But Nan had gone to sleep before she could formulate her ideas about how Mr. Tucker treated Page. She only devoutly hoped he would devise some method by which he could persuade her mother to give up the idea of going to White Sulphur and let Douglas alone about making her debut the following winter.

CHAPTER IX

MR. MACHIAVELLI TUCKER

Nan wondered what Mr. Tucker had in mind to relieve the situation which she had so ingenuously disclosed to him on that little walk in the moonlight. The next morning she watched him closely and there was something about the businesslike way in which he sought out Mrs. Carter, when that lady appeared long after breakfast, that made her divine he had something up his sleeve.

The charming lady was looking especially lovely in a white linen morning dress. She said she had slept splendidly in spite of the fact that she rather missed the rolling of the ship. Again she had kept Susan so busy waiting on her that the labor of serving breakfast properly had fallen on Helen. A tray of breakfast had to be arranged exactly as though they were still in the city, and Susan made many trips from the cabin to the kitchen.

Mrs. Carter was one of those persons who was always treated as more or less of an invalid because of a certain delicate look she had, but her girls could not remember her having had a real illness. She must not be awakened in the morning and she must never be asked to go out in bad weather. She must have the daintiest food; the warmest corner in winter and the coolest in summer. She had never demanded these things, but they had always been given her as though she had a kind of divine right to them. Her husband had, from the moment he saw her, the belle of belles at White Sulphur, felt that she was to be served as a little queen and the children had slipped into their father's way.

No one would have been more astonished than Annette Carter had anyone accused her of selfishness. Selfishness was something ugly and greedy and no one could say that she was that. She never made demands on anyone. In fact, she quite prided herself on not making demands.

Everyone was kind and thoughtful of her, but then was she not kind and thoughtful of everyone? Had she not brought a present to every one of her girls and a great box of expensive toys for Bobby? It was not her fault that Bobby preferred currying that disgraceful-looking old mule to playing with the fine things she had purchased for him at the most exclusive toy shop in New York. Had she not even remembered every one of the servants, not only Susan and Oscar but the ones who had been in her service when she had left Richmond? The fact that she had charged all of these gifts and that the money to pay for them was to be worked for by her daughters had not for a moment entered her mind.

"And how is camp life treating you this morning?" asked Jeffry Tucker, as he led the little lady to a particularly pleasant corner of the pavilion that commanded a view of the beautiful apple orchards of that county of Virginia famous for the Albemarle pippins. "Did you ever see such a morning? I can hardly believe that only last night we were in the throes of the fiercest storm I have ever seen."

"Oh, I am quite in love with camp life. It is not so rough as I expected it to be when I arrived yesterday. I have a very comfortable bed and a nice bright fire cheered me up wonderfully after I left the pavilion last night. I must confess I was scared to death during the storm, although I held on to myself wonderfully."

"Yes, wonderfully!" but Jeffry Tucker crossed his fingers and reached out for a bit of green from the pine tree growing close to the post. He could not but picture the little woman of the evening before hanging on to her husband, intent on protecting her dress and shrieking at every close flash of lightning or loud clap of thunder.

"I am so glad you are here because I am thinking of leaving my girls at the camp for a while, and of course I could not think of doing it unless you were here to chaperone them."

"Oh, I never thought of my presence being necessary as a chaperone! You know I am thinking of taking Douglas to the White for a fortnight."

"Oh, I am sorry. Of course I could not leave my girls unless they are to be chaperoned."

"But Robert will be here; he is enough chaperone surely."

"Yes, enough in our eyes but not the eyes of the world. You see, I think one cannot be too careful about what Mrs. Grundy will say," and Jeffry Tucker crossed his fingers again and reached for more green, "especially when girls are about the age of mine and yours, too, about to be launched in the world, as it were."

He was devoutly thankful that his girls could not hear him indulging in this homily. If there ever lived a person who scorned Mrs. Grundy that was this same Jeffry Tucker. He devoutly hoped that Mrs. Carter would not hear that Page Allison was in the habit of being chaperoned by him, if one could call it being chaperoned. He well knew that as a chaperone Robert Carter had him beat a mile but he felt that a little subterfuge was permissable in as strenuous a case as this.

"Why, Mr. Tucker, I did not dream you were such a stickler for the proprieties!"

"Ahem--I am more so than I used to be. Having these girls almost grown makes me feel I must be more careful than--my nature--er--er--dictates."

"Exactly! I respect you for it. I, too, think it very important, especially if a girl is to make a debut as I mean that Douglas shall. I am very sorry, though, that you could not leave Virginia and Caroline up here in Robert's care. I am sure it will be all right for once. I have quite set my heart on White Sulphur for a few weeks. I think it gives a girl a certain poise to be introduced to society in an informal way before she makes her debut."

