rosamund awoke the next morning with her mind joyously full of her new plans; but it was little tim who suggested that which crowned them. tim was always the first member of the household, after father cary, to go out of doors in the mornings; to-day he brought back a tight handful of stemless blossoms to present to rosamund. dewy and rosy-cheeked, he had never before appeared as much the baby as on this morning, standing in front of her with his feet apart, holding up his floral offering.
"it was all ve pretty flowers 'at was awake," he announced. "here—i 'ikes you!"
"land! i hope he ain't been in my geraniums!" said mother cary, from the stove; but rosamund grasped the chubby hand, with its blossoms, and kissed it.
"they are beautiful, tim! i 'ike you, too! and tim, how would you like to live with me all the time?"
he stared at her for a moment. "oh! o-o-oh! is you gonin' to 'dopt me?"
mother cary, with an exclamation, turned quickly to watch the two; rosamund met her eyes over the boy's head. her plan was coming to birth.
"do you want me to, tim?" she asked.
the child's lips began to quiver. then he dumped himself down upon the floor, and howled. "want my white lady!" he cried. "want to 'dopt my white lady!"
swiftly he was lifted in rosamund's arms. "good for you, tim! good for you, old man! i'm glad you know your own mind!" she cried.
she gathered him up, threw herself into a big rocking chair, set him astride on her knees and rocked him wildly back and forth, down until his curls nearly touched the floor, then up again, up in a bubble of laughter and kisses, timmy forgetting his tears to shout with glee, down and up again, down and up, the child screaming with joy. father cary and yetta coming in from the barn to breakfast, stood in the doorway laughing, yetta wondering a little at miss rose's unwonted exuberance. mother cary had already taken her place at the table, and was laughing in sympathy with them.
when rosamund stopped, breathless, with aching arms, tim still demanded "more! more! do it 'den!"
"land's sakes, honey-bird, what ails ye?" mother cary cried. "i never suspected you could be so lively!"
for reply rosamund looked at yetta. "when tim adopts the 'white lady,' and i go to live with them, will you come, too, yetta?" she asked.
"is that a conundrum? i ain't much good at riddles!" yetta declared.
rosamund laughed; she would have laughed at anything to-day. "not a riddle—an answer, yetta! you and timmy, mrs. reeves and i, are all going to live together in the brown house at the summit! what do you think of that?"
"sho', now! that's the very ticket!" said mother cary. "how come you didn't think o' mis' reeves yesterday, lamb? but—ain't she held by that mis' hetherbee?"
"yes, she is; but i think we can persuade mrs. hetherbee to let her come."
"gee! i'd be glad to get away from that old one, if 'twas me!" said yetta, in an aside which the others thought best to ignore.
"pap," said mother cary, "if so be you'll put the harness on ben, miss rose and me'll drive over an' begin cleanin' the house this mornin'!"
the old man put down his knife and fork, looked from his wife to miss randall, and back again. "it do beat all how you women-folks jump into the middle o' things the minute you get started," he said. "the house ain't even empty yet!"
"land, i forgot all about them marvens," said mother cary. "no matter! it gives us all the more time to get good an' ready, honey-bird!"
rosamund very soon began to realize that she needed time. first of all, she sent for her man of business, an excellent person who lacked imagination, and was later found to disapprove of purchases of little brown houses or of anything else that could never bring interest or increase in value. but his disapproval of that investment was as nothing to the objections he made to another. it was not until rosamund reminded him that her twenty-fifth birthday had come and gone, releasing the randall property from all trust and making it now her own, and declared that if he refused to obey her directions she would be obliged to ask someone else to look after her interests, that he reluctantly consented to it.
then there was the delicate matter of bringing eleanor to consent to her plans.
darling eleanor [she wrote]: i have decided that timmy must be adopted. i make the announcement first of all, because i know that if i did not mention him at once, you would skip all the first part of my letter until you found his name, and only read on from there. and i have a proposition which needs to be presented right end foremost. so—tim must be adopted. he has his heart set upon it; and he has turned out to be such a darling little boy. he cannot be sent back to the charities, to be looked over and refused by people who would not appreciate him, anyway. doctor ogilvie says that he must stay here another year, if he is to be made entirely well; but unless he has the best of care after that, and is made happy, he will not live to be the good and useful man we should like to see him. doctor ogilvie is a great believer in the curative powers of happiness; and you know he is a very good doctor. well—i have already made over to tim some money, to be held in trust for him until he is twenty-five. the entire interest is to be given, until said time, to the adopted parent of said tim, according to said agreement, for the use and maintenance of said parent and said tim, the entire amount to be paid over to him twenty-one years after the execution of the deed of trust. i do hope you are properly impressed by that legal phraseology, eleanor darling. i put in all the 'saids' i could, just as the lawyers do. i want you to see what a fine and wonderful thing it is for timmy, timmy the waif, to be the subject of anything so impressive; and the sum of money i have given him will provide simple comfort for him and his parent-by-adoption; only, of course, i must be sure that his parent is a person whom i can trust to spend it as it should be spent, and so to bring up the boy that he will be worthy of his—let's call it his inheritance—when he finally receives it. so it has all been done subject to one condition. unless that condition should be fulfilled, the child will have to go back to the charities; i had a great discussion about it all with mr. leeds, my lawyer; and he only consented to draw up the paper subject to that condition. it is that—oh, eleanor, don't say 'no'!—it is that you will adopt little tim, let him fill that empty place in your heart, teach him to be a good man, and—i shall spoil it if i write another word, dear white lady, sweet white lady, white lady that timmy loves! see this blur, eleanor—it is where he has pressed a kiss, to send to his white lady. r.
