The Twenty-Fourth of June: Midsummer's Day Read online

  THE TWENTY-FOURTH OF JUNE

  Midsummer's Day

  by

  GRACE S RICHMOND

  1914

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER

  I. The Curtain Rises on a Home

  II. Richard Changes His Plans

  III. While It Rains

  IV. Pictures

  V. Richard Pricks His Fingers

  VI. Unsustained Application

  VII. A Traitorous Proceeding

  VIII. Roses Red

  IX. Mr. Kendrick Entertains

  X. Opinions and Theories

  XI. "The Taming of the Shrew"

  XII. Blankets

  XIII. Lavender Linen

  XIV. Rapid Fire

  XV. Making Men

  XVI. Encounters

  XVII. Intrigue

  XVIII. The Nailing of a Flag

  XIX. In the Morning

  XX. Side Lights

  XXI. Portraits

  XXII. Roberta Wakes Early

  XXIII. Richard Has Waked Earlier

  XXIV. The Pillars of Home

  XXV. A Stout Little Cabin

  CHAPTER I

  THE CURTAIN RISES ON A HOME

  None of it might ever have happened, if Richard Kendrick had gone intothe house of Mr. Robert Gray, on that first night, by the front door.For, if he had made his first entrance by that front door, if he hadbeen admitted by the maidservant in proper fashion and conducted intoJudge Calvin Gray's presence in the library, if he had delivered hismessage, from old Matthew Kendrick, his grandfather, and had come awayagain, ushered out of that same front door, the chances are that henever would have gone again. In which case there would have been nostory to tell.

  It all came about--or so it seems--from its being a very rainy night inlate October, and from young Kendrick's wearing an all-concealingmotoring rain-coat and cap. He had been for a long drive into thecountry, and had just returned, mud-splashed, when his grandfather,having taken it into his head that a message must be delivered at once,requested his grandson to act as his messenger.

  So the young man had impatiently bolted out with the message, had senthis car rushing through the city streets, and had become a still muddierand wetter figure than before when he stood upon the porch of the oldGray homestead, well out in the edge of the city, and put thumb to thebell.

  His hand was stayed by the shrill call of a small boy who dashed up onthe porch out of the dusk. "You can't get in that way," young Ted Graycried. "Something's happened to the lock--they've sent for a man to fixit. Come round to the back with me--I'll show you."

  So this was why Richard Kendrick came to be conducted by way of thetall-pillared rear porch into the house through the rear door of thewide, central hall. There was no light at this end of the hall, and theold-fashioned, high-backed settee which stood there was in shadow.

  With a glance at the caller's muddy condition the young son of the housedecided it the part of prudence to assign him this waiting-place, whilehe himself should go in search of his uncle. The lad had seen the bigmotor-car at the gate; quite naturally he took its driver for achauffeur.

  Ted looked in at the library door; his uncle was not there. He raced offupstairs, not noting the change which had already taken place in thevisitor's appearance with the removal of the muddy coat and cap.

  Richard Kendrick now looked a particularly personable young man, wellbuilt, well dressed, of the brown-haired, gray-eyed, clear-skinned type.The eyes were very fine; the nose and mouth had the lines ofdistinction; the chin was--positive. Altogether the young man did notlook the part he had that day been playing--that of the rich young idlerwho drives a hundred and fifty miles in a powerful car, over the worstkind of roads, merely for the sake of diversion and a good luncheon.

  While he waited Richard considered the hall, at one end of which he satin the shadow. There was something very homelike about this hall. Thequaint landscape paper on the walls, the perceptibly worn and fadedcrimson Turkey carpeting on the floors, the wide, spindle-balustradestaircase with the old clock on its landing; more than all, perhaps, onan October night like this, the warm glow from a lamp with crystalpendants which stood on the table of polished mahogany near the frontdoor--all these things combined to give the place a quite distinctivelook of home.

  There were one or two other touches in the picture worth mentioning, thetouches which spoke of human life. An old-fashioned hat-tree justopposite the rear door was hung full with hats. A heavy ulster lay overa chair close by, and two umbrellas stood in the corner. And overhat-rack, hats, ulster, and chair, with one end of silken fringe caughtupon one of the umbrella ribs, had been flung by some careless hand,presumably feminine, a long silken scarf of the most intenserose-colour, a hue so vivid, as the light caught it from the landingabove, that it seemed almost to be alive.

