The Heart of Arethusa - Frances Barton Fox

Скачать книгу

not seemed to her to be quite up to the mark. And there was a field or two of her own which, if Timothy were to see, he would not compliment quite so highly; but this rain would work wonders in a great many places. It hadn't come altogether too late.

      In a slight lull which followed Timothy's third helping to ham, Miss Letitia asked Arethusa if she had brought her father's letter back to the house with her.

      Arethusa's eyes shone immediately.

      "Yes," she replied. Then she remembered, "No, I didn't either. I left it down in the Hollow Tree."

      "It happened to be my letter," said Miss Eliza, drily.

      "I know, but it won't be hurt. I can get it tomorrow. It'll keep perfectly safe and dry. And, oh Aunt 'Liza, please let me go now! He said just as soon as I could get ready. Please don't make me wait 'til fall! Please!"

      "Go where?" enquired Timothy.

      Arethusa pretended that she had not heard him. Miss Eliza, however, answered.

      "Ross Worthington has married again, Timothy, and come back to America. He wants Arethusa to come make him a visit."

      Timothy dropped the biscuit he was holding halfway to his mouth.

      "Since I was a yellow pup!" he ejaculated feelingly.

      "You still are one," Arethusa remarked sweetly for him alone; but Timothy magnanimously allowed this interpolation to pass without retaliation.

      "He married an American, thank heaven," continued Miss Eliza, "married her over there somewhere. In Italy, I think he said. She seems to be well-off. It was she sent the money to Arethusa for the visit."

      Timothy picked up his biscuit, in his agitation he rebuttered it extravagantly on top of butter already there, and resumed operations.

      "Well," he said, between mouthfuls, "this is certainly some bunch of news to hand a fellow all of a sudden. Arethusa's father married! That's enough by itself for a starter!" For to the twenty-two year old mind of Timothy, Ross Worthington seemed far too aged for anything like matrimony. "But wanting Arethusa to come visit him! You going to let her go, Miss Liza?"

      "Of course she is!" burst from Arethusa, indignantly.

      "Sister 'Titia and I and Sister 'Senath," replied Miss Eliza to Timothy's question, as calmly as if Arethusa had not opened her mouth, "have decided to let her go in the fall. Though I must say I'm not sure it's wise to let her go at all. I never did think it was a very good place for girls, or boys, either, for that matter, the city. Still, Arethusa's never been and a little visit might not do her any harm. After all, he's her father when you get right down, and I reckon he won't let anything happen to his own flesh and blood."

      "No," agreed Timothy, with becoming gravity, although his blue eyes danced merrily, "I don't suppose he would. What city is it, Miss 'Liza?"

      "He don't say. It's just like him. But the envelope was post-marked 'Lewisburg,' so I reckon it's pretty safe to say that's where he is. I'm glad it's in the State. I wouldn't want Arethusa traveling too far."

      Arethusa was irritated beyond her always slight endurance by this little discussion of her and her affairs, carried on so much as if she were not present. She plunged suddenly into the conversation without any invitation.

      "I'm not going just to visit," she announced, flatly, "I'm going to Live. Father didn't say just 'visit.'"

      This created all the stir she could have wished; a chorus of outcry from Miss Eliza and Miss Letitia and Timothy. Only Miss Asenath smiled. Arethusa pushed her chair back from the table and surveyed them all defiantly.

      "I reckon I can go live with my own father!"

      "Of course not," snapped Miss Eliza; "you live here!"

      "Of course you do," affirmed Timothy; "it's perfectly foolish to talk of living any place else but here, Arethusa. And even if you do go make your father a visit, you won't stay very long. I know. You see, I've been there and I know what it's like, and I know you, too, Arethusa; so I know very well you won't want to stay!"

      With this calm assurance and assumption of superiority on Timothy's part, Arethusa's rage at him boiled over, openly, despite Miss Eliza's presence.

      "Nobody asked your opinion, Timothy Jarvis, that I heard! And you know absolutely nothing whatever about what I'm going to do!"

      "Oh, yes, but I do," he replied, still maddeningly superior, "I know. … "

      Arethusa fairly quivered in her fury.

      "You do not," she interrupted, in flat contradiction. "I'm going there to live. And if you want to know just why, Timothy Jarvis, it's because then I shan't ever have to lay eyes on you again!"

      "Arethusa!" from Miss Eliza.

      Whereat Arethusa, retaining some small remnants of the instinct for self-preservation, subsided, though her eyes still blazed with honest anger directed at Timothy. And when Miss Eliza's attention was distracted elsewhere for a brief moment, she seized the occasion to whisper to him; "Don't you dare stay a minute after supper, Timothy; don't you dare! I'll go right straight to bed if you do!"

      "Which wouldn't harm me at all, if you did," he whispered pleasantly in reply, "just yourself. And Miss 'Liza wouldn't let you do it anyway, even if I stayed and you wanted to. She'd say it was rude, and you know it. But don't worry; keep your shirt on," he added, most inelegantly, "I've got something else to do, so I'm going right on home." Then, very meanly, for it was taking a rather unfair advantage, as Miss Eliza's gimlet eyes were just then boring right through Arethusa to prevent any outburst of suitable venom from her, "And, take it from me, Arethusa, you won't stay long in Lewisburg."

      He escaped to Miss Asenath's side to wheel the couch back into the sitting-room, as Miss Eliza had risen just as he finished that last speech and signified that supper was over. Arethusa remained seated for a moment, speechless with wrath, and with that helpless, cheated feeling she always experienced when the last word was Timothy's.

      The rain had stopped, so the guest departed with immediacy for home, wearing his borrowed clothing and carrying his own under his arm, much to Arethusa's further ire. She considered that he might just as well have changed before he left, for his own things had got perfectly dry by the roaring kitchen stove.

      Then came the lecture for her niece which had been steadily gathering momentum with Miss Eliza for some little time. But Arethusa sat on the end of Miss Asenath's couch, to hold her hand, and did not mind it quite so much. Besides, in the depths of her conscience, she was guiltily aware of rather deserving it.

      After the atmosphere had cleared, conversation once more veered around to the Letter, and the aunts sat in solemn consultation over it and the proposed visit and Arethusa.

       Table of Contents

      One of the most agitating parts of this whole affair was the actual traveling that must be done by Arethusa in order to reach her father.

      Miss Eliza's first idea was to find out if anyone in the County would be making a trip to the City this fall and to place her niece under that person's protection; provided that person was of the irreproachable character she deemed requisite before being entrusted with such a charge.

      Miss Letitia then ventured to mention, most timidly, the State Fair, which was held in Lewisburg every September. Some one of the county's agricultural population would most surely be going there then.

      Perhaps Timothy, answered Miss Eliza, graciously conceding Miss Letitia a stroke of real mentality in her suggestion. If he was planning to attend, it would be just the thing; the girl could go with him. She was sorry she had not broached the subject at supper.

      But Arethusa vehemently opposed this idea. She would not go a single step with Timothy. And why could

Скачать книгу