Daphne Deane (3 page)

"And a wonderful mother," breathed the girl softly. "Oh, I didn't know her face-to-face, but a girl can't watch a woman from a little distance daily, as I did your mother, and not know what she's like. And I guess my mother helped on my image of her, for she admired her very much, too. She had a lovely face and a charming, gracious way. You could see it in every movement as she walked about the grounds sometimes with her arm across your shoulder, looking down into your face when you were just a child. But there! I'm revealing again what a shameless onlooker I was."

"I think we should be very much honored that anyone had such unbiased interest in us," he said smiling. "I only regret that my mother couldn't have known you as you seem to have known her. I am sure the interest would have been mutual. Do you know what I thought of when I saw you sitting down on the grandstand below me? I wonder if I dare tell you? I thought you looked somehow familiar, and couldn't think who you reminded me of, and then it came over me that you reminded me of my mother. Somehow your expression made me think of her, the light in your eyes. I always felt that my mother was the dearest thing on earth."

"Oh!" said Daphne a little breathlessly. "That is the very nicest compliment I ever received. Of course, I know I aspire to be like her, but I shall treasure that thought at least. For she was very lovely. Mother feels that way, too."

They were almost to the Deane gate now, a white picket affair with an old-fashioned latch, set in the arch of a thick hedge, and Daphne paused and wondered whether she should ask him in. But before she had the opportunity, a flashy yellow sports car, which neither of them had noticed coming toward them, drew up with a flourish at the curb, and a rich, assured voice called out: "Well of all things, if there isn't Keith Morrell! Where have you been keeping yourself, darling? I hadn't heard you were in town."

 

 

 

 

 

The girl in the yellow sports car leaned over and addressed herself to Keith Morrell. "If this isn't the best luck! If anyone was heaven sent, it is you. Do you know what you are going to do? You are going to hop right in with me and go home to my dinner party. I've just had a telegram from one of the men I'd depended on that he's met with an accident and can't come, and what to do I didn't know. I was on my way out into the highways and hedges to compel someone to come in to make even couples, and who should I happen on but you?"

She had gushed on, giving no space for greeting, and she smiled into Keith Morrell's face, utterly ignoring Daphne Deane.

"Why, it's Evelyn Avery, isn't it?" he said politely, lifting his hat, searching out a possible classmate from a face almost utterly changed by blush and lipstick and absence of eyebrows. "You know I've been away so long I'm afraid to make any rash statements, lest I might mistake a granddaughter for her grandmother. You certainly look young enough to be your own granddaughter."

"Well, now, I like that!" pouted the young woman. "You always did say things no one could quite understand, and left a person in doubt as to whether you meant a compliment or a slam."

"I assure you I was complimenting you," smiled the young man. "You know Miss Deane, don't you? Daphne Deane? She's another classmate. Since you're still living here I suppose you see her often."

The Avery girl thus adjured turned a cold stare on Daphne.

"Really?" she said with an almost insolent inflection. "Daphne Deane? It seems as though I remembered hearing that name before. You aren't that child that crashed into our class a little while before commencement and tried to grab all the honors, are you?" she asked with a disagreeable lift of her chin, measuring Daphne with a cold, appraising look.

Daphne grinned.

"That's my description exactly!" she said as if she enjoyed it. "I didn't think you'd remember me!"

Evelyn took the parry contemptuously.

"There are some things one can't forget even if one tries," she laughed, and then turning to the young man: "Honestly, Keith, I never was more in need of a friend than I am now, and I beg you will get in and go home with me at once."

Keith answered a little haughtily.

"I'm sorry. I'm meeting my agent who is supposed to arrive very soon now, and then I must hurry away and catch my train to New York."

"Agent?" said Evelyn. "What for? You aren't going to sell the house, are you? I hope that doesn't mean you are leaving town permanently, does it?"

"I am not just sure," answered Keith coldly. "The agent wrote he had a possible purchaser, or tenant. I have not decided what the outcome will be."

By his side Daphne caught her breath and put her hand up to her throat with a little quick movement and then down again. He felt the gesture rather than saw it, and he turned and looked at her.

