Yet she knew, Deedee thought, that she was disliked.
“You’re looking much better,” said Jasper Page. He turned up her face with his hand. “See here, I don’t even know your name.”
“Delia,” said Deedee.
“You’re staying to dinner, aren’t you, Delia?”
“Yes, sir.”
He swung about, looking youthfully pleased with himself. “Well, I think that Mrs. Boles had better stay to chaperone you.”
Chaperone! There was a word with which one must make acquaintance at the earliest opportunity. Whatever it meant, to chaperone, Mrs. Boles liked to do it.
“Really, Mr. Page, I couldn’t, I’m afraid.”
But M’sieu Page’s spirits carried everything before them. “Nonsense,” he said, taking out his big watch. “It’s three o’clock. When you come to my house on an errand of mercy at precisely the dinner hour, you may surely eat some dinner.” He crossed the room and pulled a cord, setting a bell ringing.
“Mrs. Boles and Delia are taking dinner with me,” he told Mme. Elmire.
Mme. Elmire shot a startled look at Deedee. “I have a table set for the little one in the kitchen with me, m’sieu,” she ventured.
“No,” said M’sieu Page. “She’ll eat in the dining room.”
M’sieu Page excused himself. He wouldn’t dress, he said, but he would like to brush up. Mme. Elmire took the cape and muff and bonnet, and Mrs. Boles went to the nearest mirror, a gilded mirror with the American eagle spreading its wings at the top. Deedee watched silently, her brown feet planted a hostile space apart.
Mrs. Boles had light green eyes, round cheeks which one longed to touch with one’s finger, and a mouth like a sweet prim posy. She had fair hair, twisted high on her head in the fashionable bowknot. The trying lines of this were not much softened by the small cap nestling at its base, or the bunches of little curls hanging at her temples. But she was pretty enough to overcome even a bowknot. She was very pretty.
And this prettiness, Deedee discovered, lay partly in her neatness. Every hair of her head, every ribbon of her cap, every fold of her striped silk dress, lay in its place. Her fichu was the whitest thing Deedee had ever seen, and it crossed precisely at the buckle of her belt. Although she was already perfect, she continued to work before the mirror. She reset the pins of her hair with the most absorbed attention. She picked out her great sleeves, which extended like wings on their hidden cushions, amusingly emphasizing the smallness of her waist. She shook out her dainty ankle-length skirts, and reached into her reticule for a large, fine, snowy handkerchief at which she sniffed critically.
“I think you could enjoy looking at the books,” she said, noting the child’s scrutiny.
Books meant nothing to Deedee, but she went and stood before them. In a few minutes M’sieu Page returned. He was still in buckskins, but his cheeks were ruddy from cold water, his light hair and whiskers smoothly brushed. The Canadian men at the Entry wore beards which concealed all of their faces but their teeth and eyes. M’sieu Page’s fresh and handsome countenance held Deedee’s gaze. But M’sieu Page, with out regarding her, went straight to Mrs. Boles.
They talked together in low but perfectly audible tones. Mrs. Boles said, “I’ve been wanting to speak to you alone. I don’t know what to do. He drinks continually.”
M’sieu Page answered in a troubled voice that the frontier was hard on a man.
“It isn’t hard on you,” said Eva Boles, looking up at him with her pretty light green eyes. She sighed. “I wish that the Major had your ideas.”
“See here,” protested Jasper Page, embarrassed, “Mowrie’s a splendid chap. No doubt he has his own ideas. And he has you.”
“Yes,” said Eva Boles. “He has me.” Her tone added, “And much he cares.” She took out her handkerchief.
M’sieu Page jumped up and walked over to Deedee.
Deedee was sorry for him. “I know my letters,” she offered briskly. She was the only child she knew who had this accomplishment, and she thought it interesting. She lifted down a brown leather-bound volume and opened it in the middle. But to her discomfiture, the letters on the page were unfamiliar. She looked at M’sieu Page.
He said consolingly, “That book is written in Greek, Delia. These are mostly in Greek and Latin. But there are some in French, and a few in English.” He turned to Mrs. Boles. “May I lend you something to read?”
“No, thank you. I’m not at all clever, you know.”
“I’ve Cooper and Scott, and Miss Sedgwick?”
“I don’t read novels,” she answered, smiling gently.
“Poetry? Here is Lord Byron.”
She did not answer. She merely turned her head away in the meekest of rebukes.
“Perhaps he isn’t exactly a lady’s poet,” said Jasper Page amusedly.
Mme. Elmire came in to announce dinner. Her black eyes snapped at Deedee’s toes. Deedee found that funny, and her mouth began to curve into its smile. Since M’sieu Page and Mrs. Boles had come, she had been too perplexed to be happy, but now she remembered her bliss.
Sitting at the white and glittering table, she recaptured it completely. With shining eyes but with her usual slow, unhurried manner, she examined the two-tined silver fork. She held her red goblet up to the light to see the world turn rosy. She studied the picture of a farmyard on her plate.
Mme. Elmire gave them each a bowl of soup. It was good soup, and Deedee was enjoying hers when she noticed a pause in the conversation going on between her elders. She looked up to find them smiling at her. What was the matter, she wondered, putting down her spoon? After a moment they continued to eat; observing them, she discovered that they gave none of the noisy smacks of enjoyment which accompanied a meal in the DuGay cabin. Well, then, neither would she. It wasn’t so hard to take soup quietly.
They resumed their conversation. Slowly it came to Deedee that Mowrie was Major Boles. Major Boles was a favorite with the children. He threw potatoes into the air and shot them as they fell, to display his prowess for their delight.
Mrs. Boles was saying, “He goes off with Captain Frenshaw . . .”
That reminded Deedee. “Has the baby come?” she inquired, lifting concerned eyes.
Mrs. Boles put down her spoon. She turned her head away.
“You mean,” asked M’sieu Page, growing red, “Mrs. Frenshaw?”
“Mrs. Frenshaw’s baby. Ma was with her, you know. She was hollering pretty bad when I was there.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said gravely. “No, there’s no news.”
Mme. Elmire came in and took out the empty soup plates. Deedee started to help her, but M’sieu Page said, “Wait a minute, Delia. We’re going to
