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What Katy Did Next

S >> Susan Coolidge >> What Katy Did Next




I cannot tell you exactly what it was that Ned Worthington said to Katy
during that row, or why it took so long to say it that they did not get
in till after the sun was set, and the stars had come out to peep at
their bright, glinting faces, reflected in the Grand Canal. In fact, no
one can tell; for no one overheard, except Giacomo, the brown
yellow-jacketed gondolier, and as he did not understand a word of
English he could not repeat the conversation. Venetian boatmen, however,
know pretty well what it means when a gentleman and lady, both young,
find so much to say in low tones to each other under the gondola hood,
and are so long about giving the order to return; and Giacomo, deeply
sympathetic, rowed as softly and made himself as imperceptible as he
could,--a display of tact which merited the big silver piece with which
Lieutenant Worthington "crossed his palm" on landing.

Mrs. Ashe had begun to look for them long before they appeared, but I
think she was neither surprised nor sorry that they were so late. Katy
kissed her hastily and went away at once,--"to pack," she said,--and
Ned was equally undemonstrative; but they looked so happy, both of them,
that "Polly dear" was quite satisfied and asked no questions.

Five days later the parting came, when the "Florio" steamer put into the
port of Genoa for passengers. It was not an easy good-by to say. Mrs.
Ashe and Amy both cried, and Mabel was said to be in deep affliction
also. But there were alleviations. The squadron was coming home in the
autumn, and the officers would have leave to see their friends, and of
course Lieutenant Worthington must come to Burnet--to visit his sister.
Five months would soon go, he declared; but for all the cheerful
assurance, his face was rueful enough as he held Katy's hand in a long
tight clasp while the little boat waited to take him ashore.

After that it was just a waiting to be got through with till they
sighted Sandy Hook and the Neversinks,--a waiting varied with peeps at
Marseilles and Gibraltar and the sight of a whale or two and one distant
iceberg. The weather was fair all the way, and the ocean smooth. Amy was
never weary of lamenting her own stupidity in not having taken Maria
Matilda out of confinement before they left Venice.

"That child has hardly been out of the trunk since we started," she
said. "She hasn't seen anything except a little bit of Nice. I shall
really be ashamed when the other children ask her about it. I think I
shall play that she was left at boarding-school and didn't come to
Europe at all! Don't you think that would be the best way, mamma?"

"You might play that she was left in the States-prison for having done
something naughty," suggested Katy; but Amy scouted this idea.

"She never does naughty things," she said, "because she never does
anything at all. She's just stupid, poor child! It's not her fault."

The thirty-six hours between New York and Burnet seemed longer than all
the rest of the journey put together, Katy thought. But they ended at
last, as the "Lake Queen" swung to her moorings at the familiar wharf,
where Dr. Carr stood surrounded with all his boys and girls just as they
had stood the previous October, only that now there were no clouds on
anybody's face, and Johnnie was skipping up and down for joy instead of
grief. It was a long moment while the plank was being lowered from the
gangway; but the moment it was in place, Katy darted across, first
ashore of all the passengers, and was in her father's arms.

Mrs. Ashe and Amy spent two or three days with them, while looking up
temporary quarters elsewhere; and so long as they stayed all seemed a
happy confusion of talking and embracing and exclaiming, and
distributing of gifts. After they went away things fell into their
customary train, and a certain flatness became apparent. Everything had
happened that could happen. The long-talked-of European journey was
over. Here was Katy at home again, months sooner than they expected; yet
she looked remarkably cheerful and content! Clover could not understand
it; she was likewise puzzled to account for one or two private
conversations between Katy and papa in which she had not been invited to
take part, and the occasional arrival of a letter from "foreign parts"
about whose contents nothing was said.

"It seems a dreadful pity that you had to come so soon," she said one
day when they were alone in their bedroom. "It's delightful to have you,
of course; but we had braced ourselves to do without you till October,
and there are such lots of delightful things that you could have been
doing and seeing at this moment."

"Oh, yes, indeed," replied Katy, but not at all as if she were
particularly disappointed.

"Katy Carr, I don't understand you," persisted Clover. "Why don't you
feel worse about it? Here you have lost five months of the most
splendid time you ever had, and you don't seem to mind it a bit! Why,
if I were in your place my heart would be perfectly broken. And you
needn't have come, either; that's the worst of it. It was just a whim
of Polly's. Papa says Amy might have stayed as well as not. Why aren't
you sorrier, Katy?"

"Oh, I don't know. Perhaps because I had so much as it was,--enough to
last all my life, I think, though I _should_ like to go again. You can't
imagine what beautiful pictures are put away in my memory."

"I don't see that you had so awfully much," said the aggravated Clover;
"you were there only a little more than six months,--for I don't count
the sea,--and ever so much of that time was taken up with nursing Amy.
You can't have any pleasant pictures of _that_ part of it."

"Yes, I have, some."

"Well, I should really like to know what. There you were in a dark room,
frightened to death and tired to death, with only Mrs. Ashe and the old
nurse to keep you company--Oh, yes, that brother was there part of the
time; I forgot him--"

Clover stopped short in sudden amazement. Katy was standing with her
back toward her, smoothing her hair, but her face was reflected in the
glass. At Clover's words a sudden deep flush had mounted in Katy's
cheeks. Deeper and deeper it burned as she became conscious of Clover's
astonished gaze, till even the back of her neck was pink. Then, as if
she could not bear it any longer, she put the brush down, turned, and
fled out of the room; while Clover, looking after her, exclaimed in a
tone of sudden comical dismay,--

"What does it mean? Oh, dear me! is that what Katy is going to do next?"

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