Miss Billy - Eleanor Hodgman Porter (read dune .txt) 📗
- Author: Eleanor Hodgman Porter
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“Yes.”
“What’s Spunk?”
“Eh?—oh—Great Scott! I forgot Spunk. I don’t know. She’s got a basket. He’s in that, I suppose. Anyhow, he can’t be any more of a bombshell than his mistress was. Now be quick, and none of your fooling, Bertram. Tell them all—Pete and Dong Ling. Don’t forget. I wouldn’t have Billy find out for the world! Fix it up with Kate. You’ll have to fix it up with her; that’s all!” And there came the sharp click of the receiver against the hook.
In the soft April twilight Cyril was playing a dreamy waltz when Bertram knocked, and pushed open the door.
“Say, old chap, you’ll have to quit your mooning this time and sit up and take notice.”
“What do you mean?” Cyril stopped playing and turned abruptly.
“I mean that Will has gone crazy, and I think the rest of us are going to follow suit.”
Cyril shrugged his shoulders and whirled about on the piano stool. In a moment his fingers had slid once more into the dreamy waltz.
“When you get ready to talk sense, I’ll listen,” he said coldly.
“Oh, very well; if you really want it broken gently, it’s this: Will has met Billy, and Billy is a girl. They’re due here now ‘most any time.”
The music stopped with a crash.
“A—GIRL!”
“Yes, a girl. Oh, I’ve been all through that, and I know how you feel. But as near as I can make out, it’s really so. I’ve had instructions to tell everybody, and I’ve told. I got Kate on the telephone, and she’s coming over. You KNOW what SHE’LL be. Dong Ling is having what I suppose are Chinese hysterics in the kitchen; and Pete is swinging back and forth like a pendulum in the dining-room, moaning ‘Good Lord, deliver us!’ at every breath. I would suggest that you follow me downstairs so that we may be decently ready for—whatever comes.” And he turned about and stalked out of the room, followed by Cyril, who was too stunned to open his lips.
Kate came first. She was not stunned. She had a great deal to say.
“Really, this is a little the most absurd thing I ever heard of,” she fumed. “What in the world does your brother mean?”
That she quite ignored her own relationship to the culprit was not lost on Bertram. He made instant response.
“As near as I can make out,” he replied smoothly, “YOUR brother has fallen under the sway of a pair of great dark eyes, two pink cheeks, and an unknown quantity of curly hair, all of which in its entirety is his namesake, is lonesome, and is in need of a home.”
“But she can’t live—here!”
“Will says she shall.”
“But that is utter nonsense,” cut in Cyril.
“For once I agree with you, Cyril,” laughed Bertram; “but William doesn’t.”
“But how can she do it?” demanded Kate.
“Don’t know,” answered Bertram. “He’s established a petticoat propriety in you for a few hours, at least. Meanwhile, he’s going to think. At least, he says he is, and that we’ve got to help him.”
“Humph!” snapped Kate. “Well, I can prophesy we sha’n’t think alike—so you’d notice it!”
“I know that,” nodded Bertram; “and I’m with you and Cyril on this. The whole thing is absurd. The idea of thrusting a silly, eighteen-year-old girl here into our lives in this fashion! But you know what Will is when he’s really roused. You might as well try to move a nice good-natured mountain by saying ‘please,’ as to try to stir him under certain circumstances. Most of the time, I’ll own, we can twist him around our little fingers. But not now. You’ll see. In the first place, she’s the daughter of his dead friend, and she DID write a pathetic little letter. It got to the inside of me, anyhow, when I thought she was a boy.”
“A boy! Who wouldn’t think she was a boy?” interposed Cyril. “‘Billy,’ indeed! Can you tell me what for any sane man should have named a girl ‘Billy’?”
“For William, your brother, evidently,” retorted Bertram, dryly. “Anyhow, he did it, and of course our mistake was a very natural one. The dickens of it is now that we’ve got to keep it from her, so Will says; and how—hush! here they are,” he broke off, as there came the sound of wheels stopping before the house.
There followed the click of a key in the lock and the opening of a heavy door; then, full in the glare of the electric lights stood a plainly nervous man, and a girl with startled, appealing eyes.
“My dear,” stammered William, “this is my sister, Kate, Mrs. Hartwell; and here are Cyril and Bertram, whom I’ve told you of. And of course I don’t need to say to them that you are Billy.”
It was over. William drew a long breath, and gave an agonized look into his brothers’ eyes. Then Billy turned from Mrs. Hartwell and held out a cordial hand to each of the men in turn.
“Oh, you don’t know how lovely this is—to me,” she cried softly. “And to think that you were willing I should come!” The two younger men caught their breath sharply, and tried not to see each other’s eyes. “You look so good—all of you; and I don’t believe there’s one of you that’s got nerves or a heart,” she laughed.
Bertram rallied his wits to respond to the challenge.
“No heart, Miss Billy? Now isn’t that just a bit hard on us—right at first?”
“Not a mite, if you take it the way I mean it,” dimpled Billy. “Hearts that are all right just keep on pumping, and you never know they are there. They aren’t worth mentioning. It’s the other kind—the kind that flutters at the least noise and jumps at the least bang! And I don’t believe any of you mind noises and bangs,” she finished merrily, as she handed her hat and coat to Mrs. Hartwell, who was waiting to receive them.
