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Highacres, a fiction by Jane Abbott |
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Chapter 4. The Westleys |
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_ CHAPTER IV. THE WESTLEYS "Gyp Westley, get right down off from that chair! You know mother doesn't want you to stand on it!" Miss Gyp, startled by her sister's sudden appearance at her door, fell promptly from her perch on the dainty chintz-cushioned chair. "I was only tacking up my new banner," she answered crossly. "Here, Tib, put the hammer away. What are you going to do, Isobel?" Gyp's tone asked, rather: "What in the world have you found to do?" Because Mrs. Hicks' mother had been so inconsiderate as to have a stroke of apoplexy, much misery of spirit had fallen upon the young Westleys. Mrs. Hicks was the Westley housekeeper and Mrs. Robert Westley, who, with her four youngsters, was spending the month of August at Cape Cod, had declared that she must return home at once, for Mrs. Hicks' going would leave the house entirely alone with the two housemaids who were very new and very inexperienced. There had been of course a great deal of rebellion but Mrs. Westley, for once hardhearted, had turned deaf ears upon her aggrieved children. "Not a bit of silver packed away or anything, with that yellow-haired Lizzie! And anyway, it'll only be two or three weeks before school opens." Which was, of course, scant comfort! "Oh, I thought I'd walk over and see if Ginny's home yet." "Of course she isn't. Camp Fairview doesn't close until September second. I wish I'd gone there! Where's Graham?" Isobel stretched her daintily-clad self in the chintz-cushioned chair that Gyp had vacated. "He went out to Highacres to see the changes. Won't it seem funny to go to school in old Uncle Peter's house?" For the moment Gyp and Tibby forgot to feel bored. "It'll be like going to a new school. I know I shall be possessed to slide down the banisters. I wish I'd known Graham was going out, I'd have gone, too." "Barbara Lee's going to take Capt. Ricky's place in the gym," Isobel further informed her sisters. "You know she was on the crew and the basketball team and the hockey team at college." "Let's try for the school team this year, Isobel." Gyp sat up very straight. "Don't you remember how Capt. Ricky talked to us last year about doing things to build up the school spirit?" Isobel yawned. "It's too hot to think of doing anything right now! Miss Grimball's always talking about school spirit as though we ought to do everything for that. This is my last year--I'm going to just see that Isobel Westley has a very good time and the school spirit can go hang!" Gyp looked enviously at her valiant sister. Isobel was everything that poor, overgrown, dark-skinned Gyp longed to be--her face had the pink and white of an apple blossom, her fair hair curled around her temples and in her neck, her deep-blue eyes were fringed by long black lashes; she had, after much practice, acquired a willowy slouch that would have made a movie artist's fortune; she was the acknowledged beauty of the whole Lincoln school and had attended one or two dances under the chaperoned escort of older boys. "Here comes Graham," cried Tibby from the window. She leaned out to hail him. Graham Westley, who had, through the necessity of defending, for fifteen years, an unenviable position between Isobel and Gyp, developed an unusual amount of assertiveness, was what his uncle fondly called "quite a boy." But the dignity of his first long trousers, at one glance, fell before the boyish mischievousness of his frank face. His sisters deluged him now with questions. "Why don't you go out there and look at it yourselves?" But he was too enthusiastic about the new school to withhold his information. The living room and the old library had been built into one big room for a reference library; the classrooms were no end jolly; the billiard room had been enlarged and was to be an assembly room. A wing had been added for an indoor gymnasium. He and Stuart King had climbed way to the tower, but the tower room was locked. "I remember--mother and Uncle Johnny said that Uncle Peter's papers and books had been put up there. Mother wouldn't have them here." "Isn't it funny," mused Gyp as she balanced on the footboard of her bed. "Everybody hated old Uncle Peter, he was such a cross old thing, and nobody ever wanted to go to Highacres, and then he turns it into a school and we'll all just love it and make songs about it----" "And celebrate Uncle Peter's birthday with an entertainment or something," broke in Graham. "Maybe they'll even give us a holiday--to show respect to his memory. Hurrah for old Bones!" "Graham--you're dreadful," giggled Gyp. "I don't care. It's Uncle Peter's own fault. It's anyone's fault if nobody in the world likes 'em--it's because they don't like anybody else!" Isobel ignored his philosophy. "You want to remember, Graham Westley, that being Uncle Peter's grandnieces and nephew and having his money gives us a certain----" she floundered, her mind frantically searching for the word. "Prestige," cried Gyp grandly. "I heard mother say that. And I looked it up--it means authority and influence and power. But I don't see how just happening to be Uncle Peter's nieces----" At times Gyp's tendency to get at the very root of things annoyed her older sister. "I don't care about dictionaries. Now that the school's going to be at Highacres we four want to always be very careful how we speak of Uncle Peter and act sort of dignified out there----" "Rats!" cut in Graham, with scorn. "I say, Gyp--that's my banner!" Thereupon ensued a lively squabble, in which Tibby, who adored Graham, sided with him, and Isobel, in spite of Gyp's tearful pleading, refused to take part, so that the banner came down from the wall and went into Graham's pocket just as Mrs. Westley walked into the room. "Why, my dears, all of you in the house this glorious afternoon?" Mrs. Westley was a plump, bright-eyed woman