"Well, I am sorry, too, sorrier than I can say. You see, I had planned to come up again myself next Sat.u.r.day and I thought I would bring with me Hiram G. Parker. He would like this sort of thing and fit in nicely with these young girls. You know how much he takes to the girls before they are quite grown."

"Ye--es!" and Mrs. Carter was lost in a revery.

She well knew that the name of Hiram G. Parker was one that controlled society. He was the Beau Brummel of Richmond and in some unaccountable way had become the dictator of society, that is of the debutante society. He pa.s.sed the word about whether or not a girl was to be a belle and his judgment was seldom gainsaid. Mrs. Carter was thinking that no doubt the presence of Hiram G. Parker in their camp would be of more benefit than a trip to White Sulphur. Her position in society was of course a.s.sured beyond a doubt but that did not mean a successful debut for one of her daughters, certainly not for one who was to be persuaded if not forced to be a debutante. The business of coming out must be taken quite seriously and the importance of it not belittled.

Poor Douglas was taking it seriously enough, but not in a way her mother thought desirable for success.

"Do you know, Mr. Tucker, I have half a mind to give up the trip to White Sulphur.--It is so pleasant here and so delightful to be with my children again; and if your daughters and that sweet little friend of theirs care to remain with us, I shall be more than pleased to chaperone them."

"Oh, you are kind!" exclaimed the wily Zebedee. "I cannot thank you enough. If you choose to make it so, Camp Carter will vie with White Sulphur as a resort. I shall certainly bring Parker up next week."

Mr. Tucker grasped the first opportunity to inform the anxious Nan of his successfully performed mission.

"Oh, how did you do it?"

"By just a little twist of the wrist. You shall have to put up with my girls though for another week or so. Your mother has promised to chaperone them until I fetch them away."

"Splendid! Do they want to stay?"

"They are dying to. I only hope they won't tear things wide open at camp. They are terribly hoydenish at times."

"Mr. Tucker, tell me: did you really get mother to give up White Sulphur just to chaperone the twins and Page?"

"You ask her! I think she thinks she did."

"I believe I'll call you Mr. Machiavelli Tucker."

"Don't flatter me so yet. Wait until I accomplish the seemingly impossible of making your mother decide of her own accord that your sister had better not come out yet."

"Can you do that, too?"

"I don't want to sound conceited but I believe I can. This is our secret, so don't tell a soul that we have any hand in this matter. Just let Douglas think it is fortune smiling on her."

"All right, but nothing can ever make me forget your kindness!" and Nan held his hand with both of hers with no more trace of shyness than Hiram G. Parker might have shown in dancing a german.

"What on earth have you done to make Nan so eternally grateful?"

demanded Dum Tucker, coming suddenly around a spur of rock on the mountain path where her father had accosted Nan.

"I am going to leave you girls up here for some days longer. Isn't that enough for her to be grateful over?"

"We--ll, I don't know--that sounds rather fishy."

"And besides, I am going to send her up a ouija board to pa.s.s the hours away until I return. How about that?"

"Oh, now you are talking! That is something to be grateful about. We are all of us dying to try it," but Dum could not see why Nan was blushing so furiously and evidently trying to hold in the giggles, and she plainly caught a wink pa.s.sing between her dignified parent and the demure Nan.

"He's up to something, but it wouldn't be very gentlemanly of me to try to find out if he doesn't want me to know," she said to herself.

The Tucker Twins had been motherless since they were tiny babies and their ridiculously young father had had the rearing of them alone and unaided. Many stepmothers had been picked out for these irrepressible girls by well meaning friends and relatives, but Jeffry Tucker had remained unmarried, much to the satisfaction of the said twins.

"He is much too young and inexperienced to marry," they would say when the matter was broached by wily mammas who hoped to settle their daughters. And so he did seem to be. Time had no power to age Jeffry Tucker. He was in reality very young to be the father of these great girls, as the romance of his life had occurred when he was only twenty, still in college, and the little wife had died after only a year of happiness.

In rearing his girls he had had only one rule to go by: they must conduct themselves like gentlemen on all occasions. "I don't know what ladylike rules are but I do know what is expected of a gentleman, and if my girls come up to that standard I am sure they will pa.s.s muster," he had declared. As a rule the twins did pa.s.s muster. They were perfectly honorable and upright and the mischief they got into was never anything to be ashamed of--only something to be gotten out of, never too serious to tell their father all about.

The fact that they were to stay longer than the week-end was greeted with joy by the Carters. Page had already made herself popular, too.

Douglas was soon informed by her mother that she had given up the trip to the White, so some of the load was lifted from the poor girl's heart.