"Should you care?" he asked.

But it was Evelyn who answered.

"Care?" said Evelyn. "I don't know that I should. This isn't such a desirable site anymore, and you could probably build something more up to date over near the park, say on Latches Lane or along Winding Way. There are some lovely sites over that way, quite near the golf course. But you certainly ought not to leave town. We've missed you terribly since you went away. However, I can't stay here and gossip. I've got to get back to my highways and hedges. Come, get in, and I'll take you to wherever you have to go, and then you'll have to come home with me to my dinner party. Come on, be a good sport! You can't do any business in New York until Monday, and I'll guarantee to get you to the midnight train if you'll stay and help me out."

Keith cast a worried look at his watch.

"If you'll just drop me at the corner of Maple Street, I'll be grateful," he said. "I'm late for my appointment already!"

Then he turned suddenly back to Daphne.

"I'll be seeing you," he said in a low tone. "I'd like your answer to that question."

Then, just as he was getting into the car there loomed a stalwart youth beside him with a white sweater tied across his shoulders and a mop of crisp bronze curls over a pair of keen hazel eyes.

"Oh, hello!" said Keith Morrell putting out a quick hand and grasping the big strong hand of the pitcher. "Congratulations! That was a good game! I enjoyed it, and you had the star part. You certainly have grown out of all recognition since I saw you last, but I hope I have another chance soon to watch you pitch. Some college is going to be proud of you soon, I can see."

"No chance!" said the youth, frowning almost haughtily. "I'm going to work!"

"Say, that's an idea!" said Morrell looking at him with interest. "I'd like to talk that over with you sometime soon and get your point of view. Just now I've got to hurry to a business appointment, but I'll see you again. Perhaps you don't remember me, but your sister will tell you who I am."

He waved his hand, for Evelyn had started her engine and drowned out further conversation, and they shot away from the curb.

"Who is the perfectly stunning-looking kid?" asked Evelyn Avery languidly. "One of your former caddies?"

And back on the sidewalk Donald Deane, known among his compatriots as "Donnie" Deane, stood glaring after the fast disappearing car.

"Now what the dickens was that hand-painted girl doing down our respectable street? That was Keith Morrell, wasn't it? Beats all how quick she can hunt 'em out the minute they land in town. Like molasses to the fly! What was he doing here?" He turned and gave his sister a searching look. "Come to borrow a key to get into his house or something?"

"No," said Daphne, watching the distance with a puzzled look in her eyes. "I gathered that he came down to meet his agent, something about a tenant or a possible buyer for the property."

"Good night!" said her brother with dismay in his voice. "Seems sort of awful, doesn't it, after all the way Mother made up fairy tales about the place, to have it pass out of the family that way. Still, I suppose it's what we've got to expect."

"Yes," said Daphne. "It probably looks old-fashioned and uninteresting to one who has spent several years abroad. But, of course, if he had really been the radiant loyal youth we pictured him to be--or rather Mother pictured, we believed--he couldn't do it! He'd have to keep the place for old association's sake."

"Well, he probably isn't what we thought he was!" said Don, frowning heavily and with a sigh of disillusionment. "I wish he'd stayed away. I hate like the dickens to lose a hero. There aren't so many these days! Mother made him out a sort of Sir Galahad, and I've about found out there aren't any more of them, so I hate to see him go."

Daphne laughed.

"It doesn't necessarily mean that he hasn't a fine character, you know, if he has to sell his property. Besides, it may be awfully hard for him to come back to the old home now his father and mother are gone."

Don shook his head.

"I couldn't do it!" he said firmly. "Not if I had to starve to keep it. Look at those lines! Look at those great columns, look at the curve of the porch and the arch of the mullioned window!"

Daphne laughed.

"There's more to it than lines," she said. "You've got architecture on the brain just now, but there's a certain character to that old house that makes it lovely, even if the lines weren't right. There's a family life that was lived there, that I feel somehow will live on in memories. I know it will in mine. Of course, Mother idealized it for us. I've been realizing that for some time. Yet there was something real about it that has grown into our lives, yours and mine, and perhaps the other children's, too, that can never die. Come on, Donnie, let's forget it. We can't do anything about it, and it's not for us to worry about. But I'm glad he liked your playing. Wasn't it nice of him to say so?"

