The Sherwood Ring (20 page)

"Eleanor, you are beginning to sound wifely already."

"This instant," said Eleanor firmly.

"And I'll walk with you as far as the supper table," said Barbara. "It's high time I sent the footmen away to the kitchen for their own supper, poor things. You, George," she added, as she moved away, "come along to the butler's pantry as soon as you've finished filling those cups."

I carefully finished filling the cups — to give Barbara time enough to clear any real footmen out of the way — and then followed. It was only a few feet along the wall from the screen to the door of the pantry, and the new dance was just reaching its height. Nobody even glanced up at me as I slipped by and closed the door quietly behind me. The pantry was empty, and Barbara was coming from the back hall to the kitchen with a loaf of bread in one hand and a plate of cold tongue and chicken in the other.

"The cook says there won't be any baked beans till Saturday," she apologized, giving me the plate. "Eat this now, while I cut you a little bread and cheese to take with you when you go. I thought you must be hungry. How long has it been since you've had anything at all?"

"Quite a while," I murmured vaguely, devouring cold chicken with more appreciation than politeness. "How did you ever happen to remember that I might be hungry? But of course, you would. Will you mind very much if I run myself into serious difficulties now and again after we are married, just for the pleasure of seeing you rise to an occasion?"

Barbara did not answer. She was very busy rummaging through the table drawer for a knife to cut the bread and cheese.

"Christopher's down at the stable now saddling a horse for you," she told me. "I said you were feeling weary and knocked up after your fight with Peaceable Sherwood, and had asked for the loan of a mount to take you home."

I did not answer, and there was a moment of silence while Barbara cut bread and cheese and I finished demolishing the plateful of cold tongue and chicken. Then I rose, stretching, and wandered over to the low window to have a look at the night. The moon was beginning to shine vaguely somewhere behind the clouds, but the wet garden was still deserted, and my road seemed clear.

"What are you going to do with me, Barbara?"

There was another moment of silence.

"Well, with a good horse, you ought to be out of reach before Lieutenant Carter even arrives at the Goshen jail," said Barbara at last, rather briskly and firmly, her eyes on the bread and cheese. "Of course, he's sure to make trouble and raise questions when he finds it's only George, but — "

"I didn't ask you what you were going to do with me, my love. I only wanted to know: what are you going to do with
me?"

"But he will admit," Barbara went on, as if she had not even heard me speak, "that the man I examined was so cut and mauled that I couldn't swear to his face. No one is likely to blame a young and inexperienced girl for such a natural mistake."

"Why did you spend the last six months sitting at your window and looking wistfully down the Goshen road?"

"It will be more difficult," continued Barbara, still without heeding me in the least, "to explain why I failed to recognize you later when I brought you into the house; but I can say — "

"Why did you make your poor brother waste half his winter in those perfectly ridiculous efforts to get me released or exchanged?"

"I can say," repeated Barbara, "that we were no sooner inside the door than you complained of feeling unwell after your struggle and begged me for permission to leave. After all, I thought that you were a footman — nobody ever looks very closely at a footman; and the light was poor, and your voice was disguised, and I am only a sweet, innocent, naturally unsuspicious young creature. Dick won't believe a word of it, of course, but dear Dick will have to hold his tongue in public — though I fancy he's going to express himself rather fluently in private."

"Why did you stop to gaze at the jail whenever you went over to Goshen?"

"I told Christopher to bring the horse around to that big elm at the first turn of the drive. He ought to be there by this time. Suppose you put this bread and cheese in your pocket and slip out quietly through the window? This dance will be over in another moment now — and they'll look for me if I'm not in the room."

"Who always gets what he wants, Barbara?"

"Are you going, Captain Sherwood?"

"The instant you answer my question, Miss Grahame. Who always gets what he wants, Barbara?"

"Peaceable, please! I can't discuss this with you now — later — some other time — when the war's over — "

"Who always gets what he wants, Barbara?" I asked again, and held out both my hands to her.

"You do," said Barbara helplessly, and put hers into them.

"When the war's over, dearest?"

"When the war's over, dearest," she promised gravely.

