The House in the Hedge/Chapter 10
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WE TELL OUR REAL NAMES
When I started out to be strictly truthful I didn't realize how difficult it was going to be. You see, there are so many things I'd like to skip over and say nothing about. For instance, I'd like to begin this chapter by saying: “My first visit to the House in the Hedge was repeated occasionally during the fortnight that intervened before I went up to New London for the boat race.” But that wouldn't be “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” for the fact is that during the next two weeks there were only three days that I didn't go over and sit by the invalid on the wheel-couch. Of course there was no harm in it and Aunt Myra quite approved, but it does sound, now, a little bit funny, doesn't it? The poor fellow, though, was so lonely that I didn't have the heart to stay away. And he declared that the pain wasn't nearly so bad when I was there. And Mr. Tully begged me to come and Aunt Myra said that anything one could do to cheer a fellow mortal in distress should be done, and—so I went. And I'm not ashamed of it, not one bit.
The great occasion was when one afternoon Mr. Tully came over and ceremoniously escorted Aunt Myra and me over to call on Mr. Reed. Aunt Myra had been just dying to go, but wouldn't until she was invited. So one day, when Mr. Reed asked after her health, I told him, and when I went home I bore a very polite message to her. Auntie wore her steel gray cashmere and I told her that she was just bound to make a big hit with Mr. Reed. And she did, too. He thought she was lovely. And Aunt Myra quite lost her heart to him and they had a beautiful time of it. It was a little bit dull for me, though, for I just had to sit there and listen to them. I did think that Mr. Tully might have come out and paid me a little attention. But he didn't, and so after a while I strolled off into the garden and found him. He was watering his nasturtiums, which were about four inches high, and rather sad-looking. We talked floriculture for a while and he took me around and showed me everything he had planted. That is, he showed me what had come up. Unfortunately more than half of his seed hadn't done anything at all. He said he thought the seed wasn't good. The most pathetic thing of all was the trellis he had built for the sweet peas and nasturtiums. I could have done much better myself. And then, to add to the patheticness, the sweet peas had refused to show above the ground.
“I don't know what the trouble is,” said Mr. Tully gravely. “The seed looks to be all right. I've dug some of it up to see. It doesn't seem to want to sprout.”
“Let me have a look,” I said. So he got his trowel and we dug down and found some of the seeds, and they were brown and squashy.
“You've given them too much water,” I told him, “and they've rotted. You'll have to get some more and plant over again.”
He was terribly disappointed, and so, to cheer him up, I told him that, anyway, his geraniums were doing finely, and the hollyhocks, too. But he wasn't comforted, because, as he said, all he had done with those was to set them in the ground.
“Oh, but I can see that they've had good care,” I answered. “Putting them into the ground isn't everything; a whole lot depends on the way you look after them.”
“Do you really think so?” he asked hopefully. “Well, I have watered them pretty carefully and that's a fact. I've thought myself that—er—maybe they were doing rather better than some I've seen.”
“Indeed they are,” I said. And when I left him he was quite perked up and had decided to try the sweet peas again.
Auntie talked about “that poor young man” all the rest of the day and evening, and the next forenoon, when Mrs. Telford dropped in before luncheon, she told her all about him, and Mrs. Telford went home and sent over a big basket of flowers to the House in the Hedge.
And then there was the day, that was a week after my first visit—when we told our real names. I had finished the linen card-case and had brought it over to give him.
“I don't see what you want with it” I laughed, “but there it is. I dare say, though, you'd forgotten all about it.”
“Forgotten! Rather not! I've watched every stitch with the wildest impatience.” He held it up and looked at it all over, and seemed so pleased that I wished I had taken more pains with it. You see, I'm not much good at embroidery; I'm always in too much of a hurry to get through. But you've forgotten one very important thing,” he said. “You haven't put my monogram on it.”
“Well,” I said, “I don't know it.”
“If I tell you will you put it on?”
“Oh, I couldn't make a monogram, but I'll embroider the initials.”
“Very well; do, please; they're R. H.”
“R. H.? You mean H. R., don't you?”
“No, R. H.”
“But I thought”
“That my name was Reed? I never said so, did I?”
“N-no, but”
“Reed is my first name, Miss Pryde. Let me introduce myself, if it isn't too late. Miss Pryde, shake hands with Mr. Reed Harrington.”
So we shook hands and I said I was delighted to meet him and asked if he had been in Eastmeadows long. And he said, no, he was just passing through on an automobile trip and had been there a day and was going on again to-morrow.
“And now,” he went on, “don't you think that I might know your name?”
“But you do. My name is Pryde.”
“But your first name”
“You know it as well as I do,” I said severely. “Aunt Myra called me Marjorie half a dozen times the other afternoon when she was here.”
“Yes,” he said humbly, “but I wanted to hear you say it.”
“Why?”
“Oh, I don't know; it—sounds different when you say it.”
“Very well.” I got up and made him a courtesy “Miss Marjorie Pryde, at your service.”
“Thank you. Won't you sit down, Miss Marjorie? Do you mind if I call you that?”
“Not a bit. I'd rather you did. But you must forgive me if I make mistakes some times and call you Mr. Reed instead of Mr. Harrington.
“Suppose you leave off the Mister and just call me Reed. I'd rather folks didn't know who I am, you see, Miss Marjorie; and besides, you won't have to tax your memory.”
“I suppose I might do that,” I said doubtfully, “although”
“Oh, if you'd rather not, it doesn't matter,” he said in a little huff. “Only it seemed to me that it doesn't much matter what you call a useless bunch of bandages such as I am. You see, I'm not really a man, my dear young lady, I'm just a hulk.”
“You're nothing of the sort! And I'm not your dear young lady, and I wish you wouldn't call me that.” I lost my temper a little, I'm afraid; and I don't know just why I did.
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I had no idea you objected to the term. After all, you know, you are young and you are a lady. As to the possessive and endearing features of the term, why, they are merely conventional.”
“I'm eighteen,” I replied. “You talk as though I were a—a schoolgirl!”
“I don't mean to, for you've told me yourself and not later than two days ago, that you finished school this month.”
He was quite serious looking, but his eyes were twinkling and I knew he was making fun of me.
“I suppose,” I said sarcastically, “that you're very old yourself.”
“Very; I am twenty-nine, Miss Marjorie.”
“Well, anyway, I don't like being called a dear young lady,” I muttered.
“And I shan't offend again. Am I forgiven?”
I looked at him suspiciously, but his eyes had stopped twinkling and he seemed so sincere that I nodded. After that we talked about ourselves until it was time for the doctor to come. He told me a lot of things that I already knew from Mr. Tully and some that I didn't; about his boyhood and his college days. And I told him everything there was to tell about myself, only there wasn't very much after all. It's an awful handicap to be a girl when it comes to telling experiences. It does seem as though nothing ever happens to girls.
When I got home I found Aunt Myra in a perfect spasm of excitement because a telegram had just come from the Major, saying he would be down that afternoon on the five-twenty.
“You don't seem to be very glad,” she said when I had finished reading the message.
“Why, the idea, auntie! Of course I'm glad.” And I really was, only—well, I wondered whether Mr. Reed would miss my visits, for, of course, when the Major came I wouldn't be able to spend much time at the House in the Hedge, and I remembered that in four days I was due to join the Hares at New London.
I forgot to say—I mean I neglected to say—at the beginning of this chapter that the reason I missed visiting the House in the Hedge three days was because it rained on each of them and Mr. Reed couldn't be out. I suppose if one starts out to be truthful, one may as well keep it up.