CHAPTER XXI
THE third time that Chadwick Booth was thrown across Reba's path followed so soon after the second occasion, that it seemed almost a continuation of it. It was only three days after Chadwick Booth had asked Reba to let him take her somewhere in his car, that Katherine Park, one warm June Saturday morning, announced in her playfully authoritative manner that she was going to carry Reba off home with her for over Sunday, so please to be ready at five sharp.
The untarnished pleasure that Reba had felt over the unexpected invitation made Dr. Booth and the tone of his voice and the change of his manner when he had said, "we can take the long way round home" fade into insignificance. As Reba made preparation that Saturday morning for the afternoon start at five sharp upon that short, but to her momentous, journey, to the high-court of the house where Katherine Park lived, she had no presentiment of the nature of the awakening that was awaiting her there.
The Park residence proved to be a large, vine-covered, frame house, set low, upon a rolling close-cropped lawn, spread out beneath high chestnut trees, trimmed as sleek as clipped horses. The front door was approached by a long gravel drive, that had been lately raked over—more pleasing than the concrete drive at 89 Chestnut Street, Reba concluded.
In fact, everything about the Park home (the only home, that she had ever spent a Sunday in, besides her own) made the dull gray shell at the top of Chestnut Street appear a soulless thing. There was a feeling of luxury about the Park home, the minute one stepped foot in it. This was not confined to its furnishings (there was a great deal too much furniture, Katherine's sensitive architect brother, Gerard, complained), but the same superfluity, obvious in the over-supply of armchairs, drop-lights, cigar-stands, long row of magazines and periodicals, laid out upon the library table, and piled here and there on numerous stands and bookcase tops around the edge of the room, was manifest also in the miscellaneous array of people, who appeared to be making their permanent or temporary headquarters under the expansive Park roof.
Reba couldn't straighten them all out, or explain the presence of half of them there. They were not all Parks, by any means. Upon her arrival she had been introduced to a confusing group of individuals, which she and Katherine had found on the broad veranda when they had driven up in the automobile. They were consuming bits of lemon from an otherwise empty pitcher which not long since must have been well-filled with some sort of refreshment, from the appearance of the dozen or thereabouts empty glasses carelessly distributed on chair-seats, piazza-rails, and window-sills.
Reba could not make out why certain of the people on that veranda, such as Tommy Blake, for instance, ("a neighbor of ours," it had been tossed to her during the hurried introduction) remained for the evening repast in the dining-room, while others, such as Katherine's own mother, were absent. It was easily enough explained, of course. Tommy's people were away and Mrs. Park was presiding at a meeting of some sort in a near-by town-hall. She was presiding pretty continually that spring, Katherine told Reba. Liked it, as some other women liked to give dinner-parties, or to shine in the drawing-room.
The Park house was a Liberty-Hall sort of place. Everybody did as he or she pleased. There seemed to be no distinction made, either, between family and guest. Such freedom! Such informality! At first Reba felt frightened by it all, but after her first plunge she discovered to her relief that her silence, behind which she hid her shyness (and with some grace and distinction now) would be less noticeable in such an uproar. It was really necessary for somebody to sit quiet and listen. Saturday night at the Park home was always rather noisy, with a college boy at home, and several of his pals, and "Unexpecteds" (Katherine's expression) dropping in from no one knew where.
Katherine had conducted Reba, upon their arrival, to two of the guest-rooms on the third floor, before she found one unoccupied.
"Tell me if there's anything you want," she had said, as she had left Reba. "And put on the blue-gray dress. Dinner is somewhere around half-past-six or seven. I'll come up for you, and I'm going to have you sit beside the darlingest man alive."
The "darlingest man alive" proved to be Alexander Park, a vague name to Reba, but one often seen in the papers—a banker or lawyer, one of the two, Reba believed—and Katherine's father. After Katherine had placed one of her playful kisses on the end of his nose, just as they were sitting down to dinner about half-past seven, and then twisted the bit of gray hair on top of his head into a funny little peak, so that he looked like a Campbell twin, and called him an "old dear," Reba's awe of him disappeared a little, and she felt as if she could almost love him herself, when he reached over and squeezed her idol's hand, and said, "There's none finer than my Katherine!"
