Captivated afresh, she gazed up at him. "Oh, yes, we'll always stand by each other."
The back gate opened and shut, and she ran into the dim garden, where the light from the street drifted down through the faintly stirring boughs of the old sycamore. She could see the silver bole of the tree, and the glimmer of the rose-arbour at the end of the grasswalk. Then, as she sped by, the sound of whispers reached her, and she slackened her pace. "I mean honestly," said a deep voice that she recognized. "You know I mean honestly by you." Then a long, low, despairing sigh, and Aunt Isabella's plaintive notes, "But you don't understand, Joseph. You don't understand--"
Flitting on, while Aunt Isabella called sharply, "Is that you, Jenny Blair? Your mother has been worrying about you," she ran up the back steps and into the house. They might keep their precious secret, she told herself, for she had one now of her own that was far more important. From this evening, as long as she lived, she would have a part in that mysterious world where grownup persons hide the things they do not wish children to know.
"Well, my dear, we were growing anxious about you," remarked her grandfather, who was alone with William, she saw thankfully, in the library.
"My roller-skates tripped me again, Grandfather, and I fell down. You really will give me the money to-night, won't you?"
"I suppose I'll have to, my dear, I can't have you tripping up and bumping your head. Does it hurt?"
"It did dreadfully. And, Grandfather," she asked in a lower tone, "is it true that only bad people live in Penitentiary Bottom? Don't any good people live there?"
"Yes, my child, good people live wherever there are people."
"Is Memoria good, Grandfather?"
"Yes, Memoria is good. She is a good laundress and a good daughter."
"I know who is good too. Mr. Birdsong is good."
"Yes, George is good," the old man answered. "He is a good friend and a good sportsman. Now, you'd better run upstairs. Your mother has been worrying."
CHAPTER 7
All that cloudless June afternoon Jenny Blair watched Mrs. Birdsong make over a satin evening gown from the puffed sleeves and bell-shaped skirt of the 'nineties into the more graceful style of the twentieth century.
"Will you waltz at the party?" she inquired hopefully, while her admiring gaze wandered from the primrose-coloured satin to the rainbow hues of the garden. On Thursday evening there was to be a dance at Curlew, the country home of the Peytons, and Jenny Blair had been invited to spend the night with Bena and watch the illuminated fountain from the upstairs porch of the nursery.
"Only the first and the last waltz with George," Mrs. Birdsong answered, with her brilliant smile, which began in her eyes and wavered in an edge of light on her lips. Beyond her head, with its lustrous waves of deep bronze, the open window framed a climbing pink rose and a border of sky-blue delphinium.
"She is like roses and lilies," the child thought in a singing refrain. "She is like roses and lilies together—roses and lilies." Gliding into prose, she continued, "But I like Mr. Birdsong best. I like him best because we've a secret together." With the thought, an airy bliss was spun like light, like the bloom of pink roses and larkspur, over the bare places within; and a little bird that lived there in a blossoming tree sang over and over, "I know a secret! I know a secret!" She had only to shut her eyelids very tight while she plunged far down into herself, below the whirling specks and gleams that floated before her eyes, and the extraordinary delight of that evening on the pile of lumber, with Mr. Birdsong holding her hand, would rush over her and sink into her depths, as if it were all a part of the sweetness of June. "I know a secret! I know a secret!" piped the strange little bird, flapping its wings, and everything became different, everything became more real and living and splendid.
John Welch had dashed in for a moment to pull her plaits and ask some of the silly questions boys consider amusing. But he had gone out almost immediately to play baseball in a vacant lot; and she was happily alone again with her friend.
"Don't you like John, dear?" Mrs. Birdsong was spreading the width of primrose-coloured satin over her knees, and while she asked the question she picked up a pair of shears from the mahogany sewing-table by her side.
Jenny Blair pondered deeply and decided to be impersonal. "I never could abide boys," she answered.
"I know. They are rather trying, but John is different from most boys. He is very considerate. I sometimes think," she added, with a touch of pride, "that nobody in the world is so considerate of me as John is."
"Not—not more than Mr. Birdsong."
"Oh, George—well, yes, of course I was not thinking of George. But John is an unusual boy. Your grandfather thinks he has a great deal of character."
Grandfather would think that. It sounded exactly like him; but Jenny Blair was not interested in character, and was inclined to skip it whenever she saw it approaching, especially in books, where, she had learned from tedious experience, it was apt to interfere with the love story. So she merely folded her hands and repeated primly, "I never could abide boys."
Yes, it was true, she liked Mr. Birdsong best, she assured herself. For she shared no secret with Mrs. Birdsong, who would never, she felt certain, drop the bright, gauzy veils of her manner. Beautiful as she was, you could never come really close to her. In spite of her deep sparkle, her rippling vivacity, which flashed and glimmered and scattered like the spray of the Peytons' illuminated fountain, she would never in adventure, in any peril, give her secret away. Always, even upon a pile of lumber, gazing with her blue eyes at the sunset, the glow of her loveliness would come, in some strange way, between her and life.
"I'm glad we picked out this yellow satin," Jenny Blair said presently, starting all over again in her company voice. They had searched in the cedar chest for a dress that Mrs. Birdsong could make over to wear to the dance, and after much indecision, they had chosen a gown she had worn to a ball in the 'nineties. Now, while she ripped, turned, cut, basted, and stitched the shimmering folds, she talked more to herself than to the attentive child of the glorious occasions when she had reigned as a belle. Though she was only thirty-four, with the wild heart of youth still unsubdued, her voice borrowed a pensive note, as if the triumphs of the past had receded into the vague brightness of memory. "I wore this dress at a ball given in honour of Lord Waterbridge, the great English general. That was five years after our marriage, just before we lost the money George's father left us. Then I still had my evening gowns made in Paris."
"Did you dance with Lord Waterbridge?"
"We led the march together, and I danced the minuet with him when the ball opened." Lost in reverie, she paused an instant, while the needle with its shining thread trembled above the billows of satin, and her radiance melted into the iridescent bloom of the garden.
Yes, her grandfather was right, Jenny Blair thought, no one was ever so beautiful. No one was ever so beautiful—only—only she still loved Mr. Birdsong (here she shut her eyes very tight) best of all. "And when you waltzed with Mr. Birdsong did everybody stop and watch you?" she asked, clasping her hands in rapture. "Did everybody stop and watch just as Mamma says they used to do?"
"They used to do?" The animated voice dropped so softly that it was like the fall of a leaf. "Yes, they used to watch us when we danced. People had more time then. They were less eager to do things themselves. I was the impatient one, but nowadays they think me too slow and old-fashioned. They tell me I am old-fashioned because I never dance round dances with any one but George. Never since the evening we became engaged, and that was at a ball, have I ever waltzed with another man." She broke off, turned her eyes to the garden and murmured wistfully, "When two people really love each other, they ought to be sufficient to themselves. Nothing else ought to come between, nothing else ought to matter. You don't understand me, but you will some day. You will when you fall in love."