Chapter 22: Plans and Plottings

To Billy, Alice Greggory’s first visit to Hillside was in every way a delight and a satisfaction. To Alice, it was even more than that. For the first time in years she found herself welcomed into a home of wealth, culture, and refinement as an equal; and the frank cordiality and naturalness of her hostess’s evident expectation of meeting a congenial companion was like balm to a sensitive soul rendered morbid by long years of superciliousness and snubbing.

No wonder that under the cheery friendliness of it all, Alice Greggory’s cold reserve vanished, and that in its place came something very like her old ease and charm of manner. By the time Aunt Hannah—according to previous agreement—came into the room, the two girls were laughing and chatting over the operetta as if they had known each other for years.

Much to Billy’s delight, Alice Greggory, as a musician, proved to be eminently satisfactory. She was quick at sight reading, and accurate. She played easily, and with good expression. Particularly was she a good accompanist, possessing to a marked degree that happy faculty of accompanying a singer: which means that she neither led the way nor lagged behind, being always exactly in sympathetic step—than which nothing is more soul-satisfying to the singer.

It was after the music for the operetta had been well-practised and discussed that Alice Greggory chanced to see one of Billy’s own songs lying near her. With a pleased smile she picked it up.

“Oh, you know this, too!” she cried. “I played it for a lady only the other day. It’s so pretty, I think—all of hers are, that I have seen. Billy Neilson is a girl, you know, they say, in spite of—” She stopped abruptly. Her eyes grew wide and questioning. “Miss Neilson—it can’t be—you don’t mean—is your name—it is—you!” she finished joyously, as the telltale color dyed Billy’s face. The next moment her own cheeks burned scarlet. “And to think of my letting you stand in line for a twenty-five-cent admission!” she scorned.

“Nonsense!” laughed Billy. “It didn’t hurt me any more than it did you. Come!”—in looking about for a quick something to take her guest’s attention, Billy’s eyes fell on the manuscript copy of her new song, bearing Arkwright’s name. Yielding to a daring impulse, she drew it hastily forward. “Here’s a new one—a brand-new one, not even printed yet. Don’t you think the words are pretty?” she asked.

As she had hoped, Alice Greggory’s eyes, after they had glanced half-way through the first page, sought the name at the left side below the title.

“‘Words by M. J.—’”—there was a visible start, and a pause before the “‘Arkwright’” was uttered in a slightly different tone.

Billy noted both the start and the pause—and gloried in them.

“Yes; the words are by M. J. Arkwright,” she said with smooth unconcern, but with a covert glance at the other’s face. “Ever hear of him?”

Alice Greggory gave a short little laugh.

“Probably not—this one. I used to know an M. J. Arkwright, long ago; but he wasn’t—a poet, so far as I know,” she finished, with a little catch in her breath that made Billy long to take her into a warm embrace.

Alice Greggory turned then to the music. She had much to say of this—very much; but she had nothing more whatever to say of Mr. M. J. Arkwright in spite of the tempting conversation bait that Billy dropped so freely. After that, Rosa brought in tea and toast, and the little frosted cakes that were always such a favorite with Billy’s guests. Then Alice Greggory said good-by—her eyes full of tears that Billy pretended not to see.

“There!” breathed Billy, as soon as she had Aunt Hannah to herself again. “What did I tell you? Did you see Miss Greggory’s start and blush and hear her sigh just over the name of M. J. Arkwright? Just as if—! Now I want them to meet; only it must be casual, Aunt Hannah—casual! And I’d rather wait till Mary Jane hears from his mother, if possible, so if there is anything good to tell the poor girl, he can tell it.”

“Yes, of course. Dear child!—I hope he can,” murmured Aunt Hannah. (Aunt Hannah had ceased now trying to make Billy refrain from the reprehensible “Mary Jane.” In fact, if the truth were known, Aunt Hannah herself in her thoughts—and sometimes in her words—called him “Mary Jane.”) “But, indeed, my dear, I didn’t see anything stiff, or—or repelling about Miss Greggory, as you said there was.”

“There wasn’t—to-day,” smiled Billy. “Honestly, Aunt Hannah, I should never have known her for the same girl—who showed me the door that first morning,” she finished merrily, as she turned to go up-stairs.

It was the next day that Cyril and Marie came home from their honeymoon. They went directly to their pretty little apartment on Beacon Street, Brookline, within easy walking distance of Billy’s own cozy home.