Anonymous - Maude Cameron And Her Guardian

And now that chance promise, exacted by a chance meeting, had come home to roost with a vengeance. The rural postal carrier on his bicycle had just this morning left a letter from London with the address of Douglas Rivers, but with a. woman’ s flowing handwriting. Charles Cameron had opened it and sat up with a start It was from the housekeeper, who begged to inform him that her employer had died last week after a lingering illness, and that his final words had been to urge her to communicate with his dear friend Charles Cameron and to remind the latter of the promise that had been made last December. The letter went on, couched in sententious phrases, to inform Charles Cameron that Douglas Rivers had left almost no money for the child’ s welfare and that she, Mrs. Beddlington,- the housekeeper in question- had scarcely received her own wages for the past several months. She would be deeply grateful if Charles Cameron would arrange to have Mr. Rivers’ daughter come down to him at the earliest possible opportunity.

Charles Cameron winced and rubbed his chin reflectively. The devil take it, he thought to himself. How easy it is to pay lip service to a casual acquaintance and then to find that there is much more imposed upon one as a result of one’ s good breeding. If only he had not shown such a sympathetic ear to old Rivers that melancholy December day! But now the harm was done, and here was the proof.

What the devil would he do as the guardian of a little girl, particularly when he had no wife to serve as mother to the child? Of course, he could go about the business of hiring a housekeeper, but that would be to destroy his privacy and, in effect, to leave him as badly off as if he himself had taken a wife under his roof with all the pertaining responsibilities and encumbrances of such an act.

Yet, as he reflected, he realized that in all honor he was bound by what had been virtually a deathbed promise. Well, at least he could give the poor child what amounted to a pleasant summer vacation. Then in the fall it would be time to see about putting her into some kind of school. At the worst, he might scout around among his friends of longer acquaintance to see if there were not some sort of foster home in which she could be placed until she came of proper age to make her decisions for herself. And so, with a sigh of regret in the anticipation of an altered summer, quite different from the months of leisure and self- indulgence which he had promised himself, Charles Cameron penned a letter to Mrs. Beddlington and dispatched it that very afternoon.

Four days later he received another missive from Douglas Rivers’ housekeeper, notifying him that Miss Maude would arrive on the following Thursday afternoon. He had enclosed a fifty- pound note as a gesture of payment of Mrs. Beddlington’ s back wages and expenses for conveying the child to his domicile. And so the die was cast. And now it was Thursday noon already, and in a few hours the little summer house would lose its quiet and peaceful solitude to open its doors to a little girl. Heaven alone knows what a chatterbox or ill- tempered little minx she might be, Charles Cameron gloomily thought to himself as he went to the kitchen to prepare a bite of luncheon. When he had finished, he lighted his pipe and sat out on the back porch overlooking the broad of his little estate. He had no neighbors for several miles, and the only sound he could hear was the chattering of the squirrels in the old oak trees and the chirruping of the crickets as twilight fell on the landscape. Now all this peace and reverie would be broken. Well, it would teach him not to be receptive the next time someone had a hard luck story to tell, he reminded himself.

On the Thursday named as the day for his meeting Douglas Rivers’ little girl at the rural railroad station, Charles Cameron dressed himself in his finest suit and bowler hat, not forgetting his spats, hitched up the roan mare to the surrey and set out to meet the train. He had spent a rather restless night, reflecting on his folly at having shown such a humanitarian attitude to old Rivers. On the other hand, Rivers had taken advantage of his good nature in a rather maudlin way. However, there was nothing that would be done about it now. There would be problems with a child, especially a female. It would be well if he looked about the neighborhood to see if he could hire a housekeeper, and make temporary plans for the summer. It would probably curtail his own intended endeavors in the amorous field, but that was the price he would have to pay.

It was a beautiful day, not too hot, with a balmy breeze, and the roan mare trotted proudly down the thickly arbored lane towards town and the station. It was a pleasant little town, Charles Cameron felt, with sufficient shops, including a greengrocer who catered to a rather wealthy clientele and thus stocked, in addition to fine melons and strawberries and raspberries from the Continent an excellent wine cellar. Charles Cameron was fond of port and, at times, good German hock, though there were times when a good sparkling Burgundy suited his palate to a T. The town itself had a population of about seventeen hundred, and most of the residents were affluent country squires or retired pensioners who had had good fortune in their ventures on Fleet Street or speculating in the stock market Altogether, there were refined country gentry here, quite different from the hustle and bustle of London. Scenically, the little town of Rushton offered as much pleasure to the eye as it did to one’ s peace of mind. There was a little stream not far from Mr. Cameron’ s house, and farther to the north there was a fresh water creek where he could swim if he had a mind to. To the south there were rolling hills and clumps of trees which made hiding a decided sport He sighed dolefully as the station hauled into view; taking out his gold watch and opening the face, he saw that it lacked five minutes till the arrival of the train. The station- master was on the platform with a flag and after Charles Cameron had tied the reins of his mare to the hitching post, he struck up a conversation with the rather portly gentleman. It served to spend the five minutes amicably enough, until at last smoke towards one side of the railroad tracks indicated the oncoming train on which Douglas Rivers’ little daughter would be arriving. Perhaps, Charles Cameron thought to himself, she had been accompanied by Rivers’ own housekeeper, Mrs. Beddlington, although the latter had not mentioned as much in her letter to him. Certainly if the woman were trustworthy, she would now allow the child to travel by herself, even for such a short journey as from London. Well, that could be seen to when the time came. The immediate thing was to welcome Maude Rivers and try to comfort her over her certain grief through this bereavement and at least try to make a good face of it and give the child a proper home for the summer.

With a great deal of huffing and puffing and squealing of brakes, the engineer drew the train to a halt, and Charles Cameron watched intently as the porters opened the doors and helped down the several passengers who were alighting for a respite. In the first car nearest him, there was a heavily set gentleman with a ruddy complexion and a kind of helmet which suggested that he had seen service in Bombay or elsewhere in Her Majesty’ s sway over the embattled provinces of India. He was smoking a black Indian cheroot, which further authenticated his earlier locale.

In the second car, two elderly spinster sisters, twirling parasols and chattering like magpies were helped down by the friendly porter, who took their valises to a waiting surrey driven by a short little fat man with horn rimmed spectacles. Well, now, where was Maude Rivers? There was a stunning young woman alighting from the last coach, with a parasol and a pink flouncy dress which modestly hid even her ankles. She had golden hair and a swan- like neck, and her dress was decorous to the utmost, but it did not hide from him the splendid development of her bosom. Charles Cameron eyed the blonde arrival with a glow of sensual appreciation in his eye. She was still in her teens, to be sure, but this did not prevent his admiring the magnificent formature of her haunches and bosom and her legs. To be sure, the word “ legs” was one that was highly improper in polite society, but among men of the world, one knew precisely what was meant by it. And despite the bustles and stays and voluminous petticoats which the opposite sex were wont to wear in these days, a discerning male with experience in the boudoir could ascertain what charms were hidden by the thick concealment of garments and of undergarments as well. Charles Cameron rather prided himself on being able to appraise a figure of a woman and detect her flaws and virtues in the twinkling of an eye.