There was no time to say anything else. The music from the outer room swept up to the end of the dance, and then died away in a rustle of skirts and ripple of conversation as the dancers scattered. I swung myself up to the low window sill, turned to drop down into the garden, paused suddenly, and glanced back.

"Do you remember Dick's asking what I came to bring you?" I demanded.

"Yes, of course, but — "

"It wouldn't do to disappoint Dick, would it?" I felt in the pocket of my coat for the signet ring I had put there, found it, leaned forward, and dropped it into her hand. "Keep that for me until I can get back with the real one," I said, and went away.

"And you got to New York safely?" I asked eagerly.

"Yes, without the slightest — " Peaceable Sherwood broke off abruptly and turned his head as if to listen.

"Someone's coming," he murmured, and disappeared from view around the corner of the screen just as a young man in evening dress opened the door of the butler's pantry and made his way along the wall toward the corner with the punch bowl. For an instant I thought it must be one of the waiters coming back for my plate of chicken salad; then I recognized him, and fell back weakly in my chair with a little gasp.

"Pat, you fool!" I whispered. "How on earth did you ever get in here?"

"Through the pantry window," replied Pat, with a modest smile, as if he had done something clever. "I said I was going to dance with you before the night had ended, didn't I?"

"Dance!" I repeated sarcastically. "You dance yourself straight back through that pantry window before Uncle Enos finds out you're here, and — "

A voice from the other side of the screen interrupted me. It was a high, imperious old lady's voice, very distinct above the low laughter and the music.

"Enos! Enos! One moment, if you please! I've been looking for you. What's all this I hear about your adopting poor Ricky's daughter? Where is the child? Why isn't she dancing? Didn't she come tonight? I haven't even met her yet."

A second and deeper voice rumbled something in reply. The speakers must have been standing just around the edge of the screen. Nobody could go down to the pantry now without running straight into them.

"Uncle Enos?" inquired Pat, cocking his head.

"Uncle Enos," I answered shakily.

Pat perched himself on one corner of the table and stole an olive from my chicken salad. "Well, anyway, it's been nice knowing you," he remarked philosophically.

"Stand up!" I hissed. "Stand up and turn your back and pretend you're collecting those empty cups on a tray. They may think you're just one of the waiters. Quick, you lunatic! It's our only chance!" — and I rose curtseying to my feet in all my flowered satin as Uncle Enos and his companion appeared around the corner of the screen.

"Mrs. Cunningham, may I present my niece?" asked Uncle Enos formally. "Richard's daughter, Peggy."

Mrs. Cunningham was an old, old lady in black velvet and diamonds, with a sharp, wicked, mischievous face that looked remarkably like the Bad Fairy in one of my nursery books. Her diamonds glittered just as they had in the picture, and she was carrying exactly the same sort of tall ebony cane with a circle of silver around the handle. The end of the cane swished a trifle from time to time rather as if it were the tip of a cat's tail.

"Would either of you care for a little punch?" I quavered politely.

"Not if it's more of that authentic eighteenth-century stuff Enos was serving last year," said old Mrs. Cunningham with the utmost frankness. "You're a pretty child to be one of the Grahames, I must say. What are you doing shut away here in this ridiculous corner all by yourself? Some of your uncle's nonsense, I suppose. You ought to be out enjoying yourself with the other young people. And that reminds me — Enos! Is the Thorne boy anywhere about? I promised Helen Arlington I'd look him up when I was in London last spring. Dr. Lewis tells me he's over at New Jerusalem boarding at Susan Dykemann's while he does some sort of research. Isn't he here? I want to ask him to tea."

"I don't know him," said Uncle Enos, in his most forbidding voice.

Old Mrs. Cunningham merely rapped the ebony cane on the floor.

"Nonsense!" she said sharply. "You ought to keep up the connection."

I heard Uncle Enos draw a hard, passionate breath. But he could not very well tell old Mrs. Cunningham to go to her room, for she had no room at Rest-and-be-thankful, nor yet to run along like a good child and stop bothering him either.

