UNCLE CHARLEY

Each day seemed to bring new troubles.

“I just wonder,” Gloria asked herself, “if I really did right after all. This is a lot—worse—than I ever expected.”

She looked about her at the plainly furnished room. Then in her mind’s eye she saw through the wall into the room furnished for her cousin Hazel. The girl with the wonderful voice, the girl with the high-spirited ways, the girls so many at school talked about but so few said anything tangible concerning.

It was always, “Your cousin has wonderful hair,” or “Your cousin is going to be a singer,” or even, “I suppose you came up to be company for your aunt while your cousin is away at boarding school.”

Gloria had simply said “yes” or “no,” not deigning to add a remark that might have pleased the curious or critical. But when Natalie Warren said something about the Towers being “pretty well off,” and with the comment bestowing a compassionate glance at the silent Gloria, there had almost been an outbreak of the temperamental flash that always seemed held in restraint just back of those glittering eyes.

“I suppose they consider me the poor relation,” she was thinking now, while preparing before the homemade dresser for her day at Sandford Central School.

This thought spoiled the ripple that was trying hard to hold its place in her glossy hair, for a vicious twitch of the comb and a stab with a small side comb made a jagged part at the wrong place, and dragged the pretty wave down disconsolately too far over the sides of her head.

She aired her bed, opened her window and slammed the closet door. This last shook the bottle on her bureau, and if it hadn’t been Mildred’s parting gift, her “toilet water for boarding school use,” Gloria felt she would love to have seen it smash.

She just wanted to smash something. That house was so quiet and so overly well cared for. Even Tobias, the cat, couldn’t seem to have any fun in it.

“But it can’t last forever,” Gloria tried to assure herself, “and I ought soon to be getting mail from dad.”

One Saturday evening some weeks later, Gloria’s Uncle Charley came home. The sight of him filled her with sudden joy—he was just a little like her dad, and he was the good-natured, thoughtful uncle, who was ever willing to talk of the things she would care to talk of, and always kind enough to “stir up a jolly atmosphere.” It was a relief to see him, and the prospects of having the weight of gloom lifted by his presence, gave Gloria a quick reaction to her old time happy self.

She saw him coming and ran off to meet him. When he kissed her he gave her hand a significant squeeze and bade her a hearty welcome. But when they got back to the porch, where her aunt was waiting, a hint of the strained relations existing between them was too evident to overlook.

Mrs. Towers was eager to be very friendly and rather overdid the attempt. Mr. Towers was quiet, smiled like a stranger, and acted almost like a formal caller.

This astounded Gloria. That her own aunt and uncle should act like that! After a few minutes of vainly trying to lend warmth to the situation, she was glad to escape with an excuse to do something within the house.

From the dining room she could hear the even drone of their voices. Now and then her aunt’s would rise insistently and the escaping words were always in defense.

What could be the trouble? More than ever Gloria felt painfully out of place and longed for the things she had sacrificed.

While she adjusted a curtain at the side window, her uncle’s words floated in:

“I asked you not to do it. I told you it could not come out right and I shall never stay in Sandford until the matter is cleared.”

Gloria drew back instinctively. What was the disgraceful thing he was fleeing from?

Was that what her aunt had called his “high-mindedness”? Then she heard her aunt insist:

“But Lottie agreed—”

“When you pestered her into it.”

Gloria was not listening. The words came to her as if they were meant for her ears. She stole back into the other room and sat there in the early darkness. More miserable than ever, she felt crushed, stifled, and yet she could not even ask a question.

Is there anything more unhappy than to be in a house where a quarrel is seething in the background?

She was going to cry. It was one of her rare occasions but she could choke it down no longer. Here was Uncle Charley and he had brought with him only more gloom. The big cat brushed up to be noticed and Gloria’s hand smoothed the gray fur. A grateful purr made her more lonely. Only a cat to be friends with!

For a long time she crouched there. Tobias was asleep and had ceased to purr. The voices from the porch fell into snatches, then footfalls announced their entrance to the house.

Quickly she turned on the light, it still seemed to her a matter of luxury to merely touch a button to make a light, but this house was equipped with all modern improvements, including electricity.

True, there was the lamp she and her aunt always used, the reading lamp it was called, but now with company, Gloria guessed correctly that the electric light was that which her aunt wished put to use.

“Well, Gloria,” said the uncle brightly, “how do you like it out here?”

She searched his face before answering, but it was inscrutable. Then she said, “Well, I’m getting used to it, I guess.”

“Of course you miss your dad.” He stopped. “That’s one big thing in a girl’s life, to be real chums with her dad,” he added rather solemnly.

“Now, Charley,” spoke up the aunt with aspersion. “You needn’t go hinting about Hazel.”

“I’m not,” he retorted. “But I never can overlook the difference—Oh, well,” he sighed, “what’s the use?”

“I had a letter from dad,” exclaimed Gloria, glad to break in on the unpleasant trend.

“So soon? Why, I thought his cruise was going out beyond all the incoming steamers,” remarked Mr. Towers.

“He did catch a passing steamer though,” said Gloria. “Wait, I’ll run up and get the letter.” Presently they were both poring over its contents. When they reached that clause referring to Gloria’s new school, and had read the line inquiring with deep solicitude, concerning how she liked it at the seminary, there came an ominous pause.

Mrs. Towers left the room. Gloria tried vainly to divert her uncle’s interest, but he was plainly indignant.

“Do you mean to say,” he asked, “that your dad doesn’t know you are here?”

“No, Uncle Charley, he doesn’t,” said Gloria, miserably.

“Why?”

“He—would not have—gone.”

“And you wanted him to—go as much as all that?”

“Yes.”

“I see.” He turned over the letter and looked away from the black eyes pleading with him to understand.