to this eleanor replied, "i have your letter. i must think." rosamund tried to be satisfied with that for a while; but as the days passed and eleanor wrote nothing more, and as cecilia must be persuaded and her trustees interviewed, she sent her sister a night letter, begging her to join her in new york immediately. she told ogilvie and the others that she was going to buy furniture for the house, which was true enough.
there was that in the interview with the lawyers that put cecilia into a most complaisant state of mind; when she thought of rosamund's having put the greater part of the randall income at her disposal she could not find it in her heart to show disapproval of anything else that rosamund might choose to do. the only protest she made was at the gift to the little waif.
"pure quixotism, my dear, never gains you a thing. it is the most utter madness i ever heard of."
"well, it will gain timmy something, and eleanor something; and you know very well, cecilia, that i shall never miss it."
"we won't discuss it," cecilia said, "but i am sure that not even colonel randall would have done anything so wildly impulsive."
rosamund could find very little to say to that; she knew well enough that nothing but her faith in eleanor could make it seem anything but a hazardous experiment. mother cary had seen nothing but good in the plan, but here in new york idealism seemed out of place; what had appeared fine there looked foolish here. she was beginning to doubt the excellence of her plan, when word came from eleanor that mrs. hetherbee was back in town. rosamund called at once, presenting cecilia's cards with her own, as the first move in the little social campaign that she foresaw. eleanor, in her white gown, looked strangely out of place in mrs. hetherbee's florid apartment that overlooked the hudson, and had every splendor known to apartments, even to an up-and-down-stairs of its own.
eleanor kissed her, then held her off for a long look.
"rose, rose! how can you tempt me so?" she cried. "it is only a scheme for giving the money to me!"
"eleanor, tell me the truth. did you and tim fall in love with each other at first sight, or not?"
"ah! little tim!"
"precisely! little tim! would you deprive him of such an opportunity as this?"
"oh, you would never take the money away from him, rose—now?"
"but it is not his, yet! it never can be, unless you will take him for your son—for your own little boy, eleanor! think of it!"
"i do think of it! i haven't thought of anything else."
"except, my dear, that you, too, will benefit by the plan! so you are trying to refuse. don't be selfish, eleanor!"
"selfish? to deny myself what i want most in the world?"
"you and tim seem to know your own minds! when i asked him if i should adopt him, he plumped down on the floor and yelled for his white lady."
"rose! don't make it so hard!"
"it is you who are making it hard! i have grown very fond of timmy, and i should hate, just hate to see him go back to the charities. think of the poor mite being scrubbed up and dressed in a clean striped gingham, and brought out to be inspected by possible adopters! think how he will feel when they say, 'oh, i don't think we want a little boy with hip disease!' or 'haven't you any—er—prettier children?'
"oh, rose!" eleanor put her hands over her eyes, while rosamund drew her down to one of mrs. hetherbee's louis quinze settees.
"eleanor," she said, seriously, "let us admit, if you want to, that i am giving the money to you. of course it will be practically your own until you have had tim twenty-one years. i have such faith in what you will do with him that i give the whole amount to tim, outright, after then. i have such faith in the son he will be to you, that i am willing to let him have the joy of taking care of his mother after that time. do you suppose i would give him money, if he were going to a stranger? cecilia calls me quixotic, but i assure you i am not as far gone as all that." eleanor was weakening. "it is a great deal of money, rosamund," she said.
"oh, if that's all that's troubling you! it does not seem much to me. besides, i owe the world something!"
"ah!" eleanor put her hand to the girl's cheek, turning her face until she could look into her eyes. "rose, what else has the summer taught you?"
rosamund's eyes widened a little. "we have no time to talk of that now while timmy is waiting for his mother!"