  From various parts of the house came sounds--of voices and of footsteps,more than once of distant laughter. Far above somewhere a child's highcall rang out. Nearer at hand some one touched the keys of a piano,playing snatches of Schumann--_Der Nussbaum, Mondnacht, Die Lotosblume_.Richard recognized the airs which thus reached his ears, and was sorrywhen they ceased.

  Now there might be nothing in all this worth describing if the effectupon the observer had not been one to him so unaccustomed. Though he hadlived to the age of twenty-eight years, he had never set foot in a placewhich seemed so curiously like a vague dream he had somewhere at theback of his head. For the last two years he had lived with hisgrandfather in the great pile of stone which they called home. If thiswere no real home, the young man had never had one. He had spent periodsof his life in various sorts of dwelling-places; in private rooms atschools and college--always the finest of their kind--in clubs, onships, in railway trains; but no time at all in any place remotelyresembling the house in which he now waited, a stranger in every senseof the word, more strange to the everyday, fine type of home known tothe American of good birth and breeding than may seem credible as it isset down.

  "Hold on there!" suddenly shouted a determined male voice from somewhereabove Richard. A door banged, there was a rush of light-running feetalong the upper hall, closely followed by the tread of heavier ones. Aburst of the gayest laughter was succeeded by certain deep grunts,punctuated by little noises as of panting breath and half-stifledmerriment. It was easy to determine that a playful scuffle of some sortwas going on overhead, which seemed to end only after considerableinarticulate but easily translatable protest on the part of the weakerperson involved.

  Then came an instant's silence, a man's ringing laugh of triumph; next,in a girl's voice, a little breathless but of a quality to make thelistener prick up ears already alert, these most unexpected words:

  "'O, it is _excellent_To have a giant's strength; but it is _tyrannous_To use it like a giant!'"

  "Is it, indeed, Miss Arrogance?" mocked the deeper voice. "Well, if youhad given it back at once, as all laws of justice, not to mentionpropriety, demanded, I should not have had to force it away from you.Oh, I say, did I really hurt that wrist, or are you shamming?"

  "Shamming! You big boys have no idea how brutally violent you are whenyou want some little thing you ought not to have. It aches likeanything," retorted the other voice, its very complaints uttered in suchmelodious tones of contralto music that the listener found himselfwishing with all his might to know if the face of its owner could by anypossibility match the loveliness of her voice. Dark, he fancied she mustbe, and young, and strong--of education, of a gay wit, yet of atemper--all this the listener thought he could read in the voice.
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  "Poor little wilful girl! Did she get hurt, then, trying to have her ownway? Come in here, jade, and I'll fix it up for you," the deeper tonesdeclared.

  Footsteps again; a door closed. Silence succeeded for a minute; then theSchumann music began again, a violin accompanying. And suddenly,directly opposite the settee, a door swung slowly open, the hand uponthe knob invisible. A picture was presented to the stranger's eyes as ifsomebody had meant to show it to him. He could but look. Anybody, seeingthe picture, would have looked and found it hard to turn his eyes away.

  For it was the heart of the house, right here, so close at hand thateven a stranger could catch a glimpse of it by chance. A great,wide-throated fireplace held a splendid fire of burning logs, the lightfrom it illumining the whole room, otherwise dark in the Octobertwilight. Before it on the hearth-rug were silhouetted, in distinctlines against its rich background, two figures. One was that of a womanin warm middle life, sitting in a big chair, her face full of bothbrightness and peace; at her feet knelt a young girl, her arm upon hermother's knees, her face uplifted. The two faces were smiling into eachother.

  Somebody--it looked to be a tall young man against the fire-glow--cameand abruptly closed the door from within, and the picture was gone. Thefitful music ceased again; the house was quiet.

  Thereupon Richard Kendrick grew impatient. Fully ten minutes must haveelapsed since his youthful conductor had disappeared. He looked abouthim for some means of summoning attention, but discovered none.

