Margaret Vandercook

“ She knew that Jack had developed into a beauty from a merely handsome girlhood and that she was only pretty. But she also realized that prettiness often makes more appeal, especially to men, than a higher type of loveliness. Therefore, Frieda had no idea of not preserving her own charms as long as she possibly could.
She walked slowly so as not to arrive too early and because she was enjoying the country more than she usually did. The quietness of the English landscape, its look of a carefully kept garden, appealed to Frieda more than the vastness of her own windswept western prairies. ”

“ When they went down into the garden together, where tea was to be served, Olive felt that her decision of the morning had really been nearer the truth than she had then appreciated. Jack looked like one of the fairest types of society women. She was dressed in white—an exquisite embroidered material—and had on a big soft white garden hat, trimmed with deep toned pink roses. The soft, damp English air had kept her color as vivid as ever and given her yellow brown hair an even finer gloss. ”

“ Although she could scarcely speak of it, Olive was smiling to herself over Frank's use of the word "forbid." She never recalled that any one had ever forbidden Jack to do anything she wished so long as she had known her. But probably Frank's forbidding was of the gentlest kind. Olive felt she must remember that the English attitude toward marriage was not the same as the American, although when an Englishman marries an American girl they are supposed to strike the happy medium. ”

“ Instead of answering at once Jack slipped her arm inside her husband's.
"I am dreadfully afraid of the people I care about being angry with me, though you and the rest of my family may not believe it, as I am supposed to have once been a wilful person," she returned unexpectedly. "Sometimes I wonder, Frank, just how much of a coward I would be, if I had either to give up what I thought was right or else to have some one seriously angry with me. I have not the courage of my convictions like Frieda." ”

“ In spite of Captain MacDonnell's ancestry his coloring was almost as dark as Olive's.
Then Frieda turned her blue eyes on her sister.
"Captain MacDonnell and Olive look too much alike," she argued. "I prefer marriages where the man and woman are contrasts."
Then, although Lady Kent made no answer, she smiled to herself. If Frieda believed in contrasts in marriage, surely she did not mean merely in complexion and general appearance. Important contrasts in human beings went much deeper than appearances. ”

“ The fact that her husband, who had also lived for a short time in Wyoming, should also oppose woman's suffrage was beyond her comprehension, except that Frank had the Englishman's love for the established order and disliked any change. Jack would not confess to herself that he also had the Englishman's idea that a woman should be subservient to her husband and that he should be master of his own house. To give women the freedom, which the ballot would bring, might be to allow them an independence in which the larger majority of the men of the British Isles did not then believe. ”

“ Almost any man would do anything and forgive anything in behalf of such blue eyes and yellow hair as Frieda's to say nothing of her Professor. I may pretend to be severe but I should probably forgive her as readily." [124]
"Sooner than you would me?" Jack inquired and laughed. "Oh, of course, you would. Everybody always has as long as I can remember."
Frank looked more closely at his wife and his face softened until his eyes held their old expression of boyish admiration. Always he had been pleased by her intense loyalty to the people she cared for. ”

“ As it struck Frank as utterly impossible that he and Jack ever could have a disagreement, which could not be settled amiably in a few hours, he paid no attention to her last statement. Nevertheless he added:
"After all, Jack, it is not for us to decide anything concerning Frieda and her husband. That is for them. We are simply doing what Professor Russell has requested of us."
"Yes, but Frieda," Jack expostulated more weakly.
"Frieda is receiving just what she asked for—silence. But you must not worry over Frieda. She will solve existence happily for herself soon enough. ”

“ I think I have wanted to be a boy ever since I could sit on the back of a horse and ride over our ranch with my father. That is why people have always called me 'Jack,' I suppose. Anyhow, just now, I think I would like to go out to meet a great adventure. I wonder what a woman's great adventure is. I presume it is marriage for most of us. At any rate Frank is terribly envious of you, Bryan. He has said so to me half a dozen times. He does not seem to know whether he ought to go to the front, which is what he wants to do, or to stay on here doing his work in Parliament. ”

“ In those days Frank's sisters were still unmarried and Bryan had been in the habit of spending much of his time at Kent House when he was on leave.
Yet Frank and Bryan were so utterly unlike in temperament. To say that Frank was an Englishman and Bryan an Irishman explains [129] a great deal. Frank was quieter and more reserved and determined; but Bryan was ardent and emotional, quick to feel an emotion and quick to change. Jack had always felt that he loved the outdoors as she did, while Frank was studious, more devoted to books and to political questions than to swift action. ”

“ Olive answered. "But, of course, Jack, you understand I don't require a great deal of persuasion to come to you, and besides I was afraid if I did not come ahead, Frieda would not come at all. You are the only person who has any influence over her. If she goes back to the ranch, Ruth and Jean will only make such a fuss over her that she will become more and more convinced she has been badly treated. Jim, you know, never has approved of any of his Ranch girls being married, although he misses none of us as he does you." ”

“ Frank interrupted his wife not too politely. "The United States has been thinking about nothing but getting rich. They are a nation of shirkers, willing to stand back and let others do the work and suffer the loss."
"There are a good many millions of us for us all to be shirkers, Frank," Jack answered, still speaking quietly, although her cheeks had flushed and her eyes darkened. ”

“ Jack declared as she stretched herself on a big leather lounge not far from a pair of French windows, which opened on the veranda at the side of the house.
"I hope you won't feel dull, Olive! As soon as Parliament closes, if you and Frieda like, we will have some people come to stay with us. I don't like the responsibility of visitors if Frank is not here. I have never learned to take guests so simply and easily as an English hostess does. It is one of the ways in which I am a social failure." ”

