Rainbow Cottage (6 page)

“They all fit!” she declared breathlessly as Grandmother appeared at the door again just as she was slipping the blue butterfly dress over her head.

Her hair was dry and rippled around her head like a purple grackle’s plumage. She had combed it out hastily and braided it in two long ropes pinned around her shapely head, and she looked like a sweet little girl as she turned to go downstairs with Grandmother, her feet in blue kid shoes that looked as if they had been chosen just for her.

“Those are Rosalie’s,” smiled Grandmother, looking at them. “Rosalie is a little hoyden, and her feet are growing rapidly. She cried the night she tried them on and found they were too small.”

“They are lovely!” said Sheila. “But I’m sorry she couldn’t have had them. It must have been very hard for her to give them up.”

“She has plenty more,” said Grandmother. “Her father gets her anything she wants. More than she ought to have, I think. And now, come out on the porch and watch the last colors on the sea till the supper bell rings.”

So Sheila sat on the terrace overlooking the garden, watching the sea over the garden wall as it changed from green and gold and crimson to purple and yellow and silver and then dropped down into mother-of-pearl shot through with all colors. A little quick star twinkled out, forerunner of all the train of heavenly lights, and far on a jutting point of land that darted out into the sea, a lighthouse blazed forth on duty.

Reluctantly she followed her grandmother at last into a big dining room, big enough to feed all the children and children’s children when they came home and yet cozy with bright lights and flowers and fragrant foods. Festive for her coming, she realized with a strange glad thrill.

So she took her seat, a grandchild of the house, in a cheery little butterfly dress and, in shy wonder, bowed her head with Grandmother when she repeated the evening grace, a thing that Sheila had never heard before.

“Lord, we thank Thee for these Thy bounties, and we thank Thee that Thou hast brought at last dear Sheila, the child of my dear lost Andrew, to be one of us here. Amen.”

Sheila felt her heart thrill that Grandmother should have said that, and when she lifted her head she gave the old lady a sweet, loving smile that, had she only known it, made her look the perfect image of her dear lost mother, Moira.

Grandmother noticed with relief that her new granddaughter ate her food daintily. Even though she had been a waitress for rough workmen at a railroad junction hotel, she yet had been trained in the niceties of a cultured world. That would make the way ahead much easier than if she had been rough and boorish. Yet Grandmother told herself that even if she had not been trained she would have loved her, for she was so like her lost Andy in many ways.

They had finished the ice cream and angel food cake and were just getting ready to leave the table when there came a rap on the door, and Sheila, looking up across the living room, saw a young man standing at the front door outlined against the luminousness of the night. Just a dark silhouette, but there was a look of strength and fitness about it that interested her. So many of the men she had met in her isolated home in the West had been rough, unmannerly fellows, men of the ills who had sloughed off the refinements of the world, if they ever had any. The railroad Junction House had not been a place to meet what one would call gentlemen. Tourists and men of culture seldom stopped at the little Junction House where there were few of the comforts of life to be had.

Even Sheila’s own father, on the rare recent occasions when he had been at home, had assumed rough ways and unmannerly speech. Sheila remembered remonstrances and even tears on her mother’s part, but her father had only laughed, and there had been no change in his demeanor. So perhaps the look of the stranger made more impression on Sheila than if she had been accustomed to men of gentler breeding.

Janet showed the caller into the living room and came back to Grandmother just as they were rising from the table.

“It’s a Mr. Galbraith,” she said. “He’s brought a message from your son, Mr. Max, in New York.”

“Oh,” said Grandmother, looking pleased. “Come on in with me, Sheila. He’s an old friend. I want you to know him. They have a beautiful place up on the cliffs, a little above us near the beach.”

So Sheila, suddenly shy and frightened, went in with the old lady to meet the stranger, who was standing by the fireplace, his hat in his hand, looking interestedly at a picture over the mantel.

He turned quickly as he heard them enter, and Grandmother seemed suddenly startled.

“Oh, why—I thought it was my friend Mr. Hugh Galbraith,” said Grandmother, looking at the stranger questioningly.

