Molly Brown\'s Orchard Home
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Nell Speed >> Molly Brown\'s Orchard Home
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MOLLY BROWN'S ORCHARD HOME
by
NELL SPEED
Author of
"The Tucker Twins Series," "The Carter Girls Series," etc.
A. L. Burt Company
Publishers New York
Printed in U. S. A.
Copyright, 1915,
by
Hurst & Company
Printed in U. S. A.
[Illustration: Jo proved to be a singularly tactful hostess.]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. Letters
II. Bon Voyage
III. The Deep Sea
IV. What Molly Overheard
V. Paris
VI. La Marquise
VII. The Faubourg
VIII. The Opera
IX. The Postscript
X. Bohemia
XI. A Studio Tea in the Latin Quarter
XII. The Green-eyed Monster
XIII. A Julia Kean Scrape
XIV. Coals of Fire
XV. Mr. Kinsella's Indian Summer
XVI. Apple Blossom Time in Normandy
XVII. The Ghost in the Chapel
XVIII. The Prescription
XIX. Fontainebleau and What Came of It
XX. More Letters
XXI. Molly Brown's Orchard Home
Molly Brown's Orchard Home.
CHAPTER I.
LETTERS.
From Miss Molly Brown of Kentucky to Miss Nance Oldham of Vermont.
Chatsworth, Kentucky.
My dearest Nance:
Our passage to Antwerp is really engaged and in two weeks Mother
and I will be on the water. I can hardly believe it is I, Molly
Brown, about to have this "great adventure." That is what Mother
and I call this undertaking: "Our great adventure." Mother says it
sounds Henry Jamesy and I take her word for it (so far I have not
read that novelist), but he must be very interesting, as Mother and
Professor Green used to discuss him for hours at a time.
Our going is not quite so happy as we meant it to be. Kent can't
come with us as we had planned, but will have to stay in Louisville
for some months, and may not be able to leave at all this winter.
There is some complication of our affairs, that makes it best for
him to be on hand until the matter is settled. I remember how
interested you were in the fact that oil was found on my mother's
land and that she expected to realize an independent income from
the sale of the land, also pay off the mortgage on Chatsworth, our
beloved home. Don't be too uneasy, the oil is there all right
enough and we shall finally get the money, but the arrangement was:
so much down and the rest when the wells should begin operation.
The first payment Mother used immediately to pay the mortgage, but
the second payment has not been made yet, as Mother's sister, Aunt
Clay, living on the adjoining place, has got out an injunction
against the Oil Trust as a public nuisance, and all work in the oil
land has had to be stopped for the time being. The lawyer for the
Trust told my brother, Paul, that Aunt Clay has not a leg to stand
on, but of course the law has to take its leisurely course, and in
the meantime the money for Mother is not forthcoming until the
wells are in operation. Aunt Clay is in her element, making
everyone as uncomfortable as possible and engaged in a foolish
lawsuit. She is always going to law about something and always
losing. We are devoutly thankful that her suit is with the Trust
and not our Mother, as we know that Mother is so constituted she
could not stand up against a member of her family in a lawsuit. I
truly believe she would let Aunt Clay take the oil lands and all
the rest of Chatsworth, rather than have a row over it.
This property, where the oil was found, was given to Mother by Aunt
Clay when she settled up Grandfather Carmichael's estate. Of course
she considered the property of no value or she would never have let
it out of her clutches, and as executrix and administratrix of the
estate she had absolute power. Now that she sees it is worth more
than all the rest put together, she is in such a rage with Mother
that it is really absurd. She does not want us to go to Paris and
is furious at the idea of Kent's "stopping work," as she calls it.
She has got out this injunction just to keep us from going, I
believe, as she is intelligent enough to know there is no use in
trying to get ahead of a mighty Trust, and they will have to win in
the end; but she had an idea that we would not go unless we had
plenty of money to have a good time on. She little knows our
Mother, in spite of being her sister.
Mother says she believes it will be more fun and easier to
economize in Paris than in Kentucky; and she is as gay as a lark
over the prospect. Kent may be able to come later and take that
much talked of and longed for course in Architecture at the Beaux
Arts. In the meantime, he is very busy and, as he says, "making
good with his boss." Mother refuses to discuss Aunt Clay's behavior
and actually goes to see her as though nothing had happened; but I
know she has had many a sleepless night, brooding over her sister's
unsisterly act.
