Brenda's Summer at Rockley/Chapter 3
III
NEW ACQUAINTANCES
It was a hot, hot day, and Brenda wandered around the house discontentedly.
“I wish that I had gone back to Beverly with Edith yesterday. I’m sure that it must be cooler there. It certainly could not be any hotter. I don’t envy Julia in Cambridge, it must be even worse there.”
Julia had gone to Cambridge to board for a week. She and Ruth were to have a special tutor for a few days before the examinations. Brenda, without her cousin, felt particularly restless. In the immediate vicinity of Rockley there were few girls of her own age, and she missed the companionship of Julia, even though their tastes and inclinations were not always the same.
“If you had more to do, Brenda,” said her mother, “you would be less discontented. I am sorry now that I had not arranged for music lessons for you this summer. Regular practising would keep you from thinking about the heat.”
“As if I could sit at the piano on a day like this! How can you suggest such a thing, mamma?”
Brenda did not appear as miserable as her words and tone intimated.
She wore a cool-looking muslin gown, girt at the waist with a blue silk belt. Bands of insertion around the neck made it look particularly cool, and the soft folds in which the skirt hung gave it a very uncrushable and comfortable appearance.
“It’s almost 90°,” she said, looking at the thermometer. “Oh, dear, if it were not so hot I’d go down to the beach. If I were once there, I’m sure that I should be more comfortable. It would be shady over by the rocks. At any rate, it could n’t be as hot as it is here.”
“If you really wish to go,” said Mrs. Barlow, “Thomas may drive you down. It won’t hurt the gray horse to be driven down slowly, and I think myself that you will find it a little more comfortable there.”
“Then I ’ll take a book or two, and stay until dinner-time.”
“Yes, and if you do not take a thermometer with you, I believe that you may forget the heat. I think that you have worked yourself up a little to-day watching the mercury.”
So Brenda, with an armful of books, drove down to the beach, and placing her camp-chair in a sheltered nook under the shadow of the rocks, began to read. But in a short time she tired of her book. It was the fifth or sixth novel by the same author that she had read since leaving the city. All the others she had pronounced “perfectly splendid,” and perhaps if she had read the volume in her hand as the first of the series, it might have pleased her as well. But now it seemed to her like a feeble echo of the others, and it in some way had not the power to hold her attention. At last she flung it from her with a sigh. “I did not know that ‘The Countess’ could be so uninteresting. This book is really dull.” As she sat there gazing out at sea, she heard the murmur of voices. She realized at once that some one else had come to the rocks to escape the heat. Then as she began to listen more intently she knew that the speakers were not far away. “Why, they must be in the hollow just on the other side of this rock. I wish I had thought of going there myself—but then they must have been there before me. Somebody seems to be reciting something. I wonder who it is; it’s a girl, I’m almost sure.”
There was something unaccountably familiar in the voice, yet try as she would, Brenda could not decide to whom it belonged. She listened to the words. They were evidently verse. Now Brenda, unfortunately, was not one of those who care for poetry. But in spite of herself she listened. The words were quaint, and hard to understand, but in a minute or two she became interested in the story, which was about a lovely lady who seemed to be wandering in a forest in search of somebody. At length she met a lion, that, “With gaping mouth at her ran greedily.” Brenda was now sufficiently interested to wonder if he would kill her. But she had not long to wait, when she heard
“Instead thereof, he kist her wearie feet,
And lickt her lily hands with fawning tongue,”
and she was relieved at last to hear that
“The lion would not leave her desolate,
But with her went along as a strong guard
Of her chast person, and a faithful mate
Of her sad troubles and misfortunes hard.”
I do not mean that Brenda could have repeated these lines after once hearing them, but certainly they made more impression on her than poetry did generally. Before the story had come to what the writer of fiction might call a climax, a voice that sounded much younger than that of the reader broke in on the poetry—
“Of course you don’t really believe that yourself, honest now. I can tell you that I don’t believe a lion ever did like that just because a girl was pretty. Why, he’d be sure to eat her up all the quicker. Don’t you think so?”
“No, I can’t say that I do.”
“You see, it’s like this. If she was real ugly the lion might be afraid of her for fear she’d hurt him. Almost any one would be afraid of an ugly person; but if she looked kind of nice and gentle, why he’d soon eat her, because he’d know that she would taste well.”
“Oh, Fritz, you are so practical. I really thought that you would like this.”
“I do, yes, I do, but I like ‘The Lays’ better. Horatius, now, he was alive, was n’t he? and Henry of Navarre. But you must n’t look so glum; you can’t expect a fellow to like stories about a faery queen as well as he would battles and things like that.”