That such a relation between father and daughter existed, that such a home life as the Parks' was an actuality, were revelations to Reba! And in New England too! All New England Yankees were not, then, restricted and parsimonious, for the Parks were New England Yankees to the bone. Katherine often boasted of it.
It was after the bountiful repast was finished (Reba thought she had never seen quite so big a roast), when the noisy group around the dinner-table had moved to the vine-shrouded veranda, that out of the darkness of the drive, along which, a scant four hours before, Reba had rolled into this amazing atmosphere, an automobile appeared, drew up before the two or three granite steps that led up to the front door of the Park house, and stopped.
"Hello!" lustily sung out one of the Parks.
"Who are you, stranger?" called another.
"Get out and come in," invited the perfectly-at-home Tommy Blake, though Reba wondered at his presumption.
Gerard Park lazily uncrossed his knees, got up, and strolled over toward the granite steps.
"Hello, Gerard," said some one from the dark interior of the closed automobile.
"Oh! You? Hello, Chad!" replied Gerard. "Glad to see you. Come on up."
"City is pretty dead," Reba heard a familiar voice responding, as she observed with fluttering heart a familiar figure letting himself out of the car. "My people all away. Thought I might find somebody alive out here," he explained, approaching Gerard Park and shaking hands with him. "How are you?"
"It's Chad Booth," Gerard Park announced to the group on the dark veranda. "You know Doctor Booth, don't you, Katherine, and Constance?"
The two older Park sisters replied, "Oh, yes indeed. Good evening, Doctor Booth!"
And Gerard went on, "Do you know Miss Hills, my aunt, Chad? And my father? And—let's see—it's so dark here—Miss Quigley over there by the railing, and next to her kid-sister Peggy, and Miss Jerome, and Mrs. Remington, and Tommy Blake—you know Tommy?" (Oh, yes indeed, he knew Tommy) "and over where you see that swarm of cigarette glow-worms, a dozen or so, more or less, hungry men from Cambridge Jimmie picked up on his way out. Well, how are you, Chad? Sit down."
Reba moved her chair back a bit into a deeper shadow. She was glowing all over with excitement. Think of it! Meeting him socially like this! Chadwick Booth! She! Think of her, Rebecca Jerome, mixing up familiarly with people of this sort.
She watched Dr. Booth sit down in the chair somebody shoved up for him, accept a cigarette somebody else offered, and light it in his fine manner with as keen delight as ever she had watched and admired an actor on the stage. What a gentleman he was! How clearly he enunciated the few formal sentences he addressed to Miss Quigley beside whom he was seated. Later, how well he expressed himself to Mr. Park on the inexhaustible topic of the European War. The realization that this man had asked her to go riding with him three days ago in the very car drawn up there in the Park drive filled Reba with tingling pride. Why, this man's cigarette ashes she had held in the palm of her hand! This man's firm shoulder muscles she had felt beneath her arm!
He had no idea that she was there—hadn't caught her name in Gerard Park's off-hand introduction, of course, and even if he had, would not have connected her with the official young lady who occupied the desk in the Red Cross rooms at the Alliance. It was fortunate. Reba didn't want to be discovered; didn't, of all things, want to appear at a disadvantage before Dr. Booth, and she would be sure to in this unfamiliar setting.
She began hoping after the first half-hour had passed that he would rise and go, and relieve her of the apprehension of discovery. At any moment, it suddenly occurred to her, the conversation might veer about, so that Katherine Park would recall Dr. Booth's connection with her position at the Alliance, and mention it.
It was not thus, however, that Chadwick recognized Reba. He must have been sitting there on the veranda a full hour when Tommy Blake suddenly shoved back his chair and disappeared into the house. A minute later a victrola just inside an open window began playing the opening phrases of a popular dance; and Tommy, returning, made significant motions with his arms and feet to Mrs. Remington seated on the piazza railing.