I am longing to see you, dearest Nance, and wish you could manage
to meet me in New York before we sail, but if you can't, be sure to
have a letter on the steamer for me. We are going on a slow boat to
Antwerp. We think the long sea trip will be good for Mother, who is
tired out with all this worry and the work of getting Chatsworth in
condition to leave; and besides, the slow boats are much cheaper.
_Laurens_ is the name of our boat, sailing from Hoboken. I will
write you from Paris, where Julia Kean is already installed and
hard at work on her beloved art.
I am afraid you will think I am horrid about Aunt Clay. Mother says
she is the only person she ever knew me to feel bitter about. So
she is, but then she is the only person who was ever mean to my
beloved Mother. Maybe when my hair turns gray I can be as much of a
lady as Mother is, but so far I am too red-headed to be a perfect
lady.
I am going to miss you, Nance, more than I can tell you. We have
been roommates for five years at college, and never once did we
have a shadow of a disagreement. Of course we occasionally got in a
kind of penumbra. Once I remember when I was touchy because you
called Professor Edwin Green an oldish person, but my pettishness
only lasted "like a cloud's flying shadow," and that ought not to
count.
I think you are splendid to make such a happy home for your father
and I know you are a wonderful housekeeper. Please give him my
kindest regards. Kent drove Mother and me into Louisville to hear
your mother speak at the Equal Suffrage Convention. She was simply
overpowering in her arguments, and converted Kent in five minutes.
I wish Aunt Clay, who is such an ardent Anti, had heard her. We
were so sorry Mrs. Oldham could not come out to Chatsworth to visit
us, but she did not have the time. I must stop. I have written two
stamps' worth already.
Ever your devoted friend and roommate in heart,
MOLLY BROWN.
* * * * *
To Miss Molly Brown, Chatsworth, Kentucky,
From Miss Julia Kean, Paris, France.
71 Boulevard St. Michel, Paris.
Molly dear:
The news that you and your mother are to sail in a few weeks threw
me into the seventh heaven of happiness,--I am already on the
seventh floor of a _pension_ with not much more of an elevator than
the tower of Babel had. Mamma and Papa brought me here and
installed me and then shot off to Turkey, Papa like a comet and
Mamma like the tail of one, to finish up the bridge that has kept
them so busy for the last year.
This _pension_ is kept by an American lady and is full of
Americans. It is rather fun to be here for a while, but I am
longing for the time to come when you will be with me and we can go
apartment hunting, that is, if your mother still thinks it will be
wiser for us to keep house and not try to board. Of course you will
come here first and we can take our time about getting settled for
the winter. Mrs. Pace, the landlady, (but you had better not call
her that to her face, as she is very much the _grande dame_, with
so much blue blood she finds it difficult to keep it to herself,)
wants you to stay all winter with her and has many arguments
against housekeeping, but I'll let her get them off herself to your
mother.
She is looking forward with great interest to meeting dear Mrs.
Brown, as it seems she knows intimately a cousin and old friend of
hers, a certain Sally Bolling of Kentucky, who is now the Marquise
d'Ochte, a swell of the Faubourg St. Germain, with a chateau in
Normandy, family ghost, devoted peasantry and what not. I fancy
your mother has told you of her. It will be great fun to meet some
of the nobility, I think.
I am enrolled at the Julien Academy for the winter and am going to
put in some months of hard drawing before I jump into color. I work
only in the morning and spend the afternoons looking at pictures. I
am such a sober person pacing the long galleries of the Louvre
studying the wonderful paintings that no one would dream I am the
harum-scarum I really am. Papa gave me a very serious talking to
about how to conduct myself in Paris and I find, as usual, his
advice is excellent. His theory is that any grown woman can go
anywhere she wants to alone in Paris, provided she has some
business to attend to and attends to it.
