Laughing Last, Jane Abbott [the false prince .txt] 📗

Kneeling against a half-packed trunk, Trude read Sidney’s letter aloud to Isolde. Victoria had gone the day before.

“What do you think?” Trude asked, slowly, as she finished.

“Think? What do you mean? I’m glad the child’s there safe and happy.”

“But, Issy, that letter doesn’t ring just—true. I know how Sid usually writes and talks. It’s too brief and there’s something, well—forced about it.”

Isolde put down a box of papers she had been sorting over. Her conscience had troubled her not a little at letting Sidney go off alone among strangers, even though they were relatives, and now Trude’s doubts sharpened the pricks.

“Forced? I didn’t notice it. It was short, of course, but probably she is having too good a time to write a longer letter. Anyway, Trude, she’s there safe, and we’re almost packed and our tickets are bought—it isn’t going to do anyone a bit of good, now, to upset all our plans and bring Sid home. That’s the way I look at it. And she would have been perfectly wretched here with the League Convention filling the house. It’s dreadful to contemplate.”

“I can’t bear to think of Sid going out on boats with a harum-scarum boy—” Trude groaned.

“I don’t feel half as concerned over the boats as I do wondering if living there in luxury may not spoil her for her own poor home—make her dissatisfied. She is probably meeting all the wealthy summer people—there are a lot on the Cape, you know.”

Trude was still studying the letter as though to find something between the written lines.

“She wants me to write every day. That sounds a little homesicky. Well, I will, bless the kid’s heart—no matter how rushed I am. And I will warn her in every letter to be careful around the boats. And not to get her head turned by our relatives’ high estate, either. Isn’t it funny, Issy, that we never knew they were wealthy—until now? Not that it would have made a bit of difference with Mother or Dad,” she finished, defensively.

Isolde, her conscience quieted for the hundreth time, turned her attention to her box. She lifted out a small packet of letters tied together and handed them to Trude.

“These are yours.”

One slipped from the packet and fell to the floor between the two girls. Trude picked it up quickly, a deep crimson sweeping her face.

“Why, it’s one of those letters—” exclaimed Isolde, accusingly.

Trude nodded, guiltily. “I know it. I—I couldn’t bear to destroy them all.”

“Trude, dear, you don’t care anything about that man—now?”

Trude forced a light laugh but her eyes avoided Isolde’s searching glance. “Why, no—at least not in that way. If you like things in a person very much you just have to keep on liking them no matter what happens. And, Issy, it wasn’t his fault that I—I imagined—he cared—for me—” Her voice broke. Isolde gave a quick little cry.

“Trude, you do care! And he isn’t worth the tiniest heartache. He must have led you on to think things. And all the time he was playing with you. It makes me furious! You’re such an old peach.”

The “old peach” made no answer. There flashed across her mind all that Isolde had had to say before about this man; every fibre of her being shrank from a repetition that would bring pain as well as humiliation. She straightened.

“We are a couple of geese to dig all this up now. I was just sentimental enough to hang on to one of the letters—I suppose it’s because they are the only letters I’ve ever had from a man—but I see my mistake now. I will destroy it.” She slipped the letter into her pocket with the tiniest sigh. “So there.” (But the letter was not destroyed.)

“I wish you’d meet someone down at the Whites’—some perfectly grand man. I should think Uncle Jasper would realize—”

Isolde’s tone was so tragic that Trude laughed, now with genuine amusement. “I was thinking of some of Uncle Jasper’s friends,” she explained. “They are mostly nice, fat settled bankers and lawyers, but if any bachelor doctors, tinkers or tailors slip in I promise to flirt desperately—”

“Trude, you think I am joking and I am not. If you don’t meet someone at the Whites’ where will you meet him? What chance have you and I, shut up here, to know the kind of men we’d—we’d like to know? Do you think I enjoy the namby-pamby sort that flock here to sit in Dad’s chair? No, indeed. And Trude—I’m—twenty-six next October! I’m—an old maid!”

Before Isolde’s earnestness Trude unknowingly lowered her voice to a soft note. “Do you feel like that, too, Issy? I’ve felt that way often. I’m twenty-four. But I’m not afraid of being an old maid—I’ve always sort of known I’d be one—but I catch myself just longing to do something with my life, different—as little Sid put it. Then I chastise myself severely for my repinings. Anyway, it’ll be fun watching Vick’s and Sid’s experiences, won’t it? Bless them, they seem to have escaped our bounds, don’t they?”

“I am afraid my vicarious enjoyment of their adventures may be tempered with a little jealousy. I am not as noble as you are, Trude. It is hard to think that you and I have to go on sitting still and watching our lives go by—and our one and only life, remember!”

Trude shook herself a little—perhaps she was “chastising” her inner spirit. “Come, we mustn’t get mopey on the eve of a holiday. They’re too rare to spoil. And two trunks still to pack. Do you think the Leaguers will mind if we shroud that painting in the living-room. It’s the best thing we own and I hate to have it get too dusty.”

Isolde lifted her shoulders rebelliously. “I don’t know what has happened to me but, do you know, Trude, I am beginning to think it’s the limit that we have to consider the League in even a little thing like that. Thank goodness we are going to have a holiday! But I wonder if the summer will bring anything to any of us.”

In answer Trude smiled down into the trunk. “Well—it’s bringing something to Sid. Rather she went out and got it. And it surely will to Vick, new clothes if nothing more. And I hope it will to you, too, Issy, dear, something grand and—contenting.”

It was typical of Trude that she did not think of herself.