"I must say I'm surprised at you, Enos," she went on, surveying the leading historian of Orange County as if he were a particularly tiresome small boy. "Boarding at Susan Dykemann's, indeed! Your poor grandfather must be turning over in his grave."

"I should have invited him to stay at Rest-and-be-thankful, no doubt?" Uncle Enos's tone would have frozen most people to the marrow, but it seemed to have no effect on old Mrs. Cunningham whatever.

"And why not?" she snapped impatiently. "That cousin of his — Mildred What's-her-name — had you down for the weekend when you went over to England last winter, didn't she? After the old gentleman died? I should think it would be the least you could do in return. Of course, Helen Arlington says that Mildred What's-her-name has been getting more and more peculiar for the last year or so; but the boy is perfectly presentable by all accounts — and at any rate he seems to be trying to earn his own living, which is more than you can say for most of that family." Somewhere behind me there was a sudden choking, strangling sound and a tremendous rattle of glass.

"Be careful of those cups, young man!" said old Mrs. Cunningham briskly. "Well, Enos? And don't try to play off any of your fine-gentlemanly airs on me! I know you! What's the meaning of all this?"

Uncle Enos had begun to look slightly unsteady, like a man trying to keep his feet in a high wind.

"There really can't be any question of my entertaining anybody just now," he mumbled. "I've been very busy with my article for
Antiques and Collectors,
and the fact is I've not been feeling particularly well for the last month or — "

"Of course you haven't been feeling well! You always started running a temperature the minute you got into any sort of trouble. And don't talk fiddle-faddle to me about being busy! Selfish and inconsiderate is what you mean. You've never had the smallest regard for anything except your own convenience since the day you were born. Look at this poor child here!"

"What poor child?" asked Uncle Enos hazily, taken completely unawares by this sudden change of attack.

"A fine time she seems to have had of it all evening!" said old Mrs. Cunningham, with another rap of the ebony cane. "You and your punch bowls and your traditions and your notions! Didn't it ever occur to you that she might like a dance now and then along with the other girls? I declare, Enos, you are enough to try the patience of a saint! Be off with you and find her a partner at once! They'll be making up another set in a moment — I can hear the music now. Peggy, go tidy your hair. Those roses in it will be coming down altogether the next time you try to curtsey. And tell that waiter to take those absurd cups away to the pantry before he drops the rest of them!"

And without waiting for an answer from any of us, she turned and was gone, her cane rapping on the floor and Uncle Enos trailing helplessly behind her. I could hear her imperious voice announcing, "No, Enos, I don't want to go back to the library; there's still a good deal I have to say to you," as the rapping died away. Pat had collapsed over the table with the cups on it, his head in his hands and his shoulders heaving and shaking uncontrollably with laughter.

"Will you be quiet!" I begged. "Do you want everybody in the house to hear you?"

"I d-don't care," sobbed Pat. "L-let them find me. Let them take me away to the Goshen jail. It was worth it. Wasn't she superb? Of all the perishing old marvels! Be careful of those cups, young man! Which is more than can be said for most of that family! And the look on your Uncle Enos's face when she told him not to talk fiddle-faddle to her!"

"You're coming back to the butler's pantry this instant."

"Peggy, go tidy your hair."

"This instant," I said firmly.

"But what was all that about your Uncle Enos keeping up the connection?" Pat demanded. "I knew there was a connection, of course, but I never thought it amounted to anything much."

"Oh, do please come along, Pat! I haven't the faintest idea."

"And all that about Cousin Mildred asking him down for the weekend when he was in England last winter?" Pat went on, following me along the wall and in at the pantry door. He had stopped laughing now and his voice sounded puzzled and a little distressed. "I didn't even know your Uncle Enos had gone to England. My Cousin Mildred certainly never breathed a word about it to me."

"I don't know, I tell you! And for heaven's sake, don't stand there worrying about it now! Just be an angel and go away quietly, won't you? I can't possibly stay. She may start looking for me again if I'm not in the room."

"She'd probably only tell me not to fall into the flower bed and crush all the day lilies," said Pat, swinging himself up on the low window sill. He turned to drop into the garden, paused suddenly, and glanced back.