As graciously as Mother herself could have done, she welcomed the guests at the door.
"Aunt Marian and Lorraine away? Then I don't suppose we'll stay," exclaimed Cousin Marcella Carter, who had a long thin face, a long thin nose, and a long thin mouth.
"You must stay for supper of course," said Marigold resolutely.
"Have you got anything good for us to eat?" asked Cousin Marcus with a chuckle. He had a square face with a spiky moustache and bristly white eyebrows. Marigold thought she did not like him and was glad she did not have to call him "uncle."
"I know the Cloud of Spruce pantry is always well supplied," said Mrs. Dr. Palmer, smiling. In her smooth grey silk dress she looked, Marigold decided, just like a nice sleek grey cat.
"Well, give us something that will stick to our ribs," said Cousin Marcus. "We've had dinner at a place - I won't say where - but there was heaps of style and precious little comfort."
"Marcus," said Cousin Marcella rebukingly.
"Fact. And now, Marigold, I'll give you a quarter for a kiss."
Cousin Marcus was quite genial. A joke was his idea of being kind and friendly. But Marigold did not know this and she resented it. Lifting her head as she had seen Varvara do, she said freezingly,
"I don't sell my kisses."
The visitors laughed. Jack Carter said,
"She's saving her kisses for ME, Dad."
There was another laugh. Marigold shot a furious glance at Jack. She did not like boys - any boys. And she at once hated Jack. He was about thirteen with a fat moon-face, straight whitish hair parted in the middle, staring china-blue eyes and spectacles. Under ordinary circumstances Marigold could and would have annihilated him with ease and pleasure. She had not sparred with Tommy Blair four years without learning how to handle the sex. But a Cloud of Spruce hostess must not show discourtesy to any guest.
"She's got a nice mouth for kissing, anyhow," said Cousin Marcus more genially than ever.
2
Marigold left her guests in the orchard room and flew to the pantry. She was breathless with excitement, but she knew exactly what was to be done. There was plenty of cold boiled chicken and ham left over from the previous day; the Cloud of Spruce jam-pots were full as always. Cream galore for whipping. But hot biscuits - there MUST be hot biscuits - and cake!
If Marigold had been asked if she could cook she might have answered like canny Great-Uncle Malcolm when asked if he could play the violin. "He couldna' say. He had never tried."
Marigold had never tried. She could boil potatoes - and fry eggs - but further than that her culinary accomplishments as yet did not go. But she was going to try now. She had the Cloud of Spruce cook-book and she had helped Salome and Mother scores of times, looking forward with delight to the time when she would be allowed to do it off her own bat.
She clasped floury hands over the cake-bowl.
"Oh, dear God, I think I can manage the biscuits but You MUST help me with the cake."
Then she proceeded to mix, measure and beat. To make matters worse, Jack appeared. Jack was not happy unless he was teasing somebody. He proceeded to tease Marigold, not having any idea that it was a dangerous pastime, even when protected by Cloud of Spruce custom.
"I'm a terrible fellow," he declared. "I throw dead cats into wells. S'pose I throw YOURS?"
"I'll get Lazarre to call the new pig after you," said Marigold scornfully, and cracked an egg with violence.
Jack stared. What kind of girl was this?
"I'm just over the measles," he said. "Black measles. Ever had measles?"
"No."
"Mumps?"
"No."
"I've had mumps and whooping cough and scarlet fever and chicken pox and pneumonia. I'm a wow to have things. You ever had any of them?"
"No."
"Did you ever have ANYTHING?" Jack was plainly contemptuous.
"Yes," said Marigold, suddenly recalling some of Aunt Marigold's diagnoses. "I've had urticaria."
Jack stared again - but more respectfully.
"Golly. Is it bad?"
"Incurable," said Marigold mendaciously. "You never get over it."
Jack edged away.
"Is it catching?"
"YOU couldn't catch it." There was that in Marigold's tone Jack didn't like. Did this puling girl think she had something he couldn't have?
"Look here," he said furiously, "you give yourself airs that don't belong to you. And your nose is crooked. See!"
Marigold crimsoned to the tip of the offending nose. But tradition held. She spared Jack's life.
"But if I ever meet you away from Cloud of Spruce I'll ask you who put your ears on for you," she thought as she measured the baking- powder.
"What are you thinking of?" queried Jack, resenting her silence.
"I'm imagining how you'll look in your coffin," answered Marigold deliberately.
This gave Jack to think. Was it safe to be alone with a girl who could imagine such things? But to leave her, was to confess defeat.
"In five minutes by that clock I'm going to kiss you," he said with a fiendish grin.
Marigold shuddered and shut her eyes.
"If you do I'll tell everybody at supper what a sweet-looking baby you were."
THAT got under Jack's skin. He wished he was well out of the pantry and the presence of this exasperating creature. He shifted to a new point of attack.
"My, but I'm sorry for the man you're going to marry."
Marigold cast tradition to the winds.
"Oh, never mind," she said. "Your wife will be able to sympathise with him."
"Don't waste your breath now," drawled Jack.
"It's MY breath."
"Think you're smart, don't you?"
"I don't think it, I know it," retorted Marigold, beating her cake- batter terrifically.
"After all, you're only a female," said Jack insolently.
"I heard you pinned a dishcloth to a minister's coat once," said Marigold.
But the minute she said it she knew she had made a mistake. He was proud of it.
"What are you two young divvils up to?" demanded Cousin Marcus, peering in at the door. "Oh, fond of the boys I see, Marigold. Come alone, Jack. Lazarre is going to show us the apple-orchard."
Jack, as relieved to be rid of Marigold as she was to be rid of him, vanished. Marigold breathed a sigh of thanksgiving. Oh, would her cake be all right? That wretched boy had bothered her so. HAD she put in the baking-powder?
The cake was a gorgeous success. Marigold was a Lesley, and besides there was Providence - or Luck. It was a delicious feathery concoction with whipped cream and golden orange crescents on it - THE special company-cake of Cloud of Spruce. And Marigold had just as good fortune with her biscuits. Then she set the table with the hemstitched cloth and Grandmother's best Coalport. Every domestic rite of Cloud of Spruce was properly performed. The ham was sliced in thin pink slices, the chicken platter was parsley-fringed, the white cake-basket with the china roses round it was brought out, the water in the tumblers was ice-cold.
3
Marigold sat behind the tea-cups facing the ordeal before her, a gallant and smiling hostess. She could feel her pulses beating to her fingertips. If only her hands would not tremble! She steadied her legs by twisting them around the rungs of the chair. Cousin Marcus did what in him lay to rattle her by conjuring her not to fill the cups so full of tea that there wasn't room for cream - as mean Aunt Harriet always did - and Dr. Palmer helped the chicken so lavishly that she broke out into a cold perspiration lest there shouldn't be enough to go round. Mrs. Dr. Palmer took cream and no sugar and Dr. Palmer took sugar and no cream and Cousin Marcella took neither and Cousin Marcus took both. Cousin Olivia took cambric tea. It was very difficult to remember everything, but she thoroughly enjoyed asking Jack how he took his. It seemed to put him in his place for once. Eventually everybody got something to drink and the chicken DID go round.