mr. Tippengray," said Mrs. Cristie to herself. "If she has secured him already, and taken him out there, I am afraid that even Ida will not be able to get him away from her. Ida must still be at her supper. I should not have detained her so long."

But Ida was not at her supper. As she turned towards the end of the lawn Mrs. Cristie saw her nurse-maid slowly strolling over the grass, a man on each side of her. They were plainly to be seen, and one man was Mr. Tippengray and the other Lanigan Beam. The three were engaged in earnest conversation. Mrs. Cristie smiled.

"I need not have feared for Ida," she thought; "she must have made a bold stroke to leave her rival in the lurch in that way, but I suppose in order to get one man she has to take both. It is a little hard on Miss Calthea"; and with an amused glance towards the couple on the bluff she moved towards the gardens. Her mind was in a half-timorous and undetermined state, in which she would have been glad to wander about by herself and to meet nobody, or, if it so should happen, glad to meet somebody; and wistfully, but yet timidly, she wondered which it would be. All at once she heard a step behind her. In spite of herself she started and flushed, and, turning, saw Mr. Petter. The sight of this worthy gentleman was a shock to her. She had been sure he was sitting with Calthea Rose on the bluff. If it was not he, who was it?

"I am glad to see you, Mrs. Cristie," said the landlord of the inn, "for I want to speak with you. My mind is disturbed, and it is on account of your assistant, Miss Mayberry. She has been talked about in a way that I do not at all like. I may even say that my wife has been urging me to use my influence with you to get her dismissed. I assured Mrs. Petter, however, that I should use that influence, if it exists, in exactly the opposite direction. Shall we walk on together, Mrs. Cristie, while I speak further on the subject? I have a high opinion of Miss Mayberry. I like her because she is what I term blooded. Nothing pleases me so much as blooded service, and, I may add, blooded associations and possessions. So far as I am able to have it so, my horses, my cattle, and all my live stock are blooded. I consider my house, this inn, to be a blooded house. It can trace its various lines of architectural ancestry to honorable origins. The company at my house, with the exception of Lanigan Beam, – who, however, is not a full guest, but rather a limited inmate, ascending by a ladder to his dormitory, – are, if you will excuse me for saying so, blooded. And that one of these guests should avail herself of blooded service is to me a great gratification, of which I hope I shall not be deprived. To see a vulgar domestic in Miss Mayberry's place would wound and pain me, and I may say, Mrs. Cristie that I have been able to see no reason whatever for such substitution."

Mrs. Cristie had listened without a word, but as she listened she had been asking herself who that could be with Calthea Rose. If it was not Walter Lodloe, who was it? And if it was he, why was he there? And if he was there, why did he stay there? Of course she was neither jealous nor worried nor troubled by such a thing, but the situation was certainly odd. She had come out expecting something, she did not know exactly what; it might not have been a walk among the sweet-pea blossoms, but she was very certain it was not a conversation with Mr. Petter, while Walter Lodloe sat over there in the moonlight with Calthea Rose.

"You need not have given yourself any anxiety," she said to her companion, "for I have not the slightest idea of discharging Ida. She suits me admirably, and what they say about her is all nonsense; of course I do not mean any disrespect to Mrs. Petter."

Mr. Petter deprecatingly waved his hand.

"I understand perfectly your reference to my wife," he said "Her mind, I think, has been acted upon by others. Allow me to say, madam, that your words have encouraged and delighted me. I feel we are moving in the right direction. I breathe better."

"How is it possible," thought Mrs. Cristie, during the delivery of this speech, "that he can sit there, and sit, and sit, and sit, when he knows at this hour I am always somewhere about the house or grounds, and never in my room? Well, if he likes to sit there, let him sit"; and with this she looked up with some vivacity into the face of her landlord and asked him if even his pigeons and his chickens were blooded, and if the pigs were also of good descent. As she spoke she slightly accelerated her pace.

Mr. Petter was very willing to walk faster, and to talk about all that appertained to his beloved Squirrel Inn, and so they walked and talked until they reached the garden and disappeared from view behind the tall shrubbery that bordered the central path.

