CHAPTER XXX
AGAIN LUCY NARRATES
NO one was more surprised than I on the morning of the Fourth of July, when Ruth unexpectedly arrived from New York.
We Vars were all at Edith's in Hilton, even to Tom and Elise, who had taken a cottage on the Cape for the summer and were able to run up and join us all for the holiday. Will and I had motored up from our university town, and even Malcolm had put in an appearance. I had advised Edith not to bother to write Ruth about the impromptu reunion. I had understood that she was traveling around somewhere with her prominent suffrage leader, Mrs. Scot-Williams. Ruth is a woman of affairs now, and I try not to disturb her with family trivialities. The reunion was not to be a joyful occasion anyhow. A cloud hovered over it. We're a loyal family, and if one of us is in trouble, the others all try to help out. Oliver was the one to be helped just at present. The Fourth of July holiday offered an excellent opportunity for us all to meet and talk over his problem.
Oliver has always been financially unfortunate. In fact, life has dealt out everything in the line of blessings stingily to Oliver, except, possibly, babies. To Oliver and Madge had been born four children. With the last one there had settled upon Madge a persistent little cough. We didn't consider it anything serious. She didn't herself, and when Oliver dropped in one night at Will's and my house, just a week before the Fourth of July, and said something about spots on her lungs, and Colorado immediately, it was a shock. The doctor wanted Madge to start within a week. He was going out to Colorado with another patient and could take her along with him at the same time. He would allow only Marjorie, the oldest little girl, to accompany her mother. The others must positively be left behind. He couldn't predict anything. The lungs were in a serious condition. However, if the climate proved beneficial, Madge would have to stay in Colorado at least six months.
Now Oliver and Madge live very economically. They can't afford governesses and trained nurses. Madge, poor girl, had to go away not knowing what arrangement was to be made for the care of the two little girls and infant son, the first Vars heir, by the way, whom she left behind. Oliver went as far as Hilton with her and got off there with his motherless brood, joining us at Edith's, while Madge and Marjorie were whisked away out West with the doctor and the other patient.
I felt sorry for Oliver. He was anxious and worried, seemed helpless and inadequate. The children hung on him and asked endless questions. He was tired, poor boy, and disheartened. The arrangement we suggested for the children did not please him. Edith had generously offered to assume the care of the little Vars heir. I had said that I would take. Emily, and to Elise was allotted Becky, aged three. We were all in Edith's living-room talking about it, when Ruth suddenly appeared on the scene.
Now Ruth is an interior decorator. Her shop is one of the most successful and exclusive in New York City. We're all very proud of Ruth. When she appeared that day so unexpectedly at the Homestead, I spied her first coming up the walk to Edith's door.
"Well—look what's coming!" I exclaimed, for Ruth was not alone. She was carrying Oliver's littlest girl, Becky.
"Good gracious!" exclaimed Edith.
"Is it Ruth?" asked Malcolm, staring hard through his thick, near-sighted glasses.
"Has she got Becky?" inquired Oliver.
"Explain yourself," laughed Alec, going to the screen door and letting Ruth in.
We all gathered round her.
"Hello, everybody," she smiled at us over Becky's shoulder. She was warm with walking. "Nothing to explain. Just decided to run up here, that's all, and found this poor little thing crying down by the gate. It's Becky, isn't it, Oliver? I haven't seen her for a year."
"It's just a shame you didn't let us meet you," said Edith. "Walking in this weather! I declare it is. Come, give that child to me, and you go on upstairs and get washed up. She's ruining your skirt. Come, Becky."
Becky is an extremely timid little creature. She hadn't let any one but Oliver touch her since Madge had gone the day before. She had been crying most of the time. Her lip quivered at the sight of Edith's outstretched hands. I saw her plump arm tighten around Ruth's neck.
"Here, come, Becky," said Oliver sternly, and offered to take her himself. She turned away even from him. "She takes fancies," explained Oliver. "You're in for it, I'm afraid, Ruth."
"Am I?" Ruth said, flushing unaccountably. "Well, you see," she went on apologetically, "I came upon her down there by the gate just as she had fallen down and hurt her knee. I was the only one to pick her up, so she had to let me. I put powder on the bruised knee. It interested her. It made her laugh. We had quite a game, and when I came away she insisted upon coming, too."
"You see, Madge has started for Colorado," I explained, "and Becky"
"Colorado!" exclaimed Ruth. Of course she didn't know.
