Father stood straight and glared at her. There was in him nothing of the weary little man who was in awe of Miss Mitchin's. Even his daughter was impressed. She forgot for a moment that she was Mrs. Hartwig, now, and had the best phonograph in Saserkopee. But she took one more shot:
"All the same, it would be a good thing for you if you had some clever people-or some society people-coming here often. It would advertise the place as nothing else would."
"Well, we'll see about that," said Father-which meant, of course, that he wouldn't see about it.
Lulu Hartwig was a source of agitation for two weeks. After Father's outbreak she stopped commenting, but every day when business was light they could feel her accusingly counting the number of customers. But she did not become active again till the Sunday before her going.
The Applebys were sitting up-stairs, that day, holding hands and avoiding Lulu. Below them they heard a motor-car stop, and Mother prepared to go down and serve the tourists. The brazen, beloved voice of Uncle Joe Tubbs of West Skipsit blared out: "Where's the folks, heh? Tell 'em the Tubbses are here."
And Lulu's congealed voice, in answer: "I don't know whether they are at home. If they are, who shall I tell them is calling, please?"
"Huh? Oh, well, just say the Tubbses."
"Mr. and Mrs. Tubbs?"
"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!"
By this time Father and Mother were galloping down-stairs. They welcomed the Tubbses with yelps of pleasure; the four of them sat in rockers on the grass and talked about the Tubbses' boarders, and the Applebys admired to hear that Uncle Joe now ran the car himself. But all of them were conscious that Lulu, in a chiffon scarf and eye-glasses, was watching them amusedly, and the Tubbses uneasily took leave in an hour, pleading the distance back to West Skipsit.
Not till evening, when he got the chance to walk by himself on the beach below the gravel cliffs, did Father quite realize what his daughter had done-that, with her superior manner, she had frightened the Tubbses away. Yet there was nothing to do about it.
Even at her departure there was a certain difficulty, for Lulu developed a resolution to have her parents visit her at Saserkopee. Perhaps she wished to show them in what state she now lived; or it may conceivably be that, in her refined and determined manner, she was fond of her parents. She kissed them repeatedly and was gone with much waving of a handkerchief and yelps of "Now don't forget-you're you're to visit me-be sure and write-Harry, don't stick your head out of the window, d'yuhhearme?"
* * * * *
Lulu's visit had two effects upon the lives of Father and Mother. They found that their quiet love had grown many-fold stronger, sweeter, in the two weeks it had been denied the silly fondnesses of utterance. They could laugh, now that there was no critic of their shy brand of humor. Father stopped on the step and winked an immense shameless wink at Mother, and she sighed and said, with unexpected understanding, "Yes, I'm afraid Lulu is a little-just a leet-le bit-"
"And I reckon we won't be in such a gosh-awful hustle to visit her."
Mother was so vulgar as to grunt, "Well, I guess not!"
That evening they sat in the rose-arbor again. And had tone poems on the mouth-organ. And dreamed that something would happen to make their investment pay.
Another result there was of Lulu's visit. Father couldn't help remembering her suggestion that they ought to bag a social or artistic lion as an attraction for "The T Room." He was delighted to find that, after weeks of vacuous worry, he had another idea.
Now that August, the height of the season, had come, he would capture Mrs. Vance Carter herself.
Mrs. Vance Carter was the widow of the Boothbay Textile Mills millions. She was a Winslow on her father's side, a Cabot on her mother's, and Beacon Street was officially swept from end to end and tidied with little pink feather dusters whenever she returned to Boston. She was so solid that society reporters didn't dare write little items about her, and when she was in Charleston she was invited to the Saint Cecilia Ball. Also she was rather ignorant, rather unhappy, and completely aimless. She and her daughter spent their summers three miles from Grimsby Head, in an estate with a gate-house and a conservatory and a golf course and a house with three towers and other architecture. When America becomes a military autocracy she will be Lady Carter or the Countess of Grimsby.
The Applebys saw her go by every day, in a landaulet with liveried chauffeur and footman.
With breathless secrecy Father planned to entice Mrs. Vance Carter to "The T Room." Once they had her there, she would certainly appreciate the wholesome goodness of Mother's cooking. He imagined long intimate conversations in which Mrs. Carter would say to him, "Mr. Appleby, I can't tell you how much I like to get away from my French cook and enjoy your nice old house and Mrs. Appleby's delicious homey doughnuts." It was easy to win Mrs. Carter, in imagination. Sitting by himself in the rose-arbor while Mother served their infrequent customers or stood at the door unhappily watching for them, Father visualized Mrs. Carter exclaiming over the view from the arbor, the sunset across the moors as seen from their door-which was, Father believed, absolutely the largest and finest sunset in the world. He even went so far as to discover in Mrs. Vance Carter, Mrs. Cabot-Winslow-Carter, a sneaking fondness for cribbage, which, in her exalted social position, she had had to conceal. He saw her send the chauffeur away, and cache her lorgnette, and roll up her sleeves, and simply wade into an orgy of cribbage, with pleasing light refreshments of cider and cakes waiting by the fireplace. Then he saw Mrs. Carter sending all her acquaintances to "The T Room," and the establishment so prosperous that Miss Mitchin would come around and beg the Applebys to enter into partnership.
Father was not such a fool as to believe all his fancies. But hadn't he heard the most surprising tales of how friendly these great folk could be? Why here just the other day he had been reading in the boiler-plate innards of the Grimsby Recorder how Jim Hill, the railroad king, had dropped off at a little station in North Dakota one night, incog., and talked for hours to the young station-master.
He was burning to do something besides helping Mother in the kitchen-something which would save them and pull the tea-room out of the hole. Without a word to Mother he started for Grimsby Hill, the estate of Mrs. Vance Carter. He didn't know what he was going to do, but he was certain that he was going to do something.
As he arrived at the long line of iron picket fence surrounding Grimsby Hill, he saw Mrs. Carter's motor enter the gate. It seemed to be a good omen. He hurried to the gate, peered in, then passed on. He couldn't go and swagger past that exclusive-looking gate-house and intrude on that sweep of rhododendron-lined private driveway. He walked shyly along the iron fence for a quarter of a mile before he got up courage to go back, rush through the towering iron gateway and past the gate-house, into the sacred estate. He expected to hear a voice-it would be a cockney servant's voice-demanding, "'Ere you, wot do you want?" But no one stopped him; no one spoke to him; he was safe among the rhododendrons. He clumped along as though he had important business, secretly patting his tie into shape and smoothing his hair. Just let anybody try to stop him! He knew what he was about! But he really didn't know what he was about; he hadn't the slightest notion as to whether he would go up and invite their dear cribbage-companion Mrs. Carter to come and see them or tack up a "T Room" advertisement on the porch.
He came to a stretch of lawn, with the house and all its three towers scowling down at him. Behind it were the edges of a group of out-buildings. He veered around toward these. Outside the garage he saw the chauffeur, with his livery coat off, polishing a fender. Great! Perhaps he could persuade the chauffeur to help him. He put on what he felt to be a New York briskness, furtively touched his tie again, and skipped up to the chauffeur.