Cloudy Jewel (Romance Classic). Grace Livingston Hill

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ to see in. And there was Julia Cloud, her white hair awry, and her face rosy with mirth, an ear of corn in one hand and a knife in the other, being carried––yes, actually carried––across the dining-room in the arms of a tall young man and deposited firmly on the big old couch.

      “There, Cloudy Jewel! You’ll lie right there and rest while Leslie and I get lunch. You’re all tired out; I can see it in your eyes; and we can’t afford to let you stay so. No, we don’t need any succotash for lunch or dinner, either. I know it’s good; but we haven’t time now, and we aren’t going to let you work,” announced the young man joyously as he towered above her lying quiescent and weak with laughter.

      “No, nor you aren’t going to wash the dishes, either,” gurgled the young girl who danced behind the young man; “Allison and I will wash them all while you take a nap, and then we’re going to ride again.”

      Julia Cloud, her eyes bright with the joy of all this loving playfulness, tried to protest; but suddenly into the midst of this tumult came Mrs. Perkins’s raucous assertion:

      “H’m-m!”

      The two young people whirled around alertly, and Julia Cloud sat up with a wild attempt to bring her hair into subjection as she recognized her neighbor. The color flooded into her sweet face, but she rose with gentle dignity.

      “O Mrs. Perkins, we must have been making such a noise that we didn’t hear your knock,” she said.

      As a matter of fact Mrs. Perkins hadn’t knocked. She had been led on by curiosity until she stood in the open dining-room door, rank disapproval written on her face.

      “It did seem a good bit of noise for a house of mourning,” said Mrs. Perkins dryly.

      Julia Cloud’s sweet eyes suddenly lost their smile, and she drew herself up ever so little. There was just a ripple of a quiver of her gentle lips, and she said quite quietly and with a dignity that could not help impressing her caller:

      “This is not a house of mourning, Mrs. Perkins. I don’t think my dear mother would want us to mourn because she was released from a bed of pain where she had lain for nine long years, and gone to heaven where she could be young and free and happy. I’m glad for her, just as glad as I can be; and I know she would want me to be. But won’t you sit down? Mrs. Perkins, this is my niece and nephew, Leslie and Allison Cloud from California. I guess you remember them when they were little children. Or no; you hadn’t moved here yet when they were here–––”

      Mrs. Perkins with pursed lips acknowledged the introduction distantly, one might almost say insolently, and turned her back on them as if they had been little children.

      “Your sister’s been here all morning waiting for you!” she said accusingly. She gave a significant glance at the unwashed breakfast dishes, only part of which had been removed to the kitchen. “She couldn’t imagine where you’d gone at that hour an’ left your beds and your dishes.”

      A wave of indignation swept over Julia Cloud’s sweet face.

      “So you have been in my house during my absence!” she said quietly. “That seems strange since Ellen has no key!”

      There was nothing in her voice to indicate rebuke, but Mrs. Perkins got very red.

      “I s’pose your own sister has a right to get into the house where she was born,” she snapped.

      “Oh, of course,” said Julia Cloud pleasantly. “And Ellen used to be a good climber before she got so fat. I suppose she climbed in the second-story window, although I hadn’t realized she could. However, it doesn’t matter. I suppose you have had to leave your dishes and beds once in a while when you were called away on business. You have a cup there; did you want to borrow something?”

      Mrs. Perkins was one of those people who are never quite aware of it when they are in a corner; but she felt most uncomfortable, especially as she caught a stifled giggle from Allison, who bolted into the parlor hastily and began noisily to turn over the pages of a book on the table; but she managed to ask for her soda and get herself out of the house.

      “Thank you for bringing my sister’s message,” called Julia Cloud after her. She never could quite bear to be unpleasant even to a prying neighbor, and Mrs. Perkins through the years had managed to make herself unpleasant many times.

      “The old cat!” said Leslie in a clear, carrying voice. “Why did you thank her, Auntie Jewel? She didn’t deserve it.”

      “Hush, Leslie, dear! She will hear you!” said Julia Cloud, hastily closing the door on the last words.

      “I hope she did,” said Leslie comfortably. “I meant she should.”

      “But, deary, that isn’t right! It isn’t––Christian!” said her aunt in distress.

      “Then I’m no Christian,” chanted Leslie mischievously. “Why isn’t it right, I’d like to know? Isn’t she an old cat?”

      “But you hurt her feelings, dear. I’m afraid I was to blame, too; I didn’t answer her any too sweetly myself.”

      “Well, didn’t she hurt yours first? Sweet! Why, you were honey itself, Cloudy, dear, thanking her for her old prying!”

      “I hope it’s the kind of honey that gets bitter after you swallow it!” growled Allison, coming out of the parlor. “If she’d said much more, I’d just have put her out of the house, talking to you like that, as if you were a little child, Cloudy!”

      “Why, children! That didn’t really hurt me any; it just stirred up my temper a little; but I’m ashamed that I let it, and I don’t want you to talk like that. It isn’t a bit right. It distresses me to have you think it’s right to answer back that way and take vengeance on people.”

      “Well, there, Cloudy, let’s lay that subject on the table for some of our night talks; and you can scold us all you like. We have a lot of work to do now, and let’s forget the old pry. Now you lie down on that couch where I put you, and Leslie and I’ll wash these dishes.”

      Julia Cloud lay obediently on the couch, but her mind was not at rest. She was in a tumult of indignation at her prying neighbor and an uncertainty of anxiety about Ellen and what she might do next. But beneath it all was a vague fear about these her dear children who were about to become her responsibility. Could she do it? Dared she do it? How differently they had been brought up from all the traditions which had controlled her life!

      Take, for instance, that matter of Christianity. How would they feel about it? Would they be in sympathy with her ideas and ideals of right and wrong? They were no longer little children to obey her. They would have ideas of their own, yes, and ideals. Would there be constant clashing? Would she be haunted with a feeling that she was not doing her duty by them? There were so many such questions, amusements, and Sabbath, and churchgoing, and how to treat other people. And doubtless she was old-fashioned, and they would chafe under her rule.

      Take the little matter of Leslie’s calling Mrs. Perkins a cat. She was a cat, but Leslie ought not to have told her so. It wasn’t polite, and it wasn’t Christian. And yet how could she, plain Julia Cloud, who had never been anywhere much outside of her home town, who had had no opportunity for study or wide reading, and who had only worked quietly all her life, and thought her plain little thoughts of love to God and to her neighbors, be able to explain all those things to this pair of lovable, uncontrolled СКАЧАТЬ