Molly Brown's College Friends

But how strangely boats behaved! This one did not stay still as she had expected but ran away from her. Her legs had not grown nearly so long as she had thought and they refused to grow another bit. The boat got farther and farther away and the horrid little pier seemed to be moving, too, and in the opposite direction. The time came when Mildred must choose between land and water. She decided to stay on shore and with a mighty effort jerked her little foot from the unsteady blue boat. Three years going on four is not a period of great equilibrium. Fate took matters out of Mildred’s hands and kersplash! she went in the cold waters of the lake. It was not very deep so close to the shore, but neither was the little girl so very tall. By standing on her tiptoes she might have managed to keep her inquisitive nose out of the water, but the naughty blue boat came swinging back to her rescue and she clutched first the painter and then the side of the boat, screaming lustily as she clung.

The grey figure with the sandy hair ran lightly along the pier and with one swoop gathered the child up into his arms. He might have saved himself the trouble of taking off his coat and shoes, but he had seen the child as she fell in the water and did not know what would be required of him as life saver. Mildred was sobbing dolefully as she buried her wet curls in the neck of her rescuer.

“Your nurse should have looked after you,” he muttered.

“She had her husband to ’tend to,” said Mildred, “an’ I was a-keepin’ keer of myself. ’Sides she ain’t my nurse but my ’loved aunty.”

“Oh! And who may you be?”

“I’m Mildred Carbuncle Green.” The family name of Molly’s mother, which was Carmichael, was thus perverted by this scion of the race.

“And your aunt’s name?” asked the young man as he picked up his discarded coat and wrapped it around his burden.

“She’s Aunt Nance – ”

“Nance Oldham!” and he almost dropped little Mildred. “And you say she was busy with her husband?”

“Yessir! He keeps her busy mos’ of the time.”

The rescue and this conversation had taken but a moment. In the meantime, poor Nance had shoved her little husband back in the carriage and was rapidly wheeling him towards the scene of disaster.

She had recognized Andy McLean in the tall grey figure and sandy hair. The moment he had spoken to her so sternly she had known it was he. At that moment she envied no creature in the world so much as an ostrich. If she could only bury her head in the sand. Why should Fate be so cruel to her? Why should Andy McLean come back on her horizon at that moment when she was neglecting her duty? But then, she reflected, if he had not come back at that psychological moment either Mildred would have drowned or Dodo broken his neck. She could not have rescued both of them at once. Indeed, both of them might have been killed! The fact that the water was shallow and Mildred could have walked out of it was no comfort to Nance, nor did it allay her suffering and self-reproaches in the least to know that almost every baby that has grown to manhood has at one time or another fallen out of his carriage or bed, down the steps or even out of the window.

Andy McLean, too, was going through some uncomfortable moments as he held the dripping child close in his arms and made his way across the beach to Nance. There had never been a moment since he and Nance had parted that he had not regretted his hasty words; but what good were regrets? Nance could not have cared for him or she would have felt that at her father’s death he was the person to whom she must turn instead of that Dr. Flint. As far as he could see, there was no reason under Heaven why Nance should not have married him immediately. He knew nothing of her mother’s determination to give up her public life nor of her decision to remain at home for Nance to nurse. He had not yet learned of Mrs. Oldham’s death, as he had arrived at Wellington only the evening before, and Mrs. McLean, with a wisdom sometimes granted mothers, had not mentioned Nance’s name to him, much less the fact that she was even then visiting the Greens.

“Married! and so engrossed with her husband that she let little children entrusted to her care fall in the water and almost fall out of baby carriages! But where is the – the – cad?” was what Andy was thinking as he approached the frantic Nance, who was pushing the carriage as for dear life through the heavy sand.

“Mildred! Mildred! You promised not to go near the water’s edge!”

“I never went near it but jes’ ran out on the little wooden street. I wasn’t goin’ to be naughty. I knowed I might get my feet wet down by the edge so I walked on the planks. I never done nothin’ nor nothin’! ’Twas the bad little blue boat what wobbled.”

Nance and Andy both laughed at the amusing child. The laugh made matters easier for them.

Brown eyes looked into blue and then such a blush o’erspread their countenances that a day’s fishing under a summer sun could not have accomplished.

“You had better put her in the carriage – it is warm there and I can carry Dodo.”

“No, I will keep her wrapped in my coat. That will be better.”