Of course Mrs. Pace is merely a nominal chaperone for me until your
mother comes. She really seldom sees me, and when she does she is
so full of her own affairs that she hardly remembers I have any;
and then when she recalls that she is supposed to be my chaperone,
she feels called upon to tell me to do my hair differently, or she
does not like my best hat, or something else equally out of her
province. But I am not going to tell you any more about her, as you
can judge for yourself when you see her.
I am sorry your brother, Kent, cannot carry out his plan of
studying at the Beaux Arts, but maybe something will turn up and he
can come after all. I might have known Aunt Clay would obstruct,
all she had in her power, but thank goodness, her power is limited
and your mother will finally get the full amount of money for her
oil lands that Papa thought she should have. As for being in Paris
without much money, it really is a grand place to be poor in; and
one can have more fun here on a franc than in New York on a dollar.
Hug your darling mother for me, and tell Kent that I refuse to
answer his letters unless he gets some thin paper to write on. I am
tired of paying double extra postage on his bulky epistles.
Let me know in plenty of time when to expect you and your mother,
so I can engage the room of Mrs. Pace and meet you at the station.
I wish I could go to Antwerp to be there when you arrive or even
meet you halfway in Brussels, but I must put the temptation from me
and await you quietly in Paris. Good-by, my darling old Molly
Brown,
Your own devoted, ever loving
JUDY.
* * * * *
Steamer letter from Professor Edwin Green
of Wellington College to Miss Molly Brown of
Kentucky, sailing on _S. S. Laurens_.
Wellington College.
My dear Miss Molly:
Surely the "best laid schemes of mice and men gang aft aglee." I
feel more like a mouse caught in a trap than a man, just now. I
have been thinking of nothing else all summer but the delightful
time I should have with you and your mother in Paris. It is my
sabbatical year at Wellington, which means a fine long holiday, one
much needed and looked forward to by all hard-worked professors.
But just as I began to prepare for this delightful trip, I found
that my substitute had in the most unaccountable manner,
disappointed the President, Miss Walker, and Wellington was in a
fair way to open without a professor of English. Of course I had to
rush to the rescue and here I am in the old grind again.
I really do not mind teaching, enjoy it, in fact, but oh, my
holiday and those walks and jaunts I have been dreaming of in
Paris! Miss Walker is deeply grateful to me for helping her out of
this difficulty, and is doing all in her power to find a suitable
person to take my place; and of course, I, too, am reaching out in
every direction for help.
One thing, I do not intend to be like poor Jacob: serve seven years
more before I get my reward. I feel in a way that this is making up
to the College for the long, enforced holiday two years ago, when I
was so ill with typhoid fever.
My sister Grace had made her plans to spend the winter in New York
as she did not expect to be needed by me as housekeeper, so I am
"baching" again; and very lonesome it is after being so spoiled and
looked after by Grace.
The place seems sad and gloomy to me and the College is full of raw
and unattractive girls. I could hardly refrain from throwing a copy
of Rosetti at a forward miss the other day in class, when she
attempted to read "The Blessed Damozel" and I remembered a certain
little Freshman, who, five years ago, held me enthralled by her
rendering of that wonderful poem.
I was delighted to see your friend Miss Melissa Hathaway, who is a
relief indeed, after all of these chattering school girls. What a
wonderful personality she has! Her beauty is even richer and more
glowing than formerly. She reminds me of October in the mountains,
her own Kentucky mountains. Did you ever notice her eyes and the
quality they possess, which is a very rare one: that of seeming to
hold the reflection of trees and skies when she is indoors? It is
as though she were still seeing her forests at home.
I hope to help her a great deal in her English as she is afraid
this will have to be her last year at college. She feels that she
is needed at home to carry on the work of her friend and teacher
Miss Allfriend, whose long and arduous labors among the mountain
folk have impaired her health. Melissa thinks she should take up
the work and give her friend a rest. Noble girl! Dicky Blount
thinks so, too, and even more so. Did you know that he found or
manufactured some business in Catlettsburg, Kentucky, last summer
and surprised Miss Hathaway in her mountain fastness?
Please give my kindest regards to your mother and express to her my
deep regret that I am not to be her cicerone for some of the sights
of Paris. I am hoping that before the winter is over I may be
relieved and then, ho, for the fastest steamer afloat!