  Suddenly a latchkey rattled uselessly in the lock of the front door;then came lusty knocks upon its stout panels, accompanied by thewhirring of a bell somewhere in the distance.

  A maidservant came hurriedly into the hall through a door near Richard,and at the same moment a boy of ten or eleven came tearing down thefront stairs. As the lad shouted through the door, Richard recognizedhis late conductor.

  "You can't get in, Daddy; the lock's gone queer. Come around to theback. I'll see to him, Mary," the boy called to the maid, who, nodding,disappeared.

  At this moment the door opposite Richard opened again, and the mother ofthe household came out, her comely waist closely clasped by the arm ofthe young girl. The two were followed by the tall young man.

  Richard stood up, and was, of course, instantly upon the road to thedelivery of his message.

  Ted, ushering in his father, and spying the waiting messenger, criedrepentantly, "Oh, I forgot!" and the tall young man responded gravely,"You usually do, don't you, Cub?" This elder son of the house, wavingthe small boy aside, attended to taking Richard to the library, and tosummoning Judge Calvin Gray.

  In five minutes the business had been dispatched, Judge Gray had madefriendly inquiry into the condition of his old friend's health, andRichard was ready to take his departure. Curiously enough he did not nowwant to go. As he stood for a moment near the open library door, whileJudge Gray returned to his desk for a newspaper clipping, the caller waslistening to the eager greetings taking place in the hall just out ofhis sight. The father of the family appeared to have returned from anabsence of some length, and the entire household had come rushing tomeet and welcome him. Richard listened for the contralto notes he hadheard above, and presently detected them declaring with vivid emphasis:"Mother has been a dear, splendid martyr. Nobody would have guessed shewas lonely, but--we knew!"

  "She couldn't possibly have been more lonely than I. Next time I'll takeher with me!" was the emphatic response.

  Then the whole group swept by the library door, down the hall, and intothe room of the great fireplace. Nobody looked his way, and RichardKendrick had one swift view of them all. Vigorous young men, gracefulyoung women, a child or two, the mother of them all on the arm of herhusband--there were plenty to choose from, but he could not find the onehe looked for. Then, quite by itself, another figure flashed past him.He had a glimpse of a dusky mass of hair, of a piquant profile, of around arm bared to the elbow. As the figure passed the hat-tree he sawthe arm reach out and catch the rose-coloured scarf, flinging it overone shoulder. Then the whole vision had vanished, and he stood alone inthe library doorway, with Judge Gray saying behind him: "I cannot findthe clipping. I will mail it to your grandfather when I come upon it."

  "I knew that scarf was hers," Richard was thinking as he went out intothe night by way of the rear door, Judge Gray having accompanied him tothe threshold and given him a cordial hand of farewell. What a voice!She could make a fortune with it on the stage, if she couldn't sing anote. The stage! What had the stage to do with people who lived togetherin a place like that?

  He looked curiously back at the house as he went down the box-borderedpath which led, curving, from it to the street. It was obviously one ofthe old-time mansions of the big city, preserved in the midst of itsgrounds in a neighbourhood now rampant with new growth. It was outside,on this chill October night, as hospitable in appearance as it wasinside; there was hardly a window which did not glow with a mellowlight. As Richard drove down the street, he was recalling vividly thepicture of the friendly-looking hall with its faded Turkey carpet wornwith the tread of many rushing feet, its atmosphere of welcomingwarmth--and the rose-hued scarf flung over the dull masculine belongingsas if typifying the fashion in which the women of the household casttheir bright influence over the men.

  It suddenly occurred to Richard Kendrick that if he had lived in such ahome even until he went away to school, if he had come back to such ahome from college and from the wanderings over the face of the earthwith which he had filled in his idle days since college was over, heshould be perhaps a better, surely a different, man than he was now.

  * * * * *

  Louis Gray, coming into the hall precisely as Richard Kendrick, againenveloped in his muddy motoring coat, was releasing Judge Gray's handand disappearing into the night, looked curiously after the departingfigure. His sister Roberta, following him into the hall a moment after,rose-coloured scarf still drifting across white-clad shoulder, was intime to receive his comment:

  "Seems rather odd to see that chap departing humbly by any door but thefront one."