“But you – you might be cold.”

“Not at all! I never catch cold,” shortly.

Nance remembered otherwise, but there was nothing to do but turn and wheel the baby back to the house on the campus.

“I – you must think – I know I was careless to let such an accident happen to my charges. I have no excuse – I was just thinking!”

“About your husband, I fancy!”

Again Nance’s cheeks were crimson, remembering only too well what her thoughts had been as she sat in the sand knitting.

“I – ”

“Mildred told me about him,” said Andy grimly.

“Did she?” laughed Nance, thinking that Andy was speaking of Dodo, of course. “He is a darling husband.”

“Humph!” They walked on in silence, Andy taking great strides with Mildred clasped closely in his arms, while Nance wheeled the baby carriage, almost running to keep up.

“I don’t know what to call you,” said Andy at last.

“Call me? Why, call me Nance! Why not? My name is still Nance no matter what has happened.”

“I – I – perhaps he wouldn’t like it.”

“Who?”

“Your husband! Is it Flint?”

“Andy McLean, you are a fool! There is no other word for you!” and Nance grabbed Dodo from his carriage and ran up the steps, thankful that they had arrived at the Square Deal.

“If not Flint, who?” muttered Andy under his breath. “I am going to stay here until I find out.”

Molly was not at home to receive her wet daughter. Nance and Katy rubbed her down and dressed her while Andy waited miserably in the library. Why had his mother not warned him that Nance Oldham was in Wellington? They had had a long talk and she had told him news of all their old friends. Molly and Edwin had been mentioned again and again but the fact that they had a guest had been kept dark. He had never talked to his mother about his break with Nance. A certain reticence in his make-up withheld him. Many times he had longed to put his head in her lap and tell her all about it.

A great intimacy existed between Mrs. McLean and this only child, but instead of his being like a daughter to her, as is the case sometimes with a woman and an only child when that child happens to be a son, this worthy mother had adjusted herself more into the relationship of an elder brother to Andy. There were few if any subjects they could not discuss together, but somehow he could not bring himself to tell her of Nance. She had known they were engaged – that was easy to tell, and she knew the engagement was no more – that was all. Mrs. McLean bided her time.

“They are young yet,” she had said to her husband. “Some misunderstanding has come up, but if they are really meant for one another it will be explained away. If they can’t forgive, then they are not suited for mating.”

The good woman had been delighted beyond measure that Nance should be in Wellington while her son was on his farewell visit to her, and she had devoutly prayed that they might meet by chance, just as they had. Of course she had not stipulated in her prayers that Andy should mistake Nance for the Greens’ nurse and reprimand her for carelessness; and then fish Mildred out of the water; and get Dodo and the hated Dr. Flint hopelessly mixed, and be called a fool for his blunder!

CHAPTER VII

NANCE PACKS HER TRUNK

Molly, coming in hurriedly from her labors at the French War Relief rooms where she had been engaged in making surgical dressings until her back ached so that she had more sympathy for the poor wounded than ever, if possible, found young Dr. McLean cooling his heels and drying his coat by her library fire.

“Andy! I am so glad to see you!” she cried, grasping both of his hands. “When did you come? Did you know Nance Oldham is with me?”

“Yes, I have seen her,” grimly.

“Oh, then you know of her trouble?”

“Trouble! I shouldn’t call it that. She evidently does not consider it in that light.”

“Andy McLean, how can you say such a thing?”

“Well, I formed my opinions from the evidence of my own eyes. In fact, she told me with her own lips that she was contented; if not in so many words, at least she gave me that impression.”

“Resigned, of course! That is Nance’s way, but she is very sad and lonesome for all that.”

“Lonesome! Ye Gods, how many does she want?”

“Excuse me, Andy, but you are talking like a goose,” declared Molly, irritated in spite of herself.

“Thank you, madam,” he said, bowing low. “Your guest has just called me a fool and now you call me a goose. I bid you good-by.”

“Good-by, indeed! Andy McLean, sit down here and let me send for your father. I believe my soul you are in a fever or something.” Molly pushed him down in a chair near the fire. “Why, Andy, your coat is damp! Where have you been?”

She drew a chair by him and seated herself, looking anxiously into his flushed face. Andy laughed in a hard tone.