"his mother! oh, how you tempt me, rose!"
"listen, eleanor! i have bought that little house at the summit that the marvens lived in. mr. marven is cured, and they have gone back to the city. i am going to live in it this winter, with you and tim and yetta; i have already sent down to augusta for my old mammy susan and her husband, matt, to meet me there two weeks from now. the charities will not let you or me or anyone else adopt timmy without a year's probation first. come with me for this winter, and see how we all feel about it when the year is out. come as my housekeeper. put away your selfish pride, white lady—and let your salary be what timmy's interest would be if you had already adopted him. a year will help us all to wisdom perhaps."
eleanor, with head bent, and hands clasped in her lap, thought for a long moment.
"i am asking you to take too much responsibility upon yourself, i suppose!" rosamund said at last, slyly watching her friend. eleanor turned at once, swift to deny.
"how can you insinuate such a thing! are they open, at the charities building, in the afternoon?"
rosamund threw her arms about the white lady's neck in a half-strangling embrace. "you darling! yes, we will go there at once! i told them we'd be there this afternoon!"
"rose!" eleanor cried. "how could you?"
"oh, i knew you could never in the world send tim back to them!"
they forgot mrs. hetherbee until they had signed the provisional papers of adoption for the child, and were on their way uptown in cecilia's new limousine, which she had loaned rosamund for the afternoon. it was disconcerting to find that mrs. hetherbee had no intention of releasing eleanor; but cecilia allowed herself to be persuaded to join in the campaign. when at last cecilia sent for a society reporter who had never before succeeded in penetrating to her, and gave out the interesting item that she was to dine, en famille, with mrs. hetherbee on the twenty-second, the little lady capitulated, even adding her blessing.
to cecilia, admiration was an incense always acceptable; mrs. hetherbee amused her, and one had to do something to amuse one's self. there was nothing exciting in rosamund's shopping expeditions. the city might have been deserted, so few of their own friends were in town. some lingered at their country places, others were in lenox for the hunting, or still abroad. the effect of new york's social emptiness was to draw more closely together than was possible during the busier season the comparative few who for one reason or another were in town. there was more time for lunching together and going afterwards for a spin toward the westchester hills or over to one of the long island golf courses; and for one of the week-ends, which were torrid with the humidity of late september, they stood out to sea aboard one of the steam yachts that were beginning to bring their owners back to the north river. sometimes a longing for her mountains would sweep so strongly over rosamund that she would have a sense of unreality, as if she were in a strange land, among strange people, instead of having just returned to the familiar noise and glitter of new york.
one morning, when they had been shopping about for things that refused to be discovered, and clothes which should be simple enough for the brown house, and cecilia had refused to go farther until she had had something to eat, they went to their favorite lunching place, now curiously deserted except by people who seemed to have come from another world, who spoke in strange accents and stared about them as if still under the spell of the man with the megaphone. in a corner of the overdecorated room near a window which was still shielded by awning and window boxes from the avenue's glare, cecilia sank back, weary, and frankly out of sorts with everything.
"it is a most horrible time of year for shopping," she said, after she had ordered their luncheon with great precision. "there is not a thing left in the shops. i wonder what they do with the clothes that were left over? does somebody wear them, or do they just throw them out, or what? or is it because you are hunting for such queer things, rosamund?"
rosamund laughed. "but they won't be queer in the mountains, cecilia," she said.
"i am glad i shall not have to look at them," mrs. maxwell replied. "but if you are going to do the peculiar, i suppose you may as well be consistently peculiar all the way along. only, don't expect me to like it, nor approve of it; and don't think i'm encouraging you in it. i am going about with you because someone has to; i think you are foolish, very, and i really do not believe even colonel randall would have approved of your going off like this!"
hunger and fatigue had worn on poor cecilia's nerves; but if she had dreamed of having any other audience than her sister, the scolding would have been subdued. flood and pendleton, finishing their luncheon in a distant corner, had seen the two and made their ways towards them. the sharpness of cecilia's tone seemed to amuse marshall.
"dear me, cecilia," he said, so close behind her that she fairly jumped, while rosamund smiled, "what's going off?"
cecilia's eyes looked dangerous, and flood, laughing, came to the rescue. "come off with us, won't you?" he asked, so genially that for the first time rosamund felt some warmth of response to his smile. "we thought of running up westchester way for the afternoon; won't you come with us?"
his lover's quick perception told him that rosamund was not averse to the interruption of the tête-à-tête, and he looked at her rather than at cecilia for response. "there's a bit of woods back of pocantico that always reminds me of those virginia places where the leaves remain pale green, and the sunlight comes through and touches the ferns; you know!"
his own eloquence rather abashed him; but rosamund's tired face flushed; his words recalled to her the very scent of the woods; suddenly, there overlooking the avenue, amid the vibrating undertone of noises, in the place of all others where the wealth of the metropolis and its cosmopolitanism that is unlike any other cosmopolitanism manifests itself most impressively, she was homesick for the mountains and her friends there. she could have cried out with longing; and flood's offer of a glimpse of woods was to her what the blossom is to the man in a hospital.