"All right, Tommy," Mrs. Remington nodded back, and hopped down from her perch and disappeared with Tommy Blake inside the house.
"Oh, that's fine!" exclaimed Mr. Park, abruptly interrupting his own argument. "Have some dancing, you young people. Go into the music-room, roll up the rugs, and have some dancing."
Reba's heart contracted. Could it be worse? The glare of lights! And dancing! True enough, she did help Katherine Park in the simple instruction of the modern steps at the Alliance every noon, but that was different. She had, moreover, covertly taken private lessons with a Miss Boutwell at a fashionable Back Bay hotel, so as to make herself more adept as an instructor. But Miss Boutwell was not a man. Reba had never danced yet with a man. Oh, she couldn't try it for the first time, here—now!
Could she not escape somehow? Weren't there some back-steps somewhere? There were concealing shrubs enough about the house where she could hide herself till the music stopped, if she could once get off the veranda. But how? Where? The couples were rapidly pairing off. Katherine already had been borne away by one of the college men. Reba looked about her desperately.
Then suddenly she became aware of a tall figure before her, and a voice politely inquiring, "Won't you try this with me?"
Of course it was he! Of course it was Dr. Booth! Of course Fate would be as cruel as it possibly could!
"I'm afraid I'm not very good at it," Reba stammered.
"I'm sure you are," he assured her politely.
"I'm not, really."
"Oh, well, let's try it, anyhow—out here, if you prefer." He motioned to a dark end of the veranda.
"Well, I will try," Reba miserably acquiesced at last.
She did try, though after the first half-minute there was no more "try," no more endeavor about it than about a ribbon of smoke that drifts whither the slightest breeze desires.
Miss Boutwell had told her that she was as light as a feather, had complimented her dancing; but then, Miss Boutwell was a teacher, took her money. She had found pleasure in dancing with Miss Boutwell. But this!
There was a terrace with a smooth marble floor that was laid flush with the close-cropped lawn, running along the length of the music-room in which the others were dancing, and after the first revealing five minutes on the veranda, Chadwick Booth said quietly to his partner, "Let us go down there," and led the way down an easy step or two, off the veranda onto the dimly glowing surface of the balustraded terrace. Upon the terrace, through the open windows the music filtered softly; above it the faint stars gleamed; and about it crowded fragrant shrubs, which now and again, through succeeding one-step, waltz, and fox-trot, brushed Reba caressingly as she passed by them.
Thus Dr. Booth and Reba danced for some twenty minutes or half an hour, alone out there in the dark—Reba too awed and frightened to speak, and Chadwick Booth too appreciative of the mysterious silence of his fairy-footed partner to jar the situation with anything so crude as speech. Even through the short intervals between the records they neither of them attempted conversation, simply stood and waited—Chadwick Booth with folded arms trying to make out the features of the slight, hand-clasped girl before him, who was so cleverly creating an interesting situation by her baffling silence, wondering with piqued curiosity who and what she was.
Finally, in the midst of a waltz, he murmured softly, "By George, but you can dance!"
And Reba replied, "I never danced with a man before in my life!"
Of course he didn't take her words literally. "And I never danced with a woman before!" he whispered, and pressed her a little closer.
It was Katherine Park's bright voice that interrupted that magic waltz under the stars.
"Come on in, you two," she called from the window. "We all have had enough in here, and are moving on to the dining-room. Gerard's foraging for something cold." Then immediately she left the window and appeared a second later on the veranda above Reba and her partner. She pushed a button, and flooded the place with sudden light. "Can you see?" she asked them. "There are some steps buried under that honey-suckle somewhere, just here, I think," she directed, and as they approached she added, "It never occurred to me till just a minute ago that you two know each other at the Alliance." Then turning and walking toward the door she called back over her shoulder, "Come in and get something cold to drink."
The light that she had turned on fell full upon Chadwick Booth and Reba as they mounted the steps, and Reba saw the surprised expression on Dr. Booth's face as he looked down and slowly recognized her.
"You?" he exclaimed softly. Then, "Know each other!" He gave a little pleased laugh, "Oh, no, we don't! Not half, yet!"