The younger man smiled pleasantly.

“I am his nephew,” he said. “My name is Angus Galbraith. My home is in London. I met Mr. Ainslee in New York today, and when he found I was flying up here for dinner and returning tonight, he asked me if I would bring you this note and some papers to sign. He said they had been mislaid and should have been sent you last week.”

Grandmother smiled affably.

“That’s like Max,” she said. “He always was scatterbrained. But I thought he had a good secretary. I was wondering where those papers were. I almost telephoned him about them. It was most kind of you to bring them. And now, let me present my granddaughter, Sheila Ainslee. If you’ll sit down just a minute I’ll get my pen and sign these right away.”

So Grandmother went her way into the library and left Sheila alone with the first really educated, cultured young man to whom she had ever spoken. Sheila was suddenly overcome with embarrassment.

B
ut the young man was not in the least embarrassed. He looked at the sweet girl in her childish little butterfly dress, with the glow of the firelight flickering over her delicate features, making purple shadows in the black waves of her hair that banded around her head so symmetrically, and he was filled with delight. Did they have girls like this over here? She seemed the kind one read about in old, old books of days long since gone by.

She had none of the assurance, the sophistication, the poise, the impertinence of the girls he had been meeting since he came over this time. She seemed not to be ashamed to be a woman, nor to keep in the background.

“You live here with your grandmother?” he asked eagerly as he pushed forward a chair for her to be seated.

She lifted shy eyes of uncertainty under those wonderful dark curled lashes.

“I—why—you see, I have just come today,” she answered, settling down in the chair, crossing her small feet in their laced blue shoes and letting her hands lie quietly in her lap with a shy stiffness he could not quite understand. “Grandmother has asked me to stay—” She finished with a sweeping glance that yet held not the least bit of coquetry.

“It seems a delightful place to stay,” he said with a quick look around that included the whole room with its vistas to dining room, stairway, and moonlit porch. He sat down beside the fireplace and looked at her again with clear eyes full of admiration.

“Oh, it is wonderful!” she said eagerly, her face flushing with pleasure, just like a child’s, her eyes starry. “Have you seen the garden? There are lilies and a hummingbird—a green and gold hummingbird!”

“I only caught a glimpse of the garden in the moonlight as I came in,” he answered. “The lilies were like silver specters trying to look over the garden wall to the sea.”

“Oh, do you think of them that way, too?” she asked earnestly. “I fancied they were little people. They are so lovely they must have thoughts. Flowers are always half human to me. But I’ve never dared speak about it to anyone but my mother.”

“Is your mother here with you?” he asked, just to have opportunity to watch the play of light and shadow on her speaking face.

It was like an April cloud coming in the sky to see the sudden sadness his question brought.

She shook her head slowly. “No, she is gone!” she said sorrowfully. “She is in heaven!” she added almost defiantly. “I’m
sure
she is.”

“I should think, of course,” said the young man thoughtfully, and added in his heart,
Since she was capable of bringing up a girl like you
.

The tension in her face relaxed, and she gave him a faint sparkle of a smile.

“Your home was far away from here?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said quickly, almost as if she were glad, “
very
far. Almost to the California line.”

“That is not far,” he said with pleasant smile. “Not when you fly. I’ve just come back from there. I might have passed over your house. Who knows? What was the name of your town?”

“It wasn’t a town,” said Sheila reservedly. “It was only a few little houses and a railroad junction. You wouldn’t be able to find it on the map. It was too small. There was nothing but wild land around there. A few ranches, all far apart. I went to school three miles away at a little settlement called Coburn, but there weren’t a dozen other houses there, and it was off the railroad.”

He looked at the shy grace of her and marveled. Then he spoke his thoughts: “You must have had a marvelous mother.”

“Oh, I did! She was
everything
! I don’t know how I am going to live without her.”

His eyes flashed tender sympathy. “I wish I had known I was to meet you when I flew over that part of the country. I would have liked to look down and see where you lived.”

Sheila gave a little ripply laugh. Her face was full of sparkle. Then she sobered and submitted a subject of conversation on her own account.

