Outside Inn.

by Ethel M. Kelley.

CHAPTER I

A GOOD LITTLE DREAM

"I Elijah Peebles Martin, of the city and county of Harrison, in the state of Rhode Island, being of sound and disposing mind and memory, do make and declare the following, as and for, my last will and testament.' ... I wish you'd take your head out of that barrel, Nancy, and listen to the doc.u.ment that is going to make you rich beyond the dreams of avarice."

"I was beyond them anyway." The young woman in blue serge made one last effectual dive into the depths of excelsior, the topmost billows of which were surging untidily over the edge of a big crate in the middle of the bas.e.m.e.nt floor, and secured a nest of blue and rose colored teacups, which she proceeded to unwrap lovingly and display on a convenient packing box. "Not one single thing broken in this whole lot, Billy.... What is a disposing mind and memory, anyhow?"

"You don't deserve to know," the blond young man in the Norfolk jacket a.s.sured her, adjusting himself more firmly to the idiosyncrasies of the rackety step-ladder he was striding. "You're not human about this.

Here you are suddenly in possession of a fortune. Money enough to make you independently wealthy for the rest of your life--money you didn't know the existence of, two weeks ago--fed to you by a gratuitous providence. A legacy is a legacy, and deserves to be treated as such, and I propose to see that it gets what it deserves, without any more shilly-shallying."

"I'm a busy woman," Nancy groaned, "and I've hammered my finger to a pulp, trying to open this crate, while you perch on a broken step-ladder and prate to me of legacies. The saucers to these cups may be in here, and I can't wait to find out. I'm perfectly crazy about this ware. It's English--Wedgewood, you know."

"I didn't know." Billy resignedly let himself to the floor, and appropriated the screwdriver. "I thought Wedgewood was dove color, and consisted chiefly of ladies in deshabille, doing the tango on a parlor ornament. I smashed one in my youth, so I know. There, it's open now.

I may as well unpack what's here. These seem to be demi-ta.s.ses.

'You may tempt your upper cla.s.ses, With your villainous demi-ta.s.ses.

But Heaven will protect the working girl,'"

he finished lugubriously, in a wailing baritone, taking an imaginary encore by bowing a head picturesquely adorned with a crop of excelsior curls, acc.u.mulated during his activities in and about the barrel.

"The trouble with the average tea-room, or Arts and Crafts table d'hote," Nancy said, sinking into the depths of a broken armchair in the corner of the dim, overcrowded interior, "is that when the pinch comes, quant.i.ty is sacrificed to quality. Smaller portions of food, and chipped chinaware. People who can't keep a place up, let it run down genteelly. They won't compromise on quality. I should never be like that. I should go to the ten-cent stores and replenish my whole establishment, if I couldn't make it pay with imported ware and Colonial silver. I'd never go to the other extreme. I'd never be so perceptibly second-rate, but in the matter of furnishings as well as food values, I'd find my perfect balance between quality and quant.i.ty, and keep it."

"I believe you would. You are a thorough child, when you set about a thing. I'll bet you know the restaurant business from A to Z."

"I do. You know, I studied the organization of every well-run restaurant in New York, when I was doing field work from Teachers'

College. I've read every book on the subject of Diet and Nutrition and Domestic Economy that I could get my hands on. I'm just ready now for the practical application of all my theories."

"Nancy Calory Martin is your real name. I don't blame you for hating to give up this tea-room idea. You've dug so deep into the possibilities of it, that you want to go through. I get that."

Nancy's eyes widened in satiric admiration.

"You could understand almost anything, couldn't you, Billy?" she mocked.

"All I want now," Billy continued imperturbably, "is a chance to make _you_ understand something." He smote the doc.u.ment in his left hand.

"Of course, your uncle's lawyer has explained all the details in his letters to you, but if you won't read the letters or familiarize yourself with the contents of this will, somebody has got to explain it to you in words of one syllable. My legal training, slight as it is--"

"Sketchy is the better word, don't you think so, Billy?"

"Slight as it is"--except for a prodigious frown, Billy ignored the interruption, though he took advantage of her suddenly upright position to encircle her neatly with a barrel hoop, as if she were the iron peg in a game of quoits--"enables me to put the fact before you in a few short, sharp, well-chosen sentences. I won't again attempt to read the doc.u.ment--"

"You'd better not," Nancy interrupted witheringly, "your delivery is poor. Besides, I don't want to know what is in that will. If I had, it stands to reason that I would have found out long before this. I've had it three days."