She caught her brother's big hand and nestled her fingers into it affectionately, and together they went into the gate and up the steps of the pleasant white house behind the high hedge that was their home.

 

Keith Morrell, as he stepped into the car and took his seat beside Evelyn Avery, had a distinct sense of loss, as if something pleasant that he was about to grasp had been ruthlessly torn from him. He hadn't time to analyze this impression and understand just what it meant. He didn't exactly connect it with Daphne Deane, the almost unknown girl out of a past that had not been conscious of her at all. He simply felt that something sweet and tender connected with his boyhood had touched him and given him a longing for things that were no more, made him almost wonder if such an atmosphere was still upon the earth somewhere.

But there was not time to reason about it. Evelyn Avery was very much in the present, and most insistent.

"Honestly, Keith," she said, as earnestly as a girl with such red lips was able to speak, "I'm in a horrible jam and I'm appealing to you to help me out. It's a matter of life and death so to speak, and I know you won't fail me. You were always so gallant toward anyone in trouble!"

She looked at him with daring black eyes into which she could, on occasion, put an essence of wistfulness that seemed almost real.

"You see, it's this way." She lowered her voice till her words took on the nature of a confidence. "Cousin Nada is staying with us. You remember Nada Beach who spent a winter once with us and went to school with me? Sort of a highflier, you know. Mother quite disapproves of her now, she's so much worse than she used to be. And she has a friend staying in the city whom she's crazy about, and as soon as she finds out that one of the men can't come to the dinner she'll do her best to get him asked. She's already suggested it to Mother in case someone fails. And it happens he used to be engaged to one of my guests and jilted her, treated her scandalously, and I simply couldn't bring them together at my house! You can see that. And I can't explain, either. I promised I would never tell anyone. I'm sure you will see what a jam I'm in and come to the rescue."

Keith Morrell tried to explain how necessary it was that he get back to New York at once, but Evelyn overcame all his arguments. He simply must help her out, and she would see that he got the midnight train from the city if that was absolutely necessary.

They had reached the agent's house by this time, and the young man, made to feel exceedingly selfish if he did not yield, gave reluctant consent.

"I'm not dressed for a formal dinner," he said as he got out, brightening at the thought of a real excuse at last. "You know, I didn't bring a suitcase with me."

"Oh, we're not formal," laughed Evelyn. "Anything goes in this town this time of year. Besides, I'll tell them I grabbed you from the train and compelled you to come in. Or, if you don't like that, my brother Bronson will lend you something. He has dinner coats galore. Though you're quite all right as you are."

"All right, I'll come!" he said as gracefully as he could.

"I'll wait for you," beamed Evelyn. "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush!"

And no protest could stir her from this decision.

He went into the agent's house feeling that he was caught in a trap, and it was all his own fault.

The agent had a buyer and he was anxious to finalize the sale at once, but strangely enough, although he had come down from New York expecting to sell, and anxious to finish the matter up as soon as possible, Keith found a sudden reluctance upon him. A dim vision of a little boy in pajamas and bare feet kneeling at his mother's knee beside an open fire seemed to come between himself and any possible buyer. It was as if the old house had suddenly become a holy place with which he had no right to part lightly.

The agent painted the sale in glowing terms. The buyer wanted to take possession at once and was willing to pay cash. He was planning to pull down a portion of the present house and make radical changes, modernize the whole thing, make an apartment house out of it, and then cut up the rest of the land into small building lots and make snappy little bungalow homes out of them. He might even go a thousand or two higher if Mr. Morrell didn't feel he was getting enough.

Keith Morrell thought of the little white house behind the hedge where the white picket gate hung, with an old-fashioned latch. He thought of children at its back window watching out toward the old house to see a little boy who was their hero, and a lovely mother walking in the garden at evening with her arm around her boy. Something clutched his heart!