I am sending you some novels that may amuse you both on your
voyage; also, a box of crystallized ginger that is the very best
thing for seasickness that I know,--not that you are to be seasick,
but just in case.
I am trying to be cheerful and not let Miss Walker see how I am
kicking at fate, but I am as mad as a schoolboy who has to do
chores on Saturday! Very sincerely your friend,
EDWIN GREEN.
CHAPTER II.
BON VOYAGE.
Mrs. Brown and her daughter Molly were at last safely off on what they
called their "great adventure." They had waved their handkerchiefs until
the dock at Hoboken was nothing more than a blur to them and they felt
sure that the _Laurens_ was little more than a speck to the friends that
had turned up to see them off.
Molly's classmates at Wellington College, Katherine and Edith Williams,
Edith with the nice, new husband whom Molly was overjoyed to meet, had
appeared, bearing books and candy for the trip. Jimmy Lufton, of course,
just to show that there was no hard feeling, as he whispered to Molly,
was there, also, doing everything for their comfort; finding their
luggage; engaging the steamer chairs; seeing to it that the stewardess
understood about the baths before breakfast; and attending to many
things of the importance of which Molly and her mother were ignorant.
Richard Blount, too, had turned up ten minutes before sailing, but he
had managed to get in a word with Molly about Melissa Hathaway.
"She is a queen among women, Miss Molly, and I consider that Edwin Green
is a lucky dog to have the privilege of teaching her. To think of seeing
her day after day and hearing her read poetry with that wonderful voice!
He tells me she is the most remarkable reader he has ever known. I am
too fond of old Ed to hate him, otherwise I should find it easy. By the
way I have left something in care of the steward for you and your mother
as a cure for seasickness. You will find that there is nothing like it!"
"Oh, thank you so much! I feel sure that I shall not be sick, but I am
just as obliged as though I were going to be. Mother may be. You see we
have never been on the ocean in our lives, but we have always felt that
we would like it beyond anything, and that liking it so much would keep
us from being harmed by it," Molly had answered, a little chagrined at
what Richard Blount had had to say about Professor Green and Melissa,
but determined not to show it to that young man or to let herself think
there was anything in it.
Miss Grace Green and dear, good Mary Stewart had been on the steamer
waiting when Molly and her mother came aboard. Their devotion to Molly
was so apparent that they won Mrs. Brown's heart at once, and that
charming lady with her cordial manner and gracious bearing as usual made
Molly's friends hers.
Miss Green had had a little private talk with Molly, giving her messages
from her younger brother, Dodo, and telling her what she knew of
Professor Edwin's disappointment in having to go on with his duties for
the time being at least. Molly had not had a chance to open and read the
steamer letter he had written her, but was forced to postpone it until
the vessel sailed and she could compose herself after the flurry of
good-bys and the bustle of the departure.
There were many letters waiting in the cabin, but the harbor was so
fascinating to these two women who had done so little traveling, that
they could not tear themselves from the deck until they were out of
sight of land.
"Mother, isn't it too lovely and aren't we going to be the happiest pair
on earth? I am glad we are seeing the ocean for the first time together,
because you know exactly how I feel and I know how you feel. The idea of
our being seasick! Richard Blount sent some remedy to the steamer for
us, just in case we were seasick. It was very kind of him but absolutely
unnecessary, I am sure. I never felt better in my life and look, there
is quite a little swell."
"Seasick indeed! I have no more feeling of sickness than I have on the
Ohio River at home," said Mrs. Brown, taking deep breaths of the bracing
salt air. "I suspect it is incumbent upon us to go read our letters now,
but I must say I do not want to miss one moment on deck during our
entire voyage. I feel as though twenty years had dropped off me." And
indeed she looked it, too, with a pretty pink in her cheeks and her wavy
hair blown about her face.
Molly rather wanted to read Professor Green's letter first, but she put
it aside and opened those from Nance Oldham and several other college
mates. Then she discovered a thoroughly characteristic note from Aunt
Clay, dry and dictatorial but enclosing a check for ten dollars on
Monroe & Co., the Paris bankers. "For you and your extravagant mother to
spend on foolishness," wrote that stern lady.