Mrs. Petter sat on a little Dutch porch, looking out on the lawn, and her mind was troubled. She wished to talk to Mr. Petter, and here he was strolling about in the moonlight with that young widow. Of course there was nothing in it, and it was perfectly proper for him to be polite to his guests, but there were lines in politeness as well as in other things, and they ought to be drawn before people went off walking by themselves in the garden at an hour when most farmers were thinking about going to bed. The good lady sat very uneasily on her little bench. The night air felt damp to her and disagreeable; she was sure there were spiders and other things running about the porch floor, and there were no rounds to the bench on which she could put her feet. But she could not bear to go in, for she had not the least idea in the world where they had gone to. Perhaps they might walk all the way to Lethbury, for all she knew. At this moment a man came up to the porch. It was Lanigan Beam, and his soul was troubled. The skilful Miss Mayberry had so managed the conversation in which she and the two gentlemen were engaged, that its subject matter became deeper and deeper in its character, until poor Lanigan found that it was getting very much too deep for him. As long as he could manage to keep his head above water he stood bravely, but when he was obliged to raise himself on the tips of his toes, and even then found the discourse rising above his chin, obliging him to shut his mouth and to blink his eyes, he thought it wise to strike out for shore before he made a pitiful show of his lack of mental stature.

And in a very bad humor Lanigan walked rapidly to the house, where he was much surprised to see Mrs. Petter on the little Dutch porch.

"Why, madam," he exclaimed, "I thought you never sat out after nightfall."

"As a rule, I don't," the good lady answered, "and I oughtn't to now; but the fact is – " She hesitated, but it was not necessary to finish the sentence. Mr. Petter and Mrs. Cristie emerged from the garden and stood together just outside its gate. He was explaining to her the origin of some of the peculiar features of the Squirrel Inn.

When the eyes of Mr. Beam fell upon these two, who stood plainly visible in the moonlight, while he and Mrs. Petter were in shadow, his trouble was dissipated by a mischievous hilarity.

"Well, well, well!" said he, "she is a woman."

"Of course she is," said Mrs. Petter; "and what of that, I'd like to know?"

"Now that I think of it," said Lanigan, with a finger on the side of his nose, "I remember that she and her young man didn't have much to say to each other at supper. Quarreled, perhaps. And she is comforting herself with a little flirt with Mr. Petter."

"Lanigan Beam, you ought to be ashamed of yourself," cried the good lady; "you know Mr. Petter never flirts."

"Well, perhaps he doesn't," said Lanigan; "but if I were you, Mrs. Petter, I would take him out a shawl or something to put over his shoulders. He oughtn't to be standing out there in the night wind."

"I shall do nothing of the kind," she answered shortly, "and I oughtn't to be out here in the night air either."

Lanigan gazed at Mrs. Cristie and her companion. If that charming young widow wanted some one to walk about with her in the moonlight, she could surely do better than that. Perhaps a diversion might be effected and partners changed.

"Mrs. Petter," said he, "I wouldn't go in, if I were you. If you move about you will be all right. Suppose we stroll over that way."

"I am ready to stroll," said Mrs. Petter, in a tone that showed she had been a good deal stirred by her companion's remarks, "but I am not going to stroll over that way. The place is big enough for people to keep to themselves, if they choose, and I am one that chooses, and I choose to walk in the direction of my duty, or, more properly, the duty of somebody else, and see that the hen-houses are shut"; and, taking Lanigan's arm, she marched him down to the barn, and then across a small orchard to the most distant poultry-house within the limits of the estate.

When Mr. Stephen Petter, allowing his eyes to drop from the pointed roof of his high tower, saw his wife and Lanigan Beam walking away among the trees in the orchard, he suddenly became aware that the night air was chilly, and suggested to his companion that it might be well to return to the house.

"Oh, not yet, Mr. Petter," said she; "I want you to tell me how you came to have that little turret over the thatched roof."

She had determined that she would not go indoors while Calthea Rose and Mr. Lodloe sat together on that bench.