We told her about it.
"Poor little lonely kiddie," Ruth said softly afterward, giving Becky a strange little caress with the tip of her finger on the end of the child's infinitesimal nose. "Most as forlorn as some one they don't invite to family reunions any more."
"Why, Ruth," I remonstrated. "We thought—you see"
"Never mind," she interrupted lightly. "I wasn't serious. I'll run upstairs now, and freshen up a bit."
"Come, Becky," ordered Oliver, "get down."
I saw Becky's arm tighten around Ruth's neck again. She's an unaccountable child.
Ruth said quietly, "Let her come upstairs with me, if she wants. I haven't had a welcome like this since the days of poor little Dandy."
An hour later Edith and I found Ruth sitting in a rocking-chair in the room that used to be hers years ago when she was a young girl. She was holding Becky.
"What in the world are you doing?" asked Edith.
"I never held a sleeping child before, and I'm discovering," replied Ruth, softly so as not to disturb Becky. "Aren't the little things limp?"
"Well, put her down now, do," said practical Edith. "We want you downstairs. Luncheon is nearly ready."
"I can't yet," said Ruth. "Every time I start to leave her she cries, and won't let me. Isn't it odd of the little creature? You two go on down. I'll be with you as soon as I can."
Later that afternoon we continued the discussion that Ruth had interrupted. Oliver didn't seem to be any more reconciled to the arrangement than before.
"I hate to break the home all up," he objected. "I want to keep the children together. Madge does, too. I should think there ought to be some one who likes children, and who wants a home, who could come and help me out for six months, who wouldn't cost too much."
"Hired help! No, no. Never works," Tom said, shaking his head.
"You have to be away so much on business, you know, Oliver," I reminded.
Suddenly Ruth spoke, picking up a magazine and opening it. "How would I do, instead of the hired help, Oliver?" she asked, casually glancing at an advertisement. "Becky didn't seem to mind me."
"You!" echoed Malcolm.
"Why, Ruth!" I exclaimed.
"What in the world do you mean?" demanded Edith.
"Oh, thanks," smiled Oliver kindly upon her. "Thanks, Ruth. It is bully of you to offer, but, of course, I wouldn't think of such a thing."
"Why not?" she inquired calmly. "I could give you the entire summer. I'm taking a two months' vacation this year."
"Oh, no, no. No, thanks, Ruth. Our apartment is, no vacation spot. I assure you of that. Hot, noisy, one general housework girl. It certainly is fine of you, but no, thanks, Ruth. Such a sacrifice is not necessary."
"It wouldn't be a sacrifice," remarked Ruth, turning a page of the magazine.
"Oh, come, come, Ruth!" broke in Tom irritably. "Let us not discuss such an impossibility. We're wasting time. You have your duties. This is not one of them. It's a fine impulse, generous. Oliver appreciates it. But it's quite out of the question."
"I don't see why," Ruth pursued. "For an unattached woman to come and take care of her brother's children during her vacation seems to me the most natural thing in the world."
"You know nothing about children," snorted Tom.
"I can learn," Ruth persisted.
Ruth's offer proved to be no passing whim, no sentimental impulse of the moment. Scarcely a week later, and she was actually installed in Oliver's small apartment. The family talked of little else at their various dinner-tables for weeks to come. Of all Ruth's vagaries this seemed the vaguest and most mystifying.
Oliver's apartment is really quite awful, disorderly, crowded, incongruous. It contains a specimen of every kind of furniture since the period of hair-cloth down to mission—cast-offs from the homes of Oliver's more fortunate brothers and sisters. When I first saw Ruth there in the midst of the confusion of unpacking, the room in Irving Place with its old chests and samovars, Esther Claff quietly writing in her corner, the telephone bell muffled to an undisturbing whirr, flashed before me.
The baby was crying. I smelled the odor of steaming clothes, in process of washing in the near-by kitchen. I heard the deep voice of the big Irish wash-woman I had engaged, conversing with the rough Norwegian. Becky was hanging on to Ruth's skirt and begging to be taken up. In the apartment below some one was playing a victrola. I hoped Ruth was not as conscious as I of Van de Vere's at this time in the morning—low bells, subdued voices, velvet-footed attendants, system, order.
"Well, Ruth," I broke out, "I hope you'll be able to stand this. If it's too much you must write and let me know."
She picked up Becky and held her a moment. "I think I shall manage to pull through," she replied.