“Perhaps you are right, but don’t send for Father. I got my coat wet in a perfectly sane way, but perhaps you had better find out about that from Mrs. Fl – Nance – I mean.”

Andy balked at that name of Mrs. Flint and then, besides, Nance had called him a fool when he had hinted at the doctor’s being the happy man. At this juncture little Mildred came running into the library.

“Mumsy! Mumsy! Is you heard ’bout me an’ the blue boat?”

“No, darling! But what makes your curls so wet?”

“That was that baddest blue boat. It wouldn’t stay still ’til I got in – it jes’ moved and moved – an’ the little wooden street, it moved an’ moved an’ I went kerblim! kersplash!”

“In the lake! Oh, Mildred! I know you didn’t mind Aunt Nance. Are you cold? Did Aunt Nance get wet? Where is Dodo?”

“You ’fuses me with so many ain’t’s an’ do’s and didn’t’s.”

“You tell me all about it,” said the doting mother, trying to compose herself as she gathered the first-born in her arms.

“Well, you see, me’n’ Aunt Nance we went a-walkin’ an’ we tooked Dodo along an’ my dolly, an’ Aunt Nance she says that one use she ain’t got no husband is ’cause don’t no husband want her, an’ I done tol’ her that if Katy kin shrink her up some that Dodo kin be her husband. You see, Mumsy, I been a-feelin’ sorry for Aunt Nance ever since that time I mos’ went to sleep in her lap an’ she talked about a beau lover what got to fightin’ with her an’ she hit him back. She wetted my ear all up with her tears. I jes’ done thunk somethin’!” the child exclaimed, getting out of her mother’s lap and peering curiously into Andy’s face. “Is you the Andy what talked so crule to my Aunt Nance? ’Cause if you is, I’m sorry you done pulled me out’n the lake.”

“Mildred! Mildred!” admonished Molly, but in her heart of hearts she knew that what the enfant terrible was saying to the young doctor was no doubt of a very salutary nature. He needed a good talking to and he was getting it.

“I am the one,” said Andy meekly.

“Well, when Dodo grows up to be big enough he is goin’ to – to – cut you up in little pieces. He’s growin’ up fast an’ bein’ a husband is makin’ him cut his teeth early – ”

“Molly Brown!” interrupted Andy McLean eagerly. “Is Nance not married?”

“Married! The idea, Andy! Of course not!”

“Yes, she is! She’s married to Dodo Green. I married ’em this morning,” declared Mildred defiantly.

“Oh, oh! I see it all now!” laughed Molly hysterically. “You were talking about her mythical marriage while I was speaking of her mother’s death.”

“Her mother dead? I had not heard a word of it. Strange that so important a woman as Mrs. Oldham should have died without my seeing it mentioned in the paper.”

“But Mrs. Oldham dropped out of public life two years ago, when her husband died, in fact. Nance had hardly rested from the long siege of nursing her father before she began on her mother.”

Andy bowed his sandy-haired head in his hands and groaned:

“Fool! Fool! Every kind of fool and goose you and Nance choose to call me, – fool and knave! Bad-tempered brute! Jealous idiot! Oh, Molly, please call Nance.”

When Nance had hurled her “fool” at Andy’s sandy head, she flew up-stairs, determined never to speak to him again. She longed for a few quiet moments in her own room, but Mildred must be rubbed down and dressed before she could seek retirement. She was sure he would leave the house immediately. His coat was wet and no doubt his vest and shirt, too, after having carried the dripping child such a distance. Of course he would not want to call on the Greens while she was in the house. The girl bitterly regretted having timed her visit so unfortunately. The Greens and McLeans were very intimate, and would perforce see each other often. She hated to be a wet blanket – a skeleton at the feast. She determined to pack her trunk and go on a promised visit to an old college friend then living in New York. Molly would object, she knew, but it was surely best for all of them that she should take herself off for a few weeks.

Nance was always an orderly person and packing a trunk with her was a very simple matter. She began in her usual systematic way and had already folded her dresses neatly in the trays and was emptying the bureau drawers when Molly’s voice was heard calling her from the lower hall.

“Nance! Oh, Nance!”

She sounded quite excited. No doubt she had just been informed of Mildred’s accident and wanted to hear the details of it.

“Coming!” called Nance, hurrying down the steps. “Oh, Molly, what do you think of me for taking out the children and almost drowning Mildred? And while that was going on, little Dodo came within an ace of tumbling out of the carriage on his precious sleepy head! You will never trust them with me again.”