Early in the evening Miss Calthea had seen Mr. Lodloe walking by himself upon the bluff, and she so arranged a little promenade of her own that in passing around some shrubbery she met him near the bench. Miss Calthea was an admirable manager in dialogue, and if she had an object in view it did not take her long to find out what her collocutor liked to talk about. She had unusual success in discovering something which very much interested Mr. Lodloe, and they were soon seated on a bench discussing the manners and ways of life in Lethbury.

To a man who recently had been seized with a desire to marry and to live in Lethbury, and who had already taken some steps in regard to the marriage, this subject was one of the most lively interest, and Lodloe was delighted to find what a sensible, practical, and well-informed woman was Miss Rose. She was able to give him all sorts of points about buying a building or renting houses in Lethbury, and she entered with the greatest zeal into the details of living, service, the cost of keeping a horse, a cow, and poultry, and without making any inconvenient inquiries into the reasons for Mr. Lodloe's desire for information on these subjects. She told him everything he wanted to know about housekeeping in her native village, because she had made herself aware that his mind was set on that sort of thing. In truth she did not care whether he settled in Lethbury or some other place, or whether he ever married and settled at all. All she wished was to talk to him in such a way that she might keep him with her as long as possible. She wished this because she liked to keep a fine-looking young man all to herself, and also because she thought that the longer she did so the more uneasiness she would cause Mrs. Cristie.

She had convinced herself that it would not do for life to float too smoothly at the Squirrel Inn. She would stir up things here and there, but prudently, so that no matter who became disgusted and went away, it would not be Mr. Tippengray. She was not concerned at present about this gentleman. It was ten to one that by this time Lanigan Beam had driven him away from the child's nurse.

Walter Lodloe was now beginning to feel that it was quite time that his conversation with Miss Rose, which had really lasted much longer than he supposed, should be brought to a close. His manner indicating this, Miss Calthea immediately entered into a most attractive description of a house picturesquely situated on the outskirts of Lethbury, which would probably soon be vacated on account of the owner's desire to go West.

At the other end of the extensive lawn two persons walked backward and forward near the edge of the trees perfectly satisfied and untroubled. What the rest of the world was doing was of no concern whatever to either of them.

"I am afraid, Mr. Tippengray," said the nurse-maid, "that when your Greek version of the literature of to-day, especially its humorous portion, is translated into the American language of the future it will lose much of its point and character."

"You must remember, my dear Miss Mayberry," said the gentleman, "that we do not know what our language will be in eight hundred or a thousand years from now. The English of to-day may be utterly unintelligible to the readers of that era, but that portion of our literature which I put into imperishable and unchangeable Greek will be the same then as now. The scholar may read it for his own pleasure and profit, or he may translate it for the pleasure and profit of others. At all events, it will be there, like a fly in amber, good for all time. All you have to do is to melt your amber, and there you have your fly."

"And a well-shriveled-up fly it would be, I am afraid," said Ida.

Mr. Tippengray laughed.

"Be not too sure of that," he said. "I will translate some of my Greek version of 'Pickwick' back into English, and let you see for yourself how my amber preserves the fly."

"Let me do it," said Ida. "It is a long time since I read 'Pickwick,' and therefore my translation will be a better test."

"Capital!" cried Mr. Tippengray. "I will copy a few lines for you to-night."

From out an open Elizabethan window under a mansard roof, and overlooking a small Moorish veranda, there came a sound of woe. The infant Douglas had awakened from a troubled sleep, and with a wild and piercing cry he made known to his fellow-beings his desire for society. Instantly there was a kaleidoscopic change among the personages on the grounds of the Squirrel Inn. Miss Mayberry darted towards the house; the Greek scholar, without knowing what he was doing, ran after her for a short distance, and then stopped; Mrs. Petter screamed from the edge of the orchard to know what was the matter; and Lanigan ran to see. Mr. Petter, the natural guardian of the place, pricked up his ears and strode towards the inn, his soul filled with a sudden fear of fire. Mrs. Cristie recognized the voice of her child, but saw Ida running, and so, relieved of present anxiety, remained where her companion had left her.

Walter Lodloe, hearing Mrs. Petter's voice and the running, sprang from his seat; and seeing that it would be impossible to detain him now, and preferring to leave rather than to be left, Miss Calthea hurried away to see what was the matter.