“Yes, but there are battles in here; why I have to skip some of them, they are so bloody. If you like, I ’ll read you some of those cantos.”
“Well, I don’t know that I care about it to-day,” replied the boy. “You see it’s pretty hot; not but that I’m very much obliged to you for what you ’ve read; it’s so tiresome that I can’t use my own eyes. Gracious, what’s that?” he asked, as a paper-covered book fell at his feet. Now Brenda—who had been listening with interest to the conversation, because she had recognized in the girl her new acquaintance Amy—Brenda had incautiously held her book over the edge of the rock where she sat, and by a careless movement she had pushed it over the edge.
“Dear me!” she heard Amy say, “a book does n’t fall unless it belongs to some one near by. I’d rather not stay here, Fritz, if we are to be interrupted.”
“Oh, it’s some one up above there,” cried Fritz, then, with a boy’s impetuosity,—
“Say, you, whoever you are, you’d better come down; we don’t like eavesdroppers.”
“Hush, Fritz,” said Amy; “others have as good a right as we to be here.”
Brenda, greatly annoyed at herself for dropping the book, began to descend the rocks to pick it up. She had to go by the path by which she had reached the top, and then by walking around at the base she reached the other side.
Just as she expected, she found the girl who had been reading to be Amy. Her companion was a little taller, and apparently about a year older. He wore a bandage over one eye, and the unbandaged eye was very red around the lids. Yet in spite of this he looked by no means like an invalid. He had a sturdy frame, his cheeks were full and round, and he had thick, wavy, dark brown hair.
Without a word of special greeting, Amy, who had been turning over the leaves of the book, handed it to Brenda.
“Oh, it’s yours!” she exclaimed, with an accent on the last word that seemed to Brenda to indicate more or less surprise.
“What is the name of the book? Who wrote it?” cried the boy, who, like most boys of sixteen, was of a curious disposition.
“‘The Countess,’” replied Amy, with an accent of scorn. “It’s trash, is n’t it?” and she turned to Brenda for confirmation.
“No, I don’t think so,” replied the latter; “I enjoy all her books. I ’ve read almost all she’s written.”
“Well, you must be fond of trash!”
“No, I’m not; it does n’t seem to me any more trash than what I heard you reading; that sounded very silly.” Brenda would not have admitted now that she had been really interested in the poetry.
“‘The Faery Queen!’” Amy gazed at Brenda in amazement. “Why, it’s the finest poetry there is; why I’ve read about Una and her lion over and over again. Yes, it’s the very best poetry, and poetry is always better than novels.”
“Oh, come now, Amy, I would n’t call it the very best poetry in the world,” said Fritz. “There’s Macaulay, and some of Longfellow,—the ‘Sagas of King Olaf,’—well, there are ever so many things that seem to me to be more amusing; yes, and some things by Saxe,—
“‘There were three men of Hindostan to learning much inclined,
Who went to see the elephant, though all of them were blind,’
You see I feel something like those blind men, that’s why the poem suits me.”
“You’re not blind, are you?” asked Brenda, sympathetically. Remembering things that her mother had frequently said about the novels of “The Countess,” she was willing for the present to let the talk slip a little farther away from a discussion of the merits of different authors.
“No, I’m not blind, though I might as well be,” replied the boy. “I had a beastly cut on the eye by a baseball; it’s got to be tied up for ten days longer,—did n’t the doctor say ten days, Amy?”
“Yes, he did, but you ’ll be as well as ever by the Fourth of July; that’s one good thing.”
“Yes,” responded the boy; “but I don’t know what I could have done without you, Amy; you ’ve been a regular brick.”
“I have n’t done any more than I ought to.”
“Oh, yes, you have.” Then looking up, and realizing that Brenda was decidedly an outsider in this conversation between him and Amy, he turned to her politely. “You see we have never decided whose fault it was that the ball struck me.”
“Well, I should think that it was the fault of the person who threw the ball.”
“That’s what I say,” said Amy; “but Fritz—”
“Nobody can understand about anything without hearing the whole story. Amy was standing on a hill just back of the house, tossing the ball up and down. I called to her to throw it to me, and she did;” then, with a laugh, “of course I did n’t mean to have her hit me in the eye. But a girl never can throw a ball straight,” and he looked at Amy affectionately.
“Is it a bad cut?” asked Brenda.
“Oh, the doctor had to take several stitches, and that was n’t very pleasant, and it all swelled up so that I have n’t been able to use the eye for a month. If it was n’t for Amy I don’t know what I’d do. Sometimes I can’t see to walk straight. To-day I had to lean on your arm most of the way, did n’t I?”
Without waiting for Amy’s reply, Brenda broke in, “Why, you did n’t walk down here in the heat, did you?”