“Nonsense! Mildred is old enough not to try to get in boats alone, and as for Dodo, Aunt Mary always said: ‘Whin chilluns grows up ’thout ever gittin’ a tumble, they is sho’ to be idjits.’”

“Well, then, my real duty was to let him tumble,” laughed Nance. “What do you want with me, honey? I am very busy.”

“Not too busy to come in and talk with me a little while,” insisted the wily Molly, putting her arm around her friend’s waist and leading her to the library door.

“I do want to talk to you a moment,” agreed Nance. “Molly, I am going away for a few weeks.” They had reached the door, which was ajar, and Andy, ensconced in the sleepy-hollow chair dear to the professor’s bones, could plainly hear the conversation.

“Going away! You are going to do no such thing.”

“I must. There is no use in asking me why – you know why – It is too hard for me and there is no use in pretending it is not.”

“But, Nance – ”

“I have begun to pack and I will go to-morrow.”

Instead of the hospitable protestations characteristic of Molly, that young housewife said not a word, but giving her friend a little push towards the fireplace, she grabbed up Mildred and rushed from the room, closing the door after her.

CHAPTER VIII

A DAMP COAT

Andy undoubled himself with alacrity and sprang from the sleepy-hollow chair. His stern face was softened and filled with a boyish eagerness.

“Oh, Nance! Can’t you forgive me?”

“Excuse me, Dr. McLean, I did not know you were still here,” and Nance turned to leave the room.

Andy with long strides reached the door first and with his back against it held out beseeching hands.

“Yes, I’m here and am going to stay here – ”

“Well, I am not! Please let me pass.” Nance was filled with a righteous indignation against Molly at having played this trick on her.

“But, my dear, I must tell you what a fool I have been – ”

“That is not necessary. I know.”

Andy laughed. Nance had a laconic way of putting things that always tickled his humor.

“Now you sound like yourself, honey, but oh, please act like yourself! The real Nance Oldham could not be so cruel as to go off without letting me explain – I have no excuse – there could be none for my blind rage and jealousy – none unless loving you too hard could be called one. Will you listen to me?”

“I shall have to unless I stop up my ears, since you stop up the doorway.” Nance was very pale and trembling. Two years of suffering could not be done away with in a moment and the girl had surely suffered.

“Couldn’t we sit down and let me tell you?”

“We could!”

Andy eagerly directed Nance to the sofa, but she sedately seated herself in a small isolated sewing rocker. Andy accepted the amendment and placed his chair as near to hers as the frigid atmosphere around her permitted.

“Before I explain I must apologize. I would have done it the very day after that awful row we had, the very moment after it, if I had not thought you hated me.”

“And now?”

“And now I am going to apologize and explain, whether you hate me or not. I could do it lots better if you would let me hold your hand while I am doing it,” but Nance drew Molly’s knitting from a bag hung on the back of the chair and declared her hands were otherwise occupied. Molly had reached the purling end of a sleeveless sweater and no doubt would be glad of Nance’s expert assistance.

“Nance, there never has been any other woman in my life but you, you and my mother. You know perfectly well from the time I met you, when I was at Exmoor College and you were here at Wellington, that you were the only girl in the world for me. I had a kind of notion in my fool brain that I was going to be the only man in the world for you. When we were engaged I thought I was, but when I realized that Dr. Flint was paying you such devoted attention, at your home constantly – ”

“My father’s physician!”

“Yes, I know, – but, honey, you see you were way up there in Vermont and I was down in New York and I was hungry for you all the time, and when your father died I thought you would pick right up and come to me – I knew nothing of your mother’s determination to stay with you – nothing of her illness – nothing but that you were staying in the same town with Flint and I must go back to New York. You did not tell me.”

“Well, hardly, after the way you raged and tore! I felt if you could rage that way we had better separate.”

“But, my dear, I’ll never rage that way again – I’ve learned my lesson. Can’t you forgive me?” Nance was silent.

“I love you just as much as I always did, – more, in fact. When little Mildred Green told me you had let her fall in the water because you were so busy with your husband, I wanted to die that minute. Of course I thought it was Flint. How could I know the child was playing a game with you? Nance, do you hate me as much as you did that terrible day two years ago?”

“Yes!” Nance’s answer was very low but Andy heard it.