XXII

THE BLOSSOM AND THE LITTLE JAR

Perceiving Mrs. Cristie standing alone near the entrance to the garden, Walter Lodloe walked rapidly towards her. As he approached she moved in the direction of the house.

"Will you not stop a moment?" he said. "Do not go in yet."

"I must," she answered; "I have been out here a long while – too long."

"Out here a long time!" he exclaimed. "You surprise me. Please stop one moment. I want to tell you of a most interesting conversation I have had with Miss Rose. It has animated me wonderfully."

Considering what had occurred that afternoon, this remark could not fail to impress Mrs. Cristie, and she stopped and looked at him. He did not give her time to ask any questions, but went on:

"I have been asking her about life in Lethbury – houses, gardens, everything that relates to a home in that delightful village. And what she has told me opens a paradise before me. I did not dream that down in that moon-lighted valley I should be almost rich; that I could offer you – "

"And may I ask," she interrupted, "if you have been talking about me to Miss Rose?"

"Not a word of it," he answered warmly. "I never mentioned your name, nor referred to you in any way."

She could not help ejaculating a little sarcastically:

"How circumspect!"

"And now," he said, coming closer to her, "will you not give me an answer? I love you, and I cannot wait. And oh! speak quickly, for here comes Mrs. Petter straight towards us."

"I do not like Lethbury," said Mrs. Cristie.

Lodloe could have stamped his feet, in the fire of his impatience.

"But of me, of myself," he said. "And oh! speak quickly, she is almost here."

"Please cease," said Mrs. Cristie; "she will hear you."

Mrs. Petter came up panting.

"I don't want to interrupt you, Mrs. Cristie," she said, "but really and truly you ought to go to your baby. He has stopped crying in the most startling and suspicious way. Of course I don't know what she has done to him, and whether it's anything surgical or laudanum. And it isn't for me to be there to smell the little creature's breath; but you ought to go this minute, and if you find there is anything needed in the way of mustard, or hot water, or sending for the doctor, just call to me from the top of the stairs."

"My dear Mrs. Petter," said Mrs. Cristie, "why didn't Calthea Rose come and tell me this herself, instead of sending you?"

"She said that she thought you would take it better from me than from her; and after we had made up our minds about it, she said I ought not to wait a second."

"Well," said Mrs. Cristie, "it was very good in you to come to me, but I do not feel in the least alarmed. It was Ida's business to quiet the child, and I have no doubt she did it without knives or poison. But now that you are here, Mrs. Petter, I wish to ask your opinion about something that Mr. Lodloe has been talking of to me."

The young man looked at her in astonishment.

"He has been telling me," continued Mrs. Cristie, "of a gentleman he knows, a person of education, and accustomed to society, who had conceived the idea of living in Lethbury. Now what do you think of that?"

"Well," said Mrs. Petter, "if he's married, and if his wife's got the asthma, or he's got it himself, I have heard that Lethbury is good for that sort of complaint. Or if he's failed in business and has to live cheap; or if he is thinking of setting up a store where a person can get honest wash-goods; or if he has sickly children, and isn't particular about schools, I suppose he might as well come to Lethbury as not."

"But he has none of those reasons for settling here," said Mrs. Cristie.

"Well, then," remarked Mrs. Petter, somewhat severely, "he must be weak in his mind. And if he's that, I don't think he's needed in Lethbury."

As she finished speaking the good woman turned and beheld her husband just coming out of the house. Being very desirous of having her talk with him, and not very well pleased at the manner in which her mission had been received, she abruptly betook herself to the house.

"Now, then," said Mrs. Cristie, turning to Lodloe, "what do you think of that very explicit opinion?"

"Does it agree with yours?" he asked.

"Wonderfully," she replied. "I could not have imagined that Mrs. Petter and I were so much of a mind."

"Mrs. Cristie," said Lodloe, "I drop Lethbury, and here I stand with nothing but myself to offer you."

The moon had now set, the evening was growing dark, and the lady began to feel a little chilly about the shoulders.