“Oh, yes, of course; we always do.”
“But to-day was so hot.”
“Oh, we only walked a little slower. It was hard for you, though, Amy, leading a blind man along; I heard you panting.”
Brenda began to reflect that her own lot was not quite so unhappy as it might have been. At least, she would have considered it pretty hard if she had had to walk to the beach, and Amy lived still farther away.
Brenda had a moment of reflection. Her hour on the rocks had made her very comfortable. She no longer felt hot. The air, of course, had become cooler, a very little cooler, but the sun was still pretty bright.
“It would have killed me to walk down,” said Brenda, “and it isn’t much cooler now. You must let me drive you home; you will, won’t you?” and she looked rather eagerly at Amy. She had already discovered that Amy was a rather positive young person. She felt that if she disapproved of a thing, she would not hesitate to say so.
“We ’re very much obliged,” replied Amy; “but really we would just as soon walk. It is n’t so very far.”
Fritz was sitting near Amy, and Brenda could see that he gave her arm a little pinch.
“But you might just as well ride,” continued Brenda; “there ’ll be two empty seats in the carriage, and we might have time for a little drive.” Amy’s face began to show signs of relenting.
“Oh, you might say ‘yes,’ Amy,” cried Fritz.
“Well, if you really would like it. Did you get tired coming down?”
“Of course I did. Did n’t you notice how I leaned on you.”
Amy then turned politely to Brenda.
“I would just as soon walk back myself. But I don’t like to refuse anything that would make Fritz more comfortable.”
If she had been the grandmother of Fritz she could not have spoken in a more parental tone, and yet she was really a year his junior.
Brenda had already decided that Fritz was not the brother of Amy, and she wondered a little why the latter spoke in such a tone of authority regarding him. As if reading her thoughts, Fritz himself began an explanation.
“You see, Amy feels as if she must look after me because I have n’t any one else. My uncle is always so wrapped up in his books. Sometimes he really seems to forget all about me. It’s not very far from our house to where Amy lives, and she comes over every day—when I can’t go to her; and she reads to me, or takes me for a walk, and she’s just awfully good.”
Amy blushed a little under this commendation.
“Well, it’s a great thing for me to have you, Fritz; you ’re more company than any one I know. Is that your carriage?” and Brenda nodded assent as she saw the old gray horse and Thomas and the carryall turning from the road upon the upper end of the beach.
“Don’t forget your book,” cried Amy, with what Brenda thought a shade of contempt, as she pointed to the rocks which they had just left. Brenda turned back, and picked up the paper-covered book which a little while before had almost caused a quarrel between her and Amy—that is, if a quarrel could be considered a possible thing between such new acquaintances.
“May I ride in front?” asked Fritz, rather eagerly, as the carriage approached.
“Why, certainly;” and in spite of his bandaged eye, Fritz saw his way clearly enough to jump over the wheel into the carriage.
“Drive along to the Point, Thomas, we have time for that,” and Brenda glanced at her little chatelain watch. “We need not be home until half-past six.”
“Oh, excuse me,” cried Amy; “I have to be home by half-past five; I really ought to be.”
“Well, if we were to drive directly there you’d hardly be there by that time. Could n’t you just take a little drive?”
“I wish that I could,” said Amy; “but really I have—have things to do.”
“Oh, well, of course if you must go home you must,” responded Brenda, and she reluctantly gave Thomas the order to drive up the hill to the back road.
“I could just as well walk home,” said Amy, as the carriage turned about; “then you and Fritz could drive.”
“Oh, no, indeed,” exclaimed Fritz, “I would n’t think of driving without you; but it’s fine to have this much of a drive, and I’m thankful not to be obliged to walk home. I’m not as fond of exercise in hot weather as Amy is.”
At last they drove up in front of the little house which Brenda remembered so well.
“Stop here,” she called to Thomas, who apparently thought that Brenda had meant some other house than this as her destination.
“Thank you very much,” said Amy, as she jumped out, and then assisted Fritz.
“I’m going to have tea with Amy,” explained the boy. “This has been a jolly drive, even if it was a little short,” turning to Brenda, “and I hope that we ’ll see you again.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Amy, holding out her hand in good-bye. Brenda, however, could not help noticing that she did not ask her to call on her.
She felt rather triumphant, therefore, on getting out of the carriage at her own door to find that Amy had left her book.
“There,” thought Brenda, “either I must take this to her or she will have to call here and get it. I ’ll wait a few days to see which she does.”
She looked at the book with considerable interest. It was a school edition of “The Faery Queen,” or, as it was labelled on the back “‘The Faery Queen,’ by Edmund Spenser, Books I. and II.”