"oh, yes!" she said, leaning towards him with a little air of eagerness. "oh, yes, do take us! i'd rather get out to the woods than do anything else in the world this afternoon!"
flood's face reddened deeply with the satisfaction of having scored at last. he and pendleton drew up chairs and chatted while the two women disposed of their skillfully combined luncheons.
"i say, flood, make her promise not to desert us again," cried pendleton.
"it is rather brave of you, marshall, to talk about desertions!" cecilia remarked.
pendleton grinned. "i haven't deserted you, cecilia," he said. "i retreated! you know i'm afraid of you, cecilia, when you're in a temper."
flood was beginning to look distressed, but rosamund smiled at him. "let them squabble, mr. flood! i want to tell you about timmy!"
flood's look brightened. "ah! the little chap we bumped into! yes! and do tell me about ogilvie. didn't you find him a good fellow?"
she told him of her plans for the child and for her winter; flood listened, saying little. it put him to shame that she should be doing everything for the two waifs, but her doing so only set her on a higher throne in the heaven of his longing. so intent was he on listening to every word, catching every intonation, watching every fleeting expression, that he was unaware of her not answering his question about ogilvie.
at last flood was driving his own car northward out of the city. a hope that fortune would continue further to smile upon him had prompted his asking a third man, who came up to speak to them, to join their party, so that he could release his chauffeur for the afternoon; and it was either an undefined wish to be rid of cecilia for a few hours, or else a latent sense of gratitude, which prompted rosamund to take her place beside him, smiling divinely—or so he fondly thought—at him, and roguishly at cecilia and her attendant swains. cecilia thoroughly enjoyed having two men to herself, especially as marshall had been none too faithful since their parting in virginia, and the situation offered an opportunity for discipline. the third man was benignly unaware of complications, and rosamund openly laughed at pendleton's expression of disgust.
they had passed out of the place side by side, while flood went ahead to see to the car. "what's the matter with its little nose?" rosamund laughed at pendleton. "all out of joint?"
"you are perfectly disgusting, rosamund," he replied in a most matter-of-fact tone, quite as if he were saying the sun was warm or the car was there. "your manners have become contaminated, and your complexion has suffered, and you are a most disagreeable person. i hope you'll be stout before you are thirty! there!"
rosamund's laugh was so frankly merry that cecilia turned on a quick impulse of repression. rosamund ought to know better than to laugh aloud in the door of a restaurant! but flood was beside them, the other man might misunderstand a sisterly admonition, and pendleton's raised eyebrows of disgust quite satisfied her. she allowed herself to be helped into the tonneau, happy in her own situation.
flood knew better than to attempt small talk; he divined that he could better make himself felt by saying nothing than by saying the wrong thing. they passed swiftly northward out of the city, following upland roads that gave enchanting glimpses of the river and of nearer gardens; after an hour or so he brought his car to slow speed. they were beyond sleepy hollow, in woods of new growth, ferny depths, scarcely touched by sunlight, roadsides where pale asters set themselves like stars.
"isn't it like virginia?" flood asked.
rosamund only nodded; but presently she almost whispered, "i love it! oh, i love it!"
"you are really going to spend the winter there?" flood asked.
"yes," she told him. "it somehow seems like home to me."
he knew that he must move carefully into her thoughts. "i understand how that can be," he said, after a pause. "there was a place in idaho that used to make me choke every time i passed it; i never knew why, until one day an english fellow happened to say as we rode by, 'jove, there must be trout in that brook!' then i knew it made me homesick, because every boy has something in him that makes him want to fish. i had wanted to, worst sort, when i was a youngster—though i was born in an inland city, and never had a chance to. it just made me homesick for the boyhood i ought to have had!"
rosamund looked at him in amazement. subtlety and imagination from flood she had never foreseen; her own imagination was fired at once, and her face flushed a little with shame at what she had thought of him before. flood looked straight ahead, but he was more keenly aware of the girl beside him than she of him. his heart was pounding as if he were setting out on a race; and indeed he beheld a stake before him as clearly as ever in his life. she answered, and he knew that he had scored; at last he had made her aware of him!
so well had they progressed by the time they had got back to town that he felt he could dare to say, before he left her, "i want to know those maryland and virginia woods of yours better, myself."
he wondered afterwards whether he had said too much.