"Mr. Lodloe," she asked, "what did you do with that bunch of sweet peas you picked this afternoon?"

"They are in my room," he said eagerly. "I have put them in water. They are as fresh as when I gathered them."

"Well," she said, speaking rather slowly, "if to-morrow, or next day, or any time when it may be convenient, you will bring them to me, I think I will take them."

In about half an hour Mrs. Cristie went into the house, feeling that she had stayed out entirely too late. In her room she found Ida reading by a shaded lamp, and the baby sleeping soundly. The nurse-maid looked up with a smile, and then turned her face again to her book. Mrs. Cristie stepped quietly to the mantelpiece, on which she had set the little jar from Florence, but to her surprise there was nothing in it. The sweet-pea blossom was gone. After looking here and there upon the floor, she went over to Ida, and in a low voice asked her if she had seen anything of a little flower that had been in that jar.

"Oh, yes," said the girl, putting down her book; "I gave it to baby to amuse him, and the instant he took it he stopped crying, and very soon went to sleep. There it is; I declare, he is holding it yet."

Mrs. Cristie went softly to the bedside of the child and, bending over him, gently drew the sweet-pea blossom from his chubby little fist.

XXIII

HAMMERSTEIN

Miss Calthea Rose was up and about very early the next morning. She had work to do in which there must be no delay or loss of opportunity. It was plain enough that her scheme for driving away Ida Mayberry had failed, and, having carefully noted the extraordinary length of time which Mrs. Cristie and Mr. Lodloe spent together under the stars the previous evening, she was convinced that it would not be easy to make that lady dissatisfied with the Squirrel Inn. She therefore determined to turn aside from her plans of exile, to let the child's nurse stay where she pleased, to give no further thought to Lanigan Beam, and to devote all her energies to capturing Mr. Tippengray. She believed that she had been upon the point of doing this before the arrival of intruders on the scene, and she did not doubt that she could reach that point again.

Miss Calthea was very restless that morning; she was much more anxious to begin work than was anybody else on the place. She walked about the ground, went into the garden, passed the summer-house on her way there and back again, and even wandered down to the barnyard, where the milking had just begun. If any one had been roaming about like herself, she could not have failed to observe such person. But there was no one about until a little before breakfast-time, when Mr. Petter showed himself.

This gentleman greeted Calthea coolly. He had had a very animated conversation with his wife on the evening before, and had been made acquainted with the unwarrantable enmity exhibited by this village shopkeeper toward Mrs. Cristie's blooded assistant. He was beginning to dislike Calthea, and he remembered that the Rockmores never liked her, and he wished very much that she would cease to spend so much of her time at his house. After breakfast Calthea was more fortunate. She saw the Greek scholar walking upon the lawn, with a piece of writing-paper in his hand. In less than five minutes, by the merest accident in the world, Mr. Tippengray was walking across the lawn with Miss Rose, and he had put his piece of paper into his pocket.

She wanted to ask him something. She would detain him only a few minutes. The questions she put to him had been suggested to her by something she had read that morning – a most meager and unsatisfactory passage. She held in her hand the volume which, although she did not tell him so, had taken her a half-hour to select in Mr. Petter's book room. Shortly they were seated together, and he was answering her questions which, as she knew, related to the most interesting experiences of his life. As he spoke his eyes glistened and her soul warmed. He did not wish that this should be so. He wanted to bring this interview to an end. He was nervously anxious to go back on the lawn, that he might see Miss Mayberry when she came out of doors; that he might show her the lines of "Pickwick" which he had put into Greek, and which she was to turn back into English.

But he could not cut short the interview. Miss Calthea was not an Ancient Mariner; she had never even seen the sea, and she had no glittering eye, but she held him with a listening ear, and never was wedding guest, or any other man, held more securely.

Minutes, quarter-hours, half-hours passed and still he talked and she listened. She guided his speech as a watchful sailor guides his ship, and whichever way she turned it the wind always filled his sails. For the first ten minutes he had been ill at ease, but after that he had begun to feel that he had never so much enjoyed talking. In time he forgot everything but what he had to say, and it was rapture to be able to say it, and to feel that never before had he said it so well.