Bertram laughed. Cyril scowled, and occupied himself in finding a chair. William had already dropped himself wearily on to the sofa near his sister. Billy still continued to talk.
“Now when Spunk and I get to training—oh, and you haven’t seen Spunk!” she interrupted herself suddenly. “Why, the introductions aren’t half over. Where is he, Uncle William—the basket?”
“I—I put it in—in the hall,” mumbled William, starting to rise.
“No, no; I’ll get him,” cried Billy, hurrying from the room. She returned in a moment, the green covered basket in her hand. “He’s been asleep, I guess. He’s slept ‘most all the way down, anyhow. He’s so used to being toted ‘round in this basket that he doesn’t mind it a bit. I take him everywhere in it at the Falls.”
There was an electric pause. Four pairs of startled, questioning, fearful eyes were on the basket while Billy fumbled at the knot of the string. The next moment, with a triumphant flourish, Billy lifted from the basket and placed on the floor a very small gray kitten with a very large pink bow.
“There, ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you, Spunk.”
The tiny creature winked and blinked, and balanced for a moment on sleepy legs; then at the uncontrollable shout that burst from Bertram’s throat, he faced the man, humped his tiny back, bristled his diminutive tail to almost unbelievable fluffiness, and spit wrathfully.
“And so that is Spunk!” choked Bertram.
“Yes,” said Billy. “This is Spunk.”
For the first fifteen minutes after Billy’s arrival conversation was a fitful thing made up mostly of a merry monologue on the part of Billy herself, interspersed with somewhat dazed replies from one after another of her auditors as she talked to them in turn. No one thought to ask if she cared to go up to her room, and during the entire fifteen minutes Billy sat on the floor with Spunk in her lap. She was still there when the funereal face of Pete appeared in the doorway. Pete’s jaw dropped. It was plain that only the sternest self-control enabled him to announce dinner, with anything like dignity. But he managed to stammer out the words, and then turn loftily away. Bertram, who sat near the door, however, saw him raise his hands in horror as he plunged through the hall and down the stairway.
With a motion to Bertram to lead the way with Billy, William frenziedly gripped his sister’s arm, and hissed in her ear for all the world like a villain in melodrama:
“Listen! You’ll sleep in Bert’s room tonight, and Bert will come upstairs with me. Get Billy to bed as soon as you can after dinner, and then come back down to us. We’ve got to plan what’s got to be done. Sh-h!” And he dragged his sister downstairs.
In the dining-room there was a slight commotion. Billy stood at her chair with Spunk in her arms. Before her Pete was standing, dumbly staring into her eyes. At last he stammered:
“Ma’am?”
“A chair, please, I said, for Spunk, you know. Spunk always sits at the table right next to me.”
It was too much for Bertram. He fled chokingly to the hall. William dropped weakly into his own place. Cyril stared as had Pete; but Mrs. Hartwell spoke.
“You don’t mean—that that cat—has a chair—at the table!” she gasped.
“Yes; and isn’t it cute of him?” beamed Billy, entirely misconstruing the surprise in the lady’s voice. “His mother always sat at table with us, and behaved beautifully, too. Of course Spunk is little, and makes mistakes sometimes. But he’ll learn. Oh, there’s a chair right here,” she added, as she spied Bertram’s childhood’s high-chair, which for long years had stood unused in the corner. “I’ll just squeeze it right in here,” she finished gleefully, making room for the chair at her side.
When Bertram, a little red of face, but very grave, entered, the dining-room a moment later, he found the family seated with Spunk snugly placed between Billy and a plainly disgusted and dismayed brother, Cyril. The kitten was alert and interested; but he had settled back in his chair, and was looking as absurdly dignified as the flaring pink bow would let him.
“Isn’t he a dear?” Billy was saying. But Bertram noticed that there was no reply to this question.
It was a peculiar dinner-party. Only Billy did not feel the strain. Even Spunk was not entirely happy—his efforts to investigate the table and its contents were too frequently curbed by his mistress for his unalloyed satisfaction. William, it is true, made a valiant attempt to cause the conversation to be general; but he failed dismally. Kate was sternly silent, while Cyril was openly repellent. Bertram talked, indeed—but Bertram always talked; and very soon he and Billy had things pretty much to themselves—that is, with occasional interruptions caused by Spunk. Spunk had an inquisitive nose or paw for each new dish placed before his mistress; and Billy spent much time admonishing him. Billy said she was training him; that it was wonderful what training would do, and, of course, Spunk WAS little, now.
Dinner was half over when there was a slight diversion created by Spunk’s conclusion to get acquainted with the silent man at his left. Cyril, however, did not respond to Spunk’s advances. So very evident, indeed, was the man’s aversion that Billy turned in amazement.
“Why, Mr. Cyril, don’t you see? Spunk is trying to say ‘How do you do’?”
“Very likely; but I’m not fond of cats, Miss Billy.”
“You’re not fond—of—cats!” repeated the girl, as if she could not have heard aright. “Why not?”
Cyril changed his position.
“Why, just because I—I’m not,” he retorted lamely. “Isn’t there anything that—that
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