“ Captain MacDonnell is the one person who likes to ride as hard as I do. Oh, of course, English women ride marvelously well—far better than I, and there is nothing they won't attempt in hunting. But what I like now and then is just a straight cross country ride—as near like the old rides across the prairies as I can manage, though I must say this country does not look much like the prairies," Jack ended, as she glanced smiling out the window at her own beautiful, well kept English lawn. "Wait, Frieda, and meet Bryan won't you? he is one of Frank's and my dearest friends." ”

“ Frieda exclaimed. "As long as there is nothing the matter with Captain MacDonnell, I wouldn't shed any tears over him. You so seldom cry, it always makes me wretched when you do. I'll bet Jack has never shed any tears over you, Frank." ”

“ She and Olive and Jack and Frank Kent were in the library at Kent House with Captain MacDonnell talking one morning, several weeks since the afternoon tea and during, perhaps, the most momentous week in all history.
"I think you must be mistaken about your husband's being unable to shoot, Frieda," Lord Kent answered dryly. "As a matter of fact I believe he is an expert; he told me himself that he had taken prizes for marksmanship when he was a boy, but had never cared to use his skill for hunting. As for your saying he can't go; well, the truth is, Frieda, Professor Russell has already gone. ”

“ During the remainder of the afternoon Jack thought nothing more about their early conversation, as she devoted herself entirely to Captain MacDonnell's other guests.
It was just a little after six o'clock, when they were beginning to think of returning home, that Lady Kent observed one of her servants coming toward her across the lawn carrying a telegram.
Never so long as she lived was Jack ever to forget that moment and the scene about her. There were about a dozen, beautifully costumed persons present—the women in silks and muslins, and the men in tennis flannels and other sport costumes. ”

“ The governess cart was a little wicker carriage swung low on two wheels, with an ancient, shaggy pony, who never moved out of a slow trot.
That afternoon, like all the great ladies in the English novels, Frieda stored away under the seat of her cart as much jelly and jam as her sister's housekeeper would allow her. ”

“ Jack slipped on a long tan coat and soft hat and went with her husband, leaving Olive to look after Frieda.
"Bryan is expecting to be here again this afternoon for a farewell visit, dear. He has been delayed for some reason or other but hopes to leave with his regiment tomorrow," Frank announced on the way to his train. "Do you know I think Bryan is a lucky fellow these days, not to have anyone very close to him—anyone who cares very much what becomes of him. Oh, of course, I should care, more than I like to think; but I mean no mother or father—no family." ”

“ Not actually realizing, but guessing at Jack's embarrassment, Olive remarked hastily.
"After all there is some advantage in being an old maid, one does not have to worry continually over being in the same place with one's husband. You will all have to come over to see my Indian School some day soon. Perhaps I am wedded to that."
"Nonsense, Olive," Frieda murmured, "but really I don't see why you have never married. You were obstinate enough about not accepting poor Don Harmon, but then you got most of your grandmother's money after all. Still you must have had other chances. ”

“ But what do you suppose Henry decided? When we went to housekeeping for ourselves we were to live on the income he made as a Professor! Did you ever hear of anything so selfish?"
"Well dear," Jack hesitated "maybe in a way it was selfish, because of course Henry's father and mother must have been disappointed not to be able to do for you. But, after all, it was self respecting of Henry. I suppose a man—especially an American one—likes to feel that he is able to be responsible for his own family."
"That is exactly what Ruth and Jim Colter wrote me," Frieda protested indignantly. ”

“ Jack whispered, blaming herself once again for allowing the marriage. Well, nothing could be decided for the present at any rate. One must wait for at least a little more light!
Out in the garden Jack and Olive and Frieda played all morning with Jack's two babies. Jimmie was a little fair haired, blue eyed, rose cheeked English boy. Vive was a different kind of baby; she had light yellow hair, and dark eyes unlike either Jack's or Frank's. Perhaps she was going to resemble the lovely old time portrait in the library. ”

“ You are an angel, Olive. And I am afraid it is Frieda's selfishness—her remaining such a completely [14] spoiled young person—that may be the answer to her present behavior. But I thought her husband spoiled her more even than her own family had in the past. Besides, I can't imagine the Professor doing anything wicked, can you, Olive? Oh dear, Frank and I always opposed Frieda's marriage. Professor Russell did seem too old and serious for her."
Just as she had always done whenever it was possible as a girl, Lady Kent at this moment took off her hat and flung it on the ground beside her. ”

“ When they were the four Ranch girls, Jack, Jean, Olive and Frieda, they had always relied upon Jacqueline Ralston's judgment. Now, as a woman, she seemed even [17] finer than she had been as a girl. Well, fortunately Jack's marriage seemed to have turned out ideally happy, although there were reasons why it might not. Jack had never been fond of society or a conventional life, had hated the indoors and the management of even so small and casual an establishment as they had at Rainbow Lodge before the coming of Ruth as governess to take the responsibility out of Jack's hands. ”

“ But Frieda had closed her eyes and dropped her head back and really looked so pale that her husband hurried out after his small maid and the tea things.
The moment he had disappeared however she opened her eyes again.
"I am going to take Henry Russell back to the United States with me in ten days," she remarked aloud, but in a very small whisper. "I don't know how I am going to manage him or the British Government, but I am going to, somehow. I thought I was bored with Henry and I was and I'll probably be again. But I suppose all women are bored with the men they live with sometimes. ”