“Yes, Gloria,” he said. “I do understand. You are a great little girl!”

“No, not really, uncle. I was just so determined that nothing should interfere this time.” She gulped in spite of all her show of courage.

Presently Charley Towers got up and paced the room. He was laboring under stirring emotions, that was plain. Gloria wished she had not produced the letter, but it was so difficult to do or say anything safe under the trying circumstances.

“Please don’t mind so much, Uncle Charley,” she begged when he crossed near her chair. “It will be all right—”

“I have no patience with such extravagance—” he broke in sharply. “I never agreed with your aunt’s foolish plan and until the matter is adjusted I shall continue to stay away and work harder by being near the business. At least we can do something to catch up that way.”

“Is that why—you don’t come home as you used to, three times a week?” gasped Gloria.

“Well, that is one reason,” he conceded. “That and the opposition I have to Hazel’s monopoly of the home finances. Of course, she’s only a girl,” he added kindly, “but—well, I can’t agree with the big plan, that’s all.”

“Oh, Uncle Charley, I am sure Aunt Hattie is very lonely—”

“Gloria dear,” he interrupted, “I have no quarrel with your aunt—now, but I must do what I can to straighten things out, and I can do that best by sticking very closely to my post.”

Her aunt’s appearance put an end to the confidences. But Gloria was more mystified than ever. What could he mean by straightening things out?

A suggestion that they all go to the evening’s pictures was finally agreed to by Mrs. Towers, and this was indeed a welcome treat for Gloria. She had missed her companions so much—especially Tom and Millie. Each day she told herself she would write them that she was not at boarding school and thus establish a correspondence long delayed, but somehow, when she undertook to write that letter (and she had done so more than once) she would lay it down in despair. What would her friends think of this mysterious change? She hated the thought of their surprise and the talk it might provoke in Barbend.

The photo-play was a rollicking comedy, and out of sheer explosive emotion Gloria fairly shrieked over it. At home in Barbend they had no “Movie House” and here at Sandford a very fine and pretentious auditorium was filled nightly. This was Gloria’s first visit, however, although Trixie Travers had invited her to go to see the great picture shown the week previous. Trixy was a typical high school girl and seemed to be fascinated with Gloria. But tonight the picture play had been delightful. Gloria sighed deeply when “The End” was flashed on. Her trials had given her a deeper appreciation of joy, and this was a splendid sample of the new emotion. But hats were on and they were now all going home.

When she returned with her aunt and uncle, in some way the uncle discovered that she was not using Hazel’s room. This brought about another protest.

“Why is she not in that big room with all its silly trappings?” she heard asked.

“The other room is just as airy—”

“I’d like to see Hazel try it,” retorted the uncle. “Now see here, Hattie,” he said firmly, “if you don’t cut out this nonsense short and give Gloria her dues here at least—I’ll just cut short our fashionable daughter’s career—”

“Charley—”

“Oh, I know how you feel about it, and I know you mean all right, Hattie, but Hazel must learn something of the things we have to know. It is no kindness to her to raise her in an element above that in which she belongs.”

There was no attempt to keep the tone of this conversation down, and as the new point of controversy was raised Gloria felt miserable indeed. After all, Uncle Charley’s visit had not exactly brought them good cheer.

The next day she was moved into Hazel’s room.

There was no need to tell her why—her uncle had been very positive in expressing his wish on that point, so Sunday though it was, directly after church she moved her belongings into the wonderfully decorated and daintily furnished Morningside room. Like a glorious sunset this reacted upon the girl away from home. It was simply inspiring. The paint was a soft ivory, the furniture was of soft “bird’s-eye” with every little “eye” in the satiny wood almost blinking its outlines through the ivory tones. Then the cretonnes!

“Imagine mine!” Gloria chuckled, recalling Jane’s effort with scrim and a pretty figured flowered lawn. The lawn would always fade and have to come down before winter was half over, and the scrim did get so straggly. But when it was fresh in early fall, and when Millie came in to help drape—Millie was much more domestic than Gloria—during that period of enthusiasm the blue room in the cottage at Barbend was indeed all that any girl might wish to be the possessor of.

She placed her “tools,” as Trixy called brush, comb and complexion implements, out on Hazel’s dresser in that sort of fashion she had noticed on the afternoon she went with Trixy Travers while she dressed for tennis. She hung up her dresses upon the satin covered hangers just slightly perfumed, and she put her sweaters in the window-seat box, so that they would not stretch—although she didn’t care a pin about such trifles, she felt obliged to respect the conveniences of Hazel’s room.

Her aunt was in and out so often that nothing but the fact of her positive need in the kitchen or the consequences of a spoiled dinner, saved Gloria from such supervision as she would have resented.

“Now, do be careful, Gloria,” the aunt would caution. “You have no idea how fussy Hazel is, and this room cost—well, it cost—” A wave of the shiny hands and a catch of the snatchy breath finished what words failed to express.

“Yes, it must have cost an awful lot,” agreed Gloria. “I wonder Hazel wouldn’t have rather bought a launch.”

“A launch! Hazel!”

“Why, yes. Doesn’t she like to run a launch? I just live for the day when I shall be a captain of my own,” said Gloria, jabbing her best silk scarf on a hook and making a hole in the Roman stripe.

“Dear me! I smell the beans,” exclaimed the nervous aunt. “But please, Glory, don’t upset anything. You have no idea—Land sakes! My beans are done for!”

Gloria stood before the mirror and gazed into her own eyes. There was a sparkle of fun lurking in their depths, and the girl, so lately stifled in her spontaneous merriment was silently agreeing with the reflected temptation to have “some fun.” Why not? What girl could live and be a girl and just mope?

“After dinner,” she promised, “we’ll see what sort of fun we can dig up out here. I shall die if I don’t have a good laugh soon.”