“It must be wonderful to fly,” she mused. “Planes used to go over us there sometimes, very far up. They never stopped. They did not come often either. But I always ran out to watch them if I could. I used to wonder what kind of people dared to go up there above the clouds with so much confidence. I never thought I would meet one of them.”

“Well, now that’s interesting,” he said. “I wish I’d known you were down there when I was flying over you. You know, I’ve been out in California part of the winter and all the spring. I often took short trips down into Mexico and, in fact, all about in that region. I would have loved to drop down and call upon you. Perhaps I might even have had the pleasure of taking you up for a little ride, if I had only known you then.”

Sheila’s eyes grew large and dreamy, startled, too. She was trying to envision what it might have been like to have had a young man like this call upon her at the Junction. She imagined the people he would have had to see, the threadbare garments she would have been wearing, the dance hall where her mother had to sing, the whole unkempt, tawdry appearance of the straggling settlement called the Junction, and then she looked up and shook her head.

“You wouldn’t have liked it,” she said soberly. “I don’t believe you would have liked me. I had to work hard, and I wasn’t dressed up.” She gave a quick glance of respect at the little blue dress she was wearing.

“You don’t think friendship consists in the clothes we are wearing, do you?”

Sheila looked thoughtful. “Perhaps it oughtn’t to,” she answered, “but—I should think it might make some difference—right at the beginning, anyway.”

“Well,” said the young man with a friendly smile just the least bit daring perhaps, “you’re wearing delightfully right ones tonight, anyway. And I’m hoping you are going to stay here this summer, because I’m planning to be here awhile myself a little later on. I’d like to be seeing you some more if you don’t mind.”

Sheila gave him a wondering smile. She didn’t quite know what to say to that. But she didn’t have to answer, for Grandmother came trotting back in a businesslike way, waving the paper she had just signed.

“My pen was empty, of course,” she said. “It’s always empty when I need it in a hurry, and I had a time trying to find the ink. Janet has been writing a letter in the kitchen, and she borrowed it. It certainly was kind of you to take all this trouble! I hope I haven’t kept you waiting too long, Mr. Galbraith.”

“No, indeed!” said the visitor, rising as if he were loath to leave. “I’ve been enjoying it here, and I wish I could stay and get acquainted with you both. This fire feels good even though we did have a pretty warm day, for the breeze off the sea has come up strong since sunset. I wonder if you’ll let me come back sometime soon? I’m going to be at Uncle Hugh’s off and on all summer.”

“Come soon and often,” welcomed Grandmother. “There was a note from Max in there saying you were one of Gregory’s choice friends. That’s introduction enough for me. You’ll always be welcome.”

When he came to shake hands in leaving, Sheila looked up with her eyes shining and managed a shy question: “Did you say you were
flying
back tonight? Do you go over this house?”

“Why, yes,” said the young man. “I will. Leave the porch light on for me, will you, Mrs. Ainslee? I’d like to look down and think of you two sitting cozily together beside this nice fire.”

“I’ll leave the porch light on all right,” said Grandmother with a twinkle. “But we two’ll not be sitting cozily by the fire while you fly over our heads. We’ll be out in the garden yonder watching you fly. I always like to see my friends off, whether by land or sea or sky.”

“All right then, look for my card out somewhere in the garden tomorrow morning,” he said, smiling at Sheila. “You’ll find it, I fancy, unless the hummingbird gets there before you. I’ll be passing over here in a little less than an hour, I should think.”

They all stood together a moment on the porch with the moonlight making a halo behind his head, and then he was gone through the wicket gate, and they could hear his footsteps for a moment padding briskly along the hard wet beach.

“The Galbraiths are very nice people,” said Grandmother as she turned back into the room again. “This must be one of the Scotch nephews his uncle Hugh is always talking about. He seems a nice sort. We’ll have to invite him down. And now, child,” she said, dropping into her big rocking chair, “tell me about the man you ran away from. What was he like?”

“Oh, Grandmother!” said Sheila in dismay, putting a hand involuntarily over her heart. “You wouldn’t like to hear about him. He was dreadful! He was like a—a—snake!”