  "You knew him, then. Who was he?" inquired his sister.

  "Didn't you? He's a familiar figure enough about town. Why, he's RichKendrick. Grandson of Matthew Kendrick, of Kendrick & Company, you know.Only Rich doesn't take much interest in the business. You'll find hisdoings carefully noticed in certain columns in certain societyjournals."

  "I don't read them, thank you. Do you?"

  "Don't need to. Kendrick's a familiar figure wherever the gay andyouthful rich disport themselves--when he's in the country at all. He'sdoing his best to get away with the money his father left him.Fortunately the bulk of the family fortune is still in the hands of hisgrandfather, who seems an uncommonly healthy and vigorous old man."Louis laughed. "Can't think what Rich Kendrick can be doing here withUncle Cal. I believe, though, he and old Matthew Kendrick are goodfriends. Probably grandson Richard came on an errand. It certainlybehooves him to do grandfather's errands with as good a grace as he canmuster."

  "He was sitting in the hall quite a while before Uncle Cal saw him,"volunteered Ted, who had tagged at Roberta's heels, and was listeningwith interest.

  "Sitting in the hall, eh--like any district messenger?" Louis wasclearly delighted with this news. "How did it happen, Cub? Mary take himfor an everyday, common person?"

  "I let him in. I thought he was a chauffeur," admitted Ted. "He wasawfully wet and muddy. Steve took him in to Uncle Cal."

  An explosion of laughter from his interested elder brother interruptedhim. "I wish I'd come along and seen him. So he had the bad manners tosit in our hall in a wet and muddy motoring coat, and go in to see UncleCal--"

  "The young man had on no muddy coat when Stephen brought him in to seeme," declared Judge Calvin Gray, coming out and catching the lastsentence. "He put it on in the hall before going out. What are yousaying? That was the grandson of my good friend, Matthew Kendrick, andso had claim upon my good w
ill from the start, though I haven't laideyes upon the boy since his schooldays. He was rather a restless andobstreperous youngster then, I'll admit. What he is now seems pleasingenough to the eye, certainly, though of course that may not besufficient. A fine, mannerly young fellow he appeared to me, and I wasglad to see that he seemed willing enough to run upon his grandfather'serrands, though they took him out upon a raw night like this."

  But Louis Gray, though he did not pursue the subject further, was stillsmiling to himself as he obeyed a summons to dinner.

  At opposite ends of the long table sat Mr. and Mrs. Robert Gray. Thehead of the house looked his part: fine of face, crisp of speech,authoritative yet kindly of manner. His wife may be described best bysaying that one had but to look upon her to know that here sat the Queenof the little realm, the one whose gentle rule covered them all as withthe brooding wing of wise motherhood. Down the sides of the board satthe three sons: Stephen, tall and slender, grave-faced, quiet butobservant; Louis, of a somewhat lesser height but broad of shoulder anddeep of chest, his bright face alert, every motion suggesting vigour ofbody and mind; Ted--Edgar--the youngest, a slim, long-limbed lad witheyes eager as a collie's for all that might concern him--this was thetale of the sons of the house. There were the two daughters: Roberta,she of the rose-coloured scarf--it was still about her shoulders,seeming to draw all the light in the room to its vivid hue, reflectingitself in her cheeks--Roberta, the elder daughter, dusky of hair,adorable of face, her round white throat that of a strong and healthygirl, her laugh a song to listen to; the other daughter, Ruth, afair-haired, sober-eyed creature of growing sixteen, as different as ifof other blood. One would not have said the two were sisters. There wasone more girl at the table; no, not a girl, yet she looked younger thanRoberta--a little person with a wild-rose, charming face, and thesweetest smile of them all--Rosamond, Stephen's wife, quite incrediblymother of two children of nursery age, at this moment already properlyasleep upstairs.

  Last but far from least, loved and honoured of them all above the lot ofaverage man to command such tribute, was the elder brother of the masterof the house, his handsome white head and genial face drawing toward himall eyes whenever he might choose to speak--Judge Calvin Gray. All inall they were a goodly family, just such a family as is to be foundbeneath many a fortunate roof; yet a family with an individuality allits own and a richness of life such as is less common than it ought tobe.