“Well, then, there is no use in saying any more,” he sprang to his feet, his face grey with misery.

“I didn’t hate you then at all – nor do I now.”

“Oh, Nance, don’t tease me! Can you forgive me?” and poor Andy sank on his knees and bowed his head on her knees.

Nance’s arms were around him in a moment. She hugged his sandy head to her bosom with one hand and patted his back with the other while he gave a great sob.

“Andy McLean, you are still wringing wet. Get up from here this minute and take off that coat and let me dry it! And your shirt is damp, too! My, what a boy! Here, sit right close to the fire and dry that wet sleeve.”

Andy meekly submitted in a daze. Nance’s motherly attitude and sudden melting were too much for him. The coat was hung by the fire to dry while the young doctor stood helplessly by in his shirt sleeves.

“And now, Andy, I’m going to apologize to you and ask you to forgive me,” declared Nance, stoutly trying to go on with her knitting.

But Andy firmly took it from her and possessed himself of those busy hands.

“I was worse than you – when you said those hard things to me they hurt like fury – you didn’t know how they did hurt, but I did, and I should not have done the same thing to you. I said worse things to you than you did to me, – at least I tried to.”

“You did pretty well,” said Andy whimsically, pressing one of the imprisoned hands to his lips.

“Dr. Flint did want to marry me; I guess he still does, but – but – ”

“But what, lassie?” Sometimes Andy dropped into his parents’ vernacular.

“I am not going to tell a man in his shirt sleeves why I didn’t marry Dr. Flint,” said Nance firmly. “It is too unpicturesque.”

“Then I’ll put on my coat.”

“No, you won’t! I wouldn’t tell a man in a wet coat, either.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t like to lay my brown head on a damp shoulder. Why don’t you do as I told you and dry that shirt sleeve? Hold it close to the fire, sir!”

“I won’t do it unless you tell me why you didn’t marry Dr. Flint.”

“Well, then, to keep you from catching your death of cold, I will tell you, but remember I have saved your life. It was – it was because – because he didn’t have sandy hair and a bad temper,” and Nance was enfolded in the despised shirt sleeves and found a very nice dry spot on which to lay her brown head.

The sun had set and twilight was upon them. The front door opened to admit the master of the house, but Molly was in ambush ready to catch him to keep him out of the library. Kizzie had started in to mend the fire but Molly stopped her.

“Never mind the fire, Kizzie. It is all right for such a warm evening. Give us tea in the den.”

“Why all of this mystery?” asked Edwin Green as he followed his wife back to the den, going on tiptoe as she demanded.

“Andy and Nance are in there.”

“Andy McLean! Fine! I want to see him. Won’t he be here to tea? I’ll go in and speak to him.”

“You’ll do no such thing! Edwin Green, you may be – in fact, are, a grand lecturer on English, but you have no practical sense. Don’t you know you might break in just at the wrong moment and Andy may get off to France without their making it up?”

“Making up what? Who making up: the Allies and the central powers?”

“Oh, Edwin, you know I mean Nance and Andy!”

“What are they making up? If it is a row, let’s go help them.”

“Not a soul shall go in that room until they come out, unless it is over my dead body.”

“Well, well! I’d rather stay in this room with your live body than go in there over your dead one,” and the professor pulled his wife down on the sofa by him, “especially if you will give me some tea,” as Kizzie came in grinning with the tea tray.

“They’s co’tin’ a-goin’ on in yander, boss. The fiah is low an’ the lights ain’t lit, but Miss Molly she guard that do’ like a cat do a mouse hole. Cose Miss Nance ain’t got no maw to futher things up for her but Miss Molly is all ready to fly off an’ git the preacher, seems like.”

“I can’t remember that things were made easy for me this way when I was addressing my wife,” complained Edwin as he stirred his tea with his arm around his wife, a combination that could not have been made had his arm not been long and Molly still slender.

“Ungrateful man! Why, Judy and Kent took the bus from Fontainebleau to Barbizon when they were simply dying to walk, just to give you a chance. Have you forgotten?”

“I haven’t forgotten the walk – I never will – and if they really rode on my account, I’ll pass on the favor to other lovers and stay out of my library until the cows come home; that is, if you will stay with me.”

Molly told him then of the whole affair and how Mildred had righted matters, telling Andy just exactly the right thing to bring him to his senses.