"Oh, Mother! Isn't she hateful? How easy it would have been to send a
pleasant message with the check! Now all the fun of having it is gone
and I have a great mind to send it back!"
"No, my dear, don't do that. Your Aunt Clay does not mean to be as
unkind as she seems. I know she intended this check as a kind of peace
offering to me, and we must take it as she meant it and pay no attention
to her words."
"Mother, you are an angel and I have to hug you right here in the cabin,
even if that black-eyed man over there with the pile of telegrams in
front of him is looking a hole through us."
She suited the action to the word and Mrs. Brown, emerging from the bear
hug that Molly was prone to give, surprised a smile on the dark face of
their fellow traveler. He was seated across from them at the same table
behind a pile of telegrams a foot high, and was very busy opening the
messages, making notes on them as he read. He was an interesting looking
man with dark, fathomless eyes, swarthy complexion and iron gray hair,
but he bore a youthful look that made one feel he had not the right of
years to the gray hair. His expression was gloomy and not altogether
pleasant, but when he smiled he displayed a row of dazzling white teeth
and his eyes lost the sad look and held the smile long after his mouth
had closed with a determined click.
"'Duty before pleasure,' as King Richard said when he killed the old
king before a-smothering of the babies," said Molly as she finished Aunt
Clay's letter and opened Edwin Green's. What a nice letter it was to be
sure! She laughed aloud over his wanting to throw Rosetti at the girl
and blushed with pleasure at the compliment to her reading of the
blessed Damozel, for well she knew whom he had in mind. His praise of
Melissa would have merely pleased her as praise of her friends always
did, had she not already been somewhat disturbed by what Dicky Blount
had said to her of Professor Edwin Green and the beautiful mountain
girl.
"I am a silly girl and intend to put all such foolish notions out of my
head," declared Molly to herself. "Surely Professor Green has as much
right to make friends as I have, and I intend to know as many people and
like as many as I can. I am not the least bit in love with Edwin
Green,--but somehow I don't think he and Melissa are suited to one
another."
As the young girl sat reading over her letter, a feeling of sadness and
loneliness took possession of her and, looking up, she surprised a
furtive tear in her mother's eye. Mrs. Brown was reading a letter from
her married daughter Mildred, then living in Iowa where her husband
Crittenden Rutledge was at work as a bridge engineer.
The cabin had begun to fill with people who were leaving decks and
staterooms to hunt up their letters and belongings and generally prepare
themselves for a ten-day trip on the Atlantic.
"Mother, they say this is a small steamer, but it seems huge to me! Did
you ever see so many strange people? I don't believe we ever shall know
any of them. They all of them look at home and I feel so far from home.
Don't you?"
"Now, Molly, please don't get blue or I shall have to weep outright. Of
course we shall come to know most of the passengers and no doubt will
find many charming persons ready to know and like us. Suppose we hurry
up with our letters and go on deck again."
Just then a young man bounded into the cabin, made a hasty survey of the
crowd and came rapidly over to the dark gentleman seated opposite them.
"Oh, Uncle Tom, how can you stay down in this stuffy cabin? There is a
sunset on the water that is just screaming out to be looked at. As for
that work, you have ten days to attend to those tiresome telegrams and
letters."
"Nonsense, Pierce, I have no idea of waiting ten days for this important
business. You forget the wireless," answered the uncle, looking fondly
at the enthusiastic young fellow, who was so like him except for the
gray hair that it was almost ludicrous.
"Oh, goodness gracious me, where is your holiday to be, with you tied to
your Mother Country with a stringless apron? That is what that old
wireless telegraphy reminds me of," laughed the young man, showing all
his perfect teeth. "Well, I've got your chair and steamer rug all ready
for you and all you have to do is come sit in it."
"Now, Pierce, don't wait on me. Part of having a holiday is to forget
how old I am. When I get these telegrams off, I am going to show you how
skittish I can be and forget all about business. I fancy you will have
to hold me back in my race for a good time. This limerick is to be my
motto:
"Said this long-legged daddy of Troy,
'Although I'm no longer a boy,
I bet I can show
You chaps how to go.'
Which he did to his own savage joy."
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