"You've had it three days and never once looked into it?" Billy groaned. "Who started all this scandal about the curiosity of women, anyway?"

"I don't want to know what's in it," Nancy insisted. "As long as I'm not in possession of any definite facts, I can ignore it. I've got the kind of mind that must deal with concrete facts concretely."

Billy grinned. "I'd hate the job of trying to subpoena you," he said, "but you'd make a corking good witness, on the stand. Of course, you can proceed for a certain length of time on the theory that what you don't know can't hurt you, but take it from me, little girl, what you ought to know and don't know is the thing that's bound to hurt you most tremendously in the long run. What are you afraid of, anyway, Nancy?"

"I'm not _afraid_ of anything," Nancy corrected him, with some heat.

"I just plain don't want to be interrupted at this stage of my career.

I consider it an impertinence of Uncle Elijah, to make me his heir. I never saw him but once, and I had no desire to see him that time. It was about ten years ago, and I caught a grippe germ from him. He told me between sneezes that I was too big a girl to wear a mess of hair streaming down my back like a baby. I stuck out my tongue at him, but he was too near-sighted to see it. Why couldn't he have left his money to an eye and ear infirmary? Or the Sailors' Snug Retreat? Or--or--"

"If you really don't want the money," Billy said, "it's your privilege to endow some inst.i.tution--"

"You know very well that I can't get rid of money that way," Nancy cried hotly. "I am at least a responsible person. I don't believe in these promiscuous, eleemosynary inst.i.tutions. It would be against all my principles to contribute money to any such philanthropy. I know too much about them--but he didn't. He could have disposed of his money to any one of a dozen of these mid-Victorian charities, but no--he was just one of those old parties that want to shift their responsibilities on to young shoulders, and so he chose mine."

"You don't speak very kindly of your dear dead relative."

"I don't feel very kindly toward him. He was a meddling old creature.

He never gave any member of the family a cent when they wanted it and needed it. Now that I've just got my life in shape, and know what I want to do with it without being beholden to anybody on earth, he leaves me a whole lot of superfluous money."

"If I weren't engaged to Caroline, who is a jealous woman, though I say it as shouldn't, I'd be tempted to undertake the management of your fortune myself," Billy said reflectively; "as it is--honor--"

"I know what I want to do with my life," Nancy continued, as if he had not spoken. "I want to run an efficiency tea-room and serve dinner and breakfast and tea to my fellow men and women. I want the perfectly balanced ration, perfectly served, to be my contribution to the cause of humanity."

She looked about her ruefully. The sun, through the barred dusty windows, struck in long slant rays, athwart the confusion of the cellar, illuminating piles upon piles of gay, blue latticed chinaware,--cups set out methodically in rows on the lids and bottoms of packing boxes; a.s.sorted sizes of plates and saucers, graded pyramidically, rising from the floor. There were also individual copper ca.s.seroles and serving dishes, and a heterogeneous a.s.sortment of j.a.panese basketry tangled in excelsior and tissue. A wandering sunbeam took her hair, displaying its amber, translucent quality.

"I've just got capital enough to get it going right; to swing it for the first year, even if I don't make a cent on it. It's my one big chance to do my share in the world, and to work out my own salvation.

This legacy is a menace to all my dreams and plans."

"I see that," Billy said. "What I don't see is what you gain by refusing to let it catch up with you."

"You're not it till you're tagged. That's all. If I don't know whether my income is going to be five thousand dollars or twenty-five thousand a year, I can go on unpacking teacups with--"

Billy whistled.

"Five thousand or twenty-five--my darling Nancy! You'll have fifty thousand a year at the very lowest estimate. The actual money is more than five hundred thousand dollars. The stock in the Union Rubber Company will amount to as much again, maybe twice as much. You're a real heiress, my dear, with wads of real money to show for it. That's what I'm trying to tell you."

"Fifty thousand a year!" Nancy turned a shocked face, from which the color slowly drained, leaving it blue-white. "Fifty thousand a year!

You're mad. It can't be!"

"Yes'um. Fifty thousand at least."

Nancy's pallor increased. She closed her eyes.

"Don't do that," Billy said sharply. "No woman can faint on me just because she's had money left her. You make me feel like the ghost of Hamlet's father."

Nancy clutched at his sleeve.

"Don't, Billy!" she besought. "I'm past joking now. Fifty thousand a year! Why, Uncle Elijah bought fifteen-dollar suits and fifteen-cent lunches. How could a retired sea captain get all that money by investing in a little rubber, and getting to be president of a little rubber company?"

"That's how. Be a good sensible girl, and face the music."