who adored her four children, and enjoyed them, with happy serenity, except at infrequent intervals, when she worried herself "distracted" over them. At such times she always turned to "Uncle Johnny." Isobel and Gyp had almost managed to answer: "There's no place to go," when the mother's next words cut short their complaint. "I have the most astonishing news from Uncle Johnny," and she held up a fat envelope. "Oh, when's he coming back?" cried Tibby. "Very soon. But what do you think he wants to do--bring back with him a little girl he found up there in the mountains--or rather, she found him--when he got lost on a wrong trail. Listen: "'...She is a most unusual child. And she has outgrown the school here. I'd like, as a sort of scholarship, to send her for a year or two to Lincoln School. But there is the difficulty of finding a suitable place for her to live--she's too young to put in a boarding house. Could not you and the girls stretch your hearts and your rooms enough to let in the youngster? I haven't said anything to her mother yet--I won't until I hear from you. But I want to make this experiment and it will help me immensely if you'll write and say my little girl can go straight to you. I had a long talk with John Randolph, just before I came up here--we feel that Lincoln School has grown a little away from the real democratic spirit of fellowship that every American school should maintain; he suggested certain scholarships and that's what came to my mind when I found this girl. Isobel and Gyp and all their friends can give my wild mountain lassie a good deal--and she can give Miss Gyp and Isobel something, too----'" "Humph," came a suspicion of a snort from Isobel and Gyp. "Wish he'd found a boy," added Graham. From the moment she had read the letter, Mrs. Westley's mind had been working on ways and means of helping John Westley. She always liked to do anything anyone wanted her to do--and especially Uncle Johnny. "If Gyp would go back with Tibby or----" "Mother!" Gyp's distress was sincere--the spring before she had acquired this room of her own and she loved it dearly. "And Gyp's things muss my room so," cried Tibby, plaintively. "Then perhaps you'll all help me fix the nursery for her." Everyone in the household, although the baby Tibby was twelve years old, still called the pleasant room on the second floor at the back of the house, the "nursery." Mrs. Westley liked to take her sewing or her reading there--for her it had precious memories; the old bookcase was still filled with toys and baby books; Tibby's dolls had a corner of their own; Isobel's drawing tools were arranged on a table in the bay window and, on some open shelves, were displayed Graham's precious "specimens," all neatly labeled and mixed with a collection of war trophies. To "fix the nursery" would mean changes such as the Westley home had never known! Each face was very serious. "It wouldn't be much to do for Uncle Johnny!" Isobel, Gyp, Graham and Tibby, each in her and his own way, adored Uncle Johnny. Because their own father was away six months of every year, Uncle Johnny often stood in the double role of paternal counsellor and indulgent uncle. "And he's been so sick," added Tibby. "I can keep my stuff in my own room." Graham rather liked the idea. "I suppose I can do my drawing in father's study--even if the light isn't nearly as good." Isobel, who underneath all her little affectations had an honest soul, knew in her heart that hers was not much of a sacrifice, because she had not touched her drawing pencils for weeks and weeks, but she purposely made her tone complaining. "I s'pose we can play in there just the same?" asked Gyp. "Of course we can," declared her mother. "We'll put up that little old bed that's in the storeroom." "What's her name?" Gyp's forehead was wrinkled in a scowl. Mrs. Westley referred to the letter. "Jerauld Travis. What a pretty name! And she's just your age, Gyp!" But Gyp refused to be delighted at this fact. Then Mrs. Westley, relieved that the children had consented, even though ungraciously, to the change in their household, slipped the letter back into its envelope. "I'll write to Uncle Johnny right away," and she hurried from the room, a little fearful, perhaps, of the cloud that was noticeably darkening Isobel's face. "I think it's horrid," Isobel cried when she knew her mother was out of hearing. "What you got to kick about? How'd you like it if you was me with another girl around?" "If you was I," corrected Gyp, loftily. "I think maybe it'll be nice." "You won't when she's here! And probably Uncle Johnny'll like her better than any of us." Which added much to the flame of poor Isobel's jealousy. "Well, I shall just pay no more attention to her than's if she was a--a boarder!" Isobel had a very vague idea as to how boarders were usually treated. "And it's silly to think that Uncle Johnny will like her better than us--she's just a poor child he feels sorry for." "Do you suppose mountain people dress differently from us?" asked Tibby. Graham promptly answered: "Yes, silly--she'll wear goatskin--and she'll yodel." "Anyway," Isobel rose languidly, "we don't want to forget about Uncle Peter----" "And our prestige," interrupted Gyp, tormentingly. "And we can't act horrid to her 'cause that'd hurt Uncle Johnny's feelings----" Tibby suddenly saw a bright side of the cloud. "Say, it'll be fun seeing how she can't do things!" And, strangely enough, such is human nature in its early teens, little Tibby's suggestion brought satisfying comfort to the three others. Gyp's face cleared and she tossed her head as much as to say that she was not going to worry any more about it! "Come on, Isobel, I'll treat down at Wood's." "Let me go, too," implored Tibby. Gyp hesitated. "I only have thirty cents----" "You owe me ten, anyway," urged Tibby. Graham, in a sudden burst of generosity, relieved the tension of their high finance. "Oh, let's all go--